Cinequest - Day 8 - Treaty of Nepenthe

Versailles. Potsdam. Camp David. The geography of truce knows no boundaries when leaders join together for peace. The West Coast Brunes and I, the East Coast Brunes's ambassador, along with our moderator, Adam P.(pictured at left with a gift from Dan and Christy) visited coastal California in hopes of carving out a common ground on the divisive issues which have plagued our family since it crossed the Atlantic so many years ago. Our first stop on the peace trip was the bohemian city of Santa Cruz, home to the film The Lost Boys and the banana slug. We kissed the mollusk's image on the t-shirt in keeping with the Northern California legend that it brings good luck. We broke bread together before venturing off down the coast, first stopping at the home of the West Coast Brunes.

There were several family heirlooms in their home and also the gun that fired the shot that the Brunes heard 'round the world. I guess it's time to explain how the rift started. When the Brunes first immigrated to this country, they brought with them the family dog. It was to be the first in a long line of domesticated animals to serve as anchors to the sanity of the Brune family. This beloved dog was nearly as cherished as the children of our family, an avatar of loyalty, duty, quickness, luck, good nature and iconoclasm. One fateful day in the gently waving grasses of our Kansas plantation, my great-great grandfather was shooting recklessly at a swarm of locusts whilst my great-great uncle was playing nearby with the children and the dog, whose name is either Terrific or Abraham depending on which side of the family you ask. Well, as you can imagine, an errant shot felled the esteemed canine and all tranquility vanished from the Great Plains that day. Words were spoken that cannot be taken back. My side of the Brunes soon ended up on the East Coast, swearing on the good book never to own another pet again. That's the feud's origin and there were many wars and skirmishes in between then and now, but I don't wish to reopen old wounds.

From their home, we drove down the coast of Monterey Bay, watching the waves lap against the rocks. We came upon a peaceful sanctuary with friendly animals that came right up to us. They would have shaken our hands if they knew the custom. Dan was like St. Francis of Assisi with squirrels crawling up his legs. Of course he was feeding them, which the posted signs warned against, but beneath his lawlessness was a plea for conciliation and it was working. Our next stop was the famous 16 or 17 mile drive which spans a good part of Monterey Bay and covers the Pebble Peach area and the city once mayored by the great Clint Eastwood, Carmel. It was also the filming for the movie A Summer Place which I have not seen. We drove around Carmel looking for Clint Eastwood, the man and the memorabilia. We found neither. Apparently, he does not license his image in that fashion. We find locate one memento to the man on the menu of a restaurant he owns or used to own.

It's a little pricey for a meal named after a cop like Dirty Harry. I seem to remember him eating hot dogs all the time. We set off to the beach of Carmel, the sand of which couldn't have been finer. Dan said it reminded him of the sand you find in cigarette butt cans. Just sitting on the beach watching the Pacific, I kept thinking we should put this familial schism behind us. Talks would have been accelerated if Adam, our moderator, wasn't on the phone the entire day. Every time I tried to snap a picture of him with the marvelous coastal vistas behind him, he'd have his Motorola to his ear. Maybe he thought he could hear the ocean if he listened hard enough.

Our final stop was a restaurant 800 feet above sea level on the cliffs of the coast called Nepenthe. It used to be the summer home of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. It was a tough place to photograph, but we watched the sunset over the Pacific as we dined outside in the calm, cool air. It was incredibly memorable and over bread, lamb, wine and french fries, we made peace overlooking the Pacific. The Brunes are united again!

Back in San Jose that night, we read the most recent article in the Metro venerating Blood Car. It was a wonderful article and I have no doubt it will help pack out our final engagement on Saturday afternoon. Please check the Blood Car site or FWW site to find a link to that article. The Metro has been so good to us.

But with every piece of good news comes some bad news. We've heard from a few more festivals and our current average has dropped to .250. It's hard to reconcile all the positive press and encouraging personal feedback from audiences we've received here with some of this news. I have a feeling some of these people will come around.

We didn't see any movies on Wednesday(I'm a day behind in the blog.), but our journey was given a cinematic name, mostly due to the exploits at the after parties. It was called Fear and Loathing in San Jose, but please don't let your imaginations get carried away. We didn't have any wide angle lenses on that night.

Cinequest - Day 7 - A car that runs on...animation?

So, it's been a week here in San Jose. Adam and I have about a week remaining while Tony, Alex, Julie and Katie are all planning on departing on Saturday after the final engagement of Blood Car at Cinequest. The festival has slowed down a little, but it continues to pull in respectable crowds. Monday's crowd for the doc, The Third Monday in October, with the filmmakers and subjects in attendance, was excellent.

At the rental car place at the airport, we spotted a red Blood Car. I wonder who drives this thing, and if they know what their engine can really do if they let a vegan tinker under the hood for a few hours.

Today was our trip to Pixar Studios in Emeryville, CA. There was restricted access because they're working on a new film, but Ken Huey, our host, showed us a wonderful time and was quite knowledgeable about all things Pixar. There were beautiful pastels of concept art from past films on the walls. Everything for their films is done in house, from storyboards to striking prints of their films to sound recording. Everything. "It's a movie studio," Alex said, "with no cameras." Pretty extraordinary. Robert Bresson would blow his top. There was a wall next to one of the sound recording studios where actors signed their names. We saw Lindsay Lohan's signature, Owen Wilson's, John Ratzenberger's, Rob Schneider's. Jeremy Piven wrote, "Poll Position Bitch" and signed his name. We ate lunch in the cafeteria, which was delicious. Outside, the grounds smelled of cinnamon. Some say there is a bakery nearby, but we nodded knowingly at each other. They must have some secret, cinnamon fragrance pump that constantly scents the air. As we were leaving, there was some sort of broad sword training session being conducted in the outdoor amphitheater. What an amazing place and an amazing company. If you have any doubt, check out this restroom sign.

Next, since we had rented a minivan for the day, we drove up to San Francisco and headed straight(no pun intended) for Lombard St. We walked around Fisherman's Wharf for a little while, chasing seagulls and playing in The Musee Mecanique, the antiquity of which reminded me of my current favorite book, The Invention of Hugo Cabaret. It's a great big warehouse with arcade machines and games that only cost a quarter. Some work, some don't. Some appeal to the prurient interests and some are just bizarro. You can also play Ms. Pac Man and REAL Skee Ball, not that Ice Ball b******t or whatever they call it now.

