Comic-Con 2008 - Gone in a Flash! (0)

Posted on 28 July, 2008 in News Blurbs

Well, another Comic-Con is over and now I can look forward to next year.  This year felt like a different kind of crowd at Con, with attendance at an all time high I think there were some ruder individuals in the crowd.

Steel Web Studios had a good year at the Con, despite the fact several vendors told us their sales were down by as much as 80%.  We have a much different mentality about attending Comic-Con than most.  Rather than trying to make a ridiculous profit, we aim to connect with our fans and make new fans, so it is my main philosophy to sell items at a price anybody can afford, we started our $5.00 DVD program two years ago and it has been a hit!  For $5.00 you can buy one of our DVDs, get it autographed and add it to our collection.  This is a great deal for any fan as our autographs have sold for as high as $45.00 on eBay. On Sunday, we did the unthinkable and sold our DVDs for $1.00 each - yeah, it was a fucking crazy idea, but it worked - and we sold out of all the stock we took to Con.

On a personal level, I was ale to attend a few panels and walk the floor in my Dr. Phobia costume.  I had a ton of pictures taken of me and now I’m starting to see them show up on blog, photo streams and even news sites.  Personally I hate having my photo taken, but in costume, I don’t mind.  It’s just more branding for the company - and by the looks on most people’s faces it’s a rather frightening imprint.

Fans wanted to know if we had anything new to sell and sadly the answer was no.  The fires in October set us back quite a bit and it has been harder to recover than usual. The spike in gas prices and living expenses hasn’t helped much either.  Despite the downside, the energy of the crowd and positive feedback from fans has left me very optimistic about going foreword. It is my personal goal to have two new DVDs ready for Con next year -now it’s time to deliver.

 

Tags: Comic-Con, Conventions

Fangoria 2008 (0)

Posted on 28 April, 2008 in News Blurbs

Well, we have returned from the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles. This was our second year exhibiting at the show and the first year it was held at the LA Convention center.

I’m having some mixed reviews about the whole experience. Luckily the positives outweigh the negatives, but the negatives were huge and psychologically damaging.

Let’s start with the negatives… Everything was looking cool heading up to the convention, we put in our order for a table early, picked a cool spot, and we thought everythign was cool. Four days before the show we get an email from Creation Entertainment, who run organize the show, that they had previously been mistaken on the type of seller permit we needed for the show - and that we had to get a new type of permit or we couldn’t sell anything. Four days before the show? Since when have you known any major city to just - poof - issue a permit of any kind. We were terrified that we had spent all this money to get ready for this convention and at the last minute we had to get a new permit. WTF? So, Kristen and I sprinted into action, handling the paperwork, faxing it in, calling the City of Los Angeles… it was a pretty fucking stressful situation around here for a few days before the show. On Thursday, Los Angeles finally issued our permit and we heard that there had been a large number of others sprinting to get their permits issued also.

The other cluster fuck about this show was in part due to Creation Entertainment and GES, the union that runs setting up the convention hall. Creation Entertainment issues each vendor two wristbands - but GES only issues you one table and one chair. Additional chairs are $97 per day, per chair. Again, WTF? On top of that, even though electricity was included in every other vendor event I have attended, they wanted another $105 to set up our electricity? Fuck them. We didn’t pay it.

On to the positive about the show… our Hotel was nice, just right up the block from the Convention Center. We had a nice large room that was close to the elevators - this was especially good because we gound just hop into the elevator, go down a few floors and get off at the restaraunt and bar area.

The show went well over all. I personally don’t think. besides all the hype, that there were alot of customers at the show. Now, this could have been because it was in a larger venue and much more spread out, but we had a booth in a good place and I didn’t see that much foot traffic. It will be interesting to see how many fans showed up and how many vendors bailed because of the screw up over the permits and fees.

We had the lovely Caroline Pierce at our booth for the entire weekend and even Dr. Phobia made a few appearances as well. It was pretty funny because this was a horror convention, yet there were a number of people who were absolutely terrified of Dr. Phobia.

When it was all over we had seen old fans and made some new ones. We had seen old friends and made some new ones and we had made some good networking connections in the horror community. If anything, this little convention lets us practice for Comic-Con which is a little less than 3 months away. Whoo Hoo!

Tags: Conventions

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

New Projects (0)

Posted on 4 February, 2008 in News Blurbs

Well, 2007 is long gone and we are now well into 2008. I have been busy putting the finishing touches on the screenplay for Bedbugs from Hell, reworking the screenplay for Redress and starting on some new projects.

Our biggest and most ambitous project is very top secret right now, but I have to mumble about it here at least. We are going to produce a weekly video podcast starting in April that has nothing to do with horror what-so-ever. The main focus of this podcast is comedy and satire. I’m not sure if the project will bear the “Steel Web Studios” logo or not.

In other worlds, I am also working on a screenplay with RAMCO Productions for a western tentatively entitled “Crackwood”. Most of this has been in development for a while now, but things are finally starting to get transferred to paper and hopefully to film.

Tags: Pre-production, Projects

Production Continues - For the Most Part (0)

Posted on 2 November, 2007 in News Blurbs

Well… the fires are out - thank God. We are again moving ahead with production on several new fronts.

I have gone ahead and made the decision to postpone the filming of Redress until a later date. The area we were going to film in was burned up pretty good in the fires. While the actual road we were going to use is unscathed, there is a ton of charred forest around it. One gust of wind and ash goes everywhere. The script is written, so now once the location heals a little more we will go back and film the movie.

