» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

Voodoo Child

jelewis8 — Wed, 17 May 2006 00:46:57 +0000

My car is as dead as German Expressionism and modesty. Oh, it might be resurrected, but doing so would require purchasing a Matchbox model of my car, booking a trip to Haiti, and meeting with a witch doctor, who would then perform all manner of bizarre and biblically unsound rituals upon the unsuspecting die cast miniature machine. The act of which would cause my Honda, sitting back stateside in its garagean berth, to rise from its mechanical grave with a rumble, leak several gallons of evil-smelling oil, and begin marauding all over Los Angeles. And since I haven’t yet received my California state tags (and by received, I mean I haven’t registered for them), police efforts to stop the rampaging zombie car of death would end in a futile OJ Simpson-like chase down the 405.
This scenario presents certain advantages, and I’ll enumerate those before moving forward.
1) Infinite power. No more four cylinder weak willied attempts at passing someone whilst attempting to prevent being hit head on by the oncoming semi. A Voodoo Honda Civic possesses pretty much the get up and go that you require. Simply stick a pin hard on the miniature gas pedal, and the full size does what it once took a tank of NOS and a Ludacris-powered soundtrack to accomplish.
2) Meaner sound. Normal Civics sound something like a cross between a starving kitten and a chorus of anemic whales performing “The Pines of Rome” for Fantasia 2. Voodoo Civics sound like the elements of the universe being molded by the hand of God. Need I say more? But I will.
3) Unstoppable by normal means. An average Civic can be stopped by any number of objects or roadblocks, including steel spiked grates, police roadblocks, sidewalk curbs, small babies, etc. A Voodoo Civic carries with it the mindless strength of the driving dead. Thus normal obstacles become a playground of destruction, and what used to stop it now merely serves as fuel for an unholy rampage of driving fury and awesomeness.
4) Decrepit look now “in”. It’s true, my current Civic is a beaten and bruised cage of dirty napkins, gas receipts, Mountain Dew cans, an atlas from 2001, and my Transatlantica CD by Death Cab For Cutie. But once converted to its proposed bewitched state, these would become decorations for a rolling paen to horror and blasphemy. And I mean that in the best way. Not only that, the exterior, featuring chipped and faded paint, dented panels, rusty sidewalls, missing hubcaps, and a broken signal lamp cover, would no longer incite laughter and mockery, but would instead instill fear, loathing, and grudging respect in all who gazed upon its decayed and yet strength-filled body.
In short, I think it’s fairly clear that converting my poor red baby into a menacing monster of aggression and feckless lane changing is the way to go. Unfortunately, the cheapest witch doctors still charge $300 to let the caged beast to sing again. So much for dreams.
In job search news, the two big motion graphics projects I’ve been working on for a month or more are now complete. I’ll update this post a little later with links to the movie files. Eventually I’ll put up a portfolio page which may prove useful in getting a job. So far I’ve been turned down for five job applications, and it may be that getting a decent portfolio up might turn some heads more than my impressive resume.
Resumes are meant to be impressive–it’s sort of the point of their existence–so it always strikes me as odd when I read one that is less than such. My resume reads like a veritable Knight’s tale of jobs conquered and clients rescued. Not that I’m an impressive employee, or even a person, but I know how to write a resume that looks good. I’ve been commended twice now on my credentials and experience, but I think what employers are looking for is work I’ve done. So I’ve started initial design work on what will probably become my temporary portfolio page, which will of course eventually morph into my permanent portfolio once I realize that I’m not going to turn my temporary portolio into my permanent one.
As fascinating as all this is, I’m sure you’re poking your eyes out with corn skewers by now. Just end it! So I’ll leave you all with a warning: if you see a dirty red Honda Civic lurching down Rodeo Drive sometime in the near future…no, it’s not the anti-Christ; I’ve just come into some money and have made a creature that cannot be killed except through certain unspeakable spells. Just steer clear and try not to make it angry.
You wouldn’t like it when it’s angry. See you tomorrow.

