Cold February

So I know that I'm all old fashioned and what not, but when I started making little films back in high school, I dreamt of the world we live in now.

We would edit on two VHRs and no matter the effort, it would wind up looking like crud.

Then on the shelf, no one would see it, no opportunity for them to see it.

Filmmakers worked only on film, and laughed at the nerds with their unromantic video cameras.
I love the web, think up an idea, shoot it, cut it on computer, post it, and move on.

People worldwide can see your work, and comment, something filmmakers had a hard time getting. You're film was seen by someone you would never meet, if at all. But now someone can just drop you a message and tell you what they thought.

To be a movie star is becoming like becoming a harpoonist. An outdated ambition.

It's all communication. All if permissible.

This is so cool. I love life.

Here is something shot last month with some crazies, here to the world, not sitting on my shelf.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2315359920215256356&q=cold+seconds&total=3609&start=0&num=100&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

On to the next thing.
SDROG

One Candle, Two Flames

Check it...




... Introducing Cameron Joseph Conkle, a rad lad born 1/13/08, almost two years to the date of first little one Sarah.

Child birth was INSANE! But not as crazy as last time as they didn't allow Steph's epidural to wear off. I don't see how she could have done it sans painkillier this time, Cameron came out 10.5 pounds!

So now I have a sound editor and an actress; just 10 more babies and in twenty years I'll have my own crew of indentured servants.

Any way, it's crazy of coarse for now, but the plan for getting zombeak sold is still in progress, I can only work on it when not feeding, changing, playing, or supporting. But I'm more delirious and happy, and still being more creative with my time, then ever before. If you only have 45 minutes a day to write or draw, by Joe you take those opportunities!

Time used to be abundant and squandered on introspection. Bah! Oh folly of youth!

FIGHTEVIL
SAMDROG

7:30am Blah Blah

Right now I’m brewing the day’s first pot of coffee and toasting up some toast, the Clifford Dog show is in the back ground, giving Sarah her morning fix of cartoons. I’m going to take this opportunity to just ramble bang the day into go mode.

Coffee at Starbucks is laced with crack, just in case you are wondering. Here is how it works. Columbian beans used for many Starbucks blends is grown in the same fields in South America where coca leaves where once cultivated. This has left a narcotic muck in the soil, a permeation of it. All things grown in this soil will create an addiction similar to narcotic addiction. If they where growing strawberries down there, it would be crazy addictive strawberries. There have actually been cases of armed robbery and muggings at and around Starbucks from this new bread of bean junkie. Be warned. Once a Starbucks opens in your neighborhood, the neighborhood will quickly determinate in to a slum. If you have Starbucks coffee in your house, keep it locked up and away from kids.

Last week there was the first case of a Starbucks heist, where seven men in Halloween masks stormed a store and forced the crew at gun point to brew gallons of coffee that where loaded into plastic five gallon jugs. This could be either for private consumption or resale on the street, where it is now popular to be taken intravenously.

Ever wonder why when you buy beans and bring them home the brew is not as potent as what you get at the store. Most home machines can not handle the amount of coffee used in the store to brew a pot, so it is weaker. Buy a bigger machine. Also those pots have been seasoned with years of that narcotic residue that can not be rinsed out. An addictive stain. In theory you could do the same with any stainless steel decanter. Fill it with some hot store made Starbucks coffee and then bury it in your back yard for no less then here weeks. The earth and darkness will mingle with the brew, and bond with the steel.

Now every time you brew a new pot, pour it immediately into this decanter and let it ruminate for a few minutes before serving. Notice the difference.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Brain Eaters From Raccoon Island

I don't know, just a quick blog so people can know whazup.

I'm chillin on vacation this week, hooray!

The only big project is painting for the new baby. Next month, the madness begins again! No sleep, covered in vomit, and now because this is a boy, urine will have purpose and direction.

My eyes are still adjusting to the blues and greens of boy clothes. It is weird to see. Amazing how your eye begins to accept purple and pinks until that is the norm.

We are painting the extra bedroom something girly for Sarah and moving her to these larger quarters and the new baby will have the smaller room. Right now the walls are two tones of gray, a hold over for when it was my office for a week and a half. I really don't want to bring out Sarah's morbid teenage years before it is time.

Steph picked up some work from sister Angela, just typing up some documents for the law firm. She's up stairs working on that now. Sarah is watching Dora the Explorer, the shrillest show on the planet, but it is interactive and teaching her Spanish. Yesterday while jumping on the couch she started up with SALTA-SALTA!!! Awe shucks. This morning she started singing Row Row Your Boat, it was cute. Ouch! my heart.

Steph is about to burst with this baby. She is really sleepy and nervous that stuff won't be ready, she has spells of neurosis, but luckily about the complete opposite things that I do so we even out that way. Never fun to be neurotic at the same time about the same stuff, chaos ensues.

Zombeak!? Well the reviews have been kind, and I’m waiting to hear from a comic con in Texas, and I know the next thing to do is organize the legal stuff, something I’m teaching myself. I’m also researching the different distributors I would like to approach. Just going by feel. Day by day as I can. People get impatient, but I feel these cult like films have to have time to grow a cult and bubble and simmer. Give it time to grow. That’s the plan. I really just don’t want to splash it out for it to be forgotten 10 seconds later. Whatever. Justification on dragging my feet.

Christmas is coming up and the house looks cool with Christmas stuff everywhere and … have I mentioned The Mist?

The Mist rules 2007. Best movie I saw this year. Great adaptation to a great story. I was ready to be disappointed; having such a love for the material, but man Frank D and company really hit it on all fronts. I think this is a new classic for me. Something to put in the collection. A lot of fun. Very suspenseful. Gross. Great performances all the way through. Great Carpenter winks. Even Thomas Jane was pretty cool. I hated The Punisher, give me Dolph any day. The Mist makes up for it and any disasters he may do in the future. He makes a good everyman, someone to identify with, especially me having kids, I was with him the whole way.

Lots of people knock the ending. I understand. It’s a tough one. But I feel the ending is what takes this out of “fun horror movie” to “classic horror movie”. The movie is all about how people react to fear. And fear makes people crazy, it is a disease. The movie is about the importance of hope even when events seem hopeless, even when hope is irrational. It is a tough ending, and I felt like I was punched in the gut, and I staggered out of the theater, and I thought there must be something wrong with that sick mo-fo Darabont, but I loved it. Gave me something to chew on for days after watching it, something I can not say about most movies I see. So the best thing I’ve seen since The Descent and The Abandoned. See, there are still good movies coming out, you just have to be patient and choosy.

