Vincent Ventresca Co-Stars in “Break Point” and Talks “Invisible Man,” and a Dragon Con I-Man Panel This Weekend

Vincent Ventresca’s latest movie Break Point is out in theaters this weekend. Vince has a small role in it as Gary, the douchebag hair model boyfriend of Amy Smart’s character, Heather.

Hmm…I seem to remember Darien Fawkes from The Invisible Man also doing some hair modeling in his past.

Break Point stars Jeremy Sisto and David Walton.  It’s about two estranged brothers who reunite to make a run at a major tennis tournament. Here’s the trailer for the film.

In this scene, Gary meets David Walton’s character, Darren.

In this interview, Vince talks about the director, the writer, and the relationship between Gary and Heather.

Here’s some behind-the-scenes footage from the film.  Look closely and you’ll see Vince in a couple of scenes.

 

Break Point is getting a limited release this weekend in these cities.  It’s also available on VOD at iTunes and Amazon.

Rama’s Screen recently did an interview with Vincent, which you can read here.  I really love this interview.  Rama starts out revealing that he is an Invisible Man fan and that makes the whole interview even more fun, especially when he comments on the shirtless scene.  Vince gives all you VVSB’rs a shout out when he mentions the Vincent Ventresca Shirtless Brigade!

Vincent Ventresca shirtless in "Break Point"

Vincent Ventresca shirtless in “Break Point.”

But the best part of Rama’s interview was by far when he asked Vince if The Invisible Man could come back. Vince replies saying that he’s been talking about it with Matt Greenberg, the series’ creator.  He doesn’t really give us much information in the interview, but Mike McCafferty has hinted that something might be going on.

Although they are being tight lipped about it, the fact that, at the very least, discussions are taking place, makes the fan girl in me squee with delight.  As some of you may know, years ago I had an entertainment lawyer approach Universal so that we could start a dialog about the rights to The Invisible Man.  I got turned down flat.

My thoughts since have been that if The Invisible Man is to have any chance of coming back, it would most likely happen if the people involved in the making of the original series worked to make it happen.  And even for them, there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.  When it comes to the movie and TV world, getting anything made is hard.  Real hard.

But the fact that there is actually some kind of effort being put toward that goal is so freaking awesome.  How cool would it be to get the cast back in both The Invisible Man and my movie too?  To my knowledge, I don’t think anything like that has ever been done before.

In the interview, Vince mentions his hope for finding a bigger audience.  And that’s going to be vital to its success.  We already have a small loyal audience for the show, but it needs to grow.  With such a huge quantity of media clamoring for the audience’s attention nowadays, it’s hard to stand out and get noticed.  So, from a strategic point of view, getting both the show and a fan-produced movie made could be enough of a tipping point to get us known to the wider audience.

I know I’ll keep working on my end to help make that happen.

I-Man at Dragon Con

Lastly, but by no means least, in commemoration of the show’s 15th anniversary, there is fan-run Invisible Man panel happening this weekend at Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia!

The panel takes place tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m. in the Marriott hotel, room M303-M304.

If you’re attending Dragon Con this weekend, be sure not to miss it!

Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest: Contest Update

Can you believe the Super Bowl is tomorrow!?  Yep, tomorrow is the day that the two Doritos commercial contest winners are announced.  This will happen during the game sometime when they air the winning commercials.  Unfortunately, it won’t be one of our commercials because we didn’t make it into the finals.  I’m not really surprised.  There was some tough competition this year and there were plenty of commercials that were even better than ours that didn’t make it into the finals.

Overall, I would say we were in the top 20% of the commercials in terms of production value and story; although much of the story ended up getting cut because of time constraints and I think that really hurt us.  I really wish that we could have, at the very least, made it into the finals (and won $25,000) so that we could have paid everyone involved in the project.  This was an all-volunteer project.  Nobody got paid…from cast to crew.  Everyone took a chance with this project and it is greatly appreciated.  We couldn’t have done it without their combined talent.

