D E C E M B E R   3 1 ,   2 0 0 3

YEAR END WRAP-UP
Well folks, 2003 is now over, and after re-reading the various updates I'd composed this year, I must revisit a few of my earlier pronouncements: 1. Thanks to the typical empty promises from would-be distributors, Foreign Correspondents didn't wind up getting sold to video stores after all; 2. The status of the Norwegian DVD deal for that and for Claustrophobia remains hopeful but has not yet closed; 3. My sound editor Ronnie Kimball - who I was once very excited to work with - turned out to be, well, let's just say that he didn't stick around for the end of the sound mix, and I won't be working with him again; and 4. My much-ballyhooed "Vote for the Claustrophobia Poster" poll turned out to be a moot process, as my distributors came up with their own design.

Aside from all that, 2003 has been a great year for Cassava Films: I finished a feature, got it in a festival, sold it, and actually saw money from the sale. And though I am as in the dark as you as to when Claustrophobia will ever make it out to video stores, I have seen all the paperwork and feel assured that it will happen eventually. Distributors don't spend all that money acquiring a film, obtaining Errors & Omissions insurance and an MPAA rating, recording a director's commentary, then designing artwork for the DVD, only to walk away from it all. At least I don't think they do.

Anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to thank everybody who helped out with the film this year (and in 2002) and also to thank all the friends and strangers who routinely check in with this site just to see what's going on. I'm grateful for your time and your interest in what I'm doing. Happy New Year to you all.

N O V E M B E R   5 ,   2 0 0 3

BACK FROM ABROAD
Over the last two and a half months I have been in four countries, 16 U.S. states, slept in 23 beds, tried to learn three languages, saw a ton of movies, got horribly sick, and ate food both incredibly delicious (Savannah's got some good eats) and unmentionably appalling (when in Spain, do not order the "veal cheek"). But since this is a film-oriented site and not a weblog, I will keep the news to matters of professional significance.

The big deal was late August's Norwegian International Film Festival, in the charming town of Haugesund. As you can see from the photo, celebrities were in attendance, which was a surprise, since Norway isn't exactly in the middle of it all. It was a great week. The "official" world premiere of Claustrophobia was well-received by a large film festival audience made up of both Haugesund locals and industry types from around Scandinavia. Poor little Foreign Correspondents did not attract as big a crowd, but the response was just as positive, if not moreso. The best part was that both films were picked up for distribution in Norway on DVD. I hesitate to say this, as no contracts have been signed yet, but it seems pretty solid. Hopefully my Norskie friends will be able to rent either film at their local video store in early 2004.

One of many highlights of the festival was my very first night, when I was invited along with the other "special" guests to a fancy formal dinner right out of Ingmar Bergman. (Yes, I know Bergman is Swedish.) Though I was still groggy with jet lag, I managed to enjoy the surreality of sitting between American Pie's Jason Biggs and Swimming Pool's Ludivine Sagnier, with the tantalizing Christina Ricci across the table from me. I felt like a housewife from Iowa who had just won some "date with a star" contest. But folks, they all smoked like chimneys.

Anyway, still no news on when Claustrophobia will be out on DVD in the U.S. and Canada, though I've learned that it has officially gotten its MPAA rating. (As expected, it's rated "R" for language and violence.) This at least is a sign that my distributors are making progress on preparing the film for release.

A U G U S T   1 3 ,   2 0 0 3

SOLD!
So much has happened in the past two months, it makes my head spin. The big news is that, two weeks after the Los Angeles premiere of Claustrophobia, my reps got an offer from a distributor called filmnic. And I took it! Huzzah! So now this film is going to hit video shelves across the United States and Canada. I've been told that it won't necessarily be released as a "filmnic" picture, so I'll let you all know which home video company will actually be putting it out there, and when that will happen. All are pretty certain that it will be before the end of the year. Whether they use the poster art that I designed is unclear, but I wouldn't count on it.

This sale has been a bit of what they call a "Pyrrhic victory": It's great to get the film out there, and there is a little money coming in for it, but it's not enough to break even and the amount of paperwork I have had to fill out, and the money I've had to spend just to get the video masters prepared, plus a very complicated situation with the Screen Actors Guild, has almost made this seem not worth it. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm thrilled to get this movie out there on the mass market.

Aside from that, I screened Claustrophobia a few more times, once in my hometown of San Jose to an enthusiastic (and much larger than anticipated) audience, then twice back here in Los Angeles. Great responses every time have reassured me that, as humble as this project has been, it still connects with people, and makes them laugh and scream. I also spent a few days in Las Vegas at the end of July, speaking on a panel about self-distribution (which is how I eventually tried to sell my first film Foreign Correspondents). Not sure if that was a totally successful trip, but I met some cool people who will hopefully become good friends. And yesterday I recorded the director's commentary for the Claustrophobia DVD. I think that will be the only "special feature" on the disc. The next step is overseas: I depart Los Angeles tomorrow, and fly to Haugesund, Norway on August 17, to attend the Norwegian International Film Festival. They've invited me to show both Claustrophobia and ForCor, and it looks to be great fun. That commences two and a half months of travel for me. I will be back in the swing of things around Halloween.

