STORM RAVEN

"Storm Raven," the film, was written by Jonathan D. Morlu in Winter of 2015. The larger fictional world Storm Raven  takes place in was originally conceptualized by Jonathan D. Morlu in 2014.

Storm Raven was then set to be a joint senior thesis with Jonathan Morlu as Director, Producer, Writer, Set Designer, Project Lead and Visual Effects supervisor. Diana Lin as Producer and DP, Tiger Tse as Cinematographer and Dishon Hall as Lead 3D Ship Modeler/Animator and Visual Effects Artist. Each member was orally and later legally bound and contracted to take charge of and complete 1 large portion of the film as part of their individual senior thesis work and smaller non-assigned roles were delegated unequally within the group. Jonathan and Diana Lin took on the majority of neglected and unassigned work over time. Prior to the start of their senior year in 2015, Jonathan Morlu had already begun pre-production and completed character sketches and 3D ship miniatures. By September, one month into thesis, the script and production plan were all ready to go as specified on the course syllabus.

 

Filming began later than planned in October 2015 after complications with MICA Film and Video faculty who neglected to sign the usual Senior Priority Equipment papers releasing the consistent use of equipment. Casting began in September 2015 and the actors, Samantha Brodowski, Beren Mally, Wilcox E. Ekenta, Bob Singer, Ellie MacInnes, Maddie Wolfe and Emily Rose Bigelow were chosen as the 7 main cast members for the film. Filming was held every weekend for the months of October, November and the first 3 weeks of December. Filming on a tight schedule was primarily necessitated in order to balance work, school work and and cast/crew schedules. Jonathan Morlu, himself, had three jobs as a Security Guard and Residence Life Desk Assistant for Maryland Institute College of Art and an Usher for Johns Hopkin’s Shriver Hall concert series along with a full course load. Diana Lin had 2 jobs as a Desk Coordinator for Residence Life and a Frances Merrick Fellowship Leader, Dishon Hall had 1 job and Tiger had no current employment, but a full course load.

 

Each Saturday, Jonathan planned for 2 scenes to be filmed with time to account for make ups/reshoots scheduled in the Spring 2016 semester. Cast and crew were present, while production flowed smoothly for the most part and most scenes were completed on time due to the adjusted schedule.

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Filming took a break between late december 2015 to early January 2016. During this time, Jonathan and Diana assisted Tiger Tse with behind the scenes photography on his additional Senior Thesis film in China for 1 week. Jonathan and Diana then returned from China after two weeks total and began construction on the new film set.

 

Storm Raven's production resumed in 2016 as Jonathan D. Morlu and Diana Lin began construction on the interior of the spaceship (seen in the final 2 scenes of Storm Raven) in a storage unit in Baltimore during January and February 2016. The ship interior was completed in March 2016 and filming of the final scenes of the film resumed in March 5, 2016. Actress Ellie McInnes left the film Via email early in the morning the day before the final scene was to be shot, citing being uncomfortable with the production and her character Nola BrightFlower's off screen rape. Diana Lin stood in as a double during filming and took her place, acting opposite of actress Samantha Brodowski with the weather at 27 degrees the day of filming. 

Filming wrapped and the same night after buying dinner for the crew, Jonathan Morlu had his laptop along with several drives ejected from the trunk of his car and stolen. No one in the car stated they knew what happened, but only Jonathan’s backpack and the camera left the car. After filing a police report, looking for the bag himself, and visiting multiple possible trade-in/consignment shops the following day to no avail, he could only conclude that the bags had been stolen.

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With only one copy remaining that Jonathan Morlu had backed up, editing resumed with the focus on the film’s reassembly and the completion of Storm Raven as the #1 objective. Storm Raven was then re-cut and edited over the next month, by Jonathan Morlu with Diana Lin as his editing assistant. Storm Raven was shaped back into the film it once was and after a rough cut session was locked in, Storm Raven was put back together again.

 

Jonathan and Diana then checked in on Dishon Hall. It turned out Dishon Hal was behind in production of VFX and More importantly Models. When Jonathan checked up on him again and offered help, Dishon refused. Jonathan gave him a week to produce what he had been working on the past 7 months, believing that if the work  Dishon completed was enough they thought the film could be finished with his help.

 

Upon the discovery that not only was the majority of VFX and 3D Model-Making left undone, but that only 4 shots had been begun, Jonathan ordered the shots be reduced, Diana made a list and the VFX shots were reduced. Dishons Skill level and rate of VFX work was still unsatisfactory and in late March, Jonathan called Dishon and asked him point blank if he would be able to finish the VFX in time for the final screening. Dishon would not admit that he was unable and instead abdicated his title of VFX Lead to Jonathan Morlu. Jonathan informed Dishon that he did not care about titles; Dishon agreed to continue to work if he could, but as an animator, asking to hold on to his title of Lead Animator.

 

In the final months of April and May, Jonathan Morlu worked around the clock, producing over a 100 VFX shots needed for the film to be screenable. Then in May, Jane Cottis requested that all films be put on the public server open to all film students- both JHU and MICA. Several students later refused as it had been noted that there have been thefts of intellectual property off of the server and many films had been personally funded by students and/or their families, meaning once copies of films had been stolen, there was no way to know who had taken them or what would happen to them. Several days later on May 8th, 2016, a fellow Video & Film department senior classmate calls Jonathan Morlu and informs him Jane is acting erratically towards him and others who preferred not to put their thesis films on the server and instead to give them to Jane personally. Jonathan Morlu was put in charge of collecting films and burning the final collective class blu-ray with an employee from the Video Cage. So Jonathan asked Renato if he would feel comfortable giving his film to him and then he would give them to Jane and Renato agreed that was the best solution.

