Pre-production meeting in Hollywood

We will be shooting a short film in January for festival entry. Fat Monster has a tradition of holding pre-production meetings at the Hooters restaurant directly across from the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater. After availing ourselves of the Happy Hour specials we drove to the home of director Stuart Ortiz, who lives close by. Stuart has been banking cash for cutting trailers for b-movies and he gave us some insight into the process.

One of the most striking parts of his trailers is the amazing sound. Stuart enlightened us by explaining that there are a couple really high-end sound/score providers who deliver most of the sounds you hear on high-end film trailers. If you're working on a legitimate trailer they'll send you a hard drive completely loaded with all their stuff at no charge! So, Stuart called one of the companies up and got a freebie drive in the mail. The company rep mentioned to Stuart that the sound effects (i.e., 7-second whoosh) pricing starts at something like $7,000!!!!! So, that's why these guys are happy to send you a free hard drive. They make a gazillion dollars every time a trailer is cut. We listened to a bunch of the music clips and we actually recognized a couple including one from the Spiderman trailer.

Later in the evening Matt McDermott, who has cut several A-list music videos, stopped by and screened one of his recent projects. There was enough RedStripe to last the evening and we all returned to our hovels happy campers.

Mystery Fluid

It stands on the counter casting a shimmer on the adjacent wall where it refracts a beam from one of the studio lights. The diet pepsi bottle's contents, once brackish and near opaque, have obviously been replaced with a hydrophanