Payout!

So we got a payment from a couple sales on Friday and looking at the report I realized we'd actually gone above our arbitrary amount of money after which we start paying actors and editors and writers and stuff on the movie Android Insurrection.

And I'm really kind of tickled to be able to start paying that "deferred" money. You know, "monkey points". Well the monkey is here and he has a banana for you. This is where the analogy breaks down. Look. Nobody's getting rich. Most of the checks I'm writing are for less than a hundred bucks.
But hey! It's something!
To be in the black like this is something, as a producer, we're really proud of. We hope there are many, many more checks to write.

Filmkritik!

Here's a video review of Android Insurrection in German.


The review is that the movie is both good and bad in that it's a good idea but cheaply made.That's fair.

Восстание андроидов

Or: Vosstanie Androidov.
I believe that Russia's distribution method is simply to embed ads in the online videos. Which is a neat trick really. You can watch all of Android Insurrection here, in Russian. Although they use actors to voice the parts, they do that over the English-language dialog.
Joe Chapman found this awesome new cover art. 

 I believe this to be the DVD version of the movie in Russian.

Then I found this version of the artwork. I dig the color in it.

Proto Slattern

I, naturally, have Google Alerts send me a thing whenever the Web offers my name up in any sort of search. Mostly what I get are sites for torrent downloads for movies we've made.
But sometimes I get something especially weird.
It's funny (to me at least) because I completely forget that our movies are distributed internationally. I mean, in the big scheme of things it's not much but a lot of people see them. Sometimes they review the movies. And sometimes the reviews are awesome. And... odd.
This review of Android Insurrection contains an ideological checklist. Which. Is. Awesome.
This picture is anti-war, pro-slut(??), and racist. Which is a fair analysis. Why are all the people in that movie white? (And Gen X? No, I assure you that at best most of those kids are Gen Y, most are post-gen-Y). I don't even remember. I have this whole thing on casting and race but it's way too much to go into while I'm bonkered from antibiotics. Suffice to say that the review reads just a bit too much in the way of the racial backstory. I vaguely recall our realizing the cast was all white on this picture at some point in production. But we didn't do anything about it. The sin we commit is the typical Hollywood sin of omission rather than commission.
Like I said, it's an important issue. One I'll address when I'm not on drugs that make me loopy. Because if I address it now I'll say things like "Harmfph. Pithemboom haragnaglark mizzenmoof. Kerthump?"

Remember:
Your toaster hates you and will destroy you if you allow it.

Et More

Here's the whole gang doing a snippet of the dialog in Earthkiller (in German). You want to buy a copy? Look here. You may need to get a used version to convince them to ship it to you.
Here's Katie Hannigan in German:
Here's Sarah-Doe Osborne in German: Here's the whole gang in Android Insurrection in German: Here's a scene with Sarah-Doe Osborne in Android Insurrection in French: And lastly here's the gang in Android Insurrection in French:

Un Film

The art for the French version of Android Insurrection is one of my favorite pieces of art for any movie we've done.

That's Ian Hubert's robot up there, and two Michael Bevins costumes are featured (the android armor and the jumpsuit on Jeff Wills on the right.)
I'm going to make a poster for my office.

The Internet Movie Cars Database

Android Insurrection on the IMCDb.org :
Oh yeah.
Yeah.

French Androids

Everyone knows that France has the best androids in the world. Which is why they need the best robot hunters in the world.

Groove to how awesome everyone looks. This was exactly what I was thinking. This may be my favorite poster.

Yes, "Un Film De Andrew Bellware". The most pretentious thing to put on a poster because it's even in French. I so win.

Germanback

Joe Chapman turned me onto the back cover of the German DVD of Android Insurrection. Dig it.

You know that the whole idea that there's the "Philadelphia Desert" is Montserrat Mendez', right? And I've just stolen it and used it in other movies because I'm evil.
Kampfroboter!

No THIS is the party video

Here is the Android Insurrection party video (Henry Steady approved version).


Android Insurrection Party Video from Andrew Bellware on Vimeo.
Click through for the high-def pure-love embiggenizer.

Langue Espanol

Did we even sell a Spanish Language version of this movie? I... I don't remember. This image was found here.

Dig It

The German distributor of Android Insurrection is DTP Entertainment.

German cover.

That's Joe Chapman cutting down some of Ian Hubert's big, bad, 'bots.

North American Deals

The movies Earthkiller by Montserrat Mendez and Android Insurrection by David Ian Lee and Nat Cassidy — even though David and Cassidy used absurd pseudonyms for their screen credits — have North American Distribution.
Yes. They'll be coming out on DVD and VOD in the US and Canada. And relatively soon, too.
I know that for many of our people the most important part of this news is that means these movies will get IMDB credits. ;-)

Foley Day in the Pandora Machine

So we recorded Foley for Android Insurrection. DeLisa M. White came by and we made some footsteps and robots sounds (which will all be up under a Creative Commons 0 license on Freesound.org just as soon as they are moderated.)
I was surprised to find that our little voiceover booth was good for Foley work. And compared to hard-cut sound effects, Foley goes fast.