Now I know I said that I would be talking more about the making of the commercial, and I will.  But because producing the commercial took me off my I-Man cast feature film project for several months, I felt it was more important to put my focus back on writing the treatment to get that project moving again.  Naturally, if we had actually gotten into the finals, I would have put my time and energy into promoting the heck out of the commercial and trying to get as many votes as we could so that we could win.  But since that didn’t happen, I switched priorities.

To all of you who have been supporting us in this contest, I want to give a big thank you.  It was because of you giving us five-star ratings that we were able to actually make third place in the popularity ratings for a short time!  It didn’t last long, of course, because everyone else was trying to get their ratings up too and they overtook us.  But it did get our commercial some attention; and that was one of my goals during that phase of the contest.

If you’ve been following the contest, you know that Doritos had a Nacho Awards contest earlier.  There were eight different categories and our commercial didn’t really fit any of them so we weren’t chosen to compete.  To watch the winners, go to the Doritos Facebook app and click Nachos on the “Sort By” drop down menu.

The Finalists

The following video is of Ali Landry introducing the five finalists, giving us some behind-the-scenes tidbits, and explaining how the contest works.

Tomorrow we find out who the two winners are!  Which commercials are you rooting for?

“Bad Actress”

Bad Actress is one of Vincent Ventresca’s latest films!  If you don’t recognize the name, that’s because it has changed.  You might remember it under its previous name 818.  I blogged about it here a while ago.

Check out the trailer…

Now we all get a chance to see Vince in Bad Actress!

If you’re fortunate enough to be in the Los Angeles area, you can watch it at a special screening Wednesday, April 25, 2012, at Laemmle’s Noho 7 in North Hollywood at 7:30 p.m.  And your ticket will get you into the after party at J.E.T. Studios!

Click here to purchase tickets

If you’re not in the LA area, don’t fret.  You can still watch the movie!  Here’s how:

Official Bad Actress Website


Craig Silverstein Named One of the Top 50 Power Showrunners for 2011!

We Invisible Man fans have always recognized the incredible talent of Craig Silverstein.  The I-Man episodes he wrote are always among our favorites.  He was even described as a young savant by one of the cast members (I forget which one.  Vince, I think?).  It’s been exciting to see Craig’s career skyrocket, although I have to admit that I would love to see Craig writing more I-Man.

Now Craig has been named one of the “Top 50 Power Showrunners 2011” by the Hollywood Reporter!  How cool is that?  It couldn’t happen to nicer or more talented guy.  Check out the write up in the Hollywood Reporter:

 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/craig-silverstein-247420

It’s hard enough to get one show on TV but, impressively, Craig has two shows currently on the air:  Nikita and Terra Nova!  Here’s a little bit of info about each of them.

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Nikita

The second season of Nikita is already underway. Craig is executive producer of the show and he’s been pretty active promoting the show.  He started giving us tidbits of info about the new season this summer during Comic-Con and the info keeps on coming. I’ve compiled a bunch of these recent videos from around the web of our favorite I-Man writer himself talking about Nikita.

Comic-Con Interviews

Comic-Con Panel

Craig Silverstein and Shane West

Episode Previews

Nikita airs Fridays at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central on the CW.  Be sure to check your local listings for the time and channel in your area.

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Terra Nova 

Craig also is an executive producer on the new sci-fi series, Terra Nova.  According to the Hollywood Reporter, he is credited with being one of the co-creators, although I’m not sure how much actual hands on day-to-day involvement he has with the series.

The sci-fi lover in me is really starting to enjoy this series.  Have any of you been watching it?  If not, you might want to give it a try.  It airs on Mondays at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central on FOX (again, check your local listings).

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2011 has turned into a very good year for Craig with two successful series concurrently on the air and being named one of the Top 50 Power Showrunners.

Congratulations, Craig!



