Marvelous Blog (Contains Nudity!)

This blog is described as "marvelous" by the fine folks at Scoopy. It's implied that it's marvelous because of the nudity, which I feel remiss in posting.
Although what if it's just pictures of absurd things I'm not posting? Perhaps absurd nudity will do (for today).
I may as well take this time to mention that big changes are taking place at Manhattan Theatre Source, where Pandora Machine has had its studio/edit suite (in what we call "Digitalsource") since it came into existence. I'm a founding member of Theatresource (and although that doesn't really mean anything I'm still kinda proud I was there when it was still a shoe store.)
Jim Lawson has come in as the new Artistic Director* (his page on the Theatresource website is totally un-linkable). Daryl Boling (who's been in all three of the movies I've made since meeting him at Theatresource) has left to work at the Signature Theater (whoever they are). Hopefully that'll mean he'll find more time to direct. And Lanie Zipoy is the new Managing Director**. One day I bet her company Avec Promotions will have a website. I'm sure she's just too busy actually promoting things to deal with it right now. ;-)

*Which means he spends a lot of time scrubbing the floor.
**Which means she spends a lot of time trying to get the copier to work.

His Dark Materials

The Golden Compass
I enjoyed it. It's a movie about costume design, collars in particular (I'll give ye no spoilers here.)

OK, so it's beautiful but flawed. The problem is that they tried to make a feature out of a novel and included almost every dang scene in it, while keeping the picture to under 2 hours. You only get one or the other of them things baby.
I'd say the biggest fault was that the movie went "And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened..." There was a dramaturlogical issue that we couldn't effectively get from moment to moment properly because we were squeezed for time. We couldn't get into a scene, feel the big turn or decision, and then resolve it. We just keep smashing through. Honestly, another edit and an added 20 or 30 minutes would be all we'd need. But it sure was beautiful and, oddly, I'd say the screenplay was fine, it just needs a less tight edit.
Look, I know what I'm talking about here. I made an unwatchable movie based on Milton's Paradise Lost.
Went with Melissa, Laura, Maduka, and Lanie. Melissa hated this dress.

The Cat is Out of the Bag

We haven't been given the official word by our distributor, but clearly Millennium Crisis has a street date. I just found it on Amazon: January 29, 2008. You can pre-order right now to have it in time for... um... Groundhog Day. You can also pre-order from Best Buy.
Oh and look. This blog has broken the 5000 visitors mark.

Pearl Harbor Day

Here are (courtesy of the Mystery Man on Film):
4 Screenwriting Tips that Annoy Me. They're pretty amusing. And I've gotten a couple of those tips in my life. And yup, sometimes these kinds of notes are good and sometimes they stink.
I'd especially be careful of actors who read scripts 'cause they tend to 1. look for parts they can play and 2. read from an actor's "moment to moment" perspective rather than whether it is a good story.
In other words, it's like asking an oboe player if a symphonic work is good. They might say "yes" because there's a good oboe solo in it or they might say "no" if the oboe part is "boring". In either case, it don't say much about the actual work.
I was just thinking about a movie I worked on briefly, The Great New Wonderful, which has problem number 1. It's filled with great actorly "moments" but the story... well I don't even know what the story is but they got a buncha big-name actors in it. I'm sure those actors were attracted to the great new wonderful moments in the screenplay, but those moments (like oboe solos) don't necessarily add up to a good story (symphony.)
I don't have anything against oboists by the way.
--
The thing I really don't understand is why writers think it takes so long to write a script. After all, you can write a feature film in two weeks. And that includes editing.
Look: "Day 11 - your character gets the girl, returns home and lives happily ever after (8 to 10 pages)"
And then Day 12? "Rest". You even get a day off with this schedule!
I just don't see what anyone could be complaining about.
In order to be self-referential, I'll re-guide the reader to this post on "the formula". Read. Memorize. Create. Thank you.
--
Pandora Machine will be shooting a new picture on March 1st. I wonder what that movie will be?
Ahem...

I Don't Wanna Be One of Those Guys But...

I don't wanna be one of those guys who thinks about this kind of thing all the time but you know I gotta disagree with David Wellington and say that New York is ultimately the most defensible place when the zombie apocalypse comes.
Interestingly, the high-rent areas will be "no-go" zones because unlike the ghetto they ain't got no security. Any building with riot doors and windows will be impenetrable by the drooling zombie masses. And we survivors can get around from roof-to-roof. Supplies will be abundant because each self-contained block has at least one bodega. And if one block is taken over by the infected, it's still isolated from other blocks so they can't go any further.
Schools, for instance, are basically impenetrable to the vast hordes of mindless undead. And they have dining facilities, exercise facilities, and Internet access, so as long as you get food into them (via helicopter?) you could feed and house thousands of survivors.
Sure, the relative lack of weapons would make it harder to clear out infected sections of the city than it would be in a rural area with lots of hunting rifles but I think we can expect at least some assault rifles brought in by the 82nd Airborne when the apocalypse breaks out.
OK. It's official. I've already thought too much about this.
At least I don't have an irrational fear of velociraptors.