J U N E   2 4 ,   2 0 0 3

THE PREMIERE: THEY CAME, THEY SAW, THEY SCREAMED
I finally showed Claustrophobia to about 180 friends and acquaintances last Wednesday, June 18, 2003. June was an appropriate month for the premiere, as the event was something of a wedding, graduation ceremony, and father's day (me being the father) combined. For all the trouble involved in preparations, things went so smoothly and quickly that it's mostly a blur for me. I regret not having an official photographer there to capture the evening, but oh well. I have a handful of snapshots to prove that it did, at least, happen. The good news is that the response from the audience was very positive. They jumped, gasped, and laughed at the right moments and I have yet to hear any serious criticism. Of course these are my friends; they're going to be encouraging. But it's one thing to say "Great film, congratulations!" as you rush out the door, and another to take the time to send an email during the next few days to say "I really liked the film." Luckily I received enough of the latter to feel reassured.

Of course this is L.A., where everybody is busy busy busy, and a lot of people couldn't squeeze the screening into their schedules (including Melanie Lynskey, who had a concert to go to - fortunately the rest of the cast showed up), so I'm being asked by all the no-shows to have another screening. Maybe in early August.

In the midst of all this, it's strange to have any news about my first film, Foreign Correspondents, but I'm happy to report that it's now available for rental on Netflix. Just in case you wanted to see it but didn't want to shell out the $20+ to buy the DVD on Amazon, which is understandable. Getting it on Netflix took over a year and a half - they have some pretty flaky characters working there - but all's well that ends well.

J U N E   6 ,   2 0 0 3

DONE!
Finally, we finished what could be called the "extended dance mix," only there was no dancing, the mix was just extended. It seemed to take forever to get the audio right, but it's good now, so I have a new premiere date later this month in LA and will play it up in the Bay Area in July. My relief in completing Claustrophobia is palpable, but in fact the turn of events was strangely anti-climactic: On Friday, May 30, my sound mixer and I completed the final fixes (which involved a couple of last-minute sound effects - picture me holding a microphone up to my stomach while punching myself to get a good "thud" noise) and then I ran home to get ready for a dinner date. The next day, my editor Marc Wade and I took the final audio and married it to the final picture, which took all of ten minutes to do. No champagne, no party, just two guys sitting in a house in Valencia saying "Well, I guess that's it. Good job." Hopefully the premiere will involve some sort of actual celebrating.

Marc pointed out to me some interesting trivia: that, in terms of production and post-production, this film took exactly one year to make. June 1, 2002 was when we first started shooting, and May 31, 2003 was when we were finally done. Of course I'm not counting the several months of pre-production (scripting, casting, etc.). In any event, once the premiere is taken care of, and the final tape transfers are done, it's up to the good folks at Integration Entertainment - my producer's reps - to sell the film. And up to me to start working on something new. Already people are asking me "what's next?" Yikes.

M A Y   1 1 ,   2 0 0 3

A BIT MORE OF A HOME STRETCH
On May 13, I was meant to premiere Claustrophobia to about 250 people in Los Angeles. If you asked me even four days ago whether this was still going to happen, I would have said yes. Then we ran into a little snag: Not long after we began the final mix - at 4am on a Friday morning, mind you, which I can now tell you is a stupid time to have a final mix - my sound mixer informed me that all the dialogue from the first 30 minutes of the film, which we had mixed two weeks earlier at a different venue, was screwed up. He said he could clean it all up and remix it in a week or so, but what was I to do about the premiere? For a few minutes, I thought, "Well, I'll go ahead with it on May 13 and just explain to the audience that the audio they're going to hear won't be quite right." Then my intrepid co-producer Julia Stemock, right there with us even in the wee hours, suggested simply postponing it until the sound was perfected. I reluctantly agreed that this was the best course of action, though I dreaded having to email everybody that I had harassed for two weeks for RSVPs, and tell them that they'd have to wait a few more weeks. Which actually caused me so much grief that I barely slept on Friday morning, after getting home around 5am. The lack of sleep and stress about the decision made me catch a cold. And of course nobody minded getting the news about the postponement, so there was really nothing to worry about.

I suppose it's best that it happens this way. Now when I do have the premiere - next month - it will be with a completely finished film (I won't set a new date until that happens, and I suggest this tactic to all other independent filmmakers out there), I won't be sick, and also I'll be comfortably settled in my new house, into which I'm moving next weekend. Bad idea to premiere a film and move during the same week anyway.

The good news is that everything else - music, color correction, color re-correction, digital clean-up, titles - is done. Done! And I am indeed signing with producer's reps this week so the film has a bright future. Huzzah.

A P R I L   2 0 ,   2 0 0 3

THE HOME STRETCH
Tonight, Easter Sunday, I just finished the lengthy process of color correcting Claustrophobia. An example is to the left - as you can see, even the "corrected" version isn't perfect: I have found that Final Cut Pro's color correction tools aren't quite as exacting as my dear Photoshop's are. But then, I've also used Photoshop professionally for 11 years, so maybe I just understand it better. In any event, any inconsistencies between lighting or color across various shots have been smoothed out.

