Cinco de Mayo Massacre to become a novel (0)

Posted on 13 October, 2008 in Cinco de Mayo Massacre, Writing Projects

Well, while I sit around waiting for this economy to get a little better - and by better I mean where people will want to invest in my films again - I am going to start g on the novel for Cinco de Mayo Massacre.

As I sat on the script for the last year I began realizing that there was so much more to the story that I wanted to tell. I had been toying with the idea of doing a novel for a long while now. Way back in the day I had actually written a number of novels, shorts and poetry. As my creative side boils over with ideas I think it may be best to start churning out more of these as novels.

The nice thing about a written story is that the MPAA can’t tell you what to cut. You don’t have to argue with producers over the script and there are no technical issues with telling your story. All you have to do is get the words out onto the page

As far as who will publish the story and so on, I have no idea yet. I’m going to write the book before I market it. If you guys like my films, then I know you will love the original stories. If everything goes according to plan, I want to a novelization of Slaughter Disc next.

Tags: Novel, Story, Writing

Hospital Hill - On Hold (0)

Posted on 11 September, 2008 in Hospital Hill

You know, I’m starting to get sick and tired of this “business” I call a hobby.  It seems every time I have depended on something or somebody on the last couple of projects, they have miserably let me down.  I know that this is all part of this “business” - but when you are a struggling filmmaker, it can really suck sometimes.

I was getting ramped up to film Hospital Hill this fall and I just recently learned that the studio I was planning on renting has gone out of business.  This really sucks because one of the sole reasons I was going to make this film was because they had an awesome medical set with this brutal looking hospital bed that I planned on using.

At this point we don’t have the resources to film these scenes someplace else locally and we certainly don’t have the $3000 to $5000 dollars a day that the hospital set studios up in LA wants to ass fuck us for.

So, unless somebody has an operating room we can film in, or somebody wants to donate $10,000 so we can film in LA for 2 days, I am officially shelving this project at this point in time.  Luckily, it’s a sweet and short script, so it’s easy to dust off.

Oh well.  Fuck it.  Again.

I’m sleeping in tomorrow.

Tags: Delays, Pre-production

Casting Call Posted for Hospital Hill (0)

Posted on 3 September, 2008 in Hospital Hill

I published the casting call for Hospital Hill today and the actors are already pouring in.  It looks like there will be some fresh, promising talent this time…  Check it out at http://www.steelwebstudios.com and see if there’s a role you are interested in.

Tags: Casting, Pre-production

Hospital Hill - Script Completed (0)

Posted on 17 August, 2008 in Hospital Hill

I am extremely happy to announce that I have finished the script for Hospital Hill!  I actually finished it two days ago, but I have been reading over it a few more times just to make sure it was ready.

This is by far the shortest script I have ever written for one of my Horror projects.  I have written a few comedy skits for things I did in the past, but that was about it. The grand total on this puppy is 6 pages long - not including the cover page.

I have already drafted the character breakdown and whipped up some concept art.  Next I’ll start with the storyboarding.  I’m 80% sure of my filming locations as they are mostly all studio based, so location scouting is pretty much done too. 

I have an idea of a few of the actors I want to use, but I’m still going to be holding a casting call because I am very interested in casting an awesome femme fatale for the role of evil nurse I have created.  

Be sure to sign up for the Steel Web Studios Newletter if you are interested in working on this film with me. All official casting/crew calls will go out through the newsletter.

Tags: Pre-production, Screenplay

Hospital Hill - 1st Draft Completed (0)

Posted on 31 July, 2008 in Hospital Hill

I stayed up late tonight scripting out the first draft of the Hospital Hill screenplay.  It needs a little work, but I am very happy with it so far.  The poem the film will be based on is rather creepy and disturbing in its own right. 

I do not think I will have any problem getting this film to run around five minutes, yet I hope to have more blood and gore in this film than Slaughter Disc had in its entire 90 minutes. 

If all goes according to plan, this is going to be one hell of a film as it is already one hell of a script - and I still have some work to do!

Tags: Pre-production, Screenplay

Hospital Hill - The Concept (0)

Posted on 29 July, 2008 in Hospital Hill

I found myself sitting around one day, a few weeks ago after the Fangoria convention, in a bit of a creative slump. I was racking my brain on different films we could incorporate Dr. Phobia into - and then it hit me…a simple poem started flooding my brain.

