6/25/09 Finding a New Director

After Ron McLellen had to drop out of working with me on the vampire short "History of the Vampire" for the anthology film LAST CALL I scrambled to come up with another person to take his place. As luck would have it a friend of mine Bren Allison-Pettingill was interested in working with me again and the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

We spoke today discussing the script and any possible changes that she might want to the story and her ideas were all very valid. One of her key contributions is that she thought the two main characters of Jackaboc and William spend too much time sitting at the bar not doing much. She thinks that they should be doing something other then that which she suggested the action of playing darts. I agreed that this could be a possibility.

She also suggested that there be a stronger modivating factor for the William character to remain in the bar all the while paying little attention to the story that Jackaboc is trying to tell him. This was also another idea that I had no problem with implimenting into the script.

After we discussed all the possibilities she said she wanted to read over the script again with all these new ideas in her head before officially jumping on the board the project. If she does agree she will be a great asset to the film as she will definitely bring a different approach to the film then McLellen primarily because McLellen has done mostly horror films and she has done adventure, drama, and comedy so they are both coming from two different backgrounds.

This should all be very interesting.

6/20/09 Hiring a Director

After a long talk with director Ron McLellen it was decided that he should no longer direct my screenplay HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRES for the vampire anthology LAST CALL (which is Executive Produced by Ondie Daniel). He is currently heavy in post on his own film EVIL IN THE FLESH which was filmed last year and is heavy in CGI effects right now. He is also prepping production on a HALLOWEEN fan-film and these two obligations prompted him to step down from behind the camera on my project.

Instead I now find myself looking for a new director for the screenplay which will also be aproved by Daniel. My second choice is Bren Allison-Pettingill who directed the film 6 DEGREES OF DESPERATION last year (among having directed many other short films and documentaries). I sent her both the original screenplay and the McLellen approved version for her consideration.

The reason I did this is because I want to give her the oportunity to read the screenplay as originally developed before McLellen & I did rewrites. I prefer the original version although I was always up for changing details to suit the director. I want to give Allison-Pettingill the opportunity to give her own input into the production.

Right now the only characters cast are minor characters with the exception of the WIFE in which actress Amy Wolkis (whom I worked with on BAD LAND and EVIL IN THE FLESH) is attatched. Many of the minor characters and vampires will be played by actors from the haunted house attraction Netherworld. The artists of Netherworld are also providing make-up, stunts, and CGI, among other technical support, to the film.

If Allison-Pettingill decides that she is not interested then I will direct the film myself which was never out of the range of possibility. Either way I look forward to working on the film and with Daniel again since the last time we worked together she was the Casting director for my film HOUSE OF SECRETS (when it was known as SHIVER).

6/19/09 ReShoots on BREAKING THROUGH

We were at Gwinnett Convention Center & Arena last night filming reshoots on the urban film BREAKING THROUGH which is directed by Ed Harlaque (his first film). After three years of filming on and off he decided that more was needed for the film so we ended up filming more footage for the stripper runway model sequence (in which the strippers of the film walk down the runway in very little clothes) which is one of the final sequences in the film.

We filmed some of this earlier in the year but with none of the main cast members until now (which is kind of unusual since the main characters should be the ones that are in the competition).

Either way, this is one of the longest productions I've ever been on. It is good to hear that the film is almost done and that soon I'll be able to see some of the work I've put into the film since I was one of the lighting directors on the film (getting out to the set whenever I could).

6/11/09 Meeting the Music Supervisor

Met with my music supervisor Sacha Dzuba last night to go over some preliminaries for HOUSE OF SECRETS. Dzuba is part of the band The Julia Dream but he's also a very talented composer who contributed to the score for JACK O'LANTERN and some of my early photo gallery films. He's also composed music for several short films and even a full score for a children's theatre play.

For HOUSE OF SECRETS I need a variety of band music and original score and he's the one I trust to be able to bring me a variety of stuff to choice from (if not compose something original himself). Right now I have someone else on board to score the film (Kevin McKiney who has scored CITY GARDEN for me so far) but I wanted to work with Dzuba again and this was one of the best ways to do so.

Our meeting was very production in that we discussed the four songs by bands that I thing the film needs and we listened to a lot of different genres of music so that he could get a better feel of the types of songs that I'm looking for. I even came to the conclusion that I need to use one of The ulia Dream's song as my End Titles song.

Working on this just means I'm getting that much closer to finishing the film (even though I still have a very long ways to go).

06/05/09 First day of filming on Remote Viewing Documentary

At the same time I was conducting a reading of my screenplay HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRES for the anthology film LAST CALL, I was also doing some preliminary filming on my documentary on remote viewing. Vernon Mui, who is a practicioner of the process of remote viewing, was conduction a Level 1 class with an individual who was being exposed to it for the very first time. This class wasn't originally suppose to be part of the film that Mui & I are doing but we decided to film this session just so he could get aclimated to the camera being on him (since the film will mostly follow him) and we could get some cutaways and background footage for the proposed feature length film.

I don't know really anything about remote viewing other then what was in the film SUSPECT ZERO but I thought it would make an interesting topic for a film that discusses the process and execution by someone who uses it.

Since I was unable to be on hand to film and watch the entire session, I'll have to rely on the footage to give me an idea of what happened and how well the session went off.

06/05/09 The Reading of the Screenplay with Actors

Producer Ondie Daniel put together a tean of actors (both cast and not cast) for the reading of my screenplay HISTORY OF THE VAMPIRES in order to work out some of the problems (if any) with the script prior to casting later this month. It was interesting as I originally didn't think that the reading would be all that benificial since I had already did a re-write of the screenplay changes things to meet expectations of director Ron McLellen, who at the last minute could not make it to the reading for personal reasons.

The reading was actually beneficial in that the notes that cast & writers had helped me see the problems with the story when I changed some of the motivations of the main character WILLIAM. These were small things but nevertheless things that when I change them will make the screenplay stronger as a whole.

The meeting/reading was also good in that it gave me and Ondie our first real meeting together on the production and we actually came to some decisions about my production and the entire production as a whole. I was also able to get the title of the film - LAST CALL, and I got a look at the film's promo art work that will be on the tee-shirts (among other items).

Now I've got to contact actors and try to put together other production items to get this film on the move.