Marty Langford's Blog

2012 Viewing Journal #7

2012-01-28T14:02:00.006-05:00

"The Experiment"
A remake of a German film of the same name, and based on a real life experiment where volunteers take the roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated jail setting, this Adrien Brody/Forest Whitaker vehicle is conceptually sharp, but seeing it's based on a number of previous ideas, there's gotta be more than just that to carry its narrative. And while the performances are what you'd expect with the pedigree, it's just a rote thriller trying to arrive at a resolution to tie up the plot. I really liked the original film, this one, not so much.

"Wonder Woman: 2011 TV Pilot"
Now this, I don't get. Word on the street about this unaired one hour WB show was that it was bloody awful. Unwatchable dreck. The network hated it and based on the black market leaks of the :42 minute pilot episode, the fan base hated it as well. And I don't get it.

The concept makes solid sense. Wonder Woman's personas - her superhero presence, her public image, and her secret identity - all work quite well. Her relationships with the her employees (she runs a Tony Stark-like empire of some kind), and the police also feel plenty developed. Performances are fine, action is cool and most importantly... the costume works! She's wearing it for a reason.

I, for one, thought the producers did a fine job with this and based on some of the unwatchable dreck I've seen come out of pilot season.... I just don't get it.

2012 Viewing Journal #6

2012-01-28T11:06:00.003-05:00

"The Grey"
Liam Neeson can be pretty badass, and while I certainly dig him in this new Joe Carnahan flick, I'd hesitate calling 'The Grey' a particularly good movie. It has moments, plenty of them in fact, and tonally, it's certainly consistent, which is to say, dire. But its narrative push errs on the side of inevitability, which can be tough to pull off.

It's greatest strength is the natural element in which we find our characters. I'm not sure I remember a more damning exterior environment then the bleak wilderness portrayed in the film, however, I'm also not sure I've ever doubted the effect such an environment had on human bodies. While I'm admittedly basing my opinion on other movies (Steven Seagal's 'On Deadly Ground', one of them), I just can't believe these fellows would have survived a night in this Alaskan locale. What do I know, though? I just found myself comparing Liam Neeson's beard-ice to that if Kurt Russell in 'The Thing', and it doesn't come close to competing.

2012 Viewing Journal #6

2012-01-21T10:52:00.006-05:00

"Intruder"

I was introduced to 'Intruder', a little 1989 horror flick written and directed by Sam Raimi acolyte Scott Spiegel, by way of a dupey, grey market VHS tape of the workprint, a holy grail of sorts at the time, because of the movie's innovatively gory murder set pieces, including grue cut by the MPAA in the general release tape.

This release, by Synapse Films, includes that VHS sourced cut, as well as a new digitally remastered version of the true director's cut. Such a great release of a terrific indie treat.

"Warrior"

With the exception of a ill conceived split screen training montage, I found Gavin O'Connor's 'Warrior' to be a near flawless movie. With the genius of giving us TWO contenders for whom to root, 'Warrior' tells the story of a broken family which can only be repaired by brute force. Moreso than even 'Rocky', it creates relationships that feel genuine - between brothers and their father, between husband and wife and most successfully, between brother and brother.

After a series of satisfying narrative conclusions, fight climaxes and empathetic resolutions, the 2 hour and 20 minute movie left me exhausted, physically and emotionally.

2012 Viewing Journal #5

2012-01-11T15:44:00.005-05:00

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

Having read the three books, and having recently watched the Swedish version of this film, I feel qualified to hyperbolize my reaction to David Fincher's new film, and to the performance of Mara Rooney in the title role. And my hyperbole is thus - 'the single greatest movie made from a Stieg Larsson novel ever!'

Far superior to the Swedish film and like, Jonathan Demme's 'Silence of the Lambs', William Friedkin's 'The Exorcist' and Fincher's own 'Fight Club', a movie that at least equals, and arguably surpasses, the art of the original novel. Highly recommended.

"Contraband"

Mark Wahlberg's new flick is EXACTLY how you may imagine it to be. If the trailer impresses you enough to pay the ticket price (which it actually didn't for me, I just honestly found myself at the theater with nothing better to do), then you'll be all set. Passable and competent in every way (again, based on your interest and expectation from the trailer, it's a fine, passable and competent heist drama.

2012 Viewing Journal #4

2012-01-09T21:32:00.007-05:00

"The Ides of March"

Politics are so adult. So dramatic. As is George Clooney's new flick. And for a while, it moves along wonderfully, giving us an insider's look at Governor Clooney's campaign through Ohio during a tense Democratic primary race. We see backstabbing and moral righteousness and dingy campaign headquarters... and then... ugh, we see plot. We see conflict. And we see it all in cliched movie conflict spades. It's a shame, too, because the movie is pretty great until they introduce a central plot point that ends up driving the rest of the narrative. I'd still recommend it, just by qualifying that it's not as smart as you may think it be.

"Hostel Part III"

The title is classy, 'Godfather'-like. No vulgar "3" or silly subtitle preceded by a colon. The movie is less so; it's predicable, obvious, and worst of all, tame. There isn't a single moment that induces a cringe, a wince or is worth a damn. The setting is lame (Las Vegas), the characters lamer (bachelor party yahoos) and the kills, the only thing for which anyone would watch a 'Hostel movie, lamest of all. It actually makes me yearn for series originator Eli Roth, who I think is a douche, but clearly a 'Hostel'-film-writer/director with a better sense of humor, vision and depravity.

"Game of Thrones"

I'm halfway finished with the second book in the series and, though I'm only five episodes in its television incarnation, it's clear that HBO knows what the hell they're doing with this property. I'm really trying to figure out a way to maintain a steady intake of 'Game of Thrones' in both book and show form. If I read slow enough, watch seldom enough, I think I may make it.

2012 Viewing Journal #3

2012-01-06T10:32:00.009-05:00

"Limitless"

Shot in a stunning 2.40:1 aspect ratio, using gorgeously stylized shooting and post techniques, this shallow little beauty runs out of steam halfway through the second act, but it's still a keeper. I don't think the movie knows if it's about addiction or capitalism or Russian loan sharks, but I guess it doesn't really matter. The final fifteen minutes are dramatically satisfying, but supremely irresponsible filmmaking - which leaves me hoping the movie is about capitalism and Russian loan sharks.

"In Time"

For some reason, this movie and 'Limitless' seem a high concept couple. Perhaps it was their proximity in release, or maybe the fact that both male leads were supposedly up for the role of 'Green Lantern'. More likely they just represent Hollywood's ability to develop narratives easily explained in six words or less. Whatever the reason, the movie is a ludicrous joke of a brilliant concept. No wonder Harlan Ellison dropped his case after having seen it.

"Drive"

While deceptively simple in plot, 'Drive' packs a nut cruncher of a narrative. I was 40 minutes when I realized little had happened, but I was confident I was in the hands of a director who knew what he was doing. It reminded me of Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' and William Friedkin's 'To LIve and Die in LA', though that may just have been the Wang Chung-ian soundtrack. A fabulous, fabulous crime drama.

2012 Viewing Journal #2

2012-01-05T18:39:00.006-05:00

"Midnight In Paris" I'm not really willing to do the research, but I'm pretty sure Woody Allen has made a film a year for a lot of years. His most recent is the only one I've seen in many of those years. I think since 'Hollywood Ending'. I've been meaning to catch up with 'Match Point', knowing its pretty great, but things happen.

God, did I love this movie. I spoke to me on levels, both cinematic and emotional, on which I've rarely been spoken. My affection for it is very personal, but very real. Like 'Purple Rose of Cairo' and 'Zelig' (all three for very different reasons), it's a Woody Allen movie I'm sure to return to often.

"Contagion" If the reports of Steven Soderbergh's retirement are true, we'll be losing someone truly special in cinema today. While I'm not sure he's a genius director, he's a craftsman whose cinematic choices are as varied and well executed as any we've ever seen. 'Contagion' is his contribution to the biological horror genre - a cautionary tale of disease in our global community. And damn, is it scary.

What impressed me most about the film is its effortlessly expository storytelling. So much 'plot' needs to be conveyed and Soderbergh is able to do so visually, through action and interaction, escalating the conflict behind our backs and under our radar. One minute we're experiencing the spread of the disease through moments intimate and discreet, the next, through scenes of suburban decline and urban rioting. Great stuff, this.

2012 Viewing Journal #1

2012-01-03T11:30:00.018-05:00

"The Descendants" I really thought I liked Alexander Payne. My kneejerk, upon seeing the trailer to his new film, was: 'looks like another winner'. My tenuous memories of his films included great performances and grand themes embedded in 'a man against...' narratives. I wasn't sure what George Clooney was facing in this one, but I had faith in Payne, based on my memory of his oeuvre.

I only just now realized his oeuvre is: 'Citizen Ruth', 'Election', 'About Schmidt' and 'Sideways'. 'Citizen Ruth', I've never seen. 'About Schmidt', I kind of hated. And 'Sideways', I liked enough, but thought overrated. 'Election' was the neuron that kept firing in my brain when I considered Payne's work. I really, really like 'Election'. It's a terrific film. And I realized that my admiration of Payne was based on this, his theatrical debut. It still is.

'The Descendants' lives in the same world as 'Little Miss Sunshine', and though a fine movie, it's one too filled with quirk (irascible old father-in-law, tag along stoner, adorable little scamp), faux-pathos and melodrama.

"I Saw the Devil" Jee-woon Kim's revenge fantasy / crime drama is a fairly audacious piece of filmmaking. The plot follows a cop playing a sick game of cat and mouse with the serial killer who murdered his fiance. The lengths to which the cop 'tortures' his prey defies both story logic and character sanity, but it's great fun to watch the players squirm and fall deeper and deeper into each others psychoses. Graphic and brutal, to be sure.

"The Skin I Live In" Almodovar is an odd filmmaker, one whose narratives plunge deep into oddball behaviors/themes/character, but whose style remains a bit pedestrian. He's not unlike David Lynch, though considerably more sympathetic to his audience when it comes to explaining things. His latest is certainly oddball, but ultimately a satisfying narrative on the theme of beauty and gender, with a little revenge and horror thrown in the works. I dug it.

"Attack the Block" Not unlike 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz' in terms of overall 'fun', 'Attack the Block' is a breezy British import by some of the same filmmakers (though, not the principal creators). I'd say it probably exists somewhere in my Top 10 for 2011.

SCREEN WRITING on MassLive

2007-07-16T13:42:00.000-05:00

Posts may be a little sporadic here since I've been asked to write a blog for MassLive. It's called SCREEN WRITING and can be found here. Please pop over and visit. I'll be updating there more than I ever did here.

Thanks.

The Day the Clown Cried

2007-07-10T13:41:00.001-05:00

The Day the Clown Cried.

Reading Material

2007-07-10T07:41:00.001-05:00

Two new books will be published this summer that have me salivating. Now, if you know me, you know about my... well, let's just say my book fetish. I have a deep seated compulsion for collecting books. It's not quite an obsession, but I do return from every vacation or business trip with about 10-20 new books culled from the various used book stores I seek out when out of the area. Many of these books, of course, end up unread for months or years, but I'm always reading at least a books at a time, so I'm constantly trying to catch up.

In July, my time will be sparse because Tim Lucas is FINALLY releasing his book on Italian director Mario Bava, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. Lucas is the offical Bava biographer, and his tome will be the first, middle and last words on the man. Tim has been promising the book for years (I pre-ordered mine at least three years ago), but, as he explains on his blog here, IT EXISTS.

The second highly anticipated book is Mike Dobbs' ESCAPE! HOW ANIMATION BROKE INTO THE MAINSTREAM IN THE 1990's. Mike a good friend of mine, and I respect him both as a writer and a animation historian (I actually respect him for many things, but those two jump to mind). For years, he has been regarded as one of THE voices in the world of animation -- as a columnist and as a publisher; Mike was the editor/publisher of two national magazines, ANIMATO! and ANIMATION PLANET, both of which I have near complete runs of.

Find out all about Mike's new project on one of his many blogs, links to which can be found here.

TRANSFORMERS

2007-07-05T08:06:00.001-05:00

I love summer blockbusters. Love 'em. The bigger the better; the more audacious, the more enjoyable. I loved INDEPENDENCE DAY, I like the SPIDER-MAN movies, and I actually liked THE LAST ACTION HERO.

In terms of a being a successful summer blockbuster, TRANSFORMERS does a couple of things right: First, it has giant robots. And second, it's directed by Michael Bay. Now, I'm not a huge Bay fan, but the guy knows how to direct an action picture. BAD BOYS 2, for me, is a sublime exercise in insanity. The epitome of audacious. When the Cannes Film Festival gave David Cronenberg's CRASH a special prize for "Audacity" in 1996, they would have been well-served to pony up a second award a decade later for BAD BOYS 2.

TRANSFORMERS looks amazing and it sounds amazing, but it never really connected with me the way ARMAGEDDON did, or THE ROCK did, or BAD BOYS 2 did. This is not say that these are great movies... but they ARE great summer blockbusters.

Many think Michaal Bay is evil, that he represents everything that's wrong with contemporary filmmaking. Not me, baby. I say keep 'em coming. If he want's to make THUNDERCATS or THE HERCULOIDS next, I'm first in line.

VOTE!

2007-07-02T09:07:00.000-05:00

Short post. Go here and vote. Do it now.

Moving on...

2007-06-29T13:57:00.001-05:00

I'll probably have a couple more SIMPSONS posts in the near future, but for now I've kinda had it with the little yellow fuckers. I've got a life to lead and a career to tend to. To wit:

-ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS: I had brought mine and Scott's working draft of the latest script on vacation with me, but I was much too busy hobnobbing with Rogue and Wolverine at Universal Studios to do anything with it. But I NEED to get back to it. I NEED to feel better about the script (and I already feel pretty good about, I just NEED to unconditionally love every character, story element and semi-colon. I'm confident I will soon.

-VALLEY WHEEL BASEBALL - I missed last weeks game during my abovementioned vacation, so I absolutely can't wait for this Sunday. Our 5-1 Royals are playing the 6-0 Indians. We're gonna draw blood. I'm batting lefty now, with pretty good results. I'm 2-2 left-handed, 7-18 righthanded, which puts me close to .500 for the season.

-OTHER WRITING: I've got some interesting things happening. First is the screenplay I've been commissioned to write; if we can agree on a price, I start in a week or so. I plan to have the first draft done before school starts in September. The idea, concept and story all belong to someone else; I'm just a hack for hire.

---I've also been approached to semi-ghost write a book for somebody. There's money in it, and while I'm neutral to the subject (it's non-fiction), it's good money and I'm being hired to write. I'm a writer, right?

---I'm also considering approaching the folder on my computer named "Blog", and thinking about double clicking on the file named "Book_Blog4.3.doc". That's my book on low budget filmmaking. It's well over 200 pages, but still needs some serious work. I still believe it has the potential to be publish-able. I just need to read the damn thing and steel myself for some hard decisions regarding its current state.

And finally, although I'm all SIMPSON'd out, starting Monday the Simpsons/USA Today site goes live. I absolutely cannot wait to see the 13-14 other entries into the contest, and I dread seeing the reaction to ours. It's painful, putting yourself out there... exhilirating when you nail it, crushing if you don't; there doesn't seem to be an in-between for me. Probably explains a lot.

Anyway, go here right now. You can sign up for an e-mail newsletter to announce the start of voting.

Vote for the best, I implore you. I just truly hope you find ours the best.

Production begins!

2007-06-15T09:59:00.001-05:00

We shot our first day yesterday and it went wonderfully. We have four days to go. Wish us luck!

More SImpsons

2007-06-14T11:29:00.000-05:00

from left: Marty Langford, Atom Marotte, Warren Amerman, Jim Purchase, Joel Katon

Not a lot of time to blog, 'cause we're knee-deep in SIMPSONS production, but here's an image of some of the crew from our pre-light last night. The set looks GREAT!

THE SIMPSONS script is done!

2007-06-06T15:00:00.000-05:00

I've just turned in the final revision of THE SIMPSONS script I've been developing with the rest of team. I've received word back from Dave and Warren that they approve (Warren actually contributed a pretty good gag!), and we submit it to City Hall and the Mayor's Office tomorrow. I've been told that they may come down on me for my use of the word "bastard", but the context is necessary, and I'll fight it all the way to... well, to City Hall.

I'm still waiting on word from the other team members: Scott, Karl and Joel... but I'm pretty happy with this draft. Special thanks also to bud, Rob Davaiu, who joined the other night for a writer's meeting and served us well with his insights.

Now all we have to do is make them damn thing.

We'll be planning a party in late June to unveil the finished product, which will also include behind the scenes antics of pre/post production, and of the actual shoot. As well as video profiles of the key players.

USA TODAY will be hosting the finished videos from the 14 different Springfields, so I'll be sure to supply links to the page when it's up (which we expect to be June 29). Voting will end on July 9, with the winner announced shortly after.

Tuesday Update...

2007-06-05T09:32:00.000-05:00

I had every intention of continuing my Moday updates on Monday, but I always feel kinda sleepy on Mondays.

-Saw KNOCKED UP over the weekend and I thought it was great. Judd Apatow is a good comedy writer. It was a wee bit long, but who am I to complain about a movie that had me laughing out loud throughout it's running time. There certainly felt like a late second act drag, but Apatow most definitely redeemed himself and created a wonderful adult comedy. Much like 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, for which I still maintain should have received an Oscar nod for Best Screenplay, Apatow creates adult situations, using adults, for an adult audience. And while some of these adults may be adolescent in behavior, there're still most certainly adults. Plus there's adult nudity, which I appreciate.

-I've been meeting with a local man who is interested in hiring me a screenwriter for a project he is developing. While the subject matter is definitely not "me" (there's no Space Chickens, artifical intelligence, or time travel), it is something he's passionate about, and his passion is becoming a bit infectious. I like the idea of being a writer-for-hire (I'm also working for another producer on some corporate stuff). It gets me closer to answering the question, "What do you do?", with "Me? I'm a writer."

-THE SIMPSONS vid is chugging along. We had what I hope is our last production/writers meeting last night (at the lovely Li's Brothers restaurant). We've pretty much finalized the structure, and now I just have to write a first draft of the script. Which, of course, will then be ripped apart, cannibalized and spewed back out as what others will refer to as "better', but which I maintian will be "worse". :)

-The Royals did again this past Sunday. We're now 3-1 in the over-30 Valley Wheel baseball league. I had what I judged to be a super game, going 2-4 with some really good at-bats. I also did well playing the field (at both shortstop and third base), making every play hit to me. I've only made one error all year (which I still think was a questionable call); and my fielding percentage has always been more important to me than my batting average (which right now is .286).

-There didn't seem to be an ON THE LOT last night, which is cheesing me off. Not only do I not like the show, they move it around so much, I can never watch it! It's like the old Woody Allen joke: MAN: "I hate the food here", WOMAN: "Me too. And such small portions."

See you soon.

First CNN, now ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY...

2007-06-04T14:17:00.000-05:00

... and soon USA TODAY (who just announced a partnership with Fox on the SIMPSONS contest). But yeah, in the PopWatch section of the EW site, there's a story (and picture!) of our efforts toward the Simpsons vid we're producing. Now that's cool.

Hey, I'm on CNN...

2007-06-01T15:11:00.000-05:00

The quality's craptastic, but if you squint real hard you can see me.

Monday update...

2007-05-28T21:46:00.001-05:00

I think I may make an effort to update every Monday. It's seems like a thing to do. I like it. Update every Monday. Yeah.

-ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS revised second draft. I hope to be done by Friday. It's been fun revisiting the script, especially writing a draft with an eye toward production.

-THE SIMPSONS' rules are in and I hope to meet with the other involved parties tomorrow. I had written a "spec" draft of a script that I quite liked (I'll probably post it here at some point), but it doesn't seem to have a lot of support from the troops. That's cool, though. Short and funny, that's the dictate. My original was long and clever. Which I prefer.

-Teaching is done. Grades are done. Extra paychecks are done.

-Watched HOT FUZZ over the weekend. LOVED IT. Very funny film (especially if you liked BAD BOYS 2, and recognized it for it's absolutely insanity and inanity. Which I of course did). With this and SHAUN OF THE DEAD, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are becoming two of my absolute favorite guys.

-Just finished reading "Killing Yourself To Live" by Chuck Klosterman. A couple of months ago I purchased 4 books from Barnes & Noble, and it wasn't until I got home that I realized they were all written by men whose first names were Chuck. This was one of them. I love Chuck Klosterman. If you haven't read him, Google his name and look for some of his essays from ESPN, SPIN, or Esquire. He's the type of writer that one can immediately, or at least within 250 words, determine if they're for them. He's most certainly for me.

-I need to read my buddy Jeff's second draft of THE TRICK OR TREATERS. After pouring over 40 twenty page scripts from students, though, I just haven't been able to bring myself to pick up another screenplay. This week. I promise.

-I started to watch THE FOUNTAIN the other night but was interrupted about 40 minutes in. I haven't gone back into it, and don't know if I will. While I recognized a voice in there, and appreciated it's look, it was a freezing cold movie that struck me as overly obtuse. Does that make sense? I was going to rewrite that previous statement, and replace "overly obtuse" with something else. But I like it. Overy obtuse. That's what I mean.

