Cannot Resist

Am flipping channels while I'm importing and cutting audio from GOH, and I stumble upon AMC's playing Crocodile Dundee 1 & 2 back to back.

I really liked those movies, obviously the first one better, but the second is still pretty good.

Two things: Man, that chick is SMOKING hot in the first one. And did you know that the first CD was nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay? Seriously.

(I think THAT might be pushing things...)

Okay, one more thing: Did you know that this came out in 1986 and made more money at the box office than Aliens? Yeah, THAT's a crime. The #1 money maker in 1986?

Top Gun.

For fun, and because I found it interesting, the top 10 money makers from 1986 with their amounts:

1 Top Gun Par. $176,786,701
2 Crocodile Dundee $174,803,506
3 Platoon Orion $138,530,565
4 The Karate Kid Part II $115,103,979
5 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home $109,713,132
6 Back to School $91,258,000
7 Aliens $85,160,248
8 The Golden Child $79,817,937
9 Ruthless People BV $71,624,879
10 Ferris Bueller's Day Off $70,136,369

Christmas Songs

Just so you know, here's how you can tell if a song is a good Christmas song or not.

If at least one of the following words are NOT in the song, it is a SHITTY Christmas song:
Christmas
Snow
Bells
Santa

Though an exception can sometimes be made if you can HEAR bells if none of the words above are used. (the song "Sleigh Ride", which features NO words is a good song because it has bells)

Go ahead, try it. Got any that defy this? (and yes, if you get the impression I think religious Christmas songs suck, you are correct)

Fantasy Football

Man...a little setup. Last year I won the league fantasy football for the first time since I started playing FF like 15 years ago.

This year, my team sucks. But through an incredible amount of luck--meaning, I keep playing just about the only team I could beat--I went 10 and 4 and was tied for 3rd place in the league.

Last week I went into the playoffs looking like I was gonna get killed. The point estimate had my opponent beating me by like 20 points.

I was shooting a pickup so didn't pay any attention until Sunday night. At that point I was 2 points up on the other guy and we each had 1 guy playing on Monday night.

I had Matt Forte and he had Percy Harvan. I thought I had a chance until the first drive for Minnesota went for a touchdown to one Percy Harvan. My guy Forte kept getting stuff in the runs.

Back and forth that game went, and check out the pic below to see just how close it was.



So now it's me versus the #1 team in the league for the championship. This guy's team is gonna spank me, but knowing that there's a chance I could win the league two years in a row is pretty awesome.

On the movie front, I should be editing Bounty Making supplements but I'm tired. Don't wanna. So I edited the first scene of GOH after putting all the footage into their respective scene folders.

Am going to try to go see True Grit tonight.

The Kid(s) Is All Right

You know, sometimes kids are fun. Here's an unlisted video of mine I had forgotten about from a few years back(and there's our great now-dead dog Shayna).

YOUTUBE

My favorite part is that split second where he's trying to decide if he should cry or laugh.

Also of no particular import: I really wanna go see True Grit.

So a deal is out there

for Bounty. Got the contract over the weekend, but we were doing pickups so I didn't see it. Am looking it over now.

But I see this clause, that I've never seen in a contract before:

2. No Actual Sexual Conduct. Licensor represents and warrants that the Picture does not contain any depiction of “Actual” (i.e., the performer was actually engaged in the applicable act while being filmed) human sexual intercourse (including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between those of same or opposite sex), bestiality, masturbation, or sadistic or masochistic abuse (collectively, “Sexually Explicit Conduct”).

Huh. Is it just me, or that the hottest paragraph of legalese you've ever seen?

Added for Andrew:

3. Lascivious Exhibition or “Simulated” Sexually Explicit Conduct. Licensor represents and warrants that the Picture may contain depiction(s) of lascivious exhibition of a performer’s genitals or pubic area – including that which may be clothed (“Lascivious Exhibition”) and/or any “Simulated” (i.e., the applicable act is depicted in the Picture in a manner causing a reasonable viewer to believe the performers engaged in such act notwithstanding that they did not actually do so) “Sexually Explicit Conduct.” With respect to the Picture produced either by Licensor, a U.S. producer or a non-U.S. producer that has elected to certify consistent with the provisions of this subparagraph (ii)(a) (each such Producer, a “Certifying Producer”), Licensor represents and warrants that it (or such Certifying Producer) has certified or will timely certify to the U.S. Attorney General, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2257A(h), in the form required by 28 C.F.R. § 75.9, that Licensor (or such Certifying Producer) regularly and in the ordinary course of business collects and maintains individually identifiable information regarding all performers (including minor performers) employed by Licensor (or such Certifying Producer) pursuant to Federal and/or State tax, labor, and other laws, labor agreements, or otherwise pursuant to industry standard. Licensor will deliver a copy of Licensor’s certification (promptly following the execution hereof). Licensor will deliver a copy of each Certifying Producer’s certification [n accordance with the Delivery Schedule; and

(b) with respect to each performer (including minor performers) directly employed by Licensor (or by an applicable Certifying Producer), it (or the Certifying Producer) itself collects and maintains individually identifiable information for each such performer (including the performer’s name, addresses and date of birth), as necessitated by Federal and/or State tax, labor or other law, or labor or industry standards, in a manner retrievable by performer name, and Licensor will deliver copies of such information collected and maintained by Licensor (or by the Certifying Producer) upon demand; and


It goes on for two more like-paragraphs.

Today In Hell's News

So, tonight we're gonna try to shoot the outdoor fight scene from GOH that we missed. We had scheduled it for Monday, but the wind was so bad that we wouldn't have gotten any good audio, and I'm not doing any more looping than I already have to...

In the weird news section, we're going to shoot tonight's stuff with my T2i. I've talked to people who have mixed Red footage with T2i and they say it's not perfect, but it's fine if you're not integrating them into the same scene.

So as long as we shoot the whole scene with the T2, it should be okay. I double checked some T2 footage I shot with the Red footage, and it's not bad. Your average viewer isn't going to notice unless we get a theatrical release, and seriously, yeah right.

Also, knock on wood, should be some very big news regarding "Bounty" here very soon. Yes, you may be able to stop asking me when/where you can see it...when the paper is signed I'll let you know.

Audio Stuff

So...this sucks.

What I'm doing right now is one of the worst parts of movie stuff. There's easier ways to do it if you've got a dedicated sound guy, but we didn't. Competent ones are hard to get cheap, and non-competent ones don't fly with me--I'd have to go watch the level every take.

So the way I record audio is to run from the mic through my Mackie mixer(which cleans the crap out of it and boosts the signal), and then take it to some recording device. On FOC2 it was a FOSTEX hard drive/cd recorder. It was nice having it go to hard drive and then at the end hitting a button to burn a disc of that.

If your audio guy knew what he was doing, each file would have the scene number in it.

We didn't have that time or that audio guy on this flick. So instead I ran my audio from the Mackie to my dvx100B. And then pointed the camera at whatever we were shooting so I have some extra behind the scenes shit.

So then I ripped the audio/video from those 29 audio tapes(so far), and now I have to individually go through the .wav and cut out the takes, and save them under filenames like scene8 take1.wav

Time consuming. Tedious.

