Emmy's News and Notes 9.23.13

Congrats, Bob. It's been a long time coming.

It isn't fun times in the household tonight as I have a sick little girl on my hands but, before the yuck set in, she wanted to watch some of the Emmys. Therefore, I bring you some thoughts on our preeminent television awards show and more.

First of all, thank goodness I'm not a high-stakes awards show gambler, because I would have likely lost the house. I may have called two winners all night: Bob Newhart and Julia Louis Dreyfuss. (Oh... and the Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy since, after a third straight win, they're apparently just going to rename it the Jim Parsons award.) Everything else seemed fairly surprising (for a guy that admittedly doesn't watch much TV). The shows I do watch didn't fare so well. Mad Men got completely shut out and House of Cards grabbed a directing award for David Fincher but all the actors came up empty. Mad Men and House of Cards... I must be extremely white. At least I've managed to avoid Homeland.

One thing I think we can take away from the night is that this may be a golden era of American television. All the more surprising when you consider that we are still squarely in the era of "reality" TV. We have so many highly lauded scripted dramas, it's impossible to watch them all. I try not to watch a lot of television and that's why I don't give many shows a chance. I don't want to get sucked into giving away yet another hour of my week. However, I think we can agree there is something for everyone out there right now. Speaking of, allow me to...

Geek Out

Now is the obligatory portion of News and Notes when I talk about Marvel comics or movies or television shows in some form or fashion. It seems like it always happens and this week is no different because it marks the debut of Agents of Shield on ABC. Basically, I just have my fingers crossed, hoping that the show is close to as good as it could be. I can imagine it being great if they find the right blend of stories and action. Dig through a wealth of material and characters that the films will never be able to get to, and the show could be golden. But I can also imagine it stinking out loud if storylines doddle along and nothing interesting happens. We shall see. They can't shy away too much from the sci-fi and spectacle of the movies and risk being another mundane crime investigation show that happens to include Phil Coulson. The first big litmus test for me will be the revelation of how Phil survived his seemingly fatal wound in The Avengers. If they take a risk and do something interesting (like if they transferred his memories into a Life Model Decoy or maybe even the original Coulson was an android, etc), I'll be hooked. If Coulson just got rushed to the infirmary in the nick of time and got better... thumbs down.

In other news, Wall Street estimates are prognosticating that the Phase 2 Marvel films could easily rake in 5 billion dollars. Five. Billion. I wonder if Stan Lee wishes they hadn't changed his contract that at one time included 10% of all Marvel movie profits. It also appears that Disney knew what they were doing when they bough the once floundering comics publisher for what seemed like a staggering 4 billion.

WSF News

Things are still a bit slow on our end. We're basically inbetween news cycles right now. A lot of work went into Paranormous and now we wait for lots of news about where it goes from here. Plus, I haven't gone full tilt back into Space Cops editing because I've been planning for a trip that I'll talk about here next week.

Come back tomorrow for a complete break down of the most amazing political campaign ad you've ever seen!

Vimeo's News and Notes 9.16.13

A late update this morning. WSF news is a bit low because we took a week off after the big push to finish Paranormous. I expect things to start picking back up this week, however.

Indie News

How about a bit of actual production news for the indie filmmakers out there? Vimeo released an update for its on-demand service this week to give you and your audience more options of watching/paying for your content.


Vimeo On Demand launched in March as a simple way of selling video work on the web. To make some cash, all a filmmaker has to do is upload their work, add some information about the movie and set a price. (That plus some shameless, hardcore marketing/self-promotion. We apologize for that, but nobody, and I mean nobody, gets people to watch their stuff by sheer happenstance.) Vimeo takes 10 percent of any revenue, with the rest going to the filmmaker.

Here are the newest features:  if you’re an uploader, you can now set different prices for renting (stream only), and buying (stream and download) – whereas before, you could only offer one price for both options. And if you're a marketing wiz and can generate some buzz, you can also make your film available for pre-order.

Personally I think this is a great thing for indie folk and I expect it to actually change the way we do things here at Walk Softly. Had this feature been in place when we released Cannonball, it may have had a significant impact on our bottom line. So, in the future you can expect our bigger projects to have an On Demand release before they go completely free.

