Hey, look, I'm back! Me, your old pal Steve!!
I'm just posting to say that everything is moving along well. We're still set to put out the DVD shortly after the Thanksgiving period. So get those up you sons of bitches. And DONATE. And BECOME A FAN of us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter, haha, nah, we don't really have a Twitter.
I also have a few more special features lined up for the DVD. The Glove will be doing commentaries for a bunch of shit, not sure if Finn or others will be on board at present time. But you're gonna love it. The Glove has also agreed to partake in the short documentary deal I have planned. Not sure if the others are on board for that yet or whatever, so I don't know, man.
DONATE, k bai.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Return of Finn??!
Well, well, well. Look who came crawling back everybody. The guy who was too good for Surgery in the Dark. Mister Finn "I'm too good for the project" Stefen. The very same Finn "I'm too good for the project" Stefen that walked out on the project just a few months ago!
HAH!! Who does he think he is? Pfft!! Thinks he can just waltz back into the project like it ain't no thang! Unbelievable! The nerve! Where does he get off??!
...Welcome aboard, I look forward to doing project stuff.
I have nothing else to update you guys on, but uhhhhhh...
..The glove shack is a little old place where we can get together.
PUNS
HAH!! Who does he think he is? Pfft!! Thinks he can just waltz back into the project like it ain't no thang! Unbelievable! The nerve! Where does he get off??!
...Welcome aboard, I look forward to doing project stuff.
I have nothing else to update you guys on, but uhhhhhh...
..The glove shack is a little old place where we can get together.
PUNS
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Return of Finn
I've been busy recently: taking some well deserved time off after a long and arduous production, tossing around some film ideas with a couple colleagues, and even brainstorming a few projects of my own. This was going as swimmingly as always, but after a few months, I began to wonder what Steve, the Glove, and the other remains of Itchiban Film were doing now. And let me tell you, I received the shock of a lifetime: Surgery in the Dark was a reality again.
Back in June when we were wrapping up production, I was trying my hardest to meet the Glove's strict demands regarding the quality of the film, while also attempting to complete it on time. Near the end, under immense stress, and unable to contact anyone on the creative board, I made a number of unguided creative decisions. They turned out to be quite unlike the intentions of the Glove. So, needless to say, there were some unpleasant words exchanged, and I cleaned out my desk and took off, leaving my partially completed work for someone with more patience to finish. In retrospect, I should have stuck it out regardless of my personal desires, for I feel what happened next was, at least partially, my fault.
Following my departure, due to pressure from Steve, the Glove hastily combined what I had completed along with a few rough cuts of his own to form the "completed film". This so-called "film" was then screened to a limited audience. It was subsequently greeted by an overwhelmingly negative reception from the test audience. The Glove frantically attempted to restore the movie to its intended glory. But, at the end of July, far exceeding budgetary and temporal constraints, Steve dropped support for the project, and the Glove spiraled into despondent isolation. He declared the project a failure, and asserted the fact to the world that Surgery in the Dark, along with all future projects from Itchiban Film, would never see the light of day. Everyone, including myself thought that all hope was lost, and our months of filming and hours dedicated to the project were all for naught. At this point I chose to cut my losses, and move on with my life.
Apparently a few weeks after this, Steve, desperate for money, picked the project back up, and told the Glove that they would premiere it as soon as possible. The Glove was, however, convinced the project was a failure, and refused to support Steve in his DVD production and marketing. Steve worked frantically over the next month and a half, finishing up the special features and getting the DVD ready to ship. But there was still no sign of the Glove.
This all changed come late September. The Glove gave me a call, and told me of a dream he had had the night before. He told me about how he had faith in the project again, and about how he had been wrong all along. He implored me to return to his side to aid him in the finalization of the project for its eventual release this winter. I accepted, and began doing what was left to do. I started with designing a possible DVD cover. So, officially being a part of Itchiban Film once again, I now bring you the possible face of Surgery in the Dark:
Back in June when we were wrapping up production, I was trying my hardest to meet the Glove's strict demands regarding the quality of the film, while also attempting to complete it on time. Near the end, under immense stress, and unable to contact anyone on the creative board, I made a number of unguided creative decisions. They turned out to be quite unlike the intentions of the Glove. So, needless to say, there were some unpleasant words exchanged, and I cleaned out my desk and took off, leaving my partially completed work for someone with more patience to finish. In retrospect, I should have stuck it out regardless of my personal desires, for I feel what happened next was, at least partially, my fault.
Following my departure, due to pressure from Steve, the Glove hastily combined what I had completed along with a few rough cuts of his own to form the "completed film". This so-called "film" was then screened to a limited audience. It was subsequently greeted by an overwhelmingly negative reception from the test audience. The Glove frantically attempted to restore the movie to its intended glory. But, at the end of July, far exceeding budgetary and temporal constraints, Steve dropped support for the project, and the Glove spiraled into despondent isolation. He declared the project a failure, and asserted the fact to the world that Surgery in the Dark, along with all future projects from Itchiban Film, would never see the light of day. Everyone, including myself thought that all hope was lost, and our months of filming and hours dedicated to the project were all for naught. At this point I chose to cut my losses, and move on with my life.
