Stomping Back to Cleveland

‘The Monster’ Returns in 3D

I’m proud to now be able to officially announce that “Blood of Ohma” will be screening in 3D at this year’s Indie Gathering in Cleveland on August 18th at 10:30pm. If you’re in the area and want to attend, all the details can be found at the Indie Gathering’s official site.

This presentation is being brought to you in part by Sony 3D World / Sony Creative Software which has been a big supporter of this film since I was in pre-production over a year ago now.

And it’s exciting, because we haven’t done a live theatrical premiere in 3D since last November when the movie premiered here in Erie. As a film maker, nothing quite compares to the instant feedback of a live audience. And seeing a room full of people in old school 3D glasses is just, well… cool.

The ‘Black Out’

Between July 16th and July 26th, GMD Films, along with the entire Maddy G Productions crew went ‘dark’, having lost all internet and phone connections during our move to a new studio.

It seemed like a joint effort between Time Warner Business Class and Verizon to keep us offline, as no one expected to be down that long, but alas… we can’t be stopped that easily.

I won’t go into the gory details about our dealings with Time Warner, just to say it’s a miracle that company has stayed in business as long as they have. Verizon ended up coming to our rescue and restoring communications for us, thanks in no small part to a savvy technician named Sal who went above and beyond the call of duty.

Regardless, once communications were restored, we had quite a bit of ‘catch up’ to do, so it’s taken me a bit longer to update the production blog.

The “House of Bedlam” Blu-Ray Project

Being unable to do most of the ‘business’ of running GMD Films during the black out, I took the unexpected downtime to finish the re-edit of “House of Bedlam” in high definition for Blu-Ray.

While I really enjoyed the process, I can’t say I’m exactly thrilled with the final result.

Since I had to re-cut the film from scratch, the story is the same, but the cut is slightly different, but not necessarily better. It runs 87 minutes, a couple minutes longer than the original, but it’s paced a little faster.

But I’m not sure HD is an improvement on this film. If you remember a few years back when the TV Broadcast networks began to switch over to HD, you heard the newscasters and morning show personalities bitch about how HD showed flaws that standard definition previous hid. I see similar things here with ‘Bedlam’.

This was my first project to be shot in High Definition so back in 2008, I was still learning how to light for it and how to shoot with it. Some of it was hit-and-miss and HD truly does show the flaws. The scenes around the camp fire look grainy and strange, almost to the point of being distracting.

The greens of the forest are the color that ‘Green’ wants to be when it grows up. Overwhelming. And Katie Russell looks positively Orange. Sesame Street’s version of Orange.

Now some of this can be straightened out with a color correction pass, but there are other issues as well.

For reasons that none of us can fully remember, I shot an entire sequence on the Panasonic DVX, in standard definition. We also shot all of the “Church” sequences in Standard Definition, because when we started shooting ‘Bedlam’, we hadn’t upgraded to the HD camera’s yet. So, there’s a total of about 8 minutes of the film in Standard Definition.

The “Church” sequence plays just fine, because it appears as old film in the movie anyway, but the other sequence is ‘blown up’ in HD and while the few people I’ve shown it to didn’t notice, I did, and it sort of sticks out weird for me.

So, I’m going to tinker with it a bit more before I decide if there will ultimately be a Blu-Ray release of “House of Bedlam”. My whole goal was to preserve the film in the version I shot it in (HD), but for right now, I’m just not feeling like I’m accomplishing that.

A Few Words About “WISP”

Considering the move and getting set back from our communications breakdown, and a few other personal / family issues at home, the Principal Photography of “WISP” has been bumped back to at least September. Maybe October.

There is still a principal character that has yet to be cast, and while I have my favorite and she’s already agreed to sign on, the schedule and budget will ultimately decide the course this movie will take.

We are thru pre-production with nearly every aspect of locations, cast, props, wardrobe, etc. locked down, we’re pretty much only waiting on a final budget to set actual shooting dates.

It’s too late into the summer to be able to schedule a ‘summer’ shoot, so we are looking now at Fall. September or October to take advantage of the fall colors and give the company a bit more time to raise a bit more money, so we’re not struggling thru this on a shoe-string.

“Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.” That applies here as well as in life. “WISP” has been in development for a few years now so as excited as I am to get started, I’m not willing to sacrifice any aspect of this just to get it done sooner than later. It will be worth the wait, I promise.

In the meantime, don’t forget to visit the GMD Films Backlot Auctions on E-bay. Lots of cool stuff being auctioned off every week there. This week, we have some rare Hollywood press kits, screen worn outfits from “Virgin Pockets” and “House of Bedlam” as well as some pretty cool background props we’ve had in storage for awhile.

I’ll be back soon with more news on all of it.

- Paul