And I just ran across one shot I don't remember doing that much. It's scene 77b, and we get to take nineteen. Yes, NINETEEN takes of one shot.

I have no idea why we're running late. If I could channel my inner half-ass, I'm sure take seven was fine...

Back, Sort Of

So let's not talk about the new flick. Too soon, like a dead relative. Suffice it to say that we have more pickups to shoot than on any other movie I've done. (Honestly, if you combined the pickups to ALL of my other flicks together, they would not equal how many pages we still have to shoot).

We're trying to schedule it now. Not here to talk about that. Go look at the GOH blog if you wanna see some pics.

What I'm here to talk about is my kid. See, a lot of times he watches cartoons, and he likes to write down what people say in the cartoons. Sometimes he needs help, other times he's okay. He's a pretty good speller for a seven year old.

The other night he came down and wanted us to write down something for him from a cartoon. The wife and I both had NO idea what he was saying.

I ran upstairs to see what he was watching. It was Charlie Brown. And it turns out that what my kid is obsessed with is a portion of the flick where Charlie Brown is forced to read War and Peace.

This is the sentence I figured out that he was trying to get me to write down: (and yes, are you fucking kidding me?)

WELL, PRINCE, Genoa and Lucca are now no more than private estates of the Bonaparte family. No, I warn you, that if you do not tell me we are at war, if you again allow yourself to palliate all the infamies and atrocities of this Antichrist (upon my word, I believe he is), I don't know you in future, you are no longer my friend, no longer my faithful slave, as you say. There, how do you do, how do you do? I see I'm scaring you, sit down and talk to me."

Anyway, we wrote it for him. Wasn't enough. He finally got my wife to take him to a bookstore while they were at a mall, and long story short(too late), he is now carrying around a copy of "War and Peace" like it's his best friend.

He loves it. A seven-year old autistic kid who wants to carry a thousand-page novel with him everywhere he goes.

I could not make this up if I tried...

uh, yeah

No time to post. Let's just say this has been the worst shoot in the history of shoots.

Utterly demoralizing. Insanely tiring. No sleep, long hours, everything that can go wrong is going wrong.

Man...fifth and final film by KK is sounding real good now.

Getting Ready To Go Dark On The Blog

As we head into production.

The good news is that I have someone to sub the FX. I got up early this morning to go watch them make a face-casting of one of the main actors. That's what this picture is from.



It's funny, but I actually met the guy back in 1996 when I was looking for people to do FX for my first flick HH. He would have been the guy but he disappeared. He recently reappeared and has been doing work around here.

Anyway, then I went over to Luke's to check out the woods we're gonna shoot in. We're gonna shoot pretty close to his house and cheat it so we can get enough lighting there. Hopefully his cop neighbor won't come over the night we're shooting and arrest us.

Also, nobody was at Luke's house when we got there so I picked his lock to get in. Good to know the old skills still come in handy.

He took us all to the Caps game because he has box seats to every game. Actors and actresses came, as well as other local filmmaker David Cross, who is just a drunker version of me. He makes his own liquor too, and that's a talent I don't have...

Then I'm back here to finish my double-check of my shooting script. I'll hammer out a shot list for the first few days tomorrow, but we gotta pick up 100 things, drop off 100 checks, and I think my car has a flat tire...

Man, when this is over it would be awesome to take a vacation...

Kill me...please...kill me...

So the never-ending battle to make a movie continues.

My current list of to-dos is, first and foremost, make sure my shooting script is up to snuff now that we have all the locations nailed(except the warehouse), which I'm probably gonna push until after the shoot.

We have to go around and drop off checks and releases, pick up costumes.

My #1 problem has been the FX people, who have stopped responding to me. They said near the end of October that they could do a face cast on November 3rd. I responded, great, get me a time and an address. Since then they have not replied to calls or emails.

So I'm scrambling to get an FX person. I'm a little fucked right now, 'cause we don't have a ton of cash. I talked to another local guy who says he can do the face casts by Saturday, so Friday morning I'm meeting the actor out there to get that done.

As for the rest of the FX? Who the fuck knows?

Here below, is the completed hallway, with proper white balance and no flickering lights. Came out well I think.

But speaking of the shooting script--absolutely the most challenging thing script-wise that I've ever done. See, when you "cheat" a shot, you are basically faking something. Like, you may cheat an actor farther out from a wall so you can shoot out from behind them.

Or, in my case, I'm cheating entire rooms because I have a hallway whose doors go nowhere. So when someone opens a door I can't shoot in without attempting composite work(which I'm not in a hurry to attempt with footage from a Red camera)--so I have to then cheat the shot to a different location where we're looking OUT from the room...but then there's no hallway there.

I've got a low-tech fix for that.

But now I have a room in the castle we're shooting at that doesn't even have a door. So not only am I cheating the room, but I'm cheating the DOOR to that room. Trying to imagine how it's going to work is mind boggling.

Bottom line is that my brain hurts, and doing this blog doesn't hurt as bad as continuing on the shooting script. Also, I'm getting sick. Just in time for our shoot in 3 days...



Awesome Clueless Wife Comment Of The Week:
My wife asks me this morning, "So you going to be able to take Logan to school next week?"

I say, "In the morning? The week I'm shooting?" Yes, she says.

I say, "Sure. I'm gonna work twelve to sixteen hour days, and come home to take the kid to school."

You think she'd have an idea; I mean, I've only shot four movies before this...

Community

Man, just a wealth of blog posts lately! Crazy...

Anyway, I have this rare disease where I can only watch holiday-themed movies and TV shows when it's near its season. So while I'm breaking down my shooting script I've been playing all the Halloween-themed shows that I watch in the background.

'Cause when I go to sleep, there will be no more Halloween stuff until next year. It's weird, I know, but that's the way I am.

I saw a commercial for Community and that it was Halloween themed. I watched the first couple of episodes of this show when it started and thought it was okay, but nothing great. Kind of dropped off.

But I figured I'd give this episode a shot. And somehow it managed to combine two of my favorite things together. Two things I never would have imagined could work together.

ABBA and zombie outbreaks.

I know, it's like genius! And it works. It was a goofy, fun episode with a lot of tiny nods to things not just zombie--there's a funny Aliens gag in the beginning.

But if every episode was as funny as this one, I would have Community on my TIVO Season Pass list.

You can actually watch the whole episode here(the link is on this page--I don't know how to get the actual Hulu link)

WATCH IT

(and it's totally not because of that end message from George Takei, though that was pretty awesome)

Halloween Night

Last night we pretty much finished the hallway(short of the doorknobs). Another 7 hour day.

I got out of there just in time to get home. My wife wanted to go Cancun Cantina--she dressed up as the NCIS gothic lab chick. I had a half hour to shower and throw on my bounty hunter costume. Nothing like recycled costumes...

We went out, had a good time, got drunk. We got back and I threw on Trick R Treat, but the wife passed out fifteen minutes in.

Caught up on some sleep, as I slept in 'til 4pm.

So Halloween--got some work done and then I heard the wife was dressing the kid up to go trick or treating. His costume was this:



I took my camera out and got some video with him. First off, there was a fair share of 14+ year old kids trick or treating. They were WAY too old to still be trick or treating.