Zombie Threat Rejuvenates In Merch Attacks

jelewis8 — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:48:43 +0000

Red State won the award for Best Sound at the Progeny Festival of Motion Pictures on Saturday, which was a surprise. If it was going to win anything, I would have predicted an editing or possibly directing award, but having not seen any of the other entries, and with my main representative having failed to attend most of the festival, I am left in the dark as to the competition. Oh well. I guess this means I can put the ubiquitous laurel parentheticals on future marketing materials.
Speaking of which, Red State is available for purchase on DVD! Only $9 (which includes shipping), this DVD features a heaping of undead special features and top notch artwork (newly updated with aforementioned laurels) packaged inside clear plastic, sleekly designed Jewelbox cases.
Interestingly enough, at the same time, I was busy being a “featured extra” in a zombie mockumentary called American Zombie. It wasn’t a memorable experience, except that afterward, I forgot to get reimbursed for parking costs. That’s five bucks I’ll probably never see again.
Check that, I just received an email confirming that if I bring my receipt in to the production office, I can get reimbursed. That’s forty-five minutes (with traffic) there, forty-five back. Gas expenditure cost: $3.25 (exaggerated estimate). Worth it? Maybe if I’m in the area. Otherwise, I might as well avoid buying a medium latte and a bagel for a day and call it even.
I’m trying to get an invitation to the MTV Movie Awards show, which will be occurring on June 3, to be aired on June 8. There’s a fairly decent chance I can get in, through my film review connections, and since it’s being held at Sony Studios next door, I won’t have to pay for parking. And that, my friends, is always a good thing.
Last week I had the good fortune of visiting Los Angeles Center Studios with Jeff Bartsch. We met one of the co-founders and head of the studio, Brian Brosnan, who expressed interest in working together on something in the future. Who knows what that might mean for us, but Jeff and I are working to get some content together and begin the process of developing some projects together. Not specifically for a partnership with the studio, but as a way to gather some key personnel together and to establish industry legitimacy on our own terms, instead of waiting for a bone throwing occurrence. We shall see how that plays out in the coming months, but it is enough to say that I am excited about the opportunities this opens up for me, not only because it is a chance for me to continue to write, but I also feel that I am slowly meeting the right people who will one day form my core group of co-conspirators.
All in all, good things are happening, and there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I received a phone interview this morning. Hopefully one of the dozen or so applications I’ve submitted will result in a well-paying position. So far, I haven’t been reduced to applying for work at the Rocco Club for Women’s Typewriter Maintenance Shop. If it does go down like that, you know I’ll be drinking another double and moaning about how much I regret not learning all of Selectric’s options.
Got some new links up on the sidebar. Check out Hot Air, Michelle Malkin’s new Internet television venture. I’ve applied to be a producer for them, though that’s unlikely to happen. Even so, check it out. And I will see you tomorrow.

Red State Soundtrack

jelewis8 — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 22:35:16 +0000

Since most of you probably don’t visit Red State too often, I wanted to make this announcement here as well.
Due to legal wrangling, it has taken me a bit of time to get the Red State soundtrack uploaded, and by legal wrangling I mean procrastination. And by uploaded, I mean someone else has actually done the work for me. Travis Nobles, the composer, has put the entire soundtrack on Archive.org. It even comes with album cover art for those who wish to download and burn the soundtrack onto CD.
The individual tracks are directly linked below:
Red State Theme (2.3mb)
Scotch on the Rocks (1.0mb)
Infected Neighborhood (1.3mb)
Noel Attacks (1.3mb)
Zombie’s Attack (3.5mb)
Wren’s Death (4.8mb)
Blue State Trailer 2.8mb)
Check out some of Travis’ other work at Outer Space Introspection (actually just part of Archive.org).