PS - Most sadistic ending to any movie I have ever seen.

PSS - I know someone who has seen this movie four times now (not me).

Anyway, still writing this project that is all over the place. Just the craziest thing I’ve written. Maybe impossible to film (it is a screenplay), but figuring it out will be the fun part. I’m basically writing something based on just pure creative expression, not trying to shoehorn it into any one genre, just making it up and letting it happen as it happens. A lot of fun. Could become animated or some combination of techniques.

Blah blah blah, fight blah blah
SD

Foywonder Strikes!

Another groovy review...

http://www.dreadcentral.com/node/25469

Read Foywonder, he is hysterical and writes often for Dread Central.com. Check out his personal review site at http://www.foywonder.com/. This guy gets cuts deep into all sorts of bizzaro cinema.

FIGHTEVIL
SD

A Very Kind Review

dvdschlock has weighed in on our flick... have at it!

http://www.dvdschlock.com/2007/11/review-zombeak.html

visit this site all the time, they have good taste.

FIGHTEVIL
SD

RIP Pyewacket - a star has fallen

SCOTTDALE, GA -- Popular rooster and film star Pyewacket was found dead this morning at his home on Longmeadow Drive. He was four years old.The cause of death is unknown, but Pyewacket had been suffering from some sort of illness for the past few weeks. He appears to have died peacefully in his sleep, having gone to roost in his coop last night. His wrangler, A. Owsley, discovered the body there shortly before noon today.Pyewacket was hatched at "Boogaloo Acres" in 2003, the son of Sally and Mofo. He had reigned as the sole rooster of Boogaloo since his father's death in July 2006. Known and liked throughout the neighborhood for his distinctive crow and stunning white plumage, Pyewacket's biggest claim to fame came in 2005, when he starred in the title role of the indie zombie movie, "Zombeak." The film was well-received in the zombie and poultry communities, and received a wider audience at DragonCon earlier this year.Pyewacket is survived by two hens, Gracie and Buttermilk, and his humans, A. Owsley and Stacy Estep. When asked for comment, Owsley stated, "He was a gentle, faithful chicken."--Reporting by Stacy Estep, Photo by Sue Volkert

A Eulogy

Another loved one has crossed over. I feel that this film has something like a Poltergeist or Exorcist curse, so many have died since the filming in 04. And now our Carol Ann is gone.

When I met Pyewacket that scorching Georgia summer, I was immediately intimidated by the presence he held on set. People were in awe of him. He demanded respect and we all treated him with the utmost. He was the only actor we had with their own little entourage of handlers and assistants, but he never was arrogant or aloof. He was so giving, so generous on set with his time, talent, and expertise that the other actors quickly warmed up to him. We all saw what a wonderful chicken that Pyewacket was.

Pyewacket was a real trooper on his day on set, even after he had mistaken the boom mike for a snake, he continued on despite the shock. We had him only for a day, as he was union, but he never belittled the project as being beneath him, and despite the hardships, taught us all lessons on professionalism and humility.

Pyewacket, you gave our film another layer of authenticity that would have been impossible to achieve without your presence. May your morning crow sing now throughout the heavens, may you soar there with angels, may you know that you will be missed, but never forgotten.

FIGHTEVIL
SD

quck blurb

So finally I'vew made it through one hellish week to get to my wonderful wonderful 5 whole days off. SAYIN!!!

Now to overplan everything to the point of mania!!! Hooray!

Quick thoughts.

TRANSFORMERS
Hated this joyless, incomprehensible, horribly plotted, over produced, assembly line, suger spazz of pop drop and puke.

I had high hopes with Michael Bay directing, who understands how to shoot a big budget car commercial better then any one, and there are a few money shots, but you chop it up into a third of a second hyper blur, and then add Shea Laboof, and give everyone complete crud dialogue, and have no one see giant robots running by them, gosh. John Turturro could not save it, and I always thought he could do anything, he is the best thing in it, just cause he was Barton Fink, screw this movie. More childhood memories recycled for a quick payout.

G.I. Joe will be so much better, it could not be worse. Hell, let Nu Image shoot it in Bulgaria for Sci-Fi channel and have Casper Van Dein play Flint, it will be better then Transformers.

I did like Optimus' little speech in the end, but it was the longest shot in the movie. So maybe I could just tell what was going on.

Listen to Grampa complain, "all them MTV jumpy jumps make my bowls back up. Durn kids."

Other news, or maybe a list.

Priorties for the vacation:

Spend as much time soaking in the fam as possible.

Not letting work or obsessing get in the way of goofing off.

Take Steph out as much as poss.

Take Sarah out as much as poss.

Get some plan on the scripts

Sort the paperwork for Zombeak!

Mail out the last of the zombeak screeners.

Enjoy a cabin.

But, do not plan.

No plans.

Plans suck.

Showed Sarah the first forty minutes of Star Wars part 1, not episode 1, part 1 w/ Luke, Han and Lea, anyway, she was terrified and amazed. I forget but watching this movie with a child, you see it through their eyes, and you go, man this thing is on crack. The first Star Wars is so damn bizarre, it feels like a dream. Robots arguing and wizards and Vader crushing throats, it is almost like animation. It's pure imagination run rampant.

I have to rewatch the prequals with Sarah, and then again with the new baby, maybe then I will "get it".

FIGHTEVIL
SD

28 weeks later

a few quick thoughts on this,

this is my favorite new horror series

first series that is about how the world feels like it's falling apart

amazing feeling of helplessness in these films

i feel like it has given us a new asthetic as well

rooted in consumer tv feedback

there is a deliberate "crappiness" to the look of both films

though this one is film based, it shows alot of night vision video and security cam stuff.

blood and guts played realistic

it is more like watching CNN, then a horror film

all about blind anger, and how to fight this anger, control this anger

the cure is as ugly as the disease

loved that

in the end, the fascists are right, the good guys escape, but... maybe that wasn't the best thing for the planet.

Robert Carlyle should win an Oscar, he is scary good in this

all the family dynamics are perfect

I was completly with this film the whole way, despite "what's going on moments"

lots of infected escape a firebombing, and you wonder how, they lock the survivors away and forget to lock the back door, one of the best scenes in the movie, but damn, wish they'd thought of that.

I liked that they killed all the lkable people off, people trying to do the right thing being overwhelmed by the bottom line, the inhuman cure to save humanity.

This is about sacrificng identity to fal into the whole, going it alone, being a hero, is pointless and will end up making stuff worse.

Are we supposed to sit back and let the government take care of things, conform, give n, be complacent.