Anyway, we go to a house and my kid knocks on the door. An old lady says something through the glass door to him--I'm not sure if he hears her or just misunderstands but he says TRICK OR TREAT!

She repeats herself through the glass door and he again says TRICK OR TREAT! She gets a scowl on her face and grabs her dog out of the way, and again the kid says TRICK OR TREAT.

She opens the door and looks out at my wife and says, "Impatient bugger, isn't he?" She's some cranky old bitch who is clearly tired of life, and needs to go dump her pain meds into her gullet and end it all.

She's like "He kept banging on the door when I told him to hold on", which was a lie. He only knocked once, but yeah, he kept shouting. I'm thinking the wife is gonna tell the bitch that it's because the kid's autistic, but she apologized instead.

Then as Logan was walking down the sidewalk he stepped on her grass and she's like, "Walk on the sidewalk!"

Seriously. I'm gonna go fuckin' egg the bitch's house.

Irritating.

Then I get a call from Proctor--he may be back in the flick. Just as I was about to recast his part. We're literally a week away from filming and I got a major part not cast...fuck.

Back to the grind. Gotta get this shooting script done now that we have almost every location locked.

Man, does this suck

You know what I'd like to be doing right now? Watching Halloween movies and getting into the spirit.

Know what I did today?

Missed my wife's pumpkin party--she decorates the house, has some of our relatives and their kids over, and eats a bunch of fun stuff.

Instead, I got to drive back to Annapolis to do some more work on the hallway-of-never-ending-work, then came back to grab a slice of pizza before heading out to meet Jared(the D.P.) at the Timonium Scaregrounds. The FX people on that are doing the FX for my flick, and Jared shot the commercials for it.

We got free tickets to go through--it was cool but I think it could have been cooler. The FX and gags were cool, but I think it could have been set up better.

Then Jared and I went over his house to go over what he's got and doesn't have in equipment, and to go over the schedule.

Then I drove BACK to Annapolis at 12:30am to work some more on the hallway in the dead of night. I'm staining wood, cutting it, putting it up. ALONE.

My hands are all sticky and stained from this crap so I can't touch anything without getting IT sticky.

I was there until 3:30am and I had to leave 'cause I was making mistakes(cutting wood pieces too short, banging into walls). I'm tired.

The hallway now has lights and some trim. The lights flicker on one side and can be dimmed on each side individually.

Here's a quick video walkthrough.

It continues

So, here's what's happening.

Went to my sister's wedding last weekend. Videotaped it for her with a couple of different cameras, and will edit it eventually as their wedding gift. I'd just rather give her a couple hundred bucks--editing weddings is boring as shit.

After the wedding everybody went out to the Jetty bar. Got pretty hammered. Bought a few shots for people, had a few mixed drinks, and my bill was $111. Talk about ridiculous prices...you can get cheaper drinks at a strip club and at least you get to see titties.

The night ended with some of my sister's friends telling me my wife was gonna give me the greatest blowjob ever that night. I don't know where that came from. The friends were very flirty, and I got the feeling that if I wasn't married, I could have been nailing my sister's friends...probably better that I'm married.

At the hotel my wife decided to pass out, and let me just ask: It's not rape if they don't remember, right?

On the movie front:

Tom Proctor dropped out because he's gonna be in the new Nick Cassavetes movie. He told me it might happen, and if he was offered it he'd have to take it 'cause it's serious cash. Still, a bummer, 'cause Tom is awesome and the fun meter always goes to full when he's around.

Now I have to recast Oscar and I don't have a lot of great choices.

John Rutland had to drop out due to scheduling. He was big time bummed. Wanted me to move the schedule a little so he could still do it, but I don't have any wiggle room. He even sent me an artistic-nude picture of his girlfriend as an enticement--she'd be coming with him and could be a naked extra.

But we've paid for certain days at a castle, and I can't move those.

The hallway build continues. See?





My dad and my brother finished putting up the side walls without me(I was at a script read--we've done two now, and I finally got to meet Beau. He was cast as Geoffrey, and I think he's going to be very good.

My dad and I finished putting up the ceiling, which was INCREDIBLY difficult. Holding it, trying to make it fit, when the hallway isn't a perfect rectangle...man, sucky sucky.

Then my dad left and I painted the hallway. Only problem is that we haven't installed the lighting yet in the hallway, so it's dark as crap in there now that the ceiling is on...



It is pretty creepy though. Can't wait to put up some weird shit on the walls, make the lights flicker and go out, and let loose the thing that will kill in GOH.

Am meeting Jared, the D.P., tonight at the Timonium Scaregrounds, where my FX people are doing the effects. I'm worried they won't have enough time to do the FX for my flick, they're so busy with this.

Jared and I are going to go over all the details. What we have versus what we need.

This is my current partial to-do list:
-Finish shooting script--can finally do this now that we have the locations locked.
-Design contracts regarding cast/crew(I have some, but have to update them)
-Locate and buy props--TONS!
-Figure out design of each room
-Locate location for host office, exterior of “House”, club
-Check out woods and block scene
-Create hallway-door backdrop out of poster/board

What did you do this weekend?

The warehouse we're building IT

Me, I'm almost single-handedly building a set.

We couldn't find a nice long hallway with multiple doors on either side, so we decided to build it. The total control we'd have appealed to me.

But now that me and my dad have had to buy/carry over like 60 2X4s and 28 sheets of drywall(among other stuff), and I have been left to build much of it myself...well, it's not seeming like the best idea in the world.

My body aches. I am clearly not cut out for this...what's it called...manual labor.

The frame is basically done. Now we have to connect the outer wall and then drywall the whole bitch. Then my dad will wire it for electricity.

Then we will make scary movies. And the sad news is that this will be taken down right after. A lot of work for not much, eh?

What it looks like 2 days later...

The U Tube

"So Youtube shoots me an email last week and tells me one of my videos qualifies for revenue sharing. I've been told this before, but when I applied(after they asked me to) I was informed the clip was family friendly. (It was the trailer for "Fear of Clowns")

This time it's for a different video, so I apply. They send me back a thing stating that I need to confirm that I own all necessary rights to the video.

I reply, telling them that I do. I shot it, it's mine.

They send me back ANOTHER reply that says:

"We haven't been able to confirm that you have the necessary rights,
including publicity rights, to commercially use all the video material and
music from the information you've given us, so we ask that you provide
written documentation substantiating your claim. Please email us this
information as an attachment along with an electronic signature.

You need to have a permission from the rights owner to use the footage
commercially."

So I'm pissed. I just told them I was the rights owner. I don't fucking care if they do it or not at this point, so I then reply:

What the hell are you talking about? Let me speak slowly so you can understand.

I

SHOT

THE

VIDEO

I

OWN

THE

VIDEO

WHAT KIND OF LETTER FROM ME TO MYSELF DO YOU NEED? IS ENGLISH YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE? JESUS CHRIST, I CANNOT BELIEVE I CAN MAKE IT ANY CLEARER.

KEVIN

The next day I get this email:

Thank you for confirming that you own the rights to commercially use all
video material and music in your video. Your video will be approved for
revenue sharing.

