Paul Ben-Victor in a “CSI” Rerun Tonight

I’m on my lunch break, so I need to make this quick, but I wanted to let everyone know that Paul Ben-Victor has a guest role on tonight’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.  It’s a rerun, but if you haven’t seen it yet (like me), then you might want to tune in and watch this very talented actor do his thing.

It airs at 8:00 p.m. PT on Spike TV, and the name of the episode is entitled “Killer.”  Needless to say, if you live in a different time zone, check your local listings for the correct time.

The Search for the Man in Red

Mike McCafferty and company are at it again.  This time they invade a shopping mall.  Their mission?  To find the man in red, who isn’t what he claims to be, before they get thrown out by mall security. 

The result of their endeavour is called Store Trek: The Wrath of Klaus

Check out the two versions and watch our heroes try to save an entire civilization from being consumed by mirth and merriment. 

Short Version 

Extended Version

“Larva” Airs on Sci Fi Tomorrow

The Sci Fi Channel’s creature feature, Larva, will be airing tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. Eastern/Pacific time.  (Be sure to check your local listings as it airs as early as 8:00 a.m. in some areas.)

Larva stars Vincent Ventresca as a vegetarian veterinarian (I dare you to say that fast three times) who discovers that the town’s meat supply isn’t exactly safe for consumption.  Bet he’s glad he’s a vegetarian; and you might want to become one too after watching this film.  The movie is a mix of science fiction and horror and if you’ve missed it in the past, now is your chance to see it and squirm. 

Larva is also available on DVD and can be purchased at Amazon.com, as well as rented from Netflix.

For you filmmakers, here’s an article on Kodak’s site about how cinematographer Stephen Lighthill achieved the look of the film:

Larva – How Stephen Lighthill ASC Painted One Scary Story

Okay, I think I’ll go have a nice juicy steak now.

10 Day Take

Do you have a great idea for a TV show?  Would you like the opportunity to go to Hollywood to produce it?  Well, then, you might want to consider entering Ziddio’s 10 Day Take contest.

The winner gets flown out to Hollywood for 10 days and is given a budget of $50,000 to produce their TV pilot, as well as access to a team of experts and execs to help with the shooting.

Now, $50,000 is peanuts when compared to Hollywood’s budgets, but what an experience that could be and, who knows, it might even open up some doors and start a career for a budding filmmaker.

Even if you’re not interested in entering the contest, you’ve got to watch the first video.  Doesn’t that remind you of a certain Fry’s Trek experience? 

Lights, Camera, Action!

So last night finished up a directing class that I’ve been taking at a local community college.  We got together and had a screening where we got to watch our work and, afterward, a guest speaker, who is a local production coordinator, talked about budgeting.

During the course of the class each of us had to choose a scene from a script, break it down, create a shot list, and storyboard it.  Let me tell you, I couldn’t draw if my life depended upon it, so it was stick figures for me!  We learned about casting calls, but I missed the day they talked about acting and working with actors. 

Then each of us got to play director and shoot our chosen scenes.  We were running short on time so I opted out of directing my scene.  I don’t have any plans to be a director, but my classmates do so I figured they would need the experience more than me.

But, low and behold, we were short on actors, so guess who got recruited into the job?  Now, the only thing I’ve ever done in front of an audience is public speaking and dancing.  Acting was a totally new experience for me.  But it was interesting to get a small taste of what an actor does:  memorizing lines, repeating the same lines and actions over and over again for each take, taking direction from the director, keeping my movements smaller for closeups.  Actually, when I think about it, there are some similarities to public speaking and dancing.  So would I ever want to be an actor?  Heck, no.  Even though I got compliments on my acting, it was downright painful watching myself at that screening last night.  Nope, no acting for me.  I’ll do the world a favor and remain behind the scenes.

Getting past the pain of watching myself, it was a good learning experience to watch the scenes that we shot.  The teacher pointed out mistakes that are typical for a beginner director.  A few that I can remember off the top of my head are: 

  • In one shot the framing was off and there was too much air space above the actors’ heads.
  • Another time, the actors weren’t blocked properly and it looked like the actress was on the head of one of the actors.  Also, there was no continuity and sometimes the actress was in the shot and sometimes she wasn’t.  It not only looked strange, but the whole reason for the shot lost its meaning without her.
  • The funniest was seeing the fuzzy fur-covered microphone at the top of the shot and one of the lights over to the side.  Oops…another framing mistake.