What I'm doing...

2007-05-17T17:48:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update to list the various activities I'm involved with right now. Not so much for your edification, but rather to catalog my thoughts and prioritize my priorities.

-I'm currently writing a new draft of ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS, which will be my next foree into feature filmmaking. Scott Kittredge is of course directing, and the process of the re-write is going pretty well. Scott's offered up his "director's notes", and has some sound ideas -- a couple of beauts actually. He didn't like a new opening scene I had created, but that's OK. Nobody's perfect.

-I'm doing some freelance writing for a local producer that I'm somewhat enjoying. It's paying work, and rather mindless, but I get to excerise my writing chops in a medium that I need to stay sharp in... namely corporate/industrial work. I need to finish up tonight, though.

-Still working on FEED YOUR CREW, my low budget filmmaking book. It's slow going, what with my other writing chores right now, but it's always there, tucked away in my mind and in a folder called "Blog_Book". I'm going to publish the sucker. You'll see.

-The Springfield SIMPSONS MOVIE project is slowly moving along. I'm involved in a writing capacity with the project and it will, I think, prove to be very fulfilling. Check out the City Of Spfld's site for more info on this one.

-The children's movie I was working on last year, BUBBLE TRUBBLE, is ramping up again, with principal photography beginning in late June. I'm no longer producing the project, but the filmmakers have been contacting me with calls for aid in rounding up some people/gear. I'm happy to help them and wish them luck with the show.

-Buddy Bob Stock is beginning pre-pro on a new feature film, a follow up to his debut feature, ANGEL'S BLADE. Bob's a great guy, with more ambition and follow through than most people I know. He plans on producing three films this year and I plan to help him in any way I can.

-School is over right now, with final grades due next week, so I need to wade through the scripts my students had written. Some good stuff there, but lots of work to get through them.

-Buddy Jeff Allard has forwarded me the second draft of his new screenplay, THE TRICK OR TREATERS. I enjoyed his first draft enough, and he assures me this rewrite is even better. I'll be reading it this weekend. Jeff's got a great MySpace page that he updates frequently. I recommend you give it a visit.

-Sunday is Game 3 for my over-30 baseball league's team, the Royals. We're 2-0 and facing the Indians, the only other undefeated team in the league. We're playing at Asnuntuck College on Sunday afternoon (4:00). I hear they have a short porch in right; I'm considering batting lefty.

Hmmm. I guess that's about it. I like having a list of things to look at periodically. Makes me feel like I'm being productive.

Back to the kids, I think I hear Zoe playing with the garbage disposal again.

ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS

2007-05-10T08:41:00.000-05:00

After having the written the script a couple of years ago for another producer, I'm now pleased to announce that pre-production is in full swing for an '08 release of ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS. I'll be producing with director Scott Kittredge of Bowling Squirrel Films.

I'm currently writing a revised second draft of the screenplay, and I'm gonzo in love with where it's going. Scott and I have develeloped some new ideas that's making the script funnier, scarier, and more open to some super cool effects. We're hoping to utilize all sorts of processes for the extensive effects work, including stop-motion, in-camera practical, prosthetics, animatronics and CGI -- there's just no ONE way to bring a Space Chicken to life.

Please visit our MySpace page, which you can find here, and send us a FRIENDS request.

And remember this, never forget this:

When it comes to Space Chickens, it's either them... or us.

BAVA

2007-05-08T09:48:00.001-05:00

Mario Bava is actually quite a mystery to me. I've only seen one of his movies (only half way through), and was only half impressed with it. He is considered many things, not the least of which is one of the most influential directors of all time. Hearing this often enough from people whose opinions I wholeheartedly trust, pushed me into pre-order Tim Lucas' upcoming Bava biography, All the Colors of the Night. Only cost me a hundred books, but the book weighs over 12 pounds. That's a lot of book.

Plus, I'm obsesssed with buying THE MARIO BAVA COLLECTION, VOLUME ONE, featuring the films, Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Kill Baby Kill, Knives of the Avenger. This sucker costs about $50.00.

Now again, bear in mind that I've never actually seen a complete Mario Bava movie, so this really falls into the realm of compulsion, rather than actual need, or even actual want.

Anyway, by this time in 6 months, I expect to be a Bava scholar. Then maybe I'll have substantive to say about a man whom I spent a day's salary on.

2-0

2007-05-07T20:17:00.000-05:00

That's our record. 2 wins, no losses. Game two proved to be quite the spectacle, with many bad calls, a few angry taunts between both teams, and a home pate accident that resulted in an ambulance visit and a catcher with 39 stiches.

Me? I went 1-3 with a single and a run scored, bringing me to 2-5 for the season. I did strike out twice -- though, the second time was one of those bad calls.

Plus we got new shirts. I'm number 7, just like the Rooster.

Next Sunday off for Mother's Day, then we play the (also) undefeated Indians.

12 AND HOLDING

2007-05-04T08:43:00.001-05:00

I had the pleasure of "moderating" an informal Q & A session with screenwriter, Anthony S. Cipriano yesterday in the two screenwriting classes I teach at Westfield State College. Anthony graduated from WSC in 1997, and now lives in LA making a living as a writer.

After the classes, he screened his film, 12 AND HOLDING, a 2006 release directed by Michael Cuesta.

It's quite a film.

Shot for $400,000, 12 AND HOLDING tells the story of three childhood friends, all aged twelve, who must all deal with a tragic event while also dealing with the trauma of being twelve years old. Anthony's writing is spot-on in this story of grief, a subject he felt was necessary to deal with after the events of September 11. His premise was consistent, even when the film seemed to deviate in tone -- a decision that Anthony consciously made in the screenplay, and that Cuesta maintained in direction. It was quite a bold choice to introduce seemingly inappropriate comedic moments and music cues in an otherwise dour narrative, but ulitimately I think they pulled it off, creating a world where angst, anxiety and the joys of "growing up" naturally coexist.

The performances are amazing for such a young cast, and the supporting adult roles are all filled out nicely with true pros (w/ Jeremy Remmer's Gus blowing my socks off).

The final moments, and indeed the final image, were a suprememly challenging choice to make. Anthony could have gone in several directions with the narrative, which is in itself a testament to the film's structure -- so often there appears an inevitability in movies, a natural conclusion to which it is building, but in 12 AND HOLDING's resolution, we really have little idea what decision Jacob will make, and what consequence it may have on the rest of his life. When the decision is made, and conclusion reached, we are left with many questions about this choice, and the subsequent impact it has on the lives of those involved. Heady stuff.

Anyway, a big thank you to Anthony, and a big recommendation to all for 12 AND HOLDING -- proof that great talent comes out of the backwoods of Western Mass. And that students in our little state colleges can go on to great success and compete in New York, Hollywood or whereever they decide to go

1-2, 1 RBI, 1 RS, 2 putouts (U-6)

2007-04-29T20:15:00.000-05:00

Above are my vital stats from Sunday's Valley Wheel Baseball League's Opening Day at Forest Park in Springfield, MA. Broken down, they of course mean: I got one hit in two plate appearances (my third plate appearance resulted in a sacrifice fly to left field which doesn't count against you), 1 run batted in (from the sac. fly), 1 run scored (which means I passed home plate, scoring a run), and caught two fly balls (playing shortstop). We won 13-4.

All in all an excellent, excellent way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I haven't played competetive baseball since high school, but thought I acquited myself quite well. I was surprised at the pitching talent in the league -- the guys throw hard and mix in some junk. I also remembered that I'm a dead pull hitter and have some work to do there; I was always a pretty one-dimensional hitter.

Here's a picture of me and buddy Joel, who joined the league with me. The resolution from the camera phone is kinda stinkified, but it does the trick. We have 15 games to go throughout the summer, and I can't wait for each and every one of them.

FEED YOUR CREW.

2007-04-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

I've been noodling around the idea of writing a filmmaking book for over a year now. In fact, I was almost finished with a draft of the manuscript when two things happened that dampened my enthusiasm for the project: First, I gave the pages to three friends of mine who all offered astute observations, pointed criticisms, and helpful suggestions. Most importantly, though, was that each of them asked a different form of the same question: "Who's your audience?". It is an absolutely stupendous question. And when I started to examine my answer (which was, "Me, two years ago") I realized that I hadn't quite stayed true to that audience throughout the writing process. I was kind of all over the place in terms of who I was speaking to, and oftentimes found myself either speaking over the head of or (worse) speaking down to that intended audience. I was trying to be too many things to too many people. Structurally, the manuscript was a mess. But it was first draft, incomplete, and I had all the time in the world to finesse it.

That's when the second thing happened.

I came across Josh Becker's, "THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO LOW BUDGET FEATURE FILMMAKING" . Becker is a independent filmmaker who I had known of for years and respected; I actually use some his essays and writings in the Scriptwriting course that I teach. The book was a blow to me because not only did he mine the same territory as I was mining, he did so with a very similar tone and approach -- the two things that I thought I had going for me over all of the other filmmaking books out there. I was sunk.

Then, recently, two other things happened. First was that I came across an e-mail that Heretic Films' Alex Afterman had sent to us in October of 2005 expressing interest in distributing MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. One of the sentiments that each Scott, Warren and Joel (my manuscript readers) shared was an interest in the book's use of stories, antecdotes and front line experiences from the production of MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. Now, a new structure has revealed itself to me, inspired by the e-mail from Alex. I think I again have something new and interesting in terms of tone amd approach.

The second thing?

I'm actually now reading the Becker book, something that I never quite got around to doing. I had read the intro before and flipped through the pages, but had yet to actually dive into the book's guts. And you know what? That same feeling came to me that prompted the initial push to write the book in the first place.

I can write a better book.

So I will.

This post's title. by the way, is my tentative title for the book. It's not carved in stone, but it's got something, don't you think?

Where's Scott...?

2007-04-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

photograph: Some old lady

We're missing amigo Scott Kittredge (he must have been chatting it up with the Crazy Babysitter Twins from GRINDHOUSE), but here's the gang from Chiller. Can't wait 'til next year!

Movie Quiz.

2007-04-16T15:21:00.000-05:00

Now, I usually disdain these types of time wasters, but I've got some time to waste. Besides, it's movie-related:

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
2. Name a movie that you've seen multiple times in the theater.
HELLRAISER 2: HELLBOUND
3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.
Bruce Campbell
4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.
There isn't one.
5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.
LET IT RIDE
5. Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
6. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.
ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW
7. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.
MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. Seriously. It's THAT good.
8. Name a movie that you own.
I DRINK YOUR BLOOD
9. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Mark Wahlberg
10. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?
Of course. First one: KILL OR BE KILLED. Last one: SLEEPY HOLLOW.
11. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven't yet gotten around to it.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
12. Ever walked out of a movie?
No.
13. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
14. Popcorn?
Usually
15. How often do you go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?
2-3 times a month
16. What's the last movie you saw in the theater?
GRINDHOUSE
17. What's your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
Horror/Sci-Fi
18. What's the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
19. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
MAGNOLIA. So I could see it again for the first time.
20. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?
SANTA SANGRE
21. What is the scariest movie you've seen?
THE EXORCIST
22. What is the funniest movie you've seen?
THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN

Chiller (cont.)

2007-04-16T10:23:00.000-05:00

It looks as though several people have been viewing the blog (nice), so rather than add to the post below and run the risk of others missing out on added nuggets, I thought I'd append with a new post.

To continue...

In addition to the MFX Studio guys (who also have a relationship with something called the Douglas Education Center, which graduates up to 50(!) students a semester from their makeup/FX curriculum, we also hung out with fellow filmmaker, Bill Hellfire. Bill's interests are actually pretty far removed from mine, but it was an interesting discussion about the realities of low budget filmmaking and the pitfalls of distribution. Bill actually ended up working as a producer for Media Blasters after forming a relationship with them from distributing his film, DUCK! THE CARBINE HIGH MASSACRE. Scott ended up buying several discs from the Media Blasters table, most of which I expect to get my hands on as Scott makes his way through them.

Other observations/things from the show:

-The David Arquette/Thomas Jane table (room, actually) had, at times, a 4 hour wait. Crazy.

-The HOWARD TV gang of Richard Christie and JD were all over the show, interviewing fans and celebs alike. If you listened to Howard's SIRIUS show this morning, you probably got an earful of their exploits.

-Those two Crazy Babysitter Twins from GRINDHOUSE are un-freaking-believably HOT.

-Speaking of Howard, the "Purchase of the Day"? My brother nabbed the complete WWOR-TV Channel 9 show DVD SET. Something like 27 DVDs of every episode. The guy wanted $150 on Saturday, but settled for $75 just as we were leaving on Saturday. I don't know who the bigger chump is.

-The after-show hours were kind of intolerable thanks to the music acts being right in the middle of the lobby. Just dreadful. Past shows would relagate the music to a Ballroom somewhere while the lobby/bar area was reserved for chatting it up. So, instead of hooking up with fellow fans, writers, filmmakers and celebs (past interesting hookups at either Chiller or Fango shows included: Tony Timpone and Mike Gingold, Ted Bohus, Kane Hodder, Eli Roth, Ti West, Captain Lou Albano, and many other memorable run-ins), we ended up with a quick round at the the Ruth Chris' Steak House bar ($9.75 for a Jim Beam and Coke) and then went back to our room to watch the Yankee game.

-Spoke for a while with Douglas E. Winter, who didn't seem to be getting enough props at his lonely little table. Good guy. I snuck him a copy of MAGDALENA'S BRAIN, and hope he takes the time to check it out.

Anyway, the weather wasn't a factor, thanks to our room being at the same hotel, so the only tiem we strayed from the confines was for a Wendy's lunch. And the trip back was quiet and retrospective as we all compared our booty.

Buddy Karl, was the big "winner" of the show, I think. Between his purchases of the Complete Bionic Woman DVD Set, and the the Complete Real Ghostbusters DVD Set, he'll have to be putting in some serious overtime.

Can't wait 'til next year.

Chiller Weekend

2007-04-15T17:36:00.000-05:00

Back from the Chiller Show and, as hoped, had a supercool combination of fanboy and independent filmmaker bliss. First off... the booty (bear in mind, I slipped a little on my usually rock solid, iron clad, self imposed ethical guidelines of purchasing pirated merchandise. Check my earlier posting here for how my thought process works in regards to bootleg flicks).

HEARTS OF DARKNESS - Unavailable on DVD, I bought a boot of one of the greatest documentaries I've ever seen on one of the best movies ever made. I have a VHS screening copy somehere up in the attic, but I was able to pick this up for $10. It saved me a trip up those creepy stairs.
ETHICAL CODE VIOLATION - 2 out of 10. If/when a legit DVD of this becomes available, I WILL buy it.

JLA: UNAIRED CBS PILOT - Never released/aired. This is an unbelievably horrible pilot for a show that was thankfully never picked up. JLA, of course, stands for the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, the superhero team that includes GREEN LANTERN, THE FLASH, THE ATOM, THE MARTIAN MANHUNTER and others. This is a serious piece of crap. An unwatchable, poorly written/produced show that is deservedly reviled by the fans to whom it was aimed, and who (like me) have continued to seek it out in the convention circuit. I had to buy a copy (for $10) because the quality of the print was slightly better than those of the 3 or 4 tapes/discs I had previously bought of this terrible, terrible pilot.
ETHICAL CODE VIOLATION - 2 out of 10. Everybody involved with this show has been paid for their services. The master is sitting on a shelf in some CBS vault, never to see the light of day. If I want to show my son how cool J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter could look in real life, I damn well won't let CBS tell me I can't.

FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN - A Czech production from 1961 that's unavailable on home video. I've always wanted to see this film, which utilizes miniatures, animations, model work, live action, and lots of other really cool production cheats to bring the Baron to life.
ETHICAL CODE VIOLATION - 2 out of 10. Tell me who the rights owner is and I'll send them a check.

BEHIND THE MASK: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - Supposed to be a great little meta-horror flick on the making of a serial killer. I don't have a leg to stand on with the morality of this purchase. Even though I promise to purchase a legit copy of the DVD and/or pay for a ticket to a theatrical showing, it's still a:
ETHICAL CODE VIOLATION - 10 out of 10.

MASTER OF HORROR SEASON 2 - A multidisc set of all 13 episodes of the uneven Showtime series' second season. I'd only seen one of these episodes previously (Dario Argento's PELTS... splatterific, by the way), but was really interested in checking out what the "masters" were up to this year. I don't have Showtime, but they, of course, will release DVDs of this series, so...
ETHICAL CODE VIOLATION - 10 out of 10.

DAYWATCH - Sequel to NIGHTWATCH, an excellent Russian film released last year (and one I'm guilty of having illegally purchased last Chiller, and went on to ignore the legit release months later. One of the glaring examples of hypocrisy in my above mentioned "ethical" manifesto. I still plan on buying the NIGHTWATCH DVD, though. Seriously, I do. Very soon).
ETHICAL CODE VIOLATION - 10 out of 10.

My other purchases included the excellent-looking Unearthed Films release of Frank Henenlotter's FRANKENHOOKER, Synapse films' 42nd STREET FOREVER trailer compilation and Brett Piper's SHOCK-O-RAMA. All legit purchases of officially released flicks.

I also WAS handed, without asking I'll have you know, a DVD screener of FRANK MILLER'S 300. I couldn't act ungracious and not accept it, so I did put my hand out and took it from the guy. No money exchanged hands, and he only gave it to me because I had purchased a good sized pile of swag from his table and he wanted to show his appreciation of my patronage.

People are asking me to make them copies of the DVD, though...

ETHICAL CODE VIOLATION - unknown.
************************************************************************************

As far as the weekend regarding independent filmmaking, I met several people who were both intereting just to rap with, and interesting as far as career/Glowing Screen/MAGDALENA'S BRAIN stuff went.

Most fun was had at the SYNAPSE FILMS table, where I hung out with the company's principals, Dona May, Jr and Jerry Chandler. Both were gracious guys with much in the way of advice as far as MAGDALENA'S BRAIN's distribution goes. I've had some questions in terms of the quarterly reports we've been recieving and the potential of foreign distribution, and it seems as if there's some Synaptic Synergy possible.

Also met at the Synapse table was Vincent Pereira, writer/director of the film A BETTER PLACE, and all around super guy. I've "known" Vincent through the boards over at the Mobius Home Video Forum for a couple of years now, but this was our first face to face meeting. Vincent's the type of guy whom you want to continue a relationship/dialogue with long after you first meet him. I hope I do; he's a filmmaker with a good heart and a boatload of talent.

Buddy Scott Kittredge met us down there on Saturday afternoon and was responsible for a couple of other interesting contacts/networking opportunities. First was MFX Studios, a Pennsylvania based comapny who was very forthcoming with advice regarding development of the effects needed for a the upcoming (but still unannounced) production of ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS.

(more to come)...

Chiller & more...

2007-04-10T21:47:00.000-05:00

-It kind of snuck up on me this year, but this weekend brings the 2007 CHILLER THEATER SHOW. I'm not at all ashamed to say that it's one of the highlights of my year (I'd say it's tied with my annual Cape Cod vacation). As always, the guests are a little sketchy (Chakotay?!), but the DVD dealers and fellow filmmakers are the real reason I go down anyway. If there are any fellow filmmakers who will be at the show, drop me a line -- I'm always looking for East Coast contacts!

-Some interesting developments with writing projects have surfaced... ranging from two feature films to a small corporate gig, each promising either money, further career development, or both.

-Most exciting, I've recently been forwarded some conceptual artwork for a project that's gaining steam -- a feature film that I may be producing this summer. It's from a script I wrote a couple of years ago that has always been a dream of mine to see production. After seeing this new art, I gotta say I'm falling in love all over again with it.

-

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...

2007-04-02T15:00:00.000-05:00

...welcome to Fenway Park.*

I would be remiss in my obligations to Red Sox Nation if I didn't
commemorate this date, April 2, 2007 as the official date of the Red Sox 2007 Major League Baseball campaign.

Go Sox.

*(The public address reference at the head of the his post was for effect only. I realize the game is in Kansas City today. I realize this because next Tuesday, when those words are actually spoken for the first time, I'll be sitting at Fenway Park, awaiting Josh Beckett's first pitch).

More Marty Memories

2007-03-07T09:14:00.000-05:00

While cleaning out a drawer last night I came across a photo of myself and best friends from 8th grade. I'm posting it here to link to it on another forum.

Won't Bind Your Legs

2007-02-23T08:46:00.000-05:00

I don't post here nearly enough, but sometimes I see something that I must memorialize.

Ghost Rider: The Reason Cinema Was Invented

2007-02-06T10:24:00.000-05:00

Haven't posted in a... is it "dog's age?" I always have trouble with that phrasing. Anyway, this isn't so much a post as it is a link to a blog entry I read recently that had me in stiches. The writer's main thesis, that GHOST RIDER is indeed, already, without having seen it yet, a classic film, is a classic piece of writing. To have a fanboy perspective eschew all critical thought is a wonderful read. So, please... visit the link here. and look for the post entry titled, "Ghost Rider: The Reason Cinema Was Invented".

Brianna

2006-10-05T18:39:00.000-05:00

Been extraordinarily busy in the past three weeks, but was able to shoehorn in a little project that kind of fell into my lap about two weeks ago. A friend of my brother's daughter came to me to help her produce a short film on the subject of tolerance. She has what's referred to as an "invisible" disease, and is often the victim of an odd form of intolerance.

Check out the video I put together for her here.

The Need for Structure

2006-09-20T22:20:00.000-05:00

I'm almost into my third week of the semester and while re-reading an essay by Josh Becker named "The Need for Structure" -- which deals with the act breakdowns of traditional narrative films -- I was struck with how difficult I've been making my life in regards to my teaching. Every Monday and Wednesday, seeing that I teach in T-Th, has become an ordeal of preparing the following days lectures/teachings. I'd always scoffed at the detailed syllabi thatthe full-time faculty dredge up every semester, but I'm starting to see the wisdom of that approach.

I'm always stressing preparation, structure and organization when writing a screenplay... guess I should practice what I preach.

Vacation

2006-08-25T18:30:00.000-05:00

Going to the Cape for a week. It's an annual vacation we've been doing for seven years now. Looking forward to it. Figured I'd put together a list of interesting things going on. I sometimes like to confirm that I'm doing things of worth in my life.

-I just printed up the work-in-progress of my filmmaking book. I'm going to copy edit it in the coming week. I've yet to read the manuscript from beginning to end, and the prospect worries me. It just under 200 pages and it's about 2/3 complete. Just scanning the pages tells me it's going to be a lot of work. This is the book that began as blog entries earlier this year. Check out my earlier postings for a sneak peak.

-MAGDALENA'S BRAIN is chugging along. We should get our first quarterly report in October. I'm thinking I can retire with the first or second residual check.

-I start teaching in a couple of weeks -- both sections of the Scriptwriting course and an Advanced Production course at Westfield State College. I'll be at the school for full days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and full time at Veritech in between. Could be grueling.

-My new screenplay is coming along veerryy slowly. The second act is in sight, but it still needs a lot of work. Structurally, I think it will be my strongest work, and the characters and narrative are coming along, but I'm just not... "feeling it" quite yet. I plan to give it some time at the Cape.

-I burned the first test disc of THE WESTERN MASS HORROR SHOW yesterday. It's a short film compilation that I put together with some friends of mine. I acted as a producer on three of the four short films (the other was put together by Scott Kittredge [see post below. {Scott Kittredge}]), and I included some trailers to other films I've been involved with. We're going to be selling copies at October's Rock and Shock convention. Check out the Glowing Screen blog for more details.

-Warren and I are starting to discuss possible script ideas for what could be the next Glowing Screen production. We're both digging on time travel.

-I've become obsessed with transferring all of my MST3K episodes (I've got a few dozen) to DVD and creating custom artwork for the cases. Very exciting. Once I get a get them all done, I'll probably purchase available episodes tofill in holes.

-My birthday is in a couple of weeks. I expect to recive many Barnes & Noble gift certificates.

Wish me a happy birthday.

Google Scott Kittredge Scott Kittredge Scott Kittredge

2006-08-18T08:36:00.000-05:00

If for no other reason, I'd just like to get Scott Kittredge's name on more Google searches, so I'll write out the name Scott Kittredge each time I mention him.

Last night saw the premiere of his new film, TERMINAL CONVERSATION at a screening at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. First off, way to go Scott Kittredge in making this an open show that was free to the public -- it was a classy move and resulted in a larger number of people attending. Scott Kittredge is primarily interested in getting his work shown and appreciated, not in making a buck... and that speaks volumes to the type of guy Scott Kittredge is.

The entire evening's program was a success, from the tight little trailer package he put together, to the charming little documentary short subject, FANATICUS, detailing one man's obsession with bocci, to the main feature itself.

Scott Kittredge is a great guy; a talented guy; and good friend.

Please visit Scott Kittredge's site, Bowling Squirrel, right here.

And, for those chubby-fingered Googlers:

Scott Kitredge
Scott Kitteredge
Scott Kiittrege

I'm in Fango!

2006-08-08T11:41:00.000-05:00

It's actually not the first time. All told, I've been mentioned in, I think, 3 other issues of the nation's (nay... the world's!) preeminent horror magazine, Fangoria. The first time was for the release of COLLINSVILLE; the other two for release information for MAGDALENA'S BRAIN.

This time, though... it's a featured review. And from what I'm told, it's a positive one.

Getting written up in Fango has always been an ambition of mine, and it's nice to see it come to pass. It's not as though I feel I've arrived -- that's silly. It's just a ego and potential career boost, and something that I can look back on with pride.

It hits the street on August 22. Be sure to pop by your local newsstand and pick one up.

SYNOVIA

2006-07-28T08:03:00.000-05:00

For the benefit of my old mates at ELHS87.com.

The Reviews are in...

2006-07-13T12:52:00.000-05:00

... well, they're starting anyway. On this, Thursday July 13, two reviews have popped up on-line for MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. Jeff over at Undertaker's Lounge writes that MB is "not your typical low budget genre picture. It's striving for something deeper and smarter and it demands that viewers adjust their expectations accordingly. " Thanks for noticing!

And over at DVDTalk, the reviewer thinks it's "well-acted and inordinately smart for such a small-scale project," and contains a "quietly alienating visual style and... numerous brainy concepts." Not bad, eh?

Neither review is an unqualified rave, but both are fair and point out the merits of the film, as well as a drawback or two. Overall, we're pretty happy with both. Remember, July 25 is less than two weeks away.

Find the full text of the reviews here:
Undertaker's Lounge Site
DVDTalk review

PRESS RELEASE

2006-07-07T13:50:00.000-05:00

LOCAL PRODUCTION GETS NATIONAL DVD RELEASE

Glowing Screen, Inc.
East Longmeadow, MA, July 7, 2006

MAGDALENA’S BRAIN, starring L.A. based actress Amy Shelton-White and Great Barrington, MA resident Sanjiban Sellew, will be released nationwide by San Francisco-based company Heretic Films on July 25, 2006.Distributed through RYKO Distribution, the movie will be available for rent at Blockbuster Video, Hollywood Video, and the on-line based Netflix; and available for purchase wherever DVDs are sold.

The film was independently financed and produced by East Longmeadow-based Glowing Screen Productions.

Monson native Warren Amerman directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Agawam writer Marty Langford. Langford also produced the film. MAGDALENA’S BRAIN marks the first feature film produced by Glowing Screen, Inc., a local production company run by Amerman and Langford.

MAGDALENA’S BRAIN is the story of Magdalena Welling (Shelton-White), a brain surgeon, and her husband Arthur (Sellew), a quadriplegic scientist. For the past four years they have been working on artificial intelligence research in the shadowy corners of an old retrofitted factory. Joined by a former patient of Magdalena’s and her mysterious brother, their research leads to discoveries that will change all of their lives forever.

The film’s primary location was Holyoke’s Open Square, formerly known as the Lyman Mills. Open Square is a 600,000 sq. ft. building which owner/architect John P. Aubin has been redeveloping since 1996.

Co-starring are David Joseph and Robert Weingartner. The behind-the-camera talent includes director of photography Mark Devin, sound mixer Karl Kempter, associate producer Joel Katon, script supervisor Maria Escribano, and casting director Mark Sikes.

Visit http://www.glowingscreen.com/ for more information.

Stephen R. Bissette's THE LAST BROADCAST

2006-07-02T08:31:00.000-05:00

Well, actually it's Stefan Avalos & Lance Weiler's THE LAST BROADCAST.

But they didn't draw the cover art. Check out Steve's blog here.

Edison's 1910 FRANKENSTEIN on-line...

2006-06-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

Follow the link below to witness the screen's first portrayal of Shelley's Frankenstein. It's an astonishing piece of work that's exhilirating to watch.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-93618221704457473&q=frankenstein

DEAD DUDES

2006-06-08T07:53:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a short break from the VertiBlog film school for some breaking news.

My buddy Karl Konopka just cut the first trailer for his zombie opus, DEAD DUDES. He's just about through with principal photgraphy and he's got a nice start toward his first feature film.

Check out the trailer here.

And rate it high.

VERTIBLOG Film School XII - THE $1,000 MOVIE, Part 11

2006-06-06T13:54:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

Step 2: Gear
II. Audio Gear

Back in the "Find Your Crew" section when we were looking for our Sound Mixer, I suggested you may have to spend some money here. I haven't changed my mind. Go through the steps I outlined to try and track down a proper sound mixer, but I suspect you're going to end up purchasing a cheap-o audio package from some on-line source.

Again, look back in the "Find Your Crew" section.

Step 2: Gear
III. Lighting Kit / Grip Kit

Most well-budgeted productions have a dedicated grip truck which contains an ungodly number of lights, clamps, fixtures, cabling, stands, flags, scrims, snoots, diffusion, gels, sandbags, apple crates, and every other thing that's usually desired to make a well-budgeted movie.

You'll have no such thing.

Perhaps you landed a pro DP with his own truck... or at least his own lighting kit and grip equipment.

But you probably didn't. And now, you're going to have to punt.

Below find a list of the neccesities, and how to get them:

LIGHTS.

For our purposes, there are pretty much two kinds of artificial lights -- flourescent and incandescent (also referred to as tungsten). The camera sees these different lights differently --they have different color temperatures. The color temperature of floursecent fixtures, those long tube-y lights we have in our office buildings and schools looks much whiter/bluer to a video camera than traditional lights bulbs -- the kind we have in our living rooms and kitchens --which are much more orange-y looking.

You're going to want to stay in the land of tungsten. And luckily, it's a pretty cheap trip.

Work Lights

What you're going to be looking for are portable, versatile and cheap light sources to use indoors. First stop: Home Depot (Lowe's will do, I guess), to pick up some work lights.

Work lights like these will run you anywhere from $15-$30 for a single 500k fixture, $25-$40 for a double fixture 1000k (pictured).

Real production lights are designed to be a lot more controllable -- they'll have barn doors, which allow you to block light from leaking to where you don't want it; flood/spot controls to give a wider/more narrow swath of light; and scrims, which are little screens that go in front of the lamp to cut down its intensity. With these worklights, you have none of that. But, you will have illumination. And you'll have it cheap.

Clamp Light

Clamp lights are handy for tighter spaces or awkward positioning. You will also be able to mount them higher, off of a ceiling for a hair/back light perhaps, and you can easily swap out the bulb for a lower/higher intensity source (40w, 60w, 100w). Incredibly cheap, too -- $7-$9.

China Lantern

Go to Pier One Imports and pick up a cheap china lantern. They are simply light fixtures with a round, spherical paper shade surrounding it. They're great for illuminating close-ups on actors with a nice soft light.

Gels

Gels are little pieces of transparent/translucent plastic that are put in front of lights for various reasons. Hopefully your DP will know all about them.

There are typically three uses for gels: to change the color of the light, to color correct the light, and to diffuse the light.

To change the color of the light, you're going to want "theatrical" gels. Dario Argento uses the hell out of the these. So do most old school horror movies. Theatrical gels can give you vibrant blues, red, greens... whatever. Be careful though. You can very easily end up looking tacky.

To color correct, you're going to want CTB (Color Tempertaure Blue). You can get CTB in 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 or full opacities. CTB will make your indoor tungsten lights match daylight. So if you have scenes that take place near windows and you want to give the illusion of all your light coming from outside, this is what you'd use. The opposite of CTB is CTO (Color Temperatire Orgaange). CTO also comes in 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full, and is used to correct daylight into tungsten balanced light. If you were carefully lighting an interior, but wanted an open window, you would use CTO to cover the window.

To diffuse light, you're going to want a couple of sheets of tough spun (a white fabric-y material) and perhaps a sheet of opal (a milky frost gel). These two types of diffusion will help boatloads if you're lighting a person's face with a strong wattage light, and need to cut down its intensity.

Single sheets (usually 20x24 or 12x12) of these different material will run between $5.00-$6.00 each. Some companies sell variety packs of the different types of gels for $18-$25 each.

GRIP EQUIPMENT

C-Stand

You should really have a C-Stand. I just checked eBay and saw a handful of them selling for under $60.00. A C-Stand is an invaluable piece of equipment that serves many purposes: holding flags and reflectors, rigging lights, holding a fishpole. It's an extra set of hands that are more stable, stronger and can reach much further than the human kind.

Reflector

A reflector is simply a large card or piece of fabric that is usually white on one side and reflective silver on the other. They're used to reflect available light toward a subject/object when other means of lighting are not desired or impracticle. Professionals use what's called a FlexFill, which is way too fancy for us. We can go to the art supply store and buy a large piece of foam core /poster board. On one side simply glue down wrinkly tin foil and keep the other side white.

********************************************

Hey, this is where I conclude the on-line portion of the manuscript. I refer to it as a manuscript now, because that's how it exists. I've ported over all of the blog entries, re-wrote them, and have been feverishly adding to it. Right now, I stand at just over 100 pages, and I'm going to try in earnest at getting it published.

Back to regular blogging.

VERTIBLOG Film School XI - THE $1,000 MOVIE, Part 10

2006-06-04T08:59:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

Step 2: Gear

One of things we've really got working against us in this whole endeavor is the fact that everything costs money. People, places and things; goods and services -- they all come with a price tag. But only for normal people.

We're independent filmmakers.

Step 2: Gear
I. The camera

You're shooting this thing standard def DV. No doubt about it. The only way you're not is if you know someone with an HighDef rig. And chances are you don't.

And to be honest, shooting DV is not going to hurt you. High Def is still an unfriendly format in terms of post and delivery. In post, file sizes are enormous, drives have to be super-fast, and you need HD peripherals -- a deck, video cards, and media. All expensive.

And in the end, you may end with an HD master, but nobody will be watching it that way. We're still a year or two away from a proliferation of HD players/monitors. Plus authoring and compression is prohibitively expensive for independent filmmakers like us.

This chapter will need some revisiting in the year to come. But right now, in the Spring of '06...

You're shooting this thing in standard def.

The next obvious question is, where are you going to get the camera. And not only the camera, but the package that goes with it, including the tripod and a monitor.

New models of camera are coming out all the time. A couple of years ago, the Canon XL-1 was the rig everybody wanted. Until they got one. The viewfinder stinks, focus is a nightmare, and the "cine frame rate" was just a weird-ass shutter effect that gave me a headache. It is 16:9, which is cool, and if it's the only camera you can get your hands on, it'll certainly do, but there are much better cameras in the same price range out there.

But we're not exactly going to buy a camera. We don't have the money for that. Maybe you already own one. If so, move on to the next chapter. If not, what to do?

Well, the problem may solve itself depending on our DP situation. If you got a pro, he's probably got a nice DV cam. If he doesn't, he'll have a friend who does have one. He'll most likely track down a rig he's happy with. Not your problem anymore!

If you got a wannabe/newbie DP, he too may have invested in a camera. If so, not a problem. Move on to next chapter.

But what if your DP has no leads?

Your first step should be a flyer at the local college/university. You should probably post it when you're looking for a DP:

"Do you have a video camera package? How would you like to be a credited producer on a feature film?" We're looking for a good DV prosumer video camera to rent (on deferment) for a local movie. We'd prefer a 16:9, 24p package but will entertain all offers. We also prefer a complete package with tripod, monitor, batteries and cabling.

Be a part of the local independent movie scene. Please contact us at www.glowingscreen.com"

The Producer credit is an easy enough gesture. Make them Executive Producer if you like. And the fact that you're offering it as a deferred rental at least suggests that future monies may be possible. If you get a taker, write up a contract promising them $75 per day, about half of the going rate (much more on contracts later). If they flinch at that, offer them more. Getting the camera now is the important thing. We'll worry about all the money we owe people in deferments later.

If all else fails, you have two options: one much more ethical than the other. And bear in mind I certainly don't condone the unethical one -- and probably wouldn't do it myself -- I just bring it up to bring it up.

Option One: Use your own camcorder. You've got one. If your mom or dad or neighbor or friend has a better one, use theirs. If there is no 16:9 option on it, frame your shot as if there were. Put black tape in the viewfinder to matte out the top and bottom and the frame, and in post put black bars over the image. It ain't 16:9, but it looks more like a movie than the alternative. Also, there are very cool post-production applications to run your media through to get that "film look". Adobe AfterEffects has a cool plug in that will allow you to create a faux "pull-down" option which takes your traditional 30 frame/second sequence and converts it to 24p. Again, none of these post production "fixes" are native to the source footage, so the quality will be lacking. But there are tricks to sweeten that footage to look more like a movie.

Option Two: Buy a prosumer camcorder, shoot your movie while taking sparkling care of it. Then return it within 30 days. The excuse you give is on your conscience.

OK.

I've mentioned the terms 24p and 16:9 a few times, and though it's not that important that you're intimately familiar with the technology, you should at least know what they mean.

This is a great section to skip if in fact you do know what they mean.

Step 2: Gear
I. The camera
a. 16:9 vs. 4:3

All you really need to know is that shooting 16:9 gives you a full resolution image when displayed on widescreen monitors, and a letterboxed image on regular TVs. Its aspect ratio is 1.78:1, giving you more latitude in creating a cinematic, widescreen look.

4:3 cameras give you a less rectangular, more squarey image that fits neatly in our traditional television sets. We're accustomed to this aspect ratio, which is approximately 1.33:1, when watching broadcast TV -- though this is changing, more often we're seeing letterboxed dramas (Desperate Houswives, Lost, CSI, 24.. et al) with the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.

The bottom line is that 16:9 productions look more like movies.

The one minor drawback to shooting 16:9, is that when you look at it through the viewfinder, or on a monitor not 16:9 supported, it will look "stretched", as it will if spin you off footage to tape. But if you output to DVD, you're cool... DVD authoring tools are smart enough to encode the footage to display properly on either widescreen monitor or regular TVs. On widescreen monitors, it will fill the frame, on regular 4:3 TVs, it will letterbox it.

Step 2: Gear

I. The camera

a. 16:9 vs. 4:3

Video is recorded to tape at a certain frame rate. The norm has always been 30fps (frames per second). And these 30 frames were recorded in what is referred to as an interlaced signal. Interlacing means that the video camera captures 2 snapshots for each frame, separating each snapshot into a series of horizontal lines. It then combines the odd lines from the first snapshot, and the even lines of the second snapshot, and combines them to make a single frame. An interlaced frame.

You don't have to understand why.

Film on the other hand uses a completely different method of capturing images (including the fact that it's a photochemical process, not electronic). It doesn't screw around with fields at all, but rather takes 24 snapshots per second, ultimately creating the illusion of movement when we project them in sequence... like a flipbook.

A video camera capable of recording at 24p uses the same principles as a film camera, recording 24 (not 30) frames per second -- the "p" stands for progressive, as opposed to interlaced -- without first separating them into fields. The result is a quality similar to film, and thus looks more like a movie.

(continued)

VERTIBLOG Film School X - THE $1,000 MOVIE, Part 9

2006-06-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2b: Finding your crew
III. Assitant Director

You're going to have a lot of friends offering to help you. But you won't be able to count on all of them. I'm not saying they're fair-weather friends, only that the level of dedication you're going to require may too much for some. The key is to have that one friend, that one guy that you can count on for the duration, that one guy you can sit down and say, 'listen... you know this is my passion, you know it's something I've wanted to do my entire life. And I need you to help me."

If you're like me, and if you've been reading this you most assuredly are, then over the years you've developed relationships with like-minded friends who have similar aspirations, similar dreams, similar ambitions. This is the time to take one of them aside and say, 'if you do this for me, then I'll be there for you when it's your turn.'

Let's call this guy Frank.

Frank is going to be fill many roles in the production. He's going to call for pizza as the afternoon nears, he's going to run down to the Mini-Mart when you run our of water, he's going to track down your lead actor when he doesn't show for call time, he's going to hold the boom when your little brother gets the flu. He's the guy that the cast and crew will go to with their myriad questions, and then he'll filter out what's important and come to you only then. He's going to do everything that, without him, you'd have to do yourself.

Frank's job will be thankless and offers very little reward. He has to be without ego.

And when it's his turn, so will you.

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2b: Finding your crew
IV. Script Supervisor

This may end up being Frank's job, but if possible, try and find one more warm body to occupy it. In all honesty, a dedicated script supervisor is probably a luxury you won't have. And if you have that friend who could fill either the role of a script supervisor or assistant director... you're going to need an assistant director more.

I've mentioned Maria Escribano earlier. She was our script supervisor on MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. Maria was there for every take of every scene on every day. As a matter of fact, if you live in New England and you're looking for a damned good script supervisor, drop me an e-mail and I'll hook you up with her. Though, for your $1,000 movie, she's probably not for you.

What Maria excels at, and what you're going to be looking for, is a person with insanely high organizational skills. This doesn't necessarily have to be a movie person, though if they are they will be exponetially more useful to you.

The IMDB defines a Script Supervisor as "A person who tracks which parts have been filmed, how the filmed scenes deviated from the script; they also make continuity notes, creating a lined script."

So, what your need is someone with a copy of the script in a three-ringed binder who will watch every take of every scene and makes sure you're following along as you should be. They make sure the dialogue spoken is what's written... or if it's changed that you approve of it. They make sure things like close-ups and cutaways are shot, so you won't have headaches in the edit. And when each scene is complete, they draw a vertical line through it, giving you a visual cue that that part of the script is completed.

As you move through production, there is no greater feeling than seeing more and more of the script supervisor's script lined out. On that final day of shooting, when each and every page has a vertical line bisecting it... allis right in the world.

