Bare Ruined Films

HMAD presents DR.GIGGLES

2009-12-01T11:11:00.001-08:00

One of the subjects of my documentary, Brian Collins (HorrorMovieADay.com) is showing a revival screening of DR.GIGGLES at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, December 12th. Phil Blankenship of the New Bev (and Amoeba Records) co-presents the movie. Should be lots of fun with a rowdy crowd.

Jeffrey Combs in NEVERMORE

2009-07-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

There are many great things about living in Los Angeles, but the chance to see work by some of my favorite artists -- work that won't happen anywhere else, most likely -- is at the top of the list. Last weekend I saw a production of NEVERMORE...AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. It's a one-man play performed by Jeffrey Combs, directed by Stuart Gordon, and written by Dennis Paoli. Those three made one of my all-time favorite films -- RE-ANIMATOR -- in 1985 and they're still doing great work today. Don't miss it if you're in the area. It runs for two more weeks. (http://www.steveallentheater.com/nevermore)

BROKEN AUGUST : Done.

2009-07-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

BROKEN AUGUST is done. This week we'll make all our masters and deliver our, uh, deliverables. Soon we'll burn DVDs for cast & crew and send 'em out. At the moment there's no plan for a premiere, but that could change...

BROKEN AUGUST effects work

2009-05-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

We're doing a bit of painstaking effects work that -- if done properly -- you will never notice in the movie. Such is life. And we're 99% there. The audio mix is approved and done. We have a 38 GB quicktime file of the finished movie, yet these two effects shots linger on. I'm doing them myself, so I have no one else to blame for the delay, but at least we're very, very close.

Clive Barker

2009-04-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

This is not strictly Bare Ruined Films-related, but I met my hero Clive Barker a few weeks ago.

I've been a fan of his since I read The Books of Blood in 1986, based mostly on the Stephen King quote on the front -- "I've seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker." I may have also read a review of the Books in Fangoria around that time. In any case, I was hooked. His short stories "Dread," "The Yattering and Jack," "In the Hills, the Cities," and most definitely "The Midnight Meat Train" were a revelation to me. I also LOVED his novels The Damnation Game, Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show and the novellas Cabal, In the Flesh and The Inhuman Condition.

I was fortunate enough to edit all the DVD special features for Barker's most recent film,* The Midnight Meat Train, but I had never met him in person. So when the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention offered up a two-hour lecture about "writing horror" by Mr. Barker, I signed up immediately. I was there at the convention doing research for the Horror Doc (which is titled now: The Horror of It All: Why We Love Scary Movies) and shooting the "zombiewalk," which involved hundreds of people dressed like zombies walking around downtown LA together. It was an awesome sight. The lecture turned out to be two hours of questions and answers, but it was fantastic to hear Mr. Barker's thoughts on the craft. Inspiring. And he thanked me and told me that "Many people have come up to me to say how much they loved the piece about me painting," referring to Clive Barker: The Man Behind the Myth, which I edited/produced. I told him how meaningful it was for me to work on those DVD pieces, and that was that.

On a related note, I also saw the newest Barker-approved movie: Anthony DiBlasi's Dread. This was a big one for me. I was actually a little pissed off that anyone but me was directing that movie, as the short story it was based upon was hands down my favorite Barker short, and it's the one I've revisited the most over the years. But the film is wonderful. It's a classic. In the top 5% of all horror films, period. I loved it, and can't imagine a better film being made from that amazing short story. Kudos to Mr. DiBlasi -- who wrote the screenplay and directed -- for expanding the story and changing some elements, but making the film absolutely true to the spirit of the original. It's an amazingly faithful adaptation, even if some of the details are a bit different. And, actually, the film is even darker than the Barker story, which is a fucking feat. His vision as a director is as assured as PT Anderson's, and I do not say that lightly. Dread is a beautiful, sickening, heartbreaking, scary movie. It's wonderful. It also doesn't have distribution yet, but I suspect it will be out in the fall.

