Baseball - a Modern Solution

Now that my home team, the San Francisco Giants are deep into the hysteria of the World Series, it takes me back to the last time they were in the series - 2002.  Unlike this series, where an unlikely hero seemingly steps up each game for the Giants (Cody Ross, Freddie Sanchez, Edgar Renteria), in that series, the buzz was mostly around Barry Bonds, who had broken the single season record for home runs (73) the previous year.

Anyone who went through that season can remember what a bizarre summer it was.  Bonds was chasing a mark just recently set by Mark McGwire in 1998, but nobody seemed to care.  Unlike the record chasing season of 98, in which McGwire and Sosa captured the imagination of a nation, Bond's accomplishment seemed more like a begrudgingly forgone conclusion.  The reason was simple.

Steriods.

Ken burns did a great job examining this complex issue in his recent update to his outstanding Baseball documentary - Baseball: the Tenth Inning.

Although it is clear now that McGuire and Sosa were obviously juiced during their amazing home run derby, the public was under a haze of denial.  The story was too compelling to let shady accusations of drug use get in the way.  Fans wanted heroes and they got them.

By 2002 however, things had changed.  Accusations had become too many to overlook, and Bonds' sudden offensive explosion at the end of his career was too obvious to take at face value - not to mention his huge friggin' head!  By the time Bonds went after the all-time career home run record in 2007 most of the country didn't want him to break it and the commissioner didn't even bother to attend the record-breaking game.

It was a strange time to be a Giants fan.

I never want any fan to have to go through that again.  And I don't want any more Grand Jury or Senate inquisitions into the state of steroids in baseball, so I offer you a simple solution:

The Designated Steroids Hitter.

Think about it for a second.  Wouldn't you love to see another season like 1998?  Home runs jumping out of the ballparks.  Previously scrawny utility infielders jacking obnoxiously huge bombs into center field.  Endless hyped-up replays on ESPN.  And all of it legal, out in the open and blessed by the league.

Here's how it works:  Everyone on the team is drug-tested on the team except for one player.  The Designated Steroids Hitter can do whatever he wants.  Any kinda crazy souped-up concoctions dreamed up by Eastern European block countries in the 1980's are totally fine.  Joe Canseco injections in bathroom stalls? - go for it!  Cream & Clear? Bring em on!  HGH? please, ingest 'em until you look like Andre the Giant.  The more the merrier!

Then, once a batting order, you'll get to see some freakishly hulking michelin-man looking bobble-headed maniac jack impossibly long home runs into the feverishly screaming throngs of bleacher fans.

What could be more American than that?

Hey, I can dream can't I?...

Monsters - A Love Story

There's been a lot of buzz recently about an amazing new indie monster movie called... well, Monsters.

The filmmaker, Gareth Edwards took two actors, two crew, a Sony EX3 HD camera and a whole lotta ingenuity to Mexico and Central America and shot a feature film for about $15,000 (if you believe the hype, that is).  We'll never really know what the true budget was, but suffice it to say, the dude made a great looking monster movie entirely out of the studio system. 

He also did all the the effects shots.  By himself.  On a PC.

Now, it helps that he happens to be a professional digital effects artist, so don't expect that you're going to buy Maya and After Effects and be able to replicate what he did on your own.  But nonetheless, this homegrown movie looks almost as good as the big boys.  Most of the fx shots are not even the obvious monster shots, but ones that take advantage of compositing elements in post-production that would normally have to be bought or rented for large sums of cash during production - things like signage, planes, tanks, and destroyed buildings.

As for the story itself, Monsters takes place in a post-alien infected world where a large chunk of Mexico has been quarantined while the military does battle with the creatures.  The story follows two people as they try to get across the "Infected Zone" of Mexico, back to the good ol' USA.  It's a simple road movie, with the occasional monster thrown in.  At it's best, Monsters reminds me of elements of Cloverfield, Children of Men, District 9 and Jurassic Park.  Its cinema verite feel lulls us into a sense of psuedo-reality which makes the occasional monster interactions that much more intense.  The movie's unavoidable political undertones regarding immigration and the U.S. military add a nice touch of depth without overtaking the plot.

