Mad Dog Movies

The King of Cups wins RMM Script-A-Palooza

Mike — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:49:49 +0000

2012 Winner: The King of Cups

For the third consecutive year, a short script by yours truly has won at Rochester Movie Makers Script-A-Palooza. There were 9 screenplays read (performed!) that night by our troupe of talented actors. I was impressed with the continuing quality from our small community. The dramatic pieces were really strong, too, which doesn’t always come across since script readings generally favors comedy.

My piece, THE KING OF CUPS, is something I wrote in response to one of our RMM Writers Workshop challenges. I ignored my usual sense of practicality for this one and set it in New Orleans during a hurricane. Would I ever change it to, say, Rochester during a light drizzle? Eh, I don’t know. Without giving anything away, there are some plot elements that seem to fit New Orleans… After the reading, someone described it to me as being like a Twilight Zone episode, and I suppose he’s right.

Read The King of Cups.

An asylum for The Other Gods

Mike — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:28:30 +0000

“I’m currently watching a silent movie on a television inside of an insane asylum that may or may not be IN MY MIND…”

Ben Gilbert’s review of The Darkness 2.

Find The Other Gods in The Darkness II

Mike — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:23:32 +0000

Perhaps you’ve seen the ads all over the web this week for The Darkness II, the horror game from 2k Games and Digital Extremes. The story of The Darkness (in comics and games) concerns an ancient evil from another dimension that aligns itself with a mob hitman. There’s some hints of Lovecraftian ideas there, so it feels right that my film, The Other Gods, has a role in the new game.

The creative director of The Darkness II reached out to me several months ago to see if it would be possible to license The Other Gods for inclusion in the game. Of course, I said “yes.” Apparently, players will have the option of watching (or ignoring) the entire 5 minute short in the game world. I’m assuming it appears on a video monitor or movie screen in the game — I haven’t played the game yet, so I can’t be more specific. I hope to share some screenshots online soon.

This has been quite a year for The Other Gods — it played at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC, as well as two screenings in Buffalo and a surprise appearance at the Halloween edition of Rochester’s Emerging Filmmakers. Not bad for a film that premiered in 2006 (or 1924, depending on which version of events you choose to believe).

Find out more (and buy the game) at http://www.embracethedarkness.com

Fishing for Compliments

Mike — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:26:11 +0000

Yup, it’s a fishing pole. But why?

The Walkin’ Dude

Mike — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:46:57 +0000

I’m still walking, now with legs.

The Other Gods at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design

Mike — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:00:01 +0000

New York, NY (September 23, 2011)—New Yorkers can now celebrate Halloween a few days early. The Museum of Arts and Design hosts the 3rd edition of the short film fest Daggers, featuring 12 exquisitely creepy films that will share the spotlight on October 20, 2011, at 7:00 pm, and on October 22 at 3:00 pm in the Theater at MAD. Curated by noted critic Peter Gutiérrez, the all-shorts Daggers showcases work by up-and-coming talents, as well as contemporary classics by renowned filmmakers such as Denis Villeneuve and Jason Eisener. This mini-fest sports a macabre mix that is sure to please horror-hounds of all stripes.

“Horror is a much richer and more diverse genre than it is often given credit for,” observes Gutiérrez, who founded Daggers in 2008. “With Daggers we get to show off that range of artistry. In this year’s lineup, for example, we have surrealism, gothic mystery, psychological horror, a silent film, a musical, Cronenberg-style body horror, stop-motion animation, an experimental dance piece, and even gore-comedy. The goal is to represent the unsettling, the poetic, the thought-provoking, and yes, the stomaching-turning.”

Unspooling its dozen films in about two hours, Daggers will screen some of the best short-form horror from around the world, giving local audiences a chance to enjoy titles that are typically accessible only via major film festivals. Shot on the streets of Prague, “Prahands” recalls classic avant-garde cinema while “New Born” is an early effort of Israel’s Navot Papushado, co-writer and co-director of this year’s Tribeca favorite “Rabies” (“Kalevet”). Tasmania is represented by Briony Kidd‘s “The Room at The Top of The Stairs,” which makes its New York premiere. And of course there will be films by American, Canadian, and British filmmakers.

These include the H.P. Lovecraft adaptation “The Other Gods,” Matthew Garrett‘s “Beating Hearts,” Firas Momani‘s Fantasia-winning “The Adder’s Bite,” and the world premiere of “(Baby) It’s You,” a fun twist on the archetypal “mad scientist” film. Also making its New York premiere is Jerome Sable‘s acclaimed Sundance hit, “The Legend of Beaver Dam.” As always, the programming strategy seeks to combine fresh titles, many of which are new to Big Apple audiences, with ones that are well worthy of encores. Faye Jackson‘s “Lump” was shown directly before “Pan’s Labyrinth” at 2006′s New York Film Festival, and Jason (“Hobo with a Shotgun”) Eisener‘s “Treevenge” won the audience award for best short at the 2008 edition of the New York City Horror Film Festival. Moviegoers will know “Next Floor”‘s Denis Villeneuve as the director behind the Oscar-nominated “Incendies,” but may not have been able to catch this short, a prize-winner at TIFF, Sitges, and Cannes, not to mention a recipient of the Genie, Canada’s highest filmmaking award. The lineup also happens to boast another Genie-winner, Pedro Pires‘s unforgettable “Danse Macabre.”

“From last year’s Zombo Italiano and Jodorowsky series to this fall’s Sion Sono retro, MAD is proving itself to be a force in bold yet offbeat genre programming,” explains Gutiérrez. “That’s an approach that appeals to New York’s cinephiles and horror fans alike. It also happens to be very close to Daggers‘ sensibility, so I couldn’t be happier that this unique event has found such a great venue.”

ABOUT THE SERIES

Daggers will screen in the Theater at MAD on October 20, 2011 at 7:00 pm and on October 22, 2011 at 3:00 pm.

Both screenings $10 General
$7 MAD Members and Students.

Daggers is curated by film critic Peter Gutiérrez, frequent contributor to Rue Morgue and TribecaFilm.Com.

For more information, or to order tickets, please visit: http://www.madmuseum.org/series/daggers

THE 2011 DAGGERS LINEUP
All films will be projected digitally.

The Adder’s Bite (2010)
Dir. Firas Momani
9 min

(Baby) It’s You (2011)
Dir. David Cowles, Jeremy Galante, and Brad Pattullo
3 min

Beating Hearts (2010)
Dir. Matthew Garrett
11 min

Danse Macabre (2009)
Dir. Pedro Pires
9 min

The Legend of Beaver Dam (2010)
Dir. Jerome Sable
12 min

Lump (2006)
Dir. Faye Jackson
12 min

New Born (2006)
Dir. Navot Papsushado
14 min

Next Floor (2008)
Dir. Denis Villeneuve
11 min

The Other Gods (2006)
Dir. Mike Boas
6 min

Prahands (2007)
Dir. Charles Pieper
5 min

The Room at the Top of the Stairs (2011)
Dir. Briony Kidd
15 min

Treevenge (2008)
Dir. Jason Eisener
16 min

ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN
The Museum of Arts and Design explores the blur zone that characterizes so much of art, design, and craft today. The Museum focuses on contemporary creativity and the ways in which artists and designers from around the world transform materials through processes ranging from the artisanal to digital. The Museum’s exhibition program explores and illuminates issues and ideas, highlights creativity and craftsmanship, and celebrates the limitless potential of materials and techniques when used by gifted and innovative artists. MAD’s permanent collection is global in scope and focuses on art, craft, and design from 1950 to the present day. At the center of the Museum’s mission is education. The Museum’s dynamic new facility features classrooms and studios for master classes, seminars, and workshops for students, families, and adults. Three open artist studios engage visitors in the creative processes of artists at work and enhance the exhibition programs. Lectures, films, performances, and symposia related to the Museum’s collection and topical subjects affecting the world of contemporary art, craft, and design are held in a renovated 144-seat auditorium.

History of a website

Mike — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:13:20 +0000

It’s time once again for a Mad Dog Movies re-design. Lately, I’ve been a bit tired of the Sliding Door effect for my top links… plus it doesn’t behave well with the latest WordPress iterations. So… on with the new!

How has my site changed over the years? Here’s a brief history.

2001: THE HAND

Before I ever bought maddogmovies.com or even mikeboas.com, I had a free site hosted on Tripod. I was trying to share my resume, so to that end I created a Flash “interactive resume.” Cute, eh? The Animation Scoop was a cartoon news blog idea that I never did more than a dozen posts for.

2004: MIKE BOAS SITE

After getting fed up with pop-up ads at Tripod, I moved over to another free host. Not surprisingly, service there was intermittent. Eventually, I moved my personal site to Cyberpixels.com, where I bought legit domain names. The site itself had a spooky sci-fi theme, with sounds and music borrowed from The Outer Limits and The Creature From the Black Lagoon. The design of these bio pages went unchanged until I re-organized the site in 2009. (This snapshot is from 2007.)

2004: THE LANDING PAGE

At this point, Mad Dog Movies was the name I gave to my network of sites. The bio site stood on its own, and the Mad Dog Blog was a third entity.

2005: THE SMORGASBORD

As I created more websites and cartoons, the landing page became more and more crowded. I won’t get into it here, but Almost A Movie, Subterranea, and Ominous Events also went through a few versions over the years. Oh, and those references to the Cinematic Almanac? That site encompassed a half dozen articles I felt (at the time) should stand on their own. I later moved them into the blog.

2006: EL BLOGGO DEL PERRO LOCO

Meanwhile, the blog continued. Cyberpixels became unreliable in 2005, so I moved everything over to Hostgator, where I continue to reside today. Early on, I chose the B2Evolution blog software. A sort of competitor to WordPress, Blogger, and Moveable Type, it later made me crazy.

2008: Brightcove

At some point, I wanted to put more video on the landing page. Brightcove was a cool Flash player that allowed me to do that. Until they discontinued their free service, that is. After that, I made due with a Youtube playlist for a while.

2008-2009: CHANGING HAIR

Over on the B2Evolution blog, I made some significant changes. Unfortunately, I don’t have screen caps from that time, but I do have this selection of vanity headers showcasing my various haircuts.

2009: WordPress

In December of 2009, I bit the bullet and migrated from B2Evolution to WordPress. There was some angst involved, as I didn’t want to lose all my old posts, but I managed to keep everything intact. I also took this opportunity to combine the bio site, the blog, and the Mad Dog Movies identity all into one. The Atahualpa theme lasted a week or two, and then I created something crazy…

2009: DARK RED SLIDING DOORS

There was something about the “Sliding Doors” theme I liked. It had javascript-powered sliding banner links at the top of the page. But there were other design elements in the “Dark Red” theme that I wanted, also. So I combined the two — which was fine for a year or so. Eventually, WordPress updates (and the lack of updates in both Sliding Doors and Dark Red) necessitated another change.

2011: PAGELINES IN PROGRESS

I burned through a ton of test themes in the last few days. I landed on one called “Platform” from Pagelines which has a great interface for making changes. I rarely want something straight out of the box, and I need to make changes to colors, fonts, backgrounds, and column widths. Platform lets me do most of that without hard coding. Here’s what it looked like yesterday.

2011: CURRENT

And today I’ve brought in my current logo and scratchy paper look. I’d like to tighten the spacing a bit (mostly in the sidebar) but it’s pretty satisfactory. Pagelines offers pro versions of their themes, so I might consider upgrading.

Paradigm now on sale

Mike — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:12:33 +0000

Lesia Vincent’s first novel, “Paradigm,” is now available through Createspace and Amazon.

It is about modern day Stregheria (Italian witchcraft). If that catches your interest, why not support a Rochester writer and buy a copy?

Oh, and here’s the cover, done by yours truly (and inspired by John William Waterhouse’s The Magic Circle).

Buy “Paradigm” on Amazon.

You could say I’m happy as a cartoon

Mike — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:18:18 +0000

Animated Mike goes for a stroll!

The mystery continues

Mike — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:37:11 +0000

No, I won’t tell you what this means. Not yet.

Mystery self portrait project

Mike — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:35:37 +0000

What’s Mike working on now?

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Recap Recap Recap

Mike — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:04:52 +0000

What’s been going on with Mike lately?

CSI: Mike. (Photo by Stephanie Viriyakul)

When last I blogged, I was pushing Mind Rip’s Kickstarter campaign. Well, that fundraising tactic fell short, but that doesn’t mean we’re not making the movie any way possible. We’re continuing to shoot the first half hour of the film (which are relatively low on special effects). Thanks to our leads, Joe Thompson and Kristen Royale, for shooting with us for a few nights in July. For more pics, friend the film at http://facebook.com/mindrip

Strange things happen in the desert.

Meanwhile, after a 6 day shoot in and around Death Valley, I’m now editing the feature film “3.14…” for writer/director/actor Greg Smith. This is an indie feature that looks at mathematical concepts and philosophy through dream logic. Oh, and there’s guys dressed in zebra striped lycra suits riding motorbikes. Friend the movie at http://www.facebook.com/pages/314-the-movie/142935755771042

Casa Phil-Mad

And this is a good time to mention our new base of operations for Philrose editing projects, which I’m dubbing the Phil-Mad offices. Because, you know, I’m there too. At last, John Vincent and I have enough space for computers AND noxious chemicals. (That’s office plus workshop space, folks.)

The Old Fish and the Sea

As long as I’m in recap mode, I’ll mention that I won the Rochester Movie Makers short script competition for the second straight year. My entry is the soul-searching tale of a young man and a talking trout. (Gulp! Now I have to consider shooting it.) Read “The Old Fish and the Sea” online here.

Paradigm, by Lesia Vincent, cover by Mike Boas.

Lesia Vincent’s first novel will be released soon, so here’s a sneak peek at the cover by yours truly. Paradigm’s story involves a woman connecting with her ancestors via Italian witchcraft. For the cover, I did an interpretation of John William Waterhouse’s painting, The Magic Circle. Watch this space for an announcement when the book goes on sale.

Ammo and Attitude

Ammo and Attitude is a reality show on the Versus network. Derrick Petrush (of Rochester Movie Makers) is editing the show and asked me to update the animated intro for the new season. The original intro was really well done, and it was a fairly straight forward job to go in and swap in this year’s contestants. Still, it involved a certain amount of rotoscoping and After Effects cleverness. Find out more about the show at ammoandattitude.com

Summer Filmmaking Camp for Rochester Youth

And finally (finally!) I should mention what a pleasure it was to co-teach a class on storyboarding to 36 young filmmakers at the 360 | 365 film camp. Fred Armstrong and I went in armed with dittos about camera shots and tons of samples. The kids were super creative and super appreciative. Their resulting short films will be going online soon at http://film360365.com/school

That’s all for now. Here’s where I should insert a witty comment about it better not be another four months before updating again, but… eh, I don’t feel like it.

Rochester-Produced Movie Launches Satirical “Public Television” Style Pledge Drive

Mike — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:57:44 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Rochester, NY – April 25, 2011 – Rochester based Philrose Productions is taking a unique approach to raising money for its creature feature, Mind Rip. Writer/director John Vincent and producer Mike Boas are presenting their fundraising in the style of a PBS pledge drive, which can be seen online at http://www.mindripmovie.com

For Mind Rip, John Vincent is drawing from his experience as a model maker and animator to create “old school” (but high quality) creatures and effects. This means raising some funds to pay for materials and sets. In recent months, many independent artists have begun using crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo to reach an audience of potential supporters. With Kickstarter, this means people make donations towards a fixed goal. That money only changes hands if and when the goal is reached.

The Philrose team looked at other Kickstarter videos to see what was being done. “While many were personal and informative, none really went all out with the ‘pledge drive’ aspect,” says Boas. So when it came time to shoot a video for Mind Rip, Boas and Vincent set the stage and prepared some tongue-in-cheek humor.

Their piece begins with a clip of actual Mind Rip footage, then cuts to a Public Television style pledge break. Boas begins his plea for funds: “Unfortunately, movies such as this aren’t free.” Vincent continues: “We can’t do it without YOUR help. We’ve got operators standing by to take your pledges.”

Throughout the video, Boas and Vincent explain their professional approach to filmmaking, but do it while demonstrating television fundraising cliches. Project backers are offered fun items like Mind Rip Tote Bags (a PBS favorite), novelty Spectre-Vision glasses, onscreen credits in the final film, signed posters and screenplays, invitations to the film wrap party, and even an opportunity to be a featured zombie in the film.

“We’re totally serious about making this movie, but there’s no reason we can’t be entertaining with our Kickstarter video,” says Vincent. The jokes here reflect Vincent’s own sense of humor, which also crops up in the Mind Rip script.

“What I find remarkable in what we’ve shot so far is how much personality our actors have brought to their roles. John Cocca and Chris Nakis are hysterical as the sheriff and deputy,” says Boas. For instance, the film’s trailer contains a scene in which the sheriff has a deadpan conversation about a pot of soup that contains a severed head. “The line ‘No, you don’t want the soup’ gets a laugh every time I show the trailer. The audience at the Buffalo Screams Film Fest loved it.” Boas took the trailer to Buffalo last fall, and it was also one a few independent trailers selected to play at the New York City Horror Film Festival.

“There’s humor in the film, but not at the expense of the horror elements,” explains Vincent. “Although the monsters are born out of horror comic books, they represent a true threat to the characters.”

Mind Rip’s plot concerns a town overrun by nightmare creatures. The main character, David Endicott, struggles to solve the mystery of these creatures and discover their connection to his brother Jack, who died years earlier. Mind Rip takes its inspiration from horror movies of the 70s and 80s like Phantasm, Re-Animator, and Evil Dead 2. Comic books like Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of Horror are also a big influence.

