...oh yeah!

Finished Yet?

Let me add one more door slam.
Let me get some hiss off Bobby Ray.
Let me lower the brightness.
Let me burn a master high res DVD.
Let me burn a bunch of copies from it.
Let me send it out to the fests.
Let me send it to the review sites.
Let me get a drug addiction.
Let me start wearing black rimmed glasses.
Let me start referring to myself in the third person.
... slow roasted for your enjoyment.
FIGHTEVIL
SD

ps-www.myspace/zombeak.com
thank you FAS

pss-Happy First Birthday Sarah, my little one.

I will never finish this entry, so here are some cool things going on with the film. I can’t write prose right now, so here is a laundry list.

1. Atlanta Horror Film Fest happened on Oct. 27th, and it was a cool intimate venue with the hardcore fans showing up and a real mellow guy running it named Eric. They also showed Blood Scrub, the previous short I’d made, and that was kind. A good response from the crowd despite there STILL being some foley missing, but this was the first time I felt the film looked like it should and the sound mix kicked ass if I do say so myself. I am so glad I looped this film, the voices sound so awesome. The production track suffered from bad acoustics and just the basic headaches of shooting on location. The film once sounded like a stage play, now it sounds like a movie. I hope to never have to do that again though. It was the most difficult and tedious thing I’ve ever had to do for a movie.

2. I’m happy with how the movie is progressing. There are still some things to do. Yesterday I produced a super cheap brain spray effect and laid it into the film. Also I reframed some troublesome shots and added some more zombie blood. I have a few more sound effects to add, but we’re talking under ten, and making the chicken voice louder in the last scene. But the most time consuming thing will be finishing the end credits because so many people helped out and I’m a terrible speller.

3. About to send the film out to some more festivals, so keep an eye out on the websites screening page.

FIGHTEVIL
SD

Countdown to Fest

So here is the latest,

I have all the holes filled in the dialogue, there was some left over flack from the manic sound edit from the premiere, you could here me commenting here and there, and there where places where we hadn't had time to synch up a few lines, thus empty lips, but that is all fixed and I now need to do a dialogue render.

After the dialogue render, there will be a quick sound effect mix pass, and music pass, render render render.

So then add in the blood shots and end credits, render.

Matte and fix some of the compositions, render.

Then burn the DVD and see how the screening Friday goes.

Man, this is almost over. halluyah.

SDROG

AHFF

I can't believe it's been over a month sence I've posted.

We will be showing Zombeak! at the Atlanta Horror Film Festival on October 27th. That's a friday, it should be interesting. There are alot of local filmmakers being represented for the weekend fest, guess that means coming out of seclusion for a night to (shudder) talk to people.

Things have been slow here, but a major breakthrough happened the other day when I bought a plug in for Premiere that basically fixed my sound issues with a click of the mouse. So there is still some flack I need to cut out of the sound track, but we are almost done with that. I'm excited to have a screening where you'll be able to HEAR BOTH the dialogue AND the music, not one or the other.

So this weekend I'm finishing the blood and mix, and then color correcting and adding the end credits. And of coarse, a movie bender. (mindhunters, hustle and flow, district b13, eve w/kevin smith) Monkey plus chicken equals sandwich!

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Hmmmm. Wha?

So I'm still working on the sound mix. That is coming slow. Teaching my self the process, it's one of those things.

The color and added gore are going well though, and some interest from a distributor, but la la la. Sound mix, gotta figure this shit out.

I like cereal.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Premiere Thoughts

So that happened.

And it was insane, we had a theater full of people and a projector set up.

I showed some trailers to other local productions, all of which were shot with the exact same camera, and I mean the SAME camera (Atlanta is a small town).

They were Blood Ties and Zombie Invasion, both look pretty cool.

So then the term "technical nightmare" pops up in my head because the movie starts, and I was told that the set up in the theater would be mono, but oh my God I never knew how badly that would butcher the soundtrack, already in a rough mix.

BUTCHER BUTCHER BUTCHER!!!

Chris Rickwood did a brilliant score; unfortunately no one could really hear it.
We jacked up the volume, but ya know, shit. The voices where at weird levels and I found some lines that hadn't been qued in, so some funny moments resulted from that. Oh, and some foley was left to do, so more comedy ensued. Oh yeah! And the picture was so dark that I had to stop the film and fuck with the projector, but that fixed it, though it butchered the colors. Making all the work we did with that look pretty muddy.

Technical Nightmare. Unmitigated disaster. Dream Ending Apocalypse.

