FIRST THE MOVIE: (Skip down if you [...]]]> Like Lincoln (at least how he was portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis with Tony Kushner’s words) I can tell you now that this post will be long winded. And like people who were ever an audience to Lincoln, you will either love or hate what I have to say.

FIRST THE MOVIE: (Skip down if you couldn’t care less about what I think about the movie)

I loved it.

I loved that it didn’t talk down to the audience. It wasn’t trying to force feed history to those who don’t know it well, and it was respectfully accurate to those who do. I really enjoyed Hal Holbrook as Blair. He was a non-politician, newspaper publisher, which just goes to show how long the media has influenced politics. His home (the Blair House) is currently used by the US Government as the state house for foreign dignitaries. My favorite story of Blair house is that during the Clinton years secret service found Boris Yeltsin coming out of the state house drunk in his underwear trying to hail a cab. Then the next day Yeltsin tried to escape Blair House through the basement. You don’t need to know this to enjoy LINCOLN, and they don’t even really tell you who Preston Blair is in the movie. You know his stance, and you know he has political influence of old. That’s it. And frankly, because everyone in the day already knew who he was, if there had been an introduction in the film it would have come off as obvious exposition. This is one TINY example. I only included it because … Well I liked seeing the character of a man I’d only read about, and because this happened through out the movie. You never see Jefferson Davis but you hear about him all the time. If you don’t know who he is, then for the first half of the movie or more you simply know he’s someone leading confederates. . . and I guess that’s all you really need to know. (For those of you thinking I’m wrong for assuming there are people who don’t know who Davis was, I ask you to take a poll of people who know their state’s senators and local representative.) With this and many other examples I’m trying to say two things: First, the movie didn’t talk down to the audience by explaining who everyone was or their back stories too illicitly, and second, the story wasn’t bogged down with so many little details that it took away from the story being told… Which was decidedly NOT a biopic, but the story of one portion of a great man’s life – The passing of the 13th amendment.

I loved how simple the filmmaking was. Speilberg heavily relied on the actors, the story, and the history. He knew his target audience and didn’t make any effort to try and please anyone else. I am that target audience. I love history. I love epics. I love politics. But I can also see why other people, not in the target demo, would think this movie was long and boring. I don’t blame them, because the movie was simply not made for them.

I loved the lighting, but do so with a understanding smirk. The team found out very quickly that if you backlit Daniel Day-Lewis, not only does he look more like Lincoln, but more reverential and respectful. This happened in almost every scene. In almost every scene you’ll think “that picture should be the poster.” I could see an audience member thinking they went to far here, but I don’t blame them because the filmmakers are in a lose lose battle. Look at the flack they are taking over Daniel’s voice in the film? Experts are saying it’s accurate now, but when doing a movie about a man so much bigger than life, what other option do you have, really?

Maybe most of all I loved Tony Kushner’s screenplay. I wonder if you ask him whether he’s a screenwriter or a playwright, what his answer would be. I assume playwright but then again there is the possibility he would not take either option and only say that he was a writer. I love when a talented writer, with a big enough reputation, throws away all the rules of thumb about screenwriting that beginners treat as gospel. There were so many long speeches… SO MANY, and I loved every one! Yes, this could be devastating to a script, but it can also really give the actors and crew (everyone from makeup to gaffers) a chance to show off the intricacies of their work. This also leads me to my opinion that he’s a playwright… Another aspect of his work that was done so brilliantly, in my opinion, was the weaving together of so many story lines. Of course that of the passing of the 13th amendment, but also: Robert Lincoln’s desire to join the army, Mary going insane over the loss of her sons, the three “lobbyists,” Stevens’ life long goal to abolish slavery and coming to terms with not being able to have it all at once, even a story as small as that of the butler and Lincoln’s gloves. The list is much longer than this, but somehow Kushner (and I assume the editors as well) managed to knit it together so that all stories were leading to the same endgame.

Lastly? What I loved was that it was not American propaganda. If you know me personally you know that I am not the greatest fan of America. I wish it wasn’t so, but it’s true. (And no it’s not lost on me that one of my American freedoms is the ability to admit so publicly) However this movie was NOT American propaganda. In fact it shows just how dirty American politics has been, and is still to this day. This story, is the story of a great man. A great man that stood against his most influential advisers, at times his family, the status quo, the House of Representatives, and a nation that had already lost hundreds of thousands of lives. He stood out in his time, made a true difference, and that should be human propaganda, not American.

here are a couple links I found you might find interesting.

ACCURACY http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/11/09/lincoln_historical_accuracy_sorting_fact_from_fiction_in_the_steven_spielberg.html

PICTURES http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/11/08/lincoln_cast_of_characters_compared_to_real_life_inspirations_photos.html

NOW FOR SOME POLITICS

It is very easy to see a correlation to the Republican party of 1865 trying to get equal right for blacks and the Democratic party of 2012 trying to get equality for gays. It is also interesting to see that that the parties changed so drastically in the last 150 years. But what I want to highlight is how similar things were then to now.