Vincent emphasizes that although the movie is being shot locally on a low budget, it can still look like a high quality production. “We’re shooting on HD video with professional lighting. That makes a huge difference in how a movie can feel.” Vincent’s background working for David Allen productions also comes into play. In the 1990s, he contributed to films such as Dr. Mordrid, Freaked, and Robot Wars. “We’re reaching out to a horror fans who are tired of seeing computer generated monsters in their movies. To me, movies done with practical effects have more character. They have a better feel to them, and that’s what we’re trying to do with Mind Rip.”

According to their Kickstarter deadline, Philrose Productions has until Thursday, May 26, to reach its fundraising goal of $7500. Vincent and Boas have been telling everyone they can think of to take a look at the video, pick a pledge level, and give generously.

Remember, they can’t do it with out the support of “viewers like you.”

LINKS

Mind Rip FX on Kickstarter
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mindrip/mindripfx

Mind Rip official site
http://mindripmovie.com

Mind Rip on Facebook
http://facebook.com/mindrip

John David Vincent credits on the Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0898681

Mike Boas credits on the Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1711376

John Vincent and Mike Boas are available for interview by phone, email, or Skype.

CONTACT:
http://maddogmovies.com/contact

Another Hole In The Head animated promo

Mike — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:48:42 +0000

After many weeks of false starts, I finished work on my animated promo film for the “Another Hole In the Head” horror film festival. Some time ago, Eric Ringer contacted me to see if I could do something for the horror arm of the San Fransico Indiefest. Sure, I said I’d love to… but finding the time was a challenge.

In any case, the zombies got done over the weekend, and now you can see the final result. I was working from a specific storyline that Eric had in mind. I made a couple changes to simplify it, but I’m pretty happy with the result.

Stay tuned to http://www.sfindie.com for tickets and more info in the coming months.

Animation by Mike Boas. Music by Alec Jenkyn Williams.

Have you ever seen a Kickstarter video quite like this?

Mike — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 01:32:17 +0000

That’s right, John Vincent and I are raising funds so Philrose Productions can continue making monsters for our creature feature, Mind Rip.

PLEDGE TODAY!

Find out more about Mind Rip at mindripmovie.com

If you dig this video, please pass on the link to your friends who love old school horror movies. Thanks!

The Other Gods UK Premiere

Mike — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:22:08 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that the animated short H.P. Lovecraft’s The Other Gods will be playing as part of HP Lovecraft: Reanimated in London this Friday, April 15.

The mission of HP Lovecraft: Reanimated is to take everything that’s great about live entertainment and give it a deviant, Lovecraftan twist. The event is presented by Wake Up Productions in association with The HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast – and with support from the publishers of the At The Mountains Of Madness and forthcoming The Lovecraft Anthology: Volume I graphic novels, SelfMadeHero.

Thanks to Chris Lackey for inviting me to submit The Other Gods! I wish I could attend, and I wish them the best of luck with the show.

Ticket information is available here:
http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=xxx&query=schedule&promoter=wakeup

Zombie Head Assortment

Mike — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:11:52 +0000

I’m working on something mysterious. It involves animated zombies, of course.

Click the pic for a closer look.

Exhausted Yet?

Mike — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:30:14 +0000

It’s only been a short time since my last compilation post, and already I’ve got new projects to sum up.

UNMASKED
Mike Russo and I found ourselves making another 72 Hour film for the Mind 2 Movie Challenge. This year’s improv elements: a closet clown, a bunch of bills, and a hostage situation. We’ll be premiering the film (along with the 9 other contest entries) on Monday, March 7, at the Little Theatre.

ANIMATUS IN THE PAPER
The D&C did a great article on Fred Armstrong and Animatus Studio, featuring a few pictures of yours truly working on the latest Buju & Ziggie cartoon for Wegmans and Crustal Pix. Read it online, or see the scan from the paper (with additional pictures) by clicking here.

THE MITZVAH
I’m providing post production assistance to this short film from writer/director Rose Jurman. It’s a piece about doubt and regret, set during WWII.

ZOMBIE INTERVENTION
Franklin Kielar wrote and directed this horror/comedy. It’s essentially a silent short, in which I play an undead father figure confronting a young vegetarian zombie. It was a fun shoot, done in one morning (but with two cameras) back in the fall. Now it’s on YouTube, complete with outtakes.

Yes, That’s Me At The Airport

Mike — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 00:18:43 +0000

It’s about time for a run-down of my current projects.

AIRPORT SHENANIGANS
To begin with, I’ve been fielding comments from family and friends who’ve seen my face on giant screens at the airport. No, it’s not security related, it’s a short movie called Virgin Fang written and directed by Mike Russo. (I play Draculess, the Woody Allen of vampires. ) It’s part of a media showcase put together by the Rochester/Finger Lakes Film and Video Office to showcase local productions.

ANIMATUS STUDIO
Over at Animatus, our big project in 2010 was dancing cats for Wegmans’ Buju & Ziggie cat food. More recently, Fred, Dave, and I worked with a group of Rochester teens to animate a music video about teen pregnancy and STD’s.

SECRET ANIMATED SHORT
I’m contributing animation, drawings, and random textures to a mixed media film that Frank Kielar is directing. I’d say more, but we’re keeping it quiet for now.

ROCHESTER MOVIEMAKERS WRITERS WORKSHOP
As a challenge to myself, I take part in the RMM Writers Workshop. I’ve written a few shorts in the past couple months, based on elements chosen at random. The “talking fish, lemon, argument in a laundromat” script was particularly fun.

MIND RIP
The Philrose horror feature Mind Rip is still cranking along. We held some auditions (more to come) for upcoming shoots. We’re also designing and making creatures, plus planning a Kickstarter campaign to raise some art department funds.

POPCORN
I’m contributing website stuff and moral support to the Bells On Productions DVD release of Popcorn. It’s a personal favorite of Kristy Jett, Horror Queen of the Internet and Fright Rags huckster. She’s tracking down video elements and producing a behind the scenes documentary.

MERRY-GO-ROUND / 3.14
Back in the fall, I crewed on this feature from writer/director Gregory Gotham Smith. (It was once called Merry-Go-Round, now the name is changing to 3.14.) Now I’m editing, assembling the footage before continuing with the second half of the shoot — a week in the California desert later this year.

360 | 365
And then I go home at night and watch short films, trying to decide what we’ll screen at the 360 | 365 George Eastman House Film Festival at the end of April.

THE INTERROGATION
When will I get the chance to do my own Lunchbox short? I’ll have to squeeze that shoot in soon, then get to work animating the monster character.

Is that all? Certainly it’s enough for now. Stay tuned for news of my impending bout with exhaustion.

Little Theatre 24 Hour Horror Festival

Mike — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:33:47 +0000

Burn Witch Burn! Here’s a fast paced promo I whipped up for the festival. It features clips from Horror Hotel, a public domain film starring Christopher Lee.

Come out for the second annual Little Theatre 24 Hour Horror Fest in Rochester, NY, this October 30, 2010!
https://thelittle.org/filmfest.php

The Festival kicks off on Friday Night with a Zombie Walk. Everyone will meet in make-up at Java’s at 10pm. The walk will begin at 10:30pm. Zombies will make their way down East Ave. to the Little Theatre.

SCHEDULE

Friday, October 29th
o 10pm – ZOMBIE WALK @ JAVA’S

Saturday, October 30th
o 12am – SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)
o 2am – DEAD, ALIVE (1992)
o 4am – RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985)
o 6am – SURVIVOR’S CHOICE (5 PUBLIC DOMAIN FILMS)
o 9am – MVP Little Buddies presents IGOR (2008)
o 11am – Emerging Filmmakers presents HORROR SHORTS*
o 1pm – AMERICAN MOVIE/ COVEN (1999)
o 4pm – DIARY OF THE DEAD (2007)
o 6pm – Fright Rags Presents DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1981)
o 8pm – Grindhouse presents PLANET TERROR (2007)
o 10pm – DEATH PROOF (2007)

Sunday, October 31st
o 12am – HUMAN CENTIPEDE (2009) – ONLY ROCHESTER SHOWING TO DATE!

RAVA Podcasting Forum

Mike — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:21:13 +0000

I recently took part in a panel discussion covering the technology of podcasting, hosted by the Rochester Audio Visual Association. John Vincent and I were representing The Mad Dog Movies Podcast, and I also pulled from my experience managing The Animation Workshop Podcast.

Paul Tracy, president of RAVA, recorded the event and has posted it online. The audio quality isn’t perfect — we all shared the same microphone — but there’s some good info here for aspiring podcasters.

Podcasting Forum from Paul Tracy on Vimeo.

Lil’ Lovecraft goes for a walk

Mike — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:18:15 +0000

When Aaron Vanek asked me for an animated promo for this year’s H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival event in Los Angeles, I knew I couldn’t resist. I also knew I was in the middle of about 12 other projects and I’d have to carve out the time to do it.

So I spent this past Labor Day weekend hip deep in Flash animation. I reused some cartoon heads from an abandoned Lovecraft short (I may get back to it some day), but all other tentacles, rats, and gravestones are new.

If you’ve been watching my social feeds, you’ll know I’m in love with the work of British animator Cyriak. His use of loops and editing was an influence here.

I also took the opportunity to play with textures and color modes in After Effects. That’s something I’ve been doing in my still work lately, and it’s a fun challenge to apply it to the flat images from Flash.

Music is by Alec Jenkyn Williams.

For tickets and info on the HPLFF in LA September 11, 2010, visit http://bit.ly/hplffla

I’m a pepper

Mike — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:29:29 +0000

I’m a pepper… but not for long. The Dr. Pepper lunchboxes I bought in bulk are metamorphosing into something much more sinister. (These boxes are being used as props in many of Rochester Movie Makers’ short films this summer.)

First, all the shiny metal parts are masked off with blue tape.

Then I break out the primer.

It takes a few days to apply coats of primer and spraypaint. I often get bubbles and drips of paint. If they’re really bad, I sand them down, but since these lunchboxes are meant to look old, I’m not troubled too much by a rough surface.

Next, my friend Frank prints my artwork on sticky vinyl and I apply it to the boxes.

A little acrylic paint is dry-brushed on for an antique effect, especially on the metal to make it look rusty.

Mad Monster is not the only design. Here’s a look at some artwork I did for the short “Boxed In,” which has a sci-fi/magical plot. The first piece is a space image crossed with some atomic imagery, combining the macro and micro worlds.

The next two are Nalli and Hitchcock, two “Boxed In” characters in cartoon form.

The film “Lunchbreak” requires a Bride of Mad Monster box. After sketching a feminine version of the loveable green guy, I inked and scanned her to Photoshop. I’m now halfway through coloring — no texture or shading yet.

The Other Gods in Oklahoma

Mike — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:35:30 +0000

This Saturday, July 10, Tulsa will be home to Oklahoma’s Underground Horror Filmfest. The event will feature music, horror hosts, vendors, and movies movies movies.

One block of films is being programmed by my internet friend, Craig Mullins of Unfilmable.com. The theme? H.P. Lovecraft Cinema, of course.

This means I’m happy to announce another public screening of Subterranea’s The Other Gods. In addition, here’s what else will be playing:

- The Silver Key a film by Gary Fierro and Conor Timmis (CT)
- H.P. Lovecraft’s The Book a film by James Raynor (United Kingdom)
- At the Reefers of Madness a film by Brian Clement (Toronto, ON)
- From Beyond a film by Michael Granberry (CA)
- Frank DanCoolo: Paranormal Drug Dealer a film by Andrew Jones
- The Crimson Robe a by Russell Welch
- Elder Sign a film by Joseph Nanni
- plus clips (House of Black Wings, Pickman‘s Muse), trailers (Lovecraft Paragraphs, Colour from the Dark, Dirt Dauber, The Terrible Old Tran) and teasers (The Seventh Shadow)…

For more information, visit the Underground Horror Filmfest on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter

Join me at 360 | 365

Mike — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:28:56 +0000

It’s film festival season again in Rochester, and this year’s 360 | 365 George Eastman House Film Festival looks pretty promising.

I’ve been involved behind the scenes — I manage the website and I was on the short film panel — but there’s a ton of features I haven’t seen yet.

I encourage all film fans to check the schedule and come out to support the festival!

Here are some recommended events:

AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE
Thursday, May 06, 2010 9:45 PM
Dryden Theater
and
Saturday, May 08, 2010 7:30 PM
Little Theatre – Little 5

A history of exploitation films in America. I’ve been captivated by this genre for the last several years, which is why I jumped at the chance to provide some animated titles for the doc. Director Elijah Drenner will be in attendance.

MADE IN ROCHESTER
Little Theatre – Little 1
Thursday, May 06, 2010 6:45 PM

Here’s your chance to see the best films from the 360 | 365 Shorts Contest, plus films from Michelle Cardulla, Stan Main, Dave Marshall, and last but not least… Mike Russo’s VIRGIN FANG, starring yours truly as Draculess the timid vampire.

ADULT SHORTS: Hidden Worlds
Little Theatre – Little 1
Thursday, May 06, 2010 9:00 PM

ADULT SHORTS: Private Lives
Little Theatre – Little 5
Saturday, May 08, 2010 5:00 PM

These are the two shorts blocks I helped curate.
We watched about 130 entries, then chose the 15 we loved. Trust me, these are some great films.

WE CAN SHINE: FROM INSTITUTIONS TO INDEPENDENCE
Curtis Theatre
Sunday, May 09, 2010 3:00 PM

My student, Adrian Esposito, has completed his third documentary feature, and this is the best one to date. In We Can Shine, he shares the dark history of institutions for the disabled and how improvements have been made in recent years.

FREE PANELS

Local filmmakers should take advantage of the panel events at the festival, including the following:

Demo: RED CAMERA
The Austin Connection
Screenwriter’s Panel
Screenplay Live!

MUCH MUCH MORE

As if that’s not enough, I want to take in the following as well:

THE S FROM HELL
GONE WITH THE POPE
WAKE IN FRIGHT
THE SECRET OF KELLS
IT CAME FROM KUCHAR
CELL 211
HARRY BROWN
A CONVERSATION WITH THELMA SCHOONMAKER
THE RED SHOES

See you at the fest! Visit http://film360365.com for schedule and ticket information.

360 | 365 on Facebook

360 | 365 on Twitter

Monster Progress

Mike — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 06:03:42 +0000

Click for a closer view.

Here’s the artwork (so far) for the lunchbox props we’ll be using in the Rochester Movie Makers summer shorts. I’ve got a few things I still want to touch up, but I think it’s pretty close.

But that’s only the beginning! At least two shorts are going to require additional lunchbox characters. I’ll have to jump into those next.

If you have any interest in seeing the long hours of Photoshop painting that went into creating Mad Monster, check the links below.

Part 1:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6388643

Part 2:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6442320

Part 3:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/6445273

The Lunchbox Font

Mike — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:23:07 +0000

For this year’s Rochester Movie Makers Summer Shorts, we are introducing a linking motif. For those who wish to take part in a larger anthology film, our writers are incorporating a MacGuffin — in this case a red lunchbox. We wanted to give that lunchbox some personality, so I proposed some fictional branding. It’s important to avoid copyright issues (like if we used a Spider-Man lunchbox) so our prop will be emblazoned with the MAD MONSTER identity.

I’ve spent the last couple days working on the perfect retro font style for the Mad Monster. My goal is for the box itself to be a product of the monster mania of the 1960s. Universal monster movies were playing on TV to kids who’d never seen them before. Their popularity led to Aurora model kits and publications like Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland.

I imagine that a character like Mad Monster would have appealed to those kids. He appeared on lunchboxes, but is now almost completely forgotten. Those lunchboxes are prized collectibles today.

To find the right inspiration for the design, I looked at magazines, toys, and comics of the era. I especially examined the covers of Famous Monsters. I like the the letters in the left column interlock with each other.

I also thumbed through an issue of today’s greatest horror publication, Rue Morgue. Check out the font used in the lower right, for the name Paul Naschy. The spiky serifs seemed like a good way to go.

After countless drawings, I scanned my favorite treatment and applied color and texture. The next step will be adding the monster character. (The font had to be done first so I would know what shape he’d be leaning against.)

Kubrick and Me

Mike — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 01:50:44 +0000

Today I hold in my hands a book by Albert Halstead. It’s a monograph Al wrote as a critical analysis of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I did the cover artwork and design.

“Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey – How Patterns, Archetypes and Style Inform a Narrative,” treats the film as a work of art with purpose. Al writes about how Kubrick used the language of cinema, mathematics, and music to tell the story of man and technology.

Holding it in front of me, it feels like I’m actually part of Kubrick’s movie now. That’s kind of cool.

The book is currently on the shelves in about half of the independent and college bookstores in the Southern Tier, including Cornell University and Ithaca College. It is currently awaiting approval from Barnes & Noble and CD Baby. There may be independent book stores in the Monroe County area carrying it soon as well.

In the meantime you can order the book directly by sending a check to:

Leonine Productions, LLC
7 Spring Street
Waverly, NY 14892

email: ahalst(AT)verizon.net

Full retail price is $22.95, plus N.Y. State sales tax (based on your county).
For shipping, please add $3.00

Al is offering a discount price for members of Rochester Movie Makers, Upstate Independents, and Binghamton Classic Films members:
$17.59 (about a 23% discount). With the Monroe County (8% ) sales tax added the total comes to exactly $19.00. RMM members can avoid postage if they’d rather arrange to pick up a book at the next meeting.

Click here to see the cover in close-up.

Hey, Hey, Vote Croquet!

Mike — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:50:52 +0000

I’ve heard many questions regarding Croquet The Musical lately. Questions like “Hey Mike, when do I get to see Croquet?” and “Are you going to put Croquet online?” and “Would you stop talking about Croquet already?”