Filming in San Francisco

Back in July I had the priviledge of listening to a presentation by Susannah Greason Robbins, the Executive Director of the San Francisco Film Commission.  The presentation was hosted by Renaissance SF, a group I belong to that is working to promote the arts in San Francisco.

In her speech Susannah talked about the state of filmmaking in San Francisco, the rebate program, and other perks and programs for filmmakers. Thankfully, her presentation was filmed, giving you the opportunity to listen to it if you are interested.  Her speech was split into two videos, which I’ve imbedded below.  Each video is about 30 minutes long.  (You can hear my voice briefly in the question and answer session near the end.)

It’s serendipitious for our feature film that I have set the story in San Francisco because, not only is it a beautiful city and conveniently close to where I am located, but, also, because San Francisco is one of only two cities in the state of California that has a rebate program for filmmakers.  If I get lucky enough to score the State’s rebate also, it could be a double win…and all without having to leave the state to get a tax rebate.

“In Plain Sight” Season 4 Starts Tomorrow!

Starting tomorrow, we get to enjoy watching Paul Ben-Victor back in the role of Stan McQueen on In Plain Sight!  Can you believe it’s already the fourth season?

To watch, tune in to the USA Network Sunday, May 1, at 10/9C.  Be sure to check your local listings for the channel and time in your area.

While you’re waiting, check out what Paul has to say about his character and the new season in this interview:

Paul Ben-Victor Interview


Moving Forward

If you’ve been keeping up with my Facebook or Twitter feeds, you know, unfortunately, that we didn’t make it into the finals of the Dockers contest. If you’re reading it here for the first time then, yeah, I’m disappointed too. I put a lot of work and money into that contest and I know you guys voted your little hearts out to get me into the semifinals, but those are the breaks.  Sometimes you win the battles and sometimes you don’t; but don’t believe for a minute that we’ve lost the war.

I’m reminded of something I heard several years ago regarding the film business: Expect to get 100 no’s for every yes.  If one isn’t able to deal with that, then they shouldn’t be in this business.

Like any good story the protagonist must overcome obstacle after obstacle, some of them seeming insurmountable, before reaching his or her final goal. This is just another obstacle in our story. The quest to reunite the cast of The Invisible Man lives on!

I have no regrets about the entering the contest.  I really don’t.  It was a wonderful (albeit exhausting) and much needed learning experience for me and I was able to show that, yes indeed, I can pull together a production.  There is only so much one can learn from books and classes.  One really needs to just get out there and do it.  As a result, I have footage that I can use for other purposes.  Yep, it won’t go to waste.  For example, I can re-cut it and use it to create a crowdfunding video.  Crowdfunding, in fact, is most likely the next step that I’m going to be taking in the future to raise the seed money I need to get this project off the ground.  I don’t have much of a choice.  I’m personally tapped out.  It’ll take me years to pay back that bank loan I took out to fund the video.

But first I need to finish the story.  It’s been sitting idle for far too long and my screenwriter has been infinitely patient with me as I dealt with reprecussions from my auto accident, holding the Name the Movie Characters Contest, my computer dying, and then entering the Dockers contest.  Now I really need to focus on getting the story done because no story…no movie. 

There is one advantage, however, to letting the story sit for so long and that is that I’ve had a long time to think about it.  There’s a bit of screenwriting advice that I heard once and that is that after you’ve written the first draft, put the story away for a month or two or six and then come back to it because, although it may seem perfect when you finished that first draft, you’ll really see its flaws after you’ve been away from it for a while.  I can really see the wisdom in that advice because I see flaws now that I didn’t see previously.  Scenes that I was absolutely in love with will have to go because they really don’t serve the story and its theme.  That’s hard, but it has to be done.

Before I tackle the treatment, however, I need to get the story bible done.  Getting the characters fleshed out, the pseudoscience in place, and the back story done are a vital foundation for the story.  It’s absolutely needed in order to keep everything consistent.

