That’s right. He wrote "a tour de force". f
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

It's short, but to the point.



bloody disgusting reviews Savaged. Check out the comparison to Cujo.

http://www. bloody-disgusting. com/review/2259

Debbie and Val carry a movie with a strong, if not huge, supporting cast and I owe them all a great deal of thanks for making this the movie it is.



And don't miss your chance to see it June 7th in Tampa along with the short film, ALARUM. You can meet Debbie too and tell her what an awesome job she did.



Hosted By: Rick Danford & Jason Liquori
When: Saturday Jun 07, 2008
at 6:00 PM
Where: USF - Hall BEH103
4202 E. Fowler Ave.







Tampa, FL 33620
United States
Description:
Rick Danford & Jason Liquori

Click Here To View Event


AND

http://fearzone. com/blog/ladies-night

and so you don't get lost:

7:14 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Lots to report
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

OK, so a lot has happened since September.

Sorry about the long wait on the blog.  I've been maintaining the HFP page a bit better than this one.

The good is news is:

1. Indiscretions did get shot before the end of 2007 and post is well underway.  We have secured the services of a composer DURING edting this time around to avoid the delays we suffered with Savaged.

2. As you can see our Savaged artwork is coming along nicely and the musical score by Timo Elliston (Who accomplished it in just about 2 mos.  He was not the delay, the two people he replaced were) is all but finished.  I saw the latest refinement today and I couldn't be happier.

3. We shoot our next movie, a short that will be part of a collection of shorts by Florida Horror FIlmmakers, in just about 2 weeks.  The F/X and props are ready.  Set is nearly dressed and the cast is awesome.  Joel D. Wynkoop will be working with me again.  This also gives me incentive to concentrate on getting the picture lock of Indiscretions done, since I'm not a big fan of juggling edits.

4. Cyberstripper 2069 is sort of waiting in the wings for me to have time to complete the business plan.  As is "Nune with a Gun".  Both are different from the Horror Movies we've done in the past, but I think a sci-fi comedy and revenge/action movie are close enough cousins of horror that we can do them justice.

Keep watching this board, gang.  We should be premiering Savaged anytime now.

12:50 AM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Delayed in a bad, bad way.
Current mood: crappy
Category: Life

Hey, gang.  As most of you know INDISCRETIONS was supposed to start shooting in exactly one week.  That is no longer going to happen.

INDISCRETIONS will be shot.  And all hopes are still high that the talented cast and small crew will remain the same (so far they have been very supportive).  I also still plan on having it done before the end of the year to complete my two features in one  year (even though technically I'm still waiting for music on SAVAGED.)

Now, as to why the shoot has been postponed.  Some of you who know me, Jason, the director, off of MySpace know that this shoot was getting hectic because my wife had to have knee surgery.  It was fully expected that she would be mostly recoverd, maybe limping, but able to get around, by the time shooting started.  Her surgery went fine.  No complications...for the first few days.  I worked to get things ready for the shoot and she supported me mentally, alhtough not as much physically as she would have had she not had the surgery.  You never realize just how much you depend on someone until they are unable to help you.

Three days after the surgery her calf began to hurt.  She had just seen the doctor and wrote it off to the manipulation of her leg for the exam.  She was scheduled to start physical therapy in two days.  The next day the pain was worse, but we decided to let the Physical Therapist look at it.  My wife suspected a clot.   The PT felt no heat in the calf and thought she was probably fine, but suggested we see our doctor "just in case".

Next day we saw her surgeon.  He felt the calf.  No heat (your temp goes up around clots), but decided to have an Ultrasound done, "just in case".  Being the professional I trust he is, he sent us straight to hospital for the test.  If it was nothing PT would continue tomorrow, and it "probably was nothing", but since a clot was a possibility, and potentially life threatening, he didn't want to wait to find out.

