Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Holy cow! It’s March! That means our world premiere screening is only 5 weeks away from this Saturday. Wow…
We’re busily preparing. We had a promo meeting this week and came up with some cool and unusual ideas for promotion. We’re setting those in motion now, and will involve street-theatre-type stuff, a “zombie walk,” fake news coverage, Spookt Soda (featured in the movie) campaigns and more. We’re making it a HUGE event. It’s gonna be a blast!
Post work on the actual film continues. I’m STILL messing with Looks filters, and Sergio is making headway on audio editing and mixing. He’s in Albuquerque this week, so he’ll get some ADR work with Guy done while he’s there. Perfect!
I will be featured in an article in Kansas magazine next month, and will be traveling to Lawrence for a photo shoot on March 20, so while I’m there, I’ll check in with Sergio, take a look at stuff and do some of my own ADR work. Everything is working out!
Marching on,
-r.
Posted in The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction, zombies | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
We are confirmed to have our premiere screening of “The Dead Can’t Dance” at 7:30 p.m. here in Wichita on Saturday, April 10, at the beautiful Orpheum Theatre. It’s being presented by the Orpheum’s Film Series and the Tallgrass Film Festival.
Very exciting news, I’m stoked! And I’m very thrilled to be back at the Orpheum, we had phenomenal screenings of my first two movies there, so this should be a blast, as well. Look for heavy promotion to kick in fast. Things are gonna get movin’!
Can’t wait to share the film with everyone. It’d be great if some people came dressed as zombies! (But we don’t want to clean up any fake blood.) More info to come…
-r.
Posted in Film festivals, The Dead Can't Dance, zombies | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
Tags: The Dead Can't Dance official key art
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Monday, January 11th, 2010
I had a nice holiday and New Year’s, and spent some much, much needed time away from “The Dead Can’t Dance.”
It just completely consumed me, and that wasn’t healthy. I needed to get the first cut out, and I set an ambitious deadline for myself. I just can’t explain it. I had to get it out, the festival deadline was really just secondary. Wade mentioned that I needed to just take my time, that there are other festivals. I know that, and while it created insane stress, it had to be that deadline to make it real. Sure, thousands of others are vying to get into the festival. But you can’t get in unless you try.
And I think the deadline was also like closure, in a weird way. I had been working on the film non-stop throughout the whole year. And I think I needed to feel like it was worth it, to have something to show for it. Sure I could just edit every now and then, but It’s kind of like writing, if you don’t have an ending in mind, you’ll just keep writing and writing, and go on and on.
So I spent a few weeks just letting the film sit, and I didn’t look at one frame. And since I didn’t have much time throughout the year as I normally do to see movies, I tried to catch up on films I missed before compiling my top 10 list of 2009 for my film column.
It was really inspiring to see lots of beautiful work, and made me anxious to get back to my film, which is good. But I still made myself wait a bit.
Until this past weekend, and I must say it felt fantastic to dig back in again. It was kind of like visiting old friends. And going back in with fresh eyes was amazingly helpful. I was able to tighten up some sections that were bothering me, and I’ve shaved 4 minutes from the first act, which it desperately needed (that doesn’t sound like it much, but believe me, that’s a lot). Also doing a little prelim sound work before I turn it over to our sound designer, but I”ll let him handle the artistry of it.
Still no festival news, but that’s a good thing. No news is good news. Otherwise, we have our next few months pretty much planned out with festivals we want to submit to, and it kicks off with a bang in February, then we’ll start sending this baby out and see who bites. Hopefully someone.
But I feel really good about “The Dead Can’t Dance,” again. Especially after the break and working on it more. It’s leaner. It’s fun. I hope it’s original. And I hope it connects with audiences on different levels. We’ll just have to wait and see.
But much more work in store for now. As soon as I get picture locked with final color treatment and correction, I have to turn to PR duties. I need to redesign the Web site, recut a new trailer, post pictures and upload a press kit to the festival submission service (which, by the way, whoever invented Withoutabox.com, the Web site that specializes in festival submissions, is a genius. You will get to know it well when you submit your film to festivals).
I think it’s going to be a good year.
Here’s to the new journey — whatever it holds in store,
-r.
Posted in Inspiration, Picture editing, The Dead Can't Dance, postproduction, zombies | 1 Comment »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Thank you for all your support and kindness throughout the year. Please have a safe holiday, and I wish you nothing but peace and good will.
And, and zombies, too.
-r.
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Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
I honestly can’t believe it’s November!! Oh, wait. DECEMBER??!!!
I mean, really, where has the time gone? “The Dead Can’t Dance” has literally consumed a year of my life at this point, actually more (if you count writing the script, which I do). I knew production would make the time go by fast, but this is ridiculous!
I’m still chipping away at the rough cut. I got all the radio announcer parts laid in last night, and I love it! We did some callbacks casting before we finally settled on our friend Michael “Archie” Archibold, and it was a perfect choice. He has a great radio voice and great snarkiness to his delivery. They are really some very funny parts.
I need to get a couple of voiceovers from TJ, but that might have to wait until early next week, as he just had surgery today to remove a hernia (thank goodness - I mean to provide him some relief). And I need to do some foley work to fix some audio gaps on a zombie attack.
And one big hurdle left is finding some powwow music I can use. We thought we had something all set up, but now that fell through. I may just have to use something temporarily then add in something else later to make our deadline next week.
Other than that, it’s all pretty much there. Tightened up some stuff, and even with adding the radio bits, we’re still clocking in at about 1:45. Not bad. I do want to tighten it up just a bit more, though, and once we get the powwow music sequences in, that will add probably another 3 or 4 minutes, plus end credits.
Now I’m rethinking the title sequence just a little. I want to try a radically different approach than what I have now just to try it. I don’t think I’ll like it, but I just want to try it.
But we’re getting closer, peeps. Something else I can’t believe!
Have a great December,
-r.
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