The first movie I feel said no, resistance to the hungrey military monster.

This one is yes, big brother is God and God knows what's best

7am brain spill

I went to see Halloween 07.
Totally bummed me out.
Depressing and bleak.
Everything grey, Myers now a damaged kid.
I just felt bad for him the whole time.
This was a steroid fueled rage against the middle class.
Best creepy Halloween masks of the year.
Glad Zombie made it his own, not as generic as the trailer.
Very violent and ugly.
But always cool to look at.
Art direction is always good.
But I just felt bad the whole time.
Not a fun movie.
A lot of angst.
I think isolated teens will dig it.
Very apocalyptic.

Today is the crazy day.
The word is “season”.

Fight Evil
SD

JAN 2006 SPLAT

Just Home

Worked tonight, and driving home had a big eureaka on the whole animated film idea I've been rolling around in my head, something to do with the process that is really going to free it up and I could have slapped myself in the forehead it was such a logical next step in the direction I have been thinking.

Here's the thing, time and resources are limited, but if you can think of a way around it all, see it and tell it with the right voice and as long as you are consistant, I think the story will work. But really it is all one big experiement.

The tech has really gotten to a place where everything has become accessable. Make a film and give it to the world with out becoming destitute. Really you can have it all.

But I've decided to let go and let it all happen naturally. I'm tired of forcing stuff and worring all the time. I'm going to let God give me what He wants me to have, and I'm not going to sweat it. I am usually unimpressed with the things I long for once I have them, so maybe I'm not the best judge of what my heart really needs.

I'm going to just act natural and offer it up and not worry about it.

This next film will be on my terms, and a return to the collaborative casualness of the before times. Zombeak! was a great experiance, but as it destroyed my theories laid down in Blood Scrub, this next one will destroy Zombeak!

Thesis > Antithesis > New Thesis

Want > Fight > Get > Hate


FE

Resident Evil: Extinction

So real quick about all this.

Finding myself with little time to see movies these days, and unwilling to pay night prices, and watching a movie at home is like watching something during a tornado, no matter what your speaker set up is, I ventured to the 10:30 am showing of Resident Evil 3-D (I wish).

This movie has a lot going for it. Day of the Dead meets Road Warrior meets Anime style characters and fighting. This has the most bullets to the head I've seen in a while, looks of hot chicks pulling the triggers, and some really pissed off zombies. Plus mad scientists mutating like in Tarantula, a desert planet, the force, crossbows, trench coats, Russell Mulcahy back from video purgatory, and fetal imagery.

I feel the RE movies have always been a little embarrassed of their zombies, keeping them in the background and instead focusing on the real enemy, THE MAN!

The Man that makes the bioweapons!

The Man who owns everything, is everywhere, and keeps us under his thumb.

Zombies are just the bi-product of the man.

If you can break from the hold, and think for yourself then you can fight the symptoms, clean up the messes, but never really stop the man.

The Umbrella Corporation is never stopped or taken down, just too powerful. But they do get a black eye now and then. The zombies are unstoppable, and capable of running for decades according to this movie.

The coperation wants to take talent (Alice), bleed it dry, to make us all drones, curb our natural desire to hate and kill people. That's what this movie is. A vaccination to control our bestial natures, the bread and the circuses.

Alice is now Christlike in the movies, her blood can free the world of the living dead plague. She spends five years hiding from the coperation to avoid becoming attached to someone and watching them die, and really if you watch the series, she really does lead every dude she likes to a really horrible death. Whatever, I was shocked to find myself rooting for the bad guys a bit in this one. They found the cure for the world and if Alice really wanted to be a hero, she would turn herself in and let herself be of use.

What if Jesus hid in the shadows killing the commoners, bi-products of the society instead of being crucified and knocking out the source. Alice is just fighting the symptoms, not stepping up and doing the right thing.

Now, this new world would be a totalitarian wasteland, but let's first deal with the zombies before we go into political reformation.

So in the forth film I predict a martyr scenario going on, like Alien 3 (remember when Alien movies tried to be special), Alice will give herself up and save the world, but not before finally taking down The Man, and thus bringing forth some sort of feel good lovey dovey representative government where all men are equal and there is no money or class divisions cause we all share everything.

My favorite thing in the movie was the diary that was found. My least was her saying cheese to the satellite.

3/5

Movies I would see...

... for the rest of the year, if I had time and money.

9/21 - Resident Evil 3: The Return of Russell Mulcahy
He made Razorback, thus we are all forever his bitches.

9/ - Postal
Uwe Boll is the only thing to see on this week of "important films". Plus, I liked House of the Dead, so...

10/5 -Finishing the Game
Sounds awesome, big kung fu Bruce Lee fan.

10/12 - Control
Love the time period, 24 Hour Party People, not the Joy Division fiend that some are, but intrigued and a good intro for me to the cult.

10/19 -30 Days of Night
The art made the book, but the story will work better as a film. I don't care, just please be scary. Haven't seen Hard Candy yet, looks screwed up!

10/26 - Saw 4
Crap, saw the last three, always at least 10 minutes worth of something screwed up.

11/02 - American Gangster
Big and beautiful and weighty. Sometimes it's just nice to sit back in a lemo and not worry if the sound mix is going to be off.

11/09 - Fred Claus
I liked Donnie Darko, I'm interested in Southland Tales, I like odd ball movies. But man Giamatti as Santa!!! Ho ho ho!!!

11/16 -Beowolf
Glover is grendal. The movie could be pure ass, I do not care. Glover is Grendal.

11/21 - The Mist
After waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and having the movie in my head for one thousand years, we will finally get to see it. Be calm. Be still. I'm just thinking this could be the most incredible film ever made. So, no danger of disappointment here.

11/30 - nada

12/07 - zilch

12/14 - I Am Legend
Biggest Matheson Fan Ever That Has Not Read This Story. Love Omega Man. Love Last Man on Earth. And Will Smith is so funny and charismatic! What better setting for him then a planet of bloodsuckers?

12/21 - Sweeny Todd
Tim Burton is the most imaginative person EVER BORN!

12/25 - Alien Vs. Predator 2
Finally, the movies that inspired so many generic sci-fi quickies gets the sci-fi quicky treatment. CG blood and Green guts, hunters and military stuff, man. Not much to say, I did like the last one though, damn it, and obligated to see this one or they'll make me turn in my fanboy card.

FIGHT EVIL

SPLAT!!!!

Here's a drawing I was working today! Hooray for me!

Long day. I should be sleeping. 1:39 am. Anyway...

