Day One Versus Day Two

So this is sort of strange. There's a book called Day One by Nate Kenyon.
You might recall that we made a movie called Day Two. The name it was released under was Battle: New York Day II.
Let's look at the cover art, shall we? Here's the key art for the 2011 North American release.

And this is the cover art for Day Two.

Um. Really? Really? I... okay then. So did someone actually look at the art for Day 2 and think "Hey, we'll do the same thing, just with a guy in the picture"? I have no idea.

Day II et Jabon

Here's a thing for me to keep in mind. My name is typically transliterated into Japanese as
アンドリュー・ベルウェアWhich is good to know if/when I'm ever tying to look up artwork for our movies online.
Although I don't quite get what that ・ is all about.

My Punchlist

Anthony Jones is designing and building our space helmets. Here he is in his off-hours:

I love punchlists. Here's the punchlist for the audio fixes in Battle: New York Day II. Note that I don't have to agree with these notes, I just have to do them. We need one of those Foley floors in the vocal booth...

(18) 01:08:08  -     01:08:52………...lack of foot sounds

(20) 01:12:08  -     01:12:10…..…….lack of voice

(22) 01:16:27  -     01:16:30………...lack of woman’s screaming

(28) 01:33:54  -     01:33:56…………overlap and echo voice / lack of voice

(30) 01:34:29  -     01:34:33…………blur voice

(31) 01:35:03  -     01:35:05…………volume down of voice

(37) 01:48:04  -     01:48:07…………lack of sound

(47) 02:06:16  -     02:06:18…………lack of sound

(49) 02:09:38  -     02:09:40…………lack of screaming

(50) 02:12:29  -     02:12:31…………lack of voice

(59) 01:47:30  -     01:47:31…………lack of voice

Plus, we need someone to do post-production sound for us. I can teach you. I can't pay you. I just don't enjoy doing it myself. I'm too busy sitting in my hottub with my cigar and gold chains.

Ides of February in the Pandora Machine

While trying to finish up Android Insurrection we're also going into pre-pro on The Prometheus Trap. And at the same time we just got masters for Day 2 kicked back at us for audio issues -- although oddly it's not because the M&E's don't match the English mix but rather they just want more Foley and cut sound effects and less music. At least that's what I think they want. We'll see.
We've cast the women in The Prometheus Trap. Rebecca Kush will play the LT, Sarah-Doe Osborne will be Artemis, and Kate Britton will play Trent.

Winona's hair is the inspiration for Artemis' hair in The Prometheus Trap.

Post-Apocalypse Philadelphia is our thing. I don't think they used this in Alien IV.

Via Jonathan Newman, this short called "Archetype" is interesting. Notice the EMP as the big bad weapon (David Ian Lee and Nat Cassidy wrote that into Android Insurrection too).

IMDB

Somehow we're number 150 on IMDB. At least according to our distributor. Does anybody have IMDB pro? I love to know our ranking.

That's right, as of today if you type "batt" into the imdb search engine we're the first thing to come up. Even higher that Battle: LA and Battlestar Galactica.

Our reviews on imdb are about what you expect. Reviews on IMDB are about a half-step above the average YouTube comment. We in the genre movie world are fairly used to that.

Here's a review meme I've seen a lot of:

Give me a good laptop computer, an HD camera and a few students from the local primary school, and I can make a better movie than this. 

Really? The thing standing between you and making a movie is that you don't have a $600 video camera? Someone should take up a collection for you? ;-)

Ripping off the Rippers

So there are all these sites with ripped versions of the Battle: New York Day 2 DVD on them. I have a Google Alert set up to send me everything with "Battle: New York" in it and I'm getting like 10 a day now.
Am I allowed to just think it's funny that rippers post stills from the movie

and then watermark the stills -- you know, so people don't rip them off?
Everyone gets the irony there, right? It's not just me then.
Also, are these stills arbitrary? Or are they really selects?
Another question I have is: who issues the takedown notices? I suspect that technically that's our distributor(s). I have no idea. Maybe they just want people to download the movie often so that the servers go down.

The Things You Need To Know

I just got this spam from "Koitabashi Kazuo"

"I need your help. Can you assist me? For more details contact my private & secured email: koikkazuo@gmail.com  Regards, Koitabashi Kazuo"

On what planet would I NOT make a story about Koitabashi Kazuo?

For those of you playing along at home, the latest version of Blender that will correctly work the Whirleydoomer's wheel is 2.49b. I realize this means nothing to you. It actually means quite a great deal to me. And so I'm writing it here.

The Internet has gone crazy with sites to download Battle: New York, Day 2.
Is this good? Bad? Does thinking make it so? I dunno.

Ripping

Tina Tanzer in Battle New York Day 2

You like rips of your movies? Battle New York Day 2 has finally been ripped and distributed.
The RMTeam even captured some screen shots for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Covers

There seem to be a number of websites dedicated to DVD covers.


Battle New York, Day 2 2011 Ws DVD Front cover

I guess they scan covers and upload them. I guess people collect the images. Or. Something.

Anyway, I haven't actually got my copy of the movie yet.

Today's Things - Limited Embracing and Kissing

Via Stu, free texture maps!
An interview with filmmaker David Campfield. David, Chance Shirley, and I have now all had movies released by Pop Cinema (the label has various names).
Our first review for Day 2! ;-)
Here's something... interesting. The Ontario Film Board's content advisory for Battle: New York, Day 2. Under "detailed observations":
- Occasional gory/grotesque images- Coarse language- Partial or full nudity in a brief sexual situation- Limited embracing and kissing- Implied sexual activity- Violent acts shown in clear, unequivocal and realistic detail with blood and tissue damage
"Limited embracing and kissing" is my favorite part.