We like to wax poetic about “the good ole days” and wonder why politics has gone to hell, etc, etc, etc. Well STOP! Because it’s always been this way in American politics. Political decisions have always been subject to individual’s beliefs, the economy, and/or looming reelection. Our nation being divided 50/50 is nothing new. Bipartisan slander and political equivocation are nothing even close to new. This country is doing it all exactly the same way. The differences now are the issues (sucks that equality isn’t totally taken care of at this point. Shame on us), and the technology that has given us the 24 hours news cycle. Game changers sure, but still the same game.

I love how this movie shows both sides of the argument. And although I don’t know anyone that would argue (I’m sure they’re out there) that the right decisions were made back then, we only feel that way because of the amount of time between now and then. Lincoln was hated by a LARGE portion of the American population, and whether you like it or not (sorry liberals) it doesn’t mean the other half were bigots. For my Republican friends, after 150 years it is quite possible that George Bush (either) could go down in history in a glorious and positive light. For my Democratic friends it could be that Obama goes down in history for much much more than just being the first black president. Here’s what I need you to understand: of the above two statements, half the country believes one and half the other. You can not, and should not, assume that people on the other side of the aisle are wrong. Or worse that they are some how deficient. If you do then you are thinking about HALF of the population. If you think that about HALF the population I personally believe that it is YOU who are deficient.

Does that mean you can’t believe what you believe and believe it with passion? NO! Fight the fight! Make the hard decisions! Grasp opportunities! And preach what you believe! But that doesn’t make your opinion or thoughts better than anyone else’s. My priorities are not your priorities and that doesn’t make either of us evil.

Lincoln did not govern in a time that was politically easier, giving him the ability to accomplish what he did. In fact, I believe he was in harder times, and he accomplished more. That should leave us all with a desire to do better. That’s the feeling I left the theater with, and as I said before, I’m not the biggest fan of America, but I am a huge fan of Lincoln. One man who made an incredible difference.

I used to have a running list of all the movies I couldn’t wait to see. Right now it’s only 1. It doesn’t matter what movie that is (It’s LINCOLN), it only matters that 1 movie doesn’t make a list. What happened?… TV [...]]]> There is a one question quiz at the end of this blog…

I used to have a running list of all the movies I couldn’t wait to see. Right now it’s only 1. It doesn’t matter what movie that is (It’s LINCOLN), it only matters that 1 movie doesn’t make a list. What happened?… TV happened.

TV used to be shows that were mostly shot in a 3 camera set up on a sound stage. Shot on tape and every episode had a story line that started at the top. Then 30 to 60 minutes later you had your episodic ending.

Movies were entirely different worlds that took you on an exciting ride through a story that was “much too big” to be on TV.

Then THE SOPRANOS happened. At least that’s when I noticed it. Other shows were starting this too, but THE SOPRANOS took it to a new level. They started shooting on film or HD like movies, they switched to a one camera style and edited like the movies we were used to seeing at the cinema. And the story didn’t always finish with a pretty bow at the end of the episode. Sometimes it took whole seasons for a story line to fully run its course. Then all of a sudden they started making seasons shorter. Even taking long breaks from production. They were basically making mini movies for every episode. For an hour show, that’s only 30 minutes less than a short movie!

The other day I was watching SHERLOCK. A season with only 3 episodes, and the running times? 88 Minutes. 88 Minutes. and 89 Minutes. THOSE ARE MOVIES! I asked myself, “Is this any different than watching Robert Downey Jr?” The answer is yes. #1 – I’m watching it at home. #2 – there are not HUGE special effects and explosions.

Then my mind started racing. Everyone I know is freaking out about TV! Even the huge comic book flicks were less spectacular this year. People want to watch Breaking Bad, and Sons of Anarchy, and Game of Thrones, and Sherlock, and Doctor Who, and Mad Men, and (Do I need to keep going?)

How did this happen?

I think TV had a long term, carefully executed, plan of action to take the audience away from the films. In a changing world with everything streaming directly to your home and played on a screen / sound system that rivals small theaters, there was nothing to stop them. They shortened their seasons, and used the savings to add movie-like production value. They gave us the scope of the cinema and held onto the one thing for which TV has always had the advantage: The ability to build a character over the course of many episodes and seasons, as opposed to the entire character’s growth happening in the span of 2 hours. Now looking at Sherlock again, if a season is 3 episodes long, and an episode is 90 minutes long, how is that not a movie with 2 sequels? Plus, if you’re anything like me you want to buy the whole season at once and BINGE on 5 to 10 episodes at a time! It is so exciting to be sitting on a Breaking Bad cliff hanger and fumble with the remote through your excitement to get the next episode playing!

So what are films doing? Are they really using band-aid gimmicks like 3D to win the audience back? Isn’t this fad of prequels and sequels basically another “episode” in a TV show that you can’t watch at home? The movies that draw crowds are the huge, tent-pole, comic book/disaster movies that are still a bit too epic for television. But how long will that be true? How long will it take for investors in film to look at Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock and Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and decide they’d rather invest less money, for a better product, that lasts longer?

Ready for that 1 question quiz? Put your answers in the comments. In all honesty I want to hear your thoughts.

QUIZ

1) What can movies do to stay alive?

- Joe McClean

Don’t be alarmed, that’s the name of the indie game. The good news is that filmmaking is a collaborative effort. The bad news is that no one ever totally agrees on everything.

I’ve been known to get into pretty heated debates [...]]]> Life Tracker is as done as it will be for now. Odd, I know.