The film this movie really wants to be however, is Before Sunrise - two unlikely people forced to spend time together while they wait around, banter and take in the scenery.  Now that's not necessarily a bad thing, except that in Monsters... well, the dang thing is called Monsters and there really isn't much of them in this movie.  The story only really gets going when they finally enter the "Infected Zone", and honestly it should have just started there and developed their relationship as they went along.  The other issue is that the characters are just not very interesting, and their performances are just kinda flat for the most part.  For an intimate road movie like this, the audience needs to fall in love with the characters as they inevitably do each other.  If you watch interviews with Gareth, you will discover that much of the scenes were shot in an ad hoc improvised method, and unfortunately, it shows.

And please don't get me started on the character design of the monsters themselves (an issue I also had with Cloverfield) - I had hoped to see something a little more original than giant walking octopi.

I really wanted to love this movie - but in the end it's a near-miss for me.  I think I like the idea of it more than the actual finished movie.

Overall, I'd say that Monsters represents a great example of the new leverage of digital indie filmmaking - being able to do so much with so little.  The movie is very well-made, with a great idea and some very cool scenes. I loved the verite approach and the attention to detail. I just wish Gareth Edwards had spent a bit more time in the script writing phase to develop his characters and allow his story to live up to his amazing technical achievements.

Monsters is available now on Comcast OnDemand, and also iTunes.  It will be in limited release in theaters starting Oct 29.  Check it out, but just be aware that you won't be in for 90 minutes of monster mayhem.  This is a quiet, reflective movie that gets under your skin and answers the question, do giant alien octopi have feelings too?

Disobedience is Good - Two thoughts to live by

When I was growing up, I was taught to pay attention to rules; to ask before you do something; to try your best at what you do before you finish it; and these simple rules helped me to succeed in school, and I assumed they would lead to success in life.

Boy, was I ever wrong.

In the dog-eat-dog reality of the grown-up world, those who succeed are rarely those who wait for permission, or who do the most thorough job.  The winners are more often those who seize the moment, take action and get things done.

In the last couple of years, as I've tried to make a course correction in my own life and strive to make a name for myself as a filmmaker, I've had to fight against some of my ingrained tendencies in order to succeed.  Through this process I discovered two thoughts to live by that have helped me immeasurably:


1) Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

 As children, we are constantly reminded to follow the rules, ask before you do something - look to those in power for confirmation.  We look to our parents, teachers, coaches and later, our bosses asking them, "Is it okay if I do this?"  While this is good behavior as a child, it is not useful as an adult.

As an adult, this puts you at the whim of incompetent bosses, and arcane rules.  Yes, obviously you shouldn't break the law, but short of that, everything else is up for negotiation.  If you wait around and ask for permission to do something, the stock answer is almost always NO.  You will need to get around many NOs to succeed in what you want to do, whether that's make a movie, start a business, or plan a vacation.  Why place more phantom NOs in your way? You're a grown-up now - make a reasoned decision and take action.  If someone doesn't like it, ask for forgiveness after the fact.  More often, however you won't even have to ask for forgiveness as your actions will have proved that you were right.


2) Ready, Fire, Aim!

This was a huge one for me to overcome.  I am a natural perfectionist, which is what makes me a good editor.  I am paid to notice an edit that's 2 frames off, or a logo that should be eight pixels to the left.  However, as someone who is now trying to get my own projects done, this tendency can be crippling.

My natural tendency is to want everything to be perfect before I can accept it and send it out into the world - whether that's a movie, a business idea, or even a blog-post.  The problem with this however, is that those who get things done are rewarded more than those who do it better, but who take too long. The lesson for me is that good enough is good enough!

I spent many years coming up with ideas for movies, web sites and products and never finished a single one of them.  I would always be crushed under the weight of my own expectations - if it wasn't perfect, it wasn't worth doing.  I never wanted to hand in B- work, when I knew I could do an A.  But, you know what I realized?  The world gets by on B- work.  Heck, most people can barely do C level work, anything more than that looks like friggin genius level!

