Tag Archives: I-Man

Paul in CSI:NY

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Paul Ben-Victor appeared in last week’s episode of CSI:NY.  I knew about it ahead of time, but forgot to tell all of you and for that I apologize.  The only excuse I can give is that I’ve been busy fixing my computer issues.  I had no choice but to replace my dying ancient 10-year-old computer and I’m now busy with my new one…so much to do yet, what with loading software and getting all my files moved over and organized.  But it feels great to have a computer that actually works!

So, while you may have missed out watching Paul on TV, you can still catch the episode, entitled “Party Down,” online at the official CSI:NY website.  I’m not sure how long they keep the episodes up, but I suspect it may only be for a week.  So if you want to watch it, I recommend you do so before Friday!

Official CSI:NY Website

Vince and Paul on “Las Vegas” Tomorrow

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If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching Vincent Ventresca and Paul Ben-Victor in the Las Vegas episode “Pros and Cons,” you’re in for a treat tomorrow.  This is the episode that Greg Yaitanes directed.  When Greg read the script and saw that it called for two lifelong buddies, he immediately thought of Vince and Paul.  And, of course, Vince and Paul nailed it and really impressed the producer, among others.  This episode really shows off that great chemistry and fun that we know and love so much from The Invisible Man.

In reviewing the season one DVD of Las Vegas this is what DVD Talk had to say about the episode.

A particularly great guest appearance comes in the episode “Pros and Cons” where Vincent Ventresca and Paul Ben-Victor are reunited in a hilarious turn as lifelong buddies who return to the Montecito once a year in a special tradition. It’s one of my favorite parts of the entire series, and it is so great to see them together once again.

Vince and Paul play Elliot and Michael, two whales with an unquenchable thirst for gambling.  TNT will be airing the episode tomorrow.  There are two airings here on the west coast:  one at 9:00 a.m. and the other at 12:00 p.m.  But be sure to check the listings for your area as they may vary from mine; and don’t forget to set your DVRs.

Thanks to Ed for giving us a heads up about this!

Contest Wrap Up

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The NAME THE MOVIE CHARACTERS CONTEST has now come a close after a run of eight weeks.  My does time fly!  I hope you all had fun! I want to give a big congratulations to our winners:

Rochelle Ramos for naming Eddie Jone’s character Sam Weber
Cheryl Johnson for naming the antagonist Sebastian Grey
Rochelle Ramos for naming Mike McCafferty’s character Lester
Carol Ward for naming Vincent Ventresca’s character Ethan

It’s not often that the opportunity to name characters in a movie comes along and now our winners will have those bragging rights; and Rochelle Ramos gets those bragging rights times two!  And if your friends and family don’t believe that you named that character, just show them your name in the credits.  That’ll vindicate you!  I’ll be contacting each of you winners in the very near future to sign a release form, so keep your eyes open for an email from me.

To everyone else who participated, thank you for your support and enthusiasm!  If you didn’t win this time, don’t fret.  There will be other opportunities in the future for you to participate and support the project.  I’m cooking up ideas all the time!

I, also, want to give my appreciation to my fellow judges:  Shawna Buchanan, Joyce Harrell, and Joan McCartney.  I couldn’t have done it without these wonderful ladies giving me a hand.  To keep it fair we each got an equal vote, which means that they had the power to outvote me.  But, we were actually pretty much in agreement most of the time.  (You think it might be because we are all fans of the same show? 🙂 ) 

A little about the voting process:  I first listed all the submitted names in an email to the  judges. (Towards the end that got to be quite laborious with the large number of entries that were submitted!)  Then everyone gave their opinions about the names.  That afforded us all an opportunity to get each other’s viewpoints, which was really useful because many times someone would make a point that the others hadn’t thought of yet.  Finally, I created a voting form (Again quite laborious with all those names!) and each of the judges voted for their favorites.  It was always majority rules with each name needing at least three votes to go to the next round, which is where all of you would make the final decision based on your votes.

So, Shannon Kenny’s character’s name, Tara, remains the same because of a tie that left the final decision with the judges.  But, not surprisingly, the question has been asked, what about Paul Ben-Victor’s character?  Don’t worry.  I didn’t forget about Paul’s character.  I just didn’t include his character in the contest because he already has a name that fits him perfectly and I think it would be a crime to change it.  Sorry to disappoint anyone who may have been  looking forward to naming Paul’s character!

Next Steps

So what’s next?  Well, I need to get some computer problems solved first before I’m completely without a computer.  Then I’ll be getting right back to work getting the story finished.  This means I need to finish the story bible.  After that I’ll be giving the treatment a very thorough going over and have my screenwriter make the changes.  Hopefully that will be the final edit before I send it to the story analyst(s).  

I’m, also, going to do some research in preparation for my series of interviews of distribution companies for the United Filmmakers Association.  That keeps getting pushed back, but once my computer problems are solved, I’ll be able to move forward with that.  

I’m looking forward to a productive year and really making some progress with this project!

 

Character #5 (Results)

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The voting has now come to a close for Character #5. I’m pleased to announce that the name that got the most votes for this character is Ethan!