Don’t be alarmed, that’s the name of the indie game. The good news is that filmmaking is a collaborative effort. The bad news is that no one ever totally agrees on everything.

I’ve been known to get into pretty heated debates (arguments) with “indie” guys, who I believe are shooting themselves in their own feet by sticking so strongly to the idea that the only thing that matters is the “vision.” Yes, that matters. Of course it matters. But if you have a vision and no money to make the movie? What do you have? Nothing! If you have the vision and the money, but the audience isn’t interested, what do you have? Nothing! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all business either. You have to do it all. You have to be telling a story that has an audience who desires to hear it. You have to tell your story in a way that entertains and stimulates the audience – the Vision. And you have to do business (money, marketing, planning) to see it successful. It’s when all of these things come together that we get a great movie with staying power.

After writing and directing Life Tracker I don’t think I’ll ever watch a movie again and say “What was the director thinking!” or “That screenwriter is a hack!” Not everyone gets their way all the time, and everyone has to get their way sometime! And you don’t have many trump cards to play. I played one during the making of Life Tracker (don’t even ask, I’ll never say) and made huge waves. I got my way, but I had to release slack in other areas in order to stop people from jumping ship! Have you ever seen a great idea for a movie fail completely? Have you ever heard someone say “the movie isn’t that great, but the performance is amazing!” How about a brilliant book that turned into a crap flick? There are writers out there that are embarrassed that their names are on projects. Projects that if they had better directors, actors, editors, or whatever, could have been brilliant scripts! I hate when someone says I love the script for *Name of movie here* and they’ve never read the script! When you watch a movie you are seeing the lighting, hearing the music, listening to the actors, seeing special effects, experiencing all the art of all the people on the project. And TRUST ME, all those artists can make a great script terrible, and a terrible script fantastic.

Hundreds of artists come together to make a movie. And in the indie world they are coming together for far less pay than they deserve. The make up team is made of artists. The sound department is made of artists. The choreography. The producers. DPs. The casting directors. Actors. Art people. Editors. Publicists. Grips. Colorist. PA’s. And MANY MANY (many many) more. People don’t get into the film business (in what ever profession they choose) so that they can be cogs in a machine just doing what other people say. There is some of that, sure, but they get into it because of the overall art, and if you don’t let those artists do their art they will find another place to do it. So it’s a give and take. When it works it’s brilliant. When it fails its horrible. BUT I believe your odds are better if you lean towards everyone working together, rather than a dictatorship seizing control.

I am very happy with Life Tracker. I didn’t always get my way. In hind sight, there are some cases I’m HAPPY I didn’t get my way! But mostly I’m just a big believer in looking at those creative differences as YOUR WAY and MY WAY. Neither has to be right or wrong. Many times, both options are fine! Its just a matter of deciding which to go with for the over all direction of the movie. Yes, a director gets to make a lot of those calls, but if you are a make up artist, and you do make up as a career, and you study make up, then the director should damn well take that into MAJOR consideration because most likely they know far less about makeup! The same goes for any job on set. You have a cinematographer because he understands more how to use the cameras and lighting to effectively achieve your overall goal in the shot. Listen to them!

People are going to tell me “Well, Joe, you are the director so you should be directing these people to… blah blah blah.” No shit. But that’s the director’s job. The director’s job is not to choreograph the fight scenes, or color correct the picture lock. They are there to guide the team that they (and/or the producers) chose to help them tell a specific story in a specific way.

So, do you think I’m just rambling on? Well, I am. But here’s where I’m leading you.

Life Tracker is done. It is the collection of work of many artists and I’m very happy to be a part of the team.

But in many respects the journey is only beginning. We cut trailers (soon to be released), made a poster, have a cut of the movie, and are ready to attack. We will be submitting to sales agents and festivals in the coming months in the hopes for getting some sort of distribution. And even then the journey isn’t over. Who knows, at that point the distribution company could (and probably will) throw out the poster, make their own trailer, even re edit the movie, but you have to bend. I may lose battles, but I won’t lose the war.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? If you make a movie and it isn’t seen by anyone, did you make a movie?

I want to make a sound.

Stay tuned for more blogging soon. Cast and Crew screening is August 29th!

We are close to finished. It [...]]]> A lot of people have been asking me how I feel. More and more as we get closer to being finished with post production on LIFE TRACKER, but I also assume it’s because ‘how I feel’ is people’s only barometer of the quality of a movie they haven’t seen.

We are close to finished. It is currently getting it’s final sound mix and color correction. Then we’re done. And it will be soon.

However, right now only a very small handful of people have seen a rough cut of the movie and we haven’t been notified about the Toronto International Film Festival. Once that happens, good or bad, people will have another thing to start building their own expectations of what I’ve put on the screen. Until then all they have is “How do you feel, Joe?”

Well, I feel good. I’m very happy with the movie and I simply can not wait to show it to people. Do I have fears? Of course! But my fears no longer have anything to do with Life Tracker being a “good” movie. I put “good” in quotes because good to one person is not good to another. This movie is really really good to me. I hope to you.

There are two things that currently occupy my brain on the negative side. I think we as humans are programmed to do that. We simply look for what could go wrong. That makes sense to me because if things go right then there’s nothing to worry about.