Well, here’s your chance to see it streaming right to your browser. But before you click, think about how great it would be if Mike Russo and I were to win top honors in an online short film contest… Got that mental image in your head? Good, now follow the link below to experience our absurd little film.

~~Watch Croquet The Musical at Bigstar.TV~~

New link! Watch it here!

Then sign in with Facebook Connect (using the login link at the top of the Bigstar page) and vote with all your heart. A vote for Croquet is a vote for ART!

Thanks for your support! Remember, I cried real tears for this film.

Move over Roger Rabbit

Mike — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:31:24 +0000

The last two years, I’ve taken part in the Rochester Movie Makers Summer Shorts Challenge. Two summers ago, I helped with a film called X-Girlfriend, and last year worked on The Wingman and Virgin Fang.

This year will be my first time directing a summer short, one called “The Interrogation” written by yours truly. In the writing phase, I decided to keep my characters and locations to a minimum to make it easier — especially since one of my characters is ANIMATED.

I’ve been wanting to try a live action / animation combo project for a while now. The process will be similar to how films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit or The Phantom Menace were shot. I’ll have an actor on set playing the cartoon character, and we’ll shoot his scenes two ways. One version with the actor, one without. That way I’ll have a performance to mimic in the animation phase, but I’ll also have a clean shot to use when I want to composite the character in. (No, I won’t be doing motion capture. That’s overkill for what I have in mind.)

It was a fun script to read to an audience, which is what went down at the March meeting of Rochester Movie Makers. We read 15 (!) screenplays that night. When everyone voted and the dust cleared, it turned out I was the winner of our script competition. It doesn’t mean the movie itself will be the best, but it’s nice to be loved.

Soon I’ll be finalizing the cast, crew, and picking some dates to shoot this thing. At the same time, I’m working on designing props and the cartoon character known as Mad Monster.

Read the latest version of the script here.

Podcrafting The Other Gods

Mike — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:05:53 +0000

After looking through my blog archives, it turns out I never posted here about the H.P.Lovecraft Literary Podcast. (It must have slipped my mind when I was posting over at Unfilmable.com back in December.)

Listening to the podcast is like reading Lovecraft with sarcastic (yet intelligent) footnotes. What turned me on to it was episode 22, which covers “The Other Gods.” Hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer dig deep into Dreamlands lore to review the story… and the short film I released through Subterranea Entertainment.

They’ve got a great understanding of Lovecraft’s work, and I was thrilled to hear their thoughts regarding the animated film.

So crawl over to hppodcraft.com to listen online. Or get obsessive like me and download every episode and listen on your iPod!

Croquet The Trailer! Croquet The Website!

Mike — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:20:47 +0000

Behold!

And what’s a movie without a website, right?

Click below to experience the agony and the ecstasy:

http://maddogmovies.com/croquet

CROQUET THE MUSICAL will be screening as part of a night of 72 Hour Films at the Little Theatre on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010.

The RMM 72 Hour Mind 2 Movie Exhibition and Awards Ceremony

The Little Theatre, 240 East Avenue Rochester, NY.
Social hour in the cafe: 6pm.
Showtime: 7pm.
Awards: 8pm.

Tickets are available now at the Little Box Office to see all 10 films for $5.00.

A Touch of Croquet

Mike — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:36:33 +0000

If you’ve been following my Facebook feed ( http://facebook.com/mikeboas ) you’ve probably seen some cryptic messages about croquet in the last week.

It all came about because writer Mike Russo and myself headed up a team for the Rochester Movie Makers 72 Hour Mind 2 Movie Challenge. As you can imagine, this involved writing, rehearsing, shooting, and editing a complete short film in 72 hours. At the start of this event, our team (dubbed TEAM AWESOME) was assigned a line of dialogue, a character, and a prop.

The line: “We are not the doctors. We are the disease.”

The character: Uncle Billy from Utica — a secret drinker.

The prop: A CROQUET MALLET.

Naturally, this suggested the title, “Croquet The Musical.” How could we go wrong?

I’ll be posting a trailer soon. In the meantime, enjoy the following absurd pictures.

Vote for Animated Zombies

Mike — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:29:15 +0000

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated has been nominated for a Rondo Award! Lovers of animation and horror alike can vote for NOTLD:R as Best Independent Production of 2009.

The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards are highly revered in the independent horror community. The voting is open to anyone! I highly encourage you to vote, not only for Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated but for the horror sites, blogs, hosts, movies, and magazines you love.

Visit www.rondoaward.com to find out more.

EDITED TO ADD (03/08/10 )

Maybe you’d like to watch the film before voting?

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated will continue to be hosted by Count Victor Von Scary and the gang at ‘Friday Night – Fright Night’ until this Friday, March 12th at
http://www.fridaynight-frightnight.com

So if you haven’t seen it yet, this is the last week.

American Grindhouse to premiere at SXSW

Mike — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:41:57 +0000

Great news! The documentary American Grindhouse (for which I provided some animated “film burn” titles) will be premiering next month at South by Southwest in Austin, TX!

Dates have been confirmed for:
Saturday, March 13th at 9 pm
Tuesday, March 16th at 10 pm

It’s terrific documentary about the history of exploitation film in America. Great interviews and tons of clips — featuring interviews with master filmmakers Joe Dante, Larry Cohen, John Landis, Herschell Gordon Lewis, William Lustig, Ted V. Mikels, Fred Olen Ray, Lewis Teague and more.

ALSO, the movie will be playing at the Boston Underground Film Festival the week of March 25 – April 1.

Congrats to director Elijah Drenner and crew!

Here is the official SXSW Greenband Preview. Warning, includes some sexiness…

How I do the things I do

Mike — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:21:01 +0000

We all like going behind the scenes, right?

When Mike Schneider, director of the Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated project, asked me to contribute a featurette to the upcoming DVD release, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the time to do so. Well, last week I gathered strength and put together a 6 minute tutorial on interpretive rotoscoping.

Rotoscoping is an animation process that involves a lot of tracing. For NOTLD:R, I changed my style up depending on the shot — and sometimes that meant tracing 15 pictures a second with my Wacom stylus.

In this video, you can see some of that process, albeit sped up to make it more interesting.

Interpretive Rotoscoping for NOTLD:R from Mike Boas on Vimeo.

Taste the Fear of Mind Rip

Mike — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:21:58 +0000

I am a man of many projects, a spinner of many plates, a weaver of many websites. In addition to my work at Animatus Studio, I work with writer/director John Vincent on developing his horror feature scripts.

Today, we launched new Philrose Productions website, online at philrosefilms.com . I’ve been eager to leave behind the old Flash navigation for a while now, plus I wanted to incorporate the news blog into the main site. You may notice the design uses a similar sliding menu as the one here on Mad Dog Movies — both templates are based on ones designed by Wayne Connor.

This redesign goes hand in hand with the reveal of our new Mind Rip trailer. What’s Mind Rip? It’s an ode to drive-in horror — with a mad scientist, monsters, and zombies. We’ve produced the trailer as a proof of concept, with the idea of shooting a complete feature down the road.

Find out more about Mind Rip here

Mind Rip Trailer from Mike Boas on Vimeo.

Coming Soon: Things I Don’t Know

Mike — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:51:09 +0000

I’ve had it with pretending I know everything. At least once a day, I get stumped by something I want to do, but Photoshop won’t let me. Or Premiere. Or Final Cut.

Sure, I could look it up in the instructions. I could Google it. I could post questions on message boards. But I’ve done all that, and you know what? It’s time consuming, and I often don’t get the answers I’m looking for.

So now I have a new plan. I’ll be posting my questions in video form, and the internet will bring the answers to me.

Watch for the latest webcast sensation, coming soon.

As the website turns

Mike — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:50:28 +0000

Last week’s beige and gray design has been kicked aside like a tumbleweed. Now we have something simple, yet striking. It’s got the black and red and white scheme I’m so fond of, but the really special bit is the header. The sliding images which make up the menu can take visitors to any section or sub-site in the Mad Dog Movies Universe (TM).

Let me know what you think. Too many choices? Too few words of explanation? I’m trying to streamline this baby, not confuse people.

-M

A New World of Blogs and Monsters

Mike — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:07:38 +0000

I’ve created a monster! I’ve stitched the Mike Boas blog back into the front page of Mad Dog Movies. The theme is most likely temporary, a work in progress. I’d like the video player to be prominent, but using Vimeo has its drawbacks. No iPhone support, for example.

There was a time when I wanted to keep my personal blog separate from the MDM business, but what the heck. I AM Mad Dog Movies, after all, no sense hiding it. My tendency is to compartmentalize my work into categories: Subterranea, Animatus, Philrose, and other projects. I’ve heard from people that my content is too spread out and hard to follow. This is the first step in consolidation.

Next is to update the Mad Dog Movies Podcast site to match this one. (Maybe do some new episodes, too. What a novel idea!)

I’m still on the fence about merging the Subterranea site. I at least should post links here whenever something goes live there.

Mad Dog Movies Emporium

Mike — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:49:58 +0000

Still looking for that perfect gift for your weird friend or relative? Today I’m launching the Mad Dog Movies Emporium, a video store powered by Amazon.com.

Anyone can recommend something popular like Harry Potter or Star Wars, so I’m instead singling out movies made by people I know. I’ll also be highlighting niche interests like adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft.

There will be new sections added in the future — I’m already contemplating a “so bad it’s good” category — but there’s dozens of films there right now.

Check it out. Remember, Amazon pays me a few pennies per purchase! Oh, the exciting world of internet sales…

Visit the Emporium at http://maddogmovies.com/emporium

(Special thanks to the people of Facebook, who helped me pick a name.)

The Grindhouse and Me

Mike — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:42:01 +0000

I just watched American Grindhouse, the all-inclusive documentary about the history of exploitation films in America. It’s a great doc, shining a light on the entire spectrum of fringe movies, from the earliest days of cinema to today.

My interest in the subject matter led me to become an “internet friend” of director Elijah Drenner a few years ago when he was working on the special edition of Jack Hill’s Spider Baby. He reached out to ask me to do some animated titles many months ago, and I jumped at the opportunity. I did “film burn” effects from scratch in After Effects, communicating with Elijah and editor Andrew Goldenberg (aka Goldentusk) entirely through email and Facebook. Who says social media is just a fad?

Yeah, it’s cool to see my name credited along side the likes of John Landis, Joe Dante, Jack Hill, Larry Cohen, H.G. Lewsis, and Fred Williamson. The movie has some great interviews with film scholars Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan, and Eric Schaefer (whose “Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!” sits within arm’s reach on my bookshelf right now). A nice surprise was discovering that the narrator is Rochester’s own Robert Forster!

American Grindhouse is making the rounds to “festivals first followed by TV, DVD, etc” according to Elijah.

In the meantime, check out the website at http://americangrindhouse.com

Connect with A.G. on Facebook here.

Some stills of my titles are online here.

Some of my film burn animation can be viewed here.

A Colossal Wrap-up

Mike — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:07:31 +0000

It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I updated this blog. Why is that? Am I spreading myself too thin? Perhaps I need to pull some of my many projects into one place. (Perhaps I’ve already been doing that on Facebook?) Perhaps I need to rethink my blogs, podcast, and website and make them all one sticky blob of a website.

But not tonight.

No, tonight I’ll be giving a run-down of things that are going on in my world. Ready?

***

THE 360 | 365 FILM FESTIVAL

During my day job at Animatus Studio, I’ve been working my tail off with a new uber-website. The Rochester High Falls Int’l Film Festival is now called 360 | 365, and the website is its public face. It’s a daring new identity, and I’m really invested in making this year’s film festival better than ever.

Check it out at http://film360365.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/film360365
Animatus on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/animatus

***

SUBTERRANEA PROJECTS

Remember The Other Gods? It’s playing in Buenos Aires. Yeah, that’s cool.

Love classic horror movies? My horror-movie-music-video-mash-up for Aviary’s Skeletal Remains is playing at The Little this Halloween.

Do I have a new career as an actor? Well, let’s put it this way — I only go out for silent movies. Mike Russo’s Virgin Fang features me and was edited by… me.

No clips for those last two on the internet yet, but you can see each at The Little Theatre’s 25 Hour Horror Feast October 31st.

And then there’s Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated. Honestly, it’s too complicated to explain here, but there’s clips over on the Subterranea blog.

Read about all of that at http://maddogmovies.com/subterranea
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/subterranea

***

MIND RIP

The John Vincent movie project is chugging along. We shot several scenes this summer, including a zombie congregation of epic proportions. I put on my assistant director hat and got out there to wrangle zombies — a great experience. We’re working on editing a promotional trailer to present to investors.

See some pics & clips at http://philrosefilms.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/mindrip

***

ROCHESTER MOVIE MAKERS

Another summer, another series of summer shorts. I worked as A.D. on Wing Man, written by Mike Russo and directed by Derrick Petrush. It’s currently being edited, but the footage I’ve seen is pretty darn impressive.

RMM also hosted a night of shorts at the Club at Water Street a couple weeks ago. We had about 100 people, raised some cash for the 501c3, and we’re looking forward to doing it again in the future.

Join the educational cooperative at http://rochestermoviemakers.org

***

OBLIGATORY SOCIAL MEDIA PLUG:

Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now. Here are my favorite virtual locations.

I’m on the Twitter. Find me at http://twitter.com/mikeboas

Facebook is much cooler than Myspace. Find me at http://facebook.com/mikeboas

25 Hour Horror Feast

subterranea — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:47:54 +0000

Meanwhile, in Rochester, two of my films will be playing as part of The Little Theatre’s 25 Hour Horror Feast. The event starts Halloween Eve with a zombie walk, followed by a marathon of horror movies that continues through Halloween. A special horror-themed edition of Rochester’s Emerging Filmmakers Series will play that Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm.

Kicking off the EFS is the premiere of Skeletal Remains, which acts as both a tribute to classic horror movies and as a music video for 1970s rock group Aviary. (It was Matt Guarnere, a friend of Aviary’s Brad Love, who first suggested I try such a film.)

Someday I’d like to work some animation into Skeletal Remains, but I’ve had friends tell me the current live action cut plays pretty well. My approach was to borrow (steal) scenes from public domain movies like The House on Haunted Hill, The Last Man on Earth, and The Screaming Skull, then remix them to depict a fun little horror story. Now I get to brag that my film stars Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange, and Vincent Price!

Later on in the show is Mike Russo’s Virgin Fang, which starred me(!) as Draculess, king nerd of vampires. Mike threw this at me back in August, when many of us Rochester Movie Makers were in the midst of multiple other summer short projects. He invited me to play the lead in this silent horror-comedy, and I was too flattered to refuse.

It was a challenge for me to “act,” even if it was only hamming it up pantomime style. I helped Mike by knocking out some storyboards, then editing the piece in Final Cut Pro at Animatus.

Virgin Fang also stars the beautiful Becky Herber, with camera duties performed by RMM head honcho Stan Main.

Come out October 31st to The Little, 240 East Avenue, Rochester! For a complete run-down of the event, click here.

The Other Gods in Buenos Aires

subterranea — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:41:37 +0000

I’m pleased to announce that The Other Gods will be playing Halloween weekend in Argentina! The Buenos Aires Rojo Sangre film festival will feature the short as part of its “Lovecraftiana” program.

In the last few years, I’ve heard from Lovecraft fans from all over, including Australia and Spain, but until now the film has only played in English. This screening will feature Spanish subtitles — many thanks to Agustina Piñeiro!

For more about the festival, visit rojosangre.quintadimension.com or the Rojo Sangre event on Facebook

NOTLD:R Side by side comparisons

subterranea — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:58:15 +0000

Now that I’ve completed three scenes for the Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated project, I thought it might be cool to show my cartoon shots next to the original movie footage. You’ll see where I applied faithful rotoscoping and where I deviated from the original acting.

The following video clips show the animation, then side by side comparisons with the original live action scenes.

NOTLD:R Don’t worry from Mike Boas on Vimeo.

NOTLD:R Here he comes now from Mike Boas on Vimeo.

NOTLD:R Down in the basement from Mike Boas on Vimeo.

NOTLD:R Take a seat why don't ya?

subterranea — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:02:03 +0000

I nearly blew it on this one. After what I THOUGHT was the final render, I noticed I had animated everything at double speed. So 13 seconds of footage was zipping by in 6 seconds.

So… I went back to the keyframes and had to double the space between them. And then add in some more animation so things didn’t look… so… deliberate…

Overall, a cute little scene. No zombie attacks, but it gets across a plot point — that Judy is now watching the sick girl in the basement.

NOTLD:R Turn your pretty head and walk away

subterranea — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:18:38 +0000

Here’s a continuation of my latest scene. Helen Cooper turns around and leaves the basement. Next, I’ll add the Judy character, who takes her place watching the sick child.

Once I’m satisfied with the movements, I’ll go back in and add the grayscale coloration to the characters. Traditionally, I do that before the animation, but I’m changing things up a little.

Some of my new drawings for Helen’s back and Judy:

NOTLD:R Get Up Stand Up

subterranea — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:11:24 +0000

I’m trying to crank out a short segment this weekend. This shot has Helen Cooper leaving the basement, with Judy taking her place to watch over young Karen.

I started off tracing the background and foreground elements, but to change things up, I’m using my “cartoon” style on the characters. Does it save time? Well, there’s a lot more planning up front, drawing all the character pieces. Once that’s done, it’s simpler to move them around… except Helen has to turn around to leave! I haven’t drawn her from the rear yet, so it’s back to the drawing board.

Here’s the first part of the animation. Helen stands up:

NOTLD:R Johnny to the Rescue

subterranea — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:27:20 +0000

It was a marathon session tonight. Just me and my Ustream channel and a few friendly observers.