* It's Barker-approved. The Hellraiser sequels (beyond part 2) and many of the movies that have Barker's name on them are apparently not things that Barker will claim as his own.

BROKEN AUGUST sound mix

2009-02-17T18:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I heard the near-final mix of Broken August that my amazing friend Martin Carrillo has cooked up. I also saw the movie on a ten-foot wide screen at a friend's studio. It was a really invigorating experience. This whole short has happened in lightning-fast time (August 2008 - Februay 2009, start to finish), but the intense periods of working hard followed by dull periods of waiting do eventually take a toll. I've moved on to the Horror Doc in some ways, but it was great to jump back into Broken August mode and see the film with somewhat fresh eyes. We're almost done.

BROKEN AUGUST music / HORROR DOC

2009-01-29T17:51:00.000-08:00

BROKEN AUGUST is nearing the end, people! We have our music -- by Kevin Manthei (Invader Zim) and Kevin Riepl (Gears of War) -- and I completely love it. We have locked, onlined, and color-corrected picture. Martin Carrillo (Paradise Lost: Shadows & Wings) will have a sound mix for us in the next couple of weeks and we will be done. Can't wait for the world to see this one. It's sort of deranged and not necessarily a fun thing to sit through, but it's honest and I think everyone can relate to it in some small way. We're hoping to have a premiere in Hollywood in March, along with three other Dirty Little Films projects.

HORROR DOC. This is an untitled documentary I've started. It's an attempt to figure out why we love horror movies. I'm slowly beginning to understand my own reasons for loving horror films, but I think everyone has their own take on it. The goal is to be able to cut together a 7-minute promo reel for the project in the next few months to judge the project's viability. And to see if I'm having fun directing my first documentary.

REBORN

2008-09-19T15:11:00.001-07:00

My feature script Reborn, an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep," was called a "perfect updating" by the folks at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Above, you'll find the Mike Mignola (Hellboy)-designed poster for this year. The press release is here:

http://hplfilmfestival.com/news/2008/09/19/stop-presses-may-i-have-envelope-please

More news about Broken August in a moment...

BROKEN AUGUST, first weekend

2008-08-03T19:15:00.001-07:00

Shooting on BROKEN AUGUST began Saturday night in a Culver City parking garage and then continued for a few hours on Sunday over in Arcadia at a chiropractor's office (thanks a million, Dr. Goff!). I wish I had more time Saturday -- we got about 24 of the 34 setups I had storyboarded -- but the actors were wonderful and there's only so much you can ask of a crew that is working for nacho cheese Doritos. Everyone who came out was a trooper and we got a lot of great material. I am deeply lucky to be working with producers Eli Loghavi and Sharon Chin; they are tireless and smart and are making me look good. I hope this movie is something we can all be really proud of, even if it's the darkest thing any of us have touched.

We had been thinking we'd put Alaina in a wig for her transformation scene -- her character basically becomes another person after a tragedy is visited upon her -- but the wigs within our budget were just crap, so we went with Alaina's real hair, which is currently kick ass, anyway.

We shot 1080P, DVCProHD, on the Panasonic AG-HVX200, on two 32GB P2 cards (not tapes) from the kind folks at Moviola. Using 32GB cards was a true luxury. We shot for about a full day, all-told, and never had to download the footage on set. Two 32GB cards at 1080P uses about a gigabyte per minute, so it was super-sweet to not have to reload after every eight or sixteen minutes of footage shot, as we would have to do with smaller cards. For the record, I'd like P2 cards for Christmas, please. There are 64GB models coming out this fall.

That's all for now.

BROKEN AUGUST begins

2008-07-27T21:06:00.000-07:00

It's all happening! Our new short film BROKEN AUGUST starts shooting today. We have a script, schedule, budget, most of our cast and most of our locations. Eli Loghavi and Sharon Chin and Gina Tucker are producing, Ilya Lyudmirsky (Bangkok) is shooting it, Kevin Manthei (Invader Zim) is writing the score, Jack Waldrip (Night Dawn Day) is editing, Martin Carrillo (Supernews!) is our sound designer/mixer and Sara Karnowski is casting it. The movie stars Alaina Huffman (Smallville), Dave Waterman (The Sarah Silverman Show), Bru Muller (Behind the Terror: A Comedy), Lisa Carnahan (Indefinitely), Kinna McInroe (Office Space), Nathan Barnatt (We All Has Problems), Kirk Dauer (Behind the Terror: A Comedy), and others yet-to-be-named. More later...

Black Winter

2008-07-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

I was checking out this crazy new search engine called Viewzi yesterday when I came across a listing for Black Winter, the feature script I wrote for director Jesse Dylan (Kicking & Screaming, American Wedding, How High). This is the first public mention of the project, as far as I know. The listing, on Hollywood.com, described the film thusly:

"A crisis counselor plunges into an odyssey for her own survival, as she must confront her personal crises and fears amidst a strange killer in the Alaskan wilderness."

The film will be produced by Jesse Dylan, Priscilla Cohen, Sukee Chew and the production company Form.

BROKEN AUGUST

2008-06-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

Well, who would have thought I could ignore this blog for three years? Yikes. It's not that nothing has been happening -- I'll catch you up on some of that today -- it's just that much of it is stuff that has to remain private until the movies actually become real. So far, the big movies have not yet become real. Maybe tomorrow.

May 2008 saw the release of my first DVD, the concert film VETERANS OF VOLUME: LIVE WITH EIGHT CAMERAS for the band Jucifer. It was a monumental amount of work and time-consuming beyond all belief, but I think it turned out great and no self-respecting Jucifer fan should spend a single day without owning several copies. You can check out a four-minute trailer and buy it cheap ($10 + postage) at www.JuciferDVD.com. It was professionally replicated via a glass master and the packaging is a really amazing-looking six-panel DVD digipak. Oasis Manufacturing in New York did a wonderful job with the manufacturing of it all. The DVD also features five music videos (four of which I directed since I last blogged here), a nine-minute trailer of all the band's major releases, a rock poster gallery with 60 posters from past Jucifer tours, 100 photos, five rare or unreleased studio recordings (plus mp3s of those), and more. This was the first "for sale" product I've ever put out there into the world, and it has been interesting seeing it catch on. I'm really pleased with the results so far. Hopefully there will be another DVD down the line. Actually, here's the trailer:

But that's last month's news. The new project is BROKEN AUGUST, a five-minute short film I'm making with Dirty Little Films. It's sort of the origin story of a really damaged superhero, but not really. It's about revenge: a optimistic woman (Alaina Huffman) is brutally attacked, her view of the world is completely changed, and she goes out into the night looking to find thugs and teach them a few things about right and wrong. Something like that. It's actually just the tip of the iceberg, this short. There's definitely enough story to make a feature, so we're shooting this 1080p even though 720p would probably be perfectly acceptable (and would save us a ton of drive space). We're shooting on the Panasonic AG-HVX200 (the "P2 Card" camera), going tapeless until it's time to back everything up permanently. We're recording VO tonight and hope to have a finished movie in September or October. Eli Logavi and Camelia Adibi are producing. Jack Waldrip is cutting it. Martin Carrillo is doing Sound Design. Kevin Manthei is composing the score. I'm stoked.

That's all for now. I'll blog again in 2011.

NONHUMAN RESOURCES

2005-03-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

This is a strange case of accidental symmetry. Last year, when we made six shorts in six months (as part of Group101), we made a five-minute short called Nonhuman Resources. It starred Stephen Brophy, Jenna Fischer, and Rachel Kann. It was a documentary-style comedy about Grimm Brothers, a corporation that places storybook characters (witches, elves, fairies, the three little pigs) in appropriate jobs. I hadn't yet seen the BBC's The Office (though I had heard about it and it sounded great), but my impression was that we were doing something similar. In our short, the jokes were played very, very realistically, and the acting was really incredible. Afterward, I watched The Office and completely loved it. What we did with Nonhuman Resources was, indeed, very similar to the BBC's The Office.

NBC was going to remake The Office (set in America), and Jenna had auditioned for it. She actually got the call while we were shooting that yes, she was probably going to get a "series regular" role on NBC's remake. Now it's official. NBC's The Office premieres this month, and Jenna Fisher is a regular cast member, alongside Steve Carrell (Anchorman, The Daily Show) and Rainn Wilson (he was the amazing Arthur on Six Feet Under). Jenna also shot an upcoming Six Feet Under episode. Hopefully, Nonhuman Resources will start showing up at festivals this summer or fall. Or I may break down and just post it here much sooner than that. Not sure.

As for The Black Lodge, a few promising things have not materialized and now there's little chance we'll shoot the feature in Texas this summer. I may actually shoot a horror short in California (as a way to keep away the Non-Shootin' Blues) instead. I've made two horror shorts so far, but both were made quickly and sloppily, and neither one is especially good. Group101 is a great learning tool, but I found that most of my output from that hectic program is more valuable to me as a lesson than as a finished work. It could really help The Black Lodge move forward faster if I had a concrete (and directly-related) example of what kind of movie it's going to be. I haven't decided much about the short so far -- other than the fact that I need and want to do it -- so I'll have to post here again once the details are a little more solid.

The Black Lodge poster image

2005-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Here's an early poster idea for The Black Lodge. Thanks to photographer Jack Zeman for setting up the photo shoot and for doing such a great job. Thanks also to Robert Choate for doing special effects makeup.

Also, Indefinitely will be showing at the Filmstock Debrecen Film Festival in Hungary the week of April 1 -7th, at the Apollo Cinema. This is an offshoot of the UK-based Filmstock Film Fest. Thanks to Justin and Neil for the invite.

Welcome to the Blog!

2005-01-27T18:29:00.000-08:00

This is our new temporary home. Software (and time) issues have kept me from updating the Bare Ruined Films site for a few months now, so I've shifted to Blogger.com and have put BareRuinedFilms.com on temporary hiatus. We actually have a really cool new site designed by Eric Palmerlee of NYC's Lost Property Information, but have some content hurdles we're still dealing with. Hopefully we'll get the new site online in the first quarter of 2005. It's probably a good idea to strip the site down to its essentials, anyway, as I wonder how much information on the old site was barely ever viewed by anybody.

First, old business. Last September (17-19) I had a blast going to Lexington, Virigina to the Worldfest Lexington Film Festival. They only invited about 15 films, so it was a great honor to be flown out there and to be able to show Indefinitely to the fine folks at Washington & Lee University. Thanks to Hunter Todd and his main supporter in this endeavor, John Dean. A good time was had by all.

Also, last November 11th I was asked to show both Indefinitely and Night Dawn Day for film students at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. I've never shown both films (which are, thematically, two halves of the same whole) together, so it was a unique experience among film screenings. Actresses Alaina Kalanj and Lisa Carnahan were able to make the trip with me, so it was great having them on hand to answer questions afterward and just hang out.

Here's a blast from the past: our 1999 music video for the Vigilantes of Love's "Resplendent" (featuring Emmylou Harris) is now available on the 2 DVD / 1 CD set, Vigilantes of Love: Fade to Black. You can order it from Fundamental Records and learn more about it at BillandVOL.com. I haven't seen a copy yet, but I know one DVD is a complete live show and the other DVD has the music video and a ton of special features. They're only making 1000 of these puppies.

Now, the future: Our main objective for 2005 is to make The Black Lodge, a brutal low-budget horror movie. Much of the same crew I've worked with in the past is on board -- DP Bill Schwarz, editor Jack Waldrip, actress Alaina Kalanj and line producer Cathy King. The movie will be scored by Kevin Manthei of Invader Zim fame. We are moving forward with the project and hope to shoot it this summer in Texas. We're very excited.