AT THY CALL 2008

2008-09-12T20:15:00.020+02:00

12th September 2008

Please visit the AT THY CALL trailers on youtube here -http://www.youtube.com/user/Crash6Nemesis

1st September 2008

This was posted on the Coal Stove Group (http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7578191637&ref=ts) about the film after its viewing on Sunday the 31st of August here in Johannesburg.

"The grand finale was At Thy Call, by Chris Dos Santos (DS Films). Having screened another film of Chris’s at Off the Shelf last year ( the Coal Stove Award-winning Ortega Prospekt), At thy Call was a study in the development of the personal style of Chris as a filmmaker. If there is one word that could be used to describe Chris, it would have to be gutsy. Why else would a kid from AFDA make a historical war epic that explores racial tensions between Afrikaners and Englishmen during the border wars of the 1980’s? This is a film definitely worth seeing. As audience members attested in the discussion afterwards, had At Thy Call been a feature, they would definitely go the cinemas to watch it. Most certainly, At Thy Call is a strong contender for a Golden Coal Stove at the Coal Stove Awards next year."

ABOVE: A pic taken at the Coal Stove Screening. Dino Pappas, the Producer, and H.O Meyer, the lead actor, were unfortunately not able to attend.

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21st July 2008

Hi guys. Some exciting times up ahead. Just wanted to let everyone know that AT THY CALL will be playing at the Durban International Film Festival this coming week. It plays on the Friday the 25th @ 16:00 and then again on the 3rd of August at 11:00am.

Another exciting event to come up is the Los Angeles AFI film Festival this November, which AT THY CALL was invited to participate in. Someone saw the film at Cannes and asked if we could play the film at AFI this year, which we agreed to. =D

Other festivals that ATC has been sent to.
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
DUBAI FILM FESTIVAL

Regarding DVD's. At the moment I am not able to send out DVD's. I have received so many requests for DVD's and its all coming out of my pocket. Every one seems to forget that this is only a independent short film... We made it with R40 000 only... Thats $5000. Theres no money left and burning DVDs and making covers and then sending them is not possible at this time...

PS. On a good note, I am off to LA in October. A producer there has called me and asked for me to come on over. He is interested in Representing myself and AT THY CALL, so as to help us get funds for my feature film "CASSINGA" which I have been writing for the past few months.

Keep checking this group as things are getting more and more exciting.

Cheers,

Chris dos Santos

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6th June 2008

Man I love my historic dates. Today is the anniversary of Dday. 6th June 1944, Allies began operation Overlord to take back Europe from the Nazi Germany.

Anyway, today's headlines are just to let you all know that we (H.O and I) are back from Cannes and man, what an experience. The film did well, with many professionals around the world surprised with how real and authentic the film was with such a small budget. Some of the other short films there were shot on budgets exceeding over a million rand. So I'm quite happy to say that we pulled AT THY CALL off with only R40 000. We've now made contact with some big players overseas and investors who are interested in co producing with South Africa. So... its back to the writing board for me to get my next script out there. I'm going to be updating the page soon with pictures from CANNES and VIDEOS... but for now, take a look at the AT THY CALL @ CANNES FAN page that I have up for now. There are pictures there and vids. Check out the video with Quintin Tarrintino, that was really awesome.

Here is the link to the AT THY CALL @ CANNES PAGE
http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=19341032300#/pages/AT-THY-CALL-at-CANNES-2008/35795871744

PS. AT THY CALL has been accepted into the Durban International Film Festival, Apollo Film Festival and will be competing for best Short film. Its also been invited to the AFI film festival in LOS ANGELES... Wish us luck.

Articles of AT THY CALL at Cannes.

Article 1

http://www.tonight.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=361&fArticleId=4404281

Videos from Cannes

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4th May 2008

Just wanted to send out a little message to let everyone know that today is the 30th Anniversary of the SADF Operation Reindeer attack on the town of Cassinga. 350 SADF Paratroopers were dropped into the town to sieze and capture any documents and weapons found in the town, as it was suspected of being a SWAPO HQ and training camp. South African intelligence discovered that Cassinga was sending new SWAPO insurgents into Namibia, whos overall mission was to place landmines on roads to kill SADF troops and White farmers.