 

Jonathan then informed all his fellow classmates whom had concerns over putting their film on the main server that they could give them to him, that no harm or ill will would befall their intellectual property and that he would give them to Josh himself along with Jane. His classmates thanked him and Jonathan went back to work. Hours later Jonathan Morlu was informed that Jane Cottis had messaged all his classmates excluding himself and Diana Lin, denouncing all of Jonathan's emails and cutting off Jonathan Morlu and Diana Lin from their classmates. Then another email was sent to Diana Lin addressed to Josh Landon, moving up the date films needed to be submitted and telling Joshua to inform everyone that their films had to be on the server. Jane Cottis’ email, ignored the issue of theft that occurred on the public server and providing no safety for senior films- some with a budget, one around $200,000 USD. Jonathan ignored this email as she was exercising what she believed was her right as a professor and then finally she messaged Jonathan Morlu directly confronting him and telling him he had no right to write “official sounding emails.” Jonathan responded with a matter of fact email telling all of her colleagues and his classmates the actions Jane Cottis had taken over the 2015-2016 year to try and halt Storm Raven and the students whom had started out creating it.

 

Jonathan was then investigated by Campus Safety and deemed not a threat to the school; a judicial meeting was held with Kelly Hoover, Ex-Associate Dean of MICA Judicial Affairs, and Head of Campus Safety, telling Jonathan he was fine to go back to work on his project in the JHU/MICA Film Centre. Jonathan went back to working on Storm Raven with continued devotion to the film, finishing Dishon Hall’s unstarted VFX work. The next day Kelly Hoover reversed her decision and placed a formal ban in place against Jonathan Morlu's use of the Film Centre, reversing her previously made Judicial Decision.

 

Kelly Hoover, upon meeting with Diana Lin and Jonathan Morlu, informed them both that while Jonathan Morlu had ”done nothing wrong that they were still going to try and find a way to punish him anyway-" due to the fact that Jonathan's Morlu revealing the truth about Jane Cottis’ actions apparently made some "uncomfortable with Jonathan’s presence." The reverse of Kelly Hoover's decision was backed up by her supervisor, Vice President Michael Patterson, even if it was in clear violation of Maryland Institute College of Art’s own code of conduct made to protect students.

 

Jonathan Morlu was banned from the Film Centre and led to believe he would have access to adequate technology when in fact he was not given access to the Animation department to use their technology, as the room requires access codes and they were not released to Jonathan Morlu. Jonathan Morlu, Diana Lin,Tiger Tse and Dishon Hall still banded together despite the blatant lack of legal administrative response on MICA's behalf and direct violations of MICA’s code by a Vice President of the campus, his former assistant Associate Dean Kelly Hoover and Alexander Heilner, an Associate Dean and the Head of the Media and Design department.

Jonathan worked without sleep for a week finishing up final VFX shots and sound design for Storm Raven. The film was shown in May, 2016 and received 2 rounds of applause from the audience.

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Jonathan and Diana, went home that night after congratulating the cast and informing them they would continue to work on the film to see it through properly and fully despite the short comings of others. At 1 A.M.  in the morning Dishon wanted to meet with Jonathan. The two met the next morning and Dishon informed Jonathan he was leaving the group after not having completed his contractually obligated work on Storm Raven, finishing only 4 usable shots out of 342 and 5 in total. Dishon Hall stated his reason for leaving was he didn't feel like he had done anything he could claim was his alone on the film. Jonathan agreed, acknowledging that almost every shot he had completed had to be reworked, was given to him with ground edits by Jonathan and/or polished to be usable in the film by another member of the team. Jonathan still acknowledged that Dishon tried even after he had lied about his ability to finish the film on different occasions. Jonathan and Dishon parted ways and Jonathan was now left with Dishon Hall’s work and a large portion of sound work to finish to make sure the film could be submitted into film festivals.

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Without access to the Film Centre’s computers for editing and still being banned from the Film Centre after graduation, Jonathan made a plan with Diana to finish the main part of the film and attempt to reconnect with their two Berklee collaborators for sound. After contacting Noga Rotem, she agreed to have the score uploaded and couldn't figure out why it hadn't been uploaded as was requested of her collaborator and the originally intended sound editor for Storm Raven. Jonathan and Diana were excited to hear it, but no file was uploaded. So after asking again and without receiving an upload for use in the film, Jonathan and Diana were advised not to continue contact for legal purposes as the contract had already not been fulfilled. Luckily almost a year later in May 2017, Jonathan decided to make one more attempt to contact Noga Rotem and was successful in having the score uploaded. Most of the score was not able to be used due to Jonathan and Diana having already secured paid licenses to many other musical pieces for use in Storm Raven; Noga Rotem, who was unaware of Cody not having uploaded the score, successfully uploaded the score in Cody's place a year later.

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Jonathan and Diana planned to continue to work on the film for 6 months, resting on faith to see it through and deciding to honor the work that so many had already put into the film in spite of the major setbacks that had occurred.. Jonathan Morlu's Dad initially helped with finances, along with Diana Lin and Jonathan himself. Jonathan, while having very little formal training in CGI, but years of self practice, set to work to complete the CGI the best he could to make the film watchable and enjoyable for audiences. Jonathan and Diana kept silent without much communication to focus on the film- though many tried caringly to reach out and reconnect. Jonathan continued work on the film from late May 2016, finishing the final edit of the film on May 24th 2017- with a minor color edit in June 2017.

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The website launched in September 2017 and the film will be out in 2018 pending submissions to film festivals, a festival tour and then the online release!!

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All in all, the production was great and this story is far from over. We have stamina to spare. The Storm Lives On. Balran.

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