Film weekend update!
A quick update on things!
This is a pretty busy movie weekend for me!
Friday night I was in Angola at the Taste of the Midway where they had a screening of THE FINAL NIGHT AND DAY. There was a second screening tonight (Saturday) and these were the premiere showings in Angola itself where the huge zombie extra scene was filmed last June. In fact, Make-up Supervisor Rod Durick and his busy crew applied make-up to the literally hundreds of zombie extras in the same space where these screenings were held. I expected to see a number of people who were extras in the audience, but there were only about three-- the rest were just interested Angolians! So, that was pretty cool!
[NOTE: I just re-read this and it occurs to me that "Angolans" is perhaps the correct form, since it's Angola NOT Angolia, although, "Angolians" sounds a little cooler...]
We also sold around 10 DVDs, so even though the place only seats about 40 people, that's not too bad.
There was sort of a panel discussion/Q & A set-up they had there as well, but that was held prior to the screening, so there weren't that many questions as there might have been if the film was shown first. but, for practical reasons, it made sense to have the talk before the movie.
Among the cast and crew that was there Friday night for the panel (besides myself): Dan George (who played the rookie guard, Jennings), Adam Steigert (co-producer, co-writer, co-director, editor), Stephanie Andrews (co-producer, co-writer, co-director, and she played the gun-toting Kendra), Chris Brechtel (who played the convict, Murdoch), and Mark Mendola (co-producer, co-writer, costume and props dude, and he played the bespectacled convict and charming ladies man, Axe). Adam also brought a short "teaser trailer" for what looks to be the next film project for DefTone Pictures Studios, something called OMBIS, a sci-fi horror film. It looks like they'll be auditioning this summer for it and shooting next year.
I haven't heard yet how well attended Saturday night's screening went, but I'll let you know.
Angola is a bit of a trek from where I live (over an hour's drive), so that's why I was able to get out of attending the second screening of FND. To celebrate being home Saturday night, I watched PIRANHA (2010). It was released in 3D theaterically, but I don't know if there's actually a 3D version available on DVD as well, like there was for the remake of MY BLOODY VALENTINE, but I watched a regular version of the film. It was fun-- if you like lots of nudity and killing and gory effects.
So... it was fun!.
I was interested in checking this film out when I heard Alexandre Aja was directing it, because I liked his film HIGH TENSION (okay, it's actually a long story, but ultimately I decided I liked HIGH TENSION and I'm emotionally compartmentalizing those misgivings I DO have about it. Just so you know.). I also watched parts of PIRANHA again but with the commentary track on featuring the French director, Aja (as well as his regular creative partner, producer Gregory Levasseur, and also one of the executive producers, Alix Taylor) and it's interesting and funny hearing his take on the whole Spring Break phenomenon, and how they have nothing like it in Europe. Instead, Europeans just have a lot more weeks of vacation PLUS usually they allow for topless bathing and occasionally nude bathing on most beaches in Europe, so the whole Spring Break idea as an example of indiscriminate American youth gone berserk sowing wild oats in public was sort of an interesting event for Aja to stage.
Anyway, it was great being able to sit down and watch a movie. I always talk about wanting to watch all these films, but it seems all I do is buy DVDs and never watch them or rent DVDs and return them late... I'm a lame-ass lamer.
Finally, I'll be at a film shoot tomorrow (Sunday) in Royalton Center.
Lockport filmmaker, Sam Qualiana, who I heard about and met for the first time at the inaugural Buffalo Screams Horror Film Festival last October, is directing his first feature film after directing dozens of short subjects, including NO ROAD OUT and SWAMP SQUAD OF THE DEAD. The feature is called SNOW SHARK: ANCIENT SNOW BEAST and its inspiration seems to be a combination of JAWS and SyFy Original films.
There's a couple SNOW SHARK trailers on Youtube already, and the brief footage they have of a shark is a hoot.
Here's one of the trailers, which happens to feature a couple local actors who were also in FND: Chris Wroblewski (who played Nazi Boy George) and Michael O'Hear (who played Bill).
youtu.be/F2e4zjEd0Io
Also featured in the trailer is a young actress from out of town named Jackey Hall, who's quickly accumulating some film and modeling credits, which you can check out at her website:
http://www.jackeyhall.com/
If I'm understanding her biographical info correctly, she's from Atlanta, Georgia, so I'm curious how Sam got in contact with her and got her to come up here. Well, maybe the day he's directing a bunch of extras in a big scene is not the time to ask him a bunch of questions... but I'll find out soon!
Finally, after the shoot, I'll be heading to this month's meeting of the Buffalo Movie and Video Makers (BM-VM), which starts at 7:00 pm at the Screening Room at the North Town Plaza.
So, a pretty busy "film themed" weekend going on -- not that I'm complaining! Actually, it's very cool!
Alright, talk to you later!
Oh, PS.!
It occurs to me that I should also mention that I'm in the process of being interviewed for a horror blog in conjunction with FND! The interview's being conducted via e-mail, so it's taking a little while getting it all together, but when it's done and posted, I'll let you know and supply a link.
Okay, I'm going for reals now!