Monday, July 06, 2009

Stop Motion for Mind Rip

The story of Mind Rip involves comic book monsters that are brought to life through psychic means. One such monster is "Boil Head," a slobbering hot rod driving fiend. Inspired by the legendary Big Daddy Roth's "Rat Fink" designs, the Boil Head will be appear on screen as a stop motion puppet.

John began with a ball and socket armature, and now he's applying oil-based clay over the top of it. Eventually, when the sculpt is perfect, he'll make a mold from it.

It barely looks like anything right now, but I insisted we take some pictures for comparison purposes later. Also in these pics, you can see the original sketch and the hot rod model that Boil Head will be driving.





Sunday, July 05, 2009

Shooting a grindhouse-style trailer

The overarching plan for Philrose Productions is to have several projects in the queue, ready to go. With the script for Lake Midnight completed, this summer we're turning our attention to shooting an updated promotional trailer for Mind Rip.

We'll be capturing new scenes to supplement our previous cemetery shoot, then cutting something in the style of drive-in/grindhouse trailers of the 70s and 80s.

I've been going through my own collection of trailers, looking for style influences. Below is a smattering of title cards I like for font styles and exploitation language. Yes, if you saw the Rodriguez/Tarantino feature Grindhouse, you saw some parodies of trailers like these.



I'll be posting more behind-the-scenes photos from this trailer project in the coming weeks. Check back soon for updates!

-Mike

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

John Vincent and Rochester Filmmakers in the News



This week's City Newspaper has a good overview of the local film community, written by Susie Hume.

Susie is the reporter who spoke with me last year for the Rochester Insider. This time, she took on the entire film scene and talked to tons of people. John Vincent and Matt Ehlers get some facetime, as well as The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast.

An excerpt:
Vincent, a Rochester native, worked in both New York City and Los Angeles before eventually settling back here, his hometown. His long list of film credits includes visual effects work on cult classics like "Freaked" and sci-fi favorites like "Robot Wars" and "Prehysteria." He now works full-time as a writer, director, and effects artist, and as president of his own production company, Philrose Productions, which provides effects and production management for industrial videos, commercials, and feature films.

"There are other smaller cities with big film communities, like Austin and Portland, that are really promoting their work, and it pumps millions of dollars into their economies," Vincent says. "We need to promote that here. We're not Hollywood, and we never will be, so to people here it's very intangible to think of Rochester as a film city. But to us, it is what we do already, so we need to change the way they're thinking."

Vincent also remains involved with a core group of local filmmakers committed to boosting the Rochester film scene. He co-hosts a podcast on local writer/filmmaker/animator Mike Boas' website, maddogmovies.com, and will shoot a lower budget film ("100 grand or less," he says) with Boas this year with the working title "Lake Midnight." In addition, Vincent acted as second unit director to Matt Ehlers' recently premiered film, "Smoking Laws."

"People like Matt and others could be working in L.A. or New York, but the great thing here is that we just help each other out or work for free on each other's films," Vincent says. "It's a 'You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' mentality, because we're all in this together."


Read the entire article online here: "Rochester's local filmmaking scene" By Susie Hume.

Thanks for the press, Susie!

Links:

The MAD DOG MOVIES Podcast

Lake Midnight

Smoking Laws

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Mad Dog Movies Podcast launch



After many months of John and I saying "We should do a podcast," we finally got our act together, sat down, and recorded ourselves talking shop.

The first episodes of The Mad Dog Movie Podcast are online at http://www.maddogmovies.com/podcast

The goal is to offer a behind-the-scenes look at independent filmmaking. We'll talk about issues relating to our own movie production, but also invite guests (and listeners) to take part in the discussion.

Those interested can listen online or subscribe through podcatching software like iTunes.

So come join the fun! If you like what you hear or have specific questions, write us at feedback(AT)maddogmovies.com

Monday, October 08, 2007

The beast revealed!

Behold! Lake Midnight's god creature from another dimension!




...Or at least the maquette the final beastie will be based on.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Rochester animator has a big head

The Rochester Insider just did a profile of yours truly for the August 31 issue. Yes, I really am that attractive.

Click here read the whole article.

Friday, August 10, 2007

A logline for Lake Midnight

How do we describe the story of Lake Midnight to total strangers without giving away all the twists and turns? Here's our synopsis:

A weekend in the mountains becomes a living nightmare for
Wade Howard when a force from another dimension takes control of his life and reality. Wade must resist the evil and try desperately to protect his soul and the woman he loves.