B+K Gets a Fistie

Here we are, the night before Halloween, at a costume party accepting our award for Best Picture from the 2005 Festival of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and the Supernatural. The award is a golden box of popcorn with a flying saucer hitting it from the side and a fist rising from the popcorn. Boz promptly nicknamed the award the "Fistie." It just seemed right, all things considered.

From left: Debbie (editor), Gregg (director), Unknown Catwoman who presented the award, Denise (producer-actress), Robert (producer-actor), Boz (acting coach-actor).

Denise's pet, Booger, doesn't know quite what to make of the Fistie...

Website Winded by Wilma!

For the past week the BLOOD + KISSES official website has been down -- as has been half the state of Florida -- without power since being hit by Hurricane Wilma. But we're back in business now.

The Art of the Scare

I haven't posted in a while, but that doesn't mean nothing's happening. It's just been all about the unglamorous task of finishing the post production on this beast.

We've been fine-tuning the music and trying to make the scares as big as possible. You know, I've been a filmmaker for a while now, working on all sorts of productions, and I never realized or fully appreciated the art and science of scaring people. It is a science and I am becoming a student of it. My textbooks are other scary movies and in particular Bravo's TV special "100 Scariest Movie Moments," which is running again this Halloween week.

I now appreciate that every scare that works is carefully crafted and executed. It's not so easy. Personally, I'm not that good a test audience since I've never been scared that easily by movies. So I sit in the edit bay and experiment, cutting it different ways, testing different music, different sound effects until the day I can test it out on someone and make them jump.

Last night I screened a scene for Denise, one she's seen a hundred times. She jumped for the first time at a new sound effect I put in there. I never even imagined that it was that scary a scene.

Back to the edit bay. I'm inspired now to scare as many people as I can, as often as I can!

More later
Gregg

Runaway Train

Things are really moving now. We're so close I can taste it.

William and Mia have been working so furiously on music and sound effects that they've actually buried me under them. I haven't been able to keep up with editing them and mixing them into the movie. Speaking of the music... It's going to be an amazing score. William continues to create so much new music every day I think he's going to have to stop soon or he'll have enough music for two movies. I'm sure some of these musical ideas will develop into songs on the next Octavius album. Speaking of albums, I'm determined to put together an album for this movie. The music is so good that it demands it.

Meanwhile, James created the first of the special effects where the Countess grows her fangs. It rocked -- but we couldn't help but laugh at the size of the fangs. She looked like a damn sabertooth tiger. I have a sneaking suspicion that James hasn't actually watched the whole movie yet or else he'd have known her fangs should be smaller. But the effect was realistic and flawless and cut in seamlessly into the scene. Can't wait to see it with smaller fangs.

A smaller triumph was finally getting "Blood + Kisses" listed on IMDb, the Internet Movie Database. I know from the last indie movie I produced, "Los Patriotas," that this can be a painstaking process, submitting details over and over again until they finally get it complete. It looks like this will be no different. No cast or crew yet listed, but I'll keep at it. I'm like a pit bull on things like this. I don't let go. And this movie is like the little engine that could. We're going to have to fight for everything we get.

But then, we're all fighters.

More later.

Gregg

Endings + Beginnings

A light at the end of the tunnel...

Post Production draws to a close on Blood + Kisses. Over the next four weeks we will complete the music, sound design, color correction and special effects. Music is in good hands -- courtesy of William Marshall, AKA Octavius -- as are the special effects -- thanks to the amazing James Raitt, who will start on them this weekend. The sound design has been handled to this point by a group including myself, Mia, and William. And that's working for us. But I think it's time to bring in a specialist to bring this baby home. Same for color correction. So far, I've been handling that myself. But we want this to rock visually, so again we'll bring in a hired gun to put it over the top.

That's what the next month will be about.

This morning though, I sat on my balcony, fires blazing to the east (Topanga) and to the west (Burbank) and as the ashes swirled around me in the air, opened my laptop and began writing the script for the Blood + Kisses prequel. That's right. We're making a prequel. All I can tell you so far is it will tell the story of how Denise's character became a vampire. This morning I wrote the first scene. Then I wrote the last scene. Now all I have to do is fill the 100 pages in between.

As I watched the ashes floating in the rays of the early morning sun, I thought, how fucking appropriate. Another movie, rising from the ashes like the Phoenix. There was a time when this movie was written off for dead. Before the reshoots. Before the months of painstaking editing. Before the evocative original music score and layers and layers of sound effects.

We're making this bitch work by sheer force of will. If we stumble and fall, we'll get up, dust ourselves off, and do it again.

Is there any other way?

Gregg