Shooting Script Almost Done

Man, it's been a long time going, and there are a few scenes missing(since we don't have the locations yet), but I'm on scene 95 of 97.

A little challenging since I don't think we're gonna have a zoom lens. We're shooting on the Red and have a set of 5 nice lenses, but they're all set focal lengths.

And we're less than a month away from shooting...man, there is a lot to do on the production side...

An Awesome Halloween Pumpkin

Saw this years ago and saved it, but in case I forgot I wanted to put it up. It's great.

GOH Updates

So the indiegogo experiment wasn't a total failure. We didn't reach our $5K goal, but we did a little over a grand. Every little bit will help, believe me. We're stretching our budget in ridiculous ways, and right now we're actually pursuing a pretty well-known horror guy to be in it.

We contacted his agent and she didn't say no right away like I figured. She wanted a script for him to read, so we shot it to them. We'll see. Probably won't pan it, but if it does it will be HUGE for us.

On the bad news front we were just informed that the museum we were to use for the exterior of the "House" in the movie won't let us film there at night. The entire movie takes place at night, so that fucks us a little. We're looking for an alternative now.

We still need a big empty warehouse, a club, and it would be nice if we could find someone who lived in front of a wooded area so we could use their house for lights while we shoot in the woods. It's gonna be cold as balls in November, I'm afraid. This is not gonna be a fun shoot for me, much less the actors who won't be wearing coats in the scenes...

Still working on the shooting script. Gonna take some chances on shots in this one.

We have to find an FX person, and I have to pull the trigger on these final castings.

Various

Am working on the shooting script for GOH.

This past weekend I got to check out the Red One camera up close. Man, it is sweet.

My D.P. on GOH was helping shoot a music video with it. The shoot was a disaster. They didn't shoot a frame until about four hours after I got there. One of the band members was fired because he wanted to leave early.

But I shot with it, and am very excited to see the new flick take shape.

Watched The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, which was on a lot of people best-of-Giallo lists. Not sure why. It's actually a pretty ridiculous story without any nudity and with very mild gore.

Watched Frozen. This is a pretty good film. Has some very tense moments to it. Adam Green didn't impress me with Hatchet like he did everybody else, but since then he's surprised me with Spiral and now this.

I have some other Giallos to watch--am interested in the lighting schemes they used to achieve that freaky other-worldlyness .

Am finishing casting choices. Am trying to catch a big fish for one of the roles, but am not feeling all that hopeful.

Get off my ass, AHA

No, not the band who sang Take On Me.

The American Humane Association. I'm not sure where they stumbled across the fact that I'm making a new movie, but they started emailing me form letters that start out thus:

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to our attention that you are or will be filming the production Garden
Of Hedon, The.  If animals are to be used, please print out the attached Production
Information sheet and fax to us at: fax 818-501-8725, or fill in the form and email
it to: filmunit@americanhumane.org


PLEASE ADVISE US IF YOU ARE OR ARE NOT USING ANIMALS BY REPLYING TO THIS EMAIL, even
if you are a NON-UNION and/or INTERNATIONAL production and not contracting our
services. This will enable us to more effectively collaborate when animals are used
and also help us evaluate our program's progress in relation to production trends. 

Now, my movie doesn't have any animals in it, so I just ignored them. Then I start getting postcards in the mail asking me to check off whether there are animals and if so, what kind, etc.

Man, it's tiresome. I'm not required to do anything because my flick isn't union, but I filled out the card anyway because at this point I just want them to shut their face and leave me alone.

But enough already...

Scary

From a news article about the craziest insurance policies ever taken out:

Japanese Giant Crab
Don't worry -- Japanese giant crabs aren't something you get from sleeping with horrible tentacle monsters without protection.

The Birmingham Sea Life aquarium in the U.K. took possession of a giant crab (also known as the Japanese spider crab in case it wasn't horrifying enough), an armored, alien-faced arachnid 10 feet across.

Oh, and they call it "Crabzilla." Sea Life officials tried to assure everyone, saying: "He's not aggressive, and they should have nothing to worry about," before taking out a policy against visitor death and permanent disability for over $1.5 million.

Call us crazy, but "nothing to worry about" and a million-and-a-half-dollar insurance policy are seriously mixed messages -- which add up to the alien supercrab ripping your face off.

A Weekend Shoot

So, my buddy Joe is shooting his movie right now. I told him I'd come out Saturday and help him Saturday/Sunday, 'cause I know you can always use another hand, especially one who is as experienced as I am. (read: Know It All)

Quick sidenote I've blogged about but I'll recap: There was a time when making movies was fun. Back in high school and college. You and a bunch of other like-minded people coming together to just MAKE something. To CREATE.

It was a new experience, because I'd been writing for years by that point, so I was used to creating by myself. A solitary, lonely thing that can drive you to some insane places.

And then here I am, suddenly fitting in with other people and having a good time in the pursuit of something that seemed fresh and sometimes noble, no matter how much blood and nudity was involved.

Somewhere that stopped. Making movies became about killing myself with work and worry, about finding distribution, about bullshitting people who were trying to bullshit you. It was a struggle because for the most part, being a director is waging a war by yourself.

Sure, there's other people there. You can get lucky and still find the occasional person who is there for the love.

But for the most part they're just there for the paycheck, or to network, or to stroke their ego. The second the scene's a wrap, they are gone, leaving nothing but a smoke trail and a pile of equipment to load up.

I have been trying to figure out why and when this all changed, from fun to agony, and perhaps I found a piece of the puzzle this weekend.

I showed up at the shoot on Saturday evening. A bunch of people, a crowd scene where there's an outdoor party, bonfire and all. I played an extra, hung out, and shot stills for Joe. I bullshitted with other local filmmakers and people I've known for a while.

Joe was stressing. He was pretty frazzled. Not really like him normally, so I guess some shit had gone wrong or something else was bothering him. Not sure what it was.

But he clearly wasn't happy, or having fun. And he was standing away from everybody else, pacing, deep in thought.

And I thought, "That's me on my set...he's not having fun, because there's so much pressure on him right now..."

But as for me at his shoot, I have a blast. I have a good time the next day even though I'm sleep deprived, tired, and hungry. Lots of laughs, interesting conversations, and people who are having fun being there. (for the most part)

Back in high school and college there was no pressure at all. If what you made was shit, big deal. A couple of beers that night and you'd forget, and the next day it was back at it. To quote Jack, "Daddy's making art."

But we don't have that luxury now. We have families, money riding on the line, and other responsibilities(and that sucks, yeah)...but there's got to be a way to ease the pressure off.

So I'm gonna try to have more fun on this next flick. I already know it's gonna look better than any movie I've ever shot, and it will be far superior in directing. I've got some incredible actors at my disposable, and if they'll take a chance with me on this one I think it will pay off.

We'll see. Maybe this will be rejuvenating. I know it's no consolation, but thanks Joe!

Watching flicks

My new flick is coming together. Go to http://www.indiegogo.com/GOH and see the new poster and teaser, and then get your name in the credits by donating cash! Yes, for $100 you can name your credit in the end creds. For $150 or more you get a front end credit and a credit on the poster!

Crazy!

