My brain is fried and I’m trying to remember the last day I didn’t do any work. For the past few weeks, I have been wrapping up huge projects at the day job and operating camera on JERRY…! on weekends and some nights. Now that we are in the final stages of shooting we’ll be doing three nights this week as well. The movie is going to be really funny and I love working with everybody involved, but I’m pretty worn out.
I’ll post some screen shots soon.
In other news:
The new studios are all rented out and we now have a waiting list. We are now calling the studio: The House of Undescribable Colors.
We launched a mini-site for DooDad’s Moon Pad. It will be growing and expanding as the project progresses. Expect major updates starting in April.
In fact, expect lots of updates on lots of things starting in April.
Asphalt Planet Motion Pictures is setting up office on the east side of Austin in the charming bungalow you see pictured above. We will be sharing the space with Aphid Animation and two other lucky artists as yet unnamed. We are going to turn this place into a hub of creative energy. If you’re looking for a great office/studio space contact us soon. We are looking specifically for a creative professional. Ideally, someone we can cross-pollinate with.
The house is fully restored with beautiful hardwood floors and a brand-new tin roof. You’ll have access to a kitchenette and bathroom and lots of windows. This is going to be a great environment for making creative work. The house is on the East Austin studio tour and we already plans to show artwork in one of the rooms.
If you’re interested, contact us soon because we have several interested parties, but we want to make sure we end up with the perfect mix of artists. Move-ins start March 1st. E-mail for more information!
I spent a lot of my Christmas vacation at Rockhouse Cinema, going through Avid training. Kenny has the system pretty tricked out and it’s the smoothest editing system I have worked on. It’s so fast that it makes editing almost like typing in a word processor. No lag time. It just works. I’m sure a properly set up Final Cut rig would be just as fast, but there’s something kind of cool about cutting on an Avid. It’s always been way out of my price range and therefore somewhat mysterious. [click to continue...]
Right now this book is blowing my mind. It has been consuming my every moment of free time. I can’t tell you how much I wish that it had existed back when we were doing post-production on Sex Machine. I’m only about halfway finished with it — and that doesn’t even count the bonus chapters on the DVD — so I don’t feel ready to right an actual review, but I will say this: If you make independent movies, you NEED this book.
The focus of DV Rebels Guide is on making kick-ass guerilla-style action movies, but that description only scratches the surface. If you want to make any genre of movie using a low-to-no budget production style, this book will help you make the movie look bigger and better. Writer Stu Maschwitz used to work for ILM before co-founding The Orphanage (creators of Magic Bullet and special effects for all sorts of films). When not busy with paying gigs, Maschwitz has been directing his own ambitious short films and conducting lots of experiments that push the envelope of no-budget filmmaking.
Maschwitz assumes you know the basics of production and post-production so DV Rebels Guide isn’t really a book for beginners. Instead he delves deep into how to inject lots of production value into your project without spending a lot of money. Some of these techniques involves stunts, miniatures, greenscreen and muzzle flashes, but others are about how to shoot footage with pro-sumer cameras that gives audiences the feel of a big-budget “real” movie. Maschwitz isn’t afraid to get tech-y and if you’re an After Effects user there is plenty to geek out on including a detailed guide to color correcting and mastering your film.
I haven’t been this excited about making movies since I first read Rebel Without A Crew. This could be dangerous.
I haven’t seen this yet, but apparently everybody else in Austin has. I run into people all the time telling me how great All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. The movie was shot just outside Austin in Bastrop and has been getting rave reviews every since. Apparently, it’s a throwback to the old-school slasher flicks of the 80’s but with a very modern attitude and style. At least it doesn’t look like “torture porn.” It looks like good old-fashioned American horror: high school girls getting chased around in their underwear by a maniacal killer!
For more information about All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, visit their MySpace profile.
is blowing my mind. It has been consuming my every moment of free time. I can’t tell you how much I wish that it had existed back when we were doing post-production on Sex Machine. I’m only about halfway finished with it — and that doesn’t even count the bonus chapters on the DVD — so I don’t feel ready to right an actual review, but I will say this: If you make independent movies, you NEED this book.
. This could be dangerous.