We went to the hospital, they checked her leg, called her doctor and we overheard the conversation where the tech identified several DVT's.  Not the best way to find out.  Her surgeon moved her to another hospital where she spent the next two nights (and I spent as much of them as the night nurse would let me, but they did keep throwing me out overnight.)

Fortunately the hospital is 2 miles from the house, so while her family visited or she had a meal I would go home to tend to the mutts. 

She wanted out of the hospital and today we found out they were keeping her there for two reasons.  One, she needs a shot in her belly every 12 hours.  Two, she needs to stay immobile as much as possible.  The fact that she's on crutches from her knee surgery is a concern too since the blood thinners make every injury a little worse.  Well, the first one she's pretty sure she can do herself.  The injections are expensive, but our insurance covers the home kit and my wife knows a little bit about medical stuff.  The second means she needs someone around most of the time to take care of her and help her get around.  That's me.  I've got a wheelchair we bought second hand to do dolly shots.  She's getting around in that when necessary (everyone needs to get to the bathroom sometimes.)  Her mom can be here part of the time, but making time for the whole shoot in one week with the 16 hour days an hour from the house wasn't going to work.  Not to mention my concentration.

So, gang, INDISCRETIONS is regrouping and hopefully I'll have news by next week about when we WILL go into production.  Meanwhile, keep a good thought for my wife.  She's not out of the woods yet...and has to eat my cooking 5 days a week (her mom is visiting on weekends).

That's all for now.

3:43 PM - 9 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Dogs, Pain, Missing eyebrows and learning lessons you already know.
Current mood: working
Category: Life

First of all, this blog will not be for the squeamish.  I ain't kidding.  Do NOT continue reading if you are weak of stomach or going to send me messages like,

"Ewww.  Why did I have to read that?"

You don't have to.  Stop now.

OK, still with me?  Here's what happened last week.

I was home and watching TV waiting for people to wake up, as I sometimes have to do if I get up before noon, because the rest of you are lazier than I am.  My dog, Val, who you all know and love from her role in SAVAGED asked to sit next to me on the couch.  Being the pain in the ass that I am I insisted she hug me first.

Dogs don't hug like people.  Her hug consisted of her putting her front paws, chest and head on the couch next to me where I was lying down.  Her head was actually about a foot ahead of me.  I put my arm around her and squeezed.  I got up on one arm, looked at her and gave her chest aonther squeeze.  This is when Val got into character giving me a snarl I wish I had captured on camera for the movie. 

Anyway, I thought she was upset because my hair had gotten into her face.  We'll talk later about what was really going.  Main thing is, a snarl from a dog is in no uncertain terms a request to back off.  If fact, they insist.

I hugged her again.

In a swift turn and a loud snarl and bark she was on me.  Bit me in the head.  F**KING HARD!  Then it felt like she tugging on me.  Struggling with me like a chew toy.  I about shit my pants.  (Turns out she was caught in my and hair.  I found the evidence on the floor later.)  I finally gave her one good push and she was off me.  I dropped to the floor and put my hand to head.  I was bleeding.

Being the manly man I am, I began to run around the living room shouting, "Shit! What do I do?  What do I do?"

Men, don't panic.  Call your wife.

I got Nancy at work and she calmly put me on speaker phone while she called for someone to cover her and then she temporarily closed her store so she could come drive me to the ER.

I, medical genius that I am, put a paper towel on my head.

Another piece of advice, do NOT look at the paper towel.  I was still bleeding, a lot.  There was a trail of blood leading to my kitchen, my bathroom, everywhere...and it wasn't Corn Syrup.

I decided to lock up the dog, as I do with guests so she won't try to bite them (she's never actually caught a guest).  I did this brave deed by saying, "Val, go to your room!"  She did.  And I put a 3 foot doggy gate around her.  Then, not wanting my wife to be upset when she showed up, I began to clean the floor.  In the corner where the incident took place I found something about 1/2 inch long.

"Is that a tooth?"

