The Story Behind the Production

The story behind Student Seven. We were very much a group of students and recent alumni, each with an aspect of production knowledge that another member didn’t have, and we came together as friends to create a project that we were each passionate about for our own reasons.

Student Seven began as an idea during a car trip. That idea was to create a webseries that featured swordfights and martial arts, and perhaps adapted Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” into a modern day, University setting. Once that idea had taken hold with two Kurosawa fans, there was no stopping it. We quickly found a producer, who pushed the project into the pre-production stage.

The first thing we needed was a cinematographer. Early on, the idea to have this look like more than a student project was important to us. This needed to look cinematic or it wouldn’t work. Akira Kurosawa was a visionary in his direction, and so this too needed to not look like any other webseries. In Sarah Pierpont, we found more than we could have hoped for. Not only did we find a cinematographer, but we found a photographer. When we began shooting, DSLR Cinema was not widespread. The first known feature film shot on the Canon 5D Mark II began production in November of 2009, and we opted without knowing to shoot on the Mark II in mid-October. The camera was relatively inexpensive when compared with other high quality video cameras, and the visual look of it was unbeatable. While we had dreamed about making this as cinematic as possible, it wasn’t until now that we had thought this actually possible.

Next for us to find was a fight choreographer. Early discussions had considered the fights to be very simple, quick sword-fights, mainly because we didn’t know how to choreograph longer, more complex and realistic fights. Once we found Adam Rector, that changed quickly. Fights became long, complex, and accurate to martial arts, and we could not have been happier.

This was all in August/September of 2009. Since then, dozens of people have put their heart into this production. We’ve had help from all over Bloomington, In, and continue to gain interest in people working on Post-Production. We have so many to thank, and hopefully the successful completion and distribution of Student Seven will do everyone justice.  A lot of special thanks are due, both to the people of Bloomington, In and especially to the IU Telecommunications Department.

With a lot of hard work, we were able to pool our resources and get the equipment. We spent eight months shooting, and have just a few months left of post-production, and we hope that you will enjoy what so many have put their hearts into. This is Student Seven.

More Behind the Scenes Photos!