RocketJump

Sticker shock! - 1st pass at the budget

Hey folks,

Our wonderful producer Ashim has been working hard, figuring out the schedule and the first pass at a budget. We filmed him walking us through it. We tried to keep as much of the conversation as possible—we only removed parts where we discussed specific people’s rates, for obvious privacy reasons.

This is just the beginning of the budgeting process. Now we at least have an optimistic baseline, assuming we get some financing to supplement the gap between what we can ...

VR Shenanigans - Restaurant Set First Draft

We explore Eric's first draft of the restaurant set... in stunningly greyscale virtual reality!

This is SketchUp viewer through a Quest 3. I think I could probably get a true warehouse-scale experience by messing with some developer settings.

Roughing out a Schedule

Matt here. Well, Matt here showing off our producer Ashim's work.

I thought it would be worth sharing this first pass at a schedule. "First pass" is probably overselling it a bit as well. This is a MASSIVE production we are undertaking, and Ashim is just trying to get it into something tangible.

We will have a similar initial breakdown of a budget next week. With that, we can begin to actually see what is viable, and what we need to change. Even here you can see we don't have week...

NAIL HOUSE Action Scheduling & Budgeting Meeting

Hey folks,

There's been a lot of WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE chat on here but we promise NAIL HOUSE goodness has been happening. Recently we had a very important meeting in the pre-production process -- breaking down the elaborate action sequences and putting together a preliminary schedule. From a schedule, we eventually move into a budget. Hope you all enjoy this fundamental look into the pre-pro process; more of this is on the books as NAIL HOUSE spins up!

Is the set gonna fit?

Quick little update from yours truly here. We have hired a wonderful production designer, Erik Louis Robert (https://www.eriklouisrobert.com/) to do some initial design work. While we are a couple months out from beginning to build there are two primary things we need to know ASAP.

1. Will the stage space we already leased for 2 years actually work?

2. A pretty solid understanding of how much it wi...

Live Edit Session Incoming! Friday, March 28 at 2 PM PST

Hey everyone! Editing has been rolling every week on Nail House's train car sequence but there's still a lot of work to be done. Join Matt and Freddie (and maybe Yung) as they get into the edit on Friday afternoon. The session will likely go on for a couple of hours so jump on when you can!

WAGD's Humble Box Office Weekend

We just wrapped our first theatrical weekend of We're All Gonna Die! Huge thanks to everyone who showed up, supported the film, and (perhaps forcefully) dragged others along for the ride.

When we set out to make WAGD, a theatrical release wasn’t even on the table. But three years, a SXSW premiere, and DIY roadshow later—we decided, why not give it a shot? We’re proud of this film, but more than that, we wanted to dive headfirst into the theatrical world, learn ev...

We're All Gonna Die - The Peeing Scene

Some raw behind the scenes of the shooting of the short peeing scene, followed by the scene itself.

This was a pretty early dialogue scene that we came up with, and the mood reflected in the characters is very much the mood we wanted to set for the world building. We also marked this as a "no location" scene, i.e. a scene where we would find the location by driving around and looking for cool landscapes.

Let us know if you like this style of behind the scenes. Personally, I've co...

NAIL HOUSE: Editing Action Sequences (VIDEO)

All this WAGD talk and now we're dropping a Nail House update! The edit is trudging along and Matt and Freddie sat down with Yung to review the cut and get into some of the editing philosophies and tricks they use to construct action sequences.

We will be showing more of the post process on the Box Car sequence as we move through the edit, VFX, sound, music, etc. Should be a blast. Thanks for watching and as always, throw questions down below!

"I'm Happy You're Here" is Wrapped

Hey folks!

As some of you may know (if you spend time on our super cool discord), Freddie and I were asked by Ashly Burch (of Mythic Quest, the Horizon video game series, and Fan Friction fame) to direct her spec pilot for her wonderful show I'm Happy You're Here. Here is a little video of random BTS clips our producer Tracy Ip took during the four days of prod...

Boxcar Scene Equipment Review

While we gear up for a quick shoot with our friend Ashly for one of her projects, I thought it would be worthwhile to jot down my thoughts on some of the equipment we used for the Nail House boxcar shoot.

The Camera - Sony FX3

There's a good reason the FX3 has become the go-to camera for YouTubers, videographers, and online content creators of all stripes - it's a solid ...

"We're All Gonna Die" Screenings!

Hey folks,

Quick one here -- we've updated the WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE website with our first round of confirmed locations. More theaters will be coming next week once we get confirmations, as well as pre-order links so you can grab tickets early. We'll elaborate more then, but like book sales, pre-ordering your tickets is HUGE for getting us into more theaters and on for longer runs.

Stay tuned!

"We're All Gonna Die" Update: Those Form Responses!

Wow, y'all. Things are cookin' with this theatrical release! Thanks to all of you who filled out the form, emailed your local theaters, tagged 'em on social media, and asked your friends to share their theater recs... we are so impressed with how you have turned out for this. As of today, we got a little over 900 responses, which is amazing insight for this indie project.

So the plan is to share more in the coming weeks as we lock down more details ahead of March 7th! Right now our inte...

Boxcar Sequence Post-Mortem

Here is a RAW, UNEDITED (mostly I think...) meeting we had the week after finishing the box car shooting sequence. Hey, it may be a little boring. Not gonna lie, all meetings sort of are. Also, this one spends more minutes than it should (anything over one minute was more than it should) on "matt lunch hours."

