TBT: Getting Gored by a Plastic Bull

Ever wonder how characters defy gravity or experience extreme violence - safely?

It's all an illusion. Except, sometimes it hurts. 

Here's behind the scenes of a stunt I did on a Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest spec that I wrote and directed, called "Toreadoritos."  The previous owner of our house had hung a kick bag off an eye that mounted in the ceiling. So, I designed a stunt around that. And I cast someone whom I could stunt double. And then I trained four people to run out the door fast enough to unwind me and lift me several feet in the air, then dump me onto some toys. Ouch. 

My son Jackson, age 11, was a trooper. He dove against a decelerator device attached to a harness under his wardrobe a dozen times before we were happy with where his plastic horns gored my acting double. As you can see, the timing of Jackson goring me didn't work on this behind the scenes take, so I had to pound the ground again. 

More info about the stunt rigging here.

Was it worth it? It got 780K views on YouTube, so yes. In Ad Sales that was $290, so not really. 

When I found footage for this stunt, I also found other footage, inlcuding some cute previz with my kids and wife, before we cast her acting double, lol. 

The parents were our friends Skylar Payne and Renee Mytar. The cute girl is my daughter Kiran, age 8 at the time. 

Stay tuned. Ian

Cancelling CANCEL CULTURE with LOOR TV

Ever heard of Shark Tank-like pitching for Faith Driven Businesses? I just spent two days in Dallas with the winners of the Tampa Lion's Den pitch competition, LOOR.TV. The Lion's Den connects investors with faith driven entrepreneurs. LOOR.TV is creating a game-ified, equity-crowdfunding, streaming platform aimed at funding and sharing movie, TV and documentary content that young people actually want to watch.

The business model for independent filmmakers is broken. It's a winning-the-lottery mentality where they beg, borrow and steal to make a movie that's hopefully not too compromised in apparent production value (making $100K look like $1M) and then sells for a profit at film festivals or to streaming channels. The chances of making money this way is super low, and I keep meeting exhausted filmmakers that are sad when they can't find a distributor that will spend the same kind of sweat equity selling their movie as they spent to make it. So, they give their precious baby away, but at least the movie they slaved on for years is out there for people to see. Repeat after me: It's a movie BUSINESS.

The smart (and Biblical) way to finance a movie is to count the cost in advance and pre-sell the movie before making it. Kinda like a high-rise apartment complex will determine a need and start pre-renting apartments first. Ideally, filmmakers copy the model of Angel Studios and raise the fans in advance who pre-purchase tickets to the movie. LOOR TV is pursuing this model. This is hard work. I helped produce two features that are upside down for the investors. I intend to remedy this.

The problem with most Christian movie distributors is they don't know how to reach young people, nor do they even try. So we have generations of film goers who are being spoon fed junk food by a Hollywood world view that is in conflict with Biblical values. There's some good content out there, some neutral, but tons of woke content that clearly contradicts God's truth, goodness and beauty.

And young people get all the content they want on social media for free, so why should they pay for my movie? What's my value-add to them?

Eyre Films and LOOR TV have a lot in common. How to cancel Cancel Culture with slightly irreverent movies that appeal to young people (likely mostly to young men, but niche down to find those super fans). As I reactivate the fans who have watched "Run Cholo Run" 2.2M times, but with music I didn't license :(, and promote the digitally enhanced re-release of Vengeance Trail, I will be learning to find superfan audiences for Prey For Mason, Smash and Run, and Puberty From Heck! all in various stages of development. Stay tuned. 

Meanwhile, here's Jason Farley and Marcus Pittman enjoying a pitch I made for a Romans 6:23 monster comedy that might have to be hosted in Finland, lol! It will definitely cause Cancel Culture to get triggered!

Ian

Prey for Mason NEW LAUNCH SOON

Brandon and I excitedly prepare to announce a major advancement for Prey For Mason. Stay tuned for the launch of a new opportunity, hopefully in the next few weeks. A contract has been signed!

Another amazing poster by James Burns:

The script is finished with rave reviews from the actors of a table read:

I just listened to this Filmmaking Stuff podcast and Tom Malloy said there are four genres that are most marketable, that he remembers with WASH - Westerns, Action, Sci-Fi and Horror. This is exciting to me, because Prey for Mason is Action and Horror - AHhhhhhh. (And Vengeance Trail is Action and Western, and Run Cholo Run is Action and Thriller, and all my movies have action scenes for trailer moments). If you're an indie filmmaker, I highly recommend Filmmaking Stuff.

Exciting times!

Ian

TBT: "Run Cholo Run" Already Has Super Fans!

Every so often, I get a note from FaceBook; “Run Cholo Run has 141 new views," or. “21 others liked your page 5 days ago. I don’t pay that short film very much attention because I haven’t had much to talk about. I've been working on the feature screenplay for years and only post a vague update every few months as proof of life. I can't/shouldn't keep teasing that audience forever.

As I learn about building a niche audience for my Western and my teen thriller, I realize I already have an amazing built-in audience for "Run Cholo Run." I knew the short film had 2.2 million views with 10K subscribers, but I didn't notice the Facebook Group has grown to 6,600 followers! There's a few super fans in there, probably mostly fans of the lead actor Alex Arredondo aka Sleepy Brown of Cholo Adventures, but isn't that why you cast stars!

