The video above is the trailer for Heart of Now – the latest feature from Sabi Pictures. I’ve been very interested in this Los Angeles based filmmaking collective for a few years now. They’ve released a handful of excellent short films and a huge amount of high quality behind-the-scenes stuff. When I learned that they would be premiering Heart of Now at the 2010 deadCENTER Film Festival, I immediately made plans to be there.

My expectations for Heart of Now were really high, and refreshingly, the movie did not disappoint. The film is beautifully made and incredibly moving. I have been thinking about it for almost two weeks now. I have a policy of not writing movie reviews, but Heart of Now has my highest recommendation. It left me emotionally moved but also completely reinvigorated about making movies.

Heart of Now is a perfect example of what I’m talking about when I mention “going smaller.” This is a personal, intimate and emotional movie. Sabi Pictures uses a collaborative filmmaking style where they develop the story and film as a group. They call it interdependent filmmaking. The resulting film feels very rich and real. All of the elements – acting, directing, editing, cinematography, music – are perfectly blended. None of the individual elements draw attention to themselves, instead they work in harmony with each other.

I’ve heard people describe the aesthetic style of Heart of Now as “documentary-like” but I think this is completely wrong. The movie does feel very real – in fact, I forgot I was even watching a movie and just lost myself in the world created here. The performances are some of the best I have ever seen in an independent film. The entire cast is excellent, but Marion Kerr is devastatingly good. The use of smaller digital cameras allows the filmmakers to put the audience right into the story. The camera moves, shot compositions and color palette all seem motivated by the emotions of the scene. We are always IN IT and never safely removed watching from the distance of a carefully framed master shot.

For the last few years, I’ve been thinking and writing about what I like to call microcinema. I use this term loosely to describe movies with tiny budgets created outside the Hollywood system with affordable digital gear. There have been some really good microcinema movies, but I feel like Heart of Now is one of the first to truly deliver on the potential of this type of filmmaking. It doesn’t try to recreate the style of a slick Hollywood drama. Instead, it creates a unique and beautiful style all its own.

If you make movies or love movies as an art form, you should put this one at the top of your list.

Heart of Now isn’t yet available on DVD, but there is a pretty cool way that you can see it. Sabi Pictures is kicking off a Tour in August. They are choosing the tour locations based on fan interest. If you’d like to see Heart of Now in your city, go to the Sabi Pictures site and request a screening in your town.

My 1-year sabbatical from making movies is almost over, so I decided it was time to change things up here on the blog. I originally started this blog to document the process of making Sex Machine. I anticipated that I would then use it to document the making of many more movies. Despite my best intentions, I still haven’t completed another feature. I am pretty uncomfortable writing about personal stuff, so the blog doesn’t get updated very often even though my personal life is often pretty exciting. But there is new stuff coming up and I want to write about it.

For the past several years I feel like I’ve been struggling against some kind of current trying to get movies made. When I changed career directions, things started suddenly going very smoothly – like I was finally swimming with the current. I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but it is definitely less stressful. But even though I’ve been on a film making break, I definitely haven’t stopped making things. Here’s what I’ve been up to and what I’ll be writing about in the days to come.

Internet Stuff. Over the past year, I’ve really focused my energy on what I call internet stuff. I really need an elevator pitch so I have a better way of explaining what it is exactly that I do. Basically, I help companies figure out how to use their web presence to strengthen their brand and sell more stuff. I’ve inadvertently found that I’m really good at this. The funny thing is that the skills and techniques I’m using for this are things that I’d originally developed to promote my movies. Ironic. I love doing this work in the business world, but I also love helping artists, filmmakers, musicians and other creative types figure out ways to do this for themselves.

Web Series. I’ve also been putting a lot of time, energy and thought into developing web series. Hilah Cooking is the first example of this. I am totally in love with this medium and it’s another example of things just clicking. In just a few months we have built up a sizable and very engaged audience for the show. With web series, there are no gatekeepers. There is nobody to tell you what you can and can’t do. You make it and release it to the world. You also have direct communication with your audience. I’m not sure we fully realize how revolutionary this is. I get a lot of questions about how we make the show, so I will writing about this a lot.

Movies. I will never stop making movies, but I am going to completely change how I go about it. I have given a lot of thought to this over the past year. The industry has completely changed over the past 2-3 years but many film makers are still wandering around like it’s still the late 1990′s. Even though the industry is a wreck as far as independents are concerned, I’ve never felt more optimistic about making movies and the potential of the medium as an art form.

So… new design… new direction… new start. Let’s go!

Photo: The photo above is of the Los Feliz 3 Movie Theater. I just got back from another trip to California where I spent a lot of time on Vermont Avenue. I recommend the Juicy Lucy Cheeseburger from Fred 62

Here’s a trailer for the upcoming Big Ol’ Tire Fire short Freerange Asshole. I can’t take much credit for this as I basically just held a boom pole and ate the catering. But it was a really fun shoot and I love working with this group. The finished movie is hilarious.

Synopsis:

Doug is a stay-at-home dork who has just finished another video blog about his obsession, the Longwoods Wereman. His wife Alice is super-duper pissed because he forgot to pick her up from work. Again! Doug proposes a romantic weekend getaway, concealing his true intentions to investigate the elusive creature.

Of course, their “hump fest in the forest” fizzles when Alice discovers Doug’s lame-ass subterfuge. She loses her shit and splits, and Doug pursues his passion alone.