Driving around SF, I reenacted some of my favorite scenes from Don Siegel's Dirty Harry. I've been lucky enough to read Mr. Siegel's autobiography and Alex reminds me of him: sarcastic, passionate, objective, knows the business very well and doesn't give or take much bs. Cinequest is a great place for people like that, like us. It's a filmmaker's festival. There are enough industry panels and networking opportunities to sate your appetite, but not overwhelm the purpose of the festival's existence - movies.

We left SF and proceeded into the great green north, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge (a little foggy), snaking through the coastal hills and crags until we reached Muir Woods National Monument. "Here I was born, and here I died." Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton said this to Det. Scottie Ferguson in Vertigo in Muir Woods looking at a cross section of a great redwood. Reading about John Muir, the park's namesake, I think he probably said the same thing sometime in his life. Muir was a die-hard preservationist and Theodore Roosevelt visited him in Yosemite during his presidency in 1903 and asked John to show him the 'real Yosemite.' They split off from the presidential entourage and camped out in the open air for days, talking about nature and enjoying its beauty. The President of the United States of America did this. He slept outside in Yosemite only to be covered by snow when he woke the next morning. When I was walking around the Muir Woods, smelling the aromatic air, I kept wishing to have some revelation about myself and my life. It seemed like the perfect place for epiphanies, but usually mine just come while I'm at home lying in bed or brushing my teeth in my bathroom or something, not in these prehistoric nature preserves. I have so many questions. I just pine for an equal number of epiphanies. Now that I've had time to think, perhaps they will come.

We left Muir Woods regrettably after only a brief stay and paused for a moment of reflection on the road overlooking this beautiful area. We filmed Adam yelling, "Beardman!" into the rolling valley. Alex forgot the beard otherwise we would have shot more Beardman stock footage. We had to get back on the road to make the final showing of our friend Francois's film All the Days Before Tomorrow at Cinequest. On the way back, I tried to nap, but instead we just talked and laughed a lot, which seems to happen quite a bit when a nap tugs at my heels.

Back in San Jose, we walked to our respective theaters to see our respective movies. Adam went to see Zodiac and I went to see The Pacific and Eddy. One of my other favorite things about being here is that when people see us, they don't address us individually with "Hey Alex" or "Hey Adam"; instead, they say, "Hey Blood Car." It's our collective name.

We marked off another piece of our intinerary last night as well: Write graffitti on a bathroom stall. Here is the evidence. The panty hose is supposed to be panty Jose.

Most people are on the world, not in it... - John Muir.

Cinequest - Day 6 - Games hotels play.

Monday. A day of rest for us. We slept in, missing continental breakfast at the Clarion Hotel. In life, there is a can-do attitude in the service industry which we all know brings smiles to the faces of children and adults alike. On the other side is the can-don't attitude, which is the Clarion Hotel incarnate. It's like a hotel in a horror movie with a pleasant facade but a seething evil permeating its walls, employees, and amenities. If you ever come to Silicon Valley, do not stay here. Alex said he'd rather stay in a whorehouse. Having never stayed in one of those, I'm not sure I'd want to, but I'd certainly consider it if it was like the whorehouse on the pier in the Marquez book Love in the Time of Cholera where Florentino Ariza loses his virginity. Not that it sounds particularly cozy, but it is romanticized.

Downtown, we discovered the glory that is the Cinequest Hospitality Suite. Furnished with free Red Bull, snacks, hot coffee, and a bank of laptops with high speed internet, it became our HQ for the day. We saw a really interesting film called Slumming which featured a portrayal of drunkard homelessness unlike anything I've ever seen. I was a little worn out watching it so I think I missed a little of its power, but it was nonetheless a fascinating and stimulating piece of work.

We didn't completely shirk our promoting duties. We put a poster in the window of this Vegan Cafe. The owner said he's heard of our film and is going to try to make our 'Final Engagement' on Saturday. He was cool, and by cool I mean he cursed enthusiastically. It definitely seemed like a place Archie would frequent. San Jose is actually an Archie kind of town. Lots of casual bike riders.

We had a interview with one of the editors(or THE editor) of the Metro here in San Jose. He saw our WP on Friday and loved the film. As we were waiting for him in the Paragon bar, a server informed us that some people wanted to buy Katie, Alex, and I a drink. Pinney and Tony were also there, but the server made a point of saying it was just the three of us that were to be treated. The journalist arrived right then and we had to go somewhere quieter to conduct the interview so we didn't really have a chance to take advantage of those drinks, which I feel bad about. I hope those folks don't think we were rude. Back in the Cinequest Hospitality Suite, we sat around for about an hour talking about the film. He has a weekly column in which he writes about whatever he wants, usually a cult movie topic. It felt very comfortable and friendly, like he was a fan of the movie first and a journalist second. I usually feel like I choke during press events, but I think I'm improving based on my experience with this one. I look forward to reading his piece. I learn things about Archie just talking about scenes in the film and talking about the character more and more. I love relating stories of the production to the press. I feel like Blood Car is a fairy tale story in the middle of its writing.



Regretfully, I have to tell you that Alex and Katie seem to do nothing but fight these days. Just the other day on the light rail platform, I snapped these incriminating photos. Alex's temper is boiling over and he's destroying everything in sight from the ground up. I think Adam is next and then maybe me. Look at him smiling. He thinks it's all fun and games and he should be proud of violence. He's a basket case. (JOKE)

A little game for you blog readers below. We reenacted some famous paintings. You can make your guesses in the comments section. Difficulty level: 2.

Cinequest - Day 5 - A Grand Slam

Our 2nd World Premiere approached quickly so we took to the streets early with our best Blood Car sales pitches. Some samples:
-Blood Car: More sex than Caligula!
-Save gas. Drive the HILARIOUS Blood Car.
-Double Fist the Double Feature: Monster Camp and Blood Car.
-75 minutes of funny-funny fun fun.
-If the state of the state gets you down, BC will get you up.
-Blood and laughs - BLAUGHS!
Our screening was across the street in a different theater this time, the Camera Cinema 12, which seats about 300 people. We stood in front of the theater from 1pm until 830pm handing out postcards, chasing down wandering San Joseans, convincing complete strangers to step up to the box office and buy tickets to our film. We were committed to packing out our theater. Our great Metro review was like a revolver we used to squash any vestiges of uncertainty. "Favorite film of the fest" - Can't argue with that. Though it was exhausting, I had a blast pitching our film to anyone and everyone. Many people we accosted already said they were going. Some, in broad daylight, whipped out their tickets with, "Leave me alone. I'm already going." Some people ignore you, but most are pretty receptive. We handed out Blood Car keys and postcards and buttons all day long. Day turned to night and Alex pulled people into the theater up until show time, stealing customers who were standing in line to buy tickets for Hollywood films like Zodiac and Breach. David Fincher, we're not sorry.