Anyway, it's a weird flick. I've been trying to think about looks, since it's not like we ever have a production designer. And I've been thinking, I used to see a few giallo flicks back in the day(probably 15+ years), and there's a look to them. I'm not sure what it is.

It's not just that Italian chicks are so smokin' hot for some reason.

There's a color or lighting scheme that always kind of signals that it's giallo. So I'm going to be watching some of them to see if I can figure out exactly what it is.

Last night I watched Tenebre. A pretty good flick but not a lot of the color I'm looking for.

I have Suspiria, Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Blood and Black Lace, and Deep Red on tap. I'm trying to find Murder Mansion(which sounds uncomfortable close to my flick, but I'm sure will be very different) and Amuck because I hear they're the right direction for me to look at.

Meantime I watched Humanoids From The Deep. Never saw it before. I liked it, but had I seen it when I was 12(which was when it came out) I'm sure I would have LOVED it.

Also have Ghost Writer and the original Piranha to watch soon. Never saw GW but saw Piranha when I was young and LOVED it.

Anyway, auditions today. Fun fun.

My Favorite Mistakes

Thought I'd list these two real quick:

You know how people can always hotwire cars in movies? Let's skip that it's not THAT easy and it's not the red and white wires. Move to where they're rubbing the wires together and getting sparks. The car starts, and they then proceed to twist the wire together with their naked fingers.

In reality this is gonna result in them getting at least a mild shock, if not outright electrocuted. You simply cannot touch live wires...I've done it and can attest that it's not fun.

Second is one you see more in TV shows than anything. Cops find a bag of suspicious powder which they dip a finger in and taste it. Yep, it's cocaine.

Say what? Not only will that cop have buzzing gums and a slight high, but he's totally failing every piss test for the next few weeks. And nevermind the fact that it could cyanide...I mean, no cop in his right mind is gonna taste a powder of unknown origin.

Cops in reality add the powder to a bag inside a chemical. If it turns a certain color, it's a drug. But that's not so cinematic.

Still, these are two things you will never find in one of my flicks...

Updated: So I asked my dad, an electrical engineer about the twising wires thing. And lo and behold, I am wrong. He says there's only 12volts in the ignition wires and it takes around 40 volts before you can feel it. Unless you were in a puddle of water you probably wouldn't even feel it he says.

So there ya go. It's now my favorite MISTAKE.

A New Coat of Paint

So I updated the blog to the new format. Pretty much entirely so I could add the Search option widget to the blog.

It's for me. Sometimes I wanna go find an old post but don't want to comb through 5 years of shit.

But if it makes you feel better, I totally did it for you.

Yer Blowing My Mind

BLOW IT HERE

If you'd like to see a song my kid learned how to play just by hearing it, go here, but I warn you--this song will be stuck in your head:
CATCHY

If you want to see what he learned it from, go HERE

Stop Making Creepy Robots!

They are going to take over the world!

CREEPY ROBOT

Assorted Stuff

File these under things I didn't know existed, and have never needed. Thanks for letting me know about them, Gizmodo.

This is an oral sex snorkel.

---

Lot of elections in this area coming up. Tons of signs. One sign said "BATEMAN for Sheriff". Someone erased a letter and now it says BAT MAN for Sheriff. I'd vote for him.

---
Maybe I buried the lead here, but look...zombies DO exist in nature. For reals.
Zombies In Nature
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I'm not gonna embed this--just go to Youtube and watch it. It's pretty funny.

Non-Spoiler Centurion

Watched Neil Marshall's new flick "Centurion"(you can pay $9.95 for it on Comcast On Demand).

It's okay. I loved Dog Soldiers and The Descent, but hated Doomsday, which was basically every good movie from the 80's crammed together into something awful. And he basically decided he wanted Snake Plissken, but he'd make her a girl.

Uh, yeah.

Anyway, Centurion is an okay waste of 95 minutes. There's not much story, and far too much CGI blood. Don't get me wrong there--there's a healthy amount of actual blood and cool guts/limb flying stuff, but there really is a ton of bad CGI blood. When are filmmakers gonna realize that is may be easier, but it doesn't look GOOD?

It can't be THAT much harder. I rejoice that CGI blood was not available when they made the original Conan The Barbarian...

Also another thought hit me: This is the 2nd Neil Marshall flick in a row that features a lead hot female, very strong and badass. And Neil's girlfriend is Axelle Carolyn, a hot actress who again plays a minor role as a minor badass...how is he not getting his girlfriend the lead parts in any of these movies?

---

Really want to see Expendables. Kind of want to see Scott Pilgrim.

---
Spent a weekend at the beach with my wife for our 10th anniversary. Time went by fast. First night we just sat around and enjoyed the quiet with no dog and no kid.

Second night we went out to eat and to the movie. The Other Guys. Not as funny as I'd heard. I jealously eyed the guys in The Expendables line while we waited to get in the theater. This theater was weird--they didn't seat us until 10 minutes before the movie started...

Third night we got a good buzz and went to the bars, saw a pretty good band play. Burnt Sienna. We've seen them before down there.

---

Now back to the breakdown on the new flick. By far the toughest breakdown I've ever done, because we don't have an actual location that fits the script.

So imagine: The camera is shooting one direction on an actor--we're gonna shoot all the shots from that angle, and then when we spin the camera--nope, that's not what is supposed to be there.

The next night(or maybe even later in the week, since you don't shoot sequentially) we will have to move to another location and get all the shots from the OTHER angle, and hope they match up. This means we need meticulous script supervision--lots of notes and pics. Who is frame left and who is frame right? What were they wearing exactly?

And this doesn't even take into account some of the special effects, some of which I'm not even sure HOW to do at this point...

Honestly, if this whole project fell through right now I'd breathe a sigh of relief...

btw: You can see the teaser we shot to raise some additional cash at:
http://www.indiegogo.com/GOH
That's right, for $100 you can name your own credit. Cool, huh?

Browsing Blu Rays on Amazon

And found my new favorite title for a movie. Ever.

BEST TITLE EVER

More About Me

Attended some auditions last week to look for talent. It was, like most open casting calls, 95% awful, 4% okay, and 1% decent to good.

Am working on a teaser for the movie that we haven't shot a frame of. Makes for tough work.

Shot some quick video of me in a bondage mask for this teaser. Also shot some photos, 'cause what the hell, right? Here's what I can tell you about leather bondage masks: They are HOT. I have no idea how people have sex in them, because all I did was stand while photos were taken, and when I pulled that mask off I was dripping sweat from my hair.

Watched the pilot ep and first episode of the British "Being Human". It's about a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost. Sounds like a joke, but it's actually pretty good. Be warned though: If you watch the pilot, be prepared for cast changes. They replaced two of the three actors after the pilot(which is too bad, because I liked the original actors, but the replacements are pretty good too).

Am keeping up with these shows while I work:
Big Brother/America's Got Talent/True Blood/Hung/Entourage/Persons Unknown/Rescue Me/Deadliest Catch

Movies on the upcoming list:
The Losers/Repo Men/Alice In Wonderland/Society

I'm In Love(Again)

Spent some time finishing the nearly-final draft of GOH. So in the background I needed to play something I didn't really have to WATCH. Just half pay attention to.

Put on She's Out of My League. Alice Eve is the hot chick, and man is she hot.

But I'd just like to comment--they have a scene where a guy shaves his balls and there's all this hair coming down. If you have that much hair on your BALLS, you are a fucking gorilla.

That's all I'm saying.

So...

It's been pretty hectic. We've been pounding away at this script, getting it into shape--I'm trying not to think about the fact that we're like 10 weeks away from shooting it and I haven't started breaking it down or anything...

Monday night we shot a nude model for some promotional pics. Since we're gonna try to raise some extra money from indiegogo, I figured I'd get some titillating pics to give people the wrong impression of the movie so they'd give us money.

It's only slightly deceptive. There will be nudity in the film, but that's not what it's all about, man. I'm an artist, don't ya know.

I'm working some photoshop magic now, but I'm not super at it. We'll see what I come up with in the next week. Then they start going live, one way or the other.

Streamed The Rock while I was working on it. You know, that's a fun movie. And Bay was nowhere near as crazy-mobile with the camera as he is now. You may not believe it, but there are actually static shots in that film.

No, seriously. The camera doesn't move on quite a few shots in that film.

Deep Throat

Never saw it, though I had imagined I did.

But I was looking for something to put on the tube while I work and saw a documentary called "Inside Deep Throat". It looked interesting, and I thought it was cool that it was NC-17.

I put it on and was immediately surprised to find it was from Universal Pictures and Imagine, produced by Brian Grazer(if you don't know who they are, well, what are you doing?)

It's a pretty interesting documentary, and I wasn't aware of any of this stuff that went on back in 1976(I was six, okay?) and it's pretty amazing. That a guy was convicted for acting in a porn and almost served five years in jail...

I'm the kind of guy who is always suspicious of government, and it's stories like these that I point to when people scoff about the government stepping over the line and abusing its power.

Anyway, I recommend checking the documentary out; it's pretty good, and free for streaming over Netflix.

My Predators Story

Yeah, if I told you this in person, skip it. But I thought I'd get it down as a way to remember the ridiculousness.

Went to see Predators, the midnight show. My brother Mike and I. We get there early to get decent seats. The place starts filling up and gets pretty crowded.

But I'm lucking out. I have three empty seats to my right.

The trailers come on. People keep coming in. I keep my irritated face on, so nobody will come ask if anybody's sitting in the empty seats next to me.

Still lucky. Nobody does.

The movie starts. I'm starting to dig it. No build up in this flick--it starts with Adrien Brody free-falling out of the sky onto the Predator planet.

Ten minutes in, an usher comes over and says, "Are those seats taken?" I give her a look and say: "No."

She brings over a black couple. For some reason, the guy sits next to ME instead of on the other side where he'd be sitting next to a girl.

And I shit you not, the second his ass touches the seat he has pulled out his phone and starts texting somebody. In the back of my mind I think, "Maybe he's a doctor and he's relaying some last minute instructions to a nurse or something."

So I look over and read his message which says, "What's going on man?"

But then he puts it away. I'm thinking, Ok, he's done.

Nope. Within five minutes he pulls it out again and it's glowing white. People behind us SIGH loudly.

I'm pissed. I turn to him and say, "Put that fuckin' thing away. I'm not looking at that fuckin' thing glowing the whole movie."

He looks at me with a look that succinctly says, "Whitey's gonna die."

But he puts his phone away. Then for the next 90 minutes he sits there with his arms crossed, a pissed look on his face. He doesn't laugh at the movie or react when anything happens. I believe he's picturing the moment he's gonna shoot me in the face once the movie ends.

It's a bit uncomfortable, but I ended up enjoying the movie. After it ended I noted he got up and walked the OTHER way out--I have heard I can be intimidating, so maybe I'm just scarier than I think.

Kangaroo and Zombie

What lives in Maryland, looks like a baby kangaroo, but runs on two legs(not hops)? Yeah, I dunno either but I saw one tonight. It was eating something on the road and ran off as I drove near it.

I can't think of what kind of animal it could be.

Anyway, now I'm home and I see the new Day of the Dead is available to stream on Netflix. I know, I heard it was bad, but it's THERE. And it's Steve Miner! Come on, how bad could it be?

So I'm gonna stream it. Hopefully it's tolerable.

The Battle Against Dumb

Okay, quick rambling post. Haven't slept in like 27 hours.

On my last flick "Bounty" I had a number of people(I found out later) mention that they were lost as to what was going on. Sure, many of them were my redneck relatives on my wife's side, so that was to be expected.

But a couple of people I wouldn't classify as dumb were also confused. And honestly, Bounty is pretty straightforward, I thought. I won't blow it for you, but I think if you're paying attention it's not hard to follow.

So now I'm working on GOH(details to be announced soon) and let me tell you: THIS is complicated. There's a number of places where I think the less-intelligent viewers are gonna ask, "Then why did that person do this" or "If that's the case, how come this didn't happen?"

I'm caught in that place I always get in the scripts where you have to decide the median dumb line in your script. How much do you explain, because if you want 100% of your audience to understand it then you have to explain EVERYTHING.

And I just don't do that.

I guess what I'm saying is that if the new thing confuses you, buy the commentary and I'll explain exactly why everything is happening the way it's happening and why everybody's doing what they're doing.

Waterworld

Haven't seen this flick since it came out(when I saw it in the theater). I thought it was okay at the time--didn't think it deserved the bad rap it was getting.

Anyway, re-watched Perfect Getaway by David Twohy(which is a pretty good flick that you should check out without reading anything about it--believe me, it seems average for about 30 minutes and then goes into high gear). I remember Twohy wrote the screenplay for Waterworld, saw that it was on Netflix streaming and decided to check it out again.

I was right when I saw this movie back in '95--yes, almost 15 years ago, which is freaking CRAZY to think about. This movie isn't bad. It really is like Road Warrior on the water with higher production value.

The hero is pretty interesting in that he's not very likeable. And Costner has to be admired, because he was 40 at the time and did a TON of his own stunts. Running around on that boat, getting pulled up ropes, standing two stories up on the boat mast, and in general making you believe that his character lives on this boat.

Dennis Hopper is fun as he chews scenery.

I have minor quibbles, like how fast he seems to warm up to the little girl(who later went on to Napoleon Dynamite), but overall it's a fun flick if you want that Road Warrior feeling.

btw: I took a moment to read a few user comments. Many people feel it's under-rated. A lot of other people bash it while saying really stupid things like:
"This film is as discussing as the scales behind Kevin Costner's hears"--hey, why is this guy critiquing movies when he doesn't know English?
It's kind of a demonstration on why just anybody shouldn't be allowed to post reviews. Or to vote in elections.

Yowza

Don't tell me my love for her isn't real. 'Cause it feels real, man!

The Doings

So, been a busy couple of weeks working. Still trying to get GOH the script finished--a first draft, no less--man, it's tough. I think part of the problem is trying to deal with how people react when they're put into an unreal situation. I spend much of my time thinking, "Would he really do THAT if he were there?"

There, being the unreal place where GOH takes place.