I grabbed my head and tried to keep it from coming apart like a Gallagher Mellon. After staying awake for 72 hours to get it in presentable form, all I saw where big glaring fuck ups on my part creating a vortex of time wasting bullshit.

"Time Wasting Bullshit". I could see the reviews now.

So I was in the fetal position behind the back row once the tech was set as good as I could get it. And I listened to the audience reaction. They laughed when they where supposed to, and seemed to be entertained. BUT! The film is only about 60 percent of where I need it to be.

Did people have a good time? Over all I'd say yes. We passed out cards, they filled them out. People love and hate the exact opposite things. It divides the audience. One person's favorite thing is another persons least. What do you make of that?

A week later we showed it at Sci-fi Summer Con in Atlanta to an "intimate" audience. Over all they seemed to dig it. No one has tried to kill me yet.

The main thing I'm getting is to fix the sound mix. I think the problems with the film will be better addressed once the big turd that is the sound mix is scrapped out of the carpet. I have a guy on it now, we will see. If they can just hear the score, it will make a world of difference.

Another thing is color correction and getting a few more effect shots done. That's being taken care of as well by East of LA studios and the Great Richard Servello!

So I'm still positive about the movie finding its audience. The complaints were of a technical nature that need to be polished up and will be in time for some big festival play coming up, then I'll really be able to see what works and what doesn't.

The movie isn't for everyone either. You either go with it or you don't. I've talked to some that attended that really dug what we were doing and why, and others that just thought I was way off the mark.

My plan is to keep tweaking it until the sound mix is done and then let it go. My goal is for it to be as entertaining as possible and to make the people who worked on it proud to have been apart of it.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Bender!

So in the race to finish the flick, today I'm synching voices and mixing audio while I watch the box set of Friday the 13th. Watching parts one to eight and drinking coffee, eating junk. Having a ball.

One thousand things still to do, but I see the end, and the premiere has been booked. It will be a pretty big night, first time shoawing the film to an audience. But not worried right now, the film has taken on such a life of its own, everyday it gets better, I'm proud of it.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

MAD RACE!!!

It's like theater, nothing happens until the last second, and you have no idea how it's all going to come together, and at the last second, at the zero hour, as you stare down the horror and give in to it, miracles happen and things start to gel.

6/6/6 at Startime Cinemas in Roswell GA will be our first screening.

Laura Mallis
Robert Sasaki
Richard Servello
Chris Rickwood
Jayson Hammett
Mike Jackson
Jeff Harden
S.C. Caruso
Jeremy Sewell

These are the people working their asses off to see it happens. I'm just sound editing and doing a bit of last second ADR (chicken voice).

So much has happened in the two months since the last blog, it'll take some time to get it all figured out, but the movie is starting to feel like a, gulp, movie.

FIGHTEVIL and get back to work!
SD

Update 2000

So here's what's going on,

We are talking to a NEW composer, one who looks very promising and who has done some really cool projects in the past. I will be meeting with him later in the month, after I send him a copy of the flick.

I saw some tests for the opeing credit sequence by Jeremy Sewell. These blew my mind and I'm so glad I went with a talented detail oriented graphic designer instead of slapping something together myself on the Adobe Titletronomatic.

The foley breakdown is done, looking forward to sound grabbing.

Synching the ADR is still going on. Very time consuming.

FIGHTEVIL
SAM DROG

Perspective

This is a picture of me and some friends, some of whom worked on Zombeak!, after working on a short film called Glorious. The director, Jayson Hammett, is on the floor and he's been a bud of mine for about 13 years. Behind the camera is Mike Jackson, who did the concept art for Zombeak! and who is an awesome guy. The long blond haired guy is Aidan Hayes who is now in L.A. hobnobbing but who worked as assistant camera on Zombeak! Glorius was a shitty day of shooting in the rain and a lot of damn fun. Making little short films is awesome and something I'm looking forward to doing once I'm done choaking this chicken.

It's an exciting time for short films due to the internet and so many streaming sites; a worldwide audience. Google video has one of my old things up, called sixty seconds, you can check it out here...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6708249318795555648&q=sixty+seconds

So anyway, just editing away at the soundtrack, getting voices in place, chop chop chop. And sometimes you really feel like this process will never end, that you haven't gotten anywhere, that the film will beat you, so it's time to be objective.

I can't remember a time where I wasn't working on this movie, so I did something, went through all the documents and letters and tracked the progress of the film.

written June 03 -3 months- Sept 03
propro Sept 03 -9 months- June 04
shot June 04 -3 months- August 04
picture edited August 04 -8 months -april 05
sound edited April 05 -10 months- feb 06
effects and tweeking Feb 06 -4 months- june 06
world premiere 6/6/6

Of coarse this premiere is barring me getting a bad parasite and eating my family, but I see it as fate that the process has taken so long for us to have such a boss opening night.

About every section takes about as long as it takes to have a baby, so maybe this is just natural human gestation. Or maybe I'm on crack.

Regardless, filmmaking is a never ending mo-fo that beats the crap out of you mentally, physically, spiritually; then makes you yern to do it all over again.

FIGHTEVIL
sdrog

Scare the SHIZZILE out of ya!

So here is a frame grab I got from one of the effects artists today as he adds demonic glowing eyes to the film. Pretty neat!

Also I'm so excited at how much the sound work is adding to the film. We have one character, Samuel, who is this hulking mountain of a man, and adding his breathing and maniacal laughter to scenes creates so much dread in the atmosphere. He's like a Darth Vader presence through out the movie.

More later...

FIGHT EVIL

SMEAR MACHINE

SO I’m just really stoked that I can put photos up on the blog that I decided to throw this one up here, it’s of my editing station. I finally have it how I like it, minus my John Carpenter signed Halloween poster mounted above.

You MAC heads can sit back smugly and mock my DELL system running Adobe Pro. It doesn’t crash nearly as much as it should, cause I drive this puppy like a mule. It does fine, I just need MORE PROGRAMS!!! Programs for lightning, programs for fog, programs to turn home movies into Big Trouble in Little China spectacles.

Because I’m feeling freaky and because when I was trying to get a system together I got a lot of bunk from a lot of people, I’m just going to tell you people out there who are trying to build a system to edit on what I’m using, and it’s working fine for me.

Precision WorkStation 340
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.53GHz
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
1 GB RAM
Hard Drives = 456.30 GB (I have 366 GB used up)
Adobe Premiere Pro
Video Card Radeon VE
Sound Card Creative SB Live! Series (WDM)
I have two internal DVD drives, but unfortunately Dell only provides (at the time) a DVD-RW only burn drive so I bought
Memorex 1394/USB20 Drive IEEE 1394 SBP2 Device to store on DVDs

FIGHT EVIL

Tisket a Basket Case

So everyone laughed about the sleep deprivation that goes on with a new baby, and let me just say…

Believe the Hype.

I’ve felt like a zombie most my life, but nothing compared to the drooling shambling foul tempered corpse that I’ve become since the arrival of “The One”.

It’s amazing how for cuteness will get you. Baby Sarah can vomit and piss all over you, can not allow you to sleep more then an hour and a half at a time, but she’s sooooo cuuuute! Can’t be mad at her. Just look at her. What was I complaining about?

So the movie front has had a breakthrough on music with the addition of Ken Henslee joining our mad little cult. We’ve discussed ideas over the phone, he lives in Athens, and he proved himself to be totally committed by scoring 12 minutes of film in the last week. Sure it’s just ideas of how the scenes can go, but I find him dead on with my sensibilities, and is willing to show me unfinished work, and that is so rare. Most artists won’t show you jack until it is framed and mounted and completely concrete. Hell, I’m like that. I’m completely like that. But I don’t have to work with me.

My point is that Ken is a collaborator that doesn’t get precious about what he’s doing and that is invaluable, maybe I can learn something from him.

We continue recruiting people for the digital effects, just so many shots to put out before my desired release date. Hell, I even got a copy of Photoshop to throw in myself.

The synching of voices is time consuming and maddening. I can’t wait to get to the foley. Then it will be me and some friends with I-RIVERS hitting the streets for all manors of sounds, both practical and bizarre.

FIGHT EVIL

Baby City

I gotz me a baby! She's 8 lbs 14 ozs and was born on Jan 11th and came home on Friday the 13th! Life is great, I find myself staring at the baby for hours and just everything is revolving around this little girl, Sarah. She is pure joy.

I showed her her first horror film on the 14th, The Dead Next Door. She loved it and couldn't believe what Bookwater pulled off with such limited means. I loved it too.

So I'm on vacation next week and plan on synching the remaining voices when not playing with the baby.

On a downer side, our composer has had to bow out due to having the new and demanding job of designing a monorail for San Diego. Disappointing sure but we'll soldier on and usually this means an unexpected blessing down the road. Every set back really just makes the film stronger.

I recieved some effects from Matt Green te other day and was impressed. Finally seeing these things makes me very happy. We still have a long way to go, and are farmng out effects to several more peeps to meet our release date.