8-830pm was a nerve wracking thirty minutes until I walked into the theater...to a FULL HOUSE. People could not find seats. A few folks sat in the aisle. 300 seats. FULL HOUSE.

It was what Friday night should have been. Again, the short film If I See Randy, warmed up the crowd with laughs. Our film started with no sound, so we scrambled to find tech people and Cinequest volunteers. We nearly had a collective heart attack. Only about a minute or two went by before they shut the film off and fixed the problem and restarted the film. From then on, we just waited for the laughs, which came in droves at all the right moments. People loved the film. Katie, Adam, Tony, Julie, and I watched the film from the hallway while Alex whiled away on his text messenger like a GI radio operator sending out word to our friends and family back home in Atlanta.

About half the crowd stuck around for the Q&A, and after that many people approached us to say wonderful things about the film. The most common question seems to be "How did you come up with the idea?" A couple of audience members commented on the Woody Allen reference in the film, so I'm sure that made Alex very happy. I was little surprised he couldn't remember what film it originated in, but the audience members knew(Love and Death). I think he was just nervous. When asked about Alex's influences for Blood Car, the only director mentioned who received a cheer was Takashi Miike. It was a group of three friends, but our common bond to that Japanese filmmaker is the cult aspect and the envelope pushing. We passed out some posters and autographed them and were interviewed by the Cinequest spokeswoman, who in official videos wears a shirt that looks like a film slate. We also did another interview that was recorded directly onto an ipod mini. I don't remember her name but she asked some good questions.

During the film I found myself very impatient. I just wanted to hear the laughter of the crowd so I kept waiting for the jokes or the killings, which in some cases are synonymous.

When Alex arrived home to his computer after a southern breakfast at the 24 hour Denny's, he found a litter of lionizing emails from people who saw the film that night. To all those who attended the screening, thank you very much. If you liked it, tell your friends. If you didn't, tell your enemies.

Cinequest - Day 4 - Triple Feature

I went to three movies yesterday, so I didn't take a lot of pictures, so in the interest of glasnost, you'll be seeing this picture from Day 1. I saw Shoot Down, All the Days Before Tomorrow, and Monster Camp. I enjoyed all three of them. If you're at Cinequest, they're worth seeing. What I loved the most about these films were the Q&As with the filmmakers following the screenings. I was quite impressed with each of the directors and producers. They were well spoken, polite people, all passionately driven to make each of their films. I know Shoot Down and Monster Camp were self-financed by the creators and their detailed stories and thoughts about each film's production, story and message reaffirmed my belief in independent filmmakers spread across the world wanting to tell personal stories through the cinema. Cinequest is spoiling me with all of these Q&As. When I go to see Playtime in April in Atlanta, I'm going to close my eyes tightly and wish for Jacques Tati to step out in front of us and tell us about the uphill battle of that picture. But, alas, he's dead.

We hit the pavement yesterday with swag promoting our Sunday Night Screening, which is in the smaller theater. We're hoping to really pack it out. The three films I saw yesterday at the Camera 12 Cinema were all well attended with numbers like 150 on the low end and 250 on the high end.

It was really wonderful to spring break it with the FWW/Blood Car crew. I wish everyone didn't have to leave on Sunday. It's been so memorable, but I know the smell in the hotel room of Chris A., Chris C., Hugh B., and Adam P. can be measured on a Geiger counter by now. I'll miss them and Anna C. and my brothers, too. They're in the air or at the airport as I write this.

Check out Blood Car on imdb.com. Seventeen people have rated the film. Our arithmetic mean is 8.8. Both women who rated it gave it a 10.0. I haven't thought about the film's portrayal of women too much, but the two main female characters are quite strong. Lorraine and Denise are both young entrepreneurs and small business owners. Unfortunately, they mistakenly become mixed up with Archie, a young inventor, and it leads to their demises. What's the message here? You mix yourself up with a man and you are murdered in cold blood? Perhaps. Denise falls in love with material things and that is her undoing. Lorraine is the good hearted person who loves Archie for who he is, but cannot quite see that he is really unavailable and uncertain about his own desires. Are things doomed from the start? Is it a tragedy? Perhaps.

Archie doesn't really know what he wants. He needs someone to tell him what he wants. He's a green flunky who is sucked into America's bloodthirsty government machine. There seem to be a few parallels here to Bertolucci's The Conformist. Marcello Clerici and Archie Andrews should have a chat sometime in a busy kitchen with a swinging lightbulb. See picture at right, which is copyrighted and I do not own or claim to own. I typed in swinging light bulb in google image search and this is what I found. I hope I meet Jean-Louis Trintignant before he dies.

Art imitates life, though Oscar Wilde said the reverse was more prevalent. I'm sure he's right.

Time to hit the pavement and promote Blood Car. Save gas, drive Blood Car.

Cinequest - Day 3 - The World Premiere

Day 3 was history. Une histoire, en francais. A story. It began at cinema's birth over 100 years ago and gained its independence on March 2, 2007 in the USA's Silicon Valley. I took this photo to commemorate the forefathers of filmmaking. No need to run screaming from this blog. It will not hurt you.

Chris C., our co-dp and a producer on the film, arrived at our hotel in wee hours of the morning after spending all night on a plane and all morning in the SF airport trying to catch a ride to San Jose. My brothers arrived. Chris B. tasted the Pacific for the first time and had this to say, "It tastes just like the Atlantic, only colder." Chris A. wrote a poem today entitled "Horse Cop" which I will print in the next day or so. Anna Chlumsky arrived from NYC, which brought our grand total to 14. 14 members of Blood Car in San Jose.