Apparently a few weeks after this, Steve, desperate for money, picked the project back up, and told the Glove that they would premiere it as soon as possible. The Glove was, however, convinced the project was a failure, and refused to support Steve in his DVD production and marketing. Steve worked frantically over the next month and a half, finishing up the special features and getting the DVD ready to ship. But there was still no sign of the Glove.
This all changed come late September. The Glove gave me a call, and told me of a dream he had had the night before. He told me about how he had faith in the project again, and about how he had been wrong all along. He implored me to return to his side to aid him in the finalization of the project for its eventual release this winter. I accepted, and began doing what was left to do. I started with designing a possible DVD cover. So, officially being a part of Itchiban Film once again, I now bring you the possible face of Surgery in the Dark:
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Return of The Glove
Hi everybody. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. About the movie and other stuff. And I've finally decided that I can't turn my back on Surgery in the Dark. Allow me to explain why I started to hate it in the first place and why I now accept its existence.
First of all, let me be the first (and so far only) member of the crew or cast to admit that the movie was horrendously made. There was no sense of organization whatsoever, we filmed it on a shoestring budget (hence the shitty camera and tapes we had to use), we wasted all of the tapes very early on (along with the rest of money, little as there was), and I had no access to the editing software during the first 90% of the shooting, which made it very difficult to realize that we had fucked up asses upon loads of shots, either by filming them wrong or neglecting to film them entirely. I could also extend that last point to say that it was our lack of a real studio in general that hurt the production the most. Steve can talk all he wants about "Itchiban Film" but I'm sorry Steve, it doesn't fucking exist.
But you know what, I retract that last statement. Having a real studio wouldn't have saved the production. The real problem was the god damned cast and the god damned crew. Let's take my cinematographer for instance. You would not believe how many fucking shots that dipshot fucked up. Like holy shit. It's unbelievable. Why, oh jesus god WHY did I fucking trust Eric with the camera?! Sometimes he claimed he had filmed something but when I looked back at the footage, there would be an inexplicable gap there. Jesus christ, Eric. He would fuck up seemingly unfuckupable shots of which we had only done one take. This pretty much made the movie impossible to edit. We had no tapes left and my cast were very unwilling to come back for reshoots, so I was stuck with a movie that lacked continuity or appeared to jump from one random shot to another. But it wasn't only Eric's fault (though I do blame him the most). The rest of my cast were, as I implied earlier, reluctant to film anything more than once. But mostly Joe. And by that I mean he NEVER SHOWED UP TO FILM. I mean fuck, who signs up for a movie that they fucking know they don't have time to make?!?! Fuck off Joe. Fuck off and die.
But of course, I wasn't exactly the best director ever. I had little idea of what I wanted to do every day, and I ended up just winging everything and forgetting to do stuff and unwittingly changing things from the script. Most of my time on set was spent fucking around and yelling at Eric for sucking. So even though Finn and I were the only people that actually gave a shit about the movie, we still pretty much just fucked around and didn't actually pay much attention or care to the shit we did on set. We talked as much during shooting as the rest of them, and sometimes Finn actually gave more consideration to the movie than I did when it seemed like we were fucking some shit up. And fuck knows we fucked up a lot of shit.
But I tried, oh I tried, to save the movie. I slaved over trying to fix Surgery in the Dark via editing. There were many sleepless nights spent trying to painstakingly remove the sounds of people's voices from shots, struggling to create some sort of semblance of continuity, and straight up pulling shit out of my ass just to salvage an at least passable product. Not to mention I was rushing the hell out of it in a feeble attempt to get the movie out "on time". I succeeded in "releasing" it "on time" but in doing so, I failed the movie. All the test audiences said it was a piece of rushed shit, and they were right. So I went back into the "studio" to re-edit it. This took a few months. But before I ever finished re-editing, I quit due to all of the reasons listed above. The movie was a complete failure and a colossal waste of everything.
But then one night, I had this dream. In this dream, I was a little kid playing in the woods by my house. This was something I had done many times as a child. I would climb the tree we nailed boards to in effort to make a "staircase", sit in our failed treehouse, and poke sticks into the dirt. Those were good times. But then it started raining in my dream. This turned all of the dirt into some muddy shit. I was like "Fuckin' mud all over the place!! This is bullshit!!" When it finally stopped raining though, I noticed something. I had aged since the rain began. I was no longer a dirty boy. I was a muddy man. And it was time to go back. After all, who wants to be muddy? I had to go back and change clothes and shit. But for some reason, a strange premonition came over me. I couldn't go back. I had to stay, muddy or not. It was my defiant statement. I couldn't go back. Not then. Too much had happened since I went into those woods as a boy.
Then I woke up. The first thing I did upon waking was boot up Adobe Premiere. I took a good look at my movie and I decided I had to finish it. It took me no more than a week to get the re-edited copy finished and sent to Steve, who had been working on the DVD. But you know something, guys? I don't think Steve actually gave two damns which version of the movie he would have to put on the DVD. I'm beginning to think Steve only wants to make a god damned profit. That's the only explanation I can think of for his having defended the original cut of the movie. So congrats, Steve, you're not as cool as I thought.