DeLisa M. White recording Foley with my shoe and a brick.

Now, is there any compelling reason not to deliver sound files for mixes in 24-bits?

Building the Helmet

Anthony Jones has made the mold for the helmet. Here are some pictures of the process. I won't go into any detail about the process 'cause I'll just say stuff that's wrong.
But he used a very cool foam for the outside, which saved money and weight. And he's already struck one helmet from the mold.
It's very cool looking. Almost an organic shape to it. I think we're going to leave one of the helmets white just because that looks so nice.

Newe Machine

I've been looking at some AfterEffects projects. Just looking.


http://videohive.net/item/alien-encounter/1488423?WT.ac=category_item&WT.seg_1=category_item&WT.z_author=caeazar

It turns out there are some utilities for the MSI X79A-GD65 "Military Class" mainboard that I have which allow the temperature to be monitored and regulated without going directly into the BIOS. "Click Bios II" and "System Monitor" deals with overclocking.

I figure if the CPU temperature is less than 40 degrees Centigrade then I'm in relatively good shape as long as the mainboard doesn't go above 45 degrees. In any case, setting the fans to "auto" makes the machine a whole lot quieter. If it starts to heat up, the computer will up the fan speed. Still, I'm checking into a quieter top fan for the machine.

Marcus the robot says hello.

The Titanus machine is very nice. It's been thrown into production. I've already done heavy mixing and 3D animation. These frames are taking about 40 seconds to render and I'm not even being polite to the machine -- I'll be working on audio in another window in a minute.

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).

Act 9

We need to shoot act 9 of Android Insurrection on Sunday. We're looking at different ideas. Some of those ideas include an army of arachnobots and androids. Most of the ideas include some degree of insanity.

I'm building a crashing ship. I don't have any good way of making pieces of the ship fall off however. But I might be able to cover that with dirt and dust rushing at the camera. We'll see.

I insist that the eyes emit beams of light. That's my thing. Insisting that.
I think that will involve spotlights and ambient occlusion (but ambient occlusion which is only affected by the spotlights and on a very narrow beam.)

New Coda

"In my demure barbie-doll nudity, I pick up the big gun, and a cigarette, which I light in the burning flames of the space shuttle. Taking my red wig off and tossing it into the air, I say, in a Marcus voice, "time to play human. " And I blast the red wig with my big gun like a Englishman shooting a clay pigeon, but creepier."

Right now we don't have a shuttle, all beat up and in pieces, in order to make this shot. We'll hopefully figure out something. By Sunday.

I suppose I could ask the writers about a new coda to Android Insurrection. But neither of them believe they actually wrote the movie at this point so it's a bit like kicking a dead horse.

Make Human is an open-source project for making 3D models of humans. Which is very cool. I don't have time to deal with it but it's very cool. Nathan Vegdahl turned us on to it.

Berliner

Joe Chapman being tortured by a robot in Android Insurrection. Second - unit director Henry Maduka Steady created this shot.. 

Berlin is coming up. I mean the Berlin Film Market. Actually it's the European Film Market.
The funny thing about working inside an art-house film office is overhearing other filmmaker's struggles with film festivals. We don't struggle with film festivals at all, because we just don't go to them. Actually, I go to neither festivals or markets. I stay at home and try to make deliverables.
I feel bad that I don't have a complete version of Android Insurrection to go to Berlin with our sales rep. It's my fault. The question is, how are we going to get faster at delivering pictures? Why are we behind?
OK, so I have some excuses. We all know what excuses are like. But I think these can be overcome.

• The first excuse is that we were late on delivering Earthkiller, which in turn made us late in delivering other movies. 
• Secondly, it wasn't so much the surprise move we had to make with our office as the fact that I was sick for a month between December and January. That really annoys me and I'm going to be much more militant about getting the doctor to give me antibiotics.
• Third-wise I'm blaming my computer. My PC is just appallingly slow. And I'm waiting on a new one from Titanus Computers but it's delayed because of some sort of manufacturing hiccup with the new Sandy Bridge chip. In the meantime we're only able to use the dual-quad-core Mac Pro for all visual effects, rendering, and editing. Which is a bit of a bottleneck because just one computer is responsible for all picture. (I'm still using the PC for sound.)

So the big question here is will we be able to deliver Prometheus on time? The answer is, of course, "yes". And even though I've been wrong before I'm not wrong now. How do I know? Because a robot is hanging its death-claw over my head.

Also because the picture is very low on actual visual effects. We can animate and render spaceships hanging out in space until the cows come home. Or, actually, that's a terrible analogy. We can do it. Quickly. That's what I mean.

All we need for Prometheus is some nice freezing tubes. We need freezing tubes. Suspension animation chambers. Cryogenic Tubes. Whatever. We need at least two of them. Please deliver them immediately.