Yesterday reminded me of a song, mostly joyful but with some disappointment. Looking back at the photos it seemed to have a soundtrack. It was sunny and cool and it's starting to feel like we're in the right place for once. We were dressed to the nines in the geography. There were short movies and long ones, quiet talks and grand speeches, anxiety and anticipation, gains and losses, fans and lines, questions and empty seats and even a couple autographs.

Most of us attended a couple of the panel forums on distribution topics in the morning and early afternoon. The one I attended was staffed by a handful of journalists and media personnel from various magazines batting around ideas and suggestions on how to promote your film to journalists, fans and the media in general. They pointed out a number of great ideas that I, amongst many others, had not considered and will certainly come in handy for the next festival. There is definitely a learning curve to climb for the distribution side of this industry. At this forum, we marked off a very important item on our itinerary, which I have yet to really touch on yet. This itinerary I made, based on the ideas of Brad K. and Damian D. in Atlanta, GA, includes a list of all the attendees, their San Jose names (My brother Greg's San Jose name is Senator Toughasnails.), and a list of activities. It's a bit hard to explain concisely, but the item we checked off today was "Steal another filmmaker's film idea." Now, I don't know if this person was a filmmaker, but he wrote about film, so that's pretty close. Here it is:

A woman, someone's Aunt, crashes in the Yukon and is trapped for 40 days, struggling for survival. Lord of the Flies meets Castaway meets General Motors. The twist, it's the Chevy Yukon. That's right, a woman trapped in an SUV for 40 days. Will she survive? Check your odometers this summer!

After the forum, we walked around downtown San Jose passing out postcards, keys, and sticking up posters in every storefront that would allow it. We trekked around the San Jose State campus putting up posters and basking in its coastal glow.







I was surprised at how generous a few of these stores were, especially this antique store to the left. From there, we returned to our hotel to rest up before the World Premiere. Today marked our first encounter with San Jose law enforcement as well, courtesy of Chris C. On the light rail system here, the honor system is king. No one takes tickets, you just buy one and hop aboard. However, law enforcement officials periodically check the tickets of people at random and if you haven't purchased one, you are fined $100 or something. Well, Chris C. thought he could outsmart these men and you know what...he did. This officer approached him, asked Chris C. for his ticket, which he did not have. He issued him a ticket, but as the officer was writing it out, Chris C. said, "I'm with Blood Car." He handed the officer a postcard, which seemed to delight the officer, explained that the film was having its World Premiere tonight, illustrating his entire predicament in a charming fashion. Not only did the officer degrade the ticket to a warning, but he issued Chris C. a free day pass for the light rail system.

Back at the hotel, more swag was awaiting us in the form of little buttons, which we all sported on our snappy sport coats, dresses, ties and lanyards. I spent some time resting in my bed trying to sleep as the tv broadcast an endless loop of The Bourne Identity/Supremacy. I become pretty loopy when I'm tired. I had wanted to see Buster Keaton's The General that night before the BC WP, but it would just be cutting it too close, so I became quite irascible and said some things to Katie and Alex about one of the hotel's maintenance men that I probably shouldn't have. I'm not going to apologize, but I am remorseful. All dressed up, we made our way to the lobby to wait for a couple cabs to take us to dinner before the WP. Check us out.

We had a wonderful dinner together and made our way to the World Premiere. Going in to the screening, there was a gaff in the festival's program about our WP screening. In the daily quick schedule, our film was not listed at all as playing on Friday at 1030pm! However, in the alphabetized list of films with synopses in the program, all the information was correct. I also didn't like the fact that you couldn't buy tickets to our film at the San Jose Rep's box office. One had to buy tickets at the main Cinequest box office, at a theater across the street. Those things aside, as we approached the theater, we saw the line. A line of people outside the theater waiting to see our film, our first feature film. From afar it looked like 300 people. Our imaginations and hopes were running away with us. I wish they had taken us on a marathon instead of just a jog around the park. To be frank, I think we were all disappointed with the turnout. Given the generally positive write-ups we received and 'buzz', we expected to sell out the SJREP. We did not. A little over 100 people showed up for the 1030pm show. The theater seats 584, including the balcony. In our favor, Cinequest did move our screening from the Cinema 12 to the SJ Rep because they expected a bigger turnout. We would certainly have packed out the Cinema 12, which is much smaller. Nevertheless, I'm happy our film screened there. I watched it from the balcony by myself, waiting for the turbulent nervousness to fade away, which it does when that first big laugh hits. After audiences see that pornographic pencil drawing of a bj, we pretty much win them over. Thereafter, I sat back and enjoyed the film much more than I did at the cast and crew screening in Dec. I commend the technical staff at the San Jose Rep as well, because the projection and sound were technically flawless. BC never looked better. Thank you. And nice work to Cinequest for our lead-in short film about a lumberjack who doesn't know his face has been sliced off. A funny short.

Even though the quantity of the crowd did not meet our expectations, the quality of the response certainly did. The empirical evidence was overwhelming. People laughed a lot. Alex spotted a journalist laughing during the film, so maybe that will bring us additional spoils. I learned a great deal about Blood Car from this WP by talking to people who loved the film. We have a cult film in the making. Our Q&A was short because they wanted to close up the theater, but we did announce my candidacy for President of the USA in 2008. And that's not a joke. We videotaped it. Hopefully you'll see it soon. I'd like to thank each and every person who attended our WP. Hope to see you on Sunday night at 830p for our 2nd World Premiere.

Cinequest - Day 2 - Pulling a Bogdanovich

I woke up to a phone call this Friday morning from Dan Brune, my father's first cousin, who lives 'over the hill' near Santa Cruz with his wife Christy. There has long been a war between the East Coast Brunes and the West Coast Brunes, much like the oft-cited rivalry between hip-hop/rap artists from the opposing geographic coasts. What our feud has lacked in attention from the mainstream media outlets, it has made up for in violence. Dan and I have brokered a cease-fire and we will be setting up two-party talks after the BLOOD CAR WORLD PREMIERE TONIGHT AT 1030PM. The West Coast and the East Coast will hopefully reunite. I am looking forward to the talks.

Day 2 - Our first stop today was a filmmaker's luncheon treated by the festival director, Mike, and a group of other filmmakers with films in the festival. There were more people in our posse than other filmmakers combined, but I chalk that up to the other filmmakers not having arrived yet or excessive partying. We dined on raw oysters, shrimp, cheese bread, bruschetta, and those were just appetizers. And Cinequest treated. Now I doubt this will be a regular thing, but it was quite flattering be wined and dined...really just dined. Just imagine if you were someone like Martin Scorsese. I bet he hasn't paid for a meal in twenty years.

