Dr. Lobongier

Dr. Lobongier is actually a Prequel to my long running series of films called Lobongier Syndrome. Lobongier Syndrome was filmed and made in June 30th 2019, it was my first film ever and was very very amateurish. Though to be entirely fair to it, the film was made from the desire to just make films, with my brother and his friend we dived head first with no script and hokey acting. It was a part one to a complete film. Because with what we had in mind is since I shot and edited on my not ideal iPhone SE that had not enough storage to properly download and contain both the scenes and film on it. We’d make it 5 or so minutes at a time. Unfortunately that did not pan out and the series laid dormant until 2022. In 2022, I had that drive to make films again. Not to say I lost that drive, I just had people to make a film with again and so Lobongier Syndrome Part II was made. It had new actors except myself who played a different character, new locations, new story that followed up the events of the original, new actors, same problems. It suffered from a lack of a script and a not very coherent story that tied to the original. Not wanting to waste the opportunity to make another, the very next month the conclusion to the trilogy was written, shot, and made. All in one month. Lobongier Syndrome Part III was supposed to be the climatic finale to the Lobongier Syndrome series up to that point. More locations, higher production value now featuring an original soundtrack, props, new faces, and returning old ones. But most importantly was that we finally had a script. Where the others felt very amateur and weren’t really that good, I consider Lobongier Syndrome Part III to be a legitimately decent fun brain turned off film. But making this film was not fun due to having to work with the actor who played Ethan. Originally in the first movie, I played the character but in the second film, I recasted the character to now be played by Luke. Simply because since he was the bad guy and taller than me, I figured he’d be more imposing. To make things short, he was very problematic and had beliefs and did things that didn’t align with everyone else’s values. So he was fired. The series laid dormant again until spring 2023, when I was talking with a friend who played Dr. Lobongier Ross Whiteley. He helped motivate me to make films again after a deep depression I had suffered for a bit. I began script writing for the film Praeteritum. Which would be a film that took place between Part II and Part III and was like a western film that focused on the underdog of the series Ethan. Where he was on the run from the law just wanting to flee the country after the events of Part II. But he was stopped from his plans after learning of there being evidence that could prove his innocence. But production and shooting on the film didn’t begin proper until June/July the same year. Praeteritum was the fan favorite when it released. As I had been uploading these movies to my YouTube channel which gained a bit of a buzz a couple hundred views but nothing crazy. At the time Praeteritum was the most viewed film we ever did and someone actually did a review of it for his YouTube channel which was so cool to me. It was really neat to actually watch a review of one of my films and that really helped me mentally. To know people actually cared. So the next film I would make would have to be even better to please this new found audience. And that’s the film you’re about to watch. Filmed in the span of 4 months Dr. Lobongier is the prequel that follows our villain from the series, highlighting his decent into madness and how he became who we saw in the rest of the series. I tried to go all out with this one. We had more actors, female characters and representation had finally become a part of my films with the incredibly talented Laurie Garcia as Sasha Elsher, more locations, a different way of filming because all these films where shot on my various IPhones over the years. But this time we used a different app instead of the standard camera app included, which makes the picture and quality look more cinematic. I also decided to switch up how I edited the film, gone was the days of the entire thing edited on my phone, I would instead edit a single scene together as one 2 or 4 minute long video on IMovie, then send that to my computer to put those scenes together to create the full film because my computer had infinitely more storage than my phone. Even here I had to compress the file size from 19 gbs to however big it needed to be to fit the size limit Film Freeway offers. Reason for the insane file size? I wanted this to be in the best quality possible. Because this was the first legitimately cinematic indie looking/ feeling film we made. This doesn’t feel amateurish, this feels like a legit film, following the rule of three, different practical effects, costumes, etc. from the bottom of my heart, I sincerely hope you enjoy the film!