Archive for the “News” Category

Episode 2, “Attack of the Cast” is now online!

You can view this, and Episode, on the new site www.fanfilmtheseries.com.

Finally! It’s Here! Fan Film The Series has finally launched, along with its new website.

The NeoZAZ.com original production is now on-line.

After all the filming, editing, and numerous troubles with… ah, forget all that. Just CLICK HERE.

Months ago when I first pulled down the footage from our PA shoot, I dabbled breifly in color correction with a couple of the shots I brought back with me.

Now that we’re coming into the home stretch of “Fan Film The Movie” it’s time to pay a little more attention on these details to wrap everything up.

After a little time and focus, I was able to “fix” a couple of shots where we accidentally left the in camera “indoor shot” filter on when we moved outside.

Here’s some quick screen caps of the results (left side before, right side after):

Man, I love After Effects!

I happy to share the final poster for “Fan Film The Movie”.

You’ll probably notice it’s a bit of a departure from the “Star Wars” styles I’ve been working on up until now, long story short I didn’t want all the marketing material to look like “Fan Film” is an actual Star Wars Fan Film. I think this conveys the core elements pretty well: Star Wars, Homemade Movie Making, and low budget.

Well, here’s the announcement everyone probably expected:

The release date for “Fan Film The Series” has been pushed back for Dec 19th to Jan 2nd 2009.

There’s a handful of reason for this, but I’ll spare everyone the boring details. The main thing to relay is that a big reason for this move is to free up more time to final edit the Film Festival version the best it can possibly be done in time for the Sunscreen Film Festival submission dead line of Dec 31st.

And, really, no other reason other than time factors – everything is coming out great. Everything is coming out better than expected. We’re not tinkering with any kind of creative edits to hide/fix/re-arrange anything. Basically, we have a great series coming up and the editing is taking longer than planned to showcase this great thing we have in its best possible light.

David Smith met up with Dave Fox and Chris Irons to film the one last remaining elusive Pennsylvania scene.

The reason behind its elusiveness was due to the fact that I was running the camera the first time we “shot” that scene in August. Apparently the large green circle with the word “REC” and the large red circle with the word “STOPPED” is not large nor green or red enough for me to notice if the camera is actually recording or not. So yes, I didn’t hit record the first time. I did manage to film the moments before and after that didn’t have anything to do with the movie or series if that counts for anything.

This is the primary reason I write and rough cut the projects. I leave the things that need the attention span longer than that of a gnat to David.

So once again, thanks to Everyone – David, Dave, Chris, Karen, Gregg, John, Sunday, Steve, and my Parents Bill and Jackie for finally making the PA portion of “Fan Film the Series” and “Fan Film the Movie” a 100%, no doubt, in the can, send it to print, wrap!

Well, I guess that’s a misleading headline, since this post is actually the announcement. So I guess it should have said “Release Date to be announced in the next few sentences.” Or I guess it could have said “Release Date Announced, see below”. Or, just “Release Date” now that I think of it.

What was I saying again?

Oh, right – the release date.

The release as of this post for the first episode of “Fan Film The Series” is December 19th, 2008.

Everything’s on track to hit that date, and actually currently on track to be done before then, knock on wood.

There may even be time to a new trailer between now and then with the new footage and re-shoots, but time will tell on that one.

When the release happens, which should be December 19th as earlier stated, this blog will re-direct to its new home at www.fanfilmtheseries.com. Feel free to visit it now if you’d like, it has the trailer if you haven’t seen it already. We’re also toying with some QuickTime H264 codec encoding. The current trailer is our first attempt so the files a bit large. We have high hopes of improving the quality/size ratio soon.

After yet another extremely productive weekend in PA, the Pennsylvania re-shoots are in the can (oh, okay, there’s 2 teeny tiny scenes yet to be done, but they’ll be filmed and forwarded before I’m done editing what I brought back, so let’s not count those).

Re-writing these scenes thanks to my broken ankle went down to the wire. I wrote one scene on a note pad in the airport, David Smith came up with one scene while we were viewing the edited footage from the last shoot, and David, Chris Irons, and Dave Fox wondered into the woods on Saturday and improvised a scene that came out better than anything that could have been scripted.

Now all that leaves is the final Florida filming. Previously, we were awaiting my wife’s schedule to clear to shoot. As Murphy’s law would have it, her schedule is back to normal, and now we’re patiently waiting for my ankle to heal.

While I wait, it gives me time to figure out exactly what to do and what not to do in terms of releasing this monster project that’s starting to take on a life of its own.

Right, here’s the plan – though I expect it to change in the near future if not by the end of the day:

Fan Film: The Movie – edited and released and submitted to…

Fan Film: The Series – Edited and release a new episode each week for 6 weeks on this site (which there is a new site waiting on deck for these release, BTW)… These episodes will have additional scenes, extended footage, and episode specific special effects scenes that won’t be in the movie version. Each week we hope to have one of the actors from the project as a guest on the our podCast “The D-1-3 Show” to talk about that busy weekend.

Steve Bost’s Inside the Actor’s Cabin – Edited and released on this site.

Last but not least, in the ream of “Deleted Magic”, “Building Empire”, and “Return to Jedi”, I may put together a “Fan Film – Way Too Much Information Edition” DVD image with alternate takes, cut scenes, comments, etc and host a bit torrent for download.

But before the “Too Much Info” DVD, and after the series release, David and I will be back to concentrating on his solo project “Thacos Last Stand”.

We may even possibly film a sequel to 2:40 next month, but don’t hold your breath.

Actor, Playwright, and Stand-up Comic Steven Bost lent his time and talent this weekend in filming an impromptu “Inside the Actor’s Studio” parody with the “Fan Film The Series” actors.

Chris Irons, Matt Hunsworth, Dave Fox, and Karen Hunsworth were in the audience as the actors while David Smith stood behind the camera capturing it all for a future featurette following the release of Fan Film.

Thanks again Steve, you were fantastic.

Visit Steve’s website at: stevenbost.com

The Sunscreen Film Festival in Clearwater/Tampa Florida posted their submission form for the 2009 Festival this month.

Oddly enough, no Fan Film category like last year. Hmmm. Dang, guess I can’t use that whole 40 seconds of Star Wars music I put in the opening.

Gotta keep editing – only faster.

Damn you locust!