A huge success for the SADF but a major political fuck up and a huge propaganda war soon followed after. I just wanted to pay respect to all them men who fought and died at this historic battle 30 years ago today.

Chris dos Santos
Writer / Director ~ AT THY CALL

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March 13th 2008

I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who came to the AR premiere of AT THY CALL last week friday. It was a great success, and the feed back was amazing. Also, AFDA confirms that the response was very positive and that people really enjoyed the film... that it was moving.

I want to extend a big thank you out to our sponsors and also out special guest, Mrs Jacqui Thompson (writer of the book "an Unpopular War" - http://www.struik.co.za/book.book.detail.action?id=2194 )

Also to Jeremy Mansfield for coming along to support the film.

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS - Director's cut GOLD disc was finalized today and copies are being distributed all over the world as you read this. Many people have sent requests to see the film -- So its going to places such as LA, New York, Austrailia, New Zealand, Uk...

Also, I was interviewd on a USA radio station last week saturday in a show called the right perspective... Feel free to listen to the interview about the film and the war itself.
here is the link to the radio interview - http://trp.fileburst.com/HelloAfrica_2008.03.08_At-thy-call.mp3

Next thing to do is finish up the festival cut of the film so that AT THY CALL can appear at many film festivals around the world come June this year. Thank you all for being a part of this group -- We're close to finishing the film.

Chris dos Santos
Writer/Director/Editor ~ AT THY CALL
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January 6th 2008, 04:30 Am.

Happy New year guys, hope you all had a great night, one to remember / or try to remember in some cases...

Just wanted to let you all know that Jean and I have dumped down the HD footage to a Quicktime Prorez codec and it looks F***ing amazing... seriously we are really proud of it. The resolution of the footage sits at 1920 X 1080 @ 4:2:2 YCrCb and the file size is enormous.

My Mac at home is struggling to handle the footage... thats a good sign. LOL. Anyway, I've started playing around with the scenes and must say that they are cutting together really well. I am getting my new G5 this week, so I'll be cutting the film from my bedroom. YES, thats how its done these days... ha ha.

We tried to do some ADR at AFDA's sound suite this week but that was a total joke. Nothing works in there and everything is virus ridden. I am not taking chances with this film on there dodgy equipment. We had to get equipment from elsewhere to get it done. Typical.

Anyway, the film is looking good, so wish us luck as we enter the final stage of the AT THY CALL. Its been over a year in the making....

Thank you all for your support.

Chris dos Santos
Writer/ Director

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26th November 2007 - D DAY
Well... the 26th has finally arrived.

Today, principal photography on AT THY CALL begins. Its been a long year and preparation for this film has been nothing but fun and exciting. I wanna thank everyone for helping out wherever they could and also for supporting us when during the times where it seemed like this film would never get off the ground. Today is the day that one of the greatest student films in the world will be made, and I say that not with arrogance, but with confidence in my crew and actors...

UPDATE: Myself and Jean du Plessis (cinematographer on the film) pitched to Panavision last week, see links below -

http://www.panavision.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panavision

- asking if they would sponsor our film. They replied with a resounding yes, amazed with our pitch and the script and willing to give free equipment such as the Sony F900 HD CAM... meaning, we are shooting on the same camera that movies such as the new Star Wars Trilogy, Collateral, Miami Vice were shot on... Its True HD and it looks sexy.. I am so happy about it, its a huge feet to have accomplished. *Below is an image of the Camera used to film AT THY CALL*

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS - Last week I took the main actors and the extras to Valhalla Military base to get 3 days of intense bootcamp... All I can say is it was a huge shock for the guys as they did not expect to get that kind of an opfok. It was a great learning curve for the actors as I can now say they look like real soldiers when they move with the wardrobe and props on... they now have a new found respect for the SADF of the 80's and themselves. Check the new videos of the bootcamp below.

Wish us luck as we set forth to make AT THY CALL...

Chris dos Santos
Director / Writer