Lo and behold, I’ve finished the scene. The leering, lurching Bill Hinzman zombie attacks Barbara, she screams, and Johnny leaps to the rescue. It’s only 14 seconds, but I think I put in more hours on this section than the last one, if possible.

All in all, my method is pretty… methodical. George Romero is a director who uses a lot of cuts and handheld work, which means time intensive roto.

Enjoy the scene below. I’m sending it off to director Mike Schneider and going to bed.

Twitter for filmmakers

Mike — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:15:42 +0000

There’s a couple ways of thinking about Twitter. One is that it’s a waste of time, a bunch of people writing about what they ate for breakfast. Yes, there’s some of that.

But you can also use the service to monitor news and network for jobs.

I use Twitter as a sort of link blog. As a filmmaker, I follow a lot of movie news and horror genre bloggers to get the latest headlines. Here are some recommended accounts worth following:

MOVIE NEWS
http://twitter.com/Variety
http://twitter.com/twitchfilm
http://twitter.com/slashfilm
http://twitter.com/cinematical
http://twitter.com/Chud_News_Feed
http://twitter.com/DrewAtHitFix
http://twitter.com/rejectnation

HORROR MOVIE NEWS
http://twitter.com/dreadcentral
http://twitter.com/BGhorror
http://twitter.com/BD_News
http://twitter.com/horrorsociety
http://twitter.com/FEARnet

FILMMAKING INFO
http://twitter.com/TriggerStreet
http://twitter.com/FansOfFilm
http://twitter.com/bcfilmmaker
http://twitter.com/scriptmag
http://twitter.com/ScreenplayTips
http://twitter.com/filmlab

FILM FESTIVAL LISTINGS
http://twitter.com/filmfestlounge
http://twitter.com/ominous_events
http://twitter.com/bsidenews

TIPS ON USING TWITTER AND FACEBOOK
http://twitter.com/mashable
http://twitter.com/twfeed
http://twitter.com/MrTweet

I also put out content on a number of blogs. How do I get that information in front of eyeballs? I post promotional links on Twitter… but that’s not all. Not everyone is on Twitter, of course. It’s growing, but it’s nowhere near the size of the growing Facebook or the fading Myspace.

Ping.fm is a site that aims to make the dissemination of information easier. I can post something once to my Ping account and let them repost it to my Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace status updates.

Easy, right? Get ready for the black belt stuff.

With a Twitterfeed account, you can hook up your blog RSS feeds to automatically repost to Twitter… or even Ping. So now I write a new blog post, RSS sends the info to Twitterfeed, which Pings it to all three accounts. This is not for the amateur — I’ve run into some glitches, but if you understand RSS, it’s worth it.

(I’m not even going to get into how I hooked up Ping to AIM so I could post via chat in Gmail. Yeesh.)

(I’m also not going into detail about FriendFeed, mostly because I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Some people love it as an alternative to Twitter.)

The point is, I’m putting things out there. Not all of it is going to interest everybody, but Twitter and status updates are for short thoughts, like headlines. It’s a great way scan what others are writing, but also build a personal audience by feeding info about your own projects. An engaged audience can be a powerful resource for you down the road.

…Tweeting like a true Captain of the Internet at http://twitter.com/mikeboas

NOTLD:R I'm Getting Out of Here!

subterranea — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:35:15 +0000

Same section as last time, but now Johnny has lip sync, the zombie is properly rotoscoped, and so is Barbara.

Roto is tedious. I’m doing sketchy work, but every 2 frames. That’s 15 times a second. Per character. Now my wrist hurts.

To prove it, I actually recorded my work habits with a webcam today. See my Ustream channel for two hours of NOTLD:R Roto work.

Really, it’s boring. Don’t bother.

But, you can enjoy the animated result below:

NOTLD:R He'll Hear You!

subterranea — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:18:55 +0000

Weeks later, I’m back on this “Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated” scene. I’m jumping around a bit, so Johnny still needs lip sync. The Hinzman zombie is a junky placeholder — I’m thinking of rotoscoping him in that shot. There’s also a severe lack of Barbara there.

But… I wanted to get this test up to show what I’ve been doing with Johnny. He’s probably the most fun character to draw so far. Something about the horned-rim glasses, I guess.

Trailer and Poster for ONE KILL

subterranea — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:57:49 +0000

Rochester filmmakers Mike Russo and Derrick Petrush have posted the trailer for the slasher parody, “One Kill.” It’s a hysterical horror comedy short produced as part of last year’s Rochester Movie Makers summer challenge. I was not involved in the production, but this gives me an excuse to post the poster image I made for their DVD screeners (see below).

My friend Mars did the score for the final piece, although the trailer uses old timey organ instead.

Watch for it this Monday, April 27th at Emerging Filmmakers!

A new trailer for NOTLD:R

subterranea — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:55:32 +0000

All this week, while I was focused on animating a few scenes, Mike Schneider was thinking about the big picture. He was getting all the pieces in place for a relaunch of the Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated website, along with a new trailer for the project.

Behold, the latest trailer! If you watch closely, you’ll see some of my animation.

NOTLD:R a new scene

subterranea — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:17:47 +0000

I heard today about a short scene early in the movie that still needed attention. It’s about fourteen seconds of action in the cemetery featuring Barbara, Johnny, and the Bill Hinzman zombie.

Exciting! It sounded fun and easy. I just worked on the first few seconds for a couple hours, but I don’t even have lip sync yet.

Well, it’s still fun, but it always takes longer than I think. Anyway, here’s what I have so far.

NOTLD:R animation part 3

subterranea — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:45:54 +0000

Here is the completed animation for the 49 second section I’ve been working on. The deadline for content is the end of this week, so I’m sending my files off tonight.

My half rotoscope / half flash puppet method is very time consuming. If I’m called on to do some more orphan scenes (which I’d love to do) I’ll be using a different approach.

This latest test features Ben making a phone call. More difficult than you might think!

NOTLD:R continued

subterranea — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:10:55 +0000

Here’s some more work from that same scene for Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated. My style is changing from shot to shot because I’m playing around, having fun. When finished, the whole movie will have a patchwork quality, so I don’t feel the need to stay consistent from shot to shot.

When I’m done with this sequence, I may move away from rotoscoping and do something with a cartoon look.

3D Specs

Mike — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:52:56 +0000

I love 3D movies.

I love the gimmicky ones like House of Wax and the subtle ones like Coraline. I’ve seen them from every era: the 50s, 80s, the Imax years, and today. I believe James Cameron when he says that he’ll change filmmaking forever with his 3D film, Avatar.

HOWEVER, if there’s a new renaissance for 3D, there’s some kinks I’d like to work out.

I already wear glasses. Although I wore contact lenses many years ago, I’m not interested in going back to them any time soon. I admit that the Real D company (which provides the tech for current 3D digital projection) has made some comfortable glasses, but it’s still putting on a second pair over my regulars. Are the Real D glasses better than the Imax ones? Definitely, but I still get that nose & ear pain halfway into a feature.

What’s the solution? I considered going to an eye doctor and getting prescription Real D specs. Can you imagine what that would cost? After surfing the net for “prescription Real D glasses,” I found a guy who wanted the opposite of what I want — regular lenses in Real D frames. Huh? I also found a site that sells Real D compatible clip-ons. Hmm. That might be worth twenty-eight bucks. (Fifteen would be better.)

Which brings me to my next point: cost. I suppose I can understand 3D movies like Monsters vs. Aliens having higher ticket prices. I’m paying an extra three dollars for glasses, right? Maybe if I were to SAVE my glasses to use again, I could keep that money, right? No, not an option. I brought my Coraline glasses to Monsters vs. Aliens, but the ticket seller said “no discount.” I paid the extra money and she gave me a second pair of glasses I didn’t need.

Every animation studio has 3D movies in the pipe. It’s a smart move, giving the theatrical audience something they can’t get at home, either legit or pirated. (This is similar to how 3D and other advances like Cinemascope competed with TV in the fifties.) I’m also aware that ticket prices in general continue to rise, but I’m disappointed by the significant price hike for 3D. Isn’t it enough that I’m spending my cash at the theater? Do I have to pay 30% to 50% more than I would for 2D?

By the time Avatar comes out, I’ll probably be wearing clip-ons, but I’ll also own half a dozen unopened Real D glasses. And I’ll be lighter in the wallet, too. Fun times ahead!

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated

subterranea — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:27:10 +0000

As if I don’t have enough going on this month with Script Frenzy, I’m also doing some animation for Mike Schneider’s Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated project. The idea is to take George Romero’s 1968 zombie classic, which fell into public domain many years ago, and redo the entire feature in animation. Artists from all over the world are contributing scenes. The result will be a hodgepodge of styles, a crazy quilt art project that is tied together by the original audio track from Night of the Living Dead.

Since the project is nearing the end, there’s only a handful of orphaned scenes left. Here’s some work I did over the weekend. Watch this space; I’ll be posting more soon!

Extreme Scriptwriting

Mike — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:21:28 +0000

Those of you following my Twitter feed have probably seen my references to Script Frenzy.

I first heard about this online competition a couple months ago. And by competition, I mean a thing you do with other writers not for money, but for the satisfaction of accomplishing a goal. The point of Script Frenzy is to write 100 pages in 30 days. That’s 3 1/3 pages a day.

That sounded like something worth trying. Can I test myself? Can I pump out a first draft in one month instead of the year(s) it usually takes? Can I force myself to write every day? Can I ignore the lure of the television?

So far, the answer is… sort of. No, I haven’t been able to write every day. But yes, I am getting something done. I’m working at half speed, but there’s still time to catch up. And even if I write three pages every two days, I’ll have something in two months. Not bad.

What am I writing? It’s a sci-fi action movie I’ve had in the back of my brain for a few years. I already had tons of notes and an outline, but now I’m actually writing the thing. One intimidating factor is the main character — I’m determined to write a female lead. I’ve been told to just write the character, don’t worry about the gender. Maybe on the second pass I’ll put in lots of references to fashion and hair products. (Kidding.)

Naturally, when I started last week, I got all jazzed up about the new internet technology I could use. Maybe if I make this project as public as possible, I’ll feel obligated to follow through and finish it! So I’m making the process transparent. I’m blogging about the writing process, tweeting my #scriptfrenzy stats on Twitter, and posting the script itself as it’s being written. I’m even using a new cloud application called Zhura instead of MS Word. I can access the files and write from anywhere with an internet connection.

Why not check it out? I could use the support. Visit the Gamers screenplay site at http://maddogmovies.com/gamers

The Return of Unfilmable

subterranea — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:35:59 +0000

I heard from Craig Mullins today that his website Unfilmable.com has been relaunched as a blog at http://unfilmable.blogspot.com

Craig’s passion is tracking the cinematic adaptations of the works of H.P. Lovecraft and other weird fiction authors. Anyone making a Lovecraft film crosses paths with Unfilmable at some point. Craig feeds the hungry HPL audience by publishing photos and updates about any production, large or small. Personally, he helped me connect with the person who did French subtitles on “The Other Gods.” He also passed along the short film to artist Tom Sullivan, who reviewed it for the site.

Hopefully there will be some archived content from the old site posted in the future, but for now I’m happy to get a daily dose of strange from http://unfilmable.blogspot.com

"Jason: The Rebirth" now in widescreen

subterranea — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:12:51 +0000

It’s Friday the 13th! In honor of the theatrical reboot, I’ve remastered my Jason Voorhees fan film for widescreen. It’s never looked so good!

Jason: The Rebirth from Mike Boas on Vimeo.

Woe is me, Brightcove is no longer free

Mike — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:47:33 +0000

I just noticed that my Brightcove media players for Mad Dog Movies and Animatus are no longer working. Why? Because they’re discontinuing their free hosting services.

According to their FAQ, the announcement was made a month ago, then videos went offline January 31st. It’s possible they sent me a warning email, but it would have been to my Yahoo account, which I rarely check.

I’m not going to complain. They’ve got a right to make a buck, and their service is worth paying for… if you’ve got the cash. To find out the price, you need to call a representative. I don’t know what it costs, but you know what they say… if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

For me, however, I’m going to look around for another free service or start building my own Flash players from scratch.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have put all my eggs in one basket with Brightcove. But their media players were just so darn attractive, I couldn’t resist.

UPDATE: Since first posting this, I spoke with Caren Cioffi at Brightcove. Although the company doesn’t have a current option for small independents like me, that may change in the future. I’ll keep my eyes open.

The Lost Puzzle, Post Season 4

Mike — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:21:46 +0000

Over the last few years, I’ve become something of a Lost scholar. After each episode airs, I read commentary from Doc Jensen of Entertainment Weekly, The Tail Section, and sometimes Doc Ardzt. I’ve spent hours poring over the Lostpedia, and I listen to The Official Lost Podcast, in which producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse discuss the show in a smart, entertaining way.

I think, perhaps, I’m the kind of person that Lost is geared towards. The show is character driven, with mystery, action, and great acting that would appeal to anyone. But it’s the dense sci-fi plot that keeps me awake at night.

After the fourth season’s finale, I decided to unload my brain, writing down everything I knew and suspected about the Lost universe.

Last night’s premiere inspired me to take another look at what I had written. It was gratifying to see some serious time travel, and so far my theories haven’t been contradicted — except for a couple things. I had supposed that Ms. Hawking (the gray-haired time lady) might be working with the sinister Widmore or on her own. Now it appears she’s aligned with Ben. Also, I had theorized that Widmore himself once used the frozen donkey wheel, but why then did Dharma excavators find it inaccessible behind a wall of solid rock?

So, before the rest of my ideas are vetoed by events in season five, I figure I’ll put this out there for the blogosphere to consider.

Maybe at the end of the season I’ll post an update.

Warning: this might be incomprehensible to casual viewers of the show.

SOME OF MY PAST THEORIES HAVEN’T PANNED OUT

Back in season three, I was disappointed when it was revealed that the Others learned all about the Flight 815 passengers through research post-crash. I had assumed they were somehow selecting who would come to the island, in league with time agents (more on them later). In “One of Us” it seems that they were surprised by the plane crash and did not see it coming. So if the Others didn’t recruit the passengers, who did?

Once season four began, I was also irked by the practical explanation of the plane wreckage. With all the clues towards time travel and quantum physics (“Catch 22″ even references the uncertainty principle), I had expected that in another reality Flight 815 HAD crashed in the ocean. Especially after the alternate timeline photograph clues in Miles’ “ghostbuster” house.

Finally, I’m uneasy that we’re not going to see a teleportation device that allows Ben, Richard, Tom, (and Locke’s father) to regularly jump back and forth to the mainland. Did Tom really visit Michael and return via submarine? Did he have enough time, according to island events he was present for?

WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT CAN WE DEDUCE

WIDMORE VS. BEN

Charles Widmore once controlled the island. Some theorize that he first visited it on the slave ship, the Black Rock. If he did so and jumped forward in time a few times, he could be very rich as a result of old money and careful investments.

We see Widmore buy the first mate’s journal, presumably because it contains some vital information he would like to see, possibly about the island’s location. Did Dharma know its contents? If so, why would it be for sale?

Widmore tells the freighter captain that Ben faked the wreckage. Not impossible.

Tom tells Michael that Widmore faked the wreckage. More likely.

Ben was confident that his daughter wouldn’t die — future knowledge or gentleman’s agreement?

DESMOND

Ms. Hawking wants Desmond to chicken out of proposing marriage, run away from Penny, and end up on the island pushing the button.

Brother Campbell decides the Abbey is not the place for Desmond and fires him on the day Penny comes to pick up wine. Campbell knows Hawking (as evidenced by a photo at the Abbey), so one could surmise that Campbell and Hawking want Desmond to meet Penny so he can run away, etc. (The parallel story in this episode involved Desmond’s struggle with premonitions. If he changes the future by saving Charlie’s life, will that affect other events? Is the future mapped out, or can it be changed?)

In contrast to this, maybe Widmore is pulling the strings on Desmond. Maybe he bought the wine and sent Penny on purpose, if he knows he has to get them together before he can crush Desmond.

Widmore later tried to bribe Desmond to stay away from Penny. He said Desmond would never be a great man. Jacob, the current ruler of the island, is often referred to as a great man. Is this reverse psychology? Does he have the same agenda as Hawking? Unknown. I can’t decide if Widmore wants Desmond to end up on the island or not.

Libby gives Desmond a boat, another necessary piece to get him to the island. This is in line with Hawking’s plan, but is it a coincidence? Probably not, since she also may have had a role in putting Hurley and Numbers Guy in the same room together at Santa Rosa.

MATTHEW ABADDON

Abaddon wants Locke to go on walkabout, which means he will end up on the plane and take his place on the island. Probably not working with Ben, but looking to usurp him by putting Locke in place.

He chose the Freighter Folk to go on Widmore’s boat. So he appears to work for Widmore. Does Widmore want Locke in? Or Does Abaddon have his own agenda?

Abaddon later asks future Hurley pointed questions…. “Are they still alive?” So Abaddon has not learned new information about the island and its inhabitants in the last few years.

BEN VS. LOCKE

Richard did his Dalai Lama test on Locke, but he either wasn’t ready or Richard didn’t know what to look for.

Locke needed to suffer (a la Job) before becoming the chosen one. All his bad luck knocked him down so the island could build him back up.

Once Ben realized that crippled Locke had come to the island and was miraculously healed, he may have deduced (or been told by Richard or Jacob) that Locke was the better candidate.

Part of Ben’s recruitment into the Hostiles/Others was to kill his father. So Ben brings Locke’s dad to the island to prove that Locke can’t do the same.