I picked up my handy notebook and began jotting down he lines as they poured from my psyche.  The result is a poem I entitled Hospital Hill. It was an attempt to create a mythology around the good Doctor since viewers of our films have seen a few incarnations of him so far; one of those urban legend nursery rhymes that people begin spreading by campfire and slumber party.

The Doctor in this piece is the same mysterious and scheming menace we saw in Sustenance, but this time more of his handwork is hinted at.  After I started looking at the poem I realized it would make a crazy little film, especially if we shot it in black & white and loaded it with creepy shit!

So, now the race is on to script the poem into a film and hopefully have it ready for a Halloween premiere.

Stay tuned…

Tags: Pre-production

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

Redress - Script Update (0)

Posted on 29 March, 2008 in Redress

Wow - 2008 is flying by fast. On that note, the month of April is here! I wanted to start filming bits and pieces of Redress this month, however the script is not done yet. My writing partner Kreg and I have been diligently meeting and writing and the story is much more focused than it was a month ago. There is far more character development - in fact, I’m very sure the story could stand by itself even if we removed all of the horror elements. We’re getting close - not just close enough to film yet. The nice thing about being a small studio is that nobody breathes down our back - the bad thing is that budgets are small, so sometimes day jobs and errands get in the way of a good writing session

Once the cameras finally start rolling I plan to send out a press release and hopefully have a trailer ready in time for Comic-Con.

On other fronts, I have been busy designing our new company shirts and promo items for the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles at the end of April. I think our table is in a great place this year, it’s on an end over by some of the bigger booths, so traffic should be kind to us - I hope…

Tags: Pre-production, Screenplay, Script, Writing

Locations and Bugs and Trailers - OH MY! (0)

Posted on 1 March, 2008 in Redress

While Kreg and I are busy wrapping up the script for Redress, I have been scouting locations in my free time and beginning to gather a number of the props that will be needed for the shoot. This film has a number of locations in it which will be a definite challenge when it comes to filming, but I know we need them. I have found a wicked looking park which you find a picture of in the teaser poster that is floating around and we have our psychologist office all lined up also.

In other news, we will be using a number of live animals in this film as well - not anything like lions, tiger and bears (Oh My!), but more like real maggots, worms and crows (Fuck Yeah). I don’t want to say too much about how we plan to use these little critters, as they refer to some ultra awesome twists in the plot, but I’ll give you a hint. As we all know, dead things are eaten by a variety of bugs, worms and other animals when they die. Maggots love to devour dead flesh and how many times have you seen a crow picking at some flattened animal on the side of the road? It’s not anything too major, other than the fact most people have told be they don’t want to be anywhere near me when I’m filming the scene with 10,000 maggots. Did I just say 10,000 maggots? Oh, no the corpse - errrr…. the cat is out of the bag now. Look out, I smell something terrible crawling this way.

As the Fangoria show rapidly approaches, I find myself getting ramped up for the event. I have been designing new stickers, we have a cool-new vending machine we will be using to give away DVDs and I have started creating the trailer for Redress. All I have is some music, text and b-roll stuff for now, but by the end of March I’ll have the full-blown thing.

Oh, I’ve got to go. My test video is done rendering

Tags: Location Scouting, Pre-production, Props

REDRESS is becoming a Feature Film! (0)

Posted on 10 February, 2008 in News Blurbs, Redress

It is finally official and now I want to start hyping the news: Redress is becoming a feature length film!

As I had more time to sit and think about the story I passed it around to a few people for review. One of my friends has some ideas to add and the project pretty much exploded from there. We are still hashing out the script at this moment, but since I had already done a lot of preproduction on the film in its short form, the project is on the launch pad waiting for its tanks to get filled. Most of the cast and crew are placed; we just have a few more roles to fill once the story if flushed out some more.

The goal for now is to start filming around Mid April. I will be releasing a press release later in the month. We will have a teaser ready for the Los Angeles Fangoria Week of Horrors in late April. We hill have the film wrapped by the time Comic-Con rolls around in July.

Stay Tuned… our website is going to get busy again

Tags: Development, Pre-production, Screenplay, Script, Writing