The second Blood Car wave arrived today, including Adam P., Hugh B., Jon and Amanda S., Chris A. Apparently, Chris Campbell arrived sometime late that night, but I have yet to see him in person. I know he didn't make it to the hot tub party later that night. The person wearing pants in the hot tub in the foreground is Chris A. the film's gaffer and co-producer.

But hours before clothes started coming off and the jacuzzi jets fired up, a group of us traveled up to San Francisco for an appearance on a pirate radio station called Pirate Cat Radio, 87.9. In the studio were Alex O., Jon S., Adam P., Katie R. and myself, mediated by none other than DJ Blurt, who looked a little ruddy from a recent sunburn, except for pale sunglasses-shaped area around his eyes. The radio station was above a warehouse in a two story non-descript building with one door and no name to speak of. The picture sort of embodies the clandestine feel of the place. This woman asked us for a password and we had agreed on the drive up if the question were ever posed, to say, "Submarine." The real password was 'nuclear submarine', but she cut us a break.

We walked right upstairs and met the host and sat down in the studio and started chatting before we went on air, when she asked us about our record. A chorus of 'uhs' followed and we were promptly ushered out of the radio station because we were not a New Orleans brass/guitar band dressed like a Commedia dell'Arte troupe.

Next door at a taqueria we waited for our guy. We had arrived a little too early. We ate some super tacos that could only be consumed with silverware. Call me old-fashioned, but I like tacos you can hold and, more importantly, control. DJ Blurt arrived and we went back upstairs to the radio station. They welcomed us in true flower child fashion. You can hear the podcast here. It's about an hour or so and pretty entertaining. I speak in a British accent for the first twenty minutes or so of the interview so don't be alarmed. Well, you can be alarmed about how bad the accent sounds. It didn't sound so bad at the time. Thanks to Tova, who set the interview up, and to DJ Blurt and his cohorts for giving us airtime.

Back in San Jose that evening, we split off into promotion teams armed with postcards, posters, and Blood Car keys. We spray painted a bunch of keys yellow and then splattered them with fake blood and tied key rings to them with our screening times. We tell people that one of the keys opens the Blood Car, which is languishing in inertness back in Atlanta, and if they come to the Atlanta Film Festival and bring their key and it opens the car, they win the Blood Car.

Adam and I went to see a film called Swedish Auto starring Lukas Haas and January Jones. It's about a Swedish car mechanic and his voyeuristic love of music. The director was present and answered questions after the film. There was a good My Morning Jacket song over the end credits and I liked Lukas Haas and the scenes with the violin player.

While we sat in the movie theater, Alex O. met Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers and Peter Bogdanovich of the garage that Orson Welles lived in for a few years. Unfortunately, Alex did not have a video camera or we would have taped Peter B. saying "Hello, I'm Peter Bogdanovich and I might have gone to see Blood Car if I wasn't leaving town tomorrow."

The after party was strangely a deja-vu of the one the night before, with a couple of notable exceptions: Free drink tickets, and about six of us sporting Blood Car t-shirts. People continue to tell us that they've heard of the film and that there is buzz about it. Tonight is the big night. Let's wait and see.

'Pulling a Bogdanovich' -- a film phrase in which a filmmaker who is riding a wave of critical and commercial success splits with his wife, (in the Bogdanovich case, Polly Platt, who went on to produce Bottle Rocket), and takes up with another woman (in his case, Cybill Shepherd). His career soon after takes a nose dive while the wife's conversely takes off.

Cinequest - Day 1 - The First Picture Show

If every day in San Jose is like yesterday, I think I'll arrive home in a body bag. We landed in San Francisco and then hopped on a train for San Jose, which is about an hour's drive south. During the ride, Katie showed me a stack of pages that looked like schoolwork, but turned out to the be Blood Car translated into French. We're required to subtitle the film for the European Independent Film Festival. The grandmother of an old boyfriend of Katie's is French and did 95% of the translation, including some of the obscenities. As with any translation, some phrases don't work in another language, e.g. Denise's line "I'm all the f**k out."
I know a little French and my accent hasn't suffered too much since my last French class, with Mon. Eric Le Calvez. I practiced a Watkin's monologue and one of Archie's freakouts in French. We videotaped it, so hopefully you'll see it soon.

Believe it or not, the wireless in our hotel, IN SILICON VALLEY, is sub-par. It's also a little bit of hike to the venues, but we'll make do. Alex and I checked in at the Cinequest HQ at the Montgomery Hotel and received our Filmmaker Passes, which entitled us to all-access privileges to screenings, parties, forums, etc. They fine folks at Cinequest also gave us a goodie bag. Check out the schwag. And yes, in the top right corner are two small wheels of brie with a knife and crackers thoughtfully included.


OUR WORLD PREMIERE WILL BE AT THIS THEATER! OUR WORLD PREMIERE WILL BE AT THIS THEATER! OUR WORLD PREMIERE WILL BE AT THIS THEATER! We snuck in to take a look at the place. That's Mr. Orr on stage doing his impression of a director of an indy film that has just premiered at Cinequest 17. Looking at this picture on the right, I can almost here the applause. And I'm not being vain. There is a little buzz about Blood Car in San Jose. Our capsule review from the Metro(a creative loafing style rag)is in print with a STAR next to it. If there's any doubt about this being the right place for our film, take a look at this advertisement on the side of the light rail car.

But there is something darkly ironic about this town that I must address. As Alex and I walked around, we noticed two or three old movie houses, complete with marquees and old timey box offices that no longer showed the films we hold so dear. Instead, they play the bump and grind music we hold so dear and have names like glo as opposed to The California, the only old time movie house that still seems to show movies. It's like our Fox Theater only smaller. But it has an organist. It saddened me a bit.