#1 – We submitted a “work-in-progress.” It was very close to being done. All it was missing was the final sound mix and the color correction, but because I will not be given reasons why if we get denied from TIFF, I will be able to easily wonder “if I had been able to finish a little earlier and sent in my FINAL product, would the TIFF decision have been different?” I’ll never know and frankly I just need to stop thinking about that because I can’t do anything about it.

#2 – The first 10 minutes of a screenplay are basically your chance to hook the reader or it will most likely be thrown away by whoever you’ve submitted it to. The same goes for a movie. Most people don’t walk out of a movie (some do) once it’s in the theater, but our movie isn’t there yet. It’s a screener. A DVD that is sitting in a stack of other screeners that all have to be watched by the person(s) who make the decisions at TIFF. As the deadline to solidify the TIFF programme gets closer I can easily imagine someone watching 10 minutes, making a decision that it doesn’t “beat” other films they already want to put in the lineup, and moving on without watching the whole thing.  Why does that scare me? Well because one of the main creative choices that the Life Tracker team used in the making of Life Tracker was physically showing how the main character grows as a filmmaker himself.

Dillon (played by Barry Finnegan) is a starving, down on his luck, low self esteemed, documentary filmmaker. When he gets the idea to start documenting an organization, Life Tracker Limited, who claims they can predict your biological future by looking at your blood, it slowly gives him the confidence and drive he needs to be successful. As he follows the story, getting more excited by the story at every turn, he becomes a better filmmaker. He starts thinking more about the camera angles and lighting set ups he uses. He goes out and buys better equipment. He gets more high powered interviews. This plays out on screen by starting with a low resolution image, with shaky handheld camera work, poor lighting, on a 4:3 aspect ratio. By the end of the movie it’s HD, multiple cameras shooting at once, good lighting, and better produced footage. The movie literally and physically gets “better” as you watch. And it’s EXTREMELY effective when you watch the movie as a whole.

That brings me back to the screener. If the person judging my film only gets through 10 minutes, they could easily and falsely assume that the entire movie looks like the first 10 minutes : Poor. They would never know that it was INTENTIONALLY poor. That scares me.

Of course once the movie gets fully screened, this fear will go away because this aspect of the movie does truly make the film better, but not if you only watch 10 minutes.

So what happens if we DON’T get in to TIFF? Morale will be down and I’ll be in charge of trying to get it back up. We will have to wait for the next festival big enough to premiere in front of possible buyers (Sundance) and it will suck to have to wait till December to find out if we will screen in January. Then if we don’t get into that one? I don’t know yet.

Further down the line if this movie is a failure, the next movie I make will be the hardest one I ever make in my life because I’ll be digging out of a hole. Faith in me from cast, crew, investors, and fans would sink and I’d have to dig out of that hole and fight HARDER for the next one. I hope I have that in me if I need it. If it’s a success? Even a minor one? This could seriously change my life.

This is where I stand. I have a movie that I truly believe is awesome. I’m stoked about it. But each day that goes by without knowing about TIFF raises my blood pressure.

- Joe McClean

The answer is probably both… I’m snobby about worse movies. I don’t know that there’s much I can do about becoming a more critical movie viewer because the more experience I get making them, the more easily I can see how things were done. It [...]]]> Are movies getting worse or am I a film snob?

The answer is probably both… I’m snobby about worse movies. I don’t know that there’s much I can do about becoming a more critical movie viewer because the more experience I get making them, the more easily I can see how things were done. It sucks actually. I love movies and I miss the days when I could get totally sucked into a story and not think “That was a green screen shot” or “You can tell he was on wires” or “I like the lens they’re using.”

But it’s not all my snobbery and I have a theory why movies are getting suckier.

Have you noticed at the beginning of a movie how many production companies it takes to get a movie made now-a-days? How many producers it takes? I watched REAL STEEL last night: 6 production companies (Touchstone, Dreamworks, 21 Laps, Angry Films, Imagemovers, and Reliance), and 11 producers (2 of which were household names; Spielberg and Zemeckis). Are movies budgets really so big now that Touchstone (which is Disney) can’t finance a movie on it’s own? Let alone Spielberg’s Dreamworks? I think that is a problem all by itself, but I’ve certainly seen giant budget movies I thought were awesome. Then why do I think movies are getting worse?

I think there are simply too many cooks in the kitchen. I just directed a movie with a fraction of a fraction of one of these budgets and IT had to have 3 companies and a dozen producers. When there are that many people at the top of the food chain, and EVERYONE wants their stamp on the final product (and is far too willing to threaten to pull money from production if they don’t get their way) then the movie is muddy when it’s done. No one gives a shit if their idea fits with the story, or if the idea can live in the world that has been created, it doesn’t matter. Then it becomes nearly impossible to tie all the ideas together in a cohesive story.

Here’s the thing, I don’t even care if the movie was destined to be shit from the start, but there are still REALLY GOOD stories, concepts, and ideas out there. Wonderfully funny, dramatic, complex, simple, scary, loving, stories with great characters! But somehow logic is lost in the muddiness of everyone getting to put their stamp on the movie. It’s like scientists are working on a truly brilliant cancer curing drug, but they can’t get it to work because they forgot what they learned in their high school biology class. The most infuriating part is almost EVERYTHING I’m talking about could have been a simple fix.

