austin-bound

I have hinted about it in previous posts, but now it's official. We are moving to Austin. Leah has landed a job as an animator on A SCANNER DARKLY (trailer) which is a feature-length adaptation of the famous Philip K. Dick novel. It's directed by Richard Linklater and animated by the animation studio that did the animation for WAKING LIFE.

What does this mean? She is moving right away and I will be closing up shop here and wrapping up SEX MACHINE. Shogo and I are planning one more day of exteriors and inserts so that means I will be calling a few of you cast members very soon. I am also planning to shoot OPEN WINDOW here in order to meet the July deadline.

As far as long-term plans, this is only going to accelerate what we have planned. Bigger and better movies are on the way.

micro-clip #1

Making great progress on editing and wanted to share a shot with you. I really love the shot where Claire sets down the bottle and then John knocks down the pins.

Sex Machine micro-clip >> Bowling after hours

This is a tiny clip. But if you like it, I will post more.

Looking at this footage got me reminiscing. This is the first day we shot with John Howell who had been busy jetsetting. His bandages look awful in this scene, so I have to cut around any of his close-ups. This is the first time we did it and he looks more like a toilet-papered mummy than what I envisioned. But in the wide shot it looks fine.

Also, at the opposite end of the bowling alley was an inner city day care. They showed up just as we started rolling. It made for quite an interesting day.

Sex Machine - The Animated Movie!

Just kidding. These are some frames from SEX MACHINE illustrated in the style of WAKING LIFE. Leah did them to test out her Wacom tablet before heading to her interview for a new animated film being produced in Austin. Leah also has a new website at leahsharpe.com. Yes, the past few weeks have been very busy.

open window

Officially, my next project is called OPEN WINDOW. It's written by Shogo and is part of a collaborative project he is putting together. I am very excited about this one. It's a short segment that is part of a larger work. He asked me for three elements to include in the script and he banged it out over night. I am really excited to direct it.

Also, by including the three elements, this will be a good test for the SKELETON CITY project. This subconsciously shares a lot of themes that will pop up in that movie, primarily sweet poltergeist love. This is a cute movie which kind of comes to a relief. I am kind of getting weary of brutality in movies. I think all of the violence in SEX MACHINE is justified by the story, but spending so much time with it has become a little tedious.

This is a quick turnaround project with a set of Dogme type rules that must be adhered to. One of them is that I only have 2 shooting days and it has to be 7 minutes long. Shogo may want to change the title to make it work better with the overall project, but I kind of like it.

More details coming soon.

tedium

I am going to update a lot more frequently whether you like it or not. Basically, I am in the final tedious, excruciating phase of editing and I'm going to use this as an outlet. The thing with any editing project is that it is really easy and fun for the first 75% of the project. The final 25% is excruciating... a frame here... a frame there... doubt ... uncertainty ... a panicked sense that this project has gone on way too long and it sucks now anyway, so am I just wasting my time? ... oh, wait, this is pretty cool... i love this movie... this is fun... cut another frame... maybe I should lose this whole scene...

Right now I'm cutting a conversation between Frank and Claire at the bowling alley. The funny thing is that we used this scene as sides for the auditions etc. so I have lived with it for a long time. I think it is working pretty well.

The trees outside are starting to get green and the weather is very nice. I am going to grab a few exteriors, inserts, and flashback shots an a week or so. I will keep shooting until this movie screens in August. Crazy? You better believe it!

travel, writing, etc.

I've been in Austin for the last few days on a last-minute unplanned road trip. I will go into details later as to why I was there later, but I really enjoyed the short amount of time I was there. Of all the cities I have been to, Austin seems like the ultimate place for hardcore cinephiles. The fact that one theater has a weekly Saturday matinee screening of Takashi Miike movies should give you some kind of idea of what we're talking about.

I have been so focused on work for the past few weeks that it was good to get some fresh scenery and blow the cobwebs out of my brain. While I was there I got a lot of writing done on Skeleton City which is designed to be an ultra-low budget quickie with very limited sets. If at all possible, I want to shoot it over 2-3 weekends with a few Sex Machine people. This project will allow me to work on a few things that I didn't get a chance to with Sex Machine.

Upcoming stuff... Shogo is working on an anthology project that I am looking forward to directing a segment of... I will also be helping him out and doing post on a short film he is going to shoot in April or May... American Boyfriends video needs to be wrapped up this weekend... we also bid on a documentary project and there may be a horror project to be shot in Mexico...

Lot's of cool things in the works. The coolest is something i can't really mention right now. But stay tuned.