Saturday, October 11, 2008

Chrome Angels Wraps!!!!

So, you know if I'm off the internet, that means I've been busy. We've just wrapped my latest film as a director, currently entitled CHROME ANGELS. The film is a bit of a departure for me. Sure, it's in the sci-fi genre, but its more of an action film, and dare I say it, a comedy. I don't want to divulge too much of the plot, I'll let everyone infer that when the trailer comes out (hopefully within the week, along with trailers for the other films that we've been doing down here) but I will say its very, very different.

This has been the smoothest and most rewarding film I've ever worked on. My capable and loyal crew is in tact, and everyone fired on all cylinders. I also had a brand new AD staff that completely rocked the house. And, we had great special effects from a local company, CFX, and our wonderful new friend Krystal.

But what has been super great about this show has been the cast. Paul Le Mat plays the film's villain, and while he has been absent from the screen for awhile, he hasn't missed a beat since his appearances in AMERICAN GRAFFITI and STRANGE INVADERS (a film that heavily influenced me while writing this movie, another clue to the plot). Richard Lynch stars as a character very similar to Sam Elliot's character in THE BIG LEBOWSKI. Both Lynch and Le Mat are great guys, both in front of and behind the camera. I brought in a few of my regular actors including Eliza Swenson, Kristen Quintrall, Rhett Giles, Griff Furst and Dean Arevalo. Every time I work with those guys I become more convinced that it's just a matter of time before those guys all hit it big time. Local actors Marcus Brown, Collin Galyean, and Laura Futch return to the show having worked in my film THE DUNWICH HORROR. We also added some great new actors to the team including Brent Lydic (who starred in FLU BIRD HORROR that I did last year) Frida Farrell, Jackey Hall, Monti Dominguez, Jessica Brodosi, and Sofia Kastens. My buddy Dave Kiiskinen returned to do stunts. All of them were beyond cool. Professional, courteous, hard working and best of all very talented. Oh, and Stacy Dash is in the movie too.

The film was pretty insane. We got to do things that only the big budget guys get to do (like ride Harleys through shopping malls and shoot gunfights inside grocery stores). We also shot on the RED camera. Whoa mamma. That thing is bad, bad ass! I've always been for digital cinematography but would be the first to admit that 35mm still had a big edge over HD. Now, not so much.

As a side note, I was really bummed that last week the HP Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland screened the wrong version of THE DUNWICH HORROR. Not their fault, we failed to get them the new copy in time. Not the end of the world, but I know the audience would have enjoyed the final copy better than the rough cut that was eventually screened.

Look for some new trailers and some big, big news next week.

1 comment:

Elisa said...

That's too bad about "Dunwich"! I'll have to tell my friends who went. Maybe you can have an LA premiere of the final version? That would be awesome. :)