But once we strolled into The California that night for the opening night of Cinequest 17, that all faded away. TV crews were everywhere. Sold out show. Beautiful theater. Unfortunately, the opening night film, The Namesake, had some rather serious sound issues during projection which marred an otherwise magical experience. We don't know if it was something with the print or the sound system, but it riled up the crowd a few times. However, at the after party, no one seemed to dwell on it too much, but instead looked ahead to the unveiling of so many eclectic films. If I were to pick a favorite part of the day I would have to say it was the following. As we waited for the opening night film to begin, Cinequest organizers showed a couple of trailers for sponsors and the festival itself. In the latter trailer, which featured the festival director talking about the Cinequest mission, clips from no more than four or five films were shown. One of those films was Blood Car. Sold out house, captive audience, clips of Blood Car. Tony, Julie, Alex, Katie and myself could hardly contain ourselves. Katie said I was blushing. Maybe, but it could have been the lighting.

'Twas the night before Cinequest...

...and all through the studio, not a creature was stirring, not even Hal Ashby.
The lenses were all packed up with care, with hopes that a filmmaker would soon be there.
The film was all nestled all snug in their cans, while visions of an f/16 danced in their heads.
And I in my kerchief and my Uniball in its cap, had just settled down for a long writer's nap.
When out in the parking lot, there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like the Flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash
The moon on the breast of the new fallen fake snow, gave the luster of a shooting day to the objects below.
When what to my voyeuristic eyes should aflicker, but a miniature grip truck and eight tiny filmmakers.
With a smart looking driver, so lively and trustworthy, I knew in a moment it must be Halfdan Hussey.
More rapid than a shutter, his coursers they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name.
Now Dreyer! ,now Bergman! ,now Chaplin and Godard!
On Truffaut! On Siegel! On Kurosawa and Fellini!
TO BE CONTINUED...

--We leave for Cinequest in the morning. I'll be blogging every night, or morning, depending on how late the nights become. Look for videos, pics and blog entries from all the FWW Films gang on www.bloodcar.com and www.fakewoodwallpaper.com. I promise a picture each day as well, as they really spice up the blog.

A little festival update: The Mendoza Line approaches. .278. Put us back on top Cleveland and NY Underground.

The Mendoza Line?

As you may or may not know, Blood Car was recently accepted to the Atlanta Film Festival. As stated on our website, it's our third non-consecutive appearance at the film festival but our first with a feature film. This one is special because Atlanta is the home of Blood Car. It's where the film lives, no matter where it shows. Had we not been invited, it would have been like being turned away at your own party. I'm looking forward to that parade this April.

But as the road to Atlanta was once paved with bodies and destruction, BC's road to Atlanta is no different. We've left a lot of film festival bodies in our wake, or conversely, they've left us in their wake. Our list of rejections is a who's who in the film festival yearbook. Berlin, Rotterdam, Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, and more.

On the up side, our current average is .307, which in baseball is fabulous. Our goal is to remain above the Mendoza line(.200), the legacy of shortstop Mario Mendoza of the Pittsburgh Pirates, amongst other teams. Therein lies the boundary between extremely poor and merely below average. Mendoza's career batting average is .215, his nadir coming in his last year in the majors with Texas when he hit .118. However, his personal worst must unarguably be the 1979 season with Seattle when he played over 140 games and still hit .198. Strangely enough, in his 1977 season with the Pirates, he actually pitched for two innings. Judging from the stats, he walked the first two batters he faced and the third homered. I can only assume his hanging breaking ball cost the Pirates the game. Career ERA: 13.50

This being FWW's rookie season in the festival circuit, we hope to remain above .300 like so many great MLB rookies of yesteryear. Boggs, DiMaggio, Williams, etc. I'll update you as necessary.

We're waiting to hear back from quite a few festivals with March dates including Florida, Ann Arbor, Cleveland, New York Underground and more. Procrastinators.

As I was spellchecking this post, we heard from Florida. New average: .286. Well, Pete Rose and Mantle didn't hit over .300 their inaugural seasons.

Stop Making Sense!

The Blood Car World Premiere at Cinequest 17 draws ever closer. We've booked our plane tickets. All told, 12 of us will be heading westward for the opening weekend of the festival, with a handful of us hanging around for the duration of the 12 day movie extravaganza. Special guests Anna C. and my brothers, Greg and Chris, will be joining us as well.

Recently, I was able to spend some quality time with Blood Car at Lab 601 in Atlanta, GA, where we were outputting our film from a RAID(sic) drive to HDCAM tape. This tape will be used to make all the screening dubs which will screen at the various festivals we've been accepted to thus far. Here is Alex with the computer and the drive which housed 4 terabytes of uncompressed HD video.

Now, Lab 601 is primarily an AVID facility and since we cut BC on Final Cut, we encountered a few hiccups during the outputting process. The reason I was there was quality control, which I trained in when I used to work in a soap factory in Daytona Beach. I had to watch BC during the output to ensure that it went to tape according to the filmmaker's vision. No problem. Being a post house, they're pretty hip and a woman baked chocolate chip cookies while I was there. I drank Mr. Pibb from some strange, 80s era fountain machine. Walking up stairs to the machine room, they had all sorts of action figures and toys along the walls, but some fine soul slipped amongst those childish diversions an old edition of recent MacArthur Genius Grant winner George Saunders's book Civilwarland in Bad Decline, a book of short stories.

In other news, one of cinema's household names watched Blood Car and enjoyed it. He furnished us with a quote, which you can find on www.bloodcar.com. His name is Jonathan Demme and Alex, Katie and I had the privilege of working alongside him on a recent doc. He's a kind man and as far as filmmakers go, he's the real thing.

I know I mentioned this in my last post, but our BC cast and crew screening was shown in the exact same theater where Hugh B. and I saw Stop Making Sense! on 35mm.

I'm also concocting a rather detailed travel itinerary for us for the festival. Details later.

Cast and Crew Unite and Take Over

Well, this past Monday we held our cast and crew screening here at the Plaza Theater on Ponce de Leon Ave. Notice The Fountain is playing here. In the sitcom Seinfeld, George Costanza cried when he saw Ponce de Leon, a fictitious film that chronicled the hopeless tragedy of the title character's search for eternal life.

Adam P. used evite.com to send out invitations for this private screening. Our final evite tally reads: Yes-78, Maybe-7, No-6, Not Yet replied-23.

It was an uplifting showing with plenty of laughs and applause at the end. I hugged a lot of people. I only had to ask two people who I had met before for their names. Everyone looked good, some better than they had a year ago when I last saw them, some the same(I certainly did anyway.). I wasn't nervous before the screening because I had two poorly mixed rum n' cokes, but as soon as the credits rolled, the caterpillars in my stomach became butterflies and they didn't settle down until the after-party at Manuel's Tavern on North Ave. I'm serious. My stomach is a habitat for caterpillars. I'm serious.

