Rubbersqizzle

If you have never heard of Gizoogle, you gotta go there. It'll "transizlate" it for you. Click here to see my blog transizlated.

A sample:

"Indie horror is a special breed if you gots a paper stack. Its eitha off tha hook or terrible wit da big Bo$$ Dogg. No middle ground is often found, not by me . Chill as I take you on a trip. Thankfully The Bet Traila is really quite fantastic mah nizzle. One of tha bizzest indie horror traila I hizzle seen in quite some time."

Some positive response

While the trailer has been pretty popular, garnering (as it should) quite a bit of talk and interest, it got it's first "official" response on the website horror-movies.ca:

"Indie horror is a special breed. Its either awesome or terrible. No middle ground is often found, not by me. Thankfully The Bet Trailer is really quite fantastic. One of the best indie horror trailers I have seen in quite some time."

Like I said I was gonna promote the crap out of this thing and this is the first fruit born from that promotional tree. Or something like that.


Yesterday I spent entirely too much time at cafepress creating some awesome merchandise so I'd be able to order something to wear to CineVegas. Not every day. But I felt I'd be missing a great opportunity if I didn't wear a "The Bet"-logo'd t-shirt to the premiere or at some time during the festival. Bu the way, the logo t-shirt comes in six colors. Oh, and there's a bevy of Donnie and Maree merchandise, including ringer T's, magnets and other swag. And some cool origami angel designs as well. Go. Now. Buy. Love. Thank me later.

Enough about that, tho, I need to get my notes together for "Detox."

Out of my hands

Well, after some "issues," an HD version of "The Bet" was dropped off at CineVegas. Quite unceremonial (not that I expected a procession of ushers to guide me in under fanfare and all that), but even psychologically it didn't quite have the OH MY GOD-ness I thought it might.

"Hey, is there a manager on duty?"
"Yeah, she's over there in red."
Go over to the lady in red. "This is for CineVegas."
Blank nod as she takes it.

meh

But still. It's there. Soon it'll be on screen. In front of... not sure how many people. 100? 200? Maybe it's a small theatre. Maybe it's a big one. Dunno. Still. In a just a few weeks, a hundred or so people - people, I've never met nor will I ever will meet - will spend 18 minutes and 28 seconds of their life watching this film.

And not just them. Over the next few days, I'll be sending out the film with it's press kits to a handful of reviewers. Why? Why not. What if they hate it? Then they don't get a blurb. What if they do? Then it'll look nice on the DVD case when this bugger finally goes on sale.

And there's the other festivals. So far I've just added one more to get in before the deadline. But there's a bunch. And if they accept it. Awesome. If not, well, I've lost a small submission fee and some postage.

Like I told Chris, this little film deserves to have more to hang on it's mantle than "Official Selection CineVegas." This crazy little "side project" that so many people worked on and sweated to make real. Two million pixels making an image that flashes by 24 times every second. That's nearly 2 and half BILLION pixels up there on screen. All those hours of prep. The shopping. The building. The storyboards. The writing. Literally months that went into that. And it may have absolutely no impact on them. But it's not up there for them. I couldn't give a crap if one person showed up. Cos I'll be there. Me and all those pixels and all those hours and all those memories all the experience.

And that is a huge reason why this film exists. Yes, it was I had a bug up my ass to make a short film and yes, I've wanted to do something like this for a long time. But that last thing is why I'm so happy it's done. The experience. So, here's to the next one.

Grrr

Just grrr. That's all.

V.I.P. Premiere

Had a little party on Saturday to unveil "The Bet" to a small group of friends. Went pretty well despite a late start and my long-winded intro to thank a few people. Before the film, I added a teaser trailer for Detox, the follow-up feature, which was a surprise to everyone. Then the logos for Rubbersquare and Abe Froman came up and the film started. I tried to gauge reactions from everyone, but it was difficult to see (it was dark, and I wasn't in the best spot to see everyone). Afterwards, it seemed people seemed to like it (at least they said they did). All my obsession to details were perhaps lost on them, which is a good thing. From the comments, everyone seemed impressed at how professional it looked. So, in all, I was pretty happy. And then today I got a revised sound mix from John McClain at Dog & Pony here in Vegas. My concern that I was beating a dead horse was put to rest when I listened because WOW! He nailed the mood so amazingly well. It absolutely heightens the creepiness of the film - the way sound design should - and I can't wait to see it play at CineVegas with the new audio. I am in absolute heaven right now. Such a relief.