But this is the sort of essential check-in you need after any major aspect of production to start figuring out how it went on first look, and what we could do better. Especially i...

Edit Session Livestream! Thurs 1/30 at 3 pm PST

Hey hey! Matt and Freddie are gonna be back at the edit station livestreaming. It'll be the train car sequence this Thursday so join whenever you can. Open to all Patreon members!

See you on Thursday!

An Update on the We're All Gonna Die Release

Hey folks!

We've been getting great questions about when We're All Gonna Die is going to be available to watch and we've finally got some info for you! There's also a huge part y'all can play, but we'll get into that in a sec.

The short version is: We're All Gonna Die will be in theaters* on March 7th! 

Before I elaborate on that asterisk, here comes the long version of the story.

Exploring theatrical d...

Nail House - Boxcar Editing - 1/16/25

We're editing the boxcar sequence!

Edit Session Livestream! Thurs 1/16 at 2pm PST

Hey folks! Matt and Freddie are gonna be livestreaming an edit session for the NAIL HOUSE boxcar sequence this Thursday. Jump on in whenever you can, they're just gonna go as long as the edit vibes take them! This is open to all Patreon members.

We'll be making this an event on the discord too. See you on Thursday!

We are safe, and editing begins!

Hello again folks!

First thing's first. Everyone here at RocketJump is safe and sound from the devastating fires here in Los Angeles. We had various degrees of power outages, awful air quality, and so on. All of us have families and friends who have been affected from evacuations to, unfortunately, lost houses. Needless to say, last week was tough, and not a lot of work got done.

However, we are getting back into it. The first step of editing is organizing. So the one thing we d...

A New Year! What's Next?

Hey folks!

First off, we want to thank everyone for the incredible interest and support you've all shown in the early stages of this film production! The boxcar sequence was very much an experiment in our production process, as well as a way for us to figure out how we want to run this patreon throughout the year as we tackle this ambitious action-comedy.

THE BOXCAR SEQUENCE

Regarding the boxcar sequence, we couldn't be happier with what we captured. The entire crew was incr...

Open to All Patrons! Discord Hang with Matt & Freddie - Thurs 12/19 at 5 pm PST!

Hello dear patrons and new supporters! We are opening up our end-of-year discord hang (usually a monthly event limited to our platinum patrons) to everyone here so y'all can see what it's about.

Join us on the discord server and we'll show off some very fun things fresh from our recently wrapped shoot!! Lots of punches, tummy slaps, and goofs.

It's Thurs, 12/19 at 5pm PST if you didn't see that already. See y'all there :)

Boxcar Sequence Wrap!

With the weekend to recover, we're finally wrapped with the boxcar test sequence! An incredible amount of prep and work went into this little chunk of Nail House and we'll be sharing some footage in the days to come. We're immensely happy with what we came away with, and we think that the fight scene will stand out as a really unique and gag-packed sequence that's a real departure from the action movie status quo, and hopefully conveys the tone, humor, and intensity of the final product.

NAIL HOUSE Day #8 - Return of the Smoke Bubble

We're typing this from the future but we made it to Day #8 with relatively few bumps (ignoring that stomach bug)! Our last day was a lot of pickups and remaining shots the crew were reserving for the end, including executing Matt's fun hack for making a bubble of smoke.

We'll have lots to share soon, including Matt breaking down their unique process for shooting action this time (pre-vis!!) and more thoughts about how everything went post-mortem. Lots of found facts for next year!

NAIL HOUSE Day #7 - Train Car of Blood

Yes, this movie is a comedy why do you ask

NAIL HOUSE Day #6 - Acting is Hard

Our buddy Michael Rousselet (of 5SF and Dudebro Party Massacre III fame) has a great part as one of our hobos in Nail House. He delivered one of the most hilarious and iconic moments of the shoot thus far.

NAIL HOUSE Day #5 - Suo Liu Being Cool

A short little clip today as it was an action-heavy day! Here's a third of our Mafiayakuziad gang and stunt coordinator extraordinaire Suo Liu absolutely nailing the assignment.

NAIL HOUSE Day #4 - Tenderizing Tummies

Now That's What I Call Filmmaking!

NAIL HOUSE Day #3 - Precision Box Throwing

Competitive box throwing -- it's a Thing on the set of Nail House evidently. Not exactly surprising that a video game quality of our production has emerged as the guys try to nail a shot... who will emerge as the ultimate box throwing champ??

Also a warm hello to some of our new patrons!! Welcome to the rollercoaster that is indie film production with the RocketJump team! Short recap: we're a little less than halfway through shooting our first action sequence for Matt and Freddie's next...

NAIL HOUSE Day #2 - Pelting The Lead with Cardboard

One day you're Freddie Wong, you're the lead of an action movie, you get a stomach bug, and everyone just wants you to be okay. The next day you muster up some strength, show up on set, and everyone just throws a bunch of cardboard boxes at you. wtf.

NAIL HOUSE Day #2 - Containment

So top of the morning Day #2, we were met with the fun news that whatever bug hit Freddie had spread to more members of the cast and crew. Trying to contain stomach viruses... fun! /s

(Spoiler: top-tier crew crushes it and we still came out with a pretty full day.)