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2b: Finding your crew
V. Key Grip ( & Grips / Production Assistants)

(Hopefully, this isn't Frank, too.)

You've seen the term in the end scroll of movies for years -- key grip. Right there next to gaffer and best boy. A grip is a camera assistant -- a guy who does what the director of photography asks him to do. He lays cables, then wraps them back up again. He adjusts lights according to the DP's instructions. When doing nothing, he stands next to the DP and anticipates what will have to be done next. That's a good grip's biggest strength -- anticipating needs. A good grip instinctively knows how long the camera has been rolling, and is ready with a new tape when the one in the camera runs out. He always seems to have a fresh battery handy when the old one dies. A good grip watches the DP's eye line, trying to ascertain what he is looking at to anticipate his next demand.

That being said. You're probably not going to have a very good key grip.

But's here's what you going to have: about 5-8 young hungry film guys who will bust their asses for you, but not always be available when you need them. Chances are they'll be students (since you'll put up a flyer at all the colleges and universities saying there's cool production work available), and college students aren't the most reliable folk around. You'll get 5-8 of them because you'll need 2-3 of them per shoot. And I can almost guarantee that you'll find one guy who'll be your rock -- he'll be there every time, will be able to talk for hours on Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, and will probably end up being credited as your key grip. It always seems to happen that way. The others guys will be somewhat interchangeable. As long as there are 2-3 per shoot, your DPs life will be much easier.

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2b: Finding your crew
VI. Wrap Up

And there's your crew:

-Director of Photography
-Sound Mixer
-Assitant Director
-Script Supervisor
-Key Grip
-Production Assistants / Grips

That's in a perfect world. In your world, it may look a little closer to this:

-Director of Photography
-Sound Mixer /Key Grip
-Assitant Director / Script Supervisor
-Production Assitants

Either way, you've got you have some faith in these guys because you're going to be putting a lot of trust into them. Don't hire people because it's convenient. Sure, your roommate could shoot for you, and since you're shooting primarily in your apartment, you know he'll always be there.

Don't.

Take yourself seriously. Take your project seriously.

You're about to start what is going to be a an extraordinarily painful process. You will lose weight. You will get sick. You will feel like sticking a dagger in your heart after about two or days of this. Everything will go wrong.

Do everything you can beforehand to make the experience worth it. Surround yourself with the very best people you can find. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone and ask total strangers for insane favors. Most will turn you down. But some may say yes.

Especially if your script is as good as you hope it is.

(continued)
© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School IX - THE $1,000 MOVIE, Part 8

2006-06-02T08:25:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2b: Finding your crew

OK. Up until this point, the differences in approach to a $1,000 as opposed to a $30,000 movie have been pretty small. In fact, with the exception of the casting protocol, everything I've spoken about applies to pretty much any budget movie. But the way you recruit your crew in the $1,000 world... that's quite a bit different than with the $15,000 or $30,000 picture.

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2b: Finding your crew
I. Director of Photography

First off... your DP. Arguably, after you, the most important person on the crew. You're going to want to somebody with some chops. And you don't want it to be you. You want to be looking at a monitor during takes, studying composition, studying takes. Or perhaps you want to be closer to your actors. Either way, with a camera on your shoulder, is pretty impossible.

The first thing you should do is aim high. That video production company you contacted regarding actors? Ask them about DPs, too. Many of the guys that work corporate/industrial gigs are similar to the actors they shoot -- they want to make movies. The problem they face in realizing their dreams, though, is the cash they make on these corporate/industrial gigs. A good DP gets between $400-$600 a day in a small-medium sized market. That's without a camera. That's just them showing up. It must be tough for them to turn that down for a stinky little independent film.

But try to convince them.

These guys are usually pretty cool. You don't get to be a regularly-used corporate DP by being an asshole.

And if find a guy having a slow summer, and with a relatively fat bank account, and a desire to make art? Your chances are certainly in the double digits.

Here's the rub, though. You only have a $1,000 total budget.

************BUDGET UPDATE***************

So far, all we've spent is $15.00 for the Filmmaker's Software. So we have $985 remaining. Looking ahead to our shoot, we're going to have to feed our crew. That's gonna cost us about $30.00 a day (details later on some tricks, but you're going to have to pony up for something). We're talking a 9 day shoot, so that's $270.00, leaving us with $715. We certainly don't want to completely shoot our wad on the DP, but if you can find a willing pro, you don't want to let him go. Offer him $50 a day, a deferment of half of his day rate, and some points in the movie. That's $450 to your DP, leaving you with $265.

definition: deferment/points - A deferment is a binding promise (make it in writing) to pay a cast/crew member an agreed upon rate, at some time in the future, if the movie ever makes a profit. Now, turning a profit IS a possibility; things like public screening and small run DVD sales ARE in your future, if you choose. And you WILL see a return if your pursue it enough. A deferment simply says... I won't forget you. It's a good faith gesture.

Now... points are something completely different. Points are a guaranteed interest in the movie, in the form of a percentage. Here you're saying, if this movie ever sees any money, you're guaranteed a cut of it. You're a partner. This way, if your film becomes the next BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, they are in a position to make a LOT of money.

So... call that production company and get some names. Each company probably has the names of five or six guys in the area that they use regularly. And I can't imagine why they wouldn't give you their contact info. Also... each of these five or six guys, if not interested or if unavailable, will probably have several other names to offer you, as well.

The first thing your should tell your DP is that you'll shoot around their schedule. And let them give you a start a start date. Also, offer up your script immediately, and ask them not to make a decision until they read it. If they agree to that, you're in pretty good shape (considering your script is as good as you hope it is).

Another strong point to finding a 'real' DP is that many of them have pretty good cameras. Maybe not big boy HD cams, but they may have a very nice 16:9, 24p prosumer camcorder -- which is exactly what you looking for (much more on cameras later).

Let's say you strike out. No professional DP will touch you.

Remember the Mass Film Bureau and New England Film? Put a listing up there for a DP. Lots of people browse and lurk these sites, including wannabe/newbie DPs who may be green, but may also have some chops you can exploit.

At the same time, head back to the local college and university scene, and track down a faculty member in the Film/Television/Broadcasting department. Tell them who you're looking for: that young, hungry, talented camera operator who has impressed them in their video production classes. Somebody who just needs a shot.

The thing you want to make sure you do, with any DP is get a look at their reel. The pros will have one, but the wannabees and students most likely won't. From them, you at least want to see something that they've shot -- a school project or a short film.

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2b: Finding your crew
II. Sound Mixer

The second most important crew member you'll be looking for will be your sound mixer. This is a guy who has some experience gathering audio on field shoots from a boom pole/fishpole using a shotgun microphone. Preferably, this person will own all of his/her own gear. But, while pro/semi-pro DPs may be willing to take a cut in pay on an independent film to expand their experience/reels, sound guys may be less willing. While good DPs tend to be "artists", sound mixers tend to be craftsmen or technicians.

At the very least, you're going to need the gear below to get what you need aurally:

-Fishpole w/ shock mount
-Shotgun microphone
-Audio (XLR cables)
-Headphones

In all honesty, this is where you're going to have to spend some more cash. The chances of you finding an audio guy,with this gear, who is willing to work for pretty much free, is close to nil.

Now, you could easily spend $3,000.00 on the microphone alone. But of course, you won't. There are several low-priced solutions that will give you passable sound.

Here's what I suggest you do... spend a hour or so surfing through Google Groups using key words like "affordable", or "cheap" "shotgun microphones", and "boom pole", and "independent film". You'll find plenty of links, reviews, opinions...etc on various solutions. Go into it expecting to spend about $250 for the whole package. This is a case of "you get what you pay for", and as soon as you graduate to higher budgeted features, you'll throw all of this stuff out.

Regarding the sound mixer himself, again... first aim high. Seek out pros and see if you get a bite. Offer them the $250 and a deferment, and points. Maybe you'll get lucky. Check out the colleges and maybe you'll find that young student that has some experience and can "borrow" the gear from the school. It would certainly be better than you get for $250.

If you have no luck with any of that, then maybe your sound guy ends up being your little brother. In all honesty, it's not rocket science to get competent sound. It'll cause you headaches in post, but it'll be there, on tape. It is nearly rocket science to get great sound... but that's why pro sound mixers make the big bucks.

Have your little brother spend some time in the library and on-line, researching location sound techniques. There's plenty of info out there to learn.

(continued)
© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School VIII - THE $1,000 MOVIE, Part 7

2006-06-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW

So. Now, you need to find a talented cast and a competent crew. One that has a flexible schedule.

That will work for free.

On nights.

And weekends.

Yeah, this is going to be a tall order, but not as hard as you may think. Since it seems the obvious thing to do... let's break it down into two tasks: finding your cast, and finding your crew.

Before you do anything though, you should realize that from this point on, you're going to be a man/woman in demand. There are going to be a lot of people who are going to try and reach you, and you've got to be available. The best way to do this?

Get online.

Create a MySpace account, create a blog, create a website. Create some kind of on-line, correspondence-based identity that will allow interested parties to e-mail you, IM you, post on a forum, or leave comments.

This is where you're going to point people who are going to be interested in getting on-board your train.

******************PRODUCTION HINT*******************

Update frequently, and post as much or as little as you like about your project. For example, if you're making a schlocky horror comedy called ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS, it may be prudent to keep the title out of the initial contact you'll have with actors/crew. It's very important at this stage to have people take you seriously. You want to attract talented people, and talented people may not, or just think they don't, want to be associated with ATTACK OF SPACE CHICKENS. Hopefully, after the initial contact, your charm and the quality of the script with convince them.

*******************************

STEP 2. FIND YOUR CAST/CREW
Step 2a: Finding your cast

As filmmakers, we can't live without actors. But that doesn't mean we have to understand them. I certainly don't. They traipse around in an imaginary world, surrounded by technicians and crew, while trying to find some inherent "truth" in the characters they're inhabiting. Crazy, huh?

But oftentimes I'm astounded at what you can get out of good, prepared actors. You'll write some dialogue with something in mind -- some tone or delivery -- and then an actor will surprise you, giving you something you hadn't thought about. Something better. It doesn't happen all the time, and it rarely happens with amateurs, but it's those moments where you scratch your head, tell them 'great job', and wonder how the hell they did it.

So, as much I don't get the actor's craft, there's one thing I DO understand about them:

They're desperate, insecure people who will work for table scraps.

Not all of them maybe, but as soon as you announce that you've got a feature film in the works, watch them come begging. You'll discover that finding actors will be extraordinarily easy.

Finding good ones, however... that's the tough part.

-CAST
--Sides

When casting for MAGDALENA'S BRAIN, I'll admit that when that first actor responded and asked for 'sides', I had no idea what they were talking about. After I kept them busy for a moment, and rushed to do a Google Search, I quickly discovered that sides are simply script pages that are to be read by potential actors for a specific role.

So what you do is this: you go through your script and find scenes that really represent your character-- maybe a typical scene that shows the character as they are through most of the movie, but perhaps with a moment that displays anger, or fear, or introspection, or whatever -- then you cut and paste these scenes into a new document, and you have a side. When you schedule a casting call, make sure that the actors have sides beforehand, or at the very least, bring extra copies to the session to give them well before they go before the camera.

-CAST
--Casting Call

Pick a date. Preferably a weekend. And find someplace to take over for a few hours. It's important to note here that you should make every effort to secure a location that has a good-sized waiting area, and a rather private performance area. It's NOT a good idea to have actors read in front of other actors.

******************MONEY / TIME SAVING HINT*******************

Go through the phonebook and use your Google know-how to locate a local community theater organization. Call them and explain your plight: you're an independent filmmaker casting a new feature film. You're beginning the casting process and would like to use their facility for the cattle call. Most local groups use high schools or middle schools for their performances -- try to find one that doesn't, that has it's own private facility. If you can't find one wit their own space, get contact info for their venue and ask if you can use their name to schmooze the facilities manager.

Also, ask if they'd mind posting a casting notice within their organization. They'll bend over backwards for you, believe me.

*******************************

Once you've nailed down a date and a location, there are a couple of things you should do before getting the word out.

Update your MySpace account/Blog. List the hours / location / directions to your call. Also, very important, list the roles you are trying to fill:

Hector (male lead) - late 20s/early 30s. Hispanic. A drug dealer who is trying to get out of the business. His pregnant wife has become sick, and he's beginning to recognize that if he's not careful, he may become just like his father.

Juliana (female lead) - Hector's wife, white, 20s. She thinks Hector had left the drug trade when they married 1 year ago. But she's starting to become suspicious. Should she confront him and risk losing him, especially when she needs him the most?

Ralph (supporting) - Hector's father, white, late 50s. Hardcore drug dealer and unapologetic about it. He thinks his son is weak for wanting out of the family business. But he'll soon learn that the responsibilities of a father to a son are too great to hide from.

... and so on.

Also, if you're comfortable, list sides on the site as downloadable documents. Or have people request sides if they like. Remember to bring lots of extras to the call, though. People will forget theirs.

Now that all of the important info is listed on your site, you've got three potential avenues to get people there.

-Flyers
-On-line Sources
-Phone Calls/E-mails

Flyers:

Keep it simple. Use those layouts skills you have (if you don't, you know someone who does), and create an 8x10 flyer. Include pertinent information about the production and be up-front about payment. Mention that there may be payment for principal roles, and perhaps you'll attract a higher level of performer. If you do find that unbelievably perfect actor that absolutely will not work for free, deal with that after you've at least auditioned them. And remember, you DO have SOME money to play with. You just gotta spend it smartly.

On the flyer, be somewhat general. Something like:

"FEATURE FILM CASTING CALL

Professional local filmmakers are looking for local talent to join us on our ambitious feature film production. To be shot in late June/early July. Speaking parts, principal roles and extras needed. All ages, all races (no children until 16, please).

We hope to hit the national film festival circuit this fall. Mostly deferred payments, but we have a budget to work with!

Please visit: www.glowingscreen.com for more details."

Don't be close-minded about race for any particular role -- some characters could be made vastly more interesting with a different ethnic skew. Age, too... we had originally written Magdalena as a 40+ year old woman, however when we found our perfect actress, she was 29 years old! Even keep an open mind about gender. If you have no principal female roles, and you find an incredibly talented woman... maybe you could re-write your protagonist.

Go to colleges and universities and have a look around, talk to students and determine where would be a good location for posting flyers. Go to the Communications Department and ask around. Some colleges have Theater Arts in the English Departments, or the Humanities Divisions. Figure it out. And then plaster your flyers on the walls.

-On-line Sources

Every state and region has on-line sources for independent filmmakers. When you start looking around, you'll be amazed at the community of like-minded folks out there. Here in Massachusetts, two great resources are the Mass Film Bureau and New England Film. Both of them have casting call classifieds which actors visit very often. Direct them to your contact page.

Also, Google your way through the groups and forums out there:
alt.movies.independent
rec.arts.movies.production
rec.video.professional
rec.arts.movies.production

-Phone Calls/E-mails

Go through the phone book and search through Google to find local community theaters, acting troupes, casting agencies, and video production companies. The theater/acting groups are easy enough; they'd be happy to talk to you and pass along any and all info you give them. The casting agencies and video production companies may give you a little resistance, but have a much bigger potential payoff.

Casting agencies make their living by charging both their clients and the companies with which they set up their clients. An independent filmmaker with no money to offer is not going to be on the top of their call-back list. But it's worth trying. Chances are you don't live in L.A., and chances are the casting agency you see in your local area is going to be pretty rinky-dink. That's good. Call them and lay on some of that charm, and suggest that the exposure you may be able to give their clients could certainly benefit them as well.

Video production companies are another potential source for actors. I've worked at a production company for 10 years now and we hire actors all the time. Mostly for corporate-type videos where we ask them to be insurance agents or doctors or narrators for programs about insurance agents and doctors. But these actors, the one we pay very well to do these boring, unpleasant programs... they want to be in movies. And they'll take a drastic pay cut to do so. Maybe even work for free. And me, as a producer at the production company, would be more than happy to facilitate a meeting with some of these actors. They're all really good guys who know what they're doing in front the camera.

Speaking of which...

You know who doesn't really know what they're doing in front of a camera?

Theater folk.

The flyers you give to community theater members? The calls you make to acting troupes? Expect a lot of interest... but don't expect too much experience... in front of a camera, that is. Actors who work on the stage can be amazing. On the stage. They can pull off a mean Mercutio to the people in the seats before them, but place them in front of a camera and ask for some subtlety... well, it's just a completely different form of acting.

This is not to diss theater folk.

Only to point out that you can be fooled into thinking an actor can pull of one of your characters based on seeing him on the stage. Maybe he can. But camera test him. Get him a side, get him to the casting call, and see if he has any movie chops.

Back to the casting call.

Expect a long day. With all of the hustling you've been doing, there's going to be substantial interest. Install a hit counter/tracker on your blog/site and keep an eye on it. It'll give you some indication on the interest you're stirring.

Don't do it alone.

Chances are you have some close friends who are thinking of helping you out with your project. Use them. You'll need at least three people.

First friend: the wrangler. This person will be in charge of crowd control. They'll assign numbers to people as they stream in, like in a deli, and collect some personal info. They'll also regularly hand you sheets with the people to expect next-- how old they are, what experience they have, what part they want. It's a thankless job; and requires excellent organization. It's also the wrangler's responsibility to keep the flow moving. As one person leaves, another is waiting to go in.

Second friend: the camera operator. Oh yeah, bring a camera. This friend will make sure that each actor, before they start their scene, will hold up their number (simply written on a piece of paper), and that each audition is in focus. The picture doesn't need to be pretty. In fact, the video will be more of a reference than anything else. You'll already be making decisions as you see them live.

Third friend: the reader. This friend will actually read with the actor. Don't worry about gender, and don't even worry about talent. Just make sure they're somewhat familiar with the sides beforehand. Don't let this friend screw around during the audition, so get someone responsible.

As you go through the process, something miraculous will happen within you:

You'll know almost immediately when someone is wrong for the part.

Sometimes before they even open their mouth. But give them a chance to prove you wrong. If a huge, overweight African-American guy is walking up to read for your lead (you know, the skinny white guy)... listen to him.

Also, have a prepared opening for all of the actors; "Hi there, my name's Marty Langford, I'm the director for the project. This is Jan and she's going to read with you. It says here you'd like to read for Juliana. Did you have any questions? Good, let's get started."

And tell everyone the same thing after they read; "Thanks so much for coming, we're seeing a lot of people tonight, and we'll be making our decisions in the next couple of weeks. Keep checking the web site for updates."

As you're watching auditions, feel free to give direction after a take. In casting, it's usually called giving an "adjustment". And be prepared to answer questions about the story/character. Giving some adjustment can really help determine what it may be like working with this person. Do they accept suggestions gracefully? Are they unable to adjust... having only one "note"? Don't waste your time giving adjustments to the people you know are wrong, only those with promise.

Finally, know that you probably won't be leaving that night with a full cast -- you may have lots of people you want to see again, but that's what call backs are for. In fact, I'd recommend NOT officially casting anyone at your first call -- you may think, "oh my God. It's her! She's perfect!". But at least sleep on it and watch the tape in the morning.

And call-backs can be a much smaller affair, with individual appointments... so don't worry about having to stage a big cattle call again.

(continued)
© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School VII - THE $1,000 MOVIE, Part 6

2006-05-30T12:52:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT (cont.)
STEP 1b: The Production Board (cont.)
III. Shooting Schedule (post 2)

So, you're going to be shooting weekends and nights, days off and holidays. That's OK. You have no choice.

Now, you've got to determine exactly what scenes you shoot on which day. Below find a list of things to keep in mind.

******************MONEY / TIME SAVING HINT*******************

People will only take you as seriously as you take yourself.. DO NOT be wishy-washy when it comes to getting people to commit to your project. Get a firm answer -- yes or no. If the answer's 'maybe', then find someone else. You cannot be left without what you need on the day you need to shoot.

*******************************

-DAY VS. NIGHT

Clearly it's easier to shoot daytime scenes in the daytime and night time scenes in the night time. So, schedule them appropriately. Sometimes, you'll have a night scene in the script that immediately, or soon after, follows a day scene (or vice-versa; same actors/same wardrobe/same props/same location). If so, schedule the day shoot in the late afternoon, and get the night stuff after the sun goes down.

Also, unless it's IMPERATIVE, don't write scenes that tale place at dawn or dusk. It's an absolute nightmare trying to beat the sun to get your coverage. If you're shooting a vampire flick, then sure... I see the importance. Otherwise, don't make your life any harder than it has to be.

Another good idea is to not have early call times the day after a night shoot. You never know what's going to happen on set/location, and you don't want to be looking at a 7:00am call time when you're still shooting at 3:00am the night before.

-LOCATION SHOOTS

Try not to schedule two different locations on the same day.

If that simply doesn't make sense... if you only have actors for one day and you need them in two different locations... OK.

Usually location shoots require a certain amount of logistical organization -- you have to get permission to shoot somewhere, promise to be there by a certain time, get directions to everybody in the cast/crew, and hope nobody breaks down or gets lost.