Are you a little confused at exactly what I mean? This is a problem I have with MANY movies, but unfortunately for PROMETHEUS, it will be my example:

PROMETHEUS (Big Time Spoiler Alert)

This is a pretty brilliant concept. Flying to the distant planet to meet the alien life form that you believe created the human race. GREAT! And I’m willing to suspend my disbelief to work with the concept. They found dots on cave walls that they believed told them to go to another planet? FINE. They just happen to have the technology to hop in a ship to take them directly to that planet? FINE! But then it gets VERY HAZY!

* When they find the giant alien head in the alien ruins they CARRY it back to their golf cart, drive it back to their space ship, and carry it into the lab. Once its on the table they examine it and find out that what they are looking at on the surface is not a part of the alien but a helmet. One person asks another for help taking the helmet off and together they decide the helmet is too heavy to lift. TOO HEAVY? YOU JUST CARRIED IT ALL THE WAY FROM THE ALIEN RUINS! A friend said that he took that to mean that it was actually too hard to get the helmet off. Okay then when they tried to lift the helmet off, why didn’t the entire head simply lift off the table?

* When they get inside the alien ruins their suits tell them that the air is breathable so they obviously take their space helmets off. They spent a trillion dollars to get there, two years of sleeping to travel, all of them are supposedly brilliant scientists, and NOT ONE of them thinks “Who cares if the air is breathable! What if there is some sort of alien airborne pathogen, parasite, bacteria, or virus!” Nope. They all take their helmets off. Oh yeah, then at the end of the movie, they do it again and all Guy Pierce says after someone argues taking off the helmet is “Smells good to me.” SCREW YOU!

* While inside the alien ruins the ONLY way they can learn anything is that somehow all of the actions of the aliens from 2000 years ago were recorded by some sort of microscopic energy. They all move out of the way when they see what they refer to as a “recording” running down the hall towards door and then getting decapitated when it closes. Later one of these same “recordings” (cough BULLSHIT cough) teaches FASSBENDER-BOT how to fly the alien spaceship. Man, they sure were lucky that those recordings were left behind or this movie would have been LOOONG(er that it already was).

* Charlize Theron’s character lives in an escape pod. Inside that escape pod is a machine that can do any operation on a human needed. Later in the script when a woman needs an alien c-section the machine tells her that unfortunately this machine is only for men. I am going to assume this is a “cleverly” hidden clue that the machine is not for Charlize, but for Guy Pierce, who we’re not supposed to know is on the ship yet. BUT it’s stupid if you ask me. We have enough technology to put people to sleep for two years, and send them to a distant moon in a distant galaxy, wake them up, live on that planet, and come home? BUT WE CAN’T MAKE A SURGERY ROBOT THAT KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN? Don’t put it in JUST because it’s a plot device.

* Let’s stay on this alien c-section for a minute. She drugs herself, gets in the machine, drugs herself again, a giant machine slices a hole across her entire abdomen, yanks out an alien octopus, then staples her back together. She gets out of the machine, drugs herself again, then proceeds to run, fight, lift, jump, scream, and survive for the rest of the film. She fights aliens, she repels off a ship, I could keep going. You can argue that surgery in 2092 (?) is better, and so are the drugs…. But COME ON!

* I was willing to grit my teeth and go with the fact that they came to this far away place on a whim. They went there because they “Choose to believe” that the markings on cave walls on earth were (assumption #1) put there by an alien race that engineered us, and (assumption #2) that they wanted us to go to them. FINE, disbelief suspended. BUT when Mr. Elba (best part of this movie in my opinion) runs into the room and says he’s figured it all out: The aliens were far from home themselves because they were making weapons of mass destruction and there was a deadly poisonous byproduct that they had to store somewhere far away, but somehow it got out of hand and killed all the aliens on site. WHERE THE HELL DID HE GET ANY OF THIS INFO! Those jars could have been ANYTHING. Their reason for being there could have been ANYTHING! What if it was a mining community and this stuff was something their society back home needed to process in order to run their factories like coal? (also a stupid idea, but it could have been ANYTHING) Doesn’t matter. Idris Elba said it, so we all have to believe it.

* Speaking of assumptions. They also assume WITHOUT ANY ACTUAL INTELLIGENCE that the alien ship was about to head off to earth to dump their poison cargo. Who told them this? Why is this needed in the story? When the alien ship takes off, the crew decides to sacrifice themselves by flying their own trillion dollar ship into the alien ship to stop it from getting back to earth to destroy it! What if the damn alien was just as scared of you as you were of it, and was just trying to get the hell out of there? Go back home to it’s family that was probably worried?! No, we have to sacrifice ourselves to save our planet that we have no idea is even in any danger.

* Speaking of assumptions (Did I already say that?). Late in the movie the lead woman says she wants to know why the aliens made us, and also why they turned on us. First, we don’t know they engineered us. Second, we don’t know that they’ve turned on us. We learn that they have the EXACT same DNA as humans (funny since they DON’T look EXACTLY like us), but if that’s the case then maybe they didn’t ENGINEER us, but simply BIRTHED us. Maybe a baby was left behind on Earth and in Earth’s atmosphere this species grows to look like we do. Just a wrench, not a fix. And as for turning on us? 5 or 6 humans (remember humans are aliens to the alien) open up your sleep chamber and are all standing around menacingly when you wake up after a 2000 year nap, and none of your buddies seem to be around to help? Yep, I’d say it’s time to kick some ass and take some names. Damn right the alien turned on you, you scared the living shit out of it! I think it acted just as it should!