Watched some flicks. Here's a lowdown:
Wolfman: So so. The big twist at the end is so obvious it's pretty crappy. Points for making the Wolfman look like the Lon Chaney version, and keeping the CGI to a minimum(well, for Hollywood at least).
Collapse: A documentary about how the world is falling apart, like, right now. It's pretty much the end of the world. Buy gold and bullets, and save some water. And while I'm acting like it's funny, it's probably true. Your problem is, I don't care.
Family Guy abortion episode: They didn't play it in the U.S., I don't think. The version I watched was from a British TV station. It's pretty funny though.
True Blood - the first two episodes of this year are pretty bad. This show is going down the shitter faster than season 2 did...
A Serious Man - Wow, those Coen brothers are weird. Fascinating but weird. This is a strange movie that bores on occasion but is still pretty interesting. I have no idea what they're trying to say unless it's as simple as: "These Jews are cursed."
Birdemic - Yeah, this movie is as bad as you heard. Would be great fun to watch drunk with some friends.

Anyway, back to work.

Did you see this?

Probably means more to some of you than to me. I'm not sure why, but I just never got into this movie.

REUNION

Dis-Heartened

Man, it is just a pile of crap over here.

I'm at that place where it feels like everything I'm writing right now is shit. Yeah, other writers say they hit that too, and you just plow through it and eventually it gets better.

But right now it feels like crap. It reads like crap. I feel very uncreative and uninspired.

That is all.

New Obsession

My new obsession is, while watching a movie, to hit the internet and look up everybody in the movie and see how old they were during the filming, and to see it it's older or younger than I am.

I don't know if this is a new obsession because I'm on the verge of 40, or what.

But it's weird to look at people who ARE older than I am, but the version I'm watching on screen is YOUNGER than I am now.

On the other front, Luke and I continue to bang out the outline to this script. Jesus, it's complicated. By far the most complicated thing I've ever tried to plot out.

As a comparison, it's like if they actually designed the entire Lost television show from the start and made sure everything made sense. This script takes place in an otherworldly place with a lot of rules that we've established, but man, does it make shit confusing. And we're trying not to slow the story down by constantly explaining why shit works this way in this place.

I'm not sure I'm making sense. I'm tired and irritated. I kind of wish we'd kept this simpler and done a different type of script. Could be just 'cause I'm in the middle of it right now.

But Jesus, we're falling behind. I'd like to shoot in early October, which is like four months away, and we don't even have a full outline, much less a script...

Wild Video

Jon at Twitter posted this today--a pretty cool music video that is nothing like you think it's gonna be from the start.

VIMEO!

Never Sleep Again

Watching Never Sleep Again, the exhaustive 4 hour documentary on "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise(the movies and TV show).

Man, I am amazed what some of these people are saying. Sure, Craven's big enough that he can say about the script for NOES 2 that he thought it was "inferior" and that he had notes that they then ignored.

But then Jack Sholder, the director of NOES2 says "I was never a fan of the first one"...wtf? You DO realize the piece of shit you directed is inferior in so many ways to the first one that it's staggering, right?

Jack Sholder: "I simply did not have the self awareness to realize that any of this could be interpreted as gay." Well, that's saying a lot.

Another producer, "Looking back, it was SO gay."

Kim Myers from NOES2 still looks pretty great.

Clu Gallagher is funny.

NOES3 - Some good stories. They even talk to Dokken about the Dream Warriors song, which was huge at the time.

Took a break to go read the original NOES3 script to see what Darabont and Russell took from Craven's script. A lot of people mistakenly call Craven a hack, but let me tell you, he's a pretty good writer.

I remember not liking NOES4, but after seeing some scenes again I feel like I should give it another chance. I've only ever seen it once(back in 1988)...

There is actual a woman with the name Kool Marder. That's a cool name, man.

Miko Hughes, the kid who played Heather Langenkamp's son in the New Nightmare movie had a hard time crying, so his dad told him his mom was dead to get him to cry. Man, that is cold...

The sketch of what Freddy was supposed to look like in New Nightmare looks EXACTLY like the Creeper in Jeepers Creepers...

Anyway, the documentary was pretty fascinating if you're an Elm Street fan. Check it out.

Assorted B.S.

Okay, been a busy couple of days.

--Attended a "talent" show at my kid's school. He played piano, and everybody else simply tortured me. Not a lick of talent among them. I know, I know. They're only 6-10 year olds, but still...(I'll put it on Youtube in a couple of days as proof)

--Finished another draft of "Red Fish, Blue Fish", the flick Tom's trying to get funding for to shoot in Cambodia. He's also attempting to get some money to shoot my other horror script, "Mawkin". Man, if we get money for that, that will be one crazy good time.

--Kind of want to see Splice, even though I've heard mixed things. It's directed by the guy who did Cube, which is a low budget favorite of mine.

--Am killing time right now watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on Netflix streaming. Haven't seen it since it came out. Am surprised to see the guy who played the Hawk guy in Flash Gordon played a brief role.

--Am also trying to locate a cheap clawfooted bathtub so I can put a mostly-naked girl in it, so I can shoot a promo poster for GOH. Something you'll hear more about soon.

--MTV movie awards tonight were pretty funny. Had Tom Cruise playing that producer from Tropic Thunder, and he did a music/dance number that had him jump ten feet in the air from a trampoline and land on stage--I gotta say, that was ballsy. He was so good tonight that I almost forgot how batshit crazy he is.

Also, here's another copy of my flick from the UK that I just got. It does NOT feature the cover that was shown when I bought it, so there may be ANOTHER one somewhere...how many fuckin' versions did the UK make?

A Public Service

Come on, educate yourselves! It's important to know!

CLICK HERE TO GET EDUCATED

Kinda refutes everything he's saying, doesn't it? But apparently he was cool enough to post his own bloopers.



I'll help you out. Take a spark plug. Smash it on the ground. Take the porcelain pieces and throw them(not even that hard) at a car window. The car window will collapse like it was paper.

You're welcome.

Douchebags

Oh, how I wish some of my douchebag neighbors could read this blog, because this is what I'd ask them:

Why the fuck do you walk your goddamn dog by my house at 5:30 in the morning? First off, we don't live in apartments. You have a yard, which is more than enough room for your dog to walk around in and do its business.

But no...I bet you don't want your dog to poop in YOUR yard. You want it to poop in someone else's yard so you don't have to pick it up. Well, fuck you.

Yeah, you're a douchebag for that. But pile on that you're doing it at 5:30 IN THE MORNING. My dog is going to bark at you if you walk your dog past my house, regardless of what time it is.

So it's great that we've gotten anonymous complaints over the years(someone will slip a note into our mailbox) complaining about my barking dog.

Fuck you. You're probably one of the douchebags walking your dog by my house in the morning.

Yes, I'm cranky. My kid made me sick, and I'm not happy about it. And my dickhead neighbors don't help much.

Amazing...

But yes. Also creepy.

The creepiest robot you will see this week

Funny repost

Saw it on Facebook, but it's pretty funny:
The Onion

My Next Film Project

Well, it's pretty close to finalized what my next film is gonna be.

I know...you're like, what? I didn't know he was doing ANYTHING! I'm the anti-Ripple is what I am. (some of you will get the joke)

I'm a little worried, though. This project is most definitely NOT horror. It will be the first thing I've done that most definitely can NOT be described as horror. HH was a stretch but most called it psychological horror, and I guess it loosely fits.

