Sunday, December 18, 2005

Hollywood Aftermath...


We stayed from Thursday Dec. 8 to Monday 12th in Hollywood, Ca.
Our goal was to get important people into the screening, and if not available get them a DVD...

After all the hard work put in by ourselves, but especcially Hector Hernandez, I'd say it was pretty damn well worth it.

Attendees:
Gabino, Alonso, Paco, Robert, Hector and myself.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Recap:

In 2 days we'll be in Movieland's front yard promoting the hell out of EL ESCAPE!
Yesterday we were in Austin:
Hector, Chicken, Paco and myself had a frickin blast... CON MADRE...
we were interviewed by RENZO and Wilton... (from the shows American Latino TV and LatinNation)... it wen't extremely well, but the show won't air until Feb. - March...
So let's recap:
-Monday got interviewed by National TV show
-Thursday we leave to Hollywood
-Saturday EL ESCAPE DE LOS SANTOS will Premiere in Hollywood
cool. I'm just thankful for everyone that was invloved in this film. GREAT WORK!!!
woo-hoo!

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Hollywood!

After a storm of 'nothingness', finally a shimmer of light is bestowed upon us!
how poetic!
Anyway here's the Highlights:
-'Escape' Officially selected to World Premiere at the Hollywood DV Film Festival! (Dec. 7-11)
-Bob Polunsky reviews 'Escape' with glowing remarks!
-and last but not least 'El Escape' and its filmmakers are going to be the subject of a story on the nationally syndicated TV show American Latino TV

All these amazing news (+ more) were all dumped on me in a period of 7 days!!!
We are just very thankful to all the people who have helped us along the way...
woo-hoo!!!

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

More rejections- not good

Hamptons.
what a downer.
The film is currently running at 5 rejections already.
not good.
On the ultra bright side, the upcoming festivals do have some potential... so hopefully some good news will come very soon.
Also, we have been getting a lot of press lately, so it isn't all bad.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

San Antonio Living Show

Whoooooaaaa!
This makes me really nervous. The 1st time I did an interview in English I messed up and mumbled.
Tomorrow is the big day at San Antonio Living on Channel 4... the bright side is that they are going to play the trailer in its entirety so that is very cool...
We'll see how it goes.
O todo o nada.... - Lic. Aldrete
Put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye... - G. Graffin

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Premiere + Rejections

The Premiere Screening is inching its way... August 26 gets closer and closer...
I just cannot believe the amount of press we are receiving... it is very cool...
I've gotten 3 rejection letters so far from the film festivals:
1- Telluride (THE toughest fest to get in)
2-Toronto (very dissapointed =( )
3- Heartland (Family oriented festival, which I didn't know that fact when I applied)

Still, I won't let myself be discouraged... We've made it this far, something HAS to come out of all this... PREMIERE PREMIERE PREMIERE
i can't wait to see the reaction...

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Patricia Vonne + Del Castillo

Yesterday we went to see Del Castillo and of course Patricia Vonne, got her new CD and she was kind enough to sign it. she is so cool.
She has been helping us out since we began production of El Escape, she's been extremely kind and generous to us. Thanks Patti.
PS: I also met another interesting filmmaker, very cool guy.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Film Festivals

I have been submitting to festivals (at least to the most important ones).
Withoutabox.com has been a life(time)saver, but overall it has been a lot of work to put those damn media kits together and make them look good.
I'm confident t people will respond to the film, the good thing is that nothing negative can come out of this. The film is finished, I'm not completely broke and I still feel energized to write our next film, so if it sells internationally, or just a national release on DVD I'm hoping to still get my money back, and still make my next film for free.
no complaints.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Finito! Finito!

Finally, I have completed the film EL ESCAPE DE LOS SANTOS. It has been a great experience throughout. It was great writing it with Alonso, great time filming it in Eagle Pass-Piedras Negras, and a hell of a time editing and scoring the movie.
(The film's 1st final cut was made June 9, 2005)
Special thanks to EVERYONE that helped out.
Now this is only the beginnning.
Time to shift to full gear.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Subtitling and ER's

I just spent the WHOLE weekend subtitling the film in English.
I finished today at 5 am. It was a lot of fucking work.
On friday, my PC busted and spent that night fixing the damn thing
Sunday night, little Ricky was sick and we took him to the ER. We had to stay there all night...
oh well, at least he's fine now and I finally finished with the subtitling.
phew...

