Monday, January 29, 2007

Watercooler shoot...


Photo: Dianira Martinez, plays the Water-cooler girl, and she works in Filo's company. She is the person that Filo and his co-worker/friend Jorge reference in a somewhat disturbing scene...
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Buyakasha...
Finally, we had a shoot, NOT A RESHOOT, but an actual shoot...
It was cool, we felt alive again, we felt like us again... jajajajajaja
Albeit, it was a shot that will be on-screen for 4 seconds... Nuttin difficult, just a "go up to the water cooler, pretend to talk to someone, and walk away... CUT, PRINT, CAPTURE, EDIT, COLOR CORRECT, AND FINISHED! It's now IN the movie...
Special thanks to TVAW channel 20 in Eagle Pass (Vic Wheeler) and to Dianira Martinez for helping us out in appearing in Ash Wednesday... She was really cool about it, very professional... THANX!
In all, I believe Ash now stands with a total of approximately 70+ credited actors that appear in the movie (not counting extras).... AND of all the 70, I think that 5 characters get to live... jajajajajjaja

Ever get that feeling you can't go on
Just remember whose side it is that you're on
You've got friends with you till the end
If you're ever in a tough situation we'll be there with no hesitation
Brotherhood's our rule we cannot bend
Bro Hymn (Pennywise)

Friday, January 19, 2007

Cannes we do it? YES WE CAN!


Photos: The engraved wooden box that holds the DVD screener of Capitulo Unus. ALSO: Paco working his magic on the wooden box designed by Paco himself...
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Well, here is the final submission to a film festival at least for this month...
AND yes it is THE biggest film festival in the world...

The question is CAN the movie make it? is it possible?
Well, first of all I think that it is a great movie that definitely deserves the respect of ANY film festival in the world.
I know that EVERY indie filmmaker thinks that their film is the greatest thing ever, HOWEVER, I knew deep down EL ESCAPE DE LOS SANTOS (which was our first movie) did NOT have what it takes to be worthy of an important festival. Let's just say that we learned from our mistakes, and NOW Ash Wednesday is everything we could wish for in a movie...

ALSO, we didn't rush to make ANY festival deadlines or distributors date or anything, we worked on our movie until it was ready...

The film will eventually find an audience, but to how wide the audience depends on the decisions we make from now until May... So we'll be thinking as big as possible.

The premieres are cooking and some extra surprises that we have up our sleeves to make the best of the whole thing.... stay tuned....

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Mid-month

Photo: Paco, Ramiro (Ash) and myself... Being silly with the sword... buyakasha... this was during a REALLY HOT day in August during a shoot... COMPARED to today, it's fr-fr-fr-freeeeeezing... I can feel Ash Wednesday changing the weather already... respek!
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I am juggling between finishing a final cut of the film, getting TWO screenings (one in San Antonio and one in Eagle Pass) AND getting press kits assembled for distributors and our last film festival submission...

On finishing a final cut version, I was fixing EVERY single error in the subtitles, nothing too alarming, just simple apostrophes and stuff... ALSO I was updating the credits, to make them look really cool and interesting...

Most of the time when one submits to a film festival, one depends on luck, more than anything else, because we [filmmakers] tend to rapidly submit a rough cut in order to make the deadline...
HOWEVER, I am happy that we took our time, and that I KNOW, that we did EVERYTHING we could to let the movie succeed. We have NO REGRETS on how this movie was submitted.

I don't know where this movie is headed but I can't wait for the trip.
Climb on or get the hell out of our way...

Friday, January 12, 2007

Happy Birthday to Roger (Barco)

Photo: Barco... 'nuff said!
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Finally the time has come for Roger to be 21 years old and can finally be drinking with us (legally)...
Hooray!
Our youngest producer is now a man (teardrop... jajajajajaja)

Thursday, January 11, 2007

LAFF + Bob Polunsky Comments

Photo: Second submission to a film fest. Check out the Los Angeles film fest online.
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I have sent our second submission to a film festival, this time it went out to the Los Angeles Film Festival. That fest isn't until June, so that'll give us a lot of leeway.
Next week we send out to the most important festival in the world. We'll see.

