Important Mailing List News

Hey, folks!  It’s been ages since I’ve blogged.  It certainly wasn’t what I had planned but, sometimes, unpleasant stuff hits the proverbial fan.  I’m going to go more into that and catch everyone up on all the latest movie news in my next post, but for now I just want to talk about the mailing list.

I haven’t wanted to deal with the new mailing list for ages because it has turned out to be a royal pain.  I had tons of trouble with the list after spending hours entering your email addresses into it.  So I made a tough decision and decided to delete everyone’s email addresses from the mailing list, with the exception of those who signed themselves up, because I know those work.

This now means that you will have to sign yourselves up manually.  Trying to do it the other way, unfortunately, didn’t work.  I apologize for that.  I know this means that I may be losing some of you from the mailing list, but I hope you’ll consider signing up as this will be the last email I send to the old mailing list. I’ve got lots of exciting news about the movie project coming up and I’d love for you to be part of it.

To subscribe, please go to the home page at www.shoomzone.com and scroll down a bit.  You’ll see the sign-up form on the left side of the page.

 

 

Treatment Update and Important Mailing List News

Treatment Update

I’ve been really quiet on the blog for a while because I’ve been putting my focus on writing the treatment.  Here’s a bit about the writing process:

Each time I go through the treatment, I’ll go back over what’s already been written and clean up anything that needs to be fixed.  Then I’ll usually write another page or two.  After that, I hand it off to Shawna who looks at the old stuff again and the new pages and gives me her thoughts and edits.  It may be a slow way of working, but it is making the older pages better and better.  And while Shawna is working on it, I’m thinking about where I want to go with the next scene or two.  I know how the story is ending.  It’s just mapping out how to get there.

The treatment is getting a lot more detail this time around, which I think will help the script writing go a bit easier.  It reads more like a short story than a dry synopsis, which is what it should do.  Synopses are short matter-of-fact summations of a story…basically a condensed version of the plot.  Whereas, treatments are more entertaining—like a story.  Writers use treatments to sell their screenplays to producers.  But in this case, I’m using the treatment to get the details of the story worked out; and then I’ll use it to get cast and crew on board until the screenplay can be finished.

One of the many challenges with this story is making sure that all five of the main characters (played by Vince, Paul, Eddie, Shannon, and Mike) serve a real purpose in the story.  I don’t want any of their characters to be throw-away characters, like Eberts was in The Invisible Man.  As much as we loved Eberts (and there was even an episode about The Importance of Eberts), in reality, the producers could have easily taken the character out of the series and it wouldn’t have hurt the storyline.  I think it’s to Mike’s credit that he connected with the fans early on and endeared himself and his character to us.  By doing this he assured his continuation on the series, even becoming a series regular in season two.  So I really want to make sure that Mike’s character has a role that is vital to the story and I think we accomplished that.

How fortunate for the Veronica Mars fans that Warner Brothers is willing to bring back their show in the form of a movie, even if the fans have to fund it themselves.  I wish Universal had been as cooperative with The Invisible Man.  Instead, I was turned down flat.  Of course, I was not the show runner, so that gives me considerably less pull with them.  In spite of all that, I’ve always kept in mind that this movie is first and foremost for I-Man fans.  While I can’t copy I-Man, I’ve definitely been using it as inspiration.  I’m hoping that this story will be so good that it will get past any disappointment you may have that it’s not I-Man.  Just to be able to see the cast together again will be such a treat!

This last pass through, I ended up writing five new pages and I’m really happy to say that we are sitting right smack at the beginning of act three, the final act!  The end is so close, I can taste it.  I can’t wait until I’m able to share this story with all of you!

Mailing List News

Some of you observant ones may have noticed that there is an email sign-up form on the front page of my website as well as the Shoom Zone Facebook page.  It’s actually been there a few months.  I’ve been experimenting with a new mailing list service so I really didn’t want to say anything about it until I got the kinks worked out.

The mail service has a cool feature that allows one to split up the mailing list by interests.  I really like the idea, but in practice it was a pain in the neck, so I removed that feature.  I apologize to those of you who signed up already and specified their interests because this means that you will now be getting all my blog posts by email, not just the ones that match your interests.  Although I feel that I need to be blogging more, even at this blog’s busiest, you shouldn’t be inundated with email.  And if a subject doesn’t interest you, you can always delete the email.

My plan is to move everyone from the old mailing list over to the new one within the next month or so.  If you want to go ahead and sign up now, please feel free to do so.  You’ll be able to choose whether you want html, text, or mobile format.  If you don’t sign yourself up, your default will be html.

I won’t sell, rent, or share your email address with anyone except in rare cases as spelled out in the privacy policy.  Please read it if you have any concerns.  Your privacy is important to me.  I don’t like it when someone else abuses my trust and I won’t do it to you.  If you have any questions about it, please feel free to ask by posting a question below or contacting me via the contact form.