* FASSBENDER-BOT poisons a man with organic-something he finds inside an alien test tube, and apparently FASSBENDER-BOT is smart enough to know that the organic-something is going to infect the man, that man will have sex with a woman, and that woman will give birth to an alien… First, this is all bullshit. Second, are we to assume that since at this point FASSBENDER-BOT doesn’t know there is a living alien in the alien ship, that he is simply trying to create a new alien (through birth) so that his “father” can “meet his maker?” If that’s the purpose of this WHOLE subplot… COME ON!!!!

* Oh yeah, and when the guy that FASSBENDER-BOT infects gets burned alive and left out of the ship to stop the spread of infection, why does he turn into some sort of werewolf, zombie, who wants to kill everyone?

* And if these aliens have the same DNA as us, literally the same genetic make up, then why do bullets and fire not kill it? It would kill us, wouldn’t it? And if we have the same DNA…. Why am I trying…

* Mr. Pierce. Why the hell was he cast? I was on board till the end. His story line is that he is an old man who wants to “meet his maker.” I assumed the entire movie that the reason they cast a young man and put him in crappy old age make up was because later, somehow, the aliens would make him young again. The make up would melt away and there would be beautiful Guy Pierce. Nope. Killed by a blow to the head. Do you argue me that the make up was crappy? Fine, you are entitled to your own opinion, but if you can look at the actor and say “Man, that’s good old age make up!” That means you can see the make up, and you are no longer paying attention to the story! Just cast an old man!

* At the end of the film when the alien ship is crashing back to the planet it lands on it’s side. It’s shaped like a doughnut with a bite taken out of it and it starts to role across the landscape while two of our human crew members run from it. BUT THEY RUN IN THE DIRECTION IT’S ROLLING! One trips (obviously) and realizes at the last second that after all that running, all she has to do to get out of the way is role 10 feet to the right. Charlize Theron’s character is too dumb to realize this and keeps running straight until she dies. Oh but it doesn’t end there. When the ship stops rolling it is still standing on it’s round side, so now its going to tip over. The woman who rolled out of the way now has to move another say 20 yards (and has plenty of time) so that when it falls she’s in the doughnut HOLE portion of the doughnut ship. Nope. She has to get saved by a big rock that creates a cavity for her.

* At the very end, the alien’s body bursts open and the ALIEN (from the good movie that this may or may not be a prequel to) jumps out of his stomach? So was this what was created inside him after the octopus’s mouth went inside the aliens mouth? Whatever, this was just a final shot in a movie so that the fan-boys could masturbate over the image of the alien they recognize from the movie ALIEN. And by the way, get some creativity: there was a space cobra, a space human, a space octopus, and the same alien from another movie.

* Speaking of that space octopus (which was birthed by our lead character via c-section). Are we to assume that the reason the lead woman wasn’t eaten completely by the octopus, and the alien was, is because the octopus is her child? Gimme-a-break.

* Oh and remember when that giant doughnut ship crash landed. Then remember when FASSBENDER-BOT calls the last human survivor to come and get him out of the crashed ship so that he can fly ANOTHER alien ship? And then remember when she goes back in the crash-landed ship, and FASSBENDER-BOT’s head and body are in the EXACT same place that she left him?

* Now the last human, and FASSBENDER-BOT are going to fly off into the universe searching for where the aliens came from… She is in an alien ship, with no human food, with no knowledge of where she’s going or how long it will take to get there, and she MUST be dying of infection from that c-section. I guess they better get the same team back together for the next movie so they can do just a good a job not making any since out of that movie too.

Too many cooks turning brilliant ideas and brilliant directors into crappy movies.

And aren’t you insulted? I am almost certain at some point in the process someone said “Who cares. They won’t even notice. Just blow something up or make a cool alien cobra.” You know they were talking about you, right? (Yes, I am aware I just made an assumption about the creators of this movie, but it’s no worse than the assumptions they made in their story or about us.)

AND IN CLOSING… All of you fanatics that are going to simply say I just didn’t get it, and that I need to understand the hidden meanings, and I should read some stupid website so I can fully understand and see the brilliance of PROMETHEUS? You’re entitled to your opinion. And I don’t blame you because you simply have no control over all that studio advertising money brainwashing you.

Depending on who you talk to, the economic recession we find ourselves in has had wildly different effects on the world of independent filmmaking. Everyone agrees that there is [...]]]> Our feature Life Tracker just moved into post production and I found myself in a couple conversations during production that prompted my writing this blog entry.

Depending on who you talk to, the economic recession we find ourselves in has had wildly different effects on the world of independent filmmaking. Everyone agrees that there is less money to go around, but some people will say there has never been a better time for independent cinema.  On one side you have newer technology everyday allowing high-powered equipment into the hands of indie filmmakers that would have cost 10 to 100 times more 10 to 20 years ago. On the other hand while studios lean harder and harder on tent-pole franchise/prequels/sequels, there are more and more people with access to equipment who call themselves “filmmakers” but don’t know how to tell a story. This makes it harder for the viewer (let alone a distributer) to weed through the muck before they find anything worthwhile.

