Independent Films, Action & Mystery, Film Trailers & Clips

Emperor - 96min - English Subtitles
by Juliane Block

"Zero budget, zero damage." In Nov 2007, we (Adrian Lai and Juliane Block) got together to talk about our movie careers. We wanted to test ourselves to see if we could make a movie for nothing, so we worked around the mantra; "if you don't have money, you can't spend money." If there's zero budget, there's zero risk for damage. *** One of the key to successfully making this movie was, we had not 1, but 3 plan B's! "If this doesn't work, we do this. If this person doesn't turn up, we use this guy" kind of thing. The process was almost mechanical, with little or no space for experimentation. The results however, felt organic, because to a certain extent, it was ALL experiment. The main focus was to FINISH THE SHOOT. *** We literally did everything ourselves. Juliane was director, production manager, AD, secondary camera operator, SFX make-up artist, editor and graphic designer. Adrian was lead actor, DP, primary camera operator, sound supervisor, gaffer, driver, sound designer and music composer and score supervisor (for the 2 additional composers). However, credits were also given out deservingly as we had many dedicated helpers on set, and they made us look more heroic than it sounds. Consisting mainly of students and film buffs, we are proud to say that by the end of the "Emperor" shoot, they had graduated into a bona fide film crew. *** We are now in the process of finding our audience in the new era of social networking: Youtube and Facebook, to generate interest in the movie and ourselves as filmmakers. *** It is our sincere hope that you will help us on this journey. Cheers, Adrian Lai and Juliane Block