SO Steph and me took Sarah and nephew Austin to see Elmo Gets His at Phillips Arena.

A screaming dancing war ensued that felt like it last seven shrill and freaky hours (2 in reality)
If she wasn't so freak'n cute...

Best memory; her seeing Ernie come out on stage and just wanting to run and hug him (I held her back, Ernie has enough Muppet Groupies).

Here are some picz of the disgusting rash on my arm that has matted my hair in congealed puss, and made every conversation mercifully short. I feel like a leper and when I shake hands with people they nearly vomit. HA HA HA!

Here I am picking a fight with planet earth! Grrrr!

FIGHTEVIL

Ramblings @ 1am

Can't sleep.
Pork chop in my teeth.
8 shots of espresso in my brain.
Just laughed at work all night.
Thinking of stupid shit I've done over the years.
There are these two AM freak out that happens.
Something horrible shoots into your head and you slap your forehead and go
SHIT! What an idiot!
It happens.
I'm really freaking about this baby.
MORE CHAOS!
It's good. I was starting to get complacent.
Nothing freaky or scary going on right now.
No movie to finish.
But I still need to sell it, but
not staying up all night right now to finish it.
Just working on ideas.
Collaborating with Chad on somethings, seeing what sticks.
GOt a bunch of sharpie markers for b-day and feel really youthenized
by them. Love them. And a blue plastic thing to put drawings in.
THis is the current fixation. Markers and cheap paper.
THe word of the day was emmerse.
Emmerse in the moment.
Freaked out a bit at the day job when I lost a notebook.
This really pisses me off and everyone was like, uh-oh, now he's going to be
off the whole day. HA! And I was. I accused them of taking it without doing so.
And they got a kick of it. I call them my Unicorn Diaries and if people ask
me what I write in them I say it's poems about unicorns.
So! I'm pissed that I lost it because these things have important notes on stories and
just musings on life and the baby and family and stresses and I love to go back through
them later and just see what the hell was going through my brain at certain points.
What is trivial now is mind blowing in five years.
I feel like God is trying to talk to me.
I feel like I'm getting perspective.
I want to let go.
I ate a Wendy's number two combo today and almost wanted to puke.
The grease and the cow, man, mustard and juice shooting all over my face.
and the fries there are NEVER good.
Man, I've lost it.
Saw a great flick called the lookout, and was all about Jeff Daniels in the film and thought
damn, if I could act a third of Jeff Danieals, he's brilliant, and then I looked up his filmography, and felt let down that none of his films looked that great. So I don't think I'll become a Jeff Daniels completist.
1:18am we are colaborating on several stoires with Chad right now, with my schedule I really can't Golem over a film like I have in the past. I need to get LOTZ of people involved, so then I have the peace of knowing that even if I'm not obsessing, at least someone else might.

WHY OBSESS AT ALL!?!?! Why not just sort of meander around it and do it as it comes?

My day job is wack. I really do just sort of, meander through it. Why not just apply that to other things.

Post its.

I should read more. Blah blah blah.

PS -I have a runny rash, poison ivy or something on my arm, I get this often, it is gross, and the calomine lotion makes it pink and matted. I feel like I'm walking around with snot on my are all day.

PSS- It would be easy to do a cartoon now, even without flash, just with premiere and some low end programs, you could do something really neat.

PSSS - I love the hysterical Britney fan video. HAR HAR.

PSSSS - I still have some screeners to send out of the movie. SO SLOW ABOUT THIS. It's the having to - wah.

PSSSSS - off of the night job tomorrow, early day, will beable to chill with fam, play with sarah. Eating at Italian joint that night. Life is good. Marring a large Italian family was the best thing ever. I can be quiet and just let them be crazy and loud, while in the world, I'm the crazy one. At home I can just be sane, and everyone is cool with that. That is home. Where you feel like you don't have to be a maniac, and specticle isn't rewarded, and it is enough to be kind.

Dragon Con 2007

So this happened!

ZombeEk! at Dragon Con 2007!

On September 1st we had a special “sneak in the back door” screening at Dragon Con. How did we do this? Someone felt pity on our film and let us show it. Do we accept pity? Oh hell yeah, pity is what we STRIVE for!

Anyway, in the film screening room, just before Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter we had our Dragon Con moment. Saturday Midnight it was. During the day me and Officer Fasmagger handed out fliers like religious devotees and smiled and yammered at the people with pointed ears and red Dawn wigs. Con is always a trip. The big theme this year was 300, as in people dressed like Spartans. You know your film has been adopted by the fan culture, placed into the mass imagination, when you are represented in fan costumes at Dragon Con. I was happy to see something other then Johnny Depp pirates.

So Fas and I passed out fliers and then settled down on some stools and basically enjoyed some beverages for the next three hours. Really had a great time just talking acting and filmmaking and how masochistic it all is.

At midnight I stumbled down to the screening room to check out who came, and there was a pretty good group. Unfortunately the sound was too low and everyone had to “pay attention” to hear everything. The Geico caveman kept walking out to tell people in the hall to shut up. Cavemen may be our audience!

So people where forgiving and laughed and seemed to dig it. I had wandered away after 15 minutes or so. I just can’t watch it right now. I wanted to see the Con goers.

Dragon Con at midnight is freaky. Geeks were lined up to be whipped by a dominatrix. Howling fans and Goth chicks leading Goth boys around with chain leashes (thank you 1997), and Jedi talking to Highlander Immortals. Peace and drunken fan appreciation. I can’t wait to sneak in next year!

Fightevil -SAM

ideas and what not

new format

IDEA SLUT

So here's the latest.

Sick at home witha virus given to me by a rat named Chucky. Here's the flow.

Sick Kid > Chucky Cheese > daughter Sarah > Stephanie > father inlaw > sister inlaw > hide out in dorment dark side of house >attack me.

I hate Chucky Cheese. It makes me crazy. I have to grit my teeth when I'm there to keep myself from going into some sort of torrette seizure.

So here is the latest on the movie. Quiet, too quiet. I've been sending it around to various fests and they all will announce in August, so we wait and see.

I finished the reel for Nathan Standridge and will be working on the press kit and getting all the legal work in a nice binder for when it comes time to sell this to the distributor.

Expect the first official review from Horror Asylum.com in the next coming weeks. Phil Davis Brown over there was cool enough in 2004 to run all those interviews of the cast and crew so I told him he would be the first to give it a crack. He has seen the film and once his finals are over he'll write one up. I think he liked it. Who knows?