Does the economy makes it harder for an indie filmmaker?

Well, I’m hardly the person to answer that question. I haven’t been making movies for that long and I’m only just now getting into the world of financing and producing movies that aim for theatrical release, so I’ve never known what it was like to make movies in any other climate. . . but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a strong opinion on the topic. I personally believe the movies that were hurt are those in the middle. Movies in the 10 to 30 million dollar range. I feel like all we have now are huge budget, comic book movies or sequels, or the tiny budget movies shot for nothing.

People don’t give their money to film productions just because they love movies, this is a business. If I was investing in a movie and my goal was to get my money back, plus a return, then I only see two options: huge movies with built in audiences that are easily going to at least make their money back in the opening weekend, or the movie that cost 50 thousand bucks to make and has the ability to make 20 times the investment in even the smallest of theatrical releases. Making movies is already a risky investment so why would you take the risk on a movie that costs 20 million and hopes to bring in 25 million, when you can invest 500 thousand and all you need the movie to earn is a million to double your money? It’s obviously more complicated than that, but you get my point.

Do I think it’s a good time for Indie filmmakers? Yes. Is the indie market flooded? Also a yes. Which in a way argues that it’s harder for indie filmmakers to get their movies seen. Unfortunately I just don’t thing it’s that cut and dry. You have to adapt to the situation that presents itself. If there’s no money because of a recession then you have to decide what project best fits you while at the same time using the resources you have available. Lots of people argue that the reason Film Noir started was because of a lack of money. A lot less money for movie production because it was all being diverted to the war effort in some way or another. To be honest I don’t really even think about the economy. Most movies take so long to bring to reality that the economic situation is totally different from the time you decide to start a project to the time it hits audiences.

It’s not money or the size of the budgets that separate the indies from the studios. It’s access. I know it’s a huge cliché to say “it’s who you know” but it’s true, and the sooner you stop thinking about it as a cliché the sooner you can get to the real business of making movies. Access to people equals access to money. In this business people’s names quite literally have a monetary value to them.  I made a short comedy about the crash of the economy called “Money, Please!” I submitted to a production company and they loved the script. They wanted meetings. They wanted to start right away. Once production got started I had to borrow $12,000 from my boss at my day job to get it done. The production company that “loved” the script did really love the script, but it wasn’t them that got the movie made, which is what I thought I needed. It wasn’t me either. It was my access to $12,000, which I had to pay back doing construction jobs. If I didn’t have the access to capital, it wouldn’t have mattered how much anyone liked my script, it simply wouldn’t have gotten done.

It is true that the access wouldn’t have mattered if the script was bad to begin with. Unless you’re born into money, talent is how you build “Access.” I’m in casting for a feature called VIRAL and we’re using an A-List casting director, JC Cantu at Rising Phoenix Casting. I sent in the script and once again the script was loved, but he wouldn’t have taken my business if I didn’t have access to the money to pay their “A-list” fee… Again my company had to borrow the cash, which we’re still not finished paying back. But because I have an A-List casting director I now have a little more access. With that attachment, I was able to get David A Armstrong (SAW franchise) to agree to be our director of photography, and Jenny Hinkey (500 Days of Summer) to be our production manager. Now I still don’t have funding for that movie, but I certainly have more access because I drop their names… once again, access I wouldn’t have if I didn’t have the ability to borrow money to pay our casting director, not to mention the services of our awesome attorney Bianca Goodloe. If I didn’t have that money, I wouldn’t have access, and I’ll never have a movie.

Why isn’t the movie made? Because I need MORE access! The next step is to get known actors in the lead roles and build the cast around them. Near impossible to do when I don’t have money to pay them or a start date yet, but that’s the catch 22. I need the actors to get enough access to get the money, but I need the money to get enough access to get the actors. Now notice, I haven’t talked about the story or the characters or the genre or anything! Because it’s only the access that matters.  Now we wait.

But we don’t do nothing while we wait! My company just finished principle photography on a totally different movie. I wrote LIFE TRACKER and my main goal (besides writing a good script) was a much much smaller budget. Small enough that I thought I’d be able to get enough investors on my own. This script is not Film Noir, but it may have been born for the same reason, lack of funds. We have a huge concept that is able to be done for little money. So that’s what I’m spending my time on, finishing LIFE TRACKER.

Maybe when Life Tracker is finished and premiering at a film festival I will get more access that I can use to get Viral made. And the circle of life continues.

- red -

We are proud to announce that our feature film LIFE TRACKER has been green lit! We go into production in January/February!

Click to see what the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER has to say about us!

The amazing Debbie gave us a [...]]]> It’s been AGES since you had a Blog Post! But this one is WORTH IT!

We are proud to announce that our feature film LIFE TRACKER has been green lit! We go into production in January/February!

Click to see what the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER has to say about us!

The amazing Debbie gave us a production announcement too!

Click here to see what MOVIESHARKDEBLORE has to say!

Want something a little more in depth?

Click to see what FILM FRACTURE has to say!

We are so excited to have the amazing people we have attached!