I stood up in the back for the entire movie, and I only had to shift my weight twice, once from my left leg to my right and then from my right leg back to my left. I have a couple vivid memories that really stood out that night. The first is visual; the second, aural. Before the screening started, I went up into the projection booth where Jon S. and Alex O. were calibrating the digital projector. The movie was frozen on the title card, which is superimposed over a shot of a manhole cover(I think.). I peered through the little windows of the projection booth and saw the red letters of Blood Car on a movie screen for the first time. A movie screen. The same exact movie screen where I saw Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense years earlier and watched the dozen or so people in the theater stand up and start dancing like it was a Talking Heads concert. Unforgettable. Hugh B. was there. The exact same movie house and movie screen.

The next memory was the sound of laughing of a few certain people who will remain nameless, but whose laughs I could pick out of a lineup, detective. Their laughs make me laugh, though there was one laugh that was not present that I believe all the makers of Blood Car know was sorely missed. That laugh was in a different state.

I received two gifts at the Blood Car screening. Here is one. This is my family. There are no superlatives bright enough to describe them.


Chris B., second from right, is wearing a shirt that references this very blog, though the first letter is not quite discernible. It reads 'blutauto'.

The second was a CD of photos taken by Blake M., one of Blood Car's FX leaders and Capt. of the Blood Team. There was one particular photo that stood out.

It looks like it was taken in the mid-80s from an old 16mm camera with film that was just sitting in a box in someone's attic.

On a side note, I have not shaved since the morning of the screening.

Absorbed and Honored!

< Thank you very much for your submission of BLOOD CAR for the 2007 Cinequest Film Festival. We were absolutely absorbed by the film and know it would make a great addition to the festival?s exciting Maverick program of films. We are honored to invite BLOOD CAR to participate in the 17^th Annual Cinequest Film Festival, as part of the New Visions section, where the film will be eligible for the New Vision Award in filmmaking. Cinequest will occur February 28 ? March 11, 2007 in San Jose, California?the heart of Silicon Valley. >>

Acceptance. Mr. Orr received this email approximately one day after the double-rejection from the Park City dances. He called me to tell me the good news. Adam P. called me a few hours later to make sure I'd heard. I rarely receive "Did you hear the news?" calls, but boy how sweet they are when the news is triumphant. I think one of my new year's resolutions will be to make more of those kinds of calls. Imagine receiving a call from me proclaiming, "Did you hear the news?" "No, what?" "Diamonds can be manufactured in a factory that are virtually identical to the real thing." I just learned this.

I think the last time I contacted someone with a 'dyhtn' call was when I heard that filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville never won an award for anything, nor was he ever nominated for anything(at least according to IMDB). And it wasn't a call, but an email, though in retrospect, I wish I had called everyone of my friends about it. I think I wanted to call everyone, but I just wasn't that kind of person then. At any rate, WHAT A CRIME!

Well, Cinequest, if you read this, know that we will all be venturing out your way the 28th of February, 2007 or perhaps before. We wouldn't miss it for the world. The Blood Car World Premiere. I myself can't wait to be arm-in-arm with Silicon Valley and a stone's throw from the Salinas Valley and perhaps rehabilitate my currently infirm convenent with God in St. Joseph's Cathedral Basilica. It looks to be a suitable place.

Blood for the Holidays

Our cast and crew screening for Blood Car will be this Monday, December 11th. I'm quite excited. If you were on the cast and/or crew, you should have received an Evite with details. If not, feel free to comment on this blog and we'll draw up an invitation for you.

Lamentationdance

Recent News.

Blood Car was not accepted to either the Sundance Film Festival or the Slamdance Film Festival, so will we officially not be going to Park City, Utah this January. Well, I submitted a short film of mine to Slamdance and I have yet to be notified about its fate. But the big news is...two festivals-two rejections. 0-2.

I didn't expect acceptance to Sundance. Based on what I know about Sundance and the synopses I read for this year's festival, it's not really a Blood Car type of festival in that genre/grindhouse/comedy-horror films aren't really Sundance material. I have said to many a person that if we didn't get into Slamdance, it would be a serious blow to the hopes of a strong festival year. I still believe that, but not being admitted to Sundance prepared me for the rejection. Odd as it may sound, not getting into a festival I didn't think we had much of a shot at created a rejection callus for a festival I thought we had a shot at. It numbed my nerves a little.

Alex called Slamdance today and asked about our film's status, and from what Adam P. told me, the woman on the line in Park City said, "I'm sorry. It was very close." Something to that effect, at least.

Having a conversation with producer/co-writer/DP(a superlative mix to be sure) Adam P. brought me down to Earth. It's our first film and we made it so we could sell it, probably straight to DVD if we were to be frank and earnest with ourselves. Nevertheless, we hoped, or at least I did, that the film would rise above itself and take the festival circuit by storm.

I don't mean to sound fatalistic or hopeless because, hey, what are two festivals in the scheme of over 40 that Blood Car has been submitted to thusfar? The possibilities remain bountiful for 2007. I'm confidant we'll play some great festivals. Perhaps we won't kick off the year with Park City, but I know for a fact a film festival in Glasgow wants to play our film and all they've seen is the trailer. Our niche will rise to the top.

We put down a rather sizeable deposit on a weekly rental for a small condo in Park City in hopes we'd be attending the festival. Condo parties will have to be postponed, but the deposit money we will now get back couldn't come at a more opportune season.

Medium shot - close up

The Two Jokes and No Spoilers!

Last Wednesday, we shot what the makers of Blood Car are calling the final, end-all be-all pickup shots for the film. To date, it was our most expensive day of shooting. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you anything about what was shot. Generalities will have to suffice. If I revealed anything, I would have to preface it with this... SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER!!, and I'm not prepared to do that.

Our schedule consisted of two camera setups, one shot each, one joke each, one laugh each(We hope.)...at least in conception. Wrong. The first shot I'm not qualified to discuss as I wasn't present during the filming, but for the second I was there and now that I think about it, there are a solid two jokes in that one shot. And I'm not trying to create any sort of buzz around these two shots, but I just feel like I'd be telling you the ending if I said anything.