Every few months, I post a vague update about Tanya ChaCha Sandoval-McMahon adding authenticity from her Mexican-American sensibility. She finished her rewrite last year before I moved across country, but relocating and then the blessing of a full-time job for 5 months and juggling other projects, blah blah blah. Life is full!

How can I serve my audience? It's time to brainstorm some value I can give to the RCR fans to renew their enthusiasm. Here are some ideas:

-post bios of the 3 writers. I will see Korstiaan Vandiver in person this weekend, so we will video some BTS narrative about where the story came from.

-create a live, in-person event in Los Angeles, along with some other gang-topical short films from filmmaker friends.

-create swag and sell the posters I had printed.

-post pages of the screenplay and get feedback from those most interested. Perhaps a subscriber option.

Thoughts?

Ian

Happy Easter - How to Escape Solitary Confinement

In February, I stunt coordinated a movie called Incarcerated. We shot at two prisons in SoCal, Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic and Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster. Prison is no fun! 

What struck me most about shooting Incarcerated was sitting in a solitary confinement cell. There is absolutely no way to escape - the hinges are outside the cell, the only key access is outside the cell, even the food tray access can only be opened from outside. All needs are met from outside and there's no freedom inside.

I spent the night in jail once (Theft By Taking of road signs for a prank, went to court on my 18th birthday), but I was with my friend and other people - even if they were sketchy people of alleged white collar and blue collar crimes. It was far from solitary and gave me scenes for two screenplays.

Solitary confinement reminds me of the verses in the Bible that say we are born dead in our sins, such as Ephesians 2:1. What can a spiritually dead person do for themselves? What can someone in solitary confinement do for themselves? 

Actually sitting in a solitary confinement cell was sobering. Actually being separated from the Creator is sobering. Thank God, that's not the end of the story (read the rest of Ephesians 2. We celebrate Easter today, aka Passover aka Resurrection Sunday. The God that we cannot reach because we are confined in our spiritual death came down from Heaven to do for us what a dead person cannot do for themself. 

As Jesus said from the cross; "It is finished." God did it all. He opened our cell door to give us freedom, life abundance, and so much more. All we can do is say; "Thank You!"

Amazing love! Happy Easter!

Ian

Vertical Filmmaking Madness

I'm finally embracing vertical filmmaking with "Be Brave, Daddy!" #Shorts. 

I used to joke about wanting to go into someone's house and see the TV mounted to the wall vertically. Actually, someone should make a TV wall mount that you can remotely rotate 90 degrees, depending on what you're watching. Because seeing an HD video squeezed vertically with those massive black bars on the sides seems like a waste of a large screen TV.

I once stunt coordinated a vertical format show, and it drove me crazy when they had a nice car and you could only see some fraction of the car in a wide shot. Unfortunately, my episodes got cancelled before they streamed, but you can check out the show SOLVE here.

In my first blog post, I talked about one of my videos that sat on YouTube doing next to nothing, then took off for the stars. Well, after reaching 24M views, it flatlined and the last 18 months looks like the first 6 years. But, YouTube has recently launched Shorts, their vertical, under 60 seconds, video channel for the landscape challenged. 

So, here's "Be Brave, Daddy!" revisited as a #Shorts. Throw Back Thursday is perfect for YouTube Shorts.

And if you want to know how the sausage was made, here's a BTS look at the stunt rigging of "Be Brave, Daddy!"

My only frustration is that I didn't scout the location and when we showed up to shoot I realized that my computer monitor was the exact same color as the wall, lol. I guess I could have paid a VFX artist to change the color.

BTW, yours truly made those pajamas. What do y'all think?

Ian

Movie Poster Design for Vengeance Trail

I've recently learned that one of my top strengths or giftings is Craftsmanship. When it comes to metal or wood fabrication, or filmmaking, I have a commitment to excellence that can border on perfectionism. The trick is to know when to stop majoring on the minor details.

I once asked for a job at a Special Effects company. The shop foreman said they had a scene where a keyboard was to get shot and they were carving keyboards out of foam. He asked how I would do it. My initial thought was that keyboards are cheap so why not find some junk keyboards to squib, but I fumbled through an answer about materials and tooling. Later, I thought, my first questions should have been to ask how close would the camera get to it. 

My opinion on the difference between low budget and big budget movies is attention to detail. Attending to the details takes time, resources and manpower. You know the Fast, Good or Cheap Project Management Triangle. You have to pick your battles. 

But sometimes you find an artist who loves what they do, and they keep making suggestions - good suggestions. And that keeps presenting me with choices. James Burns is a movie poster artist who just loves Westerns, and he can't stop pitching ideas for Vengeance Trail unless I stop him. 

So, what do y'all think about all these options? BTW, James actually started with the better versions, but over time started presenting sketches for options to present ideas more quickly with less effort. Disclaimer: we don't have many high res photos to choose from, so some of the images had to be taken from the video tapes, uprezzed as much as possible using AI software.

The original poster and DVD art:

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly influence:

Options A vs. C:

Barbed wire border, light vs dark options:

Ultimately, story must dictate the design. Who's the hero, who's the villain? Who wants vengeance? Is it unified to have all the guns point one direction? Does the story demand unity? Is the fact that they're all holding guns enough? What's the best use of negative space and color or contrast? Watch the trailer, read the synopsis, and leave your comments below.

Thanks, Ian