Christopher Farrell is basically done with his score, and I must say, his music is spectacular, certainly far and beyond what would ordinarily be expected of a film with such a modest budget. Ronnie Kimball's painstaking work cleaning up sound and adding effects should pay off soon, too: our final sound mix is next weekend - on my 33rd birthday. Meanwhile, I hired my old friend William Lebeda (I get to call him Bill) to design the titles for the film. Bill rules. He did the titles for my first film as well as for some other little movies like Panic Room, Signs, Hollow Man and The Sixth Sense. So I feel like a real hotshot now.

On top of all that, I was contacted by a pair of producer's representatives a couple of weeks ago. A producer's rep is best described as an "agent for movies" - they help sell films and get a commission from every sale. It's a better idea than trying to sell this movie on my own, and right now better than most distributors. They seemed to have liked the Claustrophobia rough cut to the degree where they will want to work with me, but time will tell. So anyway, including the news that I found a nice new house a mile north of my current place (which I will soon have to vacate) and was just invited to a film festival in Norway this August, everything is going very well. Oh, except for my being taken to small claims court on Tuesday. I have a new maxim for all budding producers out there: If you make a film, expect at least one lawsuit.

F E B R U A R Y   1 7 ,   2 0 0 3

A GAGGLE OF ACTIVITY
It's strange. On a day-by-day basis, I still find myself having a lot of free time, enough to occasionally mope about how busy I'm not. But then, when I think about everything that's been happening over the past three weeks, it's pretty remarkable. First of all, my editor and I achieved picture lock. This means we have completely finished cutting the visual part of the film, so that my composer and sound editor can safely work with the movie knowing that I won't be monkeying around with the cut in the meantime. That's the other news: I now have a composer and a sound editor. Christopher Farrell, who did the amazing score for my first film Foreign Correspondents, agreed to come back on board to score Claustrophobia. So I'm excited about that. And I have a great sound editor named Ronnie Kimball, whose background ranges from sound editing "The Young and the Restless" to being the live sound mixer for punk band Bad Religion. An interesting guy.

Today is a historic day, as far as that first feature of mine, lovingly nicknamed ForCor, is concerned, for it was four years ago today that the film was finished and premiered. And now, four years later, it looks like it is finally getting sold to video stores. The film's producer Julia Stemock gave me the good news last week. Now, frankly, I've heard so much "good news" which amounted to nothing that my standard reaction to it has become "yeah, sure." But this time it looks like the real deal. You could have knocked me down with a feather.

This comes at an oddly appropriate time. The day I started working with Chris Farrell - February 4 - I also went out to lunch with a girl I'd dated not long after the premiere (she's married now), and while at lunch I ran into ForCor star Corin Nemec! It was a real 1999 flashback. Also recently I finally broke even on the money I paid to have the ForCor videos and DVD's made. Now that that's out of the way, any money that comes in from now on will be divided amongst the film's investors. Which is funny because I had gotten to the point where I was telling investors "Hey, we did our best - don't expect to see any money ever." I should say that more often. And speaking of which, I just got an investor for Claustrophobia! This was a voluntary investor, as I wasn't looking for any money, but I'm not going to tell him no. It's certainly welcome.

J A N U A R Y   2 7 ,   2 0 0 3

SUNDANCED
Well, I went to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah for the first time. It was all right. I wasn't really there to "shop my projects around" since it's not like there are distributors sitting in chairs lined up and down Main Street, just waiting to pull out their checkbooks to help out the first charming filmmaker they take a shine to. No, I went there basically because I've been knocking Sundance for years and felt like a hypocrite to bash it without having been there, experiencing the whole thing. And I wanted to see some of the movies. Though I wasn't that taken with the festival's programming, I met a lot of nice folks while waiting in line (many of them, surprisingly, just Salt Lake City movie lovers who trek into town every year to sample the wares) and found some new friends in the strangers who drove me to and from Utah. There were also a lot of interesting film people with whom I shared a condo (though some of them were a bit obsessive about their careers). But the best part was simply running into old friends and hanging out with them.

Here's my advice: Attend Sundance once. It's fun. However, there's no need to go again unless you have actual business there. You'll find lots of lines to wait in, a bunch of lookee-loos swarming around any party on Main St. that has stars in attendance, more non-Sundance film festivals than you can shake a stick at (though Sundance definitely rules Park City with an iron fist), and the usual stuff you see in a ski resort town: snow (much of it peed in), overpriced restaurants and little chalets. I suspect there isn't nearly as much "networking" as everybody thinks. The parties are mainly about people trying to a) get in, b) see celebs, and c) score free drinks.

Meanwhile, I'm relieved to finally have the Claustrophobia poster voting section up and running, and oh - Marc Wade and I tweaked the rough cut a bit last Saturday, so I think it's safe to say that I now have a final cut! At least visually. And Marc, who still works at my ex-employer Paramount Pictures, screened the rough cut to 10-12 former coworkers, all of whom enjoyed it. That's encouraging.

Copyright © Mark Tapio Kines 2008