I Love You For Your Brains

jelewis8 — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 17:22:55 +0000

It’s zombie appreciation day today, or as some in the gift card industry like to call it, Valentine’s Day. There is about a million different ways to say I love you. About 999,900 of them have been manufactured by Hallmark and DeBeers. I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t called a holiday. The only holiness associated with today is the gaping wound of someone’s heart shot through with all manner of lies about the opposite sex. When they tell you love is a rose, what they really mean is that it’s a 15% drop in your bank balance, because roses are effing expensive.
One is often tempted to mock the poltroons who profess an affinity for romantic gestures. To be reminded of one’s own personal Valentine’s wasteland is a tragedy. To make light of the emptiness inside one’s own heart and soul is either comedy gold or a fool’s errand, designed to mask the pain of isolation and loneliness with a bitter and villifying phrase of contempt. So it is with deep and utter mistrust of my ability not to make a sap of myself on this day of days, I will embark on a journey of self, to analyze whether I am a bitter soul stewing in the juices of my unspiced love roast, a weary and deadened romantic ghost wandering the plains of infinite pain and braving the scalding wind blasts of loneliness, or simply a single and moderately happy humourist with an overdeveloped antipathy for saccharine romantic interludes in an otherwise amourousless work-a-day world.
Firstly, one must investigate one’s personal proclivities toward one’s gender of choice. In my case, the inamorata in my life are all as yet unspecified and unmet, hopeful dreams of some future in which the prospect of love is more a matter of course than an exciting adventure in which one’s boat is equally liable to sail off the edge into oblivion as to safely arrive at its port of call. I myself am no fan of either boat trips or long-winded affairs, finding both to be nausea inducing journeys in which Zen maxims regarding destinations have neither place nor substance. In my own experience, love is no different than eating an exotic food in some foreign clime. One is never sure whether the exercise will result in the excessive release of noxious bodily odors and sounds, or a sublime satisfaction in which all the troubles of a far off Middle East seem to melt away in the pleasant afterglow of a meal fit for the gods.
Not that I’m against food of that ilk. It can be an invigorating experience once in a while. Just don’t drink the local water.
Though I must admit that I have had a few choice crushes in my time, and one that turned serious before falling down the deep well of the inevitable. Am I embittered and angry? Well, possibly. But not because of love. Love makes the world go ’round, when gravity loses interest and solar pathways grow unkempt from overuse.
In my opinion, True Love is like money: you never seem to have enough of it, and when you do have it, it is gone all too quickly. The only way to make it last is to invest in something longterm. Even that is a risk, a leap of faith that can make or break you. When she finally leaves, taking the jewelry, china, antique Chesterfield, and your pet monkey, you have no choice but to evaluate the situation.
Valentines Day is a blinding of oneself to all the risks and fears of love, of falling in love, and of the absurd ways in which love makes fools of us all. Do we take the plunge and experience the deep, frothing sensation of 10,000 years of humankind’s most noble, and at the same time most disheartening (no pun intended) practice? Or do we open our eyes and look for the con?
As a matter of self-evaluation in this particular matter, I must admit to being jaded to the point of numbness. Love is a manufactured product now, and all the right feelings are scripted. The expectation that Valentines Day produces in us all is that action follows action, reciprocation is the rote response, and emotions are disguises for banality.
What if love was a dandelion, instead of a rose? What if love was simply staying on the docks instead of leaping over the edge onto the boat heading into the deep empty waste of the ocean blue? What if love wasn’t predicated on cards and candy, but instead subsisted of half-empty milk containers and poorly cooked pasta and a drive to the recycle place? What if love just was, instead of grown and contained and sold in trademarked mall storefronts?
The romantic in me wants a beautiful Valentine’s Day. The cynic in me fears the notion. Maybe it’s why I’m single.

Red State DVD Released

jelewis8 — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 18:58:00 +0000

The Red State DVD has finally arrived, and only a month late!

The moment you’ve all been waiting for is finally here. Red State, the zombie comedy from Jeremiah Lewis, is now available for purchase. The final covers have been printed, the DVDs are burned and awaiting your orders. The pancakes are cooking, the toenail polish is drying, and the President is about to make an important speech about the dangers of zombie infections. Do your part to save America, and purchase this one-of-a-kind DVD.
Here are a list of the features on the DVD:

16×9 Widescreen Presentation
Audio: English Surround Sound
Director Commentary
Cast & Crew Bios
Original Teaser Trailer
Blooper Reel
Deleted/Alternate Scenes
Making of Voiceover Commercials Featurette
Before/After Visual Effects Featurette
Original Uncut Radio Spots
Scene Selections
Animated Menus

As you can see, it’s quite a lovely little DVD, chock full of wonderful goodies that make fanboys blush with anticipation. With custom made cover art printed on high-gloss bonded paper, and standard plastic DVD case, it’s got a $15 value for only $6 + shipping/handling. Bulk orders over 100 receive free shipping! Remember, America is counting on you. PURCHASE RED STATE ON DVD TODAY!

If you cannot or do not wish to use PayPal, you may contact me at jeremiah.lewis @ gmail.com to arrange an alternate purchase plan.