-EFFICIENT USE OF CAST

You won't need every actor every day, so schedule smartly here. If Jim, Bob and Larry are in seven scenes together and these are the only scenes for Jim, try to schedule them all in one day, and wrap Jim. Of course, take the 'day/night' and 'location' rules into account: If three of the scenes are in a location three hours away, and you have other scenes to shoot there, too. Then screw Jim and make him work an extra day.

-EFFICIENT USE OF CREW

If you have days where there is no dialogue -- you're only gathering B-roll, or shooting cutaways or second-unit type footage, then give your audio guy a day off. He'll appreciate that a hell of a lot more than standing there with nothing to do because you're just gathering reference audio on the camera mic.

BE FLEXIBLE & WATCH THE WEATHER CHANNEL

Earlier I had recommended writing some of your film to take place outdoors. A good idea... but sometimes it rains, sometimes you want sun, sometimes you want clouds. Be flexible. And watch the Weather Channel. Keep an eye on storm fronts as exterior shooting approaches. Don't panic when you see rain in the 10 day forecast, 10 days from now. That's likely to change. And don't put yourself in a position to have to panic when a storm threatens an exterior shoot two days from now. Have a backup plan for every day of shooting. Know that you can shoot Day 11 on Day 8 if it's going to rain.

And let your cast/crew know up front that these things happen.

Creating a shooting schedule, like pretty much all of independent filmmaking, is about being practical and efficient.

So, be practical and efficient.

VERTIBLOG Film School VI - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 5

2006-05-28T16:58:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT (cont.)
STEP 1b: The Production Board (cont.)
III. Shooting Schedule

Filmmaker's Software and the other Scheduling/Budgeting software packages out there do more than just create strips. They create shooting schedules, call sheets, budgets, daily reports, contacts sheets and more. That stuff comes later. For now we have to nail down a shooting schedule.

When you've entered in your last strip, what you have is a grid-based representation of your movie. Right in front of you is a description of every scene and everything that's necessary for every scene. The problem is, it's all in the order that the script dictates. It starts with Scene One and ends with Scene Whatever (let's say 80). What we now need to do is create a shooting schedule that makes sense for the logistics of our particular wants/needs.

Now, a shooting schedule requires a lot of common sense. Chances are, you won't be able to shoot your movie in sequence, so you're going to need to figure out what scenes make sense to group together to shoot on certain days.

Plan on having each day be 8-10 hours long. And here's where the page count starts to help us out -- try not to schedule more than 10 pages a day.

There are exceptions, of course. If you have a 15 page scene that takes place in a controlled environment, is all dialogue, and you have really good actors who will know their lines... then sure, you'll be able to get away with that. Also to consider -- if you have a 15 page scene with two people doing nothing but talking, you may want to take another look at the script. Outside of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (great director, brilliant actors), I haven't seen that pulled off too many times.

So, how many pages can you shoot in 8-10 hours? It depends. A good target is 6-9 pages. You figure most scenes are about 2 pages long. Some longer, some shorter, but they average out. That means three scenes per day, which requires three lighting set ups, three blocking rehearsals (where the actors rehearse the scene with the director and director of photography to figure out 'who says what where', and 'who walks where when', and how am I going to light it? Blocking and lighting will probably take at least an hour; break down and moving will take half an hour; that four and half hours and you haven't even shot a single frame of tape (note I didn't say: "you haven't shot a single foot of film." Nobody but nobody is making a movie with film in this budget range).

My point here is that half of your day is devoted to not shooting. Sometimes, it's a lot more. There were days on MAGDALENA'S BRAIN where we shot 3 pages in 12 hours.

So anyway. Let's say 8 pages a day. How's long the script? 77 pages? So, we're looking at 9-10 days of shooting.

This is going to be difficult.

There are two basic approaches you can make in developing a shooting schedule.

-Shoot all at once, in consecutive days.
-Shoot when you can, weekends/nights, whenever possible.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I certainly have a preference, but sometimes necessity dictates which way you go.

We shot MAGDALENA'S BRAIN in 14 days, with two days off within a 16 day period. The result was exhausting, but after 14 days, we had the movie in the can. We also had the luxury of a modest -- but still well over $1,000 -- budget. Which meant we were able to pay people something who were taking time off of their regular jobs, or turning down other work that may have come their way.

With $1,000 in the budget, you can be sure you'll have to shoot your movie the second way -- nights and weekends. I always prefer to shoot consecutive days. I've been involved with both approaches, and the piecemeal way has a lot more cons than pros.

-Creating a schedule is made much more difficult.
-Continuity is a nightmare.
-Consistent performances are difficult.
-Excitement wanes, followed by attendance.

There are other cons, to be sure. But the above are enough of a bear to work around. The pros?

-Exhaustion is unlikely.
-Sanity is maintained.
-You don't have to pay people.

Insanity and exhaustion are key elements to pretty much any shoot, but only reach dangerous levels when you've got three, four, six, 12+ days in a row. Onesies and twosies on a Saturday or Sunday? You'll still have your mind intact, though I think you're actually missing out on something of the filmmaking experience to shoot like this.

It's that last pro that makes this pretty much the required route. Nobody will take 10 days off of work to help you make your movie.

Let's break down the cons, and find some ways to alleviate the negative. Just because we have to deal with them doesn't mean we have to let them kick our ass.

-Creating a schedule is made much more difficult.

Damn, is it ever.

What you're forced to do here determine who are going to be the most important people in your production, and then customize the schedule around them. For me, the list looks something this:
#1. You
#2. The director of photography
#3. The sound mixer
#4. The actors

I think it's extraordinarily important to have the same guy holding the camera every time you shoot. Or at least, as often as humanly possible. The responsibility of lighting, composing and shooting your movie should not fall on your little brother. And it should certainly not fall on you, either. You're going to have your hands full with a million other things, not the least of which are performances. It's tough to direct actors while looking through a viewfinder.

So, if it's not you or your little brother... who is it going to be? We'll get to that in a bit. Just keep in mind that it's a very good idea to consider your DP your right-hand man throughout production, and your schedule should reflect the importance of that relationship.

And a sound mixer? Can you afford a sound mixer? Actually, no... you probably can't, but there are some good cheap cheats that I can fill you in on later. Just make sure you always have someone on site in charge of audio.

So, if you're not available, don't shoot.
If your DPs not available, you probably shouldn't shoot.
And, if no one knows anything about the audio, you probably shouldn't shoot.

But you're going to know everybody's personal schedule weeks before you shoot. And knowing their schedules is going to help you you make yours.

Oh wait... what about the actors? Well, you can't shoot without them, I guess. But here's the thing (and we'll talk more about this later), they'll always make themselves available. I love actors, really I do. And we couldn't do what we do without them, but here's the thing -- they're desperate to do anything. If you've got a pretty good script, you will have no shortage of bad and mediocre actors lining up at 4:00am on a Sunday morning to get covered in pig's blood. Good actors? They're desperate, too, just tougher to find.

Great actors you probably won't have to worry about.

-Continuity is a nightmare.

Continuity is hard enough... when you start putting 6-7 days between shoots, it can become downright impossible. On proper shoots, you'd have a script supervisor, a person who is never without a three ringed binder containing their own personal copy of the script. This copy has crazy notes in the margins, between dialogue, sometimes on the back. The have scribbly code like 47A.1 Left hand-cup (3/4). No drink. Hair - front right ear, pulls back on "...gel suspended in cystalline lattice".

Roughly translated, we're shooting scene 47A. An actor, who has a 3/4-filled cup in her left hand but doesn't drink from it, pulls the hair in front of her right ear back, as she delivers the line "...gel suspended in cystalline lattice". This is what a script supervisor/continuity person does. All day.

Below find a sample page from MAGDALENA'S BRAIN, created by our own script supervisor, Maria Escribano:

They also prepare tape logs, which log every take of every scene -- everything recorded gets noted here. On these, they also write things like:"47A . 1 - No. 47A.2 - Good, good. One more for safety. 47A.3 Good safety. Moving on."

Translated, that means that Scene 47A was being shot. Take one (.1) was no good... the director said "No"; for take 2, the director said, "good, good". But he decided he wanted another take "for safety". Take three was a good safety and it was decided to move on to the next scene.

Without a script supervisor to even tell you what color pants Jill was wearing last weekend, you'd better have a real good memory.

******************MONEY / TIME SAVING HINT*******************

At the end of each scene, and the each shooting day, take digital photos of each of your actors. Keep them in a log to SEE what each actor looks like in different parts of the movie.

*******************************

-Consistent performances are difficult.

You're probably dealing with amateur actors, so an irregular shooting schedule is going to make it that much more difficult to get consistent performances out of them. When an actor is living with a character day in, day out, they start to inhabit a strange place. It's kinda of scary sometimes (I don't get actors). When actors work 40 hours selling envelopes in between shoots, the performance is sure to suffer.

******************GOOD PERFORMANCE HINT*******************

Rough cut scenes together in between shoot and share them with the cast. It'll help actors "get in character".

*******************************

-Excitement wanes, followed by attendance.

Conceptually, filmmaking is the coolest thing ever. The idea of making movies is glamorous, romantic and profound. The thought of the lights, of the camera, of the action...it's intoxicating.

In reality, it's unbelievably tedious, boring and staggeringly repetitive.

When you're roping people into your filmmaking experience, you're going to get a lot of newbies. And these newbies aren't all going to last. By the third shoot day, they're going to realize that the first two boring days weren't just the exception, but rather the rule.

The above are some cons. But remember the pro:

-You don't have to pay people.

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School V - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 4

2006-05-26T22:13:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT (cont.)
STEP 1b: The Production Board

This gets a little complicated.

But fortunately, there's an amazing piece of software out there that, once you figure out how to use it, is going to save you loads of time and money, and as a super-bonus will make you look like the most organized and prepared filmmaker around. This alone makes it worth its price. With the reports and print outs you can generate, your crew will be confident in your ability as a filmmaker.

As a little aside here, as I mentioned before, the confidence you exude as a writer/producer/director/filmmaker to your crew is crucial. The men and women "helping you out", and "giving you a hand" will sacrifice many things in their own lives if they believe in you and your project. This app. is an easy, cheap way to begin the trust that you need from your crew.

Anyway, it's called Filmmaker's Software and you can download it here. To use their words, it's a "multi-featured film production software package designed for full-scale scheduling, budgeting and managing". Now to be honest, compared to all of the other production packages out there, it's no great shakes. But when you take into consideration that most other apps with the same features are $300-$900, and filmmaker's Software is $15.00, it's clear it'll be the best money you spend in pre-pro.

The most important aspect to this piece of software is the ability to create Production Boards. Production boards look like this...

... but, as earlier stated, it's a bit complicated.

One of the drawbacks to this $15 app is that its makers didn't create proprietary code for this software to be a stand-alone, specifically-designed production app. They created a series a macros to work with Microsoft Excel... it's how they can afford to sell it so cheaply. But no worries, there's a manual and some FAQs, and once you get the hang of it, like everything else in life, it becomes second nature.

*(*soapbox warning*)* Now, industrious yet dishonest people out there may read through the above stuff and determine: "well, if these other more expensive apps are better, why not just surf over to one of those torrent or file sharing sites and get me one." Well, you could that; matter of fact, you could do that very easy. We all know how to. My only response to that is fine, do just that... and when your movie gets picked up and you start to get royalties/percentages of each unit sold, don't bitch when people start thinking the same way about downloading your film, and literally stealing money from you. *(*end*)*

STEP 1b: The Production Board
I. Mindlessly inputting important data.

Don't you hate the word 'data'? Like 'product' and 'content', I've always bristled at how it takes what could be brilliant ideas/thoughts/creations, and reduces it to a single distasteful term. In our case, data means scene information that's entered to create "strips".

Strips include:
-scene number
-slug line info (INT./EXT, LOCATION, TIME OF DAY)
-short description (John meets Alice at roller rink; chaos breaks out)
-number of pages (in 8ths)
-script day (for help in continuity, it's very useful to know where each scene exists in the
timeline reality of your movie. If you film takes place over a 7 day period, you have
to know what day you're shooting. This can help an actor's performance and aid in
wardrobe.)

So, you go through your horizontally-lined/scene-numbered script, page-by-page, scene-by-scene and enter this info into well-designed fields.

STEP 1b: The Production Board
II. Carefully inputting important data.

You're not done. These five pieces of info represent only part of the strip. Once they are inputted you then go the script once again, page-by-page, scene-by-scene. This time, however, you have to read every word you've written. Very carefully. What you're doing is determining what physical and logistical elements you're going to need when you eventually shoot these scenes.

We're talking:
-cast
-extras
-special effects
-sound elements
-props
-vehicles
-wardrobe
-special makeup/hair needs
-location details
-special equipment (dolly, jib, steadicam...etc)

As intimately as you knew your script before, you'll soon know it exponentially more.

And that's a good thing.

Because you have to plan every aspect of every element of every moment of your shoot. I don't like getting into the relative values/importance of the different stages of production, but one thing is sure... without proper pre-pro, you have little chance of having a successful production & post production experience.

So, we've created strips. If you've done it right, it's taken you hours, not minutes. And you're ready to start thinking about how and when you're going to start shooting this thing.

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School IV - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 3

2006-05-25T20:37:00.000-05:00

PRE PRODUCTION

When a movie is in our head and the words only exist on the page, we have the luxury of time. We revise; we rewrite. We noodle things around.

But when we start to extricate that movie from its residence in our mind's eye, it starts to become more real. More possible. It's not longer just a script, it's a potential movie. And then there's this natural inclination that many of us have -- this voice that screams in our head:

"Let's shoot."

It seems so tempting to just grab the camera and shoot that scene, that simple one in the gravel pit. All we need is the two lead actors. There isn't even any dialogue. How about we do it Saturday?

You probably shouldn't.

This is going to be your shot at a feature film and the last thing you want to do is have it implode. For many of us $1,500 is a lot of money. All it takes for your movie to fail is for others to see that you're not prepared. And if they don't have faith in you, you're sunk. These are the people who are going to be working for cold pizza and no money, with the hope that whatever you have up your sleeve will somehow benefit them. Not to speak too cynically, but there are really only two reasons that people will work on your film.

-For money. Not likely in this case. You're going to be VERY careful about whom you pay.
-For credit/experience/exposure/reciprocity. This is the crowd you want to surround yourself with.

There is a third reason, I guess:

-For friendship.

The talent level may be nil, though you'll need all the help you can get. But you won't be able to dip into this well too many times. As soon as your otherwise uninterested family and friends see how unbelievably tedious filmmaking can be, they'll be done with it.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Now is the time for action. We've been sitting in front of that computer for long enough, right?

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT

Actually, no... we're should probably stay in front of it a little longer. Or at least stay in the seated position.

The first thing you need to do is print out your script. The second thing you need to do is get it three hole punched.

******************MONEY SAVING HINT*******************

Every so often I'll pipe in with a little tip I've picked up about saving cash during filmmaking.

So, you need paper, right? Hopefully, you're employed and they need it, too. Now, I'm not condoing stealing, but mention to your boss that you're working on a film and have to print up some script pages. He/she either won't care and say 'whatever'. Or they'll be pretty interested and say, 'sure'. Very few will actually say, 'no.' Bosses KNOW people steal stuff, like paper when employees are printing up church bazaar flyers or fantasy baseball rosters. They'll appreciate that you're being up front with them.

To get your script 3-hole punched for free, bring your printed up script to a mom and pop printing shop. Don't go to Staples or Office Max. Mom and pop stores are independently run, and when you go in have them 3-hole punch your script, start a conversation with them. "Hey, do you guys have a 3-hole punch machine? I was hoping you could punch these 77 pages for me. It's a script for a movie I'm making". They'll be so interested in what/how you're making a movie in their little town, that they won't charge you for the punching. Seriously, it works every time.

*******************************

It's worth mentioning here that you should have been aiming for a certain length of your script. The target? 90 to 120 pages. A page of screenplay averages out to a minute of screen time. If your script is 58 pages long, you're not making a feature film -- you're making a short. Which is fine, unless you want to make a feature film... then it's not fine.

In the $1,500 independent film world 120 pages is probably pushing it. Even 90 may even be a bit long in the tooth. Our script for MAGDALENA'S BRAIN was about 82 pages long. Our rough cut of the movie? About 82 minutes. Seriously. It was weird. So let's revise that last paragraph.

The target? 75 to 90 pages.

So you now have 77 pages in front of you and should, as they sayin the industry,"break it down".
This is a multi-part process; the reason we do it is to create a budget, create a shooting schedule, determine our casting needs, determine the props we'll need, and figure out every location that's necessary.

Yeah, it does a lot. To start with, though... it's pretty easy...

STEP 1a: Break it down into 8ths

... and actually, pretty fun. Scriptwriting and filmmaking require every ounce of your attention during every second that your involved with it.

This doesn't.

Here's all you have to do: Get a ruler (actually any straight edge will do) and get a pencil. Then, draw eight equidistant horizontal lines across the paper. Start by drawing three lines that bisect each of the 3 holes punched on the left hand side. Then draw 2 lines in between the first and second holes, and again between the second and third holes.

It should look a little something like this:

Of course, there would be words all over the place, but you get the idea.

By breaking the script down to 8ths, we get manageble chunks of page count to work with. Each scene of the movie will be a certain length, measured in 8ths, with 1/8th being the shortest possible scene we'll have. When we go to the next part of breaking the script down, we'll use these measurements to create a shooting schedule that will give a per-day page count to shoot for. We'll know that on day 6, we have to shoot 6 2/3 pages to keep on schedule.

So, grab your pencil and go to town making those lines on each and every page.

STEP 1b: Scene Numbers

Next, you need to apply a scene number to each and every scene. For each slug line/scene heading you have that represents a location shift/change, you need to number it in ascending order. Write (or type) the scene number in both the left and right margins.

The first scene in your script is Scene 1, the last is Scene Whatever. How many scenes in a script varies wildly from screenplay to screenplay. MAGDALENA'S BRAIN had about 80 scenes. Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze's ADAPTATION has 123 scenes, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has 227 scenes.

So now, before you, you will have a marked up script with a bunch of horizontal lines going through it and a bunch of numbers to the left (and right) of each scene heading.

But, up until this point, we haven't really "broken down" anything. We've just gotten things ready. This next step is a very revealing one, and will get you more intimate with your script than you ever have been before.

(continued)

VERTIBLOG Film School III - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 2

2006-05-25T08:47:00.000-05:00

OK.

$1,500 isn't a lot of money. But, it IS enough to make a feature film.

But in all honesty, probably not a very good one.

People with established talent demand money. Good established actors, good established cinematographers, good established sound mixers, and so on. Working professionals usually work professionally. And a $1,500 feature film budget is not a professional environment.

That's not to say that you can get talent for free. You most certainly can. You probably just won't be able to get established talent for free.

So, that means you have to seek out talent and discover it. More on this later.

THE STORY

We'll get to the script in a sec. First a little Storytelling 101.

What's your story about?

I don't mean plot. I'm talking about premise.

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS isn't about a young FBI tracking down a serial killer with the help of another serial killer. Sure, that the plot. But it's not what the picture is really about. It's not what drives the characters or what drives the narrative. It's not what makes a film that won Best Picture, a film that is widely recognized a near-masterpiece, a film that in my opinion is one of the 20 best movies of all-time.

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is about a women trying to find her place in the world. It's about a young character, unsure of who is she is and what she's capable of; it's about how far she'll go to determine the answers to those questions... about what she's willing to reveal, what she's willing to risk. Clarice is struggling with her past, with where she came from, and trying to find out if she's "good enough" -- as a daughter, as a woman, as an FBI agent, and as a person.

What's your movie about?

Great films aren't about their plots. Great films are about something else.

THE SCRIPT

Remember... pragmatism. Be realistic.

Don't write in stunts. Don't cast children. No animals. No pyrotechnics. No car chases. Don't have dozens of extras. Don't have 12 principal speaking roles. Don't write long passages of dialogue that amateur actors will mess up take after take. Don't have a dozen key locations that are miles and miles apart from each other. Don't write 'walk and talks', which are a nightmare with continuity and retakes... for long dialogue scenes, keep people stationary. Keep it contemporary, set it today, not in 1970 or 1885.

What to do: Keep it simple: a small cast of characters. Few locations. Try to write a lot of scenes to take place outdoors. Outdoors, you don't have to light -- huge timesaver. However, outdoors you have to battle the sounds of the outdoors, so keep it far from the street, and not next to a construction site.

Also, you should take advantage of locations. You know somewhere cool. That old derelict train trestle back behind your uncle's property, overgrown and rusted, but an incredibly interesting looking structure. Or the cool empty silo that your friend's cousin knows about.

That place by the river.

The movie theater where your buddy works.

Rack your memory, and ask your friends and family if they know any unique, super cool locations. I guarantee you they will. And exploit them. Let them inspire you.

The scene you were going to shoot in your mom's kitchen is going to be a hell of a lot more interesting at the old abandoned amusement park way up near Mount Tom.

I'm working on a feature, DEAD DUDES, written and directed by my friend, Karl Konopka. Karl decided he wanted to make a zombie film. He loves zombies. The budget is probably around $750.

Karl wrote his script with the intent to shoot it, which I'm assuming is your intent, too. He wrote it with few characters, few locations, and cleverly had the whole film take place in a day (certainly helped with wardrobe and makeup continuity). That was all smart.

He did another smart thing. All of his characters, with only one exception, are between 19-25 years old. Why was that smart? Because he was able to hire students. The other role? He wrote it with his college professor in mind.