Whatever, I'm working on a new film now called Sick Him. I'm story boarding it. I don't know if it will be a movie. These things just sort of happen because they want to not because of any thing you do or decide. But you may see story boards and sketches start to show up at the myspace site, along with sketches and what not.

I've really enjoyed just getting back into drawing and writing ideas and poems(shut up) instead of using every last breath on one project. I'm enjoying the promiscuity of it all. I'm going through an idea slut phase!

Big empty space where there used to be a chicken

Yesterday I dropped the film off to get a decent burn to a DVD. Doing at home had proved to be frustrating. I could get it to come out okay, but just okay, while exporting it to a tape made it look awesome. SO I took the tape to Action Video here in Roswell, GA and told them to do their best, just make it look like the tape, and that will be that.

That’s that.

It took me a minute to leave the parking lot. I wanted to storm back in and snatch the tape and disk from him and run back home and find something to tweak. I wanted to pet the film some more. Suffocate it. Never let it out of the house. There is a point when you start damaging your kids by not letting them grow up.

I drove home and called producer Caruso, and she made me repeat over and over that the film was finished, and this was hard for me at first, but through repetition comes familiarity and then acceptance.

I’ll really know what is what once I see the transfer, if it looks like the tape, then I’ll burn some copies, send to festivals, shoot some to websites for review.

But today I’m visiting family and have nothing to do on the film. Yesterday after dropping it off I had nothing to do on the film. I slept harder that afternoon then I had in a year. The baby was off with family, and the movie was out of my hands. I didn’t have to be at work for another six hours, so I just fell over and hit a deep deep sleep.

I woke up, went to work, and my brain attached itself to the next idea like a wet gray parasite.

But I’m going to take a year to clear the shelf of ideas that have been collecting. Get the scripts written.

Back to the cave.

Pry it from my COLD DEAD HANDS!!!!

So I'm really finished. I've pushed it as far a I know how, and the last few passes have shown diminishing returns, actively having no effect or even making it worse, so I guess that's how you know you are done; when you start damaging the film by working on it you know that you are finished. And thus the process has led me to burning a decent DVD and start releasing this out to the planet in mass. Letting it out of the house is tough though. There is a peace in obsessing over something for so long. You become so immersed, surrounded in it, and all your actions become dictated by it. It's like prison, but also nice because all your decisions have been made for you. What are you doing tonight? Tweaking the sound mix, of coarse. What else is there. SO it will be nice to start rejoining the human race, seeing what's new with the world.

So there are still some issues.

1. render the wide screen version

2. burn back up disks

3. make a decent DVD (all have sucked so far, artifacts and the colors seem muted)

4. start up the distribution schema. (multipronged and warped)

We're having another screening coming soon at a little artist's space here in Atlanta. I think nothing says artistic statement like a killer chicken movie. We've also been invited to some horror fests, so that should be alot of fun. SO I see it like that. Time to sit back and watch peoples reactions. Or not. I might just hide in my cave and pet the PRECIOUS.

...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/

Adam Looped Out!

Hey! Guess What?!?

I finished looping all of Adam's dialogue. Well, I recorded it and stuck it all in the computer, logged it up, just have to sync it now.

I'm doing this not because all the location sound was garbage, because a lot was fine, but man when you compare on set sound to studio sound, there is no comparison. Sound is tricky, and if not nurtured can really wreck your film. I hate the crappy reverb we got in the old house, I didn't notice it until I started replacing it. I love the obsessive compulsive control I can have over every word now. I can make the levels just right, and not have to worry about making the crickets from a mile away getting louder or softer as well.

I got an e-mail from producer Wes telling me he has a grab bag of effects for me, and my heart goes aflutter.

The freaky thing was that Adam was moving this Friday to New York! I though it wasn't until November so when he told me the news, I nearly had a heart attack.

This weekend is Dragon Con! I hope to be a small presence there, even if it's just walking around in a raincoat and whispering the title in rubber tipped ears.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

LOOPING UPDATE!

One down, seven to go! Finished Barry the other day, and it is awesome how much looping the movie has improved the whole enchilada.

But, a funny thing about having a lengthy post production, eventually people's lives change and they leave you. Here's a recent e-mail I sent to Adam to arrange his ADR sessions.

Hello!

I hear crazy things the other day while Barry was over looping (yeah, I said looping, can ya dig it!)

I hear you're moving away from the roost and going to the big city with your lady Jennifer, thus beginning a new and exciting chapter in the odyssey of your life. That is beautiful...

AND COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!!!

What if in seven months I need you to do some obscure promotional stunt for a couple of hours and you're in New York. THANKS A LOT DUDE!!!! No one can move forward with their lives until the movie is done, which I'm shooting for (around) Halloween 2015!

Oh well.

So let's get this crazy thing done with. I need you Adam more then I've ever needed anyone. Please come back to me so we might consummate this movie, and loop your dialogue. Ask Barry, it's a trippy process.

So I see from an email (from six months ago) that you are free Sundays and Mondays! Lets do this on the next Monday you are free. It should only take a day, Barry took longer, but he breaths through the whole movie.

CALL ME XXX-XXX-XXXX

OR

Answer this email with a phone number that works, the one I have for you brings me to some archaic mail box that requires an MIT Degree to figure out.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

FAST UPDATE!

1. Began looping Barry "Samuel/Lucy" Bishop's dialogue. This is an intense process that strains the brain and twists the nerves. It's nothing you can just crap out, but will all be worth it though once it's done. Nothing worth doing is easy.

2. I'm starting to get effects in from Green Machine EFX located in New Orleans. I have been told that all the gunshots have been rendered and are in route by mail, and I've seen some tests of some floating Satan presence that is pretty exciting, so we are good in that area.

3. The opening title theme has been put together and I'm waiting to get over to the composers place to grab a listen. Can't wait.

4. The next thing to do will be to put Barry's new lines in the flick and get them to match up and adjust some levels and blah blah blah. He's coming back in in a week to finish up and to edit in the gun shots once they arrive. Oh yeah, and then get the title theme to the title guy so he can start the title sequence for real though.

ROCK!

Breakthrough!!!

Here's an email I got from a cool dude named Tracy from Unspeakable Mag!

hello,
i was curious if you could give me some info on Zombeak...is it available yet, i'd love to check it out....please fill me in when ya can...thanks. Tracy

www.unspeakablemag.com

Unspeakable Magazine
c/0 --Necroscopic Unlimited--
Tracy Crockett

http://www.theancient-movie.com

http://www.unspeakablemag.com
http://www.spellcaster.addr.com http://xsorbit28.com/users5/unspeakableindies/index.php
www.horrorchannel.com
www.everythingscary.com

AND HERE'S WHAT I TOLD HIM!

