Taking a Night Off

Well, I think I've finished Scene 5, the fainting scene. We'll see what happens when I look back at the renders this evening. I had to stop the rendering and shut down my PC at 3AM last night after waking up to a severe lightning storm; I always unplug the PC during lightning storms, just in case. Got it started back up again this morning, so it should be done when I get home.

I don't really plan on working on the movie tonight. I have to transfer the trailer and two of the commercials to DVD for Grasshopper's (of "Robot-Ussin" Fame) Urban 2 Suburban Film Festival, which takes place this Sunday. Then I'll be forced to sit on the sofa, drink beer, and watch a movie, and possibly an episode of "The Greatest American Hero".

If I don't take a night off here and there, I'll burn out, just like this kid I knew in high school did. He worked really hard and got straight-A's in our AP classes, and then one day he had a nervous breakdown and had to leave school for about three months. When he came back he was heavily medicated, and was never quite the same. Last I heard he was working at a gas station. So, I guess the point of the story is that unless I take a break now and then, I'll end up working at a gas station. Yep.

--

Here is the next set of color correction pictures. This is a frame grab of Alexander (played by Scott P. Graham) from the final scene in "Corporate Zombie".

Before

After

We shot this scene in an office building with the typical fluorescent lights overhead. Since it was impractical for us to replace all of the bulbs in the office, we ended up with a green tinge in most of the shots. Frankly, the "before" shot looks like crap. It's a sickly green and is also underexposed. So I fixed the green with the DFT 55mm Fluorescent plugin, adjusted the levels to correct the exposure, added diffusion, letterboxed it, and applied my "two-strip technicolor" recipe to it. And now it looks nice.

--

Vote for "Robot-Ussin", directed by Nikc Miller of Better Hollywood Productions. His movie (which Tracey and I helped out with) is one of 5 finalists out of over 1,000 entries. If they win, the film will screen at the SXSW Festival in Austin, which is one of the bigger festivals in the US. Nikc helped out a lot with "Livelihood", filming zombie commercials, recording some music, and acting as "Buckets" in the Rock Zombie section. Whenever he gets into a festival, he always mentions us in his interviews and Q&A's. So a vote for him is a vote for "Livelihood"!

Ryan

--

Addendum:

It seems that the aforementioned death of Francis Xavier was a hoax, used to promote his horror TV series that was screening at The Charles. I'm all for new, exciting, and daring publicity stunts, but this seems like an awfully cheap and cruel way to get people to attend your screening.

Apparently, he has a history of these sorts of publicity stunts. I have to say that I agree with the author of the linked page. When your publicity stunt overshadows your movie, that's bad, especially if people react negatively to your stunt. All press is not good press, and there are a lot of people who will judge a film based on publicity unrelated to the content of the film. Just look at the "Bennifer" fiasco. I think "Gigli" tanked solely because of that negative publicity (it was a decent film, whereas I'm pretty sure "Jersey Girl" tanked because it sucked). And I'm sure Tom Cruise also isn't helping his box office by acting like a dipshit.

What I do know is that this stunt is quite a turn-off for me, both as a filmmaker and as a potential ticket buyer. My opinion of Francis, and consequently of his films, has dropped quite a few notches.

Ryan