I picked it up and what do you think it was? My EYEBROW!  The dog bit off one of my eyebrows!

"Val!  Go to your....oh, yeah, you're there."

Let's skip to the ER.

ME: "I have a piece of my head here in a baggy."

NURSE:"Oh.  We can't do anything with that.  I can throw it away for you."

ME: "I'll wait for a doctor thankyou."

10 minutes later.

DOCTOR: "We can't do anything with that."

We threw my eyebrow away.  Now aliens can clone me from medical waste.

The ER Doctors couldn't stitch me up.  They sent me to a Plastic Surgeon who told me I would be, "disfigured for life".  What he meant was I would have one skinny eyebrow and a 2 inch scar on my forehead.

We get home and I go upstairs and my wife let's the dog out of her little pen.  The dog seems normal.  The next day we hadn't heard from animal control, but it was a weekend.  Oh, apparently dog bites are like gunshot wounds.  Legally hospitals have to report them.  Anyway, at this point the dog was not under qaurentine, so while I was on manditory bedrest (apparently exhurtion of any kind could split the many, many stitches in my head) Nancy took the dog to the vet.  It turns out that Val has a back problem.  The extent of which we do not know, but rest assured we are having specialists look at her as soon as the quarentine she was put under (another auto response to dog bites apparently to make sure she didn't catch a virus or soemthing) is over on Monday.  Right now she's on pain meds and has already learned a few new behaviours.

1. SHe's not allowed on the couch.

2. If she wants me to enter a room, she has to give me some room.

3. If she wants to be petted "vigurously" she has to wear a muzzle (This has never lasted for more than 10 minutes, but she does like to press against people.)

I too, have learned a new command.  I learned that a snarl-face from a dog means leave it the Hell alone and take her to the Vet for pain meds.

A week later, my stitches are out, Val and I are still friends and we're still working out her back issues.  I'm not sure, but I think her spine is actually a little misaligned.

On a side note, the wound to my head and the gore in the movie are remarkeabley similar.  Tabatha Gipe, our make-up F/X artist is to be commended on her realism.  Photos will be posted soon people.

1:51 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

SAVAGED from Debbie's point of view.

Read about what Debbie went through on set and see things from her perspective in "Scars" magazine...or just enjoy this new pic.

2:26 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Delayed in a good way
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Well, SAVAGED will be another month or two...or three, in the making, but I'm actually happy about it.  I showed Debbie a cut of the film and told her I was unsure about the current sound design.  She agreed it could some work, but being the invaluable resource that she is, she didn't leave it at that.  Ms. Rochon found me a composer willing to help.  I have also found an audio guru here in town who is sure he can do something with the sound I want to improve upon within the movie.

I knew from Day 1 that the difference between this becoming a one time watch and a "I have to show this to my friends" type of movie would be in the sound design and music.  Guess we'll get to have more than 12 names in the credits after all.

Longer, stronger trailer coming soon.  Keep watching the page, gang.

10:35 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

All there is to it is to do it.
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

SAVAGED is done!

Sort of.  I had written a big long blog explaining everything, talking about the movie, plot, method et al, but MySpace lost it on the way to the preview page and I've been editing since yesterday afternoon, so I need to stop.

Fact is I have the first cut, with temp music...and hopefully temp sound F/X. Budget what it is (small and spent), that may not be the case.  I'm outputting the closing credits now.  Not too hard since less than a dozen people worked on the thing.

Hopefully we'll have a trailer tomorrow.

4:16 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The 5 AM Edit

Well, I'm still working on finishing the roughcut of SAVAGED and I thought I'd talk about something I'm learning about.  The 5 AM edit.

Whether you edit at 5 AM because you wake up that early OR you hit it from the morning before as I just did (I slept `til nearly 9 AM yesterday though) I am starting to learn one thing.  It's not a great time to work.

