All posts tagged film
Friday, December 1st, 2006
My brother Kevin Robertson’s new comic American Soil is now available to order in both print and PDF copies. It’s a Horror Comedy Political Satire inspired by the U.S. led “War on Terrorism”, and set amidst an invasion of flesh eating zombies. Fantastic artwork, and a very entertaining script make this a great book for those interested in comics, horror films, and recent political events. I recently asked Kevin some questions about the book, and the process that brought it together.
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Tags: art, books, Family, film, politics, spooky, webcomic
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Monday, May 8th, 2006
Jim Emerson recently published a list of what he considers the 101 102 basic cinematic texts that everyone should know, at minimum, to be somewhat “movie-literate.” I’ve noticed a few people post their personal movie literacy scorecards on their sites, and thought I’d do the same.
I haven’t been watching as many movies since my son was born, but I did go to film school, so I guessed I’d do okay. I’d at least be somewhat movie-literate—wouldn’t I?
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Tags: film
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Saturday, April 22nd, 2006
It seems someone got a hold of the pilot for Sarah Silverman’s new TV Show and posted a clip on You Tube . I have to admit when I first heard Rob Schrab was working on “Sarah’s Pilot” I thought it was something for Channel 101, and even when I later heard the “Silverman” part it took a visit to her Internet Movie Database entry to figure out where I’d heard her name before. Once I saw her picture I immediately recognized her from Seinfeld and School of Rock. Brian Posehn, who’s been in everything including “Just Shoot Me” is also in the pilot.
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Tags: film
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Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
Directions is a series of 11 Short Films inspired by the 11 tracks on Death Cab for Cutie’s grammy nominated album Plans. This week features Rob Schrab’s video for Crooked Teeth—a DIYtastic mix of cardboard and rubber band puppets, stop-motion animation, and post-production graphics. When you consider it has dragons, pirates, mummies and robots, what more could you really ask for?
In the mid-nineties Rob Schrab wrote, illustrated and self-published the cult comic book Scud: the Disposable Assasin. Along with Dan Harmon, he also wrote and produced the TV pilot “Heat Vision and Jack” which starred Jack Black and Owen Wilson, with directing by Ben Stiller. Unfortunately the network decided to pass on the show, something about it being “too funny”, and it was never aired.
This led to Rob and Dan creating Channel 101, a monthly competition to create 5 minute pilots for fictitious TV shows. Rob started mixing puppets and greenscreen to create his shows in a technique he calls “Draw-less Animation”.
I’ve been a fan of Rob’s work since I first saw his short film Robot Bastard, a carboard robot sci-fi epic. However, Crooked Teeth is close competition for the title of best cardboard robot film ever. I’ve probably watched it about a dozen times already, and each time I see something else I want to ask him about.
Fortunately I’m going to be doing some work with Rob over the next few weeks, and might be able to trick him into sharing some of his secrets with me. I will of course, share those tips with you.
Stay tuned!
Tags: designmeme, film, music
Posted in designmeme | 1 Comment »
Saturday, February 4th, 2006
Two quick updates you might be interested in:
Most of the people who have updated to the newest version of Firefox will have noticed the X-Ray extension reports that it isn’t compatible. I’m going to update the file to make it work, as well as include support for a wider range of tags. That should be ready in the next day or two.
I’ve also been helping Dave at OntarioFilm.com get the site updated and adding some new features to the message board. If you’re a filmmaker, or would like to be involved in a film project in Ontario, visit the site and join the community. We’ll continue adding content and features over the next few weeks.
Tags: designmeme, extension, film, plugins
Posted in designmeme | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 30th, 2006
My brother gave me a copy of Lloyd Kaufman’s new book
Make Your Own Damn Movie for Christmas, and I’ve been reading it on my lunch breaks. It offers a bit more practical advice than Lloyd’s first book—
All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger: The Shocking True Story of Troma Studios. Lloyd Kaufman is, as I’m sure you’re all aware, the prolific independent filmmaker behind the Oscar winning films
The Toxic Avenger and
Class of Nuke ‘Em High 3: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid. Lloyd’s lunatic anecdotes about the chaos of his productions is oddly appealing—at least to me. As I mentioned earlier, one of my resolutions for 2006 is to finally make a return to filmmaking in some form or another, and shoot my own Damn Movie.
The challenge of course is that I have very little money to put into making a movie, and Guelph isn’t exactly Hollywood—or even Hollywood North (aka Toronto). So I decided to see what resources we do have here…
It looks like the website for Ed Video recently received a much needed update, and is now considerably easier to work with. Ed Video is Guelph’s video arts co-op, offering a wide range of support for people interested in making movies. Filmmakers can rent DV cameras (including the Panasonic AGDVX100 which can shoot 24 frame progressive video), tripods, lights and audio equipment. They also make editing facilities and audition space available for aspiring film auteurs. Considering that they offer a handful of film production courses, it reminds me a lot of film school—only with more modern gear.
Ed Video had a link to ontariofilm.com, a new site intended to provide aspiring filmmakers that are outside of greater metropolitan areas access to a filmmaking community in Ontario. The messageboard is pretty quiet at the moment, but I’m not sure if that’s due to a lack of interest, the newness of the site, or people just not knowing about it. Maybe mentioning it here will help out with that last point.
Finally, anyone in the area who might be interested in working on an independent film this summer, send me an email and I’ll let you know when I’ve got things a bit more organized. Sometime after I finish the second half of Lloyd’s book.
Tags: books, designmeme, film
Posted in designmeme | 6 Comments »