Doom

jelewis8 — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 09:07:56 +0000

Doom. Well, it didn’t suck, per se.
Perhaps I should start over. Doom. It features a cast of about seven people who are just itching to get their guts spilled by some clever animated creature from Mars or Hell or wherever these movie monsters typically arrive from. It’s not unlike the John Carpenter movie Ghosts of Mars in which strange ghosts from an abandoned Mars civilization somehow infect the living with zombie-ism; the plots aren’t similar, just their relative stupidity and attraction to guys like me who try to see the beauty in all things, not just panoramas from the lens of Akira Kurosawa.
There’s very little to criticize here, due to the nature of the type of film it is. Films derived from video games automatically get a general “pass go” by critics because they’re already assumed to be bad. From there it’s just a sliding scale of atrociousness. As levels go, Doom ranks a little below the “Average Bad” rating, but only because it is actually, when you break it down, rather boring and staid.
When bad things happen at a remote scientific research station on Mars (Isn’t Mars, and anything on it, by definition, remote? -Ed.) Sarge (The Rock) is called to assess and correct the situation. He and his elite Rapid Response Tactical Squad, hardened space Marines who probably did not graduate high school, are called in to neutralize the enemy, retrieve the Union Aerospace Corporation’s precious archeological data, and close off the space portal connecting Earth and Mars.
They arrive to find a space station nearly deserted, with several top level scientists missing and the lovely Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike), sister to one of the Marines nicknamed the Reaper (Karl Urban), up to her eyeballs in disaster recovery plans.
Naturally, the bad things that go bump in the night quickly make a Reuben from the saurkraut Marines, leaving the two Grimms and Sarge to mop things up. Things take an interesting and unexpected turn in the last twenty minutes, but it’s not quite enough to change the fact that…it’s Doom. Let’s face it, the video games didn’t feature much in the way of story; this movie seems to be an homage of that fact, as its plot is about as thin as a cocaine-snorting Kate Moss.
And frankly, it doesn’t do enough with what it does offer. Excepting the opening five minute scene, we don’t see a baddie until an hour into the film, and then it’s lit like a black hole. The action is fairly tame, mostly unengaging, and in one particular stretch near the end of the second act, boring enough for me to take a look around the theatre for a few minutes, wondering when there’d be less chat and more splat.
The final act does give enough gore and mayhem to somewhat rectify the lame portion of the film, including a sweet five-minute romp from the first person perspective, a direct videogame-to-movie reference that had the audience chuckling and even elicited a few claps. This was definitely the highlight.
Just as all good things come to an end, so do mediocre things. Thank God for that. And thank God for DVD. This will make an fun, fast forward through the boring stuff rental.
Fringe Rating: out of 5

Land of the Dead

jelewis8 — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 18:44:01 +0000

Land of the Dead, if I may strip the title moniker from its owner and creator George A. Romero, is nothing groundbreaking or even particularly intriguing, at least not in the way his original 1968 Night of the Living Dead or its sensational sequel Dawn of the Dead was. Yet it does have something, if not quite cogent, that resonates on screen in a very cinematic manner. For having almost no non-zombie movies under his belt, Romero is still able to infuse the genre with life.
The movie begins in a garden and ends in a city. In the garden, zombies seemingly have reverted to a state of memory, “living” out their undead lives in a meta-parody of human life. There is a cheerleader, still in dress uniform and carrying pom-poms; a garage mechanic hears the ding of a gas line and attempts to dispense gasoline to a car that isn’t there; a musician attempts to play the tuba. What remains of these empty souls but memories of their past life and the primal will to continue?
We are then introduced to Riley (Simon Baker), a leader in the human resistance and an innovator in the war against a world overrun by the undead. He lives on the outskirts of Fiddler’s Green, a city barricaded by water and a fence constructed by the eminent Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), a cruel businessman turned overlord who lives in a multimillion dollar suite and sends orders down to mercenaries such as Cholo (John Leguizamo). Cholo wants to live inside Fiddler’s Green, but Kaufman has a strict waiting list and an unwritten policy regarding riff-raff.
Meanwhile, it is Riley’s last day in the service of the Resistance. He plans to head north, to Canada, where the chances of running into anyone living or dead is remote. But there are complications, and he finds himself doing one last job. With him is his loyal companion Charlie (Robert Joy), a deadly marksman with a terrible burn mark on his face, and Slack (Asia Argento, daughter of the Italian horror master Dario Argento). Together they witness the awakening of the zombies and the ensuing destruction.
The premise is a little far fetched, and generally out of sync with accepted zombie lore, which indicates that the undead are, quite simply, unable to think, and possess only the most primal instincts. Romero infuses his zombies with tacit understanding, building first from memory and then becoming more creative as they encounter tools and weapons along the way.
Clearly though, Romero is once again interested in the social commentary the zombie movie affords him. He’s got a bone to pick with class warfare, which he sees as real and present here in America. Not only does he indict a rich versus poor dichotomy, but also mocks materialism and jingoistic symbolism in service to an empty calling. One telling scene in the beginning shows the zombies mesmerized by fireworks–”sky flowers” as they’re called by the Resistance–allowing the living to plunder zombie territory for goods like food and water without fear of zombie attack. By the end, the zombies no longer succumb to the allure of the nationalistic lights in the sky–an interesting, if somewhat unsubtle allusion to the emptiness of modern patriotic fervor.
Then again, one could read all sorts of meanings into what is still, essentially and basically, a movie about the undead and human survivors. Not pithy by any stretch. Still, the story is solid, and Romero’s got the visual style down, with moody and atmospheric hues painting each frame, and a dismal palette of gore that shows how far makeup effects have come since 1968. Romero still is the undisputed father of American zombie horror and his efforts here, whilst no real stretch, still reveal his creative power.
Fringe Rating: out of 5

