We are casting for Season Two of "Pink" and are primarily looking for "college age" actors and actresses. If you would like to audition and are in the Dallas area please send your headshot/resume to loudpics@yahoo.com.
Thanks!
Blake
Good stuff... enjoy!
Unbelievable f**king cameos...
These should/could do good things for online video viewership.
-Blake
This year's Oscars seems to lack a lot of buzz to me. I've virtually heard no one talking about them, except for of course entertainment type shows, etc. Usually some friends of mine have an Oscar watching party and people enter a pool to win prizes. This year? None.
I was at a dinner party last night and the Oscars didn't even come up. Heck, we talked about the easement on the side of my house - but no Oscars. I'm a filmmaker too and they didn't really cross my mind.
The question is why?
My guess is that most "regular folks" haven't seen many, if any, of the nominated films. I've personally only seen "Juno", "No Country for Old Men", and "Atonement". Of course out of these films only "Juno" has been a hit, grossing over $120 million so far. Also I think the writer's strike might have put a bad taste in people's mouths for Hollywood in general. And of course for a while we didn't even know what kind of Oscar show there'd be if the strike had continued.
Are these the reasons? Maybe. Maybe not.
As a filmmaker I am interested in seeing who wins, but if I wasn't in the business I'd probably be watching a re-run of Gilligan's Island instead. Now that's entertainment. :)
-Blake
Cool Yahoo News section called "People of the Web" featuring a story "How to make a zombie for $50 or less"... there's an article AND a video to watch.
Nice info for indie filmmakers and fans alike...
Check it out!
-Blake
Check out this great podcast (from "On The Page") interview with Mike Maden, the writer of our web series "Pink"...
http://blip.tv/file/635227
-Blake
Where have all the good times gone?
Well, last night they were in Dallas. I went to the Van Halen concert at the American Airlines arena and it was great. Really good show. I almost bought a shirt. I didn't, but if I had school today I would have (don't tell me you didn't do that).
Funny thing is last time I saw Van Halen (the original group) was in Dallas in 1984. Ah, the good old days. It so happened that was the LAST TIME the band played together before their recent reunion (minus a few failed attempts over the years). BTW, this was of course not the "complete" original group. Bassist Michael Anthony is not on the tour. There are still hard feelings between him and Eddie regarding Sammy. So, Eddie's teenage son Wolfgang is playing in Michael's place. And he did a nice job. Kinda weird to think he wasn't even born when the band played in Dallas last.
It was very cool to hear all the favorites like "Jamie's Crying", "Dancing In The Street", "Atomic Punk", "Beautiful Girls", "Pretty Woman", etc., etc. They ONLY played David Lee Roth era songs. And they actually played a lot of deep cuts and B-side kinda stuff. Heard a rumor Eddie had to re-learn some of the songs! They even did "Ice Cream Man", which I don't recall seeing before - and it's one of the only songs Roth actually plays guitar on (he's good too).
A couple very cool things in this show that you very rarely see in today's newer bands are the presence of a Guitar Solo and Drum Solo. These are pretty much lost arts today. Now don't get me wrong. I love music from "modern" bands. And really as most folks know Nirvana was the band that killed the guitar solo - and since then (the early 90s) most bands don't do that. Which isn't a bad thing either. It's just nice to see an act that is SO focused on the lead guitar. And it's nice to be at a show that does the old routine of having a drum solo and then a guitar solo so the other guys can go take a piss and do a line of coke. Well, maybe not coke anymore for these guys. More like drink a coca-cola or a glass of ice tea.
But that's a good thing. The band seems like they're in a great place.
Eddie and Dave are definitely fit - for any age - but especially for being 53. Last night was actually Eddie's birthday and David got the crowd to sing Happy Birthday to him. That was fun. Eddie looks better now (since rehab) than he did 15 years ago.
One video-related thing I can share is they had a huge screen behind the stage that was basically just a projected image of the show (in HD). It was great though because otherwise we'd never been able to see much. Why? Well, we were in the nose bleed seats big time. I'd never sat that high up (can you say VERTIGO?). I don't want to sit there again either. You can't see. Heat rises, so it was real hot. And all the pot smoke rises, so it was hard to breathe at some points (especially when some dude fired up some skunk weed and then a cigar!).
In the end I had a blast and I'm looking forward to seeing them again in another 24 years. Talk about nostalgia (though, they're actually coming back to Dallas on March 3rd, so I might just go then).