Greetings Tracy,

Love the trailer, very rad. Damn good idea, a great way to make a movie. Crazy enough to work. Gotta love the people crazy enough to try and do this for a living.

So Zombeak!

It's been cut together and has a nice little flow to it all. For the last two months I have been working on the sound edit; basically teaching myself how to do such a thing, gathering equipment and trying all sorts of different set ups and so forth. Finally I had a break through this very same day when I received a new mike in the mail that has solved all my problems.

So the next step is getting all the actors in for some ADR, I refuse to be one of those low budget movies where you can't tell what people are saying.

On other fronts, we are gearing up for a test screening the first weekend of August to a select group of 17-22 year olds to see how the movie plays. The opening titles are being plotted out by a mad genius. Digital Effects are being hammered on somewhere in New Orleans. Tomorrow we are having a big music jam session to generate ideas and get a temp track for the test screening.

Thanks for asking, we just eat this elephant one bite at a time, it will all be worth it once people everywhere can sit back and enjoy it.

Keep Rock'in
SAM DROG

AND I RECOMEND EVERYONE to check out the sites he mentioned, they be cool brothers.

PRODUCTION E-MAIL!

here's a snipit from my e-mail:
anyone like the Misfits?


-----Original Message-----From: p@yahoo.com [mailto:phibes13@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, June 30, 2005 8:43 PMTo: b@hotmail.comSubject: Check out Misfits Meet the Nutley Brass!

Dear john

Have you heard about the new Misfits Lounge CD? It's called "Misfits meet the Nutley Brass: Fiend Club Lounge" and it's a Loungecore tribute to the legendary horror-punk band! The CD is an official Misfits Records release and comes with a free limited edition drink coaster. 'Fiend Club Lounge' includes 11 classic era Misfits favorites interpreted in retro-lounge style! Original Misfits guitarist Franche Coma even commented on the CD saying 'I was truly, truly impressed!'. Check out the eCard and preview 3 songs in their entirety plus see flash animations of the incredible cover art by legendary horror artist Basil Gogos by visiting http://www.rykodisc-media.com/misfits/

and here's what I said

That's hysterical!!!
Hawr hawr hawr!

I'm going into the movie to add some dramatic pauses in the last half, nothing major and nothing that will affect the footage you gave to Matt, just something to give a little more body and atmosphere to the film; it kind of races by like a strobe light. I ain't touching the opening up until the chicken shows, but we need a little more dramatic pausations.

Does the crapping corpse work for you? I might try the scene without it.

Also the title guy is doing storyboards.

The music guy is setting up his studio with a crap load of equipment. He owns the rights to a song that's really big in Greece.

I have the sound board thing set up and humming, it's cool! We'll be able to do so much to the Zombie voices and chicken stuff. Now just sound proofing the room.

Looking forward to ADR, and hearing music, and seeing the effects filter in.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

Testing 1,2,3... testing

Wow, sound editing is driving me INSANE! I put a clip on loop and tweek tweek tweek until the words have lost all meaning. It's fun actually, but I know I'm dring the house nuts.

So the computer is taking the mike, but here's the probelm. It gives a decent sound, but the level is low and there is a electrical whine in the background.

I have a camera mike that I could use, gives a strong signal but records every sound in creation.

My camera has no external mike jack. How did I miss that?

LAND OF THE DEAD tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, huff... huff... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FIGHTEVIL

Summer Con Complete

So we came, we saw, we kicked it's ass!

Summer Con was a lot of fun and gave us a great forum to spread the word of our little killer chicken movie. Thanks Danny, and thanks Summer Con for the invite.

Wes "producer" Campbell and I rambled for a bit, showed a scene, a trailer, some bloopers, and a "on the set" documentary.

It was great to see Susan Waters, one of our actors in the crowd and catch up with her.

Cindy Morgan, the girl from TRON was there, but I was too shy to come up to here and tell here how in love I was with her back when I was eight. It just makes things SO UNCOMFORTABLE! I vowed never to approach another actor I liked from my childhood after blathering infront of Bill "Choptop" Mossely at last years Dragon Con.

Nice dealers room, some great Godzilla merch.

The video presentation went fine, the sound was bad, but it gave me opportunity to blabber more.

Thanks Jayson for coming out, I owe you one.

FIGHTEVIL
SDROG

UPDATE OF THE LIVING DEAD!

So here's what's new!

Sci Fi Summer Con is coming up this weekend. As it turns out the panel will be just Wes Campbell the producer and I. I wanted everyone who had anything ever to do with the film on board, but there really isn't enough room for such a large family. Wes and I aren't too pretty, but we'll be able to ramble on pretty good about the ends and outs of making a low budget horror movie. Hope to see you guys out there, I'm sure the video tape will make it on the DVD regardless. Thanks to SCI-FI SUMMER for inviting the demonic chicken into their house. Oh, and here's the corrected website. http://sfscon.tripod.com

We have a new man on music. His name is Kevin Scott, and is a noted musician here in the Atlanta area. The man is a horror fanatic and a brilliant guy and I welcome him aboard. Charles Hume, who did a fantastic job on the trailer, and who is an awesome guy, was swamped with other film projects and had to bow out. The man is awesome and everyone should check out his website at http://www.broadjam.com/artists/artistindex.asp?artistID=6331

Our motion graphics genius is working out the opening title sequence. His name is Jeremy Sewell and the guy has an eye for cool. We talked last week about Saul Bass if that's any indication on the direction we're going. Here's his website, don't bother him, he's busy http://jeremysewell.com/

I've been working on getting the video presentation ready for Sunday, we'll be going on at 11am, and also I've begun the sound edit.

ROCK AND ROLL
SDROG

kick it!

So everyone check out Sci-Fi Summer Con the first week in June. Zombeak will be represented by a panel of principle cast and crew. We'll show some scenes, the trailer, some behind the SCREAMS, and some bloopers. There will be Q&A and everyone will get to know alittle more about this crazy little movie we're cooking up.

Here's the web site.

www.scifisummer.org

FIGHTEVIL
Sam

new stuff

So the effect shots have been sent out, I have the manual to the sound board, and a big gooey sty in my eye right now. Fun stuff. I have one more scene to tweak, then the sound editing, then the soundproofing, then the looping, then the foley, title sequence, and score. I'm meeting Jeremy Sewell the title guy this week, and the score guy Charles Hume if he has the hole in his schedule, and Nancy Miller the art director for gossip and cheese.

the ravings and droolings

Here's something new. I showed the rough cut to my producers S.C. Caruso and Wes Campbell last week; and prepared myself for a royal shelling. Eight months of work boiled down to this first screening and I really wasn't looking forward to being disemboweled and picked apart.

