Inland Empire

First off let me say I love everything David Lynch does. I am biased to his brilliance as an artist and director and even joined his pay website davidlynch.com for a time (actually it was a very cool birthday present from my wife). However, I have not seen several of his films after Blue Velvet and Inland Empire has been on my "watch" list for years. I didn't read any reviews for the film, I went in blind, which I think is always best when viewing art. Artistic films are meant to stretch the meanings and concepts we have about the film medium. Inland Empire is no exception. It starts off with a Polish Gypsy Cursed film being remade with actress playing an actress Laura Dern as the broken heroine. She gets lost within her own world manipulated by a controlling husband, the half dream world of the Polish Gypsys, the world of the On Stage Rabbit People, the world of the film characters she is portraying and the world of the previously cursed and murdered actors from the original film she is attempting to remake. It is confusing, frustrating, tenacious, invigorating, gorgeous, repetitive, disturbing and extremely artistic. At nearly three hours long it is an emotional marathon. After watching Inland Empire nobody better say my film, Hot Rod Girls Save The World is "too long" again. In closing all I can say is- now I must buy this film.

Go-Kustom Portable Drive-In

Right after we finished packing up the booth at Greenwood Car Show yesterday (around 5PM), we had to head home, unload, reload the projector and P.A. equipment and head out to Renton, WA. for Ted Sled's Annual Pig Roast and Car Show that he hosts at his spacious home property. We had gone out and built our projection screen Friday, so projection setup was quick. Just run power cords from the house, hook up the projector and when the sun went down play Hot Rod Girls Save The World. It really felt like a mini-drive in. I ran the sound through my 1,200 watt P.A. system. Ultimately I want to transmit the audio through an AM radio transmitter, so people can sit in their cars and listen through their own cars sound systems. I bought a radio transmitter kit last year but screwed up the soldering job (never was that good with a soldering gun). I plan on eventually buying an assembled 1 mile radio transmitter to complete my portable drive-in. There were dozens of cars in the projection area and a fair number of viewers. It was a party tho and people would bounce between our film and a band playing in the back of the house. Still we had a good time despite being tired from the 4AM wake up and then being attacked by hordes of Renton mosquitoes.

Greenwood Car Show

We had a blast at our vendor booth at the Greenwood Car Show yesterday. Had to get the family up at the butt crack of dawn and drive down there to set up by 5 AM. Our booth was in the middle of the Rat Bastards Car Club area. We set it up this way, because so many Rat Bastards cars and club members have been in my last two films and well...hey I am an honorary member. This show is one of the biggest on the West Coast, maybe even the U.S. with 22 blocks of cars, vendors and people. This was also the first year Greenwood was part of Seafair.

Big Premiere and More Culling

After setting a premiere and then pulling the date for a Seattle screening of Rat Rod Rockers!, I had a great phone conversation with a Snohomish County theater (can't give names yet) that might be interested in a big big World Premiere of Rat Rod Rockers! I have a meeting with them next week and will post more as I get things set up. We will still have a Seattle Premiere as well s other major cities.

Also- after thinking I had culled all scenes for Rat Rod Rockers! I found two scenes that were not sorted. I had color coded the files as culled, but in fact I had not. NOW all scenes are culled and sorted for editing.

Premiere/No Premiere & More Still Prints

Booked a date for the Premiere of Rat Rod Rockers! (September 4th & 5th, 2010) and then realized that many key actors were not available for the event, reconsidered and then unbooked it. We are looking to rebook sometime in October. We will also screen Rat Rod Rockers! at the Hot Rod Monsters Film Fest (also late October). Since RRR! will not be going straight to DVD I want to screen it as much as possible. I will post the dates and locations when we firm it up on the Rat Rod Rockers! Website. Also completed some new Rat Rod Rockers! 8.5x11 Movie Stills for upcoming events. Signed copies from actors and myself will be on the Go-Kustom Website for $5 each (plus shipping).

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Finished culling and separating takes for all the scenes of Rat Rod Rockers! Roughly edited scenes are around 18 of the 60 total at this point.

Intergalactic Muscle iGTO

Slowly working on completing the 1967 iGTO for my Intergalactic Muscle Series. Too many projects with my new film Rat Rod Rockers! taking precedence over all the others. I have given a few minutes to the iGTO project when I can. It is almost done. Some more detailing on the engine areas and a few black stripes and she is done.

Alchohol Can Be A Gas

This whole BP Oil Spill Travesty™ has really driven home (at least for me) the need to get off the black stuff. I have been hearing about David Blume's work on using alcohol as a renewable fuel source for the last few years and have seriously been considering starting my own home fuel production green business. David is a regular guest on Coast To Coast AM (where I first heard his words of wisdom) and his website is at http://www.permaculture.com/. He proposes running most cars on alcohol (any car can run up to 50% alch. without modification) and using various plants and waste products to create the fuel (rather than the standard ethanol model of using corn from huge agricultural corporations). Small stills produce the fuel in community, not at a central location. This creates local jobs and local business. It really is a solution to our gasoline dependency- but will people put the effort into making it happen?

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Completely finished culling the Car Chase Scenes (27/28/29) for Rat Rod Rockers! Also tried some sepia style filters on the footage to see if I could get the vintage film feel I want for this feature. Nearly completed the culling process for the final scene block of 40/43/44/46/47/48.

Another great Summer-ish day in North Seattle.

GamePro Magazine #262 Cover Art

Really really dig the cover artwork, colors and graphics on the current issue of GamePro Magazine (#262). Saw it on the newsstand and bought it just for the cover art. An Artwork Impulse Buy.

The weather is so kick ass in North Seattle today. Finally getting some serious sunshine.

Rat Rod Rockers! Signed Stills Series

Added some new stills for the Signed Stills Series I am doing for Rat Rod Rockers! which feature various actors signed scene stills from the film. We will sell these at car shows, online and at events.

Rat Rod Rockers! Editing

Culling Scenes 27/28/29. Second to the last scene set to cull and separate takes for. Once all the culling is done it's straight up editing. I also need to schedule a date to shoot the end sequence for Rat Rod Rockers! and the intro shop montage. Been waiting to set this up when the summer weather actually kicks in- for Seattle that's July-September. We still get some rainy weather in June.

Shut Down

Finished writing the lyrics for Shut Down yesterday. Kept it simple, not too corny. It's real easy to make songs about cars or racing sound stupid. Nikki Alonso is doing the vocals on this tune. It will be featured prominently in Rat Rod Rockers! during the Drag Race Scene.

Man What A Crazy Week!

Man am I glad it is Saturday! Last week was busy busy busy. Tuesday/Wednesday I had to finalize some accounting issues for our arts school- invoices, receipts, banking statements and some calculation and information for our 941 quarterly taxes. Thursday we went to an awards ceremony in Everett to select our new 12 passenger van (we get it next week)! The vans and buses are presented by Snohomish Community Transit as the Van Go! Grants to non-profit organizations that help the community (which our arts school is definitely one- especially with all the families we help and support). Several area City Mayors were there as well as Community Transit Board members, etc. I got to rub elbows with the "Mid Wigs." It was so awesome seeing all the churches and schools and recovery program organizations getting these moderately used vehicles for free. Our van has just 74,000 miles on it and looks fantastic! On Friday we had a long sit down meeting with the school district for our arts school about new and old policy's that effect all schools in Washington State. I couldn't get much editing done for Rat Rod Rockers! this week, however I was able to get several rough covers laid out for our new publication Munster Style. Nothing completed yet, but I think I found a retro-dark yet thoroughly modern direction for the cover art.