Our First Review

Millennium Crisis gets its first review.
Our North American distributor, Pop Cinema, did all the PR -- thanks guys!

Hopefully we'll soon have a release date for the picture.

Golden Compass

Because of my sister I'm buying into the complete marketing campaign of this movie. The books are brilliant brilliant brilliant. They kick the combined butts of J. K. Rowling and C. S. Lewis in the first dozen pages.
Anyway, I have twelve days to decide if this daemon is the right one for me. I was really hoping for a large cat but it seems most people get birds...
Update: it used to be an osprey... seems to be a lynx now... but you have the power to change it by telling the Flash animation about me. Plus also too, you can make your own!
I am so going to see this movie in two days...
Update 2: my sister made me a lion!
Update 3: who the hell turned me into a spider! That will not do. Not at all. I want the lion back.

Today's News

Drew: "I wish I were more like Snoop Dog."
Maduka: "I'm sure lots of 40-something white guys from New Jersey think the same thing."

What's wrong with this Robot 3 v4?

It starts to pull apart at the end. Perhaps it should be moving at about half that speed? Also, it seems too "plasticy-shiny" and, oddly, too tall. Perhaps the camera in Blender is set incorrectly. I'll take a look today.

Update:
Here is two seconds of shot four. I mean, here is the entire two seconds of shot four. Perhaps again it needs to be slowed?


Here are the changes to Robot 3 version 5:


And slowing Robot 4 version 3:

Fantastique

-----I've realized lately that I've been a bit resistant to just making a straight ahead horror picture. I'd probably make vastly more money doing it though. And it would be much easier in many ways than doing a sci-fi flick.

In fact, I've been sitting on an excellent horror script a friend wrote. It's totally shootable as-is. It may even have the requisite number of "jump scares" to satisfy distributors. It would be cheap and easy to shoot. My friend really should try to get a bigger company with a real budget to shoot the picture first, but if not we could totally shoot it in 20 days and it would be good.

But we wouldn't be creating a whole new world. And I think I need that.

We've been trying to write a mission statement. Normally I think mission statements are kinda silly. My first inclination was to make it something like "Make movies that don't suck." But after fighting with various mission statements I thought of "Independent Cinema Fantastique".

Ted Raimi said that practically nobody makes independent sci-fi. And I guess that's really what I'd like to be doing. It would be simply delightful to have a budget of, oh say, $2 million to make a movie (even though we keep being told that any amount less than $2 million ought to be $15 thousand). But no matter what, I'm just more interested in a fantastique world than a normal one.

Perhaps if I shot horror pictures like New York was this weird distorted steampunk version of itself then I'd be interested in making a horror picture.

Actually, now that I think of it... that sounds like a great idea.

Incidentally, in English we seem to use the term "cinema fantastique" a bit differently than the French do. I think the French tend to think of cinema fantastique as more horror and not sci-fi, but I'm not sure.

And it's not to say I won't try to do straight up horror, I'm just thinkin' out loud and concludin' and suchly.

Yet More Robots

I keep putting these up to get feedback . Feel free to comment.

Here's the "50mm" of the first robot shot:



And the "85mm" "closeup" in that shot:


And this is shot #5 (which I think I already posted:

Sundance Betty

The beautiful and talented Betty Ouyang, who was in our movie Pandora Machine, is in a movie at Sundance this year.

And Lanie Zipoy got the Russian Chamber Chorus a 4 inch column in the New York Daily News today. Laura wrote the press release.

Back to Betty's movie: it's called Frozen River (not the 1929 Rin Tin Tin movie linked in this New York Times article).

Interestingly, the article alludes to one of the deep dark secrets about Sundance:
"Sundance, both a pre-eminent showcase for American cinema and a freewheeling bazaar for movie executives, tries to cope with the annual deluge of films by tracking scores of potential submissions throughout the year. But more than half of the 2008 lineup emerged “from the pile,” Mr. Gilmore said, meaning without the benefit of advance buzz from the festival’s network of talent and sales agents, established filmmakers and other scouts."

This means that even this year, with all those movies graciously selected by Mr. Gilmore's staff "from the pile", half the movies at Sundance are "pre-selected" (by the act of someone who knows Gilmore making a phone call to him).

I love it that all of us without someone to make that fateful phone call are lumped together as being "from the pile".

Robot 5 version 1

Here is robot of the fifth shot (version 1).

Right Where I Wanna Be

I don't even feel the need to blog anymore. I'm just going to steal from Josh James. I even stole this picture from him.

We're greenlighting this screenplay. Don't ask me why I think it's so brilliant -- it just is somehow... Josh has an ear for good character names. (And don't think I don't think that the remake-sequel is a brilliant idea... because... it just is...)*

I'm thinking the remake sequel to Total Recall...

*Sure, the screenplay is completely unrealistic, because I'd greenlight Lesbian Cannibal Porn Stars without a moment's hesitation.