Once Locke does the deed (sort of) he joins the murderer club. He hears Jacob’s voice, and Ben gets petulant. He leaves Locke for dead. Once Locke regains control, sleeps in Ben’s bed, and Ben’s opponent (Widmore) stops playing by the rules, Ben becomes a tragic character. He now is ready to sacrifice his position to Locke, especially if he can continue to protect the island from Widmore. But is revenge more important to him now? Why does he want the Oceanic 6 to return with “Bentham” to the island?

MAXWELL GROUP, a division of WIDMORE INDUSTRIES

According to the “Find 815″ game, the Maxwell Group hired a ship (the Christiane) to look for the Black Rock, but someone within the organization put a sympathetic man on board to hijack the mission and instead find the (fake) 815 wreckage.

If Widmore wanted the wreckage found accidentally (assuming he’s behind the hoax), why do it on a mission to find the real island, which he’d rather keep secret from the public? Could it be Abaddon that tipped off the hero of “Find 815″? We’ll probably never know, as this took place outside canon.

TIME AGENTS

Certainly Hawking is doing some manipulation, as she spoke plainly to Desmond about time and fate.

Someone worked on the Australian psychic to get Claire on the plane. He later admitted he was a fraud, but he paid for her flight. Who paid him?

Libby (on her own or hired?) got Desmond and perhaps Hurley to the island. She’s now appearing to Michael.

Hawking is in league with Abaddon or Widmore or both. The future is known, and her goal is to keep the timeline on track.

Sun’s father, Mr. Paik, is an unknown, but he had dealings with Widmore.

GHOSTS and DEATH

The island gives its dead the ability to communicate. Are they calm and smart because they have a new perspective (being dead) or because they are not themselves?

Yemi says he is not Eko’s brother. Theory: he’s a manifestation of the monster.

If you’re important to the island, you become an extension of it, like neurons in the nervous system. Therefore you cannot die. The island can move the river of time around to provide natural explanations for what it needs (a jammed gun, freak luck).

THE MONSTER

Ben has an emergency call button for the monster, but doesn’t control it. Instead, he knows where it’s going, so he goes the other way.

Dharma built a fence to keep it out. It predated Dharma?

THE HOSTILES

Predate Dharma. Work with the island in a blind, religious fashion. One appointed person can talk with Jacob. Was Richard ever that person?

WHISPERS IN THE WOODS

More than once, we hear the whispers, then a person appears. Walt appears to Shannon, talking backwards, SOAKING WET, then disappears.

In “The Other Woman”, we hear whispers, then Harper appears to Juliet to deliver a message. It seemed plausible that Harper could come and go as mysteriously as most of the Others do. However, it was raining, and if Harper was wet for another reason (like Walt was in Shannon’s vision) we wouldn’t be able to tell. Harper disappears as abruptly as she first appeared.

Theory: The whispers are side-effect of the Others using an astral projection device. Its methods for some reason involve the subject being submerged in water.

MIKE’S THEORY

The island is alive, possessing cosmic intelligence. It lives outside of time and space, but intrudes upon it at specific points. It draws upon the zero point field, a sort of collective unconsciousness for the planet’s energy. (The Casimir effect was mentioned in the Orchid video.)

An ancient civilization lived there (like Skull Island‘s former inhabitants in Peter Jackson’s King Kong). They thought of it as a unique place, perhaps worshiped its monster, and built temples around the island relocation wheel and monster call center.

The island’s time/anti-time matter/anti-matter properties mess with the electromagnetic spectrum. Over the centuries, it has acted like a Bermuda Triangle, a magnet for travelers.

In 1845, the island popped into time and space right under the Black Rock. Captain Magnus Hanso and his first mate (Widmore or an ancestor) figure out that the island is special. Widmore kills Hanso, who is buried on the island (referenced in the blast door map). Widmore becomes king of the island. He undergoes some electromagnetic pulses, which give him future flashes. But he is corrupt, and he is tricked into dialing the “frozen donkey wheel” and zaps elsewhere. Some of the ship’s other passengers escape the island with the first mate’s (Widmore’s) journal (it turned up in a Pirate’s possessions in 1852). The journal passes to the Hanso family, whose descendents form the Dharma Initiative. Meanwhile, some of the Black Rock’s inhabitants joined/became the Hostiles.

The Hanso family, with the benefit of the journal, make trips to the island, perhaps after many years have gone by. They naively think they can use the island’s properties to affect global change, both through time travel/prescience and the good vibe theory of THE NUMBERS. They build an electromagnet to harness and increase the power of the island’s own energy leak, but there is a disastrous event. What is the result of this event? Unknown, but the Swan station’s later purpose is to vent the energy every 108 minutes. Meanwhile, a fence is built to protect Dharma’s camp from the hostiles and the monster.

The Hanso Foundation forms the Dharma Initiative, recruiting behavioral psychologists and other scientists. Much like we send plants, animals, and bacteria into space, experiments were conducted on the island. Some were Skinner box experiments, more to see how teams of people behave in such circumstances.

SWAN: to release the pressure valve on the magnet
PEARL: presumably to observe the Swan, but in fact they were observed
ARROW: unknown. Rodinsky may have visited there with his snippet of film that said don’t mess with the computer.
FLAME: contact with the mainland
STAFF: medical, fertility experiments
HYDRA: pavlovian conditioning of animals, for what purpose? perhaps polar bears are meant to turn the donkey wheel?
TEMPEST: power plant, toxic gas dispersal for use against Hostiles?
LOOKING GLASS: unknown. sub station?
ORCHID: heart of the island. built time flicker device over the top of it.

But the Hostiles knew better what the island required. Before the Dharma era, they sent Richard Alpert out into the world (is he dead, immortal, or a time traveler?) to find their prophesied leader. Locke wasn’t ready (or Alpert failed to read him correctly), so they settled for Ben, the son of a Dharma loser. He gives the Hostiles the chance to activate the Tempest, get through the fence, and kill ‘em all. They set up camp in New Otherton.

What do they want? Fertility is Ben’s obsession, not theirs, according to Richard. Do the original Hostiles have a breeding problem? Are they dying out? Have they had children before, or are they immortal? The Hostiles had Mittelos Laboratories/Bioscience since the 70s, when high school aged Locke was almost recruited. They presumably have some level of time travel or second sight, since arranging for Edmund Burke’s bus accident seems impossible otherwise. Their mission is not exactly in line with Ben’s. Ben sees himself as one of the good guys, finding a cure to the pregnancy issue is paramount above all other concerns — is this due to Jacob’s orders, or in spite of them? It could only be an obsession because of his own mother dying in childbirth.

Who is Jacob? I say John Locke from the future, unstuck in time and only able to communicate with a select few.

Widmore has been trying to regain the island. But he can’t physically return, because he once used the time displacement wheel to leave.

Possibilities:

A) His future flashes allow him the insight to push Desmond into getting on the island with Locke so they can cause an event that hurts the Others technology and starts a countdown on the island’s stability so Penny can see the event and send her boat… but that’s in conflict with the freighter who found the island because Widmore bought the journal…

B) His future flashes give him some insight, but Abaddon and Hawking use that information against him. They are the third party, getting their own man on the island (Locke) as well as Desmond, Claire, Miles, Faraday, and Charlotte.

Someone wanted Claire and Hurley on the island.

What about Sun? Did someone (her father?) work to get her on the island, or try to keep her from going?

People are guided to the island by at least 3 parties:

1) Hawking
2) Abaddon — may be working with Widmore or Hawking
3) Widmore
4) Hostiles/Others/Mittelos

That’s all I’ve got in me now. More to come after season five!

The OCD 2008 Movies Graph

Mike — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:14:05 +0000

Because a list just isn’t good enough, I took the time to categorize the 60 odd new movies I saw theatrically in 2008.

Since I mentioned it during my Cinephobia appearance today, I decided to share it with the world here.

Bust it out into a separate window.

Wolfing Out: Halloween 2008

Mike — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 23:43:51 +0000

My first experiment with spirit gum this year. People identified me as Teenwolf, Teenwolf 2, and Werewolf Groucho Marx. Personally, I was going for Paul Naschy, but I’ll take what I can get.

Growl:

Rawr!

Mugshot:

A Weekend of Saw

Mike — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:12:03 +0000

I’m a moderate fan of the Saw movies. They’re somewhat gratuitous, but clever. The twist at the end of the first one really pulled it into the 4 star territory. The twists in the sequels haven’t matched, but they still manage to surprise in some ways.

When I went to see Saw III and IV, I was somewhat confused by certain story points. Unlike other horror series that merely remake the previous entry or give you expository recaps, Saw behaves more like an episodic television show. Each film centers on specific characters, and the plot bends back on itself, jumping around in time to visit events from the previous films a different point of view.

For this year’s Saw V, I didn’t want to go in unarmed. Instead, I studied up first. I watched Saw I on Friday, Saw II and III on Saturday, then Saw IV on Sunday before heading to the theater for V.

I treated it like a research project. Who’s alive and dead at the end of each film? What was each person’s vice that deemed them worthy of Jigsaw’s tests?

Was it worth it? I think so. I wasn’t confused at all during part V. Instead, I followed along, not distracted by thoughts of “who’s that guy again?” and “wasn’t that guy already killed?”

I might as well share my research with any other OCD horror fans out there. The following database is full of spoilers for parts I-IV, but I did not update it with info from V.

Read the SAW Database (I-IV)

Movie Swiss Cheese

Mike — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:58:45 +0000

I’m somewhat ashamed to admit there are holes in my movie knowledge. For some of my favorite directors (like Peter Jackson, Robert Rodriguez, or Tim Burton), I’ve seen their entire filmographies. For others, there are gaps.

So here’s a list of movies-to-see-so-I-can-call-myself-a-true-fan.

BRIAN DE PALMA
Uneven, but always stylish. Some of his early films are hard to track down. Redacted, from last year, didn’t even come to my town.

# Redacted (2007)
# The Black Dahlia (2006)
# Wise Guys (1986)
# Home Movies (1980)
# Sisters (1973)
# Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972)
# Hi, Mom! (1970)
# Dionysus (1970)
# The Wedding Party (1969)
# Greetings (1968)
# Murder à la Mod (1968)

STUART GORDON
Gordon is interested in pushing buttons. There’s always something too disturbing about his work to be appealing to mainstream audiences, but that’s part of why I like it.

# Stuck (2007)
# Edmond (2005)
# Daughter of Darkness (1990) (TV)
# Dolls (1987)

Ridley Scott
I’m currently halfway through the director’s cut of Legend, so I’ll put that in the “watched” column.

# Body of Lies (2008) (hopefully to be remedied soon)
# American Gangster (2007)
# A Good Year (2006)
# All the Invisible Children (2005) (segment “Jonathan”)
# Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
# White Squall (1996)
# 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) (tried to watch it once, fell asleep)
# Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
# Alien: The Director’s Cut (1979/2003) (the original cut is one of my favorites, I’m almost afraid to watch the director’s cut)
# The Duellists (1977)

STEVEN SPIELBERG
Has been at the top of my list since seeing Close Encounters as a kid (darn, I just remembered I haven’t seen the latest version that’s out on DVD). As for the others, in my defense, Always is overlooked by many and reportedly so-so. The bad press and lawsuits with Amistad turned me off from seeing it.

# Amistad (1997)
# Always (1989)

STEVEN SODERBERGH
I first realized how good Soderbergh when I saw the one-two punch of Out of Sight and The Limey. I love his daring editing techniques.

# Bubble (2005)
# Full Frontal (2002)
# Schizopolis (1996)
# Gray’s Anatomy (1996)
# Kafka (1991)

PAUL VERHOEVEN
Always pushes the edge of good taste and somehow makes it work. Basically, I’ve seen none of his Dutch work, but I should be able to catch up on video.

# Black Book (2006)
# … and all his early Dutch films

Friday the 13th Reboot

Mike — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 05:57:38 +0000

How do you market a remake to fans of the original and new, younger audiences? By letting Pamela Voorhees tell the story of what happened to her son.

I have to say, the trailer does a good job of summing up the franchise for the uninitiated and fans alike.

Friday The 13th in HD

I’m looking forward to this, partly because there have always been gaps in the F13 continuity. This is a good opportunity to remedy that.

Gross Movie Reviews

subterranea — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:06:01 +0000

Thanks to Tim Gross, whom I met at Cleveland’s Cinema Wasteland. He gave The Other Gods a plug in his latest newsletter, Gross Movie Reviews #139:

A very beautiful animated short worth checking out, especially if you are a Lovecraft fan.

Tim posts his capsule reviews at Bastards of Horror, and has published three books of Gross Movie Reviews to date. Check them out on Lulu here: http://www.lulu.com/grossmoviereview

Distributing films through iTunes

Mike — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 04:56:30 +0000

Up until now, iTunes has made it difficult for independent filmmakers to sell their work through their service. They want to deal with big studios or distributors, not a million little guys who require a million little checks once a month. The alternative has been to give away iPod friendly files in podcast feeds, but you don’t make any money that way.

There are a couple distributors who are dipping into the indie well for content to sell. One such is ShortsInternational at britshorts.com, which handles a lot of high end award winning shorts.

A recent episode of This Week in Media alerted me to TuneCore.com , which will take your hard copy submissions and run them by the “editorial staff” at iTunes. Users pay iTunes, iTunes pays TuneCore, and TuneCore pays you. Not a perfect solution, but it’s a start. This is similar to the way CD Baby works with indie musicians, although I doubt there’s a gatekeeper that judges the content of songs.

While iTunes is the holy grail for filmmakers — as it’s already being used by a huge chunk of the population — there are some alternatives. MeDeploy.com is a competing service, an “iTunes for indie film producers.” There’s also Amazon Video On Demand (formerly Amazon Unbox), which works with CreateSpace.com (formerly CustomFlix). These services sound great, but are they really that different than video-on-demand sites I’ve submitted to in the past, like Dave.tv and Vuze.com?

Most likely not, but Amazon does have something going for it — a name that people trust. And that is a huge deal when it comes time to promote. If I send out an email blast saying “buy my film,” I think people will be more likely to pay if they already have an Amazon or iTunes account. Asking someone to pay AND download a program they’ve never heard of is a hard sell.

Edit 10/06/08

See the comments for a clarification on MeDeploy.

I was also contacted by Indieflix, which I’ve considered using for DVD sales in the past. Indieflix now distributes films through iTunes, the first of which should be up late October early November.

Edit 10/08/08

Since posting this article, I’ve heard feedback that Shorts International is notorious for not paying royalties to filmmakers. That’s reason enough to be wary of them, along with their exclusive contracts that restrict you from selling to other online distributors.

Cthulhu Unbound

subterranea — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 22:47:06 +0000

Since becoming a “captain of the internet,” I’ve become acquainted with other filmmakers and artists around the world, mostly through sites like MySpace and Indieclub.com.

One such person is Thomas Brannan, who is co-editing the two volume fiction anthology of Lovecraft inspired work, Cthulhu Unbound. He asked if I’d be interested in doing some promo art (and a Youtube “book trailer” down the road). I love the idea of mashing up genres, so I said yes.

Here are the first two of four proposed illustrations. One mixes the world of Lovecraft with detective noir, the next with the gunfighter western.

Look for the paperbacks in the spring of 2009 from permutedpress.com or friend up Thom on MySpace.

Researching iTunes

Mike — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:24:39 +0000

I’d like to know more about selling shorts on iTunes, but I’ll need to do some research. (To give something away in iTunes, you simply put it in a podcast feed.) Basically, I know how to give away content, but not how to sell it. That’s one of the topics discussed in a recent Mad Dog Movies Podcast.

Will the general public pay for shorts, especially after sites like Youtube have conditioned an audience into expecting short form content for free? It may be a long shot, but it can’t hurt to try.

Here’s an article from Deep Structure that raises the same questions.

I’ve been looking through the Shorts area of the Itunes store. It’s not easy to find — shorts are listed in the lower right (ghetto) corner of the movies page.

I can see all the shorts listed by distributor. Everything is Disney, Pixar, Sundance, Tezuka (out of Japan?), Shorts International, and two wild cards. One is The Tribe, mentioned in the above article as having special circumstances.

Like any distributor, if they wanted your film they’d have you sign a contract. Non-exclusive is the way to go — you don’t want to give away exclusive distro rights. Also, they may want rights to DVD, too. You can usually negotiate those issues.

One cartoon/music video I had my eye on was the Doogtoons produced Weird Al video, “Trapped in the Drive Thru.” I contacted Bryan at Doogtoons.com, and he said that the Weird Al video was handled through Sony. That makes sense, since it’s in the music video (not the short film) section.

He suggested using Payloadz.com to sell hi-res versions of short films, which is something they do. I’ve used Payloadz for other files before, and it’s fairly simple to set up. You accept payments from consumers through Paypal, and then they get access to the file to download from Payloadz as a one time thing.

The problem there is that people have to know about you, seek you out, find your website, and then pay. The advantage of iTunes is the huge numbers of random people finding you accidentally. There would certainly be more sales through iTunes. (Although you’d have to split the $1.99 with the distributor.)

Over at the CinemaTech blog, there’s a run-down of the companies that have dealt with iTunes or might have dealings in the future. Check it out here.

“New Video” is another company that caught my attention, handling mostly long form documentary content. Read about it here.

I know musicians who use CD Baby to get their music into iTunes. Could this happen for filmmakers with sister company Film Baby? CD Baby was recently purchased by replication giant Disc Makers, so that may become a factor in future distribution deals.

Stay tuned for more blogs on the subject.

Weird Tales: The Strange Life of H.P. Lovecraft

subterranea — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:50:22 +0000

UPDATE: The files are no longer on Youtube, but I found another source.
Click here to download.

