Change Has Come

Not to sound too corny by exploiting President Obama's birthday in the title (which is tomorrow, btw), but I've been further exploring the capabilities of Dreamweaver lately, due to other projects than those of Thomas Productions.

As such, I was able to remove A LOT OF code from the stills pages I experimented on, and even made the code more sensical (i.e. not just random numbers and letters). Now, this has been done for Fat is Not a Four Letter Word (for which the CurrentTV clip dimensions were fixed as well), VFX for The Perfect Lie, Whodunit, The 8th Grade Legacy Project, and The Dog of Pompeii. It will be added to more in time.

100th New News Blog Post!

One year, three months and five days: that's how long it took to reach this blog! That's actually not that bad, considering how often new News Blog blog entries are posted...

To commemorate this achievement, we're doing something special. As a movie production company, we obviously love movies when they're well-made! Embedded below's a good group of well-made films from across the board that were personally selected by yours truly for this special occasion. Many ended up being animation; go figure!

From YouTube: Google Maps

From Vimeo: Dried Up

From Hulu: Clip from Up

From Google Video: Trailer to American Beauty

From FunnyOrDie: Prop 8 - The Musical

From MySpaceVids: Wallace and Gromit in 'A Matter of Loaf and Death'

Double Your Pleasure

As with Mrs. Barg's 8th Grade AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) class last week, I had the same opportunity today with Mrs. Amos' 7th Grade AVID class to share some movies. Today was more a component of the class than the sole event of the class, as today it was part of a class party. So, there was only so much time...

Still, I successfully showed four short films, including one I did not get a chance to show in last week's class: The King Who Rained.

I would have liked to also show Photagrizzly Man, but the students at least know that it's online, including directly above this line of text.

The Class

This Tuesday, I'll be sharing some movies of Thomas Productions with a middle school class of Mrs. Barg, who was my very first video production teacher! I took that six-week elective in the beginning of 1997, and it was for that class that both Tons of Sugar Cereal and My Teachers Are Aliens (the first projects of Thomas Productions) blossomed.

So, I'm developing a list of what to show the class. The catch is that it must be age-appropriate, and I'm finding that's actually somewhat difficult -- blasted college freedoms!

Actually, I could probably even include some behind-the-scenes vids & production photo slideshows, even if they belong to movies I cannot show!

Gulf Coast PSA

Yesterday evening, I found a video on YouTube that I actually assisted in the production of during my final semester at CSUMB. Made for a video community service class, my group produced a series of Public Service Announcements to represent the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, which in 2007 hoped to create 100,000 jobs in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

For this specific PSA, I filmed two significant interviews, particularly that of Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton. The project (Gulf Coast Civic Works Project PSA (2007)) is now listed on this site as well.

Enjoy!

Janitorial / 2000+!

This blog has 2 topics. First, I've done some janitorial work with the Media Layer that I'm still in the process of adding to all of the movie pages.

More specifically, I've added some additional pro PNG images to the same concept of the loading spinner & what's in store: signs representing both Under Construction and Caution (the latter is only used thus far for Abrupt's adult oriented content). We'll see how well this experiment works.

On a completely different note (this is the 2nd topic), in the past day on YouTube, Scenes from Being John Malkovich has surpassed 2000 views! It currently has 2016 and counting: it's the first movie from Thomas Productions to achieve this!

Predix: Mostly 'B's

Early this morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced the 2008 Film Nominees for their annual Oscars. For the categories I made predictions (which are all that regarded feature length films), I actually did pretty well -- a few were 100% on the dot (A+!), and the most often occurring prediction result (8 times) was a 'B' with 4/5 (80%) per category.

Films nominated for Best Picture were The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which earned the most noms with 13), Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader (which some believe stole the show from The Dark Knight) and Slumdog Millionaire. One of my favorite parts was that Composer Thomas Newman earned not one but two nominations for WALL-E (song and score), and it's his second time earning so many at once!

Anyhoo, the Oscars are exactly one month away, on February 22nd. See My Predictions by clicking here and selecting "Oscar Predictions" at the bottom, perhaps also making your own, and then tuning in when the time comes!

Feeling the Economic Crisis

Things are soon to be felt here at Thomas Productions, as the cost for the server at directorG2.com is now simply too expensive...  A new route to take is currently being searched for, and you'll be further updated once it's known.

In the mean time, on a different note, I've recently completed a political commercial for YouTube that (of course) pokes fun at Sarah Palin (who else?)!  It'll most likely be added to the site when times allow for it.

Cannery Row Doc

There!  Not only have the movie lists been touched up to be more organized, but now there is a page in existence (finally!) for the movie, Cannery Row Documentary (2006)!

Technically, it does contain production photos that are already online at GPicturama here.  It will just take time to weave them into this page, see...

Bookmarking Movies!

Now, Thomas Productions is testing out social bookmarking on actual movie pages with The King Who Rained!  If it seems to be a success, we'll add it to all current and upcoming movie pages!

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