Click here to sign up for the mailing list and enjoy the convenience of getting blog posts in your email.

Mike in “Operation Cupcake”!

Heads up, everyone!  Mike McCafferty will be starring in the upcoming Hallmark Channel movie Operation Cupcake!  It premieres this coming Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

We all know that Mike has a heart of gold, but here he’ll get to play the bad guy.

The movie also stars Dean Cain, Kristy Swanson, and Donna Pescow.

If you miss it, don’t fret.  Operation Cupcake will have an encore at 10:00 p.m. as well as a few other times.  Just check the new event calendar right here on Shoom Zone for the times; and don’t forget to factor in your own time zone because I’m on Pacific Time here in California.

Be sure to check out the preview video on the Operation Cupcake website page to catch a sneak peak of Mike in action.  This looks like it’s going to be a fun movie!

 

A Brand New Look

If you haven’t looked at Shoom Zone’s website in a while, go check it out.  It has a new fresh look!

As much as I liked the previous header picture, it didn’t fit anymore.  So I replaced it with not one picture, but fifteen…all from the shoot we did a few months ago.  To see all of them simply keep refreshing the page.  The pictures randomly rotate.

The front page is configured quite differently too.  There’s a top feature section and only one full post after that is visible.  The other most current posts are links below that.  You can click on one at a time to read them; or you can click on the Blog link in the side menu to see all the posts sequentially.

Take a look around.  I hope you like it!


Dockers Contest Update

I just got back from a meeting with a director friend of mine.  I’m very happy to say that she has agreed to direct my video submission for the Dockers contest!  Dockers requires that the entrants that make it into the next round submit either a video and/or photos as well as a written essay.  When round one ends contestants are given only ten days to get their submissions in.  That’s not much time, so we’ve got to start now and pull this together very quickly even though I don’t know at this point whether I will make it into the top 50 or not.

This afternoon I typed up a first draft outline of my idea and gave her a copy.  We talked about locations versus a studio, equipment, scenes, actors, and the general look of the video.  She had some really great creative ideas that will save me some money.  Speaking of money, we’re going to have to keep the costs really low, but I’m still going to have to come up with some money to fund this, which is going to be a challenge since I’m broke right now.  So finding the funding is going to be my quest for the next few days.  Then I’m going to be making a lot of phone calls and getting prices on services and equipment.  That’s a bit backwards from the way it’s usually done, but necessary in this case.

You may be wondering where we are with regards to votes now that we’ve been at this contest for almost a week.  Well, we’re not quite where the numbers need to be yet.  As of this writing we have 40 people voting and 95 votes. 

I’ve been scoping out the competition…trying to get a handle on who the motivated players are.  Dockers says that they are supposed to be announcing the top scorers in the near future and I wish they would.  There are literally hundreds of entries and trying to check them all out is a huge task!  (Anybody want to volunteer to do that?)  But I can’t wait for whenever Dockers is going to get that list together.  I need to have some idea of where we stand in this competition.  So I spent several hours the other morning going through a ton of entries.  Not all, mind you, but enough to realize that there are some heavy hitters out there competing against us.

I counted 33 entries with numbers higher than ours.  So does this mean we’re safe and getting into the top 50?  No, not at all, because I didn’t look at all the entries.  There could be 17 entries with more votes than us that I haven’t seen yet.  So we are far from safe.  The number of votes of the top three contestants (that I saw) were 660, 788, and 901.  So we are really trailing behind.  Granted, they had a two-week head start on us, but we really need more voters and we need voters to vote every single day! 

Ideally, I want to be in the top five.  Since Dockers has made this a voting contest, it makes sense that being one of the top vote getters is going to be a factor in their judging.  They are most likely looking to back a project that is popular, among other things.  What’s really hurting us right now is that the I-Maniac Fan Club’s mailing list is broken.  There are over 1,300 fans on that list that aren’t hearing about this contest.  But can you imagine if they did and all started voting?  We’d blow everyone out of the water!  I’m working with the fan club president and trying to help get the mailing list fixed.  In the meantime, if you know any fellow I-Man fans, please let them know about this contest and that their help is urgently needed.  Be sure to send them the link to my entry.  I’ve placed the link to my entry right on the home page of the Shoom Zone website, so if you ever need to find it quickly, go to www.shoomzone.com.

Website Updates

If you haven’t visited the Shoom Zone Productions website lately, you should take a look around. It’s going through a complete overhaul. This has been needed for quite a while, but when my lawyer told me that I needed to get a privacy policy up on my website, I knew I would have to make a page for it and, well, it was time to give the site a much-needed facelift. So far, I have the blog done and the home page is getting close to being done.

I’ve had to reevaluate what kind of content I want on this site and have decided to separate out the Invisible Man content such as the fan artwork and the I-Manicon pictures.  Shoom Zone will continue to be the place where you can keep up with the movie project and get news on what the cast is doing.  But all the I-Man content will go back to The Invisible Man Online website.

