Weekend Recap and Beyond

Well, Saturday night came and went, it's high time I update the ol' blogaroo.

The Greatest Fan Film of All Time was finally completed the day before the premiere. We cut it close, but we made it. The premiere, thankfully, went really well. True to fashion, the speedbumps continued right up until showtime. Apparently Larry and the gang were having tech troubles with the projector, but managed to straighten everything out with fifteen minutes to spare.

I arrived at the Kent Stage around 7:30, bought my tickets from Derby, and made my way into the theater. It was a great setup and I was surprised how many people were already in there. And they kept coming. We planned to start the show at 8, but waited a half hour, as there were still people lined up outside.
It was great, a bunch of family came, including cousins Bob & Fran, who made the drive in from Pennsylvania. The biggest surprise was seeing Lindsy, who I haven't seen in about a year and a half. That was awesome.
I was really glad to see Aaron even made it in from the Carolinas.
The theater can seat 600, we had an audience of about 400 to 500. Not too shabby.

Before the lights went out, Larry showed our own version of the pre-movie trivia slideshow. Next up was a series of new skits the guys made. They were sprinkled throughout the night, popping up before, after, and between the movies. You can see them here (not suitable for youngins):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2WAK9xyRM

Next up was the debut of The Wimp Whose Woman Was A Werewolf:

THE WIMP WHOSE WOMAN WAS A WEREWOLF

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=48264163

Finally, it was time for the unveiling of The Greatest Fan Film of All Time (it was even my first time seeing the finished film):

The Greatest Fan Film of All Time
Uploaded by Bullcrank

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7pw7l_the-greatest-fan-film-of-all-time_shortfilms

It was great seeing the films with a crowd and hearing everyone laugh and react at all the right places. Just wild.

After the theater cleared out, I hung in the lobby with the remaining cast and crew for a while and just chatted. Of course, we took the obligatory group shot.

It was a crazy night and went by in such a blur. It still hasn't processed that after all those hours of work, Fan Film is finally done.

It went live on Dailymotion as the premiere was going on and has already been viewed over 11,000 times. Many thanks to Aimee Carlson yet again.

Speaking of Aimee, she gave us another shoutout on Lunchbox over at ifc.com:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1454928837/bctid4691270001

It's been a crazy year, culminating in a crazy weekend.

Next up? I'm taking a break. A nice, relaxing break full of movies, Rock Band, and World of Warcraft. Then I'll push forward and finish The Girl and the Ghost and see what happens after that.

Mmm... downtime...

It's Time

On my way to the premiere, hope this all goes well.

Be sure to head to DailyMotion.com around 9 PM tonight to see The Greatest Fan Film of All Time.

Here goes...

For Those Who Can't Attend

As of Tuesday, animation for The Greatest Fan Film of All Time is finished. I finished the main footage at 10 AM on Monday morning, Larry came to pick it up for editing that night. He showed up with Clint and Vince around 9 PM. We expected speedbumps, but not in the amount we experienced that night while copying the footage. By the time we got everything squared away, the guys ended up heading home after 7 AM Tuesday morning. It was a long, frustrating night.
Now, we find ourselves in a mad rush to get the film finished on time. No pressure. We'll get there, though. One way or another.

Have you gotten your tickets yet? If not, grab 'em up!
http://kentstage.org/december.html#werewolf

For those who can't attend, you'll still be able to see Fan Film on Saturday night. Here's a new trailer to tide you over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Nz516HYEY

The Time is Near

I know, it's been nearly a month and I've yet to post anything about the trip yet. I promise I have a good reason, really I do. We have a premiere date for The Wimp Whose Woman Was a Werewolf and The Greatest Fan Film of All Time. On December 13th, the films will finally hit...the silver screen. Yes, we have a real theater booked for the premiere. Fan Film and Wolf will show at 8:00 PM at the Kent Stage in Kent, Ohio. We have an awesome night of entertainment lined up, so be sure to get there early.
Contact me at jacobdrakemail@yahoo.com for ticket information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjfOlmxh-gk

For you out of towners, fret not. At some point on the same night, The Greatest Fan Film of All Time will go live exclusively at Dailymotion.com

Want some good reading? Of course you do. Felix Vasquez of Cinema-Crazed.com has once again witten an excellent article about our films, in which he interviews Larry and Aaron. Check it out here:
http://www.cinema-crazed.com/0-g/bullcrank-interview.htm

Right. Back to work so we have a movie to show. I'll post vacation stuff soon.

Updatery

I know I'm ridiculously overdue for an update, so let's fix that, shall we?

I'm still working my butt off on The Greatest Fan Film of All Time. I still love how it's looking, though it's still taking forever. I tallied it up a couple weeks ago and found I have well over twenty minutes of it animated. I'd expect that would make the finish line feel closer, but so far no dice. I'm currently working on the major action scene of the film. Once that's finished, I think I'll start to feel good.

I'm still frequenting the movie theater when I need a break. As I anticipated, I'm a big fan of Wall-E. Cool story, amazing visuals, very touching, Pixar didn't let me down.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army was a blast and a great followup to the first.

Hancock was just okay for me. It was fun and had it's cool moments, but I wasn't blown away. I liked it though.

The Dark Knight, as I'm sure most of you know, is a beast. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed seeing a movie as much as I enjoyed that midnight screening. Eric, Jeff, Mikey, Mo and I were there in the sold out theater for the first showing. Everyone there was pumped and we even had a Robin and a Nightwing in attendance. Turns out I actually knew Nightwing.
The movie itself was great. Intense, dark, and managed to surprise me several times. I'm looking forward to a few more viewings.

DailyMotion has been awesome and very supportive of our films. After they gave Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution a couple months back (giving it an additional 89,000+ views so far), they ended up showing it at a screening at their offices last week. It's pretty wild to think that the project I animated nearly three years ago was just shown on a rooftop in New York City. Craziness. A million thanks to Aimee.

Even crazier, I got an email requesting I submit Sex Love and Honey to the Anim'est International Animation Film Festival in Bucharest, Romania. I still can't process that people on the other side of the world have seen my work and are even requesting it.
Now as part of the submission, I need to create a press kit for myself. That ought to be bizarre.

Who wants more baby Matthew pictures?

Also, some long overdue pictures of my autographed prize from Stan Lee, which turned out to be a poster for The Incredible Hulk.

I'll have to find a prime spot on my wall for this beauty.

Left Foot, Right Foot

Still working on Fan Film. I still love how it's looking, though I must admit I'm getting a bit restless. I always seem to get an influx of ideas for other projects while I'm working on one and they have to wait until I finish and can focus my attention on them. I suppose I can try to use that as motivation to help make it to the finish line.

It is nice while in the midst of new-project-frustration to see that an old project is still going strong. Aimee from Dailymotion.com contacted us asking if we'd be interested in creating a Bullcrank channel. So we did. On the first day (last Sunday), they featured Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution on their front page. One week later and it's been viewed (at the time of this writing) 50,993 views.
It's crazy to see my first project still getting numbers like that after two years.

Bridget came by for a visit on Monday. I haven't seen her since September, so it was nice to hang out and catch up. We swapped some music and she told me about her new job at The Toledo Blade, where she recently got to interview Ben Folds. Not too shabby, eh? Nicely done, ma'am.

Fan Film is calling, I better answer.

In the meantime, check out this video Larry made showcasing seven years of Bullcrank filmmaking. There's even a glimpse at The Girl and the Ghost in there (no, I haven't forgotten about that one).

http://youtube.com/watch?v=X_ercEWYTik