My clips have funny names because my typing is off.  I have more trouble reading the script and figuring out how much of a page equals how much of a page to make sure I'm keeping pace with the script.  (Something some of my actors will tell you I fret over every time and it always works itself out) 

This time of day you're bound to make a funky decision or two, so that edit that was great at 5 AM should be checked again around noon.  After some rest or coffee, whichever the case may be.  Again, this depends on how you came to edit at 5 AM in the first place.

To those who read my bulletin on the HFP profile, you know I have a reason to want to finish this cut by mid-May, which is not rushing it.  It is actually giving me more time than I had initially planned to take.  In a perfect world I will have something presentable by Friday, BEFORE I leave my 35th year behind me.

Anyway, we've been making some real headway, but I won't be sure until...well...abotu noon.

That's all for now.  I would have some more pics for you, but some of them will be appearing in a magazine shortly (or they should be...editors can change their minds) and until I know which ones they've chosen I won't ruin for ya.

2:40 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The 5 AM Edit

Well, I'm still working on finishing the roughcut of SAVAGED and I thought I'd talk about something I'm learning about.  The 5 AM edit.

Whether you edit at 5 AM because you wake up that early OR you hit it from the morning before as I just did (I slept `til nearly 9 AM yesterday though) I am starting to learn one thing.  It's not a great time to work.

My clips have funny names because my typing is off.  I have more trouble reading the script and figuring out how much of a page equals how much of a page to make sure I'm keeping pace with the script.  (Something some of my actors will tell you I fret over every time and it always works itself out) 

This time of day you're bound to make a funky decision or two, so that edit that was great at 5 AM should be checked again around noon.  After some rest or coffee, whichever the case may be.  Again, this depends on how you came to edit at 5 AM in the first place.

To those who read my bulletin on the HFP profile, you know I have a reason to want to finish this cut by mid-May, which is not rushing it.  It is actually giving me more time than I had initially planned to take.  In a perfect world I will have something presentable by Friday, BEFORE I leave my 35th year behind me.

Anyway, we've been making some real headway, but I won't be sure until...well...abotu noon.

That's all for now.  I would have some more pics for you, but some of them will be appearing in a magazine shortly (or they should be...editors can change their minds) and until I know which ones they've chosen I won't ruin for ya.

2:40 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

And so Life Returns
Current mood: artistic
Category: Life

You may or may not have noticed from some of the still images from SAVAGED that death and decay are an underlying theme in the movie. I got the idea late last year when a lawn care service over treated my yard while I was away and left me with dead brown grass.  Since I  was planning on shooting at the house anyway and wanted it to look like winter I decided to keep the dead lawn...as long as I could convince the home owner's association that I was working on it, that is.

This goes to prove the understanding of my wife.  It was too far gone to fix with some weed and feed anyway and ultimatey I knew that a whole new sodding would be needed.  If I was going to spend abotu $1K in home improvements...it was going to benefit a movie dang it!  So, my wife lived with the dead lawn until the shoot...and left me time in case I came across pick up shots I needed.

I also wrote the hurricane damaged fence into the script.

Well, it's been too long this way and tomorrow they come to tear up the old lawn, up front and give estimates on a pretty new white fence.  To be honest, I can't wait.  But the point is, my wife allowed me to put this off for the sake of the flick and she lives here too.  Her support is overwhelming and I only hope she's proud of the finished product.

When you see the movie (You will be seeing the movie, right?)  try to notice the signifigance of the flowers inside as well.  I am hoping that with the high-def, although it will be downconverted for the mainstream DVD's, that the detail will be enough to reveal something of the flowers that fits with our "death and decay" theme.

Past day has been sort of random capturing since we shot so out of order, but I did manage to get part of scene 6b edited.  We're coming up on a little bit of blood, and the "bear attack" sequence.  Fun stuff.

Fear the Rabbit!

Currently reading : H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America) By H. P. Lovecraft Release date: 03 February, 2005

1:57 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment