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/.