Then Karl did yet another smart thing. He decided he wanted to write about something.

The script's plot is about a couple of guys trying to avoid zombies while they're trying to avoid the mob. Simple. And if that was all that the movie was about, it could very easily fail; let's be honest, for $1,500 you're not gonna have much in the way of zombie action +/or that many cool mob shootouts.

Karl's idea was to use the zombie story to look at the values we hold dear in society today. What's important to us? And if faced with a zombie onslaught, would it still be important? Would we try to protect only ourselves, or would we choose to help others. Are a bunch of mindless zombies only interested in eating your brains that much different from a bunch of people only interested in saving themselves?

These are pretty good ideas. And they will separate his zombie movie from the countless other zombie movies out there that are about, well... zombies.

An aside here. Scriptwriting is a singular writing discipline. There is a very specific format that we must adhere to. There is wiggle room, sure, but all correctly formated scripts look pretty much the same. There's a lot of white space, a lot of things abbreviated and capitalized. I'm not going to go into screenplay format... there's a whole lot of other books that devote dozens and dozens of pages to that.

A wonderful, and widely recognized, reference book for screenplay formatting is "The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats: The Screenplay", by Judith H. Haag & Hillis R. Cole. Here's a handy link to it on Amazon.

Screenplay fomatting software is also a must. For years I just used Microsoft Word and really got to know the tab key. The industry standard is Final Draft. But that's going to cost you about $200.

Before you splurge, try either Simply Screenplay or Script Maker, two freeware apps that utilzise macros within Microsoft Word. They're certainly a little clunkier than Final Draft, but you save 20% of your budget!

Finally, if you haven't already: READ A LOT OF GOOD SCRIPTS. Go here now: SimplyScripts.com. This website compiles pretty much every script that id available for free electronicall on the web. Everything from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to THE BOONDOCK SAINTS to THE PACIFIER (though I'd only recommend the first). There are easily a few hundred scripts availbe for download, free of charge. Beware of transcripts, though... which are simply scripts that have beenn typed up verbatim by people that have way too much time on their hands.

PRE-PRODUCTION

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School II - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part I

2006-05-24T11:50:00.000-05:00

So you've got $1,500.

And you have a great script. Or at least a script that you think is great. Or at the very least, you have a script you hope is great.

And here's how you approached the script:

Pragmatically.

Now, pragmatism in a creative endeavor is a sticky wicket. You're already thinking in terms of logistics and money, and that seems to fly in the face of creating art. For me... that's OK. It's smart. Primarily because I maintain that filmmaking is first a craft. Sure, sometimes it's a process that may approach the level of art, but at its core it's a collaborative affair that requires the ideas, toolsets, and talent of other people.

You can't do it alone.

The auteur theory may suggest otherwise, but that's where we have to be honest with ourselves. We're not all complete artists. We're not all David Lynch. We're not all Jacques Tati. We're not all Stanley Kubrick. We're craftsmen (and perhaps artists) who strive to make something that other people will enjoy watching. That will have somehow gratify them from having watched it.

Whether our intent is to provoke, caution, enlighten, expose or just to entertain, we have to be aware of the restrictions that are placed upon us; that which opposes us.

And what opposes us are simply two things. The two most basic things that oppose just about everything in our lives: Time and Money. Everything else we can deal with.

When David Lynch was creating ERASERHEAD, he was driven. He was passionate. He gave up five years of his life, spent his own money as well as the money received from the American Film Institute; he lived to get his singular vision to the screen.

And he succeeded.

ERASERHEAD is a testament to his talent, to his (arguable) genius.

But here's the rub.

We're not David Lynch are we?

We don't have five years to make our movie. We're not willing to spend ALL of our money on our film. We're not willing to risk our families, our jobs, our livlihoods.

And my take on all of this is... we don't have to.

I teach screenwriting and independent filmmaking at local colleges, and my approach to the classes is not to teach exceptions. I admire David Lynch for what he did. Hell, I'm in awe of him and what he accomplished. But I feel it would be a disservice to encourage students to take the risks he took and suggest they could do the same and make their breakout film.

Lynch is an exception.

For every David Lynch, there are dozens, hundreds, who lose so much in trying to achieve their vision. They fail. They fail for any number of reasons, but primarily, I propose, there are four biggies.

To succeed as Lynch did, you need ambition... that we can manage; you need lots of talent... some of which can be learned, some must be -- for lack of better phrase -- God-given; you need luck, something we have little control over; and you need contacts.

To succeed as Lynch did, two out of the four won't do it. But maybe three will... if you happen to have one or more of the other components in spades. Say, if you're a genius. Or your dad owns a movie studio. Or you are so driven with ambition, that you absolutely won't say no -- in the face of failure, in the face of ruin, you persist. That may work if you also have, say, some luck and lots of talent.

My point is that the risk/reward factor is so unbelievably skewed in independent filmmaking, that trying to learn from these exceptions can be dangerous. And thus, not very smart.

Spike Lee could have ended up homeless if John Pierson hadn't taken a shine to SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT. Ambition and talent he had to spare. But without some luck and a few contacts, there would be no 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.

Lots of very talented filmmakers go down in flames, never to have their films screened, picked up, or even acknowledged outside of the cast/crew, their friends and family.

We're not David Lynch, we may not be Spike Lee, but we could certainly be one of those guys.

Anyway.

You have $1,500 and a really great script.

Let's get to work.

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School I - Prologue & The Budget

2006-05-23T18:28:00.000-05:00

Prologue

I love movies.

I love everything about them.

I still get excited sitting in a theater and watching the opening moments of the studio logo. I love discussing the potential of movie before seeing it; and if the movie lived up to that potential after having seen it. I love collecting movies. I love writing about movies. I love writing movies.

But most of all, I love making them.

Over the past 25 years of my life, I've made many. My first movies starred Green Lantern and perhaps a Super Powers figure of Black Lightening. They utilized stop motion, miniatures and other effects work. Some were :30 long, others maybe 5-10 minutes. One featured a ferret.

In high school I'd try and turn every research paper, project, or assignment into a video presentation of some kind. Some teachers went for it; others didn't.

I made my first feature film at the age of 15. It was called GOOD GUYS HAVE BIG GUNS. It was a noir drama starring myself as Detective Ronald Jakes. The screenplay was 80 pages long, written longhand; the finished film well over an hour. It was a rushed production, but it has its moments.

I went to Boston University's film school where I made my breakout film, THE HIDDEN ALIEN BLOB THING. It was chosen to show in the semester film festival, up against some graduate films even. I remember sitting through some pretty deadly films that night -- most about suicide, death personified and/or fugue states that resulted in madness.

Mine was about a hidden, alien, blob thing.

It starred my brother and my friend, Jeff. I used Hershey's syrup for blood because Hitch did it in PSYCHO.

I came out of BU with three feature length screenplays, typed this time, and the feeling that, yeah... I did want to make movies for a living.

So I did as much as I could to make it happen. I wrote several more screenplays, I made some more accomplished short films. I helped on crews for others filmmakers, and in turn asked them for help on mine.

I sold a screenplay that got made into a mediocre movie. I sold another one that never got made, had the option return to me, and one day plan on making myself.

Then I decided to get serious and make a feature; not just write a script for someone else, but to conceive, write, produce, direct and own myself. Well, not just by myself.

I hooked up with with my co-worker, Warren Amerman, and we wrote a script with the intention of actually shooting it. For $20,000. We made some grievous errors along the way. I'll get to them all later.

We also did many things right. The first was realizing that we had limited funds, and determining smart ways to craft a story around those lacking funds. The result was MAGDALENA'S BRAIN -- a movie with pretty much 4 actors and one location. We gave ourselves 14 days to shoot it.

All in all, I'm proud of what we accomplished... with several dozen caveats thrown in if you ever care to listen. But again, knowing what we had to spend, and knowing what the reality of our situation was, forced us to look at the process with very open eyes.

Though... we still didn't really know what we were doing.

I plan on expanding this pretentiously titled opening later. For now, let me get to what I want to say:

Budget Before Script

This is something I truly believe in IF -- and please note the 'if'; without it, the following means nothing -- IF you're making the movie yourself, independently, with little to no money. If you're writing a spec script in the hope of selling it outright, then you've got no worries. Write away, with as many locations and extras and stunts and animals and black holes as you want. If you're approaching your film guerilla style, then you've got to know what you're realistically capable of pulling off. And for that, you need to know how much money you're going to spend.

For starters... a caveat. You need a great script. Regardless of the talent of your cast and crew, the money you have to throw around, and that guy you know in L.A., you need a great script. Don't have one? Re-write it until you do.

Also, making a film with 'no' money is frankly impossible. Notwithstanding tape stock and the value of your time, as well as the time of others, you really need to at least feed your cast and crew. That's independent filmmaking 101... if you're asking a bunch of friends and family to help out with your effort, then you absolutely have to spring for some pizza. So, it's going to cost you something.

But how much?

Robert Rodriguez made EL MARIACHI for $7,000.
Richard Linklater made SLACKER for $23,000.
Ed Burns made THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN for $25,000.
Kevin Smith made CLERKS for $27,000.
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez made THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT for $35,000.
Darren Aronofsky made PI for $68,000.

I think we can agree that these are all pretty respectable films. And if we're serious about our craft, I think we can all find ourselves able to pull one of these off.

Warren Amerman and Marty Langford made MAGDALENA'S BRAIN for $30,000.

We got out of principal photography for about $20,000, and dropped another $10,000 or so through the labyrinth of post-production. Lots more on that later. Lots.

So.

Based on my experience, I feel comfortable talking about three different "price points". Up to $1,500, $10,000-$15,000, and $30,000-$50,000. I've been involved in feature films that figure into those three realms.

All are painful; all are euphoric.

Now, with some simple extrapolation, I also feel pretty comfortable discussing other "price points"; more money doesn't mean wholly different approaches. I feel I could make a $75,000 picture, or a $100,00 picture. Personally, though... I just don't think it's very smart. I'll get to that later. For now, let's stay in the lower strata of the independent film atmosphere, and because we're left to right/up and down learners, let's start at the bottom.

I should make it clear here that pretty much everything I'll be talking about from this point on could benefit a filmmaker working in any budget range. Much of what I'll be discussing are tried and true practices that filmmakers use when their budget is $125 million.

And now would be a good place to reiterate what I suggested earlier.

You need a great script.

I'm assuming you have one. And if you don't, I'm assuming you think you do. Because if you're about to spend ANY of your own money on a film, you had better be passionate about the story.

I'm also assuming you've made some short films. I'm assuming you've written something, or had something written for you, and you've picked up a camera, or had someone pick one up for you, and you've shot a story.

If you haven't made any short films. Make them. Make one and see how you like it. Write a 5 page script and shoot it in a day. That you can do for free. You know someone with a camera. You know someone with a cool location. You know someone who can mix Karo syrup and red food coloring. You know someone who knows Final Cut Pro or Premiere and would LOVE to edit together your stuff for their reel, or for practice.

If you love movies, you've already met the folks who can help you make them at this level.

Just be clear you understand what this level is.

It's the level where you can't pay anybody. The level where you surround yourself with people that will work for pizza because they love movies. The level where you work toward making something good enough to show people who have the gear and the skills you're going to need when you're putting that $1,500 feature together.

That's where you need to start.

So make a short. Make two. Make them until you've made one that you're proud of. Until you feel as though you've learned from mistakes you've made, and understand the process.

Make them until you know more than the people who are working for you for pizza know.

Then, get $1,500.

THE $1,500 MOVIE

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

FINAL MAGDALENA'S BRAIN artwork!

2006-05-23T09:14:00.000-05:00

What do you think?

We certainly like it. Moody, elegant and thematically approporaite for the movie. Be sure to check out our listing on the IMDB, and leave a comment if you've seen (and like) it!

The DVD master has been sent to the replicator and we couldn't be happier. The transfer is gorgeous, the extras are super-cool and the menu designs are striking. The best thing of all? We now have an FBI warning... we're legit.

The title is popping up all over the place on-line for pre-ordering from different suppliers, so be sure to get your copy reserved. Also, bombard Best Buy and Hollywood Video for the title, so they'll be sure to order extra copies when it's released!

On-Line Film School

2006-05-17T14:59:00.000-05:00

I don't know everything there is to know about filmmaking. I especially no nothing about the big-budget kind. But I do know some stuff that may be of value to young, independent, and relatively poor filmmakers. Not enough for a book, maybe.. but for a continuing series of blog entries? Sure, why not.

I'm going to use this space as a kind of thought organizer. As I think back on experiences I've had, information I've gathered, lessons I've learned, I'll post them here. Most will be centered around my experiences with ther feature film I co-wrote, produced and edited, MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. If you scroll down a wee bit, you'll see that that's all I've pretty much been talking about for a while. We've been picked up by a distributor, so that's cool. It's also a nice bookend to the film's story -- from that original idea to the day it comes out on DVD.

Right now, I'm just going to leave this introductory entry posted. Rather than just leap into a rambling diatribe, I'll at least try to form coherent, concise material for posting.

Who knows, six months from now I may be able to gather it all up and turn it into a book.

Getting there...

2006-05-03T14:39:00.000-05:00

We're still not quite thrilled with the font , but they've developed a striking back cover now. This image is actually an ad-slick that will go to retailers and wholesalers, but the DVD artwork will be nearly identical.

Nice, huh?

MAGDALENA'S BRAIN proposed artwork 2

2006-05-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

MAGDALENA'S BRAIN proposed artwork

2006-04-28T12:19:00.000-05:00

So Heretic is forwarding some comps for the DVD sleeve design of MAGDALENA'S BRAIN and I thought I'd post a couple representative images. There are several more examples they gave, which are variations of the general tone/themes you see here.

We are definitely favoring one of these, think one is OK, really don't like another, and fucking hate one.

See if you can guess.

Game 6

2006-04-24T13:45:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I claimed that a piece of video featuring a guy juggling to the Beatles "Golden Slumbers" was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen.

It was. 'Til now.

It seems some new guy out there took an 8-bit Nintendo system, the game RBI Baseball, and the original radio broadcast of the 1986 World Series, and re-created the final half inning of that series' infamous game 6. The Buckner Game.

See it here.

Takaski Miike's IMPRINT

2006-04-19T13:33:00.000-05:00

So a number of months ago, Showtime decided to put the kibosh on the television debut of Takashi Miike's IMPRINT, the maverick director's entry for the 13-part MASTERS OF HORROR series. Series creator Mick Garris claimed the segment was one of the most extreme things he had ever seen. Sure, Miike is a known whackjob, but presumably the episode had a script, and presumably the script was approved by someone at some point. What was all the fuss about?

Now, I certainly understand Showtime's position. As I've stated earlier, they are a corporation and serve a public interest. An interest that, if maintained, results in lots of money. If they cheese off their public, they lose money. So if they feared the episode would scare people into cancelling subscriptions, or put off viewers who may be considering subscribers, then they reserve the right to not air it.

Was their fear warranted?

I don't know... maybe. Probably not, though. I couldn't imagine that the fallout, if any, would've amounted to more than a late page mention in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

Ulitimately, the story was pretty silly, dealing with an American (hilariously hamming it up by Billy Drago who seemed to be channeling the dude that played Dr. Doom in Roger Corman's FANTASTIC FOUR MOVIE) who is returning to Japan to claim his love, a prostitute who had ended up on some weird island filled with riff-raff.

He meets up a with a nastily-scarred prostitute who tells a tale concerning Drago's mistress. Her story is steeped in deception, changing from one moment to the next for some reason. The ultimate truth is revealed... and then it gets pretty silly.

Now, the controversy stems, I imagine, from two different elements of the story. The first is an abortion sub-plot; the second, a doozy of a torture scene.

The abortion sub-plot is pretty ugly; dealing with the scarred hooker's memories as a child as she accompanied her mom to her mom's job -- which is aborting fetuses. Some of these are shown pretty graphically.

The torture scene is also pretty unsettling -- a three to four minute sequence that had me holding my remote control to my forehead, letting is dip into my line of sight every now and again. It was bloody awful. Nothing I intend to see again. I do have to admit, though, that there was a beauty to the repellant nature of the scene. It was staged elegantly and quietly.

I have to say that the entirety of the episode was either repellant or silly, though; if I owned a cable company, maybe I would have thought twice about airing it, too... though I'm sure I'da let it fly. The fact remains that the show is called MASTERS OF HORROR and it aired at 10:00 at night. They don't seem to have any qualms with airing things like WRONG TURN and the new TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Both pretty repellant themselves.

I was sorely hoping for an hour of transgression with this one. Something that would make me fear for what was going to happen next. I mean, yeah.. the torture sequence was interesting, but it struck me as empty in the context of the story.

So why was I watching it? Why should I watch it?

Just to see Billy Drago flailing his arms all over the place like some damn fool?

I guess that did kinda make it worth it.

Ambition, talent and luck... (oh my)

2006-04-18T08:15:00.000-05:00

To be successful in any venture, activity or vocation... the above three things are vital. In an earlier post, I wondered what the percentages were. Well, I've found the answer:

Ambition: 65%
Talent: 30%
Luck: 5 %

Actually.. I made that up. But I suspect I'm close.

I'm a writer & producer: professionally, in the corporate video world; amateur-ally, in the film world. And I live every day wanting to improve myself through my work (a telling statement that I'll just leave alone right now). With this question, this thing about percentages, comes a couple of secondary questions:

-Can any of the above three equal 0%
-How many of these can we control?

So... can any of the above equal zero? I maintain (with a slight qualifier on luck) they cannot. Some may say that Michael Bay (ARMAGEDDON, THE ROCK, PEARL HARBOR, THE ISLAND) is a talentless hack. He's not. Bay may not be an artist, but he knows what he's doing. To be successful one needs some talent.

Ambition? Absolutely. You cannot have zero ambition and be a successful filmmaker. Don't try arguing the point.

Luck? That one's arguable. Planets have to align somewhere down the line to get a project made. Somehow luck has to play a factor, right? Common sense tells me it does, but what the hell do I know. Also, since this is the only one we can't control (answering the second question), let's just agree it doesn't matter that much.

That leaves:

Talent

You either have it or you don't, some may say. I don't. Filmmaking is a craft, and as such can be learned. Sure, it's a heck of a lot easier if you have some splashes of genius in your noggin, but without it -- though you may never elevate the form past your own abilities/desires... or ambition to "learn"-- you can still craft a perfectly serviceable, perhaps even successful, film.

Ambition

This is the big one. You absolutely, without doubt, need ambition. Need it, need it, need it. If you have Fellini with no ambition, you have no 8 1/2. Gotta, gotta, gotta have it. You need to wake up every morning, and go to bed every night with that ambition in tact. You can't let it run your life, but you need to find that balance in your life in order to maintain it.

Anyway.

Luck... you may need a smidgen. Certainly don't count on it.
Talent... it makes things easier, and you need to develop SOME.
Ambition... lots. Oh, yeah... lots.

Just had to get that off my chest.

Thank God

2006-04-13T08:55:00.000-05:00

I checked all my cards, and they came up clean. You can never be too careful.

South Park & Miike...

2006-04-13T08:23:00.000-05:00

Though the last two episodes have been a little muddled in terms of their targeted "messages", the ambition and sheer storytelling has been wonderful. Dealing with the issues of first amendment rights regarding images of Muhammad, the small mindedness/fear/responsibility of television networks, and the meta-level-ness of Trey Parker's and Matt Stone's own feelings on Comedy Central's decision to pre-empt/censor episodes of their show, South Park has never been more relevant.

And that relevance, aided with 6 day production schedules for creation of each new South Park, has never been more impressive. Outside of LOST, SP is the only show I make every effort to catch.

That's my own South Park character creation above. Do you own at here.

******************************************

Regarding Miike, I just caught up with IZO, and also just got my hands on his MASTERS OF HORROR episode, IMPRINT. IZO was certainly a trip. Ultimately, it wore me down to the point of disinterest; I was certainly entranced for a while, but its structure was just a little too bonkers.

I'm really looking forward to IMPRINT, though it's notorius reputation has most likely set me up for a fall.

Roger Corman saved my life...

2006-04-05T08:06:00.000-05:00

... granted, in a rather roundabout way. But he nonetheless played a vital role in my career.

First things, though. Today is Corman's 80 birthday. To celebrate it, fellow blogger and Video Watchdog/Watchblog entrepeneur Tim Lucas has organized a "Blog-A-Thon" to commemorate the man. Check out his site, with links to all of the contributing bloggers here.

Here's my little bit. I'll make it short.

About 15 years ago, my friend Mark Sikes decided to leave Western MA (where I still reside) and head for Hollywood. With about $10,000 cash, and with no place/plans once he arrived, he set out shortly after the holidays.

And he got a job. As a cashier. At an arcade. Where he struggled for a year, giving out quarters, miserable I'm sure.

But he pounded, you know? He went from production company to production company looking for that break.

And guess where he found it.

Corman took on Mark as an unpaid intern. He answered phones, and I suspect (though he never admitted it to me) got coffee. Unpaid, he worked at Concorde/New Horizons for another year, still dishing out quarters at the arcade, but maybe not so miserable now.