I promised you pictures and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of our video and I haven’t forgotten.  I just need to still get the pictures and footage.  I, also, wanted to wait until you actually got to see the video, which is now posted on Facebook and on the home page of this website.

So go watch it and tell me what you think.  If you like it great, but if not, tell me why.  I do appreciate constructive criticism.  How can I learn and grow as a filmmaker without it?!

The Waiting Game

Wow, it’s been an extremely hectic few weeks since I last updated you about the contest and my submission.  I didn’t mean to let my blogging updates go this long, but it’s been crazy busy.  Fortunately, things are starting to wind down a bit, although I’m still wrapping up loose ends from the shoot.  The cast’s and crew’s jobs may have ended already, but producers are still on the job long after wrap is called.  Yep, no rest for the producer!

I already posted the big news on Facebook and Twitter a few weeks ago, but have been too freakin’ busy to post it here so, if for some reason you haven’t heard the big news yet, here it is:  I am definitely a semi-finalist in the Dockers Wear the Pants contest! 

I have all of you to thank for that.  Seriously, I couldn’t have gotten this far without all of you who tirelessly voted for me daily for all those weeks.  You guys totally rock!  And I’m making sure to let the cast know that it was your support that got me into this position.  Fans from not only the US, but, also, the UK, France, Italy, Serbia, the Netherlands, the Ukraine, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, etc. all supported the project with their votes.  We are very much an international group!  How cool is that?!

So what’s next?

Well, according to the rules, Dockers should pick their top five by around April 6 or so and send them releases and other paperwork to fill out.  Now I haven’t heard anything from them yet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything at this point.  They’ve been running a few days late this entire contest, so I’m still holding out hope that I’m one of the top five.  The judges are judging the submissions based on the criteria of originality, creativity, and suitability to represent the Dockers Brand.  Based on what I’ve seen from the other contestants, I definitely have one of the top projects when it comes to originality and creativity.  As far as suitability to represent the Dockers Brand…well, that’s subjective and only the judges really know what they are looking for.

Now if I was a major company like Dockers, I would definitely be looking at projects that have the possibility of worldwide exposure, which this project has.  Movie audiences are worldwide and we already know that millions watched The Invisible Man around the globe.  Tapping into that audience by partnering with a movie could be a smart move for them. 

But is a sci-fi movie produced by a fan the kind of image they want?  Hard to say.  The video we shot definitely had more of a fun and humorous tone to it and I love it.  But in the back of my mind I keep thinking, are they looking for something with more of a cool sophisticated vibe?  Is what we shot too geeky?  Yeah, I can drive myself crazy second guessing myself.  But when it comes right down to it, I’m proud of what we shot.  My director, Sandra Myers, and the entire cast and crew all did a fantastic job and poured their hearts into it.  It shows in the quality of their work!  I can’t begin to thank them for their help with this shoot.  Filmmaking is definitely a team sport and I had an awesome team!  I’d be more than happy to work with any of them again in the future.

Whatever happens with this contest, I now know that, if need be, I can pull together a quality shoot on a low budget and a tight timeline.  And I did it on my very first shoot!  That said, I hope I never have to pull a shoot together that quickly.  Seriously.  It’s exhausting.  I was literally getting three or four hours of sleep most nights.  I’m way too old for that kind of physical abuse.  But, if I can produce a small shoot under those circumstances, I know I can definitely handle a bigger project…like a feature film.

I can’t show you the video we shot just yet.  I wish I could, but Dockers requires that submissions be original and not previously published, so I have to wait and see what the outcome of this competition will be before I can share that with you.  At this point, I’ve put too much into the project to risk being disqualified.

I’ve got a lot of blogging to do to catch all of you up on the details of what’s been happening these past few weeks.  We, also, took behind-the-scenes footage and photos that I still need to get and share with all of you.  I mean we’ve got some really cool stuff.  I can’t wait to show you.  So stay tuned!