I am going to continue developing Ghost Lights and I am going to start on the script very soon. At the same time, I will finish the script for Bedbugs from Hell. I have been talking with several producers in regards to Bedbugs, but I know it will be a while before we start filming this one.

Tags: Film Treatment, Pre-production, Screenplay

Firestorm 2007 - All Projects Delayed (0)

Posted on 24 October, 2007 in News Blurbs

Well, another fire is sweeping across Southern California and coming dangerously close to my family and friends. I was hellbent on trying to start auditions for my new projects in a week, but it looks like Hell surfaced to alter my plans a little. One of our filming locations has been directly affected by the fire and the fire came dangerously close to our house today. The fire came so close we packed up the essentials and left for the night.

It’s kind of funny because the essentials are several hard drives of data, our pro camera and a change of underwear. We are keeping in touch with people by email and phone.

Once these fires are over and life returns to its new normal, we’ll take a look at scheduling projects again.

Am I Really A Winner? (0)

Posted on 17 September, 2007 in Mr. Buttons, News Blurbs

I spent most of the day on Saturday attending the El Cajon Video and Film Festival. There were a number of entertaining films to watch. I am not going to say one bad thing about any of the films at the festival. I will only say that there were some I enjoyed more than others.

It was a strange day because we arrived early and were kind of rushed into the screening room. Later on we noticed people walking around with “Filmmaker” badges. I was little peeved I was never offered a name badge.

The upset feeling growing in my gut was soon relieved by the fact that people started approaching me and complimenting my on my film “Mr. Buttons“, which had screened earlier in the day at the festival. Despite the fact I didn’t have a badge, people still knew it was my film. How the hell did that happen? Oh, maybe by the fact I brought the doll from the film with me

Throughout the day I also kept hearing buzz that my film was going to win an award. I blew the talk off as hype and tried not to get excited about it. The festival came and went and that night at the awards ceremony they awarded me Best Horror Film in the Open Division for Mr. Buttons.

Everybody around me was excited. I took the stage and rambled off a few words that were filled with appreciation but also laced with a little of my own cocky attitude. I know the film is good, I have a ton of reviews saying the film is good. Festivals all over are picking up the film and people from Comic-Con are still asking me when they can buy their own version of the doll. Now the film has earned me my first award as a filmmaker.

I am taking this victory with a grain of salt. Yes, the award looks good on my filmmaker resume, but I’m trying not to let it go to my head. My family and friends keep telling me “You Won! You Won!”, but I find it hard to smile about it.

I know that deep down inside I can make a good film, and that if somebody actually gives me some money to make a film, I can concentrate more on directing rather than sound quality, lens flare and the hot light wedged between my legs while I’m laying on the ground balancing a camera on a stack of books for that perfect shot… I’m keeping my fingers crossed and wondering who else I need to prove myself to so I can get a real movie made

Tags: Awards, Film Festivals

Goals and Festivals (0)

Posted on 6 August, 2007 in News Blurbs

I am extremely please that I was able to accomplish 3 my goals for 2007. I was so happy that I actually sat back and said to myself, “Take a short break, you deserve it.”

• Goal Number One - I completed the Tales from the Carnal Morgue DVD in time for the Comic-Con. Due to some screw up at the replicator the DVDs arrived a day late, but hey, I did my part.
• Goal Number Two - My film Mr. Buttons was accepted at both the Horrorfind Weekend Film Festival and the El Cajon Video and Film Festivals. These were fests I specifically designed the film for, so it was great to see it actually get accepted there.
• Goal Number Three - I implemented a new shopping cart for the Steel Web Studios site. The new cart allows me extreme flexibilty in adding products, having specials and coupons and Wholesale Discounts for some of our business partners. I’ve been so busy doing other things that I didn’t have time to dick around with the programming, so I took the week after Comic-Con off and focued solely on installing and integrating the cart. Within 12 hours of going live with the new cart I had my first order through it, so it was a relief to know it is working well.

Now I am going to sit back and rest a little - just a little - and soon I will announce a new project for you…

Tags: Film Festivals

Comic-Con 2007 (0)

Posted on 30 July, 2007 in News Blurbs

I just wanted to thank everybody for coming down to see us at Comic-Con this year. The first year you have a booth at the Con, you always have to wonder, “Should I have spent all that fucking money on this?” After this year, our second year, when I was still wondering if I should have spent the money, it was incredibly rewarding to have people running up to us and asking where the new DVD was. That feeling was incredible.

If it were not for my fans, these films would not go very far… but thanks to my fans these films have gone much farther than I ever thought they would have. All I can say is thank you, and if you want to see more films from me, please just keep being terrific fans. Tell your friends about the movies, show the movies to your friends, but most of all, please encourage them to buy their own copy. I’m a small indie film producer. Money I should be putting into my daughter’s college fund and my 401K - but I make movies instead. I can’t keep making movies you love if I don’t earn money back to at least make the next one.

Thank you all for your support and I am happy to say we have already reserved our table for next year’s Comic-Con and we will have a table at the 2008 Los Angeles Weekend of Horrors also. I’ll see you there!

Tags: Comic-Con, Conventions

New Projects - Old Projects (0)

Posted on 25 February, 2007 in News Blurbs

I am busy finishing off my film “Mr. Buttons” in time for a festival deadline in early March. At the same time I have finished the 1st draft of my film “Sustenance“, started costume design, casting and location scouting. All of this is in effort to have a new DVD ready in time for the San Diego Comic-Con. We’re on target, but it’s going to be close.