What Ready Fire, Aim! taught me is to do a good-enough job, get it done, get it out there, and make course corrections on the fly.  This is how the world really works.  Ever wonder why it seems you're always Beta testing software that you have bought?  That's because you ARE!  The software developer is fine-tuning their product with your help - yup, Ready, Fire, Aim!

When I made Enter the Dark, my main priority was to actually finally finish something.  I had to let go of a lot of things in order to do that.  One of them was my fear of rejection and putting something out there that wasn't perfect.  What I learned however, is that the process of completing this project, of making the movie, submitting to festivals, getting reviews, making connections, is WAY more important than having a finished perfect movie.  Enter the Dark is not perfect - far from it.  If I were to grade it, I'd probably give it a B.  But you know what, it's done, it's out there and I learned tons from the experience.  And people seem to like it.

Warts and all.

(p.s. - I'm going to post this blogpost without spell-checking it... so there!)

Enter the Dark - Reality Check

First the good news - my short horror movie, Enter the Dark will be playing at the Sacramento Horror Film Festival, Friday, Oct 22nd as part of their shorts program that starts at 5:00.  Myself, my wife and a number of folks who worked on the movie will be caravanning up to Sac to enjoy the evening.  If you are in the area, please stop on by!

I know there has been a lot of Enter the Dark news of late and I never intended for this blog to become just a marketing machine for my indie movies, but that's what my brain has been wrapped around for the last few months.  My intent was always to present my honest opinion of things that interest me, and right now that's been writing, shooting, editing, and now screening my horror movie.  I've tried to give you a little insight into that process, and into the indie scene in general.

Enter the Dark has been fortunate to have been selected by three film festivals and has had a number of positive reviews so far, but as with everything in life, that is not the whole story. I give you now the complete unadulterated truth that most filmmakers will try to hide.

Blade Runner the Blu-ray Way - An Inspiration

So, since I'm sending out copies of Enter the Dark to film fests and some of them will accept Blu-ray as a screening format I realized it was time to get a Blu-ray burner.  And since my old friend Steve Jobs, in all his grandiose wisdom has decreed that storage is so 20th century and all data shall live on the cloud and therefore is not supporting Blu-ray in any real way, I was forced to get a big ol' clunky external Blu-ray burner.  So now I can burn discs, but guess what?

Can't play em back.  It kinda defeats the purpose of sending them to festivals if I can't tell if my Blu-ray disc is a beautiful, pristine Hi-Def version of my film or a blue-tinged coaster.

So there must be some sort of Blu-ray software player for the Mac right?

Nope.

Effing Steve Jobs and his holier than thou bull$!++, ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME??!?!

Ok, fine - so I start looking at Blu-ray players and realize that I can just get a PS3 and be able to not only play back Blu-ray discs, but waste a lot of time goofing off with video games as well.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

So I get the PS3, and after an hour or so of tinkering to get it working right I look around for a Blu-ray disc to play.

... uh...

...And just when I'm about to give myself a full face plant for being so stupid not to have a Blu-ray disc to play I remember that cool gift I got like two Christmases ago.

That's right, the big ol' 5 disc limited edition Voight-Kampff suitcase Blade Runner sooper dooper Blu-ray extravaganza.

Now when I originally got this, I immediately watched all the DVD extra features but sadly was unable to actually watch the HD version of the movie as I lacked the vitally important Blu-ray player.

So now I've got PS3 via HDMI, pushing 1080p into my Panny Plasma - welcome to the 21st century my friend...

And oh....  It looks so good.

 I can't tell you how many crappy copies I've seen of this film - director's cuts, original cuts, alternate cuts - VHS, DVD...  and now here is the effing industrial wasteland skyline of LA - and an amazing huge frigging eyeball with massive flameballs reflected in his gaze.

And the Tyrell Corp building... wow...

Yes, that is my jaw hitting the floor and I'm remembering what it was like to watch this on the big screen the first time...  It was so beautiful and effing cool, you just had to laugh.

