Another Festival, Another Award (0)

Posted on 15 June, 2008 in Glitch

I’m happy to announce that Glitch won Best Drama Short at the 2008 El Cajon Video & Film Festival yesterday.  The film was written and directed by my friend Roger Gobin.  I was the Director or Photography and Editor.  Together we have co-produced the film and my friend Peter Gorritz provided the music for the film.

The win came as a huge surprise to all of us. I had submitted the film simply because I hadn’t completed anything new in time for the festival.  It was filmed on my old camera and edited with old software, but it still managed to win.  Personally I’m still trying to see how.  I felt there was several films more deserving than mine.

I’m not going to knock it any more.  I liked working on Glitch because it was somebody else’s idea and it let me work in a subject matter that I am not used to.  Usually I am the sci-fi, horror and comedy type, so this was a very welcome experiment.

I think the best thing about making Glitch was that it was a true group effort.  It wasn’t I did this and I did that, but we all did it and we can be proud of our accomplishment.

Tags: Awards, Film Festivals

Redress - Another Script Update (0)

Posted on 12 June, 2008 in Redress

I have been working hard on finalizing Redress over the past few days.  The story is growing and growing all the time, and right now that is a good thing.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, the backbone of the story for Redress could stand alone byitself with all of the horror elements torn out of it.  That being said, when I embarked upon writing this script I wanted to make a hard hitting horror film, so I am working on increasing the level of supernatural terror in the story.  From what I’ve seen when most people have physical encounters with ghosts, there is a very emmotional connection at a psychic level which usually leaves people in a state of shock for a matter of moments. As I look back on horror films I have watched in the past that deal with “ghosts” in general, I’ve never seen this type of characterization used very much.  Usually people scream and run or they scream and die.  A few cower in terror before they get killed off.

I’m trying to do something a little different.  I’m trying to do something a little more real.  When the characters in my story get exposed to a few supernatural elements, they will have long lasting effects from the encounter, if they survive that is.  This film isn’t about racking up a body count like most horror films try to do.   There are a number of corpses and brutal deaths, I can’t let my gore hungry fans down, but the sole purpose of the movie is not to just create horror by killing people left and right with a monster that suddenly pops up.  There is a growing element of psychological horror and dread that is beginning to evolve in the script.  Every time I touch the script this happens more and more and now I find myself hopping all over the place patching up little inconsistencies and shoring up the characters a little more.

When it’s all said and done, I think this film is going to turn out to be very good. At the very least, I have had a great time developing it even if it’s taken longer than expected.  My goal is to have this baby all wrapped up by the end of June so we can seriously start filming this fall.

For those of you dying for the next project from this guy, I think you will be happy to know it will all be worth the wait.

Tags: Pre-production, Screenplay