After much thought on the matter, I found that I just didn’t have the heart to close the website.  But, if I was going to keep it, I needed to give the website an overhaul and make it easy to maintain.  So, I’m happy to unveil a whole new look for The Invisible Man Online!  The basic structure is there, but right now there are a lot of empty pages that need to be filled.  After I move over all the I-Man artwork and I-Manicon pictures, I’ll be slowly adding content to the site as time permits.  After all, the movie comes first!  However, I just wrote my first blog post on the site and I put out a call for help.  I’m hoping some fans will be willing to pitch in and help with the website.  If you can, please let me know.

We’re getting close to launching the contest and you’ll notice that the fabulous artwork of fan Kristy Seddon from Australia is already up on the homepage of this website.  The Terms and Conditions for the contest are done.  While I’m waiting for the privacy policy, I’ll be getting a web page ready for it and tweaking some of the contest rules.  We’re getting close!

Twists and Turns in the Road

Sometimes life can take unexpected twists and turns and that can especially be said about the film development process.   Back in January I told you that I was going to start writing a story reference guide (also called a story bible).  I estimated that I could get it done in a couple of weeks.  What I didn’t imagine is that I would still be writing it ten months later.  Boy, was my estimate off!  See, what I didn’t count on was getting into a seven-car pileup in February.  I couldn’t have imagined back then how much that would affect my life.  I know I already mentioned this back in March, but while the pain was starting to decrease, I didn’t know then that my sleep issues would continue all the way into July.  I’ve had six long months of feeling like a zombie.  Yeah, I felt like the walking dead…barely able to function and stay awake during the day because of being unable to stay asleep at night.  Let me tell you, being a zombie is highly overrated.  I don’t recommend it.  Needless to say, the film project came to a screeching halt.  I managed to attend some cool workshops and meetings, but that’s about it.  I can’t tell you how frustrated that made me feel.  But that was then and now I’m relieved to be feeling much better, and my energy is returning.  I’m getting back on track with the project.  Finally!  

Project Update

So let me catch you up on what’s going on.  I’m working on the story bible again and have most of the character bios and psuedoscience done.  As I make progress with it I’m seeing things that need be fixed in the treatment, so we’ll need to give the treatment another once over before it goes to the story analyst.  

Contest

I’m also working on something that will involve all of you—a contest!  Yep, I’ve got a cool little contest coming that I think you will like.  It involves you getting to name some of the characters in the movie!  Australian fan Kristy Seddon has created some darling artwork for the contest that I can’t wait to show you.   I’m editing the contest rules and my lawyer is just about finished with the Terms and Conditions section.  After I review everything and make sure that everything is correct, I’ll be posting it up on the blog.  So put your thinking cap on and start thinking of names!   

I-Manicon Update

As of the date of this posting, there are 16 people so far who want to see another I-Manicon happen.  One of them is Mike McCafferty (Eberts).  Mike wants to see another I-Manicon happen!  How about you?  If you support this idea, please go to the I-Manicon 2011 Facebook Page and hit the “Like” button.  Okay, I know the economy is tough right now, but I think we can do better than 16 people!  

Distribution Series

I have a series of articles coming up that I’m going to be writing for the United Filmmakers Association.  I’m going to be interviewing distribution companies.  This was supposed to start this month but, tragically, one of the sweetest little cats in the world fell ill and passed away suddenly.  I feel like I’ve lost a child.  It’s been a rough few weeks and I’m still not completely over it, but they say that time heals all wounds.  So this project has been pushed back a bit.  I have a lot of homework to do, in the form of studying the distribution process, before I can begin to ask distributors the right questions.  But I’m looking forward to the challenge.  Distribution is one of toughest and important challenges that producers face.

Facebook

Shoom Zone Productions now has a Facebook page!  So how about giving my page some love by hitting the “Like” button?
 
 
 
This blog is going to be getting busier in the future because there is a bunch of news that needs to be announced, so stay tuned!
 

Leila 2000 - 9/25/10. Taken from me too soon. I miss my sweet little girl.

Tweet Tweet Tweet

Sorry I’ve been so quite lately.  Last month my personal life took over and I spent most of my spare time working on my parent’s 50th anniversary/family reunion party.  It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work.  So I had to put aside working on the film project for a while and focus my attention on the party.  It went well, everyone had a good time, and it was great to see family that I haven’t seen in a while.  Now, I’m back to work on the movie.

I know I’m way overdue on giving all of you a project update and, I promise, that is coming in the near future.  For now, if you wish to follow more of my day to day tasks that aren’t really big enough for a full blown blog, you can follow me on Twitter.  Yep, I’m now Twittering!

https://twitter.com/shoomzone

You can also find the link on my blog under Get Free Updates.  Just scroll down a bit and you’ll see it on the left.