There are also some really cool promotion opportunities coming up that I hope will get the name Zombeak out there.

But the next bite of the elephant for me will be to synch up the voices, and then I'll worry about the next thing, and that will be foley.

Here's some cool flicks I just saw:
OLDBOY
CREEP
DEAD NEXT DOOR
EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE
GODZILLA: FINAL WARS

All of these where awesome!

FIGHTEVIL
SAMDROG

Creepy Voodoo Chick

So now we've finished getting Vascara looped into the movie so that completes that whole redub the whole movie thing that we neurotically decided to do. Why? Well, you got to love it when you rent a flick and you can't understand a damn word the people are saying and of coarse there was the whole "hey, I can hear every sound on the planet in the back ground, including me weeping."

So we've replaced all the lines of dialogue with fresh shiny new ones and now we do need to grab a few more lines from the bit players, but that's like a total of three lines and no big jump there.

I'm meeting with the Green Machine next week to pick up some effect shots that he's been hammering away on as he moves his stuff in to Atlanta from Pittsburgh and New Orleans. I like working with roaming gypsies, they bring a certain salt of the earthness to the work.

I've told the rest of the peeps (music and titles) to continue on in their secret labs and to surprise me with wonderful gifts of movie stuff as it comes to them, as I will be deep into foley and synching and all sorts of technical mumbo-jumbo while also having my first child, a girl, due the thirtieth of this month. Exciting stuff and I can't wait to teach her how to be a sound editor so I won't have to mess with that crap again.

BUT! it seems like we may have a new guy on the film that will be creating a CG skull for the film to lay into a few thingies that will make some cool widgits seem more, how you say... um, fantastico.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Melissa Looped Out

So we have just finished looping out our BBQ waitress / zombie killing actress Melissa Gilbert (not the president of SAG, the other one). So now we just have Vascara left to come in and deliver her long soliloquies on the virtues of the devil EXACTLY LIKE SHE DID IT A YEAR AGO! Piece of cake.

Elsewhere in beak world, music continues to come in from San Fran, and now we have a quicktime version of the trailer on our website! So get groovy with your bad self.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

SO here is the big update.

We have 90 percent of the looping done, and we are now getting music in from our genius in San Diego Charles Hume. It is finally starting to FEEL like a movie as the rough edges are being striped off and the whole thing starts to gel.

It's like plaster drying.

So besides looping and listing to the music, not much more to tell ya, I don't think we're going to have the thing ready by tonight, but ya know, Evil Dead spent three years in post.

I'm hoping to have it done in a few months, here's all that has to happen:

1. looping finished
2. Foley finished
3. jee-wizz digital effects finished
4. opening title sequence finished
5. color correcting finished
6. music finished.
7. sound mix finished.
8. then just watch it one more time and kill the last of my darlings.
9. then the big premiere with lights and paparazzi and crew members overdosing in back alley.

HOORAY! So I think I might actually be able to finish this by Wed.
FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Loop'n Mo-Fo

So I'm laying in Barry's tracks after spending about a week off. My brain just wanted to destroy. Felt about as creative as a turnip (not very).

BUT MAN! Is the looping of Lucy/Samuel a lot of damn fun! Putting in his dialogue isn't as challenging as far as syncing, because he's wearing a mask most of the time, but the challenge is laying in non stop breathing for all his scenes and not letting on that it's the same breaths, and also making them react to the stuff going on. It's like creating dialogue, and really helps the mood.

Samuel is like a force of nature, and even when off screen, you should be able to hear him breathing and reacting, like a lunatic Greek chorus.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Waz Up

So we have Jason Von Stein looped out and funky, and I vomited a gallon of green tea this morning, so

a) I'm really glad to have another actor's ADR done and
b) you CAN drink too many antioxidants.

Yesterday I met with a cool guy who worked on a flick called Jack O’ Lantern which stars some of the folks from Zombeak! (Tracy and Melissa). I went to pick his brain about distribution and share horror stories. He gave me some cool advice at Chilies.

So right now I'm cutting up the dialogue track for Fasmagger, then we'll get him in here, then finish everyones ADR, then dredge the effects off the mud caked bottom of New Orleans (where Matt Green was working on them), then music, then titles and some screenings, then releasing the thing to a drunken Halloween party somewhere in your future.

Oh yeah, we did do Dragon Con this year and canvassed the place with our fliers. It was cool to see the gang from another Atlanta project GEEKIN. We have Zombeak! actors in this one too! (Adam and Jason) Here's some websites to check out!
http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0405055/combined
http://www.geekinmovie.com/