Congratulations go to the winner, Carol Ward, for getting the most votes!  Carol not only named this character, but her own name will appear in the movie credits!

Character #4 (Results)

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The voting has now come to a close for Character #4.  I’m pleased to announce that the name that got the most votes for this character is Lester!

Congratulations go to the winner, Rochelle Ramos, for getting the most votes!  This is Rochelle’s second win!  She’s a tough competitor!  Rochelle not only named this character, but her own name will appear in the movie credits!

Character #5 (Voting Period)

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Now starts the Voting Period for Character #5!  The Judges discussed the pros and cons of each name and then voted on them.  Names were chosen by majority rule, which meant that a minimum of three votes were needed to move the names to the Voting Round.  In this round both names received three votes.  One of the names was submitted twice by two different people, but the rules say that the first person to submit a name gets the credit.  Congratulations to the two finalists who made it to this round! 

Now the naming of this character rests with all of you. It’s out of the Judges’ hands. It’s your decision.  Please take a minute to vote and show your support.  This is your last chance to vote for a character’s name!

Some reminders:

  • Be sure you are logged on to this Blog.
  • Each person gets only one vote, including the contestants who entered the contest and the finalists.
  • Enter your vote in the comments section (below) of this Blog post.
  • You have one week to enter your vote. The comments will be closed Monday, January 10, 2011, at 6:00 p.m. PT.
  • This is a popularity contest. The most popular name wins! So finalists are free to campaign if they wish.

In this round we are also including the current name of the character, Elliot, for you to vote on.  Both of the other names also start with the letter “E,” so it’s a battle of the “E” names!  Do you like the character’s current name or do you prefer one of the finalists’ character names?   You can only vote for one of them!

Elliot
Eric
Ethan

 

What I Learned This Year

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No matter what obstacles life throws in front of you, it’s important to keep persevering.  This past year has been an incredibly frustrating and stressful year for me.  My auto accident back in February kept me sidelined most of the year and I was unable to make any real progress on the film project.  Then my cat got sick and died.  When I finally got back to the project and decided to hold the NAME THE MOVIE CHARACTERS CONTEST, it took far longer than I anticipated to get the contest started due to circumstances out of my control.  I look back on the year and wonder what the heck I accomplished and it, unfortunately, wasn’t much.  This year has really tested my patience.  But I learned that I can get through those tough times and keep going.  I’m as determined as ever to get our wonderful cast together again and I look forward to actually making progress in the new year!

It’s important to start audience building as early as possible.  This past summer I attended a Jon Reiss workshop, sponsored by the San Francisco Film Society, entitled Think Outside the Box Office.  This workshop was named after Jon’s book of the same name.  While I had always thought that it’s important to build an audience early, Jon’s workshop was the first time I had ever heard anyone else say it.  Jon advocates starting to think about the distributing and marketing of one’s film from as early as inception.  A vital part of this is reaching out and growing the audience. 

It may seem counterintuitive to start at inception, especially when, traditionally, most filmmakers wait until after they finish the film to think about distribution and marketing.  But it really makes a lot of sense if you think about it.  Independent filmmakers don’t have the huge marketing budgets that the studios have to reach their audience, so anything indies can do reach and build an audience as early as possible will only help down the road when it comes time to market and distribute the film. 

Many of you have followed me from The Invisible Man Online website over here to Shoom Zone.  If there is anyone who wants to see our beloved cast together again, I know it will be I-Man fans!  So far, a small group averaging about 1,000 readers a month visit this site; and so many of you have been openly supportive and encouraging.  I can’t thank you enough for hanging in here after all this time.  But I, also, can’t assume that all of the audience of 10 million people around the world who watched I-Man will easily find out about this project or even be interested in it.  I’ve got my work cut out for me to reach all those fans and to even try to extend the audience to the general sci-fi/superhero audience.  I need to prove to investors and distributors that there is a big enough audience to justify the cost of making this movie.  But I can’t do it alone.  I’ll need your help to spread the word about this project.  In the future, I’ll be expounding more about ways you can help, but for now please check out the How Fans Can Help page for some ideas you can do that are absolutely free.  I recently updated it with new ways you can help out. 

Interviewing is a great way to learn about subjects.  I’ve already done one interview for the United Filmmakers Association and will be starting an interview series in the near future on distribution companies for them.  Prepping for the interviews is forcing me to start learning about the distribution process (a good thing) and then getting my questions answered means learning about the distribution companies.  It’s a fantastic education!

I already have my first interview lined up.  I’m just waiting to resolve some computer issues right now which are preventing me from downloading video.  Yes, I said video.  I recently bought myself a little Flip video camera which will allow me to shoot the interview.  So look forward to seeing more video in the future!  Now I need to learn to edit!

Don’t compromise on quality.  I’m a huge admirer of Pixar and was privileged to be able to visit the studio this past summer.  So what is it about this studio that makes them so successful?  I think the answer is in this quote I recently found:

“There is a crucial rule: no compromises. No compromises on quality – regardless of production constraints, cost constraints, or a deadline. If you get a better idea, and this means that you have to start again from scratch, then that’s what you have to do.” — John Lasseter, Pixar

A good thing to keep in mind as I develop this project!