So maybe by now you’re wondering why I took a directing class even though I have no plans to be a director.  Well, producers have been described as generalists.  They need to know a little about each job, but they don’t have to be experts in those jobs.  But they need to know enough to be able to hire the right people and budget for those jobs. 

So far I’ve taken classes in scriptwriting, lighting and cinematography, directing, film production, and early film history, among others.  Since I’m new to this, I’ve got the double job of keeping the project moving forward while I keep my education moving forward.  I’m always in the middle of reading of a book or two and when one class finishes, I start looking for my next class.  Fortunately for me, I love learning, and this is a job where the learning never stops. 

Joel Bissonnette in This Week’s “Standoff”

I’m really sorry to post this announcement after the fact, but I didn’t find out about Joel Bissonnette’s (Arnaud De Fehrn) guest appearance in Standoff until after the show was over.  Literally five minutes after the show was over, I found out.  And, yes, I missed it.

The good news is that you can go to Standoff’s MySpace page and watch the episode there on demand.  It should be up for three weeks.  How cool is that?

On another note, remember Jonathan Glassner?  To refresh your memory, he was one of two executive producers who came on board after Matt Greenberg left I-Man.  Well, he’s now working as Co-Executive Producer/Director on Standoff.  Interesting how so many I-Man alum end up working together again on different shows. 

If you enjoy the behind-the-scenes stuff, then you gotta check out this cool video in which Glassner takes us through the making of an episode of Standoff

Oh Where, Oh Where Have Our DVDs Gone? Oh Where, Oh Where Can They Be?

Credit for this topic goes to Laura, who made the suggestion that I talk about I-Man DVDs.  Thanks, Laura! 

The subject of I-Man DVDs has been a source of frustration to I-Man fans for a long time, especially if you live in the U.S. or Canada, because, as you most likely already know, as of this date, no DVDs have been made for Region 1 (U.S. and Canada).  And since it isn’t currently airing in the U.S. or Canada that makes it tough for people who have never seen the show to get familiar with it.  Just the other day I had a meeting with a local director at a coffee shop.  He knows what project I’m working on, was curious about The Invisible Man, and wanted to check the show out.  I had to explain to him, just as I explain to everyone else who asks, that not only is the show not currently airing, but, also, no DVDs exist for it in this country.  You can bet that I would have loved to tell him that he could run down to the local Suncoast or Wal-Mart and pick up season one and two of this cool little show, but, alas, I couldn’t.  Frustrating indeed. 

Will we ever get I-Man DVDs here in the U.S. and Canada?  Well, that’s anybody’s guess.  As of this date, I haven’t heard any news that suggests that we will see them any time in the near future. 

Back when Ian Atkins was working on the U.K. DVDs, the foreign video distribution rights were owned by a South American company called America Video Films.  While I haven’t looked into it, it’s possible that the company still owns those rights.  The fact that they advertise I-Man on their site leads me to think that is a strong possibility.  If you go to their website (http://americavideofilms.com/) and do a search for “invisible man” by title, you’ll find a blurb written about the show as well as a trailer that you can watch.  The trailer emphasizes the drama and angst, but leaves out the humor, giving viewers a rather lopsided impression of the tone of the show, but it’s still fun to watch.

I gotta tell you that if I wasn’t tied up with this movie project right now, I’d love to take on trying to get I-Man DVDs produced in this country.  But maybe some other enterprising fan will take on the project the way Ian Atkins did in the U.K.

There is so much more to cover on this subject, but I’m going to save that for future posts.  Stay tuned because I’ll be talking about which countries have DVDs and where they can be ordered, after all, this site is visited by readers from around the world.  I’ll, also, explain regions for those of you not familiar with them, and identify some region-free DVD players. 

If anybody has any info on I-Man DVDs that they want to share with everyone else, please drop me a line so that I can include it in future posts.