But I think first I WILL get that shirt so I can show all my friends I went to the show last night. Of course today you don't have to actually go to the show to get a shirt. You can just buy it online. And while you're at it you can see the bootleg video of the show too, on YouTube.
I kinda miss 1984.
-Blake
This is an excellent talk by producer/director J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost, Cloverfield, etc.). A must watch for filmmakers out there. Thanks to Stu Maschwitz at the Prolost Blog...
WATCH VIDEO
-Blake
D-Day Invasion with only 4 guys? Eat your heart out Steven Spielberg...
See what can be done today with a little (or a lot) of imagination? GREAT STUFF!
-Blake
I'm taking some time off, so just wanted to say Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to everyone!
Thank you for reading my blog and supporting my various projects this past year. It's really been a good one!
A lot of cool stuff to look forward to in 2008 with "Pink", "Killing Down" and several other projects (at least one more web series and another feature film).
Talk to you next year! :)
-Blake
AFI AWARDS 2007 OFFICIAL SELECTIONS ANNOUNCED
AFI has just announced the official selections of AFI AWARDS 2007, AFI's almanac that records the year's most outstanding achievements in film and television. Ten AFI Movies of the Year and 10 TV Programs of the Year have just been determined by the juries.
The honorees are listed below in alphabetical order, with my comments next to them:
AFI MOVIES OF THE YEAR--OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD (haven't seen it)
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (nope, haven't seen it)
INTO THE WILD (loved this film, not a Sean Penn fan either, but it's great)
JUNO (planning to see it this weekend)
KNOCKED UP (wife has seen and loved it)
MICHAEL CLAYTON (looked boring to me, but heard it was good)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (loved 85% of the movie, last 15 minutes or so lost me a bit, but still very good - Josh Brolin was excellent)
RATATOUILLE (not a huge animation fan, but looks good)
THE SAVAGES (haven't seen it, but I really like Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (not out yet, but I'm a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson)
AFI TV PROGRAMS OF THE YEAR--OFFICIAL SELECTIONS
DEXTER (my favorite current show, love it, and sad this season is over)
EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS (never seen it)
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (great show and shot in Texas)
LONGFORD (never heard of it)
MAD MEN (good show, though only watched part of it)
PUSHING DAISIES (I like the look, haven't watched entire episode)
THE SOPRANOS (my previous favorite show, great final season)
TELL ME YOU LOVE ME (haven't seen it, heard there's a lot of nudity so been meaning to check it out)
30 ROCK (is this still on TV?)
UGLY BETTY (I'm a Selma Hayek fan for sure, but only watched this show a few times)
Pretty impressive list of winners. I just need more time to go to the movies and watch TV. Thank goodness for Tivo (but I still don't have time to watch all the recorded shows!). :)
-Blake
A lot going on right now...
1. KILLING DOWN - my latest feature film is being distributed throughout Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. Still not sure when it will be showing up on DVD in these places, but it has to be very soon. Also, our domestic release should be this spring. We're very close to doing a DVD deal.
2. PINK - the web series is really doing well. We've now had 3.5 million views on YouTube alone. All told (on Myspace, iTunes, Revver, Metacafe, BlipTV and YouTube) we've had over 4 million views. This all since September - but really since Halloween. We've had several meetings regarding the future of the show, and should have some news by Christmas as to the direction (whether we'll be producing Season Two on our own again, or whether another company will come on board as a partner). Either way we hope/plan to shoot in February.
3. NEW "UNTITLED" FEATURE FILM - the new feature project is moving along well too. Not quite ready to release details of the film, but our script is done, we have an excellent casting director, and our financing is almost in place. In addition, we're already talking to several well-known actors about the project. If all goes well we could be rolling cameras by March - but that's probably too ambitious (see #2 above).
4. NEW WEB SERIES - we're actually looking at possibly TWO new web series. Details coming soon. The first one (which a lot of the footage already exist) will likely be released online in January 2008. The other one we're in talks about for later next year.
Whew! Like I said, a lot going on and a lot to keep up with. Luckily I'm pretty good at multi-tasking. :)
-Blake
Please check it out:
http://pinktheseries.blogspot.com
Not much content on it yet, but will be a good resource for info regarding the series as time goes on.
Also, we'll be doing polls you can vote on at least once a month, so definitely take a moment to excercise your right.
Thank you!