At the end of the day, this is what Surgery in the Dark really boils down to: The movie I conceived and wrote was brilliant, the movie I directed was atrocious, and the movie I edited was fantastic. Just don't be too critical of the production values. Try to look beneath the surface and see it for what it really is, not as the money-draining pile of fail sauce it also kind of is.
It's better to have gloved and lost than never to have gloved at all.
First of all, let me be the first (and so far only) member of the crew or cast to admit that the movie was horrendously made. There was no sense of organization whatsoever, we filmed it on a shoestring budget (hence the shitty camera and tapes we had to use), we wasted all of the tapes very early on (along with the rest of money, little as there was), and I had no access to the editing software during the first 90% of the shooting, which made it very difficult to realize that we had fucked up asses upon loads of shots, either by filming them wrong or neglecting to film them entirely. I could also extend that last point to say that it was our lack of a real studio in general that hurt the production the most. Steve can talk all he wants about "Itchiban Film" but I'm sorry Steve, it doesn't fucking exist.
But you know what, I retract that last statement. Having a real studio wouldn't have saved the production. The real problem was the god damned cast and the god damned crew. Let's take my cinematographer for instance. You would not believe how many fucking shots that dipshot fucked up. Like holy shit. It's unbelievable. Why, oh jesus god WHY did I fucking trust Eric with the camera?! Sometimes he claimed he had filmed something but when I looked back at the footage, there would be an inexplicable gap there. Jesus christ, Eric. He would fuck up seemingly unfuckupable shots of which we had only done one take. This pretty much made the movie impossible to edit. We had no tapes left and my cast were very unwilling to come back for reshoots, so I was stuck with a movie that lacked continuity or appeared to jump from one random shot to another. But it wasn't only Eric's fault (though I do blame him the most). The rest of my cast were, as I implied earlier, reluctant to film anything more than once. But mostly Joe. And by that I mean he NEVER SHOWED UP TO FILM. I mean fuck, who signs up for a movie that they fucking know they don't have time to make?!?! Fuck off Joe. Fuck off and die.
But of course, I wasn't exactly the best director ever. I had little idea of what I wanted to do every day, and I ended up just winging everything and forgetting to do stuff and unwittingly changing things from the script. Most of my time on set was spent fucking around and yelling at Eric for sucking. So even though Finn and I were the only people that actually gave a shit about the movie, we still pretty much just fucked around and didn't actually pay much attention or care to the shit we did on set. We talked as much during shooting as the rest of them, and sometimes Finn actually gave more consideration to the movie than I did when it seemed like we were fucking some shit up. And fuck knows we fucked up a lot of shit.
But I tried, oh I tried, to save the movie. I slaved over trying to fix Surgery in the Dark via editing. There were many sleepless nights spent trying to painstakingly remove the sounds of people's voices from shots, struggling to create some sort of semblance of continuity, and straight up pulling shit out of my ass just to salvage an at least passable product. Not to mention I was rushing the hell out of it in a feeble attempt to get the movie out "on time". I succeeded in "releasing" it "on time" but in doing so, I failed the movie. All the test audiences said it was a piece of rushed shit, and they were right. So I went back into the "studio" to re-edit it. This took a few months. But before I ever finished re-editing, I quit due to all of the reasons listed above. The movie was a complete failure and a colossal waste of everything.
But then one night, I had this dream. In this dream, I was a little kid playing in the woods by my house. This was something I had done many times as a child. I would climb the tree we nailed boards to in effort to make a "staircase", sit in our failed treehouse, and poke sticks into the dirt. Those were good times. But then it started raining in my dream. This turned all of the dirt into some muddy shit. I was like "Fuckin' mud all over the place!! This is bullshit!!" When it finally stopped raining though, I noticed something. I had aged since the rain began. I was no longer a dirty boy. I was a muddy man. And it was time to go back. After all, who wants to be muddy? I had to go back and change clothes and shit. But for some reason, a strange premonition came over me. I couldn't go back. I had to stay, muddy or not. It was my defiant statement. I couldn't go back. Not then. Too much had happened since I went into those woods as a boy.
Then I woke up. The first thing I did upon waking was boot up Adobe Premiere. I took a good look at my movie and I decided I had to finish it. It took me no more than a week to get the re-edited copy finished and sent to Steve, who had been working on the DVD. But you know something, guys? I don't think Steve actually gave two damns which version of the movie he would have to put on the DVD. I'm beginning to think Steve only wants to make a god damned profit. That's the only explanation I can think of for his having defended the original cut of the movie. So congrats, Steve, you're not as cool as I thought.
At the end of the day, this is what Surgery in the Dark really boils down to: The movie I conceived and wrote was brilliant, the movie I directed was atrocious, and the movie I edited was fantastic. Just don't be too critical of the production values. Try to look beneath the surface and see it for what it really is, not as the money-draining pile of fail sauce it also kind of is.
It's better to have gloved and lost than never to have gloved at all.
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