Archive for the ‘Community’ Category
It’s film festival season again in Rochester, and this year’s 360 | 365 George Eastman House Film Festival looks pretty promising.
I’ve been involved behind the scenes — I manage the website and I was on the short film panel — but there’s a ton of features I haven’t seen yet.
I encourage all film fans to check the schedule and come out to support the festival!
Here are some recommended events:
AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE
Thursday, May 06, 2010 9:45 PM
Dryden Theater
and
Saturday, May 08, 2010 7:30 PM
Little Theatre – Little 5
A history of exploitation films in America. I’ve been captivated by this genre for the last several years, which is why I jumped at the chance to provide some animated titles for the doc. Director Elijah Drenner will be in attendance.
MADE IN ROCHESTER
Little Theatre – Little 1
Thursday, May 06, 2010 6:45 PM
Here’s your chance to see the best films from the 360 | 365 Shorts Contest, plus films from Michelle Cardulla, Stan Main, Dave Marshall, and last but not least… Mike Russo’s VIRGIN FANG, starring yours truly as Draculess the timid vampire.
ADULT SHORTS: Hidden Worlds
Little Theatre – Little 1
Thursday, May 06, 2010 9:00 PM
ADULT SHORTS: Private Lives
Little Theatre – Little 5
Saturday, May 08, 2010 5:00 PM
These are the two shorts blocks I helped curate.
We watched about 130 entries, then chose the 15 we loved. Trust me, these are some great films.
WE CAN SHINE: FROM INSTITUTIONS TO INDEPENDENCE
Curtis Theatre
Sunday, May 09, 2010 3:00 PM
My student, Adrian Esposito, has completed his third documentary feature, and this is the best one to date. In We Can Shine, he shares the dark history of institutions for the disabled and how improvements have been made in recent years.
FREE PANELS
Local filmmakers should take advantage of the panel events at the festival, including the following:
Demo: RED CAMERA
The Austin Connection
Screenwriter’s Panel
Screenplay Live!
MUCH MUCH MORE
As if that’s not enough, I want to take in the following as well:
THE S FROM HELL
GONE WITH THE POPE
WAKE IN FRIGHT
THE SECRET OF KELLS
IT CAME FROM KUCHAR
CELL 211
HARRY BROWN
A CONVERSATION WITH THELMA SCHOONMAKER
THE RED SHOES
See you at the fest! Visit http://film360365.com for schedule and ticket information.
Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated has been nominated for a Rondo Award! Lovers of animation and horror alike can vote for NOTLD:R as Best Independent Production of 2009.
The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards are highly revered in the independent horror community. The voting is open to anyone! I highly encourage you to vote, not only for Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated but for the horror sites, blogs, hosts, movies, and magazines you love.
Visit www.rondoaward.com to find out more.
EDITED TO ADD (03/08/10 )
Maybe you’d like to watch the film before voting?
Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated will continue to be hosted by Count Victor Von Scary and the gang at ‘Friday Night – Fright Night’ until this Friday, March 12th at
http://www.fridaynight-frightnight.com
So if you haven’t seen it yet, this is the last week.
We all like going behind the scenes, right?
When Mike Schneider, director of the Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated project, asked me to contribute a featurette to the upcoming DVD release, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the time to do so. Well, last week I gathered strength and put together a 6 minute tutorial on interpretive rotoscoping.
Rotoscoping is an animation process that involves a lot of tracing. For NOTLD:R, I changed my style up depending on the shot — and sometimes that meant tracing 15 pictures a second with my Wacom stylus.
In this video, you can see some of that process, albeit sped up to make it more interesting.
Interpretive Rotoscoping for NOTLD:R from Mike Boas on Vimeo.
Meanwhile, in Rochester, two of my films will be playing as part of The Little Theatre’s 25 Hour Horror Feast. The event starts Halloween Eve with a zombie walk, followed by a marathon of horror movies that continues through Halloween. A special horror-themed edition of Rochester’s Emerging Filmmakers Series will play that Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm.
Kicking off the EFS is the premiere of Skeletal Remains, which acts as both a tribute to classic horror movies and as a music video for 1970s rock group Aviary. (It was Matt Guarnere, a friend of Aviary’s Brad Love, who first suggested I try such a film.)
Someday I’d like to work some animation into Skeletal Remains, but I’ve had friends tell me the current live action cut plays pretty well. My approach was to borrow (steal) scenes from public domain movies like The House on Haunted Hill, The Last Man on Earth, and The Screaming Skull, then remix them to depict a fun little horror story. Now I get to brag that my film stars Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange, and Vincent Price!
Later on in the show is Mike Russo’s Virgin Fang, which starred me(!) as Draculess, king nerd of vampires. Mike threw this at me back in August, when many of us Rochester Movie Makers were in the midst of multiple other summer short projects. He invited me to play the lead in this silent horror-comedy, and I was too flattered to refuse.
It was a challenge for me to “act,” even if it was only hamming it up pantomime style. I helped Mike by knocking out some storyboards, then editing the piece in Final Cut Pro at Animatus.
Virgin Fang also stars the beautiful Becky Herber, with camera duties performed by RMM head honcho Stan Main.
Come out October 31st to The Little, 240 East Avenue, Rochester! For a complete run-down of the event, click here.
Now that I’ve completed three scenes for the Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated project, I thought it might be cool to show my cartoon shots next to the original movie footage. You’ll see where I applied faithful rotoscoping and where I deviated from the original acting.
The following video clips show the animation, then side by side comparisons with the original live action scenes.
NOTLD:R Don’t worry from Mike Boas on Vimeo.
NOTLD:R Here he comes now from Mike Boas on Vimeo.
NOTLD:R Down in the basement from Mike Boas on Vimeo.