Here’s an excellent BBC radio documentary about H.P. Lovecraft I found on Youtube. For anyone wondering about my fascination with the author, this is a great introduction to his life and work.

Weird Tales: The Strange Life of H.P. Lovecraft

The American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, known then simply as weird fiction. Lovecraft’s major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Originally aired on BBC Radio in 2006 with contributions from Neil Gaiman, S.T. Joshi, Kelly Link, Peter Straub, China Mieville and others. Divided in 5 parts.

Asian Horror FAQ

Mike — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:45:25 +0000

This Frequently Asked Questions list was originally posted on the Creature Corner/ CHUD message boards. It aims to answer questions about the latest wave of horror movies from Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea. Note: The Creature-Corner links are now directed to back-up pages at Archive.org. Some of the pictures may be missing, but the text should be intact.

Asian Horror FAQ

LAST UPDATED JUNE 2003

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this FAQ is to help answer questions on the strange world of Asian horror on DVD. It is not meant to discourage discussion of these movies, only curb redundant threads. This is a work in progress. If you have anything to contribute or disagree with, please post it here and I’ll include your info in the next revision. Since many chewers (myself included) live in the U.S., I’m addressing some DVD region code questions also.

How can I see some of these Asian horror movies people are talking about? Are they available on DVD?

Some are available for Region 1, some aren’t. (Note: discs that are not region specific are referred to as Region 0.) Many folks are using region-free DVD players. Many are on VCD’s (video compact discs) that run on most DVD players and computers. There’s also the bootleg videotape route, but I won’t be listing links for that here.

How do I get a region-free DVD player?

There’s no simple answer to this question. Players that have been recommended on these boards include the Sampo line available at :

http://www.barrel-of-monkeys.com/

There’s a big selection of players at
http://www.samstores.com
http://www.ZonefreeDVD.com

Sampo (and maybe the Malata?) available here:
http://www.hkflix.com

And there’s always Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com

PlayStation 2 Game Sharks can act as Region-free DVD players. The Game Shark is usually used to “cheat” at video games.

I have a region-free player. Does that mean I can watch either PAL or NTSC?

Good question. The television standard in the U.S. is NTSC. The UK, Europe, and various other parts of the globe use PAL. All Region 1 discs are NTSC. Region 2 discs can be PAL or NTSC. As I understand it, most PAL players can run either PAL or NTSC discs. Most NTSC players are only good for NTSC. DVD players with built-in PAL to NTSC capability include the Malata N996 or 960, and any in the Sampo line. (If you’re in the UK and you know more about this, let me know.)

Where do I purchase Asian horror movies?

http://www.blackstar.co.uk/ (UK)
http://www.amazon.co.uk (UK)
http://www.bensonsworld.co.uk/ (UK)
http://www.play.com (UK, but has Region 1)
http://www.dddhouse.com (Hong Kong – in partial english, amazingly cheap)
http://www.coolashop.com (Hong Kong – in english)
http://www.amazon.co.jp (Japan – in Japanese)
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp (Japan – in english)
http://www.dvdasian.com (partial english)
http://www.hkflix.com (import company in the USA)
http://www.pokerindustries.com (specializes in imports)
http://www.sazuma.com/ (specializes in imports)
http://www.videojunkie.com (has videotapes as well as DVD)
http://us.yesasia.com/
and there’s always http://www.ebay.com

Note: some sites (like DDDHouse) list prices in Hong Kong dollars. Just divide by roughly 7.70 to find out what they’ll charge you in U.S. funds. Your credit card company will figure out the math. Want to know today’s exact exchange rate? Go here:

http://www.xe.com/ucc/

What are some good Asian movie resources?

The Hong Kong Movie Database
http://www.hkmdb.com/

Asian DVD Guide
http://www.asiandvdguide.com/

Kung Fu Cinema
http://www.kfccinema.com

What movies do you recommend?

Here’s a short list of fan favorites, with synopses and links.

AUDITION
directed by Takashi Miike

“I have to say that this is one hell of a mindf**k movie. I mean, people usually focus on the last twenty odd minutes on the movie (don’t get me wrong, it is plenty brutal), but this whole film is quite trippy. it starts out as a serious melodrama, but it really starts going bad remarkably soon, with some very interesting time switching and so on. A great film… maybe not necessarily a pure horror film, but that doesn’t make it less of a compelling terror flick….” – Sethos

Review:
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/horror/audition/audition.html

Audition should be easy to find for any region.

BATTLE ROYALE
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

“‘Battle Royale’ is a film about the not-to-distant future Japan where the kids have become so unruly they never show up for school anymore, and would much rather stab their teachers then learn from them. A game is created called ‘Battle Royale’ where one particular class of kids is shipped to an evacuated island and left to fend for themselves with whatever they’re given by the sickos running it. Only one kid can be left alive at the end of the three days, or they all die.” – Johnny Butane

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206130634/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/battleroyale.php3

It is now legitimately available in the U.S. on DVD, as a special-order UK import via Tartan video.

Region 0 NTSC DVD from the UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk

BR fansite http://www.battleroyaleonline.com/

BIO-ZOMBIE
Directed by Wilson Yip

“… heavily based on Dawn Of The Dead by way of the survival horror game genre. It’s a really weird film, part slapstick, part zombie film, and I quite enjoyed it. It needed more zombie gore to make it a true classic, but if you’re open to a little offbeat Eastern horror, it’s worth tracking down.” – Dan Whitehead

Review:
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/horror/biozombie/biozombie.html

Region 1 DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000059HA9/maddogmovies

Region 0 DVD:
http://dddhouse.com/

CURE
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

“The whole film just has a subtle dreamlike atmosphere, which gradually increases throughout the thing. At the start of the film its presented as murder mystery, and the viewer will feel that he is already one up on the detective by the first 30 minutes, but as the film goes by everything becomes less tangible, and viewer learns that maybe the murder mystery itself isn’t what’s important.” – Frank Booth

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206135104/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/cure.php3

VCD:
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?page=item&sku=CURE-VCD

Region 2 DVD:
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?page=item&sku=CUREJAPAN-DVD

DARK WATER
Directed by Hideo Nakata

“At it’s heart ‘Dark Water’ is not really a ghost movie. It’s a drama with a ghost put in to help empahsize what’s really going on. Abandonment is a huge theme throughout, and you can’t help but wonder if Nakata hasn’t experienced or known someone who went through the same type of thing, since he’s got a good grasp on how it can affect a person years down the road.” – Johnny Butane

“The one thing that was missing from “Ring” is here laid on in spades: emotion.” – Straxboy

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206121154/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/darkwater.php3

Region 3 DVD:
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?
page=item&sku=DARKWATER-DVD&pquery=dark%20water

EBOLA SYNDROME
Directed by Herman Yau

“…a classic of hideous proportions.” – Dave Davis

“I’m of the opinion that people who are monumentally stupid only get what they deserve, and ‘Ebola Syndrome’ takes that belief and literally grinds the noses of the moronic head first into their own filth.” – Girlcreeture

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206130414/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/ebola.php3

VCD:
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?page=item&sku=EBOLASYNDR-VCD

Region 0 DVD:
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?page=item&sku=EBOLASYNDR-DVD

EVIL DEAD TRAP
Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda

“I’ve never seen anything else by director Toshiharu Ikeda so I cannot tell what his track record is, but the guy must be a SERIOUS Argento fan. The soundtrack, the storyline itself in some ways, the way the movie is shot; all these elements are reminiscent of Argento and the giallo genre. As previously mentioned, there is eyeball violence present in Evil Dead Trap and much more by way of cruel death that any giallo horror fan would appreciate it, from the manner of each victim’s death to the atmosphere created in these scenes. There’s also a bit of Raimi injected in the film as well, with some crazy first person POV’s done in the same deadite fashion as, you guessed it! Evil Dead!” – Girlcreeture

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206131341/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/evildeadtrap.php3

Region 0 DVD – buy through the EvilShop:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/6305789649/maddogmovies

EVIL DEAD TRAP 2: HIDEKI
Directed By Izo Hashimoto

“Sequels rarely compare to their originals, but in this case the sequel to the original Evil Dead Trap is far greater… While Evil Dead Trap 1 was an homage to directors like Sam Raimi, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and David Cronenberg (who seems to have made the greatest impression on Asian cinema of recent times) complete with scenes borrowed (or stolen it depends how you look at it) from some of their well known films, packed into a slasher flick, Hideki is more Asian in origin. Argento’s influence by way of dreamlike moments, and a surreal use of colors is evident, but the psychology and content of the film can be traced to film makers like Shinya Tsukomoto.” – Evan

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206131503/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/evildeadtrap2.php3

Region 0 DVD:
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?
page=item&sku=EVILTRAP2-DVD&pquery=evil%20dead%20trap%202

THE EYE
Directed by The Pang Brothers

“At the age of two, Mann has been blind. We’re never told why, but when we meet her, she is preparing for a very risky cornea transplant surgery to restore her vision. It takes a while after the surgery, but eventually she is able to see just fine, despite some flashes of weird stuff here and there. That’s just her brain learning how to deal with processing all that visual information now, right? No, they’re not. Her first real encounter is one of the freakiest things I’ve seen in a long time…” – Johnny Butane

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206134804/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/theeye.php3

Region 2 DVD:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00007JGI8/
ref=sr_aps_dvd_1_2/202-4000540-6287003

Region 0 DVD regular edition:
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?page=item&sku=EYEHKREG-DVD

Region 0 DVD special edition
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?page=item&sku=EYEHKSPEC-DVD

THE GRUDGE (JU-ON)
directed by Takashi Shimizu

“Taking the classic idea of a haunted house story and flipping it on its head, Shimizu weaves a vengeful tale about a family whose own demise was filled with so much ire and hate, an unforgiving grudge manifested and was unleashed upon the world. While the concept may seem similar to another Japanese masterpiece about vindictive curses, the execution is a reinvention of classic tactics and storytelling sensibilities recognized in the horror genre.” – J. D. Nguyen

Review:
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/horror/juon/juon.html

Remake news:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040212160526/

http://www.creature-corner.com/news3/feb21grudge.php3

Japanese site:
http://www.cine-tre.com/ju-on/

HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS
directed by Takashi Miike

“It’s a distinctly parodic brew that wears a commendably straight face throughout its wild running time. As if Roger Corman had taken a couple of cabaret composers on the piss and subsequently been contractually obliged to make good on a drunken promise to produce their small ensemble musical a la “The Fantasticks”, getting round his genre niche compartmentalizing by including every micro budget trick in the book. Everything you’ve heard about this picture is as bizarre as it is true.” – Straxboy

Review (as part of the London Fright Fest coverage):
http://web.archive.org/web/20040215215548/

http://www.creature-corner.com/columns/frightfest02-4.php3

Region 1 DVD:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000083C5D/maddogmovies

JUNK
Directed by Atsushi Muroga

“While certainly nothing in comparison to other humorous zombie movies like ‘Dead Alive’ or ‘Return of the Living Dead’, ‘Junk’ is still an enjoyable popcorn munching flick. I don’t think it was meant to be considered a ‘funny’ movie, but the bad acting and silly, paper thin plot have nudged it into that category, whether it wants to be there or not, and it’s quite amusing.” – Girlcreeture

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206132832/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/junk.php3

All Region PAL DVD:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.3058/aid.030323/qx/details.htm

KAIRO (PULSE)
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

“My GOD what a kick ass movie. Freaky as all hell with some of the best use of sound I’ve ever heard in a movie. Too few filmmakers realize the improtance of good, creepy sound in the creation of atmosphere. If you love Japanese horror or just want to see how damn good at it they are, FIND THIS MOVIE!” – Johnny Butane

Review:
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/horror/kairo/kairo.html

Region 2 DVD:
https://www.sazuma.com/showdcd.php3?dcd_id=KWDV-12

Region 2 and Region 3 at
http://www.pokerindustries.com

PHONE
Directed by Byeong-ki Ahn

“There are some truly creepy scenes where you really have no idea what’s going to happen, and this is what I’ve found the Asians to do best in their horror. They have a way of pacing out a scene in which something’s going to happen…you can feel it coming…but you just don’t know what. And usually when it does happen it scares the shit out of you, too.” – Johnny Butane

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040217191748/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/phone.php3

Region 0 DVD:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.527035/aid.030323/qx/details.htm

RING (RINGU), Ring sequels and remakes

“A videotape makes it way around a circle of friends. Strangely, everyone who views the video tape seems to die exactly one week afterward. After believing this to be an urban legend worthy of an article, a cynical reporter watches the tape and shortly thereafter unsettling occurrences begin to happen to her. Is she slated to be the next victim of some kind of bizarre and seemingly supernatural force?” — Dreamworks synopsis.

You don’t want to know too much before seeing this movie. It involves a cursed tape and a ghostly girl named Sadako. The popularity of the first Ring kicked off the current Japanese horror trend. A Hollywood remake comes out this fall.

The major entries in this series are Ring (also known as Ringu), Ring 2, and Ring 0. Here’s everything, for you completists:

THE MOVIES
Ring – Based on a Japanese horror novel. The best of the bunch.
Rasen – A sequel based on the book’s sequel. Everyone hates it.
Ring 2 – A more well-received sequel.
Ring 0 Birthday – A prequel of sorts, tells the story of Sadako.
Ring Virus – Korean remake. Reportedly pretty bad.
The Ring – U.S. remake due this October.

TELEVISION SPECIALS (Japanese)
Ring: Kanzenban (Ring: The Complete Edition)
Ring: Saishuushou (Ring: The Final Chapter)
Rasen: The Series

Ring review: http://web.archive.org/web/20040206135728/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/ring.php3

Ring 2 review: http://web.archive.org/web/20040206121258/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/ring2.php3

Ring hype news: http://web.archive.org/web/20040603234019/

http://www.creature-corner.com/news2/jul19ring.php3

Ringu is now available on Region 1 in the U.S.

RingWorld fansite: http://www.somrux.com/ringworld

How to get the various versions: http://www.somrux.com/ringworld/ringMerchandise.htm

“Order the Japanese Ring TV mini series if you get the chance. No subtitles, but there’s a full transcript online. Very good stuff IMO, and emotionally powerful… goes a lot deeper into the whole Ring mythos.” – Adam_72

Transcripts for the 12 episode Ring Saishusho (Saishuushou?) television series:

http://www.geocities.com/morikai/ring/RS00.html

THE RING
(Dreamworks remake directed by Gore Verbinski)

There were several sites created to hype this movie last year. Some are gone now, some have been absorbed by the official site.

Official site:
http://www.ring-themovie.com/

Strange site that has disappeared, but left a 17mb file in its place:
http://www.sadakoisdead.com/

Voltes’ analysis of Verbinski’s remake:
http://www.innergrail.com/thering/index.htm

ST. JOHN’S WORT
Directed by Shimoyama Ten

“St. John’s Wort is pretty good. It’s based on Survival Horror videogames and quite often uses conventions from those games rather than movies…dialogue appears above character’s heads in text boxes, important items are obviously highlighted…it’s a very well shot movie, highly inventive with what seems to be a small budget. The plot revolves around a girl inheriting her father’s mansion and going to check the place out with her ex-boyfriend, a videogame designer looking for new ideas for his next horror game. Needless to say, a rainstorm traps them in the old, dark house and dark family secrets soon come lurching out of the closet.” – Scareycrow

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040203170628/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/stjohnswort.php3

Region 3 DVD:
http://dddhouse.com/

TELL ME SOMETHING
Directed by Yoon-Hyung Chang

“‘Tell Me Something’ is more of a thriller than straight horror, but when the horror’s there, it’s got the gore and the tension you want. In the same vein as ‘Silence of the Lambs and ‘Nightwatch’, it’s a serial killer flick worthy of a look-sie by all you lovely creetures.” – Girlcreeture

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206134022/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/tellmesomething.php3

Region 0 DVD:
http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.457/aid.030323/qx/details.htm

UZUMAKI
Directed by Higuchinsky

“I was happily reminded of the wish segment from ‘Twilight Zone: The Movie’, particularly, the scene where the woman does not get to see that the boy has wished his sister’s mouth away (but we do, oh boy do we ever get see that nightmare) and she ignorantly follows him to some other room in the house, oblivious to the horrors around her. That’s very much what Uzumaki is like.” – Girlcreeture

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206125126/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/uzumaki.php3

Region 3 DVD:
http://dddhouse.com

VERSUS
Written & Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura

“At the very least its the best japanese/martial arts/zombie/yakuza/prison break out movie ever!” – TheRealSnausage

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040217131338/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/versus.php3

Media Blasters has announced a U.S. DVD release July 29th, 2003. Read the story here: http://web.archive.org/web/20040226183318/

http://www.creature-corner.com/dvd/mar25versus.php3

The VCD is currently available, though many complain about the readability of the subtitles.

Region 2 DVD:
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=KSXD-24308
There are various bootleg DVDs available from time to time on Ebay. Some are horrible. Some aren’t.

Versus official website in Japanese: http://kss-movie.com/versus/

WILD ZERO
Directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi

“Don’t expect serious horror with this one. Why? For one, it stars Guitar Wolf, a Japanese post-punk rock band who sounds a lot like The Ramones. The band’s trio (Guitar Wolf, Bass Wolf, and Drum Wolf) are not seasoned actors so the most they can do is reek of tough-guy attitude in their leather jackets and sunglasses and ham it up for the camera…you love every minute of it. It’s hilarious.” – Ryan Rotten

Review:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206130456/

http://www.creature-corner.com/reviews/wildzero.php3

All Region PAL DVD (German edition):
http://www.pokerindustries.com/poker.store?
page=item&sku=WILDZEROGR-DVD&pquery=wild%20zero

MISCELLANEOUS LINKS

DON’T LOOK UP (Joyuu-Rei) Remake news:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040212162910/

http://www.creature-corner.com/news3/mar21dontlook.php3

Article on Hideo Nakata’s American film project, True Believers:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030823165009/

http://www.creature-corner.com/news3/feb14nakata.php3

General Asian Movie forum:
http://chud.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=60

Mad Dog Spores

Mike — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:28:50 +0000

The above picture is my first attempt at creating a creature using the Spore Creature Creator. Playing God put me in a Bedknobs and Broomsticks state of mind while designing it, so I named it Traguna.

