iam100k

so we’ve finally decided on a name other than love story. “such small hands” is the new title of superfreako productions’ most recent short film – named after one of the most beautiful poems of all time (in my humble opinion).

so idea mensch just published a little interview they did with me about … well me and uh … stuff. it’s a cool site and the interview was fun.

check it out at your leisure.

been a while since i’ve posted, but believe me that’s not been for lack of stuff happening. just before this past christmas, last days acquired a former QA dude, pawel sasik, from yoostar.com. he’s even better as a project manager – which is what he’s doing for the web-game. with his help, we’ve made some pretty quick progress and will be launching a quick alpha version of the game in about 2-3 weeks. if you’re interested in being a part of this alpha launch, let me know and i’ll get you the url when the time comes.

so about two weeks into working with pawel, he let me know he was interested in writing episodes of the tv show. needless to say, i was a little reticent as this hasn’t worked out with any of the other writers who’ve approached me to do the same, but he gave it a shot anyway and right away it was obviously a good fit. while i’m a decent outliner and editor, getting something from outline to initial rough script has always been hard for me, and that’s what pawel is a natural at – and in a way that’s really true to the characters i’ve already outlined. so about a month in now, we’re already more than half finished with episode three – even as progress with the web-game continues to move.

now regarding love story, we hit a roadblock for a bit regarding the edit several weeks ago, but we’ve passed it and saw the first true rough edit of the piece as written done this past weekend. i have to admit, the troubles we were having earlier in the year had me doubting the power of the piece. but even without a bit of music and even super rough, that last edit caused me to tear up twice, which renewed my confidence in the piece (thank god!). so we’re now back on track with that and hope to have color-corrected, sound engineered and scored edits within the next 2-3 months. we’re still open to other names for the piece though, so please send me any bright ideas if you have any. ‘love story’ makes me think of warren beatty and annette bening and that’s not a good thing. =P

the last two tidbits are news about friends’ projects – both of them picked up my crackle.com. the first, which my homey Peter Robinson of Geeks On! helped write is called Trenches. Trenches was originally greenlit by ABC’s Stage 9 Digital but ended up spending the past couple years on some dusty shelves when Stage 9 went the way of the digital dinosaurs. thankfully, Crackle bought it recently and started airing it a short time ago. it’s a fun star wars spin-off and actually pretty amazing for the very little money Peter’s homies had to make it.

and finally, mark gantt & jesse warren’s ‘The Bannen Way’ had a little premiere at the Egyptian Theatre last weekend. considering the fact that you could have made roughly 30 Bannen Ways for what they spent on just the pilot episode of
Lost … well, let’s just say those two boys deserve some serious props.

well, that’s all for now. stay cool.

also posted on lastdaysonline.com

So my buddy’s web series premieres today on Crackle.com. There’s a really cool story behind how it got made, and it’s actually not a bad show either – especially considering how little money they were given by Sony to make it.

What’s really exciting though is how this kind of show could be changing the way tv and web shows are made, broadcast and marketed in the near future. The best part though is that my friend Mark (the lead actor and one of the two writer/directors of the show) is actually one of the nicest guys I know, and that’s the best reason to help support him IMHO.

Each episode will be 7 minutes long, but you can buy the whole thing right now on iTunes. Anyway, click here to see the first episode. And if that first episode makes you wanna know how it all ends right now =P click here to buy the whole show for $9.99 on iTunes.

You go, Gantt! =)

so the site i was referring to in my last post – the one for a new extension of our production company – is now in good enough shape to share: superfreakodesigns.com

there are still a few bugs, but it’s up now and i’ve already done some work for a brand new client (and good friend) Kyle Puccia! here’s a little screen shot of his brand, spanking new front page.



it’s still a brand new site. kyle needs to add a ton of content and it could use some more configuring and whatnot, but it’s up, it looks pretty cool and kyle knows how to work on it, improve it and add content to it directly through a browser. he’s pretty psyched and i’m psyched for him.

on the ‘love story’ front, mike told kendall last week we should have a first edit by the 11th. i can’t wait to see it.

=ck

so two more days of break and so far it’s been pretty productive, but unfortunately i can’t share much of the work from the two most rewarding items. in one case, this is because the web site isn’t quite ready yet and in the other because the web-game is finally at the point where there’s relatively valuable IP that i’m not about to circulate until we’re already rolling.

i can give a couple of little teases for both though. the first is regarding a little business that kendall and i have been talking about starting for a few weeks now – a little web-development company that we believe has a decent amount of potential in a relatively new market that doesn’t seem to be getting any love at the moment.

i built the general structure of the web site for this business a few days ago and we’ve been fine-tuning it little-by-little over the past couple days. if you’re on kendall’s email list, you’ve probably already received an email regarding this new business, but the web site won’t be ready for at least two or three days. i gotta say, i’m pretty excited about the potential for this idea, but i’ll just say that much for now and i’ll definitely post here when our initial site is ready for eyeballs.