Thank you Ridley.

You know when you have those moments, when you see or hear something that is so frigging amazing it makes you want to stop what you are doing and make some art - total inspiration.

And then there are other times when you see something so amazing and perfect you kinda go - well, what's the point?  I could never come close to that...

Shortly before Stevie Ray Vaughn's untimely tragic death, he played a series of concerts with Jeff Beck.  My buddy Charles and I went to see them at the Oakland Coliseum.  Now, we had seen Jeff Beck play with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page a few years earlier (for the A.R.M.S. concert), and it was clear to everyone that Beck had blown everyone else off the stage.  The dude was that good (and still is to this day).  We had also seen Stevie play a couple of times and knew what to expect from the Texas guitar-slinger, so we were looking forward to a night of major fretburning.

Stevie came out and killed it - absolutely killed it.  It was like he was directly plugged into the source, receiving signals from elsewhere and he was just a conduit for perfect artistic expression.  He was that on.  I guess Jeff Beck played that night - I don't really remember.

Now at this time, Charles and I had both been dabbling on the guitar for a few years and we knew a few things.  I myself had spent a year or so picking up Stevie Ray chops and so I was very familiar with his ferocious, yet beautiful blues-based style.  But this was different.  He went further - so much further and left me with the feeling of, "why bother - I will never, ever be that good."

After the concert Charles was jacked up, "Wow, that was frigging amazing!!  I totally want to pick up my guitar right now and play!"  I was like, "Are you kidding, I never want to play again - why bother?"

Of course I did pick up the guitar again eventually - but I'll never forget that night.

A short while after that Charles and I went to see some new guitar-geek play at the Fillmore in San Francisco.  He was some dude who was getting a lot of buzz because he had taught a couple of high-profile guitar players, and his new album had just come out which sounded like a mad blend of Van Halen, ZZ-Top and Allan Holdsworth.

His name was Joe Satriani.

I was expecting to see a typical clinic of frenetic tapping, speed-picking and feedback-laced harmonic squeals.  What I saw was another amazing performance by an artist completely tapped in.  He had this whole Hendrix vibe that was totally unexpected.  Charles and I squeezed our way to the front to get a better view.  Everyone in the audience was a guitar geek and we were all staring at his left hand - soaking in the secrets to his incredible playing.

Something in my brain clicked.  A revelation.  I understood.

Charles and I left that night totally blown away.  I was like, "That was friggin amazing!  All that stuff he was doing - I could finally SEE what was going on!  I want to go pick up my guitar right now and play!"  Charles was like, "Why bother - I'll never be that good..."

That's just the way it happens sometimes...  One man's inspiration is another man's realization that he should put away his childish dreams in the presence of such pure talent.

As I sat there and watched the opening scenes of Blade Runner in all it's Hi-Def glory, I had one of those moments.  It made me want to pick up a camera.  I want to make a great sci-fi noir movie, bathed in light and shadow.  I want it to be breathtakingly beautiful and hauntingly sad.

Will it be as good as Blade Runner?  Probably not.  But just by trying, it could be better than most of the uninspired movies produced by Hollywood.  If I could somehow tap into the source that Stevie Ray and Joe and Ridley drew from, maybe someday someone will watch one of my movies and say "Damn! I wanna make something like that", while their buddy says, "Why bother... it'll never be that good."

Enter the Dark news roundup

- Another festival! Enter the Dark is an official selection of the Thriller! Chiller! film festival in Grand Rapids, MI.

- Interview with Dead Harvey: 

It's a great short, engaging until the end and the twist ending really will catch you off guard.

 - Brutal as Hell review:

… a fun little fright flick that effectively showcases Miro’s filmmaking and editing abilities.

- HorrorNews.net review:
Enter the Dark is a clever, scary, fun piece that delivers with a punch and a cool ending.

- All Things Horror review:

… Enter the Dark proves once again a good ghost story simply needs to put emphasis on the story and not flashy effects or big budgets in order to provide some fun and scares.