Friday, April 15, 2005

Finally

Finally good news!
My Grandpa is getting a lot better and spent the afternonn with him and my sister Luana.
I also heard back from someone who is willing to represent El Escape in a very important way. Obviously I cannot detail any info but is very good news considering all of the hard work we have put into this film.
relief.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Last 2 weeks

These last 2 weeks have been really hard on my family. My Grandpa Wheeler is in the hospital for removal of brain clots and it has been very stressful.
Everything went well but he is going to need intensive therapy for a month!
Oh well, I am back in editing mode, and finally finished yet another rough draft.
So I should be finishing the whole thing in 5-6 weeks.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Del Castillo Music

Yesterday evening, Chicken, Chato and me went to see Del Castilo at Sam's Burger Joint.
Their show was really cool.
I actually met Alex (lead singer) very cool guy.

Monday, March 21, 2005

MTY: Mission Accomplished

What a relief.
We finally mastered all of the orchestration pieces.
We covered the WHOLE movie. The soundtrack sounds amazing. The musical production of "el Escape" is finally over.
Very special thanks to Valhalla Studio in Monterrey, N.L.
Rica "Waris", Fer "el Dude" and Giuliano for their hard work and enthusiasm.
You guys kick ass!

-rik

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

MTY Day Two

AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!
We woke up not knowing what would happen.
The studios were awesome. Guillianno and Fer "el Dude" saw our flick and liked it very much. They started experimenting with the arrest scene and sounded very, very cool.
We finished at about 10 pm. I called my old friend Mario Aldrete.
We went to his house and trade stories and some beers. very fun.
Today we are going to experiment with some crazy instruments and see what we can come up with.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Monterrey Day One

We got here by bus, we got picked up by Rafa and Oso.
We had a burger (homemade by the way) and screened our rough cut.
The initial reaction was silence (not good) followed by somewhat criticism. Everybody "said" it was very good.
After they explained every detail, they thought it was very emotional and very, very good.
Next Rica started to play around with the guitar to some scenes. We'll see today how it goes in the actual studio.
A very good 1st day.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Rough cut screenings

The rough cut was finished 2 weeks ago, but a bettered version is coming up almost on a daily basis.

The rough cut, as of now consists of temporary music score, scenes not color corrected, audio is bad, audio effects are missing and one small scene missing.

The response has been very positive (as expected), the feed back has also been interesting.

The sugestions are so powerful that we are going to reshoot 1 key scene and several other cuts that we did not like.

Thus far, at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. so that is very cool.

-rik

Friday, February 25, 2005

Last scene shot.

Well, we have just shot the last scene we needed. We just need to reshoot a scene and that would be the last of our shooting.
We've been shooting since March 13 of 2004 (3 weeks full from March 13 to April 4th and on some weekends) I have been editing scenes since April.
We have accomplished a lot. I can't believe we're almost there. Alonso, Paco, Chicken, Roger, and the rest of the cast and crew have been extremely creative in this film and they are already excited about our next project _______ (Untitled).
Everyone is excited about the rough cut of EDLS. I am glad to see that everyones work paid off really well.
Gaby has been really patient and helpful. It get's kind of frustrating when you have a real job, a movie to make, a wife and a cool kid to hang out with, and above else clean the house.
I'm really excited that all of our work with EDLS is finally coming to an end.
On March 12th we will lay down the orchestration for the film and also readying a final cut.
It's going to be really cool.
-rm

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Diary of a Madman

In this little corner of cyber space I shall be posting my ocurrences in my career as a movie- maker.
Progress on our current film "El Escape De Los Santos" (which is in post-production) and other new ideas and stuff on moviemaking.
I hope this provides some sort of entertainment and benefit.
Anyway, we are just minutes away from filming THE last scene of the film. I can't tell you much but it involves a federal agency and there's talk about a donkey show (?)

more to come.
-rik