Housekeeping

Since more and more duties keep being assigned, I am going to try and arrange a list of tasks (and dates, if there are any specific deadlines) for the upcoming months, for all those related to Thomas Productions:

1. Submit Journey of the Mind to a Withoutabox-correlated festival => Garners invitation from IMDb for film
2. Make copy of Journey of the Mind (and possibly At the Core?) for airing on local television broadcast
3. Complete editing Alex and Mike's Alaskan Cruise by late December
4. Send copy of Journey of the Mind to Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California
5. Touch up The Nightmare to make ready for Big Bear Int'l Film Festival submission in January, which would also make this project IMDb-capable
6. Start Preproduction for Everyone and Their Mother, so it can be filmed in December/January, then ready for CurrentTV come Mother's Day, 2010
7. Finish reediting newly digitized footage of Brave New World for eventual uploading on YouTube
8. Create VFX Demo Reel

You may notice that The Nightmare "snuck back" into the list. I certainly haven't forgotten about that project! I fully intend to do at least as much festivalwise for it as with Journey of the Mind, because it was a fully scripted drama, not a documentary!

You may also notice that Hitchcock Road was NOT mentioned. I do still intend for its production, but with so much currently on my plate (and these duties aren't my only ones, mind you), I think it's better to try and see the horizon before things get lost in oblivion. In time, in time...

One-Two Punch

In each of the past two weeks, a movie was completed by Thomas Productions! Two weeks ago, it was Journey of the Mind, and now this past week, it was a private wedding video for a friend. Lots of work now off my shoulders - whew!

However, there's still more to come! There was also an associated video project with the wedding video that was a travel video. I've thus far produced a trailer for it that has been approved for YouTube by its parties, and it's what you see above. I hope to have that project completed by Christmas.

THEN, I still intend to create Everyone and Their Mother... We'll see if Hitchcock Road ever resurfaces in 2010. I also plan to retouch The Nightmare up a bit for festival entry, not to mention a second fest for Journey of the Mind!! Entering those in fests through Withoutabox will help put more movies on IMDb. This is all not forgetting about remastering Brave New World... So much to do!

Win Some, Lose Some

"Filmmakers will be notified via email of entry status by approximately September 4th."

-http://www.cafilm.org/mvff/c4e.html

Though I am yet to receive any such email about Mill Valley, I am to assume At the Core (2009) did not make it into the festival based on the Submission Status shown at Withoutabox. That claims to have been notified on September 2nd, and the decision was "Not Accepted."  Sigh...

And still, this day remains pleasant because some of the footage from Brave New World (2002) has now been digitized (it's all already been transferred from Hi8 to MiniDV, thus saved), and it's begun to be edited. I'm not going to upload the movie to YouTube until it's entirely reedited, which may need to wait during a paid video editing job. However, above, I posted a few Brave New Outtakes from the opening scene. I'm sure more are to follow, so I called it "Part 1." Enjoy!

Brave New Film

{There are basically 3 topics in this post, so I'll try not to be too verbose.}

It all starts with Brave New World (2002), which I still am unclear as to why it has never been mentioned before in this News Blog. I have always been rather fond of Aldus Huxley's book, and when I first was told to read it back in high school, my class group got to turn it into a movie. We had to be appropriate and all, of course, and we had some portions be live theater, but for the most part, it worked.

But then, as I've mentioned at least once before in these posts, the rolling blackouts of 2003 destroyed my digital masters of anything prior. For Brave New World, though, my only VHS had already been handed off to the teacher, who apparently destroys student work after 6 months. Sad day, for sure.

HOWEVER, in the past two weeks, I have magically come upon a set of old Hi8 mm tapes, at least one of which is labeled as footage for Brave New World! I might review it soon, and give it the go ahead to reedit what I can of the film so that SOMETHING of the project can be posted on YouTube.

I bother to mention this at all because of a news story I read yesterday that just happened to be about an upcoming film of this book! It would star Leonardo DiCaprio, and be directed by Ridley Scott. There may have been prior TV Movie kinda versions before, but never a film. Exciting!

We filmed most of it in San Carlos, which is a stretch for the remaining topic: Kathryn Bigelow. Her latest brave new film, The Hurt Locker, continues to earn critical raves, and I simply had to put her interview from The Colbert Report for all to see.