Later in the movie… Injured and lost, Doug must do the unthinkable to survive. With the aid of a fuzzy forest friend and a magical musical interlude, Doug finally confronts his dream. And his dream is a grade-A, freerange asshole.

I just got back from Orlando, Florida where I attended the mid-year meeting for ACLEA. ACLEA is an organization for professionals in Continuing Legal Education. I’ve only been working in this field for 3 months, so the conference filled in a lot of the blanks for me. Since I don’t have a law school degree, I don’t even fully understand most of the products that I am no marketing. I stayed at the Loew’s Portofino Bay Resort which was kind of like Las Vegas if you took out all the sleaze and added lots of water. The photo above was taken in front of my room.

The focus of the conference was on the internet and social marketing. This part was pretty eye-opening for me, because I’ve been doing “social marketing” in some form or another for a long time. We used it to build an audience for Sex Machine in the days before Facebook and Twitter. I don’t think I was even familiar with the term social marketing yet. At that time, I was using Livejournal, Blogger and forums to build a buzz and a tiny but interested audience for our little movie. It’s always been something I’ve enjoyed doing.

So it’s kind of exciting to be able to translate all of those skills to a new industry. Now instead of using the internet to build an audience for low-budget horror movies, I’m using it to sell things like Texas Pattern Jury Charges. I’ve pretty much taken the unused marketing plan for The Spider Babies and am using it to sell law books. It may not be sexy, but it’s pretty encouraging to see that this stuff actually works. It was also a little surreal to hear all of these websites and strategies being discussed in an environment like ACLEA. I’ve been doing this so long that I sometimes forget how mainstream it has become.

And in other news, I have fallen in love…

This is a Vietnamese sandwich known as a banh mi. I’ve eaten them before, but recently, I’ve become obsessed with them. The great think about banh mi is that they only cost $3 and they are amazing. This photo doesn’t do it justice because I’ve already taken several bites. My only previous experience with banh mi was at Lee’s in OKC. This one came from Lily’s Sandwich Cafe in Austin,TX. I will definitely be going back.

Andrew, Hilah and me on the green screen. (photo by Liz McCormick)

Last day of the Austin shoot. (Photo by Liz McCormick)

Shooting at the Scoot Inn in Austin, TX. (Photo by Kyle Terry)

The Spider Babies shoot moves to Oklahoma. If there were fractures among the cast and crew before, the move to Oklahoma only made them worse. By this time, I think I had officially lost it and I only remember bits and pieces of this part of the production. My brain has literally erased a lot of it. I do vividly remember a hotel room in El Reno being trashed rock band style. And I remember Craig blowing the rest of the production design budget on a bunch of fireworks. And it was really, really hot. And there were ticks that somehow managed to bite you in the last place you would ever want to be bitten.

Late night shoot at a grocery store in El Reno. We are all crazy by this point. (Photo by Taylor Rea)

Then I slept for most of the summer. I was worn out, my body was tired, my brain was friend, my bank account was empty and I had no job or permanent place to live. So, I went to my mom’s house.

Moviefail. For various reasons too numerous to mention it becomes clear that the movie is dead in the water. I’m not a person who gives up on things even when it borders on delusional. But, it became clearer by the day that there was no way for the project to really go forward. After working on something for almost 2 years, it takes awhile for that reality to sink it. But it did.

Met an awesome girl and drank lots of whiskey. This really is the best way to “get over it.”

Applied for lots of jobs. It wasn’t a great time to be looking and my heart wasn’t really in it. After months of looking I got offered two jobs on the same day. I picked one.

Took a road trip to Los Angeles. Started in Oklahoma and drove through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. There were lots of Dairy Queens and Palm Trees.

First Dairy Queen spotted in California

Saw Where The Wild Things Are at the legendary Arclight Theater. Loved the movie and the theater, but the Alamo Drafthouse will always be #1 in my heart.

Fell in love with California while walking on the Santa Monica boardwalk.

Santa Monica Boardwalk

Moved back to Austin. I’d stayed with them occasionally throughout the summer when in town for interviews, but Mark and Hilah let me move in full-time until I worked long enough to get the cash for my own place. They saved my ass big-time and I will always owe them big-time.

Started a New Job. As much as I love making movies, so far it’s the internet that always comes through to pay my bills. All the social marketing and internet marketing strategies that I had planned for The Spider Babies are now being used to promote books. And I get to work in downtown Austin which is kick-ass.

Worked on a new short film with Big Ol’ Tire Fire. I recorded sound. It was great to be working with everybody again and great to be on a movie set where everybody liked each other and genuinely wanted to make a movie. Even though my responsibilities were minimal, it helped to erase some of the brain damage from earlier in the year. Hopefully, you’ll be able to see it at SXSW later this year.

Apartment Trees

Moved into a new apartment. It’s a bachelor pad, but I love it. When I set off on my quest to make The Spider Babies, I got rid of most of my stuff in order to live like a nomad. So the apartment is pretty much empty. But I’m taking my time and slowly filling it with things that I really love. Give me a few months and then invite yourself over.

That’s it for 2009. It’s been a tough year, but it’s a strangely rewarding feeling to look back on it.  I survived it, and I feel much older and wiser (and maybe even stronger). I’m incredibly thankful to all the family and friends that helped me get through it.

Now, I gotta get busy making 2010 my bitch.