What’s the deal, you ask? Spore is a new video game coming out this fall. I’m not a big gamer (I still think Doom II is pretty cool) but I may have to slap down $50 for this PC game.

The concept is revolutionary. You create life from the ground up, following evolution from single-cells to creatures, tribal culture, civilization, and into space.

For right now, EA Games has released its creature creator for download. I spent this afternoon making nonsensical animals and making them run around, growl, and dance.

There’s a built-in YouTube upload, too. See more of my creations (including video clips) after the break…

Optipod

Slugaffe

Orangugator

Gorillagator

Mad Dog Spores in Motion

Indie Docs about Studio Movies

Mike — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:27:59 +0000

In the last few years, several unique documentaries have come to my attention. This could be the beginning of a new trend: behind-the-scenes examinations of existing movies produced without studio involvement. These are feature length docs, similar to what you’d see packaged with a “special edition” DVD, but done without distribution set up ahead of time. Does this mean there’s a whole subset of documentary filmmakers inspired by the likes of Laurent Bouzereau?

What these projects have in common is their grass-roots marketing. The filmmakers have gone out to fan conventions to promote while still in production. They show scenes, get feedback, and even arrange to interview specific actors at these events.

Here are the movies that have sparked my interest:

The Shark is Still Working
This doc about Jaws has been in the works for years. There was already a wealth of material available about the Spielberg’s movie, including The Jaws Log and an admirable doc on the current special edition. That didn’t stop these filmmakers from talking to everyone who ever touched Jaws or was inspired by it. I’m afraid the final product is going to take a week to watch!

http://www.sharkisstillworking.com/

Beware the Moon: Remembering ‘An American Werewolf in London’
John Landis’ American Werewolf in London is one of my favorite films, so I can’t wait to see this doc by Britain’s “Tall Paul” Davis. He’s had screenings at a few horror cons in the USA, and the response has been stellar.

http://www.myspace.com/kesslerboy

Indy Fans and the Quest for Fortune and Glory
This one I just discovered, and it looks like the focus is more on Indiana Jones fans than the films’ production. There are plenty of fans (and hot models, apparently) in costume on the project’s MySpace page.

http://myspace.com/indyfans

Rochester NY on Google Street View!

Mike — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:20:25 +0000

When Google Maps first launched its Street View function last year, I thought it was the coolest thing. First off, it’s quite a concept to get your head around: imagine Google vans driving down every road in a given city, taking panorama pictures every 10 feet or so. Incredible!

Then there’s the functionality. It’s incredibly easy to look up a location, click on Street View, and click your way up and down the block to look for landmarks. Someday I’ll have an iPhone or Google phone and search maps while on location. Add GPS, and you’ve got something out of Star Trek.

So while I drooled over the pics from the first 5 cities, I thought my hometown of Rochester would be way down the list for inclusion. We’d probably get Street View somewhere around 2019. Not so! Today while searching for an address, I saw it was active for Ra-cha-cha and some suburbs.

When did this happen? Today, apparently. From Wikipedia:

On June 10, 2008, twelve more cities were introduced: Atlanta, Buffalo, Charlotte, Columbus (Ohio), Fresno, Jackson, Jacksonville, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, St. Louis and Virginia Beach. Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming was also introduced. This update also included a number of locations without attributable camera icons. These locations include Bakersfield, Cincinnati, Dayton, Death Valley National Monument, Greenville, Huntsville, Knoxville, Lexington, Omaha-Lincoln, Palm Springs, Reno, Rochester, New York, Sequoia National Park, Syracuse, Toledo, and Tulsa.

It looks like the pictures were taken late last summer. In the pic of Animatus below, we have our neon sign, but the lot next door hasn’t been paved yet.

So spread the word! Look up your house! It’s a surreal experience.

View Larger Map

Adrian’s Perspective

Mike — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 19:32:46 +0000

One of my students, Adrian Esposito, was recently featured on Rochester’s Channel 13 News.

Reporter Jane Flasch spoke with Adrian as part of a series of stories on Autism. Adrian is open about discussing his Asperger Syndrome and how it affects his filmmaking interests. As his instructor at the Animation Workshop for the last several years, it’s rewarding to see how Adrian has grown.

Watch the video and you’ll see the last document of my wild hairstyle before my summer cut!

See some of Adrian’s work on Youtube HERE

Rochester Filmmaking gets some Press

Mike — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:08:11 +0000

This week’s City Newspaper has a good overview of the local film community, written by Susie Hume.

Susie is the reporter who spoke with me last year for the Rochester Insider. This time, she took on the entire film scene and talked to tons of people. John Vincent and Matt Ehlers get some facetime, as well as The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast, Rochester Movie Makers, and Rochester Film Lab.

An excerpt:

Vincent, a Rochester native, worked in both New York City and Los Angeles before eventually settling back here, his hometown. His long list of film credits includes visual effects work on cult classics like “Freaked” and sci-fi favorites like “Robot Wars” and “Prehysteria.” He now works full-time as a writer, director, and effects artist, and as president of his own production company, Philrose Productions, which provides effects and production management for industrial videos, commercials, and feature films.

“There are other smaller cities with big film communities, like Austin and Portland, that are really promoting their work, and it pumps millions of dollars into their economies,” Vincent says. “We need to promote that here. We’re not Hollywood, and we never will be, so to people here it’s very intangible to think of Rochester as a film city. But to us, it is what we do already, so we need to change the way they’re thinking.”

Vincent also remains involved with a core group of local filmmakers committed to boosting the Rochester film scene. He co-hosts a podcast on local writer/filmmaker/animator Mike Boas’ website, maddogmovies.com, and will shoot a lower budget film (“100 grand or less,” he says) with Boas this year with the working title “Lake Midnight.” In addition, Vincent acted as second unit director to Matt Ehlers’ recently premiered film, “Smoking Laws.”

“People like Matt and others could be working in L.A. or New York, but the great thing here is that we just help each other out or work for free on each other’s films,” Vincent says. “It’s a ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ mentality, because we’re all in this together.”

Read the entire article online here: “Rochester’s local filmmaking scene” By Susie Hume.

Thanks for the press, Susie!

Links:

The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast

Lake Midnight

Smoking Laws

A Plethora of Podcasts

Mike — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:43:24 +0000

It’s time for an update on what I’ve been listening to. I started using Mypodder when I got bored with Itunes, but then I overloaded Mypodder. Now I’ve divided my feeds between the two aggregators, with Mypodder for my favorites and Itunes for video downloads and audio ones that update infrequently.

Aside from using Mypodder and Itunes, I’ve tried compiling lists for online “browser” listening. Digg has an okay podcast area, but lately I’m using iGoogle. I can direct any RSS feed to my Google account, and I end up with a whole panel of mp3 links. I use it for listening on the computer at work.

Here’s a giant list of podcasts that I check out on a semi-regular basis.

HORROR MOVIE NEWS, REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS

killer reviews

http://killerreviews.com/media/itunes_feed.xml

night of the living podcast

http://nightofthelivingpodcast.podomatic.com/rss2.xml

racks and razors

http://sweetsweetproduction.com/SSP/Racks%20and%20Razors%20Podcast/rss.xml

rue morgue radio

http://www.ruemorgueradio.com/podcasts/rss.xml

texas frightmare

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TexasFrightmareWeekend

the horror podcast

http://www.allaboutmedia.co.uk/horror/horrorpodcast.xml

***

ENTERTAINMENT

battlestar galactica

http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/podcast.xml

diggnation mp3

http://revision3.com/diggnation/feed/mp3

geekscape

http://feeds.feedburner.com/geekscape-audio

npr movies

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=1045

product of circadia

http://poc.graveworm.com/pocrss.xml

radio free wease

http://wease.com/radiofreewease.rss

real time with bill maher

http://www.hbo.com/apps/podcasts/podcast.xml?a=2

soundtrack.net

http://www.soundtrack.net/rss/podcast.rss

the official lost podcast

http://abc.go.com/primetime/greysanatomy/podcastRSS?feedPublishKey=3421

***

MUSIC

brain damage: the definitive pink floyd podcast

http://braindamage.libsyn.com/rss

they might be giants

http://www.tmbg.com/_media/_pod/podcast.xml

***

FILMMAKING BEHIND THE SCENES

animation podcast

http://www.animationpodcast.com/podcast.xml

creative screenwriting

http://feeds.feedburner.com/CreativeScreenwritingMagazine

film editing podcast

http://www.filmediting.com/film/Podcast/rss.xml

framed podcast

http://framedpodcast.com/?feed=rss2

kcrw’s the business

http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510023

kcrw’s the treatment

http://media.kcrw.com/podcast/show_itms/tt

sam and jim go to hollywood

http://samandjimgotohollywood.libsyn.com/rss

this week in media

http://thisweekinmedia.libsyn.com/rss

***

TECHNICAL

i should be writing

http://feeds.feedburner.com/IShouldBeWriting

media artist secrets

http://www.fmstudio.com/podcasts/rss2.xml

pandora music series

http://podcast.pandora.com/pandora/podcast

podcast 411

http://www.podcast411.com/feed.xml

radio leo: twit & associated podcasts

http://leoville.tv/podcasts/leo.xml

sound bytes

http://soundbytes.org/archives/podcastamatic/rss.xml

videogrunt

http://feeds.feedburner.com/videogrunt

***

VIDEO PODCAST SHOWS

ask a ninja

http://feeds.feedburner.com/askaninja

lynchland

http://www.liamlynch.net/podcast.php

tiki bar tv

http://tikibartv.com/feeds/itunes

totally rad show video

http://revision3.com/trs/feed/quicktime-large

Rochester Film Links

Mike — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:41:28 +0000

Here’s a collection of film related links for the Rochester, NY area. I’ll be updating this periodically.

PRODUCTION COMPANIES AND SERVICES

Animatus Studio: Fred Armstrong
Crystal Pix
Dreams Come True Productions
Discreet Charm Productions
D-Train Media: Derrick Petrush
D.V.D. Transfer Co.: Rick DiLuglio
Eggwork Productions: Matthew Ehlers
Envision Productions: Paul Tracy
Ethnoscope Film & Video: Pacho Lane
Hamilton AV
Kinsman Physics Productions: Ted Kinsman
Low Budget Pictures
Mad Dog Movies: Animation by Mike Boas
Stan Main: Chairperson for Rochester Movie Makers
Mammoth Production Packages, Inc.
Maslin Digital: Bryan Maslin
Master Builder Films
Media Transfer Service: John Schroth
Philrose Productions: John Vincent
Post Central
Powerhouse 27: Rochester’s New Sound Stage
Presentation Source
Rain Zone Productions: Sean Donnelly
Rochester Park Studios
SEVideo: wedding, event, and commercial productions
Trillium Films: Liz Lehmann
Video Propulsion
White Hot Films: Angelo Mancuso

MUSIC

Andy Knoll
Black Dog Recording Studios
Keith Handy

FEATURES AND SHORTS

The Alphabet Killer
American Harvest
Bird Hunters
CherryCrush
Drivers Wanted
Fury
Homicidez
The Last Experiment?
Lefthumb Productions – The Films of Paul Rapalee
The Muslims I Know
The Other Gods
Sleep Shift
Signs of the Time
Speed Hump Pictures: Shorts by Stan Main
Smoking Laws
A Voice From the Lantern

THEATERS

The Cinema
The George Eastman House: Dryden Theatre
The Little Theatre Society

FESTIVALS

Deaf Rochester Film Festival
ImageMovementSound Festival
ImageOut: The Rochester Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival
The Little Theatre: Emerging Filmmakers Series
Polish Film Festival
360 | 365 (formerly the High Falls Film Festival)
Rochester International Film Festival / Movies on a Shoestring
Rochester Jewish Film Festival
Rochester Native American Film Festival
Sprout Film Festival

FILM GROUPS

Friends of the Cinema
Rochester Audio Video Association
Rochester Film Lab
Rochester LoFILM
RochesterMovieMakers.org
SMPTE :: Rochester, NY

NEWS AND REVIEWS

City Newspaper article: Rochester’s local filmmaking scene
JayceLand’s Weekly Rochester Events
Rochester/Finger Lakes Film and Video Office

SCHOOLS AND INSTRUCTION

The Animation Workshop
RIT – School of Film and Animation

THIS PAGE LAST UPDATED: 06/25/09

The Other Gods on AWNtv

subterranea — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:40:49 +0000

The AWN’s media website has changed its name to Animation World Network Televeision, or AWNtv for short.

H.P. Lovecraft’s The Other Gods, which previously had a home in the “demented” area of the media site, has a new address at http://www.awntv.com/videos/the-other-gods

There’s plenty of other great independent animation at AWNtv.com, so head on over and check it out!

A horrifying day in Buffalo

Mike — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:11:39 +0000

March 27th was Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Day at the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival. John Vincent and I took a break from our busy lives in Rochester to check it out.

First off, I knew the venue was a killer one. I had been to the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda for a rock show recently, and it seemed like a great space for a film festival.

Turn-out was a little light at first, but keep in mind it was 11 AM on a Thursday. The first screenings consisted of short films. Here are a few stand-outs:

DISSOCIATIVE
A strange fairy tale about a girl who grows up in the wild, then takes Hollywood by storm when she emerges to make an art film. Some terrific photography and selective use of color. (That cave the girl calls home… isn’t that the original Bat-cave?)

EVERYDAY JOE
Joe is a social outcast with a sleep problem and the worst comb-over ever. When people around him start turning up dead, it’s up to Joe to solve the mystery and stop the murders.

SOUTHWESTERN ORANGE COUNTY VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS
An outrageous short with fun nickel and dime effects. A geeky kid who works at an amusement park is the only one who can stop a worldwide invasion. Great use of park locations and extras.

GLITCH
An amazingly dense sci-fi animated epic crammed into 10 minutes. Glitch recalls themes of identity seen in the Matrix and Philip K. Dick works, told in a professional 2D style. I wonder, did they use Toonboom Studio?

It was a pleasure meeting one of the festival head honchos, Greg Lamberson, again. Greg and I had crossed paths at Toronto’s Festival of Fear last summer, where I picked up the soundtrack album to his multimedia project, JOHNNY GRUESOME.

Later that afternoon, local effects artist David Gray gave a brief demonstration of his work. He’s worked on many regional low budget splatter films, including Johnny Gruesome. You can see more at grayeffects.com and aa-fx.com

Up on the second floor was the horror dealer area. There were tables set up for several local filmmakers, actors, festival guests, and vendors like Rotten Jack’s. John and I met Emil Novak of Buffalo Nickel Productions, who has a few projects in the works, namely BANSHEE and TESLA THE ACCUMULATOR. We talked make-up effects, Lovecraft films, and local production work.

After lunch, Greg Lamberson hosted a panel discussion with filmmakers Roy Frumkes and Rodrigo Gudino. Frumkes is best known for his involvement with Street Trash and the Stepfather films. His documentary on George Romero has a cult following all its own, the latest cut of which would screen later that day. Gudino is the founder of Rue Morgue Magazine and Rue Morgue Radio, which is enough to impress me. He’s recently been directing his own short films. The two filmmakers had plenty of stories to tell about production, screenings, and the film business.

Next up was a screening of Gudino’s THE DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE. This was the most accomplished short I saw that day. The production values, the acting, story, and out and out creep factor added up to a great film. DEMONOLOGY manages to be edgy without being sick for sick’s sake. I’m looking forward to seeing what Gudino does next.

Then Frumkes presented THE DEFINITIVE DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD. Over the years, Frumkes has periodically updated his documentary covering the career of George A. Romero. The last version was released with Anchor Bay’s Dawn of the Dead box set, but since then Romero has directed both Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. DEFINITIVE has some great behind-the-scenes footage from those two films, as well as many new interviews. The documentary should be released on DVD from Synapse Films later this year.

John and I were turning into pumkins at midnight, so our last screening was of the Herschell Gordon Lewis splatter classic, TWO THOUSAND MANIACS. John kept shaking his head, saying “I can’t believe I’m going to watch Two Thousand Maniacs,” but I had never seen it before. H. G. Lewis is one of those iconic figures that I know all about from books and interviews, but I haven’t managed to see much of his work. So how was the movie? Shocking and low brow, but tons of fun. How can you not like a movie so chock full of banjo music? Like everything else screened that day, it was shown from DVD. That’s disappointing, but I suspect film prints of Lewis’ films are hard to come by. Herschell himself was in attendance to receive a lifetime achievement award. He’s a smart and funny guy, and I managed to record a short interview with him for the MDM podcast. (Watch for it in episode 7.)

All in all, a good day, followed by a nasty drive home in a blizzard. (I’ve got to stop going on road trips in late March!)

The MDM Podcast hits iTunes

Mike — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:39:11 +0000

We’re legit! Not only do we have 4 audio episodes and 2 video supplementals under our belt, but The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast now has a listing on iTunes.

To subscribe (for free!) through the shiny Apple interface, click HERE.

Our latest episodes address music rights, getting started in the business, the basics of special make-up effects, and the advantages of shooting with the Panasonic HVX200.

Visit http://www.maddogmovies.com/podcast for show notes and more.