Now I can put this baby to bed (so to speak, still have the press materials to get ready for CineVegas and possibly do a surround mix or at least the final final tweaks and get it off to the rest of the fests). But for the most part, it's DONE! And i can focus on the new film.

And, of course, there's still CineVegas in a couple of weeks. I hope it plays well there. I'm at the point now where my only way of watching the film is through someone else's eyes, through their reactions and responses. Hopefully those reactions and responses are good. Actually, I'd prefer if there were few "good" reactions. I'm much more the type who's looking for "I hate it" or "I love it." I never wanted this to be the kind of film where people watch and forget.

Blast from the Past

Here's "technically" my directorial debut, an intro film for the 2004 AIGA Las Vegas Work Show. I created the theme and collateral for that year's awards show (and the one before) and had come up with a "Obey. Submit. Release." tagline which basically meant to obey the client, submit your work and then come and party, obviously with very sexual overtones. The invitations and various collateral featured handcuffs and ball gags. There were two main images for the show: one where a man is kneeling, submissive - his hands bound by a computer mouse cable - beneath a dominatrix with a computer monitor for a head; the other where he had been released and was reaching up to grab a floating black cube the dominatrix was holding, which was, of course, what the awards looked like. So this short film was intended to explain where this dominatrix came from. Mixing parts of Alien, The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell and a nice dash of David Lynch, I wrote and directed this with eatdrink handling the camera, edit and CGI. Francis George was gracious enough to loan his studio for the day and his skill with the lights.

It was, I thought, a pretty damn good campaign, but, unfortunately, it didn't get any praise. Whatever.

CineVegas Showtimes

The CineVegas site has been updated with the film schedule, including showtimes for "The Bet." It will play during the Nevada Filmmaking Shorts Program on Wednesday, June 13th at 3:30pm and on Friday, June 13th at 1:30pm. Check out "The Bet's" page on CineVegas' site HERE. Exciting! Exciting! EXCITING! I can't wait.

CineVegas, baby!

Ok, as a local, I cringe when I hear "VEGAS, BABY!" But, hey, I'm pretty stoked. "The Bet" has been selected to show at CineVegas, so I'm allowing a little bit of goofiness. The film will play twice, on June 13th and 15th, though times have not yet been announced. The schedule and trailers and all that good stuff should be up on the CineVegas site May 7th.

I got the news a while ago, but had been holding out. As a part of the festival, "The Bet" VIP's get 3 all-access passes to CineVegas and a few tickets for each of the screenings. Needless to say, I'm going to have to put in for some vacation time. What freaked me out a bit was the news that the director (that's me) goes up on stage beforehand (whether it plays before a feature or as a part of the shorts program) to say a few words and (if it plays in the shorts program) comes back after the films play for a Q&A. Here I thought, being new to this, I was just going to sit there with the audience anonymously and watch the film. Pretty cool.

Luckily the news came before my week-long vacation, which, with the stunner that a judging copy needed to be at the CineVegas office May 1, meant I spent the week fine tuning color and sound. Plus, getting the revamped trailer done by April 27th to go on the CineVegas site. AND that I had to get a headshot of myself (thanks Francis!). So, it was a rather busy week indeed. Everything got done on time (whew!) and now I'm at work putting together the production notes (10 copies on CD no less) as well as 5 DVD copies of the film for the press.

So, BIG news and hopefully not an isolated incident. Here's to hobnobbing with the celebrities and all that stuff those film people do. Wait. I'm one of those film people. Wonder if they watch Mythbusters.