Well, scratch that, part of me was dying for it. Sitting alone with this thing for so long, how can you keep perspective. You get used to some glaring errors that only jump out again when you have someone else watching. On the other hand, some of the things that have nagged at you go by unnoticed, and when you bring it up later, they say that they didn't even see it. A lot of this is slight of hand I suppose. Look at the pretty bunny while I pick your pocket.

So what was the reaction from two people who have never blown smoke up my ass just to make my ego feel better, two people who will call shit by its name and won't hand you a complement unless you've earned every breath?

They were shocked and awed.

They are the third and forth people to see the film at this state. The first and second were the documentarian Jayson Hammett, who is right now hard at work cutting the hours of behind the scenes footage into an entertaining feature; and Mike Jackson the pre-production conceptualist who's fantastic drawings can be seen on the website.

I love these guys and they would never say anything to do me in, but I have made films in the past that have gotten nice but tepid reactions, and I know what it feels like. Feels like shit.

They freaked. And that's no lie. This is without music, folley, or special effects. I think we have something special; a killer chicken movie to set the bar for all killer chicken movies to come.

Now if I can just figure out how to run this sound board.

The Next Ten Steps

1. Set up the recording booth.
2. Get rough cut to the following people: SFX guys, music guy, opening titles guy.
3. isolate all the actors voices on separate tracks
4. loop the dialogue
5. gather room tones
6. gather sound effects
7. reveiw incoming effects work
8. work with the composer until he wants to kill me
9. mix the sound
10. mess with the color in some scenes

That's the next ten things. Then we get into festival play and getting it out to you, the drooling maniacs who should be in prison.

Completomatic

ROUGH CUT DONE!
Now just a million more things to do and the movie is ready to go!
FIGHTEVIL!

What's New?

Well, the movie is over an hour long now, and I’ve been spending my days cutting the last act while recutting the first act. Everything is starting to flow together in a big kamikaze free fall into hell. Zombie and chicken action abounds. We were also contacted by another distributor. Just waiting to see and getting the movie ready for a test screening.

FAINT!

Now, I could cry. I just finished cutting together the most intricate scene in the movie, the midpoint when everything goes to crap for all the characters. I broke my two pages maximum for scene length on this scene, and it took forever to shoot, and we had to keep going back to it and snagging little bits and pieces of it as the shoot when on. It has everything in it. Blood, Guts, Comedy, SFX, seven characters standing around a table, a major nightmare basically. I guess it is inspired by the Texas Chainsaw diner scene. But there is also some Thing in there. And some Re-Animator. This scene nearly killed me, and so right now I am celebrating the completion of the scene, that it works for me, and that it didn't kill me. There was no practical way to shoot this scene, so much damn coverage. So much blood and guts. I have learned to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER write another scene like this. I apologize to the cast and crew for putting them through this scene without giving them heavy drugs first.

Fun Times!

The movie is really cooking along now. I just cut together a chicken transformation and it turned out fine. Phew. The scenes are coming together quickly now and it's all fun and ho-hos until the sound editing starts.

SPEED DEMON!

So all the shots are cut, put into scenes, and now I'm arranging them and tweaking. This is the fun part. All the drudgery of loging and sorting and organizing leads up to this, a headbangers ball where I wheeze a sigh of relief that the scenes are cutting together and I might actually have a good movie at the end of this process. Everything is speeding up. I hope to have the movie done by June.
FIGHTEVIL

Finally!

I've dedicated this week to getting back on track, of coarse as soon as I decided that the whole world turns it's attention to you. The world is one big distraction. I feel that I live with a siren in my head that won't shut up. I type this with a mouth full of novocaine, and in a few hours I'm going to the doctor for him to check out a weird growth that has sprouted out of my back. But enough of that. The movie is almost finished. I'm chopping like a maniac and will be done with the rough by the end of the week.

By the way, I've decided to start a separate blog for movie reviews. It's called Ten Good Reasons and no matter what the movie is, I'll find ten reasons you will have to see it. The first movie is Paranoia 1.0. Check out the review here ---> www.10gr.blogspot.com

Back to Boring

Thank goodness. The last few days have been apocalyptic. Right in the middle of the big move we had a death in the family that was earth shattering, and I can't wait for life to get back to normal. At least I can now chill and let the world speed by me, and not think to much, unpack and start back up on the editing. Friends have moved back to GA that I haven't seen in a while, and it will be nice to hang with again and drink a cup of Joe with. And I've got some really weird projects that I've started to write for the next thing. The goal is to make two movies a year, of course I'll have to work quicker then I am now, but that is the goal. I mainly want to write the scripts, and find some brilliant cat who loves bossing people around and being center of attention to direct them. All I need in life to be happy is to write horror, watch horror, and drink a lot of coffee. I'll produce too just until I can find someone who will do it for me. The ideal would be to live in a bubble of quiet stillness, and type away, and occasionally going out to grab some coffee or see a movie or take a road trip, and only that when I feel psychoticly adventurous.

Three More Daze

So we are almost done moving, this has nothing to do with the movie other then it is keeping me from working on it physically, but last night I was wide eyed in the new house just playing it over and over and over again in my head different cuts I'm going to make and how some scenes will slice together, praising my ingenuity one second and damning my incompetence the next. A sleepless night. Maybe this is how it goes, you work until you're sick of it, then sit back from it until there is nothing else on your brain but "the it". This is theory and thus a waste of time and keystrokes.

Calm Down

There are more posts these days just cuz it has become one of the few creative outlets I've got for now. Packing, packing, moving, moving, slap me in a dress and call me Cinderella. Sinderella. Blah-blah-blah.

Estimated Completion Dates

Just moving and packing, nothing interesting going on. ECD - February the 17th.
ECD on the movies first cut, third weekend of Feb.
ECD on the ADR, end of March
ECD on sound effects, end of April
ECD on effects, I'm handing that off to others so I'm not sure, before the June premiere is all that matters.
ECD on the score, as soon as the rough cut goes through a polish run, then we'll hand it over to the bloke doing that and he had scored a film in a week before this. I'll guess this one will take three.
There will also be a day of inserts to help gore the move up more. These will be shot in a garage and shouldn't take more then a day.
Enough of me yack'n.
FIGHTEVIL

Reel Life (cliche)

So after all that I still have three hours to cut. It's in the computer and sitting there waiting for me to chop it up and rearrange it, but of coarse a little real life has intruded into my hermetically sealed fantasy world and I have to address these issues. Crap. This is the most challenging thing about making a film, or doing anything worthwhile, and anyone will agree with me on this, the persistent encroachment of external reality. Why won't it just go away! No matter what I do to block it out, it creeps back in through the cracks in the window, under the door jams, wherever it can get a foot hold. Give reality an inch, it takes a foot, then it crams it up your ass.

So these days I am packing up the house and moving to another house down the road. No matter how much I stare at my belongings they don't disappear or pack themselves, so I guess I will have to deal with them. Bummer. And then I go,"Great! I'll simplify my life!" But it doesn't work like that see. I see every emotional connection to every scrap of paper and every illegible post-it. Every VHS tape, every cassette, every book, comic, whatever, it all seems too important to throw out. I have so much trash that means too much to me. I envy the Buddhist on the hill that has nothing and wants nothing. I suffer greed and envy all at once. Is this rambling entry procrastination to keep from packing? Sure is.

Chop Shot

So I just finished lacerating another tape. I'm listening to KFDM while I write this. This band is funny. I feel so E-V-I-L listening to them! RAWR!!!! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!!

While I cut I'm listening to the "Escape from New York" soundtrack cause it helps to remind yourself of just why the heck you wanted to do this ridiculous crap in the first place.

I actually met Carpenter back in '98 at Dragon Con here in Atlanta. I had a complete fanboy breakdown that made Carpenter very nervous and other fanboys feel pretty good about themselves. The level of drooling blind devotion I showered upon Carpenter (or Johnny McCarp as I have tattooed on my ass) left me feeling like a real champ. It's hard to look like the biggest nerd in a room full of 54 year old men wearing Peter Pan costumes.

I still have the cigarette butts that I swiped from Carpenters ashtray.

DON'T JUDGE ME!!!!!!

seven hours

Things are progressing fine, some stuff is easier to cut then others. The thing I'm dreading is this large conversation between four principles that is spoken in a huddle. A lot is said and a I covered it in two reversals with a difficult composition in the frame to maintain. Everyone had to stand exactly where we put them or they would be blocking another's face, and when they moved (because the conversation involves also three more principles in another room) they had to go back to the exact space they were in, and make it look natural. This was all in a feeble attempt to honor (rip off) John Frankenheimer who I love because of his deep focus compositions during conversations. I tried to do this elsewhere in the movie, but this was the most challenging spot. I'm dreading cutting it together.

LAST DAY

So this is scheduled to be the last day of the rough cut so I'm am working around the clock to get it done by midnight. I was so nervous putting in the last of the footage because I hadn't seen certain scenes that I knew we shot, and I freaked and wondered if I had lost a tape, and what if I had, and what would I do!?! And so I started tying a noose, just in case that happened, with notes to the producer on how I would have finished the project had I not been met with such an unfortunate event. I wrote down phones numbers to the location contacts and such and the pages to the missing scenes. But it so happens that on the last tape I put into the hard drive all the holes were filled and thus the noose has been put back into the drawer until the ADR sessions start up.

I will be making several entries this day to keep for prosperity the long last day of the first cut. Well this only took five and a half months to get to this point; frame by frame, shot by shot, scene by scene, act by act, sequel by pointless sequel.

FIGHTEVIL
SD

Home Stretch

So I'm motivated and focused on getting this rough cut done by the end of the month, nothing going to stop this nutball from getting to the sweet spot it so desires! If I have to edit around the clock, the flick will have a cut ready by Feb 1st. Then of course it will be torn apart by my preview screeners, and it still has sound work to be done, and the rest of the digital effects to be put in, but that stuff is cool and fun, especially adding the sound effects. The rough cut is tough because you are constantly facing reality, not idealism, and that is something I hate doing. Never liked doing it, don't have a taste for it.

FIGHT EVIL!

SICK AS A DROG

Last few days I've just been bleeding mucus out of every orifice and my head has felt like hot mashed potatoes. I've been doing life things, but fell behind the schedule as far as the movie goes. But the nice thing is that I'm filling in a lot of the narrative holes now in editing. New footage comes in and plugs a gap and I get a better sense of how this whole thing will flow. Also I'm finding pick up and close ups that I had forgotten I had done, so the scenes are becoming better and better in terms of coverage.

In terms of length, I'd like the move to run exactly 90 minutes with credits included.

The hardest thing about editing is dealing with the enormous work load. This can be intimidating, especially since we shot 21 hours of footage. I've never edited something this big. The last film was a short with 9 hours recorded. Simple stuff. And that took months. I'm not sure how long this stuff is supposed to take, but we are at the five month mark now since we stopped filming. I guess that's not too bad. Every shot I put in lightens the load just that much.

I have several screenplays gearing up for the next project. I've learned so much as far as how to write a filmable scene from this movie. I want the next one to go smooth and fast.

The website for the Sci-Fi Summer Con where Zombeak! will be promoted is here at http://www.scifisummer.org/.

67%

That's how far along we are in the cut, with seven tapes to go and an hour running time. It's been fun the last few days as I've been pulling all nighters on the puppy, working from midnight until 8am. I blew through footage doing this, no distractions and no sounds or light, just me and the movie. Of coarse doing this means you live like a vampire and sleep through the day and wake as the sun is going down. That has been a blast and something I haven't done for years. The world conformed me into a nine to five mentality.

The cool news is that Zombeak will be represented at the Summer Sci-Fi Con 2005 in Atlanta, GA! The event takes place in June and we will be talking up the movie for an hour to hungry fans in the southeast. Also, and this is a maybe depending on what kind of venue they are able to come up with, there will be a special preview screening at the con. I haven't enough info right now to give a thumbs up or down, and it won't happen if it is just a tv in a meeting room, but if we can get an auditorium with a screen and a projector, this very well might happen.

FIGHTEVIL!

SFXplosion

I'm so excited right now. I just got back the tests for some special effect shots and it feels like a thousand pounds are off my shoulders. They look awesome! It was some shotgun blasts and some head damage that I was really wondering how it would turn out, and I give props to Wes and Matt for making it look really neat. I forget how FX intensive this thing really is, and to finally see some of that, not just actors reacting to nothing, is a real hoot.

The movie is an hour long now, and I still have eight hours of raw stuff to go. The final running length I'm shooting for is standard exploitation 90 minutes. Does anyone really want to see a three hour mood piece about a killer chicken?