Chipotle Short Film?

And, just because... here's the best commercial you'll see today.


Deadline News and Notes 9.9.13


So, the big news for us last week was this big bubble-lined envelope you see above. If you've been following along lately, you know that we've been feverishly working on our newest project with the hope of submitting it to RiversEdge Film Fest before their final deadline closed. Well, it took a few weeks of hard work and a couple of edit parties to help finish it off but, with a wide grin on my face, I dropped that thing in the mail on Thursday.

I've talked about it before and you'll hear it again I'm sure, so I won't bore you with a bunch of details about why we love RiversEdge so much. In a nutshell: it's a Fall fest, we love downtown Paducah and the food you can find there, the peeps that run it are super nice and they take great care of us. Now, do we think there is some guarantee that we'll be accepted just because we got our submission in under the wire? Absolutely not. I know there were over 80 submissions in our category from countries all over the world, which means that likely less than 25% of them will be accepted into the festival. We've been accepted three years running right now and this would be the fourth. We realize that sooner or later our run of good fortune has to come to an end. But, every year we'll continue to cross our fingers and wait for that email that lets us know yay or nay.

Paranormous

 Now, some thoughts on the product that actually made it into that envelope. The question becomes, what do we have on our hands here? I am extremely curious to see how Paranormous is received. I know we all like it. I know it makes us laugh. A lot. That's nothing new. But, Allen has said several times that he believes Paranormous will have more universal appeal and more audience laughs than anything we've done up to this point. Allen's positive vibes are really interesting to me. I don't disagree with him at all, but it's always hard for me to judge. As the guy who spends the most time in the editing cave, I usually become disconnected with everything we work on and rarely have a solid notion of how good or funny it is by the time I'm done with it. Also, we've been surprised before. Just like we had no idea that Bizarnival, a glorified camera test, would win several Best Short awards and get the attention that it did. You just never know how the public is going to react until you put it out there.

It's also an interesting experiment for me because the very first project we worked on together was in mockumentary style, much like Paranormous. We tried to submit Meltdown to a Lexington festival, got turned down flat and it practically disappeared forever. So will Paranormous be our mockumentary redemption or are we off base? Time will tell.

Speaking of, you may be asking yourself, "When can I see this 'Paranormous'?" Well, IF RiversEdge takes us in, your first opportunity to see it will be in Paducah, KY, November 7-10. We're going to hold off and give those guys the World Premiere if they'll have us. Then we'll have an online premiere sometime afterward. But, if we get denied, we'll likely put it up on our site the day after we stop crying. We'll let you know as soon as we get the news.

So, what now? Finish Space Cops 4 and 5!

We'll see you back here for Indie Wednesday and any other goofiness that comes up.

Indie Wednesday: Toast



Today we feature another film that was shot in Kentucky by a filmmaker born and raised in the Bluegrass State. We met Grayson Johnson at RiversEdge Film Fest two years ago and got the chance to watch his film, Raftbag. The film was genuinely funny, had a fresh voice and Grayson and his cohorts all seemed really nice in our brief interactions.

Now it seems that he is about to debut a new feature that I'd love to see, so let's all take a gander at the trailer for Toast together.

Filmspiration: Accomplish Anything


Hey! We make things!
Our friend Michael Startzman inspired us to inspire YOU with wisdom from our favorite films.

There is no better way to kick off our filmspiration with the master of motivation himself, Mr. Kesuke Miyagi. Now you'll never forget what a man who catches a fly with chopsticks can do.

We'll be selling professional prints of every poster, so get ready to order.
Anyone excited? Let us know in the comments.

Labor Day's News and Notes 9.2.13



Paranormous

Happy Labor Day everybody! I don't know how you're spending yours, but I'm trying to finish up the Paranormous edit, so you aren't going to get much out of me this morning.

The guys came up for an extremely productive edit party on Thursday and now I'm on the cusp of putting a cap on this thing. It's actually within the realm of possibility to finish up and get a DVD in the mail tomorrow.

Labor Day Melee

I'll also leave you with one short video of how we used to spend our Labor Days...


Ahhhh, the good old days.

See you back here for Indie Wednesday and any vital Paranormous updates. Enjoy your day, folks!