Last week I had sent a screener DVD to movie critic and film professor Bob Polunsky to get his comments and any helpful input.
In a private letter from Mr. Polunsky to myself he says and I quote:
"Thank you for sending me a copy of "Ash Wednesday". I admire your workmanship and the statement the film makes. It's a shocker more than a thriller because it has more punch and moral value than most crime movies, and I appreciate the fact that you show characters on the side of law and order doing their jobs with pride and a good conscience... The movie ranks alongside such Hollywood films as "The Departed" in as much as its "thriller"and "shocker" values develop together."

I was very pleased to hear his comments because it has been a LOT of hard work and effort by all of us who have been in production throughout the last 5 months...

Now the movie is just about finished but this is just half the battle.
Now it is time to focus on getting this movie distributed so the whole world can experience the film.

You can see Bob Polunsky's movie reviews on WOAI-TV (San Antonio) and in Primetime Newspapers (in San Antonio as well).
Thanks again to Mr. Polunsky for his help.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

The upgraded torture scene


Photos: Film stills from the actual movie, color corrected and everything... HOW COOL... Gregorio Cazares (Fred Cisneros) torturing one of his longtime enemies Nestor Pragas (Rolando Tamayo Chavarria). Nestor and Delso infiltrated the crime group and befriended Gregorio. When Gregorio found out that Nestor and Delso were DEA he captured Nestor and tortured him for 7 days.
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One of the coolest scenes has just been overhauled.
What was my favorite, is now my favorite scene times two...
It looks REALLY cool...
I forgot to thank George Bass for lending us the place to film at BASS AUTO PARTS in Eagle Pass...
The place was perfect!

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Ricky's Bday and ESCAPE room service...

Photo: Me, ricky Jr, marcus, roger and paco... It took us almost 3 hours to build this thing... We found it a lot easier to make a movie... :-D
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MAN, after a celebrating Gaby and drinking tequila... (for the sore throat... of course...) I woke up in a daze...
I still had the task to build a 14' trampoline, with the help of the hungover Paco and Roger, we finally managed to build the damn thing.
BUT it was all worth just to see the tremendous surprised face of my son... good times...
AFTERWARDS we all jumped in and had some fun...

TODAY I also got some great news from our ESCAPE distributor Venevision International...
El Escape De Los Santos starting on February will be available in 800,000 hotel rooms in the US.
The service is called "On Command", and it is like video-on-demand but in a hotel room...
Hotels include Hyatt Int., Hilton, Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Ramada, Sheraton and many more prestigious hotels across the nation....

EL ESCAPE DE LOS SANTOS is out now on DVD available anywhere that DVD's are sold and rented.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Yesterday's shoot + Gaby's B-day!



Photo: Top-Fred, Rolando and me (the guy with the camera) Middle- Paco, Alonso, Passion of the Lic. Rolando Tamayo, Hector Hernandez and Fred Cisneros Bottom- Paco putting special FX makeup on Lic...
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WOW, what a day...
Yesterday, we filmed with our friend Lic. Rolando Tamayo who is coming back after a very scary health crisis. He was in the hospital for months, but now he is back and ready for action.
People who saw our first film EL ESCAPE DE LOS SANTOS might remember him as the exuberant lawyer of Andres De Los Santos...
Originally the role of Gregorio Cazares (a torturing hitman in Ash Wednesday) was written for him, but health problems didn't allow him to do the role.
Now he serves as Nestor Pragas, an ex-DEA agent who gets tortured and killed by Gregorio Cazares (played by Fred Cisneros)... Nestor is Delso Carrete's longtime friend and mentor, whom which in their time they infiltrated drug cartels and brought drug dealers to justice...
Fred Cisneros and our agent Hector Hernandez came down from San Antonio to shoot a really cool flashback scene...
As of now Capítulo Unus is a very close FINAL CUT of the film, however there's still room for improvement...
We are very happy of how the film turned out.
I'm sure that the final FINAL cut will be even more satisfying...

