Ah, vacation

I love going on vacation -- in part because I usually get to catch up on movies I've been missing.

In the past week or so, I've seen: The Dark Knight, The Happening, and The Incredible Hulk.

I don't have time for full reviews of everything at the moment, but I did want to say something about The Happening as it's the most maligned of the three I've seen. I flat out disagree with the assessments that it's a lousy film. In fact, I found it incredibly disturbing, with images from it sticking with me for a long time.

I think there are serious flaws with the film, but overall I found the premise truly frightening, and it just worked for me.

I will probably see at least one more movie (maybe more) before returning home...

Clean Freak @ Southern WInds

I almost forgot -- right before I left for vacation, I found out that Clean Freak got selected to screen at the Southern Winds Film Festival. SWFF gave American Messiah the Best Comedy Feature award last year, btw.

You can see the festival schedule and more at their B-side site: http://southernwinds.bside.com/2008/

ENDINGS on IMDb

The Internet Movie Database added Endings today. Here's the link: Endings on IMDb.

Information on there is a little sparse as they just added the page today, so keep checking back and you'll see more added to it soon.

Local News(paper) Coverage of ENDINGS

Our local paper, the Waco Tribune-Herald, did an article on the production of Endings.

Here's the link the the online version (the print edition had a couple of nice photos from the set).

There's a sort of extended "Q & A" with me and the producer (Brian Elliott). Of course, when I answered those questions, I didn't know it was intended as a q&a that would be printed in that form. I thought I was just providing background information and quotes for the article. So my comments were rather brief and not intended to be in that format (at least, not intended by me).

Local News Coverage

Local news coverage of the Endings production:

KWTX story

Local NPR Station Covers ENDINGS

KWBU, the local NPR affiliate, did a great story on the production of Endings. You can check out their coverage, with stills and a link to the story that aired the past couple of days, here: KWBU story.

Wrap Party

We had the wrap party for Endings tonight. A wrap party is a curious thing -- you instantly forget about any and all frustrations and problems from the set and poke gentle fun at each others' personality quirks. And you start to miss those frustrations and problems already.

We had a dinner catered by Olive Garden (they really make a delicious lasagna), and then we went to my department's screening room to watch some footage. B.K., one of the students who worked on the film and who will be working on the editing this summer, put together a great seven minute selection of stuff from the film. And you know what?

It worked. It looked great. You could feel the emotion in the scenes. I'm starting to get jazzed already...

Once I have a complete version of that "promo trailer," I'll post it online. Right now, the music in it is all copyrighted stuff, and the audio still needs some clean up, but it really got me excited.

Wrapping with some photos

To celebrate the end of principal photography, I thought I'd share some more stills...

That's a Wrap!

Yep, principal photography on Endings wrapped this afternoon at about 5:45pm. We still have a blue screen shot to get in the studio tomorrow, and then we check all the equipment back in to the main office. It's done.

And now the real work begins... postproduction.

New Review

As things wrap up on the Endings shoot (last full day of production is tomorrow), I wanted to share the latest review of my current film making the rounds, Clean Freak.

This review is by J.C. Macek III, the self-titled "World's Greatest Critic." He seemed to like Clean Freak a lot.