Family Video

We've learned that Battle: New York Day II will be available in Family Video stores. There are 735 Family Video stores. That's about half the size of Blockbuster inside the US. Blockbuster is owned by the Dish Network. And unfortunately it's much less "friendly" than it used to be to indy pictures though. Back in the day they would stock art-house pictures. I mean really! ;-)

But Family Video is tres cool. Unfortunately for me there isn't one within 175 miles of my house. But if you live near one you should GO CRAZY renting genre sci-fi from them.
The movie comes out on August 23rd. Rent, buy, run through the streets naked with a copy in each hand! I know I will...

Battle: NY Day 2 Comes Out This Month!

And this is what our distributor, Vanguard Cinema, told us to tell the cast and crew to do:

• Rate the film on IMDB.com and “link-list” the film as distributed by “Vanguard Cinema”
• Rate the film on Amazon.com and Yahoo.com/movies and write positive notes
• Tweet release alerts via Twitter; frequently and with different information
• Become a fan of our Facebook page, facebook.com/vanguardcinema and the films’ and cast and crew Facebook pages as well, we will do the same
• Send notices of the release, via Facebook and Twitter with links to the film
• Queue the film on Netflix for those who are subscribers
• Share the film’s website, and the Vanguardcinema.com website with friends.

Order from Netflix

Clone Hunter on Netflix
So, you can "pre-book" Battle: New York Day 2 on July 15th. That's only 10 days away! Our official release date is the 23rd of August.
One thing our distributor wants is for us to use teh social medias to push the movie. That's fine by me, I'm willing to Twitterize and Facebookcide the picture.
Pandora Machine on Netflix
Of course, we also need the cast and crew to do the same. Everybody go nuts!
Alien Uprising on Netflix
Our distributor explicitly asks for us to blog/tweet/'book the movie using the Netflix widget.
Millennium Crisis on Netflix
The problem is that Battle: New York Day 2 isn't actually on Netflix's servers in order to let people queue the movie. And Netflix (as a rule) won't buy the movie unless enough people have queued it. It's kind of a beautiful Kafka catch-22 isn't it?
Oddly, I feel fairly certain that Netflix did not pick up Millennium Crisis when it first came out. But they have it now. I don't think Netflix existed when Pandora Machine came out (although I might be wrong about that now that I think about it.)
And that's what's happening on July 4th in the Pandora Machine.

Order Now!

Battle NY: Day 2 is available for pre-order from Amazon. The movie comes out on August 23rd.
The artwork isn't here yet. That... concerns me. But only temporarily! I dig this movie.



And if the above link doesn't work, here's a permalink for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Battle: New York, Day 2 North American Art

This is the preliminary art. I know, a "Ralph Boswell" film. He's not so much my alter-ego as much as "imaginary friend".

New Battle: NY, Day 2 artwork

The evolution of the name of this picture is a bit unusual. Our working title was "Day 2" and that came from Montserrat Mendez saying "Day 1; aliens take over the earth, Day 2; we take it back." That logline really stuck (and we have to thank Mozz for that.)
But then the Battle: LA movie came out and, well, clearly our movie is "Battle: NY". But I think "Battle: NY, Day 2" is even more amusing.

Text Deliverables

Here's the place I'm putting my list of extra deliverables for Battle: New York, Day 2

EPK or standard press kit or production information stats; synopsis, trt, aspect ratio etc etc. Any quotes, any festivals, any write ups, anything? Who's in it? New art will be up in June.

We don't actually have an EPK but we'll come up with... something. And of course there's no festival play. Ooh. But we do have some extra and groovy pictures of Tina Tanzer (in front of a blue screen) we should send them. 

Oh but wait. That's not the really exciting part of the coming week. Our sales rep wants pictures of Robowar before we begin shooting!

And then we also need to finish with the visual effects shots for Earthkiller... soon. Like in 2 weeks.

"Would be great to get a few stills of the robot(s) in the next week or so for the teaser artwork.  Maybe one or two of the lead actresses/actors.
Can I get all /most of the Earth Killer finished efx shots by mid april for the trailer?"

OK. I'm on it!

Battle: New York, Day 2

So we have an official title for the movie previously titled "Day 2".

Battle: New York, Day 2

David Ian Lee came in and did the voiceover (in the first person) for the new North American trailer:


Battle: New York, Day 2 Trailer North America from Ralph Boswell on Vimeo.

Screening

Today we had our screening for Day 2. You know this picture is going to end up being called "Battle: New York, Day 2" right?

Screenings can be harrowing for me. There's always some dang thing which goes wrong. Today the sync in act 5 on the screener DVD went out. Yeah, it's all part of our screener DVD curse.

Other than that, though, it was enlightening to see the picture with an audience. One thing I've always felt about this movie is that the performances are strong. Like S T R O N G. And it's a good little script, which helps.

We probably got a few more laughs just because the actors delivering those lines were actually in the audience. But people kept with the story. And almost everyone dies. Oops. I didn't mean to give that part away.

IRL

Our man David Frey is designing his own gun for Robowar.
Also, I finally met Ian Hubert. In real life! We've known one another for nigh on 10 years online. He's in the midst of a bunch of exciting projects, many of which include Project London.

Hey -- you know we have a screening of Day 2 on Sunday the 20th at 2pm at the Gibson in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, right?