After some time, Corman started paying him. First as an assistant casting director, then as an apprentice editor... then finally as a lead casting director. Which is what he still does today (though not for Corman); Mark is now a freelance casting director, workshop runner, showcase put-ter-on-er, and all around success.

Mark is responsible for the cast in Tobe Hooper's MORTUARY and THE TOOLBOX MURDERS, for Lisa Kudrow in IN THE HEAT OF PASSION II: UNFAITHFUL, for Fred Dryer and Ron Perlman in SHAKEDOWN, and for Amy Shelton-White in MAGDALENA'S BRAIN.

That last one's mine.

When we were casting MAG'S BRAIN 2 years ago and found ourselves coming up short in the Western MA acting scene for our title character. I contacted Mark for a little help. Two weeks later, we had 48 actresses on tape, reading our sides. Two years later, Heretic Films has picked up our movie, and it's coming out on DVD on July 25.

Thanks to Roger Corman.

That's me in Corman's office, by the way. Visiting Mark a few years ago, he snuck me into Roger's sanctuary and snapped this picture of me behind his desk.

Those things on the wall behind me? They're Academy Award Nomination certificates.

Glowing Screen Blog

2006-04-03T13:50:00.000-05:00

I've decided to transfer the updates/news items on MAGDALENA'S BRAIN to a blog format, rather than on the Glowing Screen website. The primary decision was so that I could do the updates myself.

Click on over here to check it out.

Sunday musings...

2006-04-02T14:31:00.000-05:00

What I'm Reading

---"The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke.

I've always loved Clarke, devoting an impressive shelf in my racks for his works. My favorite (as is many peoples) is "Childhood's End", but I'm quite enjoying this book. The story's bold premise (dealing with immortality, organized religion and the very elements that makes Man human) takes place a billion years in our future.

I've always bristled at the attention given certain contemporary works that take a futurist route in their storytelling. Many props are given to films like I, ROBOT, A.I., and MINORITY REPORT for the fact that they hired a think tank to mold ideas about the time period in which the movies are based. And though the results are sometimes interesting (I loved the virtual keyboard and the daffy "ball" contraption in MINORITY), we just have to look back at Clarke's prolific output for some really high thinking.

His far flung future is bursting with fabulous extrapolations... and he thought this stuff up in 1952!

Great read.

--- "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk.

I've been a fan since I picked up "Haunted", which had me very quickly backtracking his catalog. My favorite is probably "Fight Club", but "Choke" was wonderful reading. His perspective is unique, and in many ways shared by myself -- though, unlike me he can articulate his thoughts into sometimes profound words. His take on addiction, prevalent in most if not all of his works, is side-splittingly funny and depressingly spot-on.

If all you know of Chuck is the film version of "Fight Club", pick up something else by the man.

---"The Book of Renfield" by Tim Lucas

I enjoyed "Throat Sprockets" enough, but found his latest novel pretty unreadable. My interest in the book was based more on the author than the subject, and I suspect that hurt me. I know little of the various film and literary incarnations of Renfield, and found myself wholly uninterested in Lucas' take. Also, the unfriendly structure did nothing to suck me into his world. I love Lucas' work as a historian & journalist. I really liked his first novel. This one... not so much.

--- "All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder" by Frank Miller and Jim Lee

The first issue had me worried -- the last thing I was interested in was a ponderous re-telling of Dick Grayson's rise to superhero-dom. Subsequent issue have grabbed me, though. Miller is now responsible for Batman's single greatest dialogue stream:

"What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman."

What I'm Watching

--- A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

I finally caught up with Cronenberg's latest, and while I don't think it ranks in his top two or three, it's certainly one of the best films from the past year. I don't think enough has been acknowledged about Cronenberg's ability to elevate actors to career roles. Let's take a quick look:

James Woods in VIDEODROME
Christopher Walken in THE DEAD ZONE
Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY
Jeremy Irons in DEAD RINGERS
Peter Weller in NAKED LUNCH
James Spader in CRASH
Ralph Fiennes in SPIDER
Viggo Mortensen in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

If I was an actor, I'd be begging my agent to get me a meeting with Cronenberg for MAPS TO THE STARS.

--- "Lost"

The only drama I currently watch on television. After skipping all but the last episode of season one, I am incontravertibly, unabashedly, uncharacteristically hooked. I haven't made time to watch an hour of TV since the first season of THE WEST WING. Although...

--- "My Name is Earl" & "The Office"

... I guess this may count. These two shows add up to 44 minutes of Thursday evening bliss. Outside of South Park, the only half hour comedies I have watched in years.

What Else I'm Doing

-Writing my screenplay, LEAH'S DAD, about a vaccine that has been administered to most children for the past 30 years which turns out to have fatal side effects. The result is two generations of people who know within a week or so of when they are going to die. It makes for a scary world.

-Cleaning up my lawn. Snow came early last year and cut my fall clean up short.

-Finding myself buying too many DVDs. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, JOHN CARPENTER'S CIGARETTE BURNS, KING KONG, and for some reason, BASEKETBALL, in the last week.

-Washing my hands of MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. See post below.

-Enjoying Howard Stern on Sirius satellite radio. The show's never been better.

-Reading my following blogs:
Steve Bissette: Myrant
Tim Lucas: Video Watchblog
G. Michael Dobbs: Out of the Inkwell

Be sure to check out Bissette's blog for a sweet little write up on me, my movies, and my blog. Thanks, boy.

Out Of My Hands

2006-03-30T11:34:00.000-05:00

It's out of my hands now.

All of the deliverables for the upcoming national release of MAGDALENA'S BRAIN are out the door. Well... there's still some paperwork, releases and stuff. But all of the DVD content is done. I have to admit it was fun going back into the movie and pulling some material. It was neat to go through raw tapes and find some bit I'd never seen or forgotten.

Below find a list of the extras that will be on the disc:

-Scene specific commentary with writers, producer and director, Marty Langford and Warren Amerman.

-3 behind the scenes featurettes:
-“Just Cool It With The Bowling”
-“The Drilling of Andrew”
-“The Chase”

-“The Players” Music Video

-“A Day in the Life…” Video Diary

-4 Deleted Scenes:
-“Cosmo and Cosmo”
-“Park Nailing”
-“Pulling the Wings off Flies”
-“Arthur Whacking: Aftermath”

Some of these extras are quite substantial, while others are piddling affairs. The commentary is pretty good, and a couple of the deleted scenes are interseting. Atom and Jim's featurettes and docus are all kick ass.

July 25th can't come quickly enough.

Golden Slumbers

2006-03-23T09:35:00.000-05:00

Wow.

Surfing around and caught a look at this amazing clip on IFILM. Chris Bliss puts on the single most amazing piece of juggling I have ever seen. Beautiful.

Check out the clip named, "The Big Finale" on his webpage here: http://www.chrisbliss.com/videopresskit.html

Barry Bonds

2006-03-16T16:24:00.000-05:00

BONDS ADMITS STEROID USE; QUITS BASEBALL

(AP)

SANFRANSISCO, Ca -- In a stunning announcement today, San Fransisco left fielder Barry Bonds came clean. In an early morning press conference, ostensibly scheduled to discuss the aging slugger's knee problems, Bonds surprised the room, and the world, with the admission.

"It's true. I used. I'm using... still am, actually. The book, they got it right. For the most part they got it right," Bonds stated, his eyes downcast; his shoulders slumped.

Rampant speculation, most recently brought to a fever pitch with the impending publication of "Game of Shadows" co-authored by San Fransisco Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, has finally led to conclusive proof. From the Giant's own mouth.

"I couldn't keep away from the book, from the truth. It's easy to lie. I've gotten real good at it," Bonds continued at 9:14am this morning, "...real good."

Bonds said that on Thursday of last week, he began "scanning" the book excerpt in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated.

"I just thought I'd see what they had on me, you know? And my eyes... as they looked at the pages, at the dates, at the names... it was clear that they had me.... and my eyes... I just broke down. I thought about the work I'd have to do, the heavy lifting in trying to talk my way out of it. And I thought about the truth... about telling the truth... and man, it looked so much easier to do that. To tell the truth."

And with that, Bonds announced his retirement, and in taking potential pressure away from baseball commissioner Bud Selig, he finished his brief statement with, "so I'm done. I retire. And the numbers, the records... I don't want 'em. Ignore me, disregard me... at the very least use that asterisk. Because I cheated. I cheated. And it's not fair to baseball, to the fans... to let that stand."

He then rose from the table, ignoring the flurry of questions from reporters, and started to walk off stage.

He stopped, though, and returned to microphone. Leaning in he finished:

"I'm sorry."

And then, he walked off for good.

A short list of people I hate...

2006-03-14T15:44:00.000-05:00

-Eli Roth
-Richard Kelly
-Drew McWeeny ("Moriarty" of AICN fame, screenwriter for Showtime's"Masters of Horror"
-Quentin Tarantino
-Kevin Smith

Why do I hate them? Simple.

They're doing it.

It. What I want to be doing. And with the possible exception of Tarantino, I think I could pretty much do it better than them. But they've got that thing, right? That combination of talent, luck, ambition and fearlessness that one needs to get to to be where they are. (That's almost three consecutive 'to's... a grammatical impossibilty!).

I'd love to know what that equation is, what the percentage of ambition vs. talent; luck vs. fearlessness is. I was recently reading the new book The Mind of the Modern Moviemaker, and I found myself alternating between resenting and being impressed with the various ways in which these disparate filmmakers conceived, executed and shilled their respective films. One thing is clear (to me, anyway): Brett Ratner is an absolute ass, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are my heroes, the Weitz brothers have got their shit together, I feel sorry for McG, and Richard Kelly is the luckiest guy in the world. It's a fascinating and quick read w/ a pretty amazing range of modern moviemakers.

I'm constantly questioning my own attributes as a filmmaker... am I good enough, prolific enough, ambitious enough... ? The truth of the matter though -- and I'm working on this, believe me -- is that I don't and may never have the answers to the these questions. I guess if the answers are yes, I'll become a successful and self-sufficient filmmaker; and if the answers are no, I won't. I suspect the answer is neither, and I've just got to come to terms with that... with who I am and what kind of tools I have. I'm definitely competent. I'm definitely smart. And I'm definitely somewhat ambitious. But smart, competent, somewhat ambitious filmmakers ain't gonna set the world on fire.

What I'm just beginning to realize is that these guys both got lucky and took huge risks... risks I don't think I'm willing to take.

That's OK.

I'm sure they have it pretty good now, but the work and sacrifices they made to get to where they are constitute an effort that's either not within me, or an effort that's simply not worth it to me. Again, that's OK. Or rather I should say, I'm getting to the place where it will be OK.

And that's OK.

I'm not willing to give up my lifelong dream of being a successful filmmaker. But I certainly am willing to compromise a bit on the scope of that success if I can continue to be a good husband, a good father, a good brother, a good son, and still be a pretty good person.

I don't really hate the guys above. In fact, I kinda like them, their work, and their successes. Good for them, right?

And good for me for starting to accept that.

I love the sound of my own voice...

2006-03-13T15:51:00.000-05:00

This is cool. As I write this, I'm listening to the audio commentary track for our film, MAGDALENA'S BRAIN.

Commentary tracks fascinate and frustrate me. I'm in love with the idea of them, but in reality, I've only listened to three of them: THE EVIL DEAD 2, RUNNING TIME, and... hmmm, maybe there's only two -- I've always told people that there's three, I'll have to rethink that. And you'll notice that both of those movies feature Bruce Campbell, the king of the commentary. Me? Not so much. Though, to be honest, I'm kind of digging our first time out.

We tried to keep the track interesting, with a minimum of irritating little personal stories, and as I listen 48 minutes into the track, we were kind of successful. We wanted to treat it as an informative track for burgeoning filmmakers, but also a somewhat anecdodal one to keep it interesting. I think we pulled it off.

On July 25, you'll be able to judge yourself.

F NBC

2006-03-02T20:42:00.000-05:00

Ideas.

Remember that thing I said about always wanting to reinvent a genre. ALways wanting a unique idea upon which to develop story. About how important it is that an idea be new, be interesting?

NBC
Series Premiere
March 22, 2006
HEIST

Goddamnit.

Ideas 2: The Process

2006-02-25T11:46:00.000-05:00

Again.. ideas. They're all over the place, all the time.

Some "what if"s:
"What if my boss's wife asked me to artificially inseminate her?"
"What if I came into possession of information that could take down the president, and nobody knew I had it?"
"What if I discovered a line of covert code in Internet Explorer that severely violated privacy law."
"What if bought a used book at a flea market and found within the pages..." ... what? It could be anything, couldn't it? A forgotton handwritten Einstein theory. A Lennon song. A recipe for cooking human flesh that gets you little curious. There's three movies right there. Well, actually, three movie ideas. Now all we have to do is craft a story around said idea.

That's what I've been doing. Last Friday I charged myself with developing an idea into a workable story that will subsequently be written into a script.

I've made progress.

It all started with a heist. The idea. I wanted to write a heist movie. So did my filmmaking partner Warren, we both love the idea of, and the successful execution of, good heist movies.

So we each jotted down thoughts and ideas, character sketches and act breakdowns... and, as usual, we both came up with completely different approaches; completely different tones. That's OK. Luckily we both have relatively small egos (his almost non-existent), and we both just want a good story. (Of course I think mine is better than his and he thinks his is better than mine:)

Anyway.

This stage of the process is painful. I get hung up on details sometimes, unable to grasp the larger story. Tone is vital here. A comedy? A black comedy? A straight drama with comic undertones? Overtones? You also don't want "plot" to override the "premise". That is to say, what is the story "about"? Not what's going on in the plot, but rather, what is the story about. Why are you, the audience, being told this story? What is the story's intent?

So, I continue to work through the story. A heist movie. Easy, right? A bunch of guys with different skills get together and pull off an intricately planned robbery. Maybe they get away with it. Maybe they get caught. Maybe there's a double cross (well, there's usualy a double-cross, ). Or maybe there's not.

The problem that I often run into is that I want to re-invent the genre. There's so many heist movies out there and I'm afraid of just doing the same old thing. But it's all been done, right? I just have to figure out a way to do it better. Or at least... different.

The Onion.

2006-02-23T12:13:00.000-05:00

I love the Onion. The fake newspaper & on-line site with all those fake news stories and fake headlines? Brilliant.

They're political, they're irreverant. And their satirical line protects them from serious reprecussions from the far right, far left, religious groups, minorities...etc. They do that thing... that thing that is so hard to do. To be funnily offensive. To offend is easy... use the "N" word and see. Now try crafting a joke using the "N" word that all (or at least most) find funny... and now you're on to something. This past week's on-line ONION had some wonderful nuggest. Figured I'd share some:

"Kobe Bryant Named as 2008 Olympic Basketball Team"
"Latest Bin Laden Tape For Completists Only"
"Greztky: I did not bet on baseball"
"Voice Of The Red Sox Ends 86-Year Living Streak"

There's more. They update every Tuesday afternoon:" http://www.theonion.com/content/index

New Blog Name. New Blog Logo.

2006-02-23T11:07:00.000-05:00

Nice.

Ideas

2006-02-17T19:42:00.000-05:00

I like ideas. Love 'em, actually. And I get a lot of them. Some are OK; some pretty good; others suck, and some, in those rare instances, are really, really good.

My ideas are usually "movie ideas" -- ideas that I think could make a good film. "There was this guy..." or "imagine if [this] were to happen." But the problem with these ideas is that they're usually... well, they're usually pretty shallow. An idea is not a story. It's just an idea.

Developing the idea... that's the problem. Because that's where the work is.

Example:
I love heist movies and so does my filmmaking partner Warren. We both figured we should come up with an idea and make one (we're well on our way to wanting to experience our sophmore slump after our first feature, MAGDALENA'S BRAIN). A while ago I had come up with what i thought was an interesting idea for a heist film. And more recently Warren came up with another idea for a heist film. Both of them were, and are, perfectly acceptable ideas.

But now what? Well, we know exactly what. We have to develop these ideas. And that's the hard part.

For a while now, after the completion of MAGDALENA'S BRAIN, I haven't wanted to do any of the hard work. But that's got to change.

So my first idea, my heist idea. I'm going to start developing it. Work on a treatment. Get some beats down. And I'm going to have something to show you.

By Monday.

My promise to you.

Piracy. My Take.

2006-02-15T10:37:00.000-05:00

I own lots of bootlegs. I buy them all the time. Once a year I head on down to the Chiller Show and pick up plenty of stuff that's clearly illegal. Crappy color copied artwork, discs inside with no printing. DVD dupes made from TV broadcasts, old out-of-print DVDs, sometimes even VHS. Bootlegs. Pirated material. No doubt about it.

And I have this little thing, this little mechanism... this little Jiminy Cricket in my head that tells me that what I'm doing is OK. Ethically, morally, I'm OK. Legally... no freaking way, but with those other two (which are more important to me anyway), I'm just fine.

Kind of.

So how do I do it? This rationalization? This self-delusion?

Well, here's how:

-I don't buy bootlegs of film available domestically
-I almost never buy bootlegs of films available internationally*
-If legit versions come out for films I own boots of, I usually buy them**
-I don't bootleg for profit

* I have a multi-region player, so I'm able to play PAL discs and DVD released in other regions. BUT, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've done this, I have bought a DVD-R of a film that was legitimately available in another country. Case in Point: NIGHT WATCH, a Russian film available in legit releases... a pricey 3-disc set if memory serves, and I knowingly bought a dupe for $5 at the last Chiller. Now, bear in mind that this film has NOT been released domestically in any way, shape or form, and I will purchase the Region 1 DVD when it is released. (However, if the movie sucked, I wouldn't)

**See * above. If the movie sucks, I won't re-buy.

In addition:

-I've never downloaded a song(s) & burned a CD. However, I have downloaded illegal music on my computer and listened to it. This was in the Napster heyday. But I've since deleted all of it (honestly); and most of it was stuff I already owned and liked.

Anyway, my point here is that each and every time I've engaged in shady behavior regarding illegal copies of movies, I've thoughtfully considered what it is I'm doing.

Another case in point: at the last Chiller show I had wanted to pick up a copy of a movie called MURDER SET-PIECES. I had read quite a bit about it, and even went so far as to include it on my little list (kept in rear left pocket). It is a little independent film, self-financed that has received a respectable little distribution deal. Well, it was ALL over the show -- legit release: $35-$40; bootleg release: $5-$15. I didn't buy it. If the legit release was $15, I would have bought it in a second. If the legit release was $20, I probably would have bought ite. But $35 was a little pricey for me. So, I passed.

I know piracy is wrong. I know to actively engage in supporting a pirate is wrong.

And I know that what I do is wrong, no matter what excuses I come up with.

I just try to be honest with myself in what I'm doing.

I try not to hurt the little guy.

But I do sometimes convince myself that it's OK to infinitesimley hurt the big guys.

And I guess I can sleep soundly knowing that.

Getting in touch with the past

2006-02-14T10:26:00.000-05:00

My buddy Jim McCombe has started a forum for those of us that graduated from ELHS in '87. Good for him. I've only kept in touch with 3-4 people from the old school, but it's certainly interesting to see what others are up to.

Anyway, it's an active little board. Find it at; http://elhs87.com/index.php

Korean Film Crisis?

2006-02-14T09:16:00.000-05:00

I'll admit to knowing very little about the Asian film production/distribution pipeline, but my knee-jerk reaction to the news item below is that it is a very bad thing. The main reason for my reaction is the reaction of other, much smarter in-the-know people. Like the very filmmakers that this issue is affecting.

It appears that Korea has a national edict in place, a quota, that demands Korean theaters show Korean films for 146 days of the year. That number now looks to be lowered by half. Not surprisingly, the push for the change is coming from the US, apparently so that we can saturate the Korean marketplace with more of our films.

I'd certain hate to see BILLY MADISON supplant OLD BOY. Very bad thing.

Korean Cinema at a Crossroads

South Korean government drops screentime quota for domestic films "Oldboy" director and star return Cultural Merit medals to Korean government in protest

LOS ANGELES — Feb. 1, 2006 — The Korean government is betting that homegrown cinema will continue to flourish without the safety of a screen quota system that has protected the Korean domestic film industry since 1966. Local actors, directors and moviegoers aren’t quite so optimistic and are protesting their displeasure with significant public gestures.Established to help the Korean film market grow from its humble beginnings into the worldwide cinematic hotbed it is today, the quota requires Korean cinemas to show Korean films for 146 days of the year. Starting July 1st, that number will be reduced to 73. The reduction had been demanded for years by the US government as a key condition for free trade negotiations, but its implementation has not been well received by many, including some of the biggest filmmaking names in Korean cinema.“The government's decision to cut the quotas is equivalent to giving up our culture,'' said Choi Min Sik, star of Crying Fist, Lady Vengeance and the immensely popular Korean film Oldboy.Choi recently returned his Cultural Merit medal, a prestigious award which honors Korean artists, to protest the quota system. “The medal was personally my pride and honor,'' Choi told reporters in Seoul. “Now it is a symbol of the government's betrayal. I don't need a medal from a country that chooses to stamp on our own cultural rights.''In addition to Choi, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance director Park Chanwook, currently preparing to promote his latest film Lady Vengeance at the Berlin Film Festival, also returned his medal and commented that he will voice his concerns further at the festival. Tae Guk Gi and The Coast Guard star Jang Dong-gun has also come forward to voice his opposition.Korean Filmmakers and artists are not the only ones expressing their displeasure. A group of South Korean lawmakers are currently seeking legislation to maintain the country's current quota for the screening of domestic movies, claiming the government's compromise deal with the United States is humiliating.Korean cinema has witnessed unheralded success the world over in recent years. A Tale of Two Sisters was one of the ten highest-grossing horror films worldwide in 2004. Oldboy received the Grand Prize of the Jury at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Korean cinema has made giant crossroads into America on the success of the Asian horror genre as well as the unique style of its filmmakers. "This is not a fight only for ourselves,” Choi told reporters. “We are fighting for living between the Korean and American movies and cultures. Oldboy would not have existed without the screening quota.”

