First Female, Pt. 1

Wahoo! The Hurt Locker is on a role! Its director, Kathryn Bigelow, became the first woman in history last night to win the top award from the Director's Guild of America.

All but 6 previous winners of this top DGA award, for the past 61 years, then also went on to win the Academy Award for Best Director.

All I know is, this is awesome. A filmmaker from San Carlos has won the top award from the DGA, and she's the first person in history to be female to do it.

Big Bear Fare

The deed is done: Journey of the Mind has been submitted to the festival in my birthtown of Big Bear Lake!

So far, I've always entered things into festivals through the Earlybird Deadline, which provides the least expensive submission cost. For this particular festival, however, the festival itself is in September, but their Earlybird is in January, eight months prior -- more than half a year! Just sayin'...

Now, 'bout to get 2 Vimeo uploads through Pen TV, hopefully in the next week!

Take That, Avatanic

Just when the little movie that could seemed to have lost its spark at the GGs last week, it was selected as Best Picture of the Year by the Producers Guild of America! The Hurt Locker was chosen BY PRODUCERS, not just a selection of foreign journalists. Actual producers made this choice. Wahoo!

During the Screen Actors Guild Awards the day before, the Best Ensemble award went not to THL, but to Inglourious Basterds. Hrm... For the SAGs, Avatar wasn't even nom'd, but for the PGAs, it was and still lost to Bigelow's film. THL is back, baby.

Barely a week 'till Oscar noms come out, on Feb. 2nd!

Checkoffs Begin!

It's a belated list, but here are 10 items that Thomas Productions intends to accomplish during 2010:

1. Submit Journey of the Mind to at least one festival (√)
2. Have at least one more project entered onto IMDb (√)
3. Complete Editing of Alex and Mike's Alaskan Cruise by February (◊)
4. Create Everyone and Their Mother by April, submit to CurrentTV in time for Mothers Day (◊)
5. Submit at least one project to Vimeo (◊)
6. Finish reediting of Brave New World (◊)
7. Touch up The Nightmare, submit to undetermined festival
8. Create new[er] logo for Thomas Productions
9. Start creating another widescreen movie (possibly Hitchcock Road, possibly in HD?)
10. Complete Demo Reel for VFX

What's great about this list is that some items (√) have already been checked off! Everything that was completed occurred after the new year started -- some things even in the past week. For instance, Journey of the Mind is now officially recognized by IMDb, starting yesterday!

Other items on the list are well into being started or planned (◊), such as Brave New World, for which the redigitizing of all remaining footage has officially been completed. For Vimeo, permission was granted by Pen TV to post both At the Core and Journey of the Mind online through their website, since both projects have now aired on their channel.

Then, some listed items have not been started yet, though there are samples like the above YouTube video (made years ago for a class) that continue to influence my future decisions. Thennn, there are unlisted items that are sure to continue, including more YouTube posts, further site tweaks, continued searching for theatrical possibilities, a neverending quest for monetary donations, activities of an unplanned nature, and more!

Big Dog

What a crazy few nights it has been. Prior to tonight, The Hurt Locker seemed it was the prize winner-to-be, winning everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) in its path regarding picture and director. Last night specifically, it won those awards at the Critics' Choice Awards. Tonight at the Golden Globes, however, Avatar unexpectedly (even James Cameron claimed he wasn't expecting this) took those prizes.

I still think there's a good chance for Bigelow's THL, considering that the GGs are not the best indicator of who will win at the Academy Awards. Such recent Oscar-winning films as No Country for Old Men (2007), The Departed (2006), Crash (2005) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) also did NOT win GGs for Best Picture -- Crash was not even nominated!

I think they chose Avatar for the win here in order to help further solidify the film (and its sci-fi status) as a prominant Oscar nom for Best Pic. It will certainly be a tech marvel, but its dialogue reeked of flatness that not even 3D glasses could save.

On a different note, Part 1 of The Dog of Pompeii (1999) surpassed the 4,000 views benchmark on YouTube today! It currently holds 4,004, and is our second project to do this. Additionally, Xena Thomas, my deceased border collie who portrayed Zeus in the movie, has finally earned her credit online at IMDb. It only makes sense for the title character to be credited!

SF Shorts Fest

Last night, I officially entered Journey of the Mind into the San Francisco International Festival of Short Films through Withoutabox. Today, I mailed off the DVD, the only necessary physical piece.

I still plan to send it to Big Bear as well, but should this make it into either festival, the likelihood I can attend is far greater in SF! Regardless, if it at least makes it into consideration in either, you can bet your behind that another IMDb entry is on the way!

Keep Hap'nin'

Two recurring things are continuing for Thomas Productions. First, another of our documentaries, At the Core, is finally getting airtime on television! Specifically through Pen TV, it begins to be broadcast tomorrow during In the Mix, which specifically airs at the following times: 4:30 pm M/W/Th/F, 2:30 & 6 pm Sat, 3 pm Sun. Journey of the Mind will most likely continue to be broadcast during then as well.

Then, on YouTube, Scenes from Being John Malkovich has surpassed 5,000 views! With 5,008 views at current, that project keeps passing thousand after thousand, quicker and quicker. Also, My Teachers Are Aliens and The Last Kiss each just passed the 900 mark (with 913 and 904 views, respectively). We're nearing another 4,000-milestone, with Part 1 of The Dog of Pompeii (with 3,922), and another 400-milestone, too, with Part 1 of Three Shorts... (with 375).

'Bout to continue entering festivals... More on that soon!

Sesquicentenniblog

That's gotta be a term for you -- sesquicentennial, that is. For those that don't know, it defines an anniversary of 150 years. While nobody has stuck around for one of those that long in marriage (nor life), there are still those that exist for other reasons -- California's occurred just 10 years ago, back in 2000, when the state became that old. This blog certainly isn't that old (nor is the internet itself), but my alteration of the term in the title hopefully indicates to you that this is the 150th blog entry!

As such, there's some happy news and some sad news to give out, before celebrating. Starting with the sad news: our entry, Journey of the Mind, unfortunately did not make it into the different from what? film festival. It was good, however, that we were let down easily with an email that still praised the project. It's soon to get entered into yet another festival or two; can't determine if Big Bear or SF Short Fest would work better, or if I should just do both! I'd like to get The Nightmare out, too, but I need to ramp it up if I want to tweak it.

Now, the happy news: through using Withoutabox, I've figured out not only how to upload movies to IMDb, but how to do it for movies that have long existed on IMDb without incorporating Withoutabox at the start! In other words, you can now view The Last Kiss in its entirety from IMDb! I've remastered the sound, and slightly altered the contrast levels of the visuals. I may do this for The Dog of Pompeii in the coming months...

Finally, the celebration of 150! What isn't more celebratory than the choices for #1 movie of the past year by A.O. Scott & Michael Phillips on At the Movies?

BTW, Ebert's #1 choice apparently was The Hurt Locker, but that was only learned through its placement of #2 on his best of the decade list, since his yearly picks now aren't ranked. THL was also high on Scott's & Phillips' lists, at #2 & #4, respectively. Let's go, Bigelow, let's go! (Whoo! Whoo!)

Happy New Yearandaday!

Happy New Year-and-a-Day! Not a big message this time; just enjoy the moment, and maybe our latest entry at GPicturama, too, which glorifies riding a ferry boat out of San Francisco!