But my new thing would probably best be described as murder mystery. STRANGE murder mystery. Like Lost meets Twin Peaks, I think.

It will also be the first thing I've ever co-written with someone. A buddy of mine who's a pretty good writer and a very good idea man named Luke. He's going to be financing most of it also.

I think we'll try to raise an extra 5K using one of the new web sites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. I'll have some pretty cool rewards for donating, unlike some of the projects I've seen on those sites.

More to come. I'm gonna try not to worry about the genre change--hopefully my three fans won't be disenfranchised.

Frank Frazetta Dies

This is sad news.

Now, I know he hasn't really painted much in the past few years.

As you can see in the fairly interesting documentary about him "Painting With Fire", he had a stroke which disabled his painting arm, so he taught himself how to draw with his other hand--and he became pretty much as good with the other hand...that's incredible.

No other artist ignited my young imagination like Frank Frazetta did. He's the reason I started reading a lot of the sci-fi/fantasy books I read in elementary school. The covers would make me pick up the book and start reading.

Even looking at the pictures now give me that same thrill.

I'd say Rest In Peace, but he's dead. He's not resting. So I'll just say that I appreciated Frank while he was here, and will always consider him one of the greatest artists of all time.



Just type Frank Frazetta into Google Image search to see some more mind-blowing pics.

Size Does Matter

My kid got tired of bananas. He stopped eating them for breakfast, so my wife has been getting him strawberries lately.

Yesterday she came home with some new ones. And the pics below have not been altered in any way. That is MY hand, not my kid's.

I figured--they're not gonna taste as good. They won't be as sweet, being that huge.

But no, they taste every bit as good as the smaller ones. It's freakish...

Romero Fest

So, you hear about Survival of the Dead? Romero's newest flick doesn't open up in theaters until next month, but it debuted on Xbox, PS3 and Comcast On Demand.

I was gonna rent it until I found out it's $15 to rent. Yes, to RENT. Say what?

Instead, I went ahead and watched Bruiser. I'm not sure how I've never seen this movie, but I actually liked it quite a bit.

Anyway, then I went ahead and watched Survival of The Dead. If Romero wants me to paypal him $4.99 directly, I would be happy to. But on the whole I think it's probably the weakest of his Dead movies.

Now I have Knightriders next on the list to watch. Never saw that one either.

Hawking Says Fear Aliens

Wow, big news story of the day:

ALIENS WILL KILL YOU

I just can't take him seriously anymore. In my head I see the Family Guy version of him...

Man...hard drive stuff some more

So I got this cool plugin that apparently will turn SD footage into HD footage.

And I've been thinking lately about FOC2 and how I really should have a high-res master in case those hard drives go down.

I turn on the old computer--it's the one that I edited FOC1 and 2 on. No problem. I have to locate the external drives with the footage from FOC2 and switch them on.

Then I have to rename them to the letter that they were when I was editing or Premiere gets confused. Check.

But the last drive I plug in doesn't show up. It's got power. I test it on another computer. It doesn't read.

So I pull it out of its USB enclosure. I've found this to help in roughly 75% of the times my hard drive won't read. I hook it up and YES...it reads.

For like 5 minutes. Then it starts acting like there's only 1 file on there.

So now I turned it off for a while to cool it down, then got a bag of ice and put THAT in another bag of ice. I put the bag of ice on the hard drive and rebooted.

It's currently working now. I'm copying files off the hard drive as fast as I can while the bag of ice melts on top of the hard drive.

Good fun, but it appears I'm gonna get it all.

What's Doing

Watched the finale of Spartacus tonight. Man, great show. Excellent season 1.

Am working on a new outline for RFBF.

Am reworking my alternate teaser for "Bounty" to include some of the critic quotes we've gotten. I hear there's another review coming down the pike this week, so I'm holding off on finishing it to see if there's anything I can pull.

Am working with Luke on what will probably be the next thing I'll direct.

Am still attempting to finish a couple of scripts that I've been bogged down on for some time.

Saw Kick Ass the other night. It was fun with some cool action, but I wouldn't say I loved it.

Now I'm watching Lake Mungo. I totally sound like a slacker...

I organized my dvds tonight. Had enough of hunting and searching through shelves and NOT finding what I was looking for.

Started counting the dvds that I hadn't opened. Forty nine(49) total, not counting the television season sets that I haven't opened.

And none of them had I bought in the past year. So at some point I knew I wanted them, but not enough to watch them.

Also made my list of possible movies to watch pre-commentary on my latest flick. Me and the other two guys have previously watched The Wraith and Red Dawn. I'll present them with my list of possibilities and we'll figure it out.

I also haven't told the guys I'm thinking about making it a VIDEO commentary as well.

Fun fun.

Clash Epilogue

Stephen Colbert had a great joke at the start of his show. He started talking about Clash of the Titans.

"This movie is truly revolutionary filmmaking. They shot it in 2D...but then converted it to 3D. The amazing part...the characters stayed 1D."

Completely true. Funny, but true.

Easter

My wife took the kid and his cousin to get a picture with the Easter Bunny. She couldn't figure out why they wouldn't smile.

I'm guessing because they could sense the beast slobbering in anticipation of a nice meal.

That thing is scary.

Friggin' Authors and What They Owe Us

First off, I forgot to mention that this month marks fifth year of me blogging. Wow, that is crazy. Certainly longer than I expected to do it.

Anyway...I'm gonna talk about whether working authors owe us, the consumers and readers of their books, anything other than the book you pay for.

I would say that on the whole, no they don't. As long as the book tells a complete story, we're all good.

But let's talk about the other kind of book you get. The book that's part of an ongoing series.

I'm talking in particular about George R. R. Martin. This guy puts out two books in his "Game of Thrones" series pretty quickly. They are magnificent pieces of fantasy fiction. Great, great books.

Then the third book takes about two years to come out. Then the next book took five years. Five years!

And now it has been almost five years since that last book. With no word on when the next will be coming.

In this case, George owes me. You can't start a story and then not finish it--because quite honestly it's very easy to set up a story...it's the payoff that's hard.

Don't believe me? Here's one setup from an old sci-fi story:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door...

See how easy that is? It's a setup. If he's the last man on earth, WHO is knocking at the door? Well, if you don't tell me then it's bullshit. It's incomplete. That's a premise, not a story.

So Martin's books have all this setup, and there is some payoff, but what irks me is that this fat fuck of an author is out there doing signings and appearances, and putting stuff on his web site like, "Stop asking me when the next book will be done!"

George, we're only asking because you're old and fat, and if you die before completing the story I've invested like $60 and MANY hours in, I will come rape your corpse.

It just happened to Robert Jordan. He died before he could complete his twelve-book epic fantasy series. Luckily he knew ahead of time that he was sick, so he left some notes. Another author that he handpicked is finishing the series.

If you wanna take five years between books, go ahead. But do stand alone stories. Put a beginning, middle and end to them. Don't start massive epics unless you have a detailed outline for the entire thing.

A side note: HBO has optioned this for a series. It might be cool. The best character in the books is a very dickish midget, and they just recently cast Peter Dinklage in the role, and I already predict an Emmy for him.