-Blake
It's been just over one week since we announced the One Million View mark for "Pink" on YouTube. Well, today we just topped Two Million Views. Really incredible.
I can't thank the viewers enough along with the editors of YouTube for featuring the show. I don't know the definition of a "viral" video, but I'd say the series is starting to take on a life of it's own and the views are really starting to pile up. It's sure starting to feel viral to me. :)
You can watch and subscribe on YouTube here.
PLEASE keep spreading the word........ thanks!
-Blake
"Pink" reached a cool milestone today going past the One Million View mark on YouTube. This is a total for all the episodes. Not too bad considering we've only been online since September, and we've only been featured on YouTube for two weeks!
Thank you to the fans of the show (and even to the folks who don't like the show) and also thank you to the editors of YouTube and Revver, and iTunes.
You can subscribe to "Pink" on YouTube here. Or subscribe on iTunes here.
Thanks for watching!
UPDATE: As of 11/21 we're now up to 1.6 Million Views on YouTube. Starting to sound kinda viral to me...
-Blake
As of today 11/13/07 "Pink" is the 21st most subscribed to show on YouTube, and the 7th most subscribed to show under the "Directors" banner on YouTube (this is mainly for narrative projects like web series, which is great).
Also, we've had 757,339 views since being featured two weeks ago. We're getting close to that 1 million mark. We've actually surpassed that mark if you count all the other places to watch including our Official website, Myspace, Revver, iTunes, and Metacafe.
Not too bad. :) Thanks for watching!!!
-Blake
Interesting article...
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SSU3AO0&show_article=1
Excellent news for web shows like "Pink".
-Blake
Nice article in USA Today about "slick webisodes" being the missing link to making web video (web series) make it...
USA Today Article
Hopefully we're onto something (have you seen "PINK"?). They should have mentioned us too. :)
-Blake
As mentioned in the previous post, I was on two panels at the Lone Star International Film Festival and they both went well.
The first one was quite small, but very interesting. Turns out it was the first panel of the event and they had the address wrong. Plus, it was at 11am on Friday at a first year festival. So, only a few people in room besides us panelist, but again, it was very informitive. This was the New Media panel.
The second one was called Directing Your First Feature and it was much better attended. The room was pretty much full. This was the panel Fred Durst was supposed to be on, but he no showed. Very rock n' roll of him I suppose. However, much to my surprise the other panelist were actually a couple of the guys from Broken Lizard (Jay Chandrasekhar and Paul Soter). The comedy troupe behind such films as "Super Troopers", "Club Dread", "Beerfest", etc. and Jay also individually directed the "Dukes of Hazzard" movie. And Paul has just directed his first feature film "Watching The Detectives". Very nice guys and cool to hear their perspective on making films in the studio system versus indie world.
Here are two pictures of me and the Broken Lizard guys:
The top picture of Paul and I is slightly out of focus (thanks Cliff). :)
-Blake
The Lone Star International Film Festival starts today in Fort Worth, Texas. It runs November 7-11. Never heard of the festival you say? Well, it's the first one. Actually, it's not really the "first" one... it's the first one under the new entity putting on the event.
Back in 1998 a group put on the Fort Worth Film Festival, which was really a great festival. I happen to be fortunate enough to screen my first feature film "Thugs" there. Wes Anderson screened "Rushmore". A lot of good stuff was going on.
The festival being in downtown Fort Worth had such a great feel to it. If you've ever been to Sundance Square you know what I'm talking about. Clean streets. Easy parking. Safe. Very quaint feeling for a descent sized city. And all the theaters are located very close together - a big plus compared to most other festivals I've been to.
But the festival didn't make it. Not sure why. Probably funding. So there have been rumors for some time that the festival would be brought back, and low and behold now it has been in the form of the Lone Star International Film Festival.
Several big name folks will be in town, among them Bill Paxton (he's directly involved with the fest) and Martin Sheen, along with several big name films.
I've actually been invited to speak on two panels. So if you're interested come out to the festival on Friday at 11am for the New Technologies and Media Convergance panel, then Saturday at 3pm for the Directing My First Feature panel - another speaker on this one is Fred Durst (yeah, the lead singer from Limp Biskit). He recently directed his first feature "The Education of Charlie Banks", which will be screening Friday evening at 8pm.
Also, they'll be showing the first five episodes of my web series "PINK" in their "viral video lounge" (or something like that). Not sure where this is, but sounds cool. :)
Hope to see you there!
-Blake