The Commune - a Netflix Success Story... sort of

Welcome to the exciting new world of indie film distribution - where everything is possible but nothing is real.  Where millions of people worldwide can view your cinematic vision, but very few will actually pay for it.  You can get lots of attention, your name splattered all over google search results, your efforts discussed on multiple websites - a sort of psuedo-celebrity, while you continually struggle to pay your bills and figure out how you can possibly justify the expense of making your next movie.

And that's if you're lucky...

The Commune, a fearless, original, and thought-provoking film made by my friend, Elisabeth Fies, and one that I edited and helped to produce was recently fortunate to be picked up by Netflix.  This, in and of itself is a huge accomplishment.  Most indie movies will never get this far. It took over a year of herculean effort by Lis and many others to get this done.  We first had to sign on with IndieFlix to act as our digital distributor.  They posted a page on their website that offers our movie as a DVD or a digital stream.  They also act as a liaison between us and Netflix, iTunes, Amazon and others.  If you submit your award-winning indie film to Netflix directly, too bad, they will just ignore it.  You have to go through a distributor - Netflix doesn't want to have to deal with hoards of indie filmmakers and their (mostly unmarketable) pet projects.  I can't say that I blame them.

So, IndieFlix makes their pitch to Netflix on your behalf and hopefully, if you're lucky, Netflix will say yes - well... sort of.  What happens is, if you're lucky enough to get chosen, Netflix sets up a dummy page on their site for your movie.  It lists the name, director, artwork, synopsis, etc - just like any other movie.  The only difference is that is will say "Availability Date Unknown".  You'll see this a lot on Netflix.

This is a kind of distribution purgatory.  You're in - but you're not.   You see, Netflix wants you to prove that there are enough interested folks out there just dying to see your movie before they will actually buy it from you.  You have to write-up your marketing strategy.  You have to show all your great reviews and how many people have "liked" you on your facebook page.  Most importantly you have to urge, plead and beg everyone you know (and everyone they know) to go to that Netflix page and put your movie in their queue.  And it would also be really cool if they could rate it (at least 3 stars - 4 is better).  And oh yeah, could you post a review as well.  And while you're there, please mark other people's reviews as "helpful".  Sounds like a lot of hoops to jump through?  It is.

And how many people must put your film in their queue before Netflix will buy it?

Beats me...

I never actually knew.  They would never give us a clear figure.  I can tell you that we were in the hundreds for months and nothing happened.  Until about a month ago when we hit some milestone, or we just came up on their list of available movies to purchase - I don't know, but we got that magic email that WE WERE IN!!!  They were going to buy from us, not their usual request of 50 DVDs, but an almost unheard of (for a little-known indie flick) 200 DVDs!  This was incredible.  This meant that all of our friends and fans had done a tremendous job of mercilessly banging on that Netflix page like a raving mob of fans rushing the gates at a Led Zeppelin concert.  A huge win for all of us.  This meant that anyone who wanted to see our film could now easily bop on over to Netflix, put that baby in their queue, and wait for the mailman to deliver our little bundle of cult-thriller joy right into their mailbox.

What a world we live in!

What is that you say?  How much money did we actually make in our Netflix deal?  Well...  that's where reality kinda smacks you in the face.  Let's just say that after IndieFlix gets their cut (they are acting as our distributor, so of course they get their take), Elisabeth was paid back just about enough to cover the costs of her original order of 1000 DVDs that she had replicated, printed and shrink-wrapped -  200 of which eventually found their way to Netflix.  So you could say that she got 800 DVDs for free.

As for return on investment of her production costs of actually making the movie...  Uh...

Here's where you can actually help.  Yes, you can go over to Netflix and put The Commune in your queue.  Eventually we will get some money from the amount of people who actually rent or stream it.  If you are even more interested in the movie however, an even better way to support indie filmmaking would be to go to our site www.thecommunemovie.com and buy a DVD from Lis directly. That s%@! is pure profit for her at this point and would start to make a dent in her considerable debt.

And that would mean that she could actually go out and make her next movie, providing even more though-provoking entertainment for us all.

And what a world that would be!