Memorial Day Adventures

jelewis8 — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 05:31:18 +0000

If necessity is the mother of invention, who, may I ask, is the father? He’s got a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.
My Memorial Day weekend was a typical raucous affair, with the usual piling on of events in the normal, explosive method. I flew to Fort Worth, Texas to spend time with my two brothers. It’s a tradition to visit my older brother and his wife. In previous years, it has been my dad and I, but this year, my younger brother Noel made the seven hour drive from Fort Riley, Kansas.
The big plans included relaxing, trying to outdo each other in movie quotes and other male bonding techniques, and most consumptively (is that a word?), shooting a zombie movie. You know, just like that, like all other zombie movies, right?
We succeeded admirably at the first, never once stressing out or exerting ourselves, other than through the occasional rock throwing contest. The second was a bit of a draw, as we were all at the top of our games, having apparently ingested the entire Leonard Maltin Movie Quotes volumes 1 through 4 the previous week. We were loaded, though the bulk of our conversations seemed to revolve around Star War.
Speaking of which, I sacrificed myself for the greater good and watched Revenge of the Sith a second time with my brothers, which further solidified my belief in the idea of life after death, where one version of hell is watching the prequel trilogy on repeat for eternity. In a THX certified, digital sound and and picture theatre, allowing every cell in your eardrums and eyes to know that what you’re watching is pure grade digital suck. Oh yeah, and the seats are those pain-in-the-butt, uncomfortable jobs that leave your neck cramped after 5 minutes. And everyone around you is wearing Jedi robes or flashing light sabres, and it’s all you can do not to SCREAM as you try to paw your way out of the inky blackness of the horrible, horrible nightmare…
Picture of an eternity of pain, or life as we currently know it? You decide.
The third, which I mentioned as almost a footnote, was the most time-consuming activity, took the most toll on my psychic being, and was, by far, the most fun. I’ve never attempted to film a logistically challenging movie, but if this were in the running, it was quite an introduction. Fourteen zombies in full dress makeup, two character actors, and a third minor character, shooting with a target of ten to fifteen minutes running time, with a rapidly waning clock and inclement weather shadowing the entire process.
It confirmed my suspicions that I am either a sadomasochist or just enthusiastic about the craft, if not the art, of filmmmaking. What a rush. I had some rudimentary storyboards covering most of the non-dialogue action, plus shot lists and a schedule which was composed on the edge of a knife. There was some question whether we would even manage the relatively simple task of filming all the dialogue scenes in under two hours. I’ve found I nearly always overestimate on budgetary and time needs, for whatever reason. This was no exception.
Over a three day, twelve hour period, we shot roughly 78 minutes worth of video, some of which was test footage, but most of which is at least semi-usable material for the final film. And to top it off, we completed all the first team footage (second team footage can be filmed at leisure, on greenscreen) in plenty of time, despite a few hitches on the final day. I’ll save most of the dramatics for the eventual DVD release, but suffice it to say, it was a valuable and exciting experience which I got to share with my two brothers, and that’s not an experience that can be taken away.
Call it success!
At any rate, I am back in the saddle, working hard on our latest contract and trying to remain creative in my free time. It’s a task I feel more than up to the challenge for, and I look forward to relaying all my summer adventures as I attempt to put together what could be a very funny and somewhat scary zombie film.
Glad to be back.

Been In Texas, Back Soon

jelewis8 — Tue, 31 May 2005 17:00:11 +0000

You probably don’t know where I’ve been, as I ran out of time to update the blog before I left, but I’ve been (and actually still am in) Texas with my brothers and sister-in-law. I left Thursday morning and am slated to fly back to Virginia tonight.
I’ll update more when I return, but it has been a weekend to remember. Among other things, and beyond all reason and feasability, we have shot our zombie movie, and despite a few hitches and running out of time on some of the latter shots, it is pretty much in the can. A small miracle, if I do say so myself.
I am going to start blogging about planning and moving out to Los Angeles. Things are definitely closer, and I’ve begun the apartment search in earnest. But there’s more to that story, and I’d like to get it all down when I have the chance to concentrate and regale you with a more witty writing style than this bloodless ordering of events.
So, be patient, kind reader, and I will return. Tomorrow.