now regarding the other item, here’s a little image from the most recent designs:

btw, that big black chunk to the right isn’t part of the design – it’s something i added after to block a very important innovation to this kind of game that we’ve made. i was working on this ’til the wee hours last night (while my upstairs neighbor decided that 4am was an excellent time to move furniture and stomp around the apartment for boots – incidentally, i’m pretty certain whoever lives up there is pretty severely OCD – i mean who moves furniture 12 times a day, and very often in the middle of the night … but i digress) but woke up after only 3 and half hours of sleeping because i had the idea about using a pad as a frame.

honestly not sure if that’s definitely the image i want, but the general structure is definitely right. and thankfully, now it’s done. this image is a screenshot of dummy pages i have up and running right now.

anyhoo, this new year is definitely starting off productive, if nothing else. i hope all of you have an amazing 2010!

=ck

so unfortunately i won’t be able to spend this holiday with my parents. i was really looking forward to hanging out with them in beautiful Enterprise, Utah – i know that might sound like sarcasm, but it’s not. i really enjoy my time with them once a year and unfortunately this year there won’t be any.

kendall and i will be here in sunny LA enjoying the winter sun and will both have the whole week between christmas and new years off. we have big plans for the time off but before i detail them, check out this really cool true christmas story i saw yesterday. i think you’ll like it:

(reload the page if you can’t see the video player right under this – it’s an MSNBC flash video and they’re kinda buggy now and then)

cool, huh?

well anyhoo, i’ll let kendall speak for herself, but while i’m waiting these next couple/three weeks for mike to finish the first edit of “love story”, i’ll be up to a number of different things:

• finish writing a spec script for ‘A Clash of Kings’, the second book in George R R Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ series, which HBO has started as a TV show. not particularly useful if the first book (’A Game of Thrones’) doesn’t do well, but good practice nonetheless
• work with one of the fellers responsible for yoostar.com to continue the general planning and development of the lastdaysjournal web-game
• flesh out the outline of the last days show a little bit and perhaps start writing another episode
• sift through a list of log lines i have stacking up to find the next feature script to write on – hoping to capitalize on the new micro budget feature movement that’s brewing out there

so, gonna be a busy week off.

happy holidays, my friends!

… are up. contact me if you need the url. otherwise, here is a contact sheet for you to peruse (or even send to somebody) if you want. remember, the url is private – for cast and crew only – but the pdf is fine to give out to anybody.

i should be getting my hands on some of the real production stills as taken by the super-talented matt cali sometime tomorrow. i plan to have a secret url up for accessing these stills for any of the cast and crew as soon as i can. i’ll send a link to everybody (as long as i have your email address, that is) as soon as it’s up and running. i expect that to be sometime either wednesday or thursday this week. if i do send you this url, please do not give it out to anybody. i’d like to keep access to these stills just within the actual cast and crew of Love Story.

even if your agent or manager wants access to these images, please just grab those that they want and then forward them yourself. there will be a down-loadable contact sheet in pdf form that you will be able to email to your representatives to make that process easier, but i’d like to keep access to the full images limited to just the cast and crew. if anybody who was NOT in the cast or crew insists that they absolutely need access to the full files, please have them contact me directly and i’ll deal with them.

we’re expecting a first edit of the film by sometime in early 2010. after that, we’ll start on the music arrangements and the sound mix and won’t have a first full edit of the film until probably late winter/early spring. from there, we’re not sure how many edits we’ll go through or what else we’ll need to do in post (color correction, ADR, etc) so it might be as late as late spring/early summer when we’ll have an actual viewable version of the film.

now please don’t ask to see an in-progress edit so that i won’t have to turn you down. i hate for first impressions to be of something that has problems i’m already aware of, so most of you won’t be able to see anything until it’s really ready. i don’t want what i said earlier to be mis-understood though – while i will NOT let this be seen until it is complete, i WILL keep you all updated and informed as to when that will be and make sure you know of the first official screening whenever or wherever that may be. one other thing however is that i’ve recently been informed that most (if not all) of the most prestigious film festivals pretty much require that they and they alone be given the right to premiere a film they accept. what that means is that i will not be able – as i was planning – to have an official cast and crew only screening of the film until after some such festival premiere is over. for that i’m very, very sorry, but i’m sure you all understand and will forgive me since it gives us all a better chance of getting into one of the more prominent festivals.

now one last thing: as i’ve been saying from the beginning, ‘love story’ is NOT going to be the name of this piece at the end of the day. i still haven’t decided what it will be, but i’m definitely open to suggestions. if you have any bright ideas, feel free to let me know.

that’s all – cheers!
=ck