FESTIVAL ROUND UP 2: FABULOUS EDITION

WINNER
BEST OF FESTIVAL
H.P. LOVECRAFT FILM FESTIVAL


OFFICIAL SELECTION
OUTFEST FILM FESTIVAL
FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL
FRAMELINE 36 FILM FESTIVAL
A NIGHT OF HORROR FILM FESTIVAL
PHOENIX COMIC CON
ROSE CITY STEAM PUNK FILM FESTIVAL

FESTIVAL ROUND-UP

WOO! Doctor Glamour is finally done. I cut five minutes out and remixed it. Now it is even awesomer.

We are playing at.....

2012 BOSTON SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL
2012 RADCON
2012 INTERNATIONAL SCI-FI & HORROR FILM FESTIVAL
2012 GASPARILLA FILM FESTIVAL
2012 WORLDCON
2012 PHOENIX COMICON
2012 TRI-CITIES FILM FESTIVAL
2012 LONDON SCI-FI FILM FESTIVAL

With more to come I'm sure!

So Close, Yet So Far

So it's the end of November and still no movie. This is the result of three things:

1.) I have had a crushingly busy month at my day job and have not had time to organize the final color correction and extras shoot

2.) The final sound mix that has a crucial boost to the intelligibility of the lyrics has been delayed due to budget among other things

3.) A version with mediocre color correction and a stereo sound mix has been sent to over 20 film festivals

Now, I could release an online private link to donors and friends that has the current sound mix and a few funky color issues. The "festival screener" version, if you will. But I want the first time you see it to be the best it can be.

Rest assured, the Doctor is coming, maybe just in time for Christmas.

Got a quick shout for the "Doctor Glamour" trailer on Director's Notes. I hope to sit down and do an interview with them once the film's out (and if they like it!) Check it out here: http://www.directorsnotes.com/2011/10/04/doctor-glamour-trailer/

Doctor Glamour has a Trailer!

A genius scientist contacts another dimension to save the woman he loves, summoning a flamboyant rock & roll superhero.

Coming 2012
Find out more at:
DoctorGlamour.com

Anime Exorcism

I've never been content to merely like or dislike a piece of media, I need to understand why. This is paramount when I'm culling influences for a new project. Why am I interested in this thing? How does this gel with other influences? Do all these things reinforce the themes I'm trying to express?

I feel this is especially important with "Buccaneer Galaxy," as I am really playing with fire. Why are the elements so volatile in this case? Well, this time I'm not spoofing over serious sci-fi or adapting the classic artwork of a master. Instead, I'm taking a crack at something most people don't like: an Anime Sitcom.

Don't run! There are other influences as well, but they are easy to like and easy to explain.  But to explain why I like "FLCL," "Excel Saga" and most importantly "Slayers," we first need to start with what people often don't like. Lots of folks get turned off by the way these things LOOK. This is not a failing of the art itself, but rather the fact that it has become obnoxiously homogeneous.

If you look at the sheer variety of design choices and art direction in American animation today, it's staggering. Each show's identity is allowed to be reinforced by its look.

Would "Adventure Time" evoke the effusive innocence, charm and vulnerability of a high school doodle on the back of a DandD character sheet, if it looked like "Young Justice"? Of course not. It would suffer immensely.

Most of the anime that comes to our shores has no such variety and therefore no such visual clues as to the actual tone or personality of the piece. So when you see this:


and this:


Your brain has no reason to make a distinction.

Let me tell you, the content of these shows are WORLDS apart. One is loaded with melodrama, the other is slapstick comedy. I dare the uninitiated to guess which is which. Anime form often stops good shows from finding a western audience, just because they look the same as products that are loaded with fan service, pedophilia and sexism.

I have to look past the form to enjoy any of it. And that's the reason I want to take elements from this stuff.  These shows have fun characters, hilarious situations and a lighthearted approach to fantasy concepts that rivals any western entertainment.

This separation of form and content has allowed me to engage these shows on their own terms, but what I aim to do is take the good (content elements) and chuck the visual form entirely. I want to provide a visual context for these concepts they are rarely allowed. I want to take the strong, funny, and downright accessible skeleton of a 90s anime sitcom and grow a horrifying mutant body for it. One without spikey hair.

Which brings us to the previous post about VFX, as well as the a future post about "Buccaneer Galaxy"'s mix of Harryhausen, Flynn, Spelljammer and Blackadder.

New Project Smell

Alright, it took me a year to start talking about the next project after "Frank DanCoolo" was finished. This time I'm going to start yammering about my next project a month or two before the "Doctor Glamour" is completed.

Really the catalyst for this was seeing the work Dillon Markey was doing at his stop motion workshop last night. He was working on a dragon puppet. I gotta have me one of those in a project.

So what I hope is next is an action/comedy/high fantasy/space pirate webseries. It needs funding and may never happen if a few key elements don't come together.

It's called

BUCCANEER GALAXY

Across the seven celestial spheres there is no mage more feared, no wizard more reviled, than the ruthless necromancer Lycra Bloodstone! ...Or at least that's how she'd like to be known. Instead, despite her best efforts, Lycra constantly finds herself the subject of good publicity. Killing planets, pirating trade ships, eating pets; nothing works! There are always unintentional positive consequences to her actions.

But now, with news of a scared object unearthed in the farthest reaches of space, she sees her chance to at last gain the notoriety she craves as well as power over life and death itself! Set in a swashbuckling universe of squid ships, cannon balls and powerful sorcery, "Buccaneer Galaxy" will deliver incredible action, insane personalities and a unique blend of old school visual effects.

I hope to have a final draft of the scripts by year's end. It's pretty exciting to work on. I'll be posting updates here on the development and some insight into the influences I'll be drawing upon in the coming weeks.

Are you Watching Closely?

"Doctor Glamour" has the very best visual effects our modest budget could produce, but they function in a way that's out of step with my original passions. I wanted the organic shapes and wood platforms of the astral sea to be miniatures, composited into a fish tank generated sky.

Budget stopped us from going this direction, so we came up with a very good digital approximation. Unfortunately, I think by going all digital the audience may feel expected to just accept what they are seeing at face value, rather than engaging the movie as artifice.

Movie goers have seen enough computer generated environments to just assume they are to think of the CGI as a real space, rather than, in my case, a purposefully expressionistic representation of a 2-D aesthetic. I ran into this problem with "DanCoolo." The effects were too good and the point too subtle. Even those who did get it had to wait until stop-motion creatures showed up for the idea to take hold.

Granted, the astral sea elements of "Glamour" are so much more aggressive that I think they have a good chance of demanding regard as fantastic artificial confection, rather than a paltry low budget attempt at "Avatar" style "world building." (The phrase used by those who I suppose find "production design" a threat to their passive experience.)

So now, as I'm starting to figure out what's next, the words of "House" director Nobuhiko Obayashi are beginning to be a guiding principle:

"It is more fun when a magician fails."



The ideas, the energy, the FUN of special effects that have finger prints, life and human craftwork on display are something I want to incorporate into my next venture. To reject the desire to be transported to another world and instead have a grand time watching a movie.

For my next project I want effects closer to this:



You can feel the objects in space, the hand of the people that made the images. One reason I like this is that the manipulation of these models and miniatures forces a state of mind similar to that of child playing with toys, smashing his or her wind-up Sphinx into a Hulk action figure.

Though potent in its own way, no visual effect that convinces you something is ACTUALLY happening can possibly carry this particular power. The power to remind you of your own mind's capacity for pure creation, imagination and fantasy.