Rat Rod Rockers! (Black & White Version)

When I was originally editing Rat Rod Rockers! I came very close on several occasion to making it's initial release in Black & White. I love high contrast B&W and most of my favorite films are void of color. Ultimately I decided to go with a muted color on the initial release, which has played very well and now has been seen by thousands of people in the few short months it has been in Festivals and on DVD. The new colorless version also has some corrections and additions to the end credits. I finished this new DVD case cover art yesterday afternoon and I think it will be distinguishable enough from the color cover, so people won't accidentally buy the wrong version.

Rat Rod Rockers! Review in Hot Rod Revue

Rat Rod Rockers! Pre-Order Sales

Signing and shipping all the pre-orders for Rat Rod Rockers! today. After removing the shrink wrap- I signed and numbering each of the first few hundred DVDs. People seem to like the historical aspect of anything signed and numbered. I set aside disc #001 for my wife- since she has been instrumental in all my creative projects. She never complains about any of it and is always willing to help on the set or in the studio. I love her immensely. After I signed the discs, I put a postcard in each case and closed it up, then put in boxes or envelopes to be addressed and shipped. This took all day with nearly a hundred pre-orders! Extremely good for a small operation like myself, with a very limited advertising budget. At the Post Office- I hogged up the clerk for at least a half an hour. I could almost feel the a burning on the back of my skull from all the Post Office patrons glaring at my backside while they were stuck in the ever growing line behind me. Patience is a virtue people.

Between signing and mailing Rat Rod Rockers! DVDs, I began extensive updates and redesigns of the Go-Kustom website(s). Man...the site is an outdated mess! I need to streamline the site and have a concise way to connect the multiple areas for easy navigation. This may take days...

Rat Rod Rockers! DVDs Are In!

Finally! Eleven cases of Rat Rod Rockers! DVDs were dropped off at the studio today by my friendly UPS driver. I was jumping all over the place like a little kid on Christmas Day! My second feature film...this is exciting. With my last film Hot Rod Girls Save The World I only did short runs through CreateSpace of DVD-Rs, never getting more than 200 discs at a time. By ordering 1,000 from a replication pressing plant, you save on price per DVD (like almost 1/4th the price per disc) but have to pony up more initial money.

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD Submaster Shipped!

So after a dozen test burns with small audio and menu defects, I finally shipped two DVD-R submasters of Rat Rod Rockers! off this morning. One went to our DVD replication broker in Atlanta via FedEx Overnight the other went to CreateSpace (part of the Amazon.com empire) here in Seattle. I ordered 1,000 replicated discs in cases for the Seattle Premiere + DVD Release Party coming up March 26th at the King Cat Theater. Replication is much cheaper (between $1.20-$1.70 per disc) than duplication ($2.50-$4.00 per disc), but with you must order at least 500 at a time. CreateSpace does very high end duplication and feeds content directly to Amazon.com for DVD on demand and Video On Demand services.

The Rat Rod Rockers! DVD is not perfected yet (in my opinion), but close enough. I could keep working on this film for months and still not be satisfied. I had to pull this cake out of the oven, or risk project burnout (as well as not have any DVD's available at the DVD Release Party). I also checked the Rat Rod Rockers! primary external drive and it still will not mount. I am missing some older files, but have the final audio and video mixes intact and separated enough to do an eventual 5.1 Surround mix or foreign language version of the film. I am also contemplating release of a Black & White version of Rat Rod Rockers! by summer. Next (project wise) I'm digging into our Kustom Kulture print publication with music CD- Munster Style as well as writing screenplays for Evil Undead Girlfiend: The Re-Animation of Issa Kross and Chopper Chicas as well as promoting Rat Rod Rockers! Gotta stay busy!

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD

One third of the way through watching the latest submaster of Rat Rod Rockers! with the family- I noticed rising background noises in some scenes. Upon further review I found that I had compressed the audio a bit too much, bringing the background noises up against the foreground dialog. I am now back in the studio re-exporting new audio tracks. Nothing like doing something 30-40 times to get it right.

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD Baked!

Got to the studio relatively early, made a few edits to the DVD files and made several submaster copies. I think this cake is baked! Need to take the disc home and have the family preview (8 eyes are better than 2) and it should be ready to send to the DVD brokers tomorrow morn.

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD

After I got home from the Evil Undead Girlfiend Photo Shoot (see previous post), I continued editing the Rat Rod Rockers! DVD. Found a few problems in the DVD menus and a typo in the character pages. Burned a proof copy to watch tonight. Have to ship this off Monday morning.