Photo: My cool girlfriend Gaby Mendoza
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Today is my wife/girlfriend's birthday... she is, ummmmm, very very young...
ANYWAY, at the time when we did not have ANY money, and we needed $ for important stuff, she was one of the very few people who believed in me, in what I could succeed, in my hopes and my dreams... and maybe the sheer fact that someone else believes that you can be someone special is enough to make you confident to do a lot of cool stuff... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Gaby has been with me throughout the past 9 years, and we have been through A LOT... and that is probably an understatement... I'm just very glad that we have more time to enjoy life and each other...

Saturday, January 06, 2007

It's Puppies!!!!

Photo: Doggy and her pups born today Jan. 6th...
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Our Co-editor and voice-over chick Doggy Mendoza is the proud mother of 3 beautiful baby pups...
2 of them look exactly like her with spots (only their spots are darker), and a cute brown puppy...

The procedure was painful since an induction injection had to be used, but she did have them naturally, under the vet's supervision.

The babies are mexican citizens, since they were born in Piedras Negras, Coah. MX, HOWEVER her mother is a US citizen, so I gues they have the benefit of enjoying dual citizenships...

They were born in Clinipet under the supervision of MVZ Gabriel Rivas. Thanks to all his staff.

Tomorrow we shoot a VERY cool flashback scene... stay tuned...

Friday, January 05, 2007

First Submission

Photo: This is the package containing one of the two existing DVD's of Ash Wednesday. We poured our hearts into not only the movie, but the website, the promo pics, and all of the promotional materials... Now we can't say we "should have" or "could have"... because we did...
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Whoa, we barely made the deadline for our first film festival submission.
The Tribeca film festival in New York will be the first to receive a submission for ASH WEDNESDAY.

After the countless rejections from our last film, I have developed a thick skin, so I am not really anxious to hear back from ANY particular film festival.

In the coming weeks we will be submitting to many other important film festivals, however we will still be sending ASH directly to distributors and the like...

We are still tweaking the movie and enhancing it, as a matter of fact we have 2 shoots this weekend... not of much importance, but shoots nonetheless... one of the shoots will be of utter importance in Capitulo Duos (Chapter Two)... stay tuned and wish us luck!

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Render, render, render...

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Photo: Paco made this COOOOOOOOL handmade collector's box for the DVD screener. This will be sent to a very important film festival.

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I slept until 6am assembling and creating all of the needed materials for the film festival.
Paco created the immensely cool wooden box a few weeks ago, and I had to print film stills, fill and pay the online application, make a director's bio, and of course make the actual DVD for ASH.

As of now, there is ONLY one DVD of the film in existence in the whole universe.
Sadly, it will be destroyed after we watch it for errors.
Tonight I'll fix any errors or enhance stuff, and I'll make a final DVD to send to the festival.

By then the festival will be the only one who will have a DVD copy of ASH Wednesday.
In the coming months I plan to submit to more festivals and be sending screeners to distributors, and I will be in production of the behind the scenes stuff, as well as to create a press kit for ASH.
AND we will still be enhancing the movie itself, by retooling some small audio stuff and adding extra footage that will make the movie even better...

Monday, January 01, 2007

NEW Stills gallery

Photo: Mysterious shaman dude, Hector Muñoz Mijares stealing the spotlight in Capitulo Unus.
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It's the start of 2007, and I decided to move into full throttle with the NEW film stills gallery now uploaded into www.someonewillfall.com

Wicked....

A very busy week awaits us as we submit to film festivals, and actually produce the DVD for Capitulo Unus...

Gotta go back to work!