It's a Shortie

Hooray! I finished the first draft of the script. So, that's great. The bad news is, it's short. Like, waaay short. So, I gotta get right back in there and beef it up some. But the story's there and everything. It's by no means a complex ground breaking story, although zombie westerns are thus far an overlooked genre. But, it's got all the bells and whistles there, all the parts and doo dads. Actually, I'm kind of glad that I have to go over it again, since I'm new to the next step of putting it together in a pitch package to get some moneys for it. Also, I'm scared to show it to my peers for critique (AKA getting creatively raped). But people seem genuinely interested in reading the script to see what exactly goes on in a zombie western, and I guess I'm anxious to have people give me some feedback.

There's another poster here today. Trying to keep them coming. This one was for an alternate title I'm considering "The Good, The Bad, and The Undead." I'm still on the fence about it, and leaning towards good 'ole zombie western. Starting to dial in the look of the marketing though. I like the dirty parchment background being the unifying element, with the paint spatter and aging. I wanted it to feel like it was found in some old chest in the attic or something. Of course, for this design, I essentially copied the look for the good bad and ugly poster (Sorry, Sergio). And get used to it, cus I'm definately influenced by his westerns as far as shot composition and pacing are concerned (though my movie probably wont be two and a half hours).

Oh, unrelated but interesting. I'm trying to get a job doing score for an indie action movie, so I gots to get up on my action music chops. I'm working on putting together an action medley to show the director and then I'm going to check out the rough cut some time soon, maybe next week. Apparently they got my info from scoring BIO DEAD, which was very synth 80's goodness. Not sure how my skills can be applied to a modern action movie. Should be interesting. So I may have to procrastinate a little more on the script before getting it out there for people to peruse. I'll try to have another full length draft by the end of the week.

Also, buttered toast always works. Always.

Also, hey, has anybody tried toasting a hot dog bun and putting peanut butter and jelly in there and a banana instead of the hotdog?

What's In a Title?

So, I've been trying to come up with a name for the Zombie Western every since I first started thinking about the concept. There are very few other zombie westerns out there right now, which is great for me. Really, the only thing that you can go to blockbuster and watch is, The Quick and The Undead, which seems to have a more modern style than the story I am working on. So, with all the racking of the brain, the only thing I've come up with so far is, The Good The Bad and The Undead. It's not too bad a title, but it has sort of a tongue in cheek quality that I'm not looking for. It's definitely not a comedy, although it may cause people to laugh at its badness, which I don't mind. But I don't want people walking in to the movie anticipating a slapstick western.

So then I started thinking about Snakes on a Plane. It's hard not to have a day where my mind wanders to SOAP. Hey, I just realized the acronym is SOAP, how come no one ever told me that before? Anyway, most people are aware of the phenomenon that was marketing for SOAP. All grass roots, with that stupid title at the helm. As soon as somebody read the title (and saw sam jackson attached) they were excited. So, why not do that with my movie? Let's call it Zombie Western! Then people know exactly what they're in for, and it has that same quality of fun movie, straight forward, no punches pulled. So, that's what I'm thinking for the time being, and I think that the new poster reflects that.

I'm also interested in the whole marketing thing that SOAP did with the blog updates and behind the scenes videos to keep fans interested. So I guess that's why I'm doing the blog thing and the posters. Tryin' to hype it up. But how do you get a bunch of eyes on it? SOAP had Sam Jackson, and it worked well. I got nothing but an idea, and I'm hoping to pitch for some monies soon after the script is finished. But that's always the big question for the internet marketing: How do I get people to see it?

Anyways, I'm still working on the script, and it's coming along nicely. I'm hoping to have a first draft done shortly. Wish me the luckiest of luck. And spread the word, the ranch is doing a Zombie Western, and it's going to be awesome!

Zombie Western

So, I've started work on a new project. To be honest, its my first project that I could call my own post college. I've always wanted to shoot something on the ranch, ever since we first moved in August, 2005. We were actually able to shoot the awesome show, Mountain Man over the course of a year and a half, off and on (mostly off). We put a lot of work in to shooting the first season of that web series, some of which can be seen on the interwebs right now. In shooting Mountain Man, I really realized for the first time, how much mileage you could get out of shooting up at the ranch, given the right setting and tone of the project.

Sos, recently I started working on ideas for a full feature to be shot, mostly on the ranch, for next to nothing. Mountain Man was made with a bare bones crew and virtually no budget, except out of pocket. However, I knew that out out of pocket days were over, and most of my peers were still unemployed and trying to work on their own projects. My passion has always been horror movies (although not exclusively) and I knew that doing a horror would be more conducive to the budget constraints.

After Mountain Man, I got a jobbie doing post sound for a no budget horror movie called BIODEAD. I got to know the director and producer, who pretty much did everything except the sound design. I realized that with the right mindset, you could really pull off a fun and entertaining horror movie that could actually be bought. Rent it on DVD next month. I demand it!

And that was all the encouragement I needed to convince myself that I could make a feature, given all of the equipment that the ranch has been able to accrue over the years. I was thinking a camping slasher movie. you know, kids camping in the desert/ranch and a boogie man monster thing eats/slices them. With all the remakes in theaters to that effect, it wasn't difficult to come up with a plotline or two. But they were pretty stale at best. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly where the idea for the zombie western came from. But whenever I mentioned those two words to anybody, they would instantly know exactly what I was talking about. That interested me a lot.

So, I started doing some research on my favorite westerns, the Sergio Leone's, and Deadwood. I was already familiar with the zombie genre and the main themes therein. All that remained was trying to mash 'em together (I know, I'm so post modern, I make you sick) in a meaningful and entertaining way. How hard could it be?