Hardcore: The first POV action movie raises $ 250,000 in post-production

On Monday, Indiegogo launched a campaign to collect two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the post-production of the movie Hardcore - a fantastic action movie with Danila Kozlovsky and Sharlto Copley in the lead roles. The project of Ilya Naishuller, the author of the clip " Bad Motherfucker ", which became an Internet sensation. The description of the project tells the story of the birth of "Hardcore": Timur Bekmambetov was the inspiration for the idea, proposing to Nayshuller to remove the full-length movie "POV" (point of view). Filming has already been completed, and now the film needs money to complete the post-production:


The first excerpt from Hardcore is at 4:00.

I contacted Ilya and asked him a couple of questions about this project.

With Sharlto Copley Bekmambetov introduced him:

Timur had known him for a long time, plus I had one American agency with Sharlto. When I started writing the script, I immediately thought about Charlto. Firstly, I wanted to see his positive role. Secondly, he knows how to play with genres. Thirdly, he is an adventurer, and here the whole film is a big adventure. I just talked to him on Skype, told me about the plans for the film and said that if he is interested, I will write the role specifically for him.

This is not the first experiment with a first-person film. A couple of years ago the movie " Maniac " was released with Elijah Wood, where the viewer sees him only in the mirror - the rest of the time he watches the film with his eyes. But at the same time, the film was shot with traditional cameras, and the POV effect is achieved with the help of cinematic tricks: for example, in a scene where a maniac strangles a girl, he had to use his understudy's hand to pair with Elijah - otherwise the bulky camera would simply not fit. Hardcore is the first honest POV movie, shot entirely on GoPro 3, mounted on the actor’s head using a proprietary body kit with magnetic stabilization:

Almost every frame was shot by an actor or stuntman, "from the head." The task was to make the viewer comfortable, but at the same time not to go into the steadicam feeling. Exceptions [frame not from the “head”] occur 3 times per film. In total, Henry was played by people 15-17.

For the entire film, the viewer will not see the face of the main character and will not hear his voice - according to the director, this should contribute to a greater effect of presence.

Now it remains to bring the picture and sound to Hollywood standards. As Ilya told me, CGI will be done in Russia / Europe / USA, but the sound - only in America. He contacted various crowdfunding venues, but Indiegogo showed the greatest interest.

Only a month is allotted for the collection, and according to its results - depending on the amount available - it will be decided which studios to turn to. I must say that the collection is going quite well: in less than two days more than $ 50,000 has already been raised.

The film will be released in 2015, the exact date has not yet been determined. According to Naishuller, there are already plans for the implementation of global rental, and interested studios and distributors.