Darkness is Cheap

Plus he has nice hats.

The deliriously handsome Greg Oliver Bodine is performing his Christmas Carol this year. He's doing the one-man-show at the Workshop Theater Company, not at Theatresource. Last time I saw it I got all sniffly and sobby by the end. It's a fantastic show.

You know the first time I really interacted with Greg I was a total jerkwad to him. I asked if we could borrow his dressing room right at half-hour of his solo show so that Ted Raimi would have a place to dress and try on costumes before we shot Millennium Crisis. Which really is a dick move on my part to make that request. And Greg graciously let us take over his place just before he was to go on.

I thanked Greg at the time but I can't imagine that I thanked him enough. Like you don't have enough to do before a one-man show and now someone is moving into your dressing room? Sheesh.

Go see A Christmas Carol. It'll make you cry. Don't ask if you can use his dressing room beforehand though. I'm the only one allowed to do that.

Ugly, but it gets you there.

The minimum cost to be an exhibitor at the AFM is $8675. Of course, you and at least one other person have to be put up in Santa Monica for the week, you have to make lots of posters and 1-sheets, and you have to convince a whole bunch of people to buy your movie(s).

Me? I really don't want to go into the distribution biz. I'd much rather partner up with someone who does want to do that, or preferably who is doing that.

Saw the Half Blood Prince. A very un-homophobic movie wherein teachers could spend time with students and there wasn't that whole "Oh noes!" of them being alone together. The screenplay was excellent too.

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

Oh look. New Horizons is making a movie called Dinoshark. It's exactly what you think it is.

And Ted Raimi is teaming up with Mary Lambert (the director of the movie The Attic) to make High Midnight, a zombie western, on Peak Global Entertainment's label. What frightens us about making a western is the fact that one of our best movies, Solar Vengeance, got kind of beat up by distributors because it was a western.

Anyway, according to The Film Catalogue it's: "A broken-down sheriff is forced to join forces with an obsessed Victorian vampire hunter to defeat an undead force consuming a small frontier town in 1892 New Mexico."

In Stores Now

Millennium Crisis

... well, a check of the Best Buy website says it's in "most stores" but looking around on the website it seems that it's only available in some stores. I dunno. But it was available in the store in Woodbridge, NJ and I went to visit.

There it is -- right between "Matrix Revolutions" and "The Mothman Prophecies".

This store only had three copies. Now they have two. I wonder if that'll be the tipping point at which Best Buy will order more?

When I got my copy and brought it home I noticed that although Ted Raimi and Ato Essandoh are both listed above the title on the cover; Clare, Ted and Olja are listed in the plastic thing you peel off the top of the DVD to open it.

Shock-O-Rama did a nice job of the packaging on the inside with a clear plastic case so you could see through to the inside artwork.

P.S. Yes that's my dad's Sudoku on the table. He finished it a little while later. I think it was a 5 - star.

Signing

Although we don't seem to have the appropriate technology to actually fax our agreement, Bloodmask LLC has signed with Halcyon International Pictures. They'll be taking Bloodmask to the AFM in November.
Clare Stevenson with Ted Raimi. Clare running from multiple androids (Kim Vasilakis), the Terran Ambassador (played by Clare's husband Al DelBene) and Harkness (Ato Essandoh), while Counselor Carrasco looks on (Jeff Plunkett).

DISContent: Distribution Do's and Don'ts...

Gosh I love the Internet. It's really so helpful. Otherwise, I'd probably be watching TV. Or finishing one of four scripts we're working on.


First of all, this is Holly from www.kittenwar.com
I like to think Holly represents what Pushkin looked like as a kitten. But I digress.


Here's a big answer to a big question I had: DISContent: Distribution Do's and Don'ts...


I'm a bit jumpy about what our distribution prospects are for Bloodmask. We'll see. I mean, we have Ted Raimi, it's science fiction, and after editing and working on effects for six months, I still don't hate it!


We made the blogosphere! Well, I asked a question and it got answered.

More Desert

We were pretending we were in Star Wars.
1. Andrew Bellware (a terrible picture of me), Laura Schlachtmeyer, Clare Stevenson.
2. Andrew Bellware, Clare Stevenson (obscured), Laura Schlachtmeyer.
3. Clare Stevenson, Andrew Bellware (shemping for Ted Raimi.)
4. Laura Schlachtmeyer, Clare Stevenson, Andrew Bellware (again, shemping for Ted Raimi.)
5. Laura Schlachtmeyer and camera (note the still-camera tripod, not good for smooth starts and stops of pans.)