Lazy.........

2006-02-13T13:28:00.000-05:00

Damn... been almost two weeks since a post; unforgivable. Here I am creating a blog to write more, and I'm slacking off after only a month or so.

I'm going to post some quickie thoughts on several happenings to catch up with some business.

BLIZZARD

I'd say about 15-18 inches fell throughout the day yesterday, and it was a ball. Stayed in all day (except for a middle-of-the-blizzrd McDonalds run for lunch) -- read a little, watched some Olympics, played with the kids. All in all a great day.

NIGHTWATCH

I finally caught up with the fabulous Russian fantasy, NIGHTWATCH (Russian title, NOCHNOY DOZOR), directed by Timur Bekmambetov. I watched a bootleg DVD purchased at the Chiller Show a couple of weeks ago (I know, I know... I have a very strict moral code concerning "pirated" material. It's something I'll write up at some point.), planning on just sampling the quality of the print, but after mere seconds I was hooked, pausing only once for some orange Hi-C.

The film deals with the forces of Light and Dark; warring factions that centuries ago had established a truce. These two sets of "Others" exist in our world -- one set, the Dark, are referred to as "vampires"; the other, The Light, are apparently a policing force of some kind, keeping these vampires in check. Because of some vague events concerning the coming of age of a 12 year old boy and some "curse" a woman has let loose in the world, the truce starts to break down and the war begins anew.

Narratively, the movie is an interesting mess, made more problematic by the langauge and cultural barrier. Specifically, the movie looks so beautiful that I often found myself admiring the imagery while giving short shrift to the subs. The disc may have had a dubbing option (the menus are in indecipherable Russian), but that probably would have distracted me even more.

The photo above is from a wonderful sequence where the protagonist is struggling to find a vampire's reflection while stumbling around an old (beautifully set decorated) warehouse.

It's possible that I would have a lesser opinion if NIGHT WATCH were a domestic film, but for $4 million and its Russian origins, it's a serious piece of work deserving of a world wide audience.

THE WESTERN MASS HORROR SHOW

So, I helped out on some short films. It's something I do a lot of, probably too much. But about a year ago I realized that I had access to lots of gear and resources, and I had a handful of friends who had always wanted to make some horror shorts. There was a Fangoria Blood Drive film contest coming up, so I had my buds write some scripts and gave them an opportunity to direct a short film. The result was three pretty good little flicks. None of which were chosen for the contest, but we do own them and would like them to find an audience. So, I thought I'd play around with Photoshop and design a sleeve, and play around with DVD Studio Pro and author a DVD, and just kind of put it out there; maybe up on the Glowing Screen website or Jeff's Undertaker's Lounge site. See what happens.

I also decided to include a short film another one of my filmmaking buddies had created, as well as a horror short I shot in college that has a certain shlocky charm. I'll try to find an evening in the next weekor so to author the DVD. Should be fun. The films are:

COVERED IN BLOOD by karl Konopka
RAW MATERIAL by Mike Weaver
NOW SHOWING by Jeff Allard
WAXING SOULS by Brian Jackson & Scott Kittredge
THE HIDDEN ALIEN BLOB THING by Marty Langford

They probably won't ever be at a store near you, but they'll be out there somewhere... and when they are I'll let you know about them here.

WALLACE AND GROMIT in THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT

Wonderful viewing, especially with the kids. A superlative family film made by fine artists and craftsmen working at the top of their game. A precision of execution is easily matched by the perfection of performance, set design, score and direction. I can't say enough about how much I, and my family, enjoyed this film.

Chillin'

2006-02-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

I love a good passion. I happen to have, maybe... three. Actually, maybe just two. Regardless, I know I have them. They are things I fixate over. Things that obsess me. Things I anticipate doing, then do, then bask in having done them. One of these things (though actually, to the letter of the law here, this thing itself is not so much a passion, simply a vessel through which my passion manifests itself)... one of these things is the horror movie convention. Be it the Chiller Show or the Fangoria Show (the only East Coast shows I frequent, though the October Rock-n-Shock show in Worcester is one to keep an eye on), I love a good horror convention.

I've been going to either New York or New Jersey now for 18 years. Most years I only hit the January show, though I've been known to double dip. For the first, oh... 15-16 years, I was, unabashedly, a fanboy and a fanboy only. These last couple of years, though... these last couple of years, I'm a filmmaker. Having written, produced, and/or directed approximately 10 short films and 2 feature films (2 and a half, actually), I'm legit. And with this newfound cache, the convention circuit has been a whole new game. I feel like a valid equal with the likes of the magazine publishers, distributors, filmmakers, and such... even the actors, be them -C, -B... haven't met an -A, yet.

This past show featured conversations with the likes of Fangoria's Michael Gingold, Pro-wrestling's Captain Lou Albano, Porn's own Marilyn Chambers, and TV actor (most recently of LOST), Danny Roebuck (you'd know him if you saw him). My favorite new friend, though, would be fellow Heretic filmmaker, Alan Rowe Kelly, a nearly 6 foot tall, red wig wearing, cross dressing charmer of a dude. From New Jersey, Alan had lots to say about our film's new distributor, the local Northeast film scene, and lots more.

I feel bad for people with no passions. There's a wonderful line in Charlie Kaufman's ADAPTATION script, spoken by Meryl Streep's Susan Orlean: "I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion. I want to know how it feel to care about something passionately." People, sure... we are all passionate about our husbands, our wives, our lovers and our friends. But someTHING? I'm glad I am.

MPAA accused of Piracy

2006-01-25T10:51:00.000-05:00

Hysterical.

A man makes a movie about the MPAA. About the system, and specifically about the NC-17 rating.

The movies gets rated NC-17 by the board.

Now, it turns out, the MPAA made an illegal copy of the movie. And the director is calling them out for piracy.

Generally speaking, I very much like the idea of the industry policing itself by a board that applies "recommended" guidelines for parents. I think that's important. Just as I think it's important for the video game industry. And for television.

Specifically speaking, I think the MPAA's policies are bad for film. The arguments against them are varied and well-documented, and my opinion pretty much jibes with most people's arguments, so I won't list them here. But I think it's important to have a system in place that alerts parents to the content of movies.

I pretty much think that the existing system is very, very close to working. I LIKE the different ratings G, PG, PG-13, R & NC-17. As a parent of three, I'm very comfortable with those warnings. But that's all they should be. Warnings. For parents.

I believe there should be movies with unbelievably explicit gore and rampant nudity, swearing out the ass... hell, throw some double anal in there. I don't care. Just rate it NC-17 and be done with it. Don't treat the bigger studios differently than the little guys; don't hold grudges against filmmakers; don't make up your board with hand-chosen members with agendas; don't let MORALITY play into the decisions you make. A board like this needs to be objective and open with their decisions. Don't hide behind your decisions.

Anyway. Can't wait to see THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED. Should be good stuff.

Writing

2006-01-22T19:00:00.000-05:00

My daughter is sitting on my lap. Eating apples and cinnamon. I can't make it like my wife can. As I was approaching the office door, clearly to write, my daughter, as always, pipes up: "Can I play on the computer?" (knowing damn well I don't want her to). She then sits on my lap, my Amy, as I write, and busies herself with something. Eventually, I relent, and connect to Barbie or Nick or some other site that has caught her interest. I leave, she plays. I return. And if she's already off the computer and see's me walking in the direction of the office?

Yup.

So, I'll take a little break here. Save a draft; just return later. I want to talk about writing. I want to talk about FIGHT CLUB and "Fight Club" and I want to talk about Chuck Palahniuk.

(LATER)

Ah. Much better. Snuck around her.

Chuck Palahniuk.

I , like most, was introduced to Palahniuk through Jim Uhls' script and David Fincher's translation of said script in the movie FIGHT CLUB. Super film, with the right combination of subversiveness, storytelling saavy and commercial appeal to even get made in the first place. Uhls did a brilliant job in adapting Palahniuk 's work, even improving it in some areas -- most notabley the "end" project of Project Mayhem. Uhls was committed to the themes and tone of the book, as well to the general plot, and his adaptation is one of the most successful book-to-film movies in recent history.

I love Palahniuk's writing. His sentence structure, his... timing. Most importantly, especially in his non-fiction, I love his honesty, his fearlessness. I just finished "Stranger Than Fiction", a collection of essays, editorials and insights published last year. Palahniuk is afraid of nothing. His words sear. What could be offensive is poetic. What could be incendiary, is, but is also calmly dour. He writes of things beautiful and things ugly on the same terms, the same plane. Defecation and ejaculation are one in the same; spit is the same thing that's swapped in kissing and sprayed in disgust.. and they both emanate from a wound in the face.

I don't know if I have a style. A consistent voice. The vast, vast majority of my writing in the last 10 years have been in screenplay form... a form whose strength is the short, declarative sentence; in writing exactly WHAT you see, and exactly HOW you see it. It's an inherently compromised form of creative expression. It's not a bad thing, mind you, the screenplay form. Just not the same as prose. Not as elegant. But it's one of the only ways I know to tell a story.

Heading to Chiller

2006-01-22T10:47:00.000-05:00

This coming weekend, I'll be heading down to Secaucus, NJ for the annual Chiller Theater show. This year there will be six of us, up two from the last couple of years. It started out with just my brother and I 18 years ago, with Pal Jeff joining the troupe a couple of years after that. I've been every year since, sometimes twice a year, to either a Fangoria Con or a Chiller Theater show. And outside of maybe Christmas, it what I look forward to most in any given year.

Horror Cons are a tough thing to explain to people, and for years I avoided it. My usual description used to be a "film convention where I can meet other filmmakers and discuss the craft." In reality, and this is something I embrace now, it's a geek-fest. An opportunity to buy bootleg DVDs, meet/see famous people, and be surrounded by hundreds of like-minded people who love horror movies and don't hide it. At all. Yes, they dress up like zombies. Yes, they dress up like vampires. Most wear black t-shirts with images from THE EVIL DEAD, THE BEYOND, DR.BUTCHER MD, or THE DEADLY SPAWN. Then there's the women -- the Scream Queens, and the Fake Scream Queens hired by guys to help sell their stuff. They know many horror movie fans are hopeless geeks who will drop down ten bucks for a Zacherly magazine if a hottie with her ass hanging out is selling it. Why not? Who's it hurt?

Who's it hurt? That, I think, is a universal question that should be asked of everything. Morality should be dictated by the answer. The more honest, pragmatic and objective the answer, the more clear the morality.

Back to Chiller. Absolutely can't wait. If you're there, I'll be one of the square looking guys in blue jeans and a polo shirt or sweater. I did buy a DEADLY SPAWN t-shirt last year, but I'm too embarrased to wear it.

Taboo

2006-01-19T10:12:00.000-05:00

Takeshi Miike, scandalous (to Western audiences anyway), prolific, and altogether gonzo Japanese filmmaker, has just had his Showtime Channel MASTERS OF HORROR episode, "Imprint" relegated to DVD instead of the higher profile, Friday night broadcast originally scheduled for the end of this month.

According to Dave Kehr at the NY Times (link at bottom), the episode, dealing with issues too extreme for the network, has been handed over to DVD distributor Anchor Bay, and will be released at some point in the future to an audience willing to spend their dough knowing what they're in for.

Makes sense, I guess... and I really don't have a problem with Showtime for their decision. I assume some will attack them for their "cowardly" move, but they're a corporation, an entity that exists to serve a wide audience, and because of their fears about offending said audience, they said, "no thanks". Perfectly within their right.

I'm more interested in the process that Showtime went through to reach their decision. It appears as though the questionable elements deal with abortion -- a very touchy subject... philosophically, religiously, politically loaded, abortion is one of those things. Nobody likes to discuss it, unless you're an activist, and nobody, but nobody, but nobody likes to SEE it (which I've gleaned Miike has charged his audience to do). I know I certainly would rather not.

It's taboo.

Taboos fascinate me. I'm fascinated by things that people are steadfast in their determination not to see, discuss, hear about, learn about, or otherwise be presented with and then have to deal with. Rape is another one. Infanticide still another. Cannibalism, I guess. Now, please don't misunderstand, I'M not interested in these things, either. I am not interested in forcible sex. I am not interested in parents killing their children. I am not interested in people eating other people. I think we can all agree this is all nasty, ugly stuff.

I AM, however, interested in things that nobody likes to deal with.

It's a reason I like horror movies so much.

I think there are very valid, potentially interesting things that can be addressed concerning taboo subjects. I believe everything should be open to discussion, to debate.

If Miike is making a point, or asking a question, or revealing an insight about abortion, and if SHOWING one graphically adds to that point/question/insight, then more power to him, and it's really a shame we're too small-minded as a society to deal with it. Transgression in art is good.

If he's just exploiting a gory procedure and wallowing in grue to sicken. Then count me out. I got better things to do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/arts/television/19horr.html

Heretic Films presents...

2006-01-18T15:24:00.000-05:00

...MAGDALENA'S BRAIN

I'm going to officially announce it right here. Right now. We have a distributor. The final contract arrived this morning and, barring any unforseen crapola, we are now in bed with Heretic Films. You may not have heard about them, I sure as hell hadn't, but once I'd been made aware of them, some research yielded the fact that they have pretty good saturation. I've found several copies of several of their titles at two of my local Best Buys and two of my local Hollywood Videos. Plus they're all over the place on Amazon and Netflix.

I feel pretty good about them.

The downside is that it's not a particularly good deal, moolah-wise. In fact, we get no advance and don't see a penny until they recoup their marketing, packaging and replication costs. There's a distinct possibility that we will NEVER see any money, but then again, we may.

Warren and I agreed months ago that the money we invested was spent long ago, and the important thing was getting it "out there". With Heretic, we're sure we can do just that. If we DO see money, outstanding. If we don't, at least I can hang around in Hollywood Video and Best Buy and speak into a cell phone loud enough for others to hear, "That movie I wrote and produced... they've got three of them here. Man, it's cool to be a filmmaker." And then I can sideways glance at all of the adoring shoppers next to me and bask in their envy.

It looks like it will be out by June if all goes well.

Man, I love teaching

2006-01-17T20:01:00.000-05:00

Just got back from my first classes at WSC and remembered how much I enjoy teaching. It's a very informal class, my little MCOM 332, but one I think/hope the students get something out of. I can be very passionate when speaking about screenwriting and movies, and I subscribe to the theory that passion can rub off on others. It's viral. One can't help but jump onboard another's passionate take on... well, anything.

It's nice to have something weekly to look forward to. I'm looking forward to Thursday.

Blockbuster Hates Me

2006-01-17T12:59:00.000-05:00

I just got word that the deal we had brewing with Blockbuster concerning distribution of MAGDALENA'S BRAIN just fell through. It would have been a Blockbuster Exclusive title, available at all of their stores. Woulda been sweet.

Our other deal is still sound, though, and we are just awaiting the revised contract. The good news is that the current distributor has a pretty nice distribution deal with Best Buy, Hollywood Video, Virgin, Tower, Amazon and Netflix, whereas the Blockbuster deal would have just been Blockuster (and rental only, to boot).

So maybe it's a good thing, right?

Back to School

2006-01-17T11:04:00.000-05:00

First day of school today. Back to teaching.

I'm an adjunct at a local college and teach a Scriptwriting course . It's a great gig that I stumbled upon two years ago (this term is my fifth), that is pretty satisfying all the way around. The official course description is something I kind of tossed out, and nobody seems to mind. The actual content of the course is heavily, if not exclusively, screenwriting (for film), and I really only touch upon the other disciplines requiring the art and craft of the script. I teach two sections, and luckily my full time job is flexible enough so I can spilt early on T-Th.

Ideally, teaching is going to be the main girder upon which my new career infrastructure will be built. I hope to parlay the two courses I teach into something a little bigger at WSC, as well as using my experience there to get into other schools. Then I complement the teaching with some freelance gigs in the (admittedly minuscule) local film scene and the (much larger) corporate/industrial video scene. And I'll have the flexibility to further pursue independent filmmaking endeavors, which is what I really want to do in the first place!

Then, all I have to worry about is insurance.

And the fact that I don't have a master's degree.

And the fact that freelancing offers no guarantees.

And the fact that I have to worry about two car payments, a mortgage, and supporting my family of five.

Now... now, the reality starts to set in. And the dream starts to fade. And the deep, dark depression sets in. And I curl up in a state of paralysis and sob quietly in the dark :)

I have to write more because I have to get better because I have to write a great screenplay because I have to make a great movie because it will sell for lots of money because I need the money because that will allow me the freedom to make movies because making movies is what I want to do.

Because. It doesn't even look like a word after writing it so much.

Back from Disney

2006-01-15T18:19:00.000-05:00

Back from Disney.

I had a wonderful time. It was myself, my wife and our three children in a single, small, quite cramped hotel room (Disney would have you call it a "resort" room). We visited all four parks with Epcot probably being my favorite. Ate too much. Spent too much. But it's for the kids, and on that front... a wonderful success.

But now I'm back, right? Back to writing. Back to business. Back to getting myself to a place where I can get anoth feature film under my belt sometime this year. Right now I have three options.

-I produce and direct ATTACK OF THE SPACE CHICKENS. A script I wrote a while back that will not let me go.

-I collaborate with Warren on another film, much like we did with MAGDALENA'S BRAIN.

-Some other third thing.

Not sure what the answer is. But coupled with that decision is another multiple choice question.

-I remain at my full time job -- OK with $$, but pretty empty and miserable.

-I quit, and put together a patchwork career with teaching, consulting with other filmmakers, and freelance writing/producing in the local commercial/corporate world.

Money's the kicker here... for both sets of options/decisions. But either way, any way, I suspect I could continue to feed my family and pay my bills, so it just comes down to what I want to badly enough.

Not to do it badly; you know what I mean.

Logo

2006-01-15T18:09:00.000-05:00

Ok. I made myself a little logo. I kind of like it. I posted it here until I can figure out how to upload it to the main banner area.

Read Joe Hill. Now.

2006-01-07T14:50:00.000-05:00

Before I leave for vacation I wanted to post about a wonderful collection of short stories I've just finished reading: "20th Century Ghosts" by New Hampshire writer, Joe Hill http://www.joehillfiction.com/. It's a revelatory collection of fantasy/horror/sci-fi.. actually, it's just a revelatory collection. Period. A wonderful writer, Joe tap dances around the macabre, the absurd, the melancholy, he taps into emotion and character that is so often sorely lacking in today's "horror" fiction, though I hate to categorize him as a "horror" writer. He ain't. I can't say enough about it. A wonderful, wonderful writer.

That's 4 wonderfuls.

Housecleaning

2006-01-07T14:04:00.000-05:00

Bit of house cleaning going on. I've deleted all but my original post on this blog, primarily because they were the ramblings of a unfocused mind. No more of that. I leave for Disney World tomorrow with the wife and kids (Lori 35, Max 7, Amy 5, Zoe 10 months).

Yeah, I know... I'm preparing myself for it.

When I return, it's going to be one of those "first days of the rest of my life" things. I could tell countless stories about why I need to change things in my life (and may at some point), but for now, let's just say I've got a lot of shit going on and I'm starting to sort it out.

Anyway.

My name's Marty, and I'm a writer. There. How's that? I'm never comfortable saying that, but there it is. Now living up to it... that's where the trouble starts. 2005 was kind of a bleak year for me, though you wouldn't think it by looking at what I actually accomplished. How's this?

-Daughter Zoe born.
-Got raise and another section of the Scripwriting course I teach at Westfield State College.
-Got gig teaching Independent Film at Holyoke Community College.
-Found TWO distributors interested in acquiring the movie I wrote & produced, MAGDALENA'S BRAIN.
-Associate producing the feature film, CATHEDRAL PINES, that has the potential to be a pretty good film.
-Script doctored a nice little short, TERMINAL CONVERSTAION, to be shot this March.

And there's more, too, but looking at this list I myself find myself asking myself... and you're bitching about what?

Well, I have problems. Some pretty good ones, too. Though I'm not quite prepared to go into them now, though a big one does have to do with my current job, that of a writer/producer for an industrial video company. Very soul-sucking, very spirit-stealing.

And because of that issue (coupled with many others) I haven't been able to write much. At all, really. The script revision thing was somebody else's material and not too fulfilling. And the I've been pretty hands-off of the feature.

I have ideas, I always have ideas, but I haven't, you know... the ambition. That has to change. So this blog is a personal thing. I can't imagine anybody reading it, but it's going to serve a purpose. A record. A sequence of events that I can look back on and use aginst myself to start and complete projects that I know I have in me.

So.

A week in Disney World. And then a return.