Death Island, the partial film, is available now; watch it here.
Death Island is a partially completed fantasy survival drama produced by Pickyman Studios and released in March 2023. The film has been dubbed the "highest quality film" yet in video, audio, and story quality until the release of The Street Light in 2023. The film was originally announced in 2018.
Filming began Sunday, April 19th, 2020.
Premise
Three friends go on a vacation to an island. Due to their failure to navigate, they end up on the wrong island. But it'll be too late before they discover they are on the wrong island.
Cast
Joel played by Vincent S
Luke played by Haydn B
Lennon played by Noah C
Indians played by Noah C and Haydn B
Planning
Death Island was initially planned to be filmed and released in 2018, but the cast never got around to it.
After years of waiting, in February 2020, Pickyman and BBLB finished the Death Island script.
On Friday, April 10th, 2020, the Pickyman Team met virtually and mutually agreed on film dates, which were planned to be the following: April 19th (Sun), 25th (Sat), 26th (Fri), and 30th (Thurs). The teaser was planned to be released on May 6th, and the trailer on May 10th. They set the target release date as June 10th.
The Pickyman Team communicated and resolved prop-related issues before the film dates.
Filming
As planned, the first film day began on the 19th at around 11:45 AM.
Then on Friday, the 24th, the cast argued over the next film date. According to the mutually agreed upon plan, the next film day was Saturday the 25th. HmanTG didn't want to commit to filming on that Saturday, pushing the film behind schedule. Instead, they filmed on Sunday (26th). Between the two film dates, they spent 11 hours doing so.
As planned, they conducted another round of filming on Thursday, the 30th. On this day alone they spent 6 and a half hours filming.
By this point, the film wasn't halfway completed. Even though the cast spent 17 total hours. After a request from Pickyman to film on the following Saturday and Sunday, HmanTG again stated, "It's not ideal...". The film was behind schedule and was in no way going to release a teaser, let alone a trailer, by the next weekend.
On May 3rd (Sun) the cast met for another film session. This one is shorter, only four and a half hours. This would be the last film day for Death Island.
Full-Film Cancellation
Nine days after the last film day (May 3rd, 2020), the Pickyman Team (cast) collectively decided on May 13th to end the production of Death Island. The announcement went public on May 14th on the Pickyman Studios Discord server. On the planned release date for the film, June 10th, the team announced that bloopers from what was filmed would be released to the public. Additionally, Death Island would be canceled forever.
The leading cause for the film to be canceled is the scheduling issues. If the cast had filmed every weekend days for three weeks, the film could have been completed. A supplementary cause was the length of the script. After 22 total hours of filming, only eight and a half pages of the fourteen-page script were completed. It's estimated that another 16.5 hours of filming were needed in order to complete the film (28.5 total hours).
Bloopers reception
The Death Island bloopers video received 30 views as of July 18th, 2022.
Official Release
In December 2022, on the Pickyman Studios Patreon, it was announced that the part filmed would be edited into a partial film, available exclusively to Patreon members. The twelve-minute film was released on March 17th, 2023 on Patreon.
Death Island
Produced by: Pickyman Studios
Planned release date: June of 2020 (Partial-film released on March 17th, 2023)
Duration: Estimated at 30-45 minutes
Status: Partial-film available NOW (Full-film cancelled)
Cancellation reason: Scheduling issues