CinematogReel

Now, the 2nd Demo Reel of mine has been posted at YouTube (and thus, at this website), this time for Cinematography. It's worth celebrating with a shout: Hooray!

The thing that always takes awhile with these projects isn't necessarily the choice of what clips to put in 'em, but composing the musical soundtrack for them. I never want the reason the demo reel can't be shown merely to be due to an unoriginal musical piece, and I like to write music! It can just take awhile. This soundtrack was particularly experimental in that there are 7 beats per measure...

Ah hell, here's the 1st Demo Reel, for Directing, to boot!

Plans of Big Bear Lake

Entering any festival can be tedious with all the paperwork to fill out, but by using Withoutabox to do all of that for At the Core, it was ten times easier than it could have been. Also because of it, Thomas Productions has another entry at IMDb.

As such, I've been planning out future movies that, too, could be "festivized" through Withoutabox... One that I'm still hoping to retouch a bit is The Nightmare. It's generally okay in terms of editing, but I'd like to work some more on the visual effects and the musical score. Once that's completed, I'd like to send that to the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival for 2010!

I wouldn't have to enter it any sooner than January, so I have some time to work on it. Big Bear is significant to me because it's the town in which I was born, but never really lived beyond the first six months of my life... It's time to revisit.

2NuGPixPgs!

Over the past 10 days, starting before my technical difficulties arose, I began incorporating Lytebox while creating two new GPicturama pages! It was about time, too, since there haven't been all that many pics pages yet this year.

The first one (for July 10th's entry) displays moments from a recent trip of mine to Marina State Beach with my girlfriend, Kory. It was during my extended visit at her place at some point during the July 4th weekend, but not actually on that date.

The second one (for July 20th's entry: today's) conveys two more Thomas Productions films unfolding! The Production Photos from both Abrupt (2005) and Scenes from Being John Malkovich (2006) are shown there. They don't yet reflect on those movies' official pages yet, but they're slowly comin' together in a world without GoLive. Check 'em all out!

New Technical Difficulties

This past week, I've been having some new technical difficulties arise, and it's caused me to lack the ability to currently use my regular computer. What's basically seemed to happen is that the motherboard of my Mac laptop has died, though (luckily) my files are still untouched.

So, I'm using an alternate machine at the moment, and I'm hopeful (to put it mildly) that my malfunctioning machine will be fixed in a short timespan. *Sigh*

Update 7/20: Things have been fixed! Yay!

Commercial Update

News from Gizdich Ranch today! Slightly bittersweet, but an overall positive outlook. I say bittersweet because the commercial has yet to air. However, this is not because it didn't work; in fact, what is great is that its MiniDV format ended up being perfectly acceptable by the station, KSBW, in place of a BetaSP tape. The reason it hasn't aired yet is that the ranch determined the commercial would be best to start airing in the fall.

So, it's merely postponed. Heck, it might even be airing around the time of the Mill Valley Film Fest! We'll update again on this topic once more news is heard!

NDB+IMDB

For the first time ever, our Names Database is now accessible from the Home Page in a way it was never before. Now, it can appear from the Quick Links at bottom right, and will appear over the entire page! This is much better than before, where it was the last remaining object of the site to open in a separate window, despite the fact that it would no longer open its links back in the original window.

Aside from that, the Names Database now offers links for every name that also appears on the Internet Movie Database! Some names have already earned additional credits working on projects other than Thomas Productions, and it's feasible anyone can continue doing that very thing today. The quantity of names here that have an IMDb entry is quite amazing, actually, as most if not all of them were created through this site (thanks to The Dog of Pompeii, The Last Kiss, and At the Core)!

Did the Trick

Just as the June 23rd News Blog entry suggested, giving Composer Michael Neverisky a Special Thanks credit for At the Core on IMDb.com was successful, as he now has his own individual page to represent himself there. Yay!

Now, I'm trying to link that page to his name on the movie's soundtrack listing, but as with this Special Thanks project, if I give it some patience, I will hopefully get my wish.

Upgrades Time

Two things over the past few weeks have spawned room for improvement, so here is the announcement of their upgrades.

First, the appearance of each of the tabs on the main page has a slightly different, more 3D glimmer to them. They used to merely look shaded gray, but now, they look so much better! It's subtle, but an improvement.

Second, there have been troubles over the past few months using Lightbox with GPicturama, getting it to work just right. Well, now, I've discovered Lytebox. Now, things are working just fine! I've not touched up any previous works, but I'm working on a soon-to-appear GPicturama entry, and the problems I was having with Lightbox do not appear with Lytebox. Three cheers to that!

3rd Site, Part II

So far, with the exception of a single pop-up window that was not a repeat occurrence, this 3rd site experiment is working well. Thus, I've decided to put the "Z site," aka Garett's Moving Ratings [and more], into the new location as well.

This includes the start of my Oscar Predictions for 2009, complete with a new design that works a bit better than last year's did, however creative it was. I've mentioned in a previous News Blog entry some possible nominees for Best Pic, but lately, there's been a LOT of buzz for Kathryn Bigelow, the Director of The Hurt Locker. Not only is she from San Carlos (the town I grew up in), but she also happens to be an ex-wife (prior to Linda Hamilton) of James Cameron (think Titanic).

Anyhow, her film is getting rave reviews, and she herself is getting serious talks about becoming the 4th female to become a Best Director Oscar nominee. Three cheers from a fellow San Carlan!