Amazing Box Office Receipts Graph

Mike — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:55:39 +0000

Over at the NY Times website, there’s an incredible demonstration of box office trends. It’s an interactive flash graph of every(?) movie from 1986 through 2007.

Rollover the peaks and valleys to see how much cash each movie made. If you move the slider at the bottom, you can go back all the way to 1986. I wonder how many films are listed? Hundreds?

Click the pic below:

Rock the Sansa

Mike — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:00:36 +0000

I’ve been using the 4 gig Sansa e260 from Sandisk for a couple months now, and color me satisfied.

Pros:

Long battery life (15-19 hours?) and easy to charge using USB
I can read the titles and authors of podcasts now! No more renaming files to 6 digits or less.
Compact and light
Easy to use togwheel and navigation screen
“Pause” function lets me shut it down and come back later at the same point
Fast forward and rewind easier to use than my last player
Records voice
Has FM radio, which it also records
When formatted properly, the Sansa can act as an external hard drive.

Cons:

~~There’s no way to reset after a crash. It’s only happened a couple times, but I’ve had to let the battery run down, charge it, then start it up.~~ I’ve discovered that if you hold the menu button down for 10-20 seconds, the Sansa will reboot.
The buttons are so small, you need to use the tip of your finger to press them.
The screen is really too small to use the video or picture functions much. More of a novelty than anything else.
The radio presets should be easier to access.
Not much playlist capability. Podcasts and music end up mixed up together. Fortunately, I use it for podcasts almost exclusively.
I thought my Sandisk flashcard would be compatible, but the card slot is only for MICRO cards.

Overall, worth the $130 I paid for it (through Amazon, if you’re interested).

The Launch of the Mad Dog Movies Podcast

Mike — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:10:01 +0000

After many months of John Vincent and I saying “We should do a podcast,” we finally got our act together, sat down, and recorded ourselves talking shop.

The first episodes of The Mad Dog Movie Podcast are online at http://www.maddogmovies.com/podcast

The goal is to offer a behind-the-scenes look at independent filmmaking. We’ll talk about issues relating to our own movie production, but also invite guests (and listeners) to take part in the discussion.

Those interested can listen online or subscribe through podcatching software like iTunes.

So come join the fun! If you like what you hear or have specific questions, write us at feedback(AT)maddogmovies.com

Tom Sullivan reviews The Other Gods

subterranea — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:05:35 +0000

There’s a new feature over at Unfilmable.com (the world’s greatest news site for Lovecraftian films). In the upcoming months, guest writer Tom Sullivan will be sharing his “Reviews of the Infinite Abyss.” I’m proud to say THE OTHER GODS is the subject of his first review.

Here’s a sampling of what Mr. Sullivan had to say:

“The story is an accurate and unsettling warning about tempting the Gods, and although short like the original story, it is just as effective. When Barzai gazes upon the face of Nyarlathotep, Rhodes gives us a psychedelic experience generations ahead of his time.”

For the entire review, click here.

Tom Sullivan is an artist whose otherworldly paintings have been published in a number of H.P. Lovecraft publications. I first came to know him as the designer of “The Book of the Dead” from the Evil Dead series. It’s an honor to be reviewed by Mr. Sullivan, as the Evil Dead movies were my gateway into the world of Lovecraft.

For future reviews, keep an eye on the news section at http://www.unfilmable.com

World’s Worst Photos from Festival of Fear

Mike — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:58:06 +0000

This past weekend I visited Toronto’s Rue Morgue Festival of Fear. The event drew a huge number of vendors and fans — definitely the biggest comic-con type event I’ve attended. I spent a lot of money and witnessed a lot of fan adulation. It was a pretty good time, though I think in the future I should shift my focus to film festivals rather than fan conventions like this one. I’m interested in promoting my film projects and meeting other indie artists, not getting autographs from Malcolm McDowell and Jonathan Frakes.

Looking through my photos is kind of depressing. I didn’t take a lot, but the ones I did take are mostly blurry and too dim. Someday I’ll have to get a proper camera.

Here’s a few (barely) presentable snaps. I’ll have a proper report of all the folks I met in a future blog.

Security was tight, and the door police didn’t always speak english.

Want to wait in line for an autograph? No, neither did I. Actually, I’m not an autograph hound anyway. Let everyone else waste time in line — I’ve got panels to attend!

Some vendors stacked their inventory high. The main room was like a big, dimly lit warehouse. There were plenty of places to buy t-shirts and videos, but mostly things you can also buy online.

Italian director Dario Argento almost made sense. When he ran out of english, he grunted a lot. The audience seemed to understand. Moderator Chris Alexander managed to break in and ask a new question every ten minutes or so.

Dario loves everybody.

Charisma Carpenter (Buffy, Angel, Veronica Mars) was a bit stunned when she first took the stage.

When the moderator said “Everyone c’mon up and take your pictures now,” the response was downright frightening.

Friday night’s screening of Demons 2 was at The Royal, which looked suitably old school.

I guess it’s undergoing renovation. There were several holes like this with dangling wires. I felt right at home. Once inside, I was impressed with the lush seats and curtains. Sorry, no picture, as it was just too darn dark.

One of my first stops was at the sideshow of Fiendish Curiosities. Does that skull have three eye sockets?

Cyclops kitty.

The head of a yeti.

The remains of a winged baphomet. Past owners supposedly include Aleister Crowley and H.P. Lovecraft!

The Fan Expo was for fans of sci-fi, anime, video games, and comics, not just horor. The 501st is a group of Star Wars fans who love to show off their costumes.

Someday I’ll have to finish my own Tusken Raider outfit.

A blurry clone trooper becomes a piece of abstract art.

Who knew that there’d be so many Reboot fans dressed up? Check out the Fong!

Sci-Fi worth watching

Mike — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:57:20 +0000

I’m looking ahead at the Sci-Fi channel’s Halloween movie schedule. They’ve got a few good movies and a few so-bad-they’re-good ones.

DAGON tues Oct 23 3:30 pm
Stuart Gordon’s fish-fest might be edited too much for broadcast, but it’s worth checking out. An over-the-top adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, filmed in Spain through Fantastic Factory.

DEAD & BREAKFAST thurs Oct 25 3:00 am
Haven’t seen this one yet, but heard good things about this comedy/slasher a couple years ago.

FRANKENFISH thurs Oct 25 11:00 am
Slow at first, but fun once the fish start munching. Here’s Scott Foy’s review: http://schlocktoberfest.com/dc_review_archives/foy_DCfrankenfish.html

DARKNESS friday Oct 26 9:00 am
Another Fantastic Factory production, this one starring Anna Pacquin. Not the most logical story, but well shot and edited.

KING OF THE LOST WORLD sat Oct 27 1:00 PM
Haven’t seen it yet, but might be fall under the so-bad-it’s-good category. Foy’s review: http://schlocktoberfest.com/dc_review_archives/foy_DCkinglost.html

SASQUATCH MOUNTAIN sat Oct 27 3:00 pm
Not to be confused with SASQUATCH, which also starred Lance Henriksen. This is the low budget equivalent of From Dusk Till Dawn, only here the vampires are swapped out with Bigfoot. It’s okay, but not great.

ABOMINABLE sat Oct 27 7:00 pm
The best Lance Henriksen Bigfoot movie yet (actually, he only has a small role). This has a REAR WINDOW plot about a man in a wheelchair trying to warn his neighbors about a killer Skunk Ape. Great monster effects.

SKELETON MAN sun Oct 28 3:00 am
Unspeakably bad. Skeletor rides around a forest killing military types. You have to see it to believe it. Foy’s review: http://schlocktoberfest.com/dc_review_archives/foy_DCskeletonman.html

One more programming note: Friday, Oct 26th, is zombie day on Turner Classic Movies! Beginning at 12:15 pm:

Voodoo Island (1957)
Zombies On Broadway (1945)
King Of The Zombies (1941)
Revenge Of The Zombies (1943)
Zombies of Mora Tau (1957)
White Zombie (1932)

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Promo

subterranea — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:49:10 +0000

Here’s a 30 second piece I put together for the 2007 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. I won’t be attending this year, but I’ll be represented by this piece, which will most likely play before a screening or two.

The morph animation was done pen and ink. The room construction and camera moves were done in After Effects. Music is by Mars of deadhousemusic.com

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival Promo 2007 from Mike Boas on Vimeo.

Lovecraft night at the Eerie Horror Film Festival

subterranea — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 21:20:48 +0000

I’m pleased to announce H.P. Lovecraft’s The Other Gods will be screening at the 2007 Eerie Horror Film Festival. Come out to the Erie Playhouse October 11 at 6:30 PM, when The Other Gods will play ahead of the new Lovecraft inspired feature, Cthulhu.

For more a complete list of films playing, visit http://www.eeriehorrorfilmfestival.com

To see a trailer of Cthulhu, visit http://www.cthulhuthemovie.com/

The Other Gods are Demented

subterranea — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 01:20:37 +0000

“H.P. Lovecraft’s The Other Gods” is now featured on Animation World Network’s “That’s Demented” channel. AWN is a website catering to animation artists and fans worldwide, and I’m happy to be a part of their website.

The AWN Media Center is a new, comprehensive online video portal devoted exclusively to animation and showcasing the work of independent filmmakers from all over the world . When I submitted “The Other Gods,” I wasn’t sure what category it would fall under. “That’s Demented” seems like a good match.

To see mine and other “freaky, fun, and frightening flicks,” visit http://media.awn.com/popup/thats-demented

Rochester Animator Grins Like a Maniac

Mike — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:00:11 +0000

Look, I’m famous!

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by Susie Hume of the Rochester Insider. She had run across the Mad Dog Movies MySpace page and wanted to do a profile of me in the August 31 issue.

So I invited Susie to come by Animatus and ask me 20 questions, give or take. Actually, I tend to ramble, especially when talking about my various projects. She probably had enough material for an unauthorized biography by the time she left.

As a follow-up, photographer Matt Wittmeyer carted in all his various lights and tripods to get a picture. Something about my face suggested “fisheye lens,” so there you go. It’s funny, my brother keeps bugging me for a serious photo for his family tree project. Oh well — this ain’t it.

Click here to read the whole article.

The Rochester Insider is a publication of Gannett Rochester Newspapers.

Youtube upload specs

Mike — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:57:33 +0000

NOTE: I’ve updated this post a couple times. See my latest notes at the bottom.

I’m often asked how to optimize videos for websites like Youtube or Myspace. The eternal struggle is between quality and file size. My first uploads were Windows Media (WMV) files. Lately, I’ve been using Quicktime.

My edit program of choice is Adobe Premiere, but I don’t trust Premiere to do a good job with Quicktime compression. Quicktime Pro does it right because that’s what it’s designed for. For $30, you can buy a registration key from Apple to unlock the editing functions of Quicktime.

I really like the IPOD export settings from QT Pro. Here’s how to take advantage of them.

OPTION “A”

1) In Premiere, go to “export movie.” Choose Quicktime (MOV) as your format. Set the pixel ratio to square with an image size of 320 x 240 pixels. You want to delay compression until the last step, so
choose the Animation codec and set the quality to “best.”

2) Your resulting MOV will still be too large for Youtube, which has a 100mb size limit for uploads. Open the MOV in Quicktime, and go to “export.” One of the settings for export is simply labled “ipod.” These settings are locked by the software developers, so you can’t adjust them at all. I presume that the mystery compression utilizes the much-loved H264 codec.

Your resulting M4V file should look great and have a suitably small file size. There may be some video sites that won’t accept M4V, but Youtube likes ‘em just fine. Youtube will recompress your uploaded file as an FLV (or H264 for Iphone users, although this is a new development).

OPTION “B”

Let’s say you’re not working from a Premiere project, but from an AVI file with DV compression. Can you still use Quicktime Pro and the Ipod settings? Yes, but it requires an interim render.

1) Pull the AVI through Quicktime and render a 320 x 240 uncompressed Quicktime (Animation codec set to best) to correct the pixel ratio.

3) Open the resulting MOV in Quicktime and render again using the Ipod compression settings.

Rendering the Ipod file directly from the DV AVI is a bad idea. The Ipod settings don’t know what to do with the DV file’s rectangular pixels, and you end up with a stretched image.

OPTION “C”

Youtube’s actual Flash interface is 400 x 300 pixels, so if your file is 320 x 240, it will be blown up a bit during playback.

If you don’t like this loss of resolution, you can set your first export as 400 x 300 before running it through Quicktime. The problem? Your final file size will be significantly larger. Keep in mind that your typical Youtube viewer may not appreciate longer download times.

***

If anyone has additional tips or corrections, feel free to comment below. I’ll be updating this post if necessary.

***
UPDATE 09/18/07

It’s only been a couple months, but I think I have a more streamlined approach.

I believe the mysterious Ipod settings are really the same as H264 set to “high.” Not best, which is huge, but a rung below that.

So the other day I tried exporting a 400 pixel wide MOV from Premiere with H264 set to 75%. (Premiere doesn’t have medium, high, or best.) The resulting file looked pretty good and played nice on Youtube.

***
UPDATE 06/18/08

So, what’s the problem with exporting H264 compressed files directly from Premiere? No AAC compression option for the audio. AND no “Prepare for Pnternet Streaming.”
I’m back to rendering out of Premiere with uncompressed audio with the video Animation codec at best.

In Quicktime Pro, I’ve been pretty satisfied exporting 400×300 MOV’s with H264 compression set to medium.

Twisted Television: Scenes from Clicker Clatter

Mike — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 05:37:06 +0000

Writer/Director Ben Radford gave me the go-ahead to put some scenes from Clicker Clatter online. You can check them out at Youtube:

PLAY SCENES FROM CLICKER CLATTER

Clicker Clatter is an animated short that exposes television and TV journalism for the wasteland that it is. From scare-of-the-week programming to Katie Couric’s stupid interview questions, inane drug ads, randy rhinos, “boob terrorism,” and the frustration of scrambled porn, nothing is safe in this sharp satire! Mike Reiss, writer/producer for The Simpsons, calls Clicker Clatter “smart, funny, and beautifully executed.”

I served as animation supervisor on this cartoon short. Flash and After Effects work was produced by the artists of Animatus Studio, with character designs by Adam English and Brian Oakes.

Ben is currently sending the short out to film festivals. You can read more about it on his website at radfordbooks.com

The next VOD model

Mike — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:00:54 +0000

When YouTube hit, everything changed. Now there are a thousand video sites where you can watch 400×300 pixel videos of your pets and favorite bootlegged moments from Family Guy.

What’s next? JOOST is on the horizon, designed to bring high-end content and high resolution video. They’ve got deals with Fox, Sony, and Time Warner. That might be hard for the indie filmmaker to break into.

Today I uploaded a short to VUZE, (formerly ZUDEO), an on-demand service from Azureus. Using VUZE requires downloading a special browser. There’s a ton of content, from movie trailers to A&E programs and the sci-fi show Red Dwarf. I believe the content is downloaded to your computer using bit-torrent, but I’m not sure yet.

To download the full version visit vuze.com

Another site I’ve been toying with is DOVETAIL, which is aimed at independents. Again, you need to install a special program.

What worries me is that none of these is available in your standard browser. It will take a lot of persuading to get the bulk of mainstream users to download a new program.

It could happen — just look at iTunes. That interface had the advantage of being tied into the Mac operating system and the popular Quicktime player, though.

Writing Lake Midnight

Mike — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:05:09 +0000

I just finished Draft 06 of Lake Midnight, a film I’m working on with John Vincent of Philrose Productions. This is the first time I’ve collaborated on a feature script, and it took some sweat to figure out how to do it.

We began with the intention of doing a short film. We had a good location, a fun story idea, and a good supply of 16mm film at our disposal. For about a week, the project was called Lovecraft’s Typewriter, as the writer H.P. Lovecraft was referenced directly in the story. At some point, our short morphed into a feature project. Our tale of a writer going mad would become a writer caught in a time loop (and going mad). The short could stand as the first cycle of time in the feature.

It was always John’s story. During the brainstorming process, John and I would have meetings where I would take notes furiously. I’d go off and try to write some scenes. Inevitably, by the time I’d get them back to John for approval, he’d already come up with new ideas that contradicted what I just wrote!

Eventually, John took the bones of our original short film script and expanded on it. When John writes, he likes to begin with page one and push through until the end. He would call me up and say “I’m on page 60. Things are going good. Now we need a good action sequence for the end.”

Meanwhile, I was taking his work and chopping it up into pieces, trying to flop things around so they made sense to me. I’m desperate to get the “cool scenes” to adhere to a sort of logic. I have to believe that everything in the film happens for a reason, so I do tons of research to back up the backstory. I get ideas from everywhere — when I’m writing, it seems everything I read relates to the script somehow. Some of influences on this script: the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Dashiell Hammett, and other pulp writers; stories of North American lake monsters; references on Babylonian and Greek mythology; and paranormal stories from “Weird U.S.”

I see a script as a jigsaw puzzle, so when John would ask me what page I was up to, I couldn’t answer. I didn’t start at the beginning, I’ve got holes all over the place. How can I have a page count? A few months ago, I felt like it was never going to come together. I tried to break it down into acts, but the script refused to behave for me.

Once John finished his version, I looked at what he wrote and saw it more objectively. It was more coherent than I had expected, considering the mind-warp nature of the story. It needed work, but at least I could pinpoint what needed fixing without tearing it to shreds.

In the last few weeks, I’ve built on his framework. I swapped a few scenes around, brought in some old dialogue from my days of noodling, and added crucial exposition and character details to tie our various story points together. John has been hands off, encouraging me to put in everything I think the script needs.

The next step? We’ll be taking suggestions from an objective third party. Then we’ll undoubtedly tear the whole thing apart again.