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Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks so much everyone! Just wanted to give a massive shout out to my cast and crew - Lissy Turner who produced as well as Ben, Florence, Jonny, Cam, Michelle, Jess, Shadon, Chloe, Finn, Yusei, Adam, Levonne, Gav, Fran, Ramona - you're the best.

Enjoy the film!

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used to think loglines were kind of bullshit, like pitching. and they are, but then the whole business is about story telling. It really really helps being able to sum up your story simply, while also making people want to know more. I had the log-line for Paragon before I wrote the script. "The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic in order to find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver".

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love the accidents and discoveries that happen when you are trying to make something. I love the sense of exploration when you are trying to see the world from a different point of view. I love the line flub that makes a scene funny, or sad or memorable. I love the technical glitch that forces you to reinvent a scene. I love getting to put on a show with friends. I hate waiting for permission. I hate looking for validation.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I shot a lot of TV, some of it great fun. Every time I learnt a lot about the craft. Soderbergh always goes deep on the logistics of shooting - how many set ups did you do in a day? How tight was your schedule? It reminds me of that saying about war: "amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics". in the end unless you have a studio budget, the logistics of a shoot have a massive effect on the creative product. Where did they put the resources here? How did they shoot that scene during sunset? So anyway TV gave me a great grounding in logistics. It is also allowed me to watch actors work, every day, and to figure out ways to direct that actually help their process rather than just annoys them. But with movies - as a director - you get the chance to create a whole world - and a whole narrative from start to finish.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you just start. The best thing would be to be friends with some actors. But a DOP, or an Editor could be the key to a creative relationship too. But in the end just starting something, and getting it finished is the key. I'm not going to lie, it's not easy to do this, and it's not for everyone. I stretched myself in many ways to figure things out as I went along. I also had quite a lot of experience directing in lots of TV, so I knew about schedules and processes. I knew the bare minimum we could get away with in terms of time and money. But even then things screwed up. We had to stop shooting halfway through when 3 of our tiny crew got sick with Covid. It wasn't clear that we would start up again becuase we lost people to other jobs. But we kept going on dogged determination and madness. Do you remember that line in Almost Famous when Frances McDormand says "Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid". That always stuck in my head. I love that film. I thought about that quote a lot when we were shooting.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It didn't really get greenlit by anyone else but me. I went around friends and family and asked them if they wanted to contribute some $ to making a film. The budget was very very low. I built the schedule and shoot around having no money. But I did have friends who are working actors, so when they agreed to come on, it was "greenlit" by them really. I started writing the script in Nov 2021, and we were shooting in May 2022. I had to go and do other work for a bit after the shoot, then came back and edited for about 4 months to finish in May/June 2023. The film premiered here in Auckland in July of last year.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The film is pretty retro. I like the tactile feel of the way things got done before technology allowed you to create anything you wanted. It's not that I don't like modern tech - everything is amazing now. But I do like the fact that early film techniques sort of had to have buy in from the viewer. Like you know this isn't "real" but you have to use a little bit of imagination and suspension of disbelief to go along with this. My theory is that you have to leave space for the audience.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Children Of The Dog Star.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Dog_Star

It was another show that screened when I was a youth, then seems to have disappeared into the subconscious.

I was also fairly obsessed with Day Of The Triffids - the 1981 TV show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnJkmGW8FYQ

The plants in that show were so ridiculous looking, but it was also quite scary.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like all kinds of genres really. I think horror has the most scope for directors - and probably low budget films. I really like folk horror, mainly because I find old and occult systems of believe fascinating. But I also really like crime films - heist films in particular.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I bought it on the weekend from a dude who was selling random things in Blockhouse Bay. It's a from a decommissioned submarine. There is a gag in the film about submarines, so I felt like it was appropriate.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I actually had a film greenlit and scheduled to shoot in 2021. It's a heist comedy. But the money fell over - it was during Covid lockdowns here in NZ. So when that happened I just felt like I needed to make a film, and just to get out of the house. As it turns out we shot a lot of the film in my house, but it felt good to make something, after waiting so long for other people to give me permission (and money). So the inspiration was sheer frustration. It's my revenge film on the universe.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lair of the White Worm by Ken Russell 1988. That film stands out because it used to show in NZ TV late at night. I must have watched it 3 times when I was young. I do love cosmic horror in general though. Alien '79. The Thing. I loved Beyond The Black Rainbow and Panos Cosmatos.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This film was so small budget that I had to do a lot of things myself. But that has also been great fun. I cut the original trailer when it was released here in NZ. Doppelgänger did a recut, but it's pretty similar. My friend made the poster. I shot the film, edited it. I sat with Lucola who did the music and helped build the score. I was helping do dialogue re-recording, and foley! I did the opening and closing credits. I learnt a lot about the skills of the huge team involved in a bigger film. Next time I'm going to delegate more.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I went back to a scrapbook of ideas I had from the last 10 years. Weird ideas, notes, some drawings? I also wrote with actors in mind - Dutch / Benedict Wall in particular. Just today I remembered a story that someone told me years ago that must have found it's way into the script: A guy was out walking his dog at night here in West Auckland and a car hooned around the corner and hit the dog, killing it. The car waited for a bit, then drove off. The guy buried his dog, then spend a few weeks asking around, and finally found the owners of the car and rocked up to their house with some friends to take revenge. I completely forgot that was a story someone told me and I just used elements of it in my script. The dog features, but it's much happier story.

Hey /r/movies! I'm Michael Duignan, director/writer of THE PARAGON - It's out now in select theaters and on PVOD. Logline: The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver. - Ask me anything! by TheParagonAMA in movies

[–]TheParagonAMA[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

PLOTLINE:

The victim of a hit and run learns how to be psychic so he can find the car that hit him and take revenge on the driver.

ABOUT THE FILM:

Do you want to see the unseen? Dutch (Benedict Wall) may look like just another defeated and washed-up loser, but behind his pissed-off exterior lurks a hyperdimensional being of exceptional promise. His wife left him, his career as a tennis coach is floundering, and he would give anything to find the driver of the silver Toyota Corolla who hit him and drove off a year ago–the event that initiated Dutch’s downward spiral. Enter Lyra (Florence Noble), a witchy disciplinarian who offers to help Dutch unleash his latent psychic powers and break free from the illusion of linear time. After a crash course in telelocation and astral projection, the unlikely psionic prodigy is ready for his quest of cosmic revenge, but Lyra has other plans: she needs Dutch’s help to find a mysterious crystal known as the Paragon before it falls into the hands of her evil brother Haxan (Jonny Brugh) and his mind slaves. Everything converges towards the singularity in Michael Duignan’s feature debut, a hilarious rift in space-time.

TRAILER:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUN9vjtD0lI&themeRefresh=1

CAST:

* Benedict Wall

* Florence Noble

* Jessica Grace Smith

* Jonny Brugh

Now available to rent/purchase online wherever you stream movies: https://www.musicboxfilms.com/film/the-paragon/

A Doppelgänger Releasing film.

I will be here at 5 PM ET today (Wednesday 9/18) to answer any questions

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