Rat Rod Rockers! Error Error Error

So I had almost finished the Rat Rod Rockers! DVD audio mix on Thursday afternoon and was trying to get the disc completed to send off to the pressing plant today (Friday). I had just finished a new end credit song called Down Time and started work on the last song for the film that needed some updating- the Car Show Theme. Suddenly my external disc drive stopped responding. I panicked! Did the drive crash!?! I noticed the drive light was off. Tried restarting the computer, checked connections, nothing. My heart sank. Not now! My head was hanging low, when I noticed the power adapter cable had come loose at the chord side. Pushed it in and viola, the drive is up and the movie is saved! Yea! I had backed everything up religiously until mid January, when I started burning the midnight oil to get the DVD ready for the release party in March. So after the drive was up- I finish the Car Show Theme and turn to put a DVD in the burner and my foot hooks the external drives power cable (most likely because I had not tucked it back in after I fixed it) and the drive tumbles onto the floor. Now it is dead. :( Will not mount, busy light stays red (supposed to be blue), drive whirs up and then quits. I change the drive cases with another donor drive, nothing. Shit! So I break out the backup drive. I had (thankfully) save all the mixed master files the night before on it. However, this was before I finish writing the end credit song Down Time. I had a copy of the Car Show Theme saved on my desktop, so that work was still there. Then I start rebuilding the movie files and am able to get everything replaced, except Down Time. OK...some lost time, but not a complete disaster. I am missing one months of final editing, but have the end product. I find a mono version of Down Time that somehow got saved in my iTunes folder, most likely when I played it from the desktop. I use the mono version and combined it with the old rough tracks, re-sing the verse and chorus and once again have a usable version of the song. Not as tight as the previous incarnation, but not too bad either. I put everything back together, and losing a day of time am a  back on track. Word to the wise, never stop backing up your work, even for a week or a month! Everyday.

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD

Made a 16:9 Widescreen version of the Evil Undead Girlfiend Teaser Trailer as well as my older movie trailers for the Rat Rod Rockers! DVD. I ended up using Compressor to crop and export the files from the original .mov files. Then I added them to the Rat Rod Rockers! DVD with an autostart and First Play Action directed at the trailers on their own track. This will start the trailers before the DVD Main Menu pops up. I know that can be annoying if a DVD has multiple trailers and previews on it, but I added a chapter marker so you can skip one of the two trailers then fast forward the second to quickly get to the Main Menu. These are all things to consider when authoring commercial DVDs. Later I began consolidating Rat Rod Rockers! audio tracks in submix groups. This makes mixing much easier.

Also authored some Evil Undead Girlfiend Promo Trailer DVDs, wrote a song for the Ivan Calls Danika scene in Rat Rod Rockers!, finished an article I was writing about Pin-Up Nikki Dodge and spray painted (in primer) the seats, dash and steering wheel of my 1/25th scale 1956 Dodge Gasser Hearse "Meat Wagon."

Rat Rod Rockers! Foley Work

So I am playing in dirt in our apartment, in the name of improving the audio tracks of my new film Rat Rod Rockers! Went to the actual site that a certain scene of the film was shot and collected a gravel / dirt mixture to use for audio replacement of the scene. In the original audio you can hear several cars driving by, so I cut the audio around the passing cars, but made large audio gaps in the scene by doing so. To fix this I replace the background sounds with a recording of an ambient woods setting and then the individual footsteps and other gravel walking sounds by placing a mic over the box of dirt / gravel I collected and moving the shoe with my hand to imitate the actors foot steps. This works very well and with a little practice and editing no one is the wiser.

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD Authoring

Finished authoring the Special Features sections of the Rat Rod Rockers! DVD and burned tester. Looks good. Filled 4.1 Gig of the DVD-R disc. Left .2 Gig to play around with the video quality on the next export of the film. All that's left now is to fine tune the movie audio and a few cuts, re-export and burn a master disc.  May be ready to ship to the printers by first week of January.

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD

Started laying out the Rat Rod Rockers! DVD menus and content last night. We have to get this into the pressing plant by January so I am jumping into the layout. The disc will have the film (obviously) and special features including a blooper reel,  Anywhere Archives info (that's the series that Rat Rod Rockers! and Hot Rod Girls Save The World stories are both in), movie character still slideshow and movie trailers. This is going to be a limited run of 1,000  DVDs to start with. I will decided if I want to use CreateSpace services (part of Amazon) a little later for additional online sales. I was originally going to hold off on pressing Rat Rod Rockers! until after we screened it in West Coast Theaters, but after some lengthy conversations with various indie-film insiders I decided, "what the hell," let's get this thing out to the masses.

Rat Rod Rockers! DVD Cover

Happy Thanksgiving people! Did some work on the Rat Rod Rockers! DVD covers today and advertisements for our first big push of the film. The DVD artwork still needs some adjustments, but the First Edition cover looks pretty darn good. We have set the DVD Release Party and Seattle Premiere for March 26th 2011, at the King Cat Theater in Seattle. We are going to also gave a pin-up contest, bands and a small car show in the side parking lot of the theater. Should be a big night.