Executive Producers – Baron Davis and Rebecca Marshall
Producers – Sarju Patel and Debbie Vandermeulen
Associate Producers – Ray Patel, Jim Arnold, Chas Mitchell, Paul Surace, and Warrick Dawson

Written/Directed – Joe McClean

Director of Photography – Jeremy Weiss
Editor – Tommy Aagaard

Lead Cast -
Matt Dallas as Scott
Rebecca Marshall as Bell
and
Barry Finnegan as Dillon

Thanks for all of your amazing support!

LIKE us on Facebook: Red and Tan, Life Tracker,
FOLLOW us on Twitter: Redandtan, Tanofredandtan
SUBSCRIBE on Youtube: RED AND TAN

FUPSAs are 30 second videos that say something that needs to be said. Short enough to share with friends and enough of them that there is bound to [...]]]> Red has a little side project going. If you’re offended easily don’t check it out… Or maybe do check it out because hate mail can be funny.

FUPSAs are 30 second videos that say something that needs to be said. Short enough to share with friends and enough of them that there is bound to be one you’ll love!

5 were released today to get us started and for the next 10 weeks we’ll be releasing 3 every Monday!

Here they are:

http://bit.ly/cleandildoes DILDOES

http://bit.ly/stereotypefupsa STEREOTYPES

http://bit.ly/biggerintexas BIGGER IN TEXAS

http://bit.ly/FrancoFupsa JAMES FRANCO

http://bit.ly/flapjacktitties FLAPJACK TITTIES

I don’t know if it’s sad or fantastic but they get way more random, more disgusting, and sometimes downright mean. So STAY TUNED! and Like us on Facebook! www.facebook.com/fupsa

First, CLICK HERE to learn more about the project as a whole. We will be shooting in July.

Next, you need to know that this is a NON UNION project. Sorry SAG peeps. We would have gone SAG if [...]]]> So here we are. These are the roles I need to cast for Life Tracker.

First, CLICK HERE to learn more about the project as a whole. We will be shooting in July.

Next, you need to know that this is a NON UNION project. Sorry SAG peeps. We would have gone SAG if one of the three leads (already cast) had required the production to go there, but they didn’t. I hope that we can look on the bright side and view this as a good opportunity for NON SAG actors to get some work.

Most of these roles take literally hours to shoot out. A few will take a couple days. There is pay but it isn’t much. It changes depending on the amount of time the we need to shoot the actor’s scenes, but some are 75/day and others are 150/day.

I won’t lie. I have a lot of friends and I will be trying to pluck them into roles where ever I can. However, lots of my friends are SAG so that means more roles open up. If the role is listed below, then IT IS NOT CAST YET! If you would like to put yourself in the running for a role please email me at JOE@REDANDTANPRODUCTIONS.COM.  I want to see your picture, your resume, and a link to a reel if you have one.

I will be casting over the next two weeks. I just cut and paste a excel doc so I’m sorry if it’s a little hard to read. Use a straight edge if you have to line up the character information hahaha! I look forward to hearing from friends and meeting new actors!

www.danceswithfilms.com Don’t forget to “Like” them on Facebook and follow on Twitter!

Where: Laemmle Sunset 5 Cinema (Crescent Heights and Sunset)

When: Sunday June 5th at 12:30

Where can I buy tickets? [...]]]> We are going to be screening our short film HOW TO MAKE A DAVID LYNCH FILM at Dances With Films!

www.danceswithfilms.com Don’t forget to “Like” them on Facebook and follow on Twitter!

Where: Laemmle Sunset 5 Cinema (Crescent Heights and Sunset)

When: Sunday June 5th at 12:30

Where can I buy tickets? : LYNCH TICKETS

This will be the forth time we have been a part of Dances With Films! Our movies have played 15 different fests at this point and it is easily our favorite so far! Leslee and Michael (and staff) put on a kick ass show every year. What’s special about them is that they really do it because they love movies, and they love filmmakers. At every party, event, screening, etc, you get the feeling from the whole DWF team that everything is there just for you. And in a way, it is! They fight for publicity, they go all out with the screening and party venues, they know EVERYONE, and they live their motto of “No Politics, No Stars, No Shit.”

I was first at DWF in 2004 when I acted in the Jack Ferry film A REASONABLE HYPOTHESIS. I traveled to Santa Monica (that’s where it was then) from NYC to see myself on the big screen for the first time. That’s where the love affair began, but Sarju and I decided to start making their own films.

We screened our feature film THAT FALL at the DWF while they were at the Beverly Regency Theater in 2006.

We screened our short film “MONEY, PLEASE!” at DWF at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in 2009.

And now here we are again, back at the awesome Laemmle Suset 5, to screen HOW TO MAKE A DAVID LYNCH FILM, and we couldn’t be more excited!

We’ve been getting some KILLER reviews too! Here are some links:

MovieSharkDeblore

The 500 Club

9 Words or Less

And that’s not all! Do you want to hear a 50 minute interview with Joe McClean? DON’T ANSWER THAT! haha! Joe did an interview for a podcast out of the UK called FROMPAGE2SCREEN where he talks about Red and Tan in general but also gets another great review for the Lynch short! Here’s the link : FROMPAGE2SCREEN

More reviews to come!

Thank you DANCES WITH FILMS! We’ll see you at the screening!

(Joe)