Still looking for the eyeline

It's somewhere on this green wall!
Ted Raimi and me in "Studio C".

End of this leg. . .

These are additional pictures by Jef Betz on our last day with Ted Raimi. It looks like I'm directing, but I think I'm just telling a story. Then we're all looking at August's scanner. It's very interesting. Laura Schlachtmeyer is doing sound. That's Pushkin the cat behind her head!

Last day with Ted Raimi

We had fun with Ted Raimi. He even did a podcast interview of Laura, Clare, and me today. Jef Betz came by and took pictures. Here are some of em!

That's me on the ground, ready to shoot a POV looking at Ted Raimi, Blair Johnson working the camera for Ted's greenscreen, a great picture of Clare Stevenson, another great picture of Clare as Aurora, and the crew with Ted playing "statues".

TD3 Part II

The Alien Archaeological Dig seems to be working pretty well. Clare Stevenson and Ted Raimi are great. I think we have all our coverage. Unfortunately, Mitchell Riggs, our gaffer, has had to leave somewhat early every day 'cause he's had rehearsals for a play. Why would anyone be in a play when they could make a film?

TD 3

That's "Ted Day 3". For our star, Ted Raimi. Which is to separate it from the previous "Day 3" of Bloodmask.
That third picture is how I feel at the end of the day. Although honestly, we've been having our call at 7am and have been out by 4pm every day. Poor Laura has to make a pickup at 6am in New York and drive everyone back to the city (then she has to pick up lunch for the next day.)
That group shot is Mitchell, Marta, Me, Clare, Mike (who's birthday is today), Ted, Tony, Laura.

Day Two

I've just got three words for you.
Alien.
Archaeological.
Dig.

I'm tired. I feel as though I'm writing modern poetry.

Again.

Heck, I've got three words for you. "Paleoxenopologist."
Little alien girl.

Tomorrow. More. Of. The Dig.

(Let's see how many lamps Mitchell breaks! ;-)

One of Mike's statues holds the boom.

In the movie.

This was the first day on the "August's Transport" set. Clare Stevenson and Ted Raimi.

Day one

Today was our first day shooting with Ted Raimi. Do I have any pictures to put up on the Web of him or any of our shooting? No.
I have this picture of Olja Hrustic trying out her combat android armor. Yep. That's what I do.

Christmas Eve

Starting to finish up the spaceship interior. I'm going to take 24 hours off, fly down to Atlanta, and fly back tomorrow to finish detailing this ship and start working on robots and the Alien Archaeological Dig set (which is, of course, going to be in my basement). Ted Raimi wants to podcast about this on his blog. I'm really looking forward to that. Besides, it might get us finally listed on imdb.com!

Ted Raimi

We're excited to have Ted Raimi to play the role of August in Bloodmask. He comes in on the 22nd. We got an apartment for him to stay in New York for shooting between Christmas and New Year's Eve. (I think he just wanted to be in New York for the holidays and our movie was a good excuse ;-)

Michael Kessell has stepped up to the plate to be our art director now. He's designed the interior of the ship we call August's Transport which will be built in the coming week.

To do

I guess I should change the Bloodmaskthemovie.com site to reflect that we have our stars: Ted Raimi, Clare Stevenson, Olja Hrustic, and Ato Essandoh. Laura Schlachtmeyer and Tamara Gorski (and I) are producing.

Plus I need to get a bid on the sound gear for SIDD. I should probably take a day off. We start shooting on the 27th of January.
Here's a still of Jeff Plunkett and Catie Riggs from the movie we were calling Firefly, which we shot in November of 2004."

Braidwood Entertainment Group

Braidwood Entertainment Group


Every time I open my browser there's a painting of a naked woman. How does that work for me?


8:30am call. But didn't get our first shot with sound off until 12:19. Director wants wild sound of someone walking on gravel in front of house. We'll probably grab that first thing in the morning next time out.

We have Tsubo shoes for Bloodmask. But Ted Raimi can't shoot in December. We'll see what happens.