And believe it or not, I think what was done last Wednesday helped bring the story of Archie Andrews to a satisfying close. Sitting here, nearly two weeks later, I can feel closure for Archie. I really think he needed this. So, to the makers of Blood Car, Archie thanks you.

In a blood related note, the American Red Cross has informed me that I am one pint away from reaching the 4 gallon donation mark for whole blood.

And if you're wondering, Blood Car has officially been submitted to the Sundance Film Festival.

Pillow Talk

Our most recent ADR session involved myself and Katie R., who plays Denise in the film, interacting after copulation. This photograph is actually staged, but I do about the same thing while we're actually recording. Though this pillow talk was planned all along, it was never actually scripted until today. Alex wrote two pages in about twenty minutes with some input from Katie and I and Adam P. the DP, who was working on iconic designs for the Blood Car poster.

Some ideas that were tabled included a silhouette of a gun shooting a car out of the barrel, with blood spewing from the chamber; the blood car sinking into the ocean(think the Exxon Valdez photo), with blood spreading out into the sea. There were others, too.

This room used to be a closet, but Jon S. converted it into an sound booth by essentially adding insulation to the room, then building another set of walls inside of the original walls and then adding the corrugated foam you see here. It has one bare light bulb in the ceiling. But it's air conditioned and not at all claustrophobic.

Alex O. has brought in a number of actors from the film over the past week to record additional screaming. These people include several agents, Marla M., and Mr. Malt.

Today was my turn for screaming, only these screams were intending for a scene in which I murder someone, all the while delivering a guttural killscream. It's one of Archie's most harrowing moments. I have a little video of this which I will attempt to post on my myspace page because, let's face it, what else is it good for?

the space

The marketing machine has officially begun with none other than myspace.com, which at the time of this writing is experiencing a power outage at their data center. On a normal day, when the power is humming, I believe you can access it by just adding /bloodcar to the homepage URL. If that doesn't work, just do a search for blood car and you'll find it eventually.

Its most attractive and effective feature is the NEW trailer. There was an old trailer that was good, but this one is a 100x better. It really makes you want to see the film, sets up the characters and the story in a concise way, and on top of all that, is genuinely funny. Our friend James H., who is a board certified projectionist and a GSU alum, cut the trailer. I don't know how much he editing he currently does, but he certainly has a gift and/or knack for it.

The song from the trailer is none other than UK 'extreme power metal' band DragonForce. I'm not sure which album the song hails from, or even the name of the song for that matter. However, their biography is quite impressive(www.dragonforce.com). They are currently on their most recent 'tour of duty' in which they leave devastated cities in their wake. Devastated by rock that is. Rock that UK metal mag UK Metal Hammer claims is "as metal as f**k." They play the Masquerade on August 11th. Get out of Atlanta while you still can.

Something else on the bloodcar myspace page also must be addressed: the cast photos section just below the tv. I can't speak for any of the other photos, but the one of me is from a little film I did a few years ago called Oreganoise. It was a student film made by a friend of mine Dean S. at UGA. It was a musical and though I did no singing in the film, I played a gay auto mechanic. The film was about a cook who's car breaks down on the way to his restaurant's opening night.

Blutautoupdates

Here are a few tidbits re: blut auto - german for Blood Car.

Picture is locked.
The Sound Mix is in progress. So is color correction; the difference is astonishing.
An eccentric composer is working on the score as I write this.
Adam P. and Alex have been arguing. A lot.
A deadline was set for July 15 for the Telluride Film Festival, which was shortly thereafter switched to August 15, 2006 for Slamdance.

This is the best story though so listen up.

Chris C., the lighting designer for Blood Car, was working on a big-budget film here in Atlanta with a famous actor who plays a doctor on TV. He gave a copy of the the Blut Auto rough cut to one of the producers on this film and that producer like the film quite a bit, laughed even. That producer liked it so much that he/she? pledged a significant dollar amount to the post production process. I won't say how much, but if you're reading left to right like you are right now, then it has four numbers before you reach the first decimal point. Nice work, Chris C.

For the first time in many months, Blood Car feels like it has as much momentum as it had during preproduction. More even. More.

Spell it. A - D - R

Remember that house with the basement with the editing suite near the concrete factory. Well, it's newest amenity is a semi-sound proof booth, complete with two styles of baffling, echo-killing insulation. It's still relatively new, so it is missing way to communicate with the person, or persons, doing the recording. Alex, the director, solved this problem by yelling instructions from the next room; hence, the 'semi' a few sentences back. Jon S. is planning on installing an intercom system.

ADR, if you don't know, stands for additional dialogue recording. You need this when the sound you originally recorded isn't 'fat'. Thin sound is bad, fat sound is good. But not too fat. If it's too fat, it will explode like Thunder from Big Trouble in Little China into a million pieces. Which brings us to our first scene of ADR, where Archie tinkers with his wheatgrass engine, which putters, but fails to really hum. No dialogue here, really, just interjections and exclamations. I'll try to get ahold of them so you can listen, but until then you'll just have to read about them. First was a 'ha-HA'. Now, this wasn't a laugh, but a discovery. It's a variation on 'A-ha', which is quite common in the inventor's argot. Then was "What the?", "Fa"(a truncated obscenity), then a couple moans, sighs and exhales.

I thought this process would be rather complicated, but it doesn't seem to be, at least not for me. I found it quite fun, but then Alex reminded me that we could be doing it completely wrong and have to throw out all of the sound. We're waiting to hear back from the post sound mixer on that one.

Later on we recorded some laughing for a scene in which the car starts on the mixture of human blood and wheatgrass juice for the first time and Archie is ecstatic. Now that I think about it, it was a lot like the 'ha-HA', only turned up to maybe a nine or ten. It was a little strange how I was able to perfectly replicate the 'ha-HA'ing from the previous, unusable audio. And believe it or not, this new stuff is much better. Before, I was a little luke-warm about this particular scene, but since we are having to ADR the entire scene, it's improved tremendously.

I also heard some striking words from director Alex today regarding a rather infamous drawing that is featured in the film. The drawing depicts an act of love in a...well, grisly manner. He said, "I don't know if that's going to stay in the movie." I'll admit it's raunchy, but Blood Car should have teeth and that drawing is one of the canines.

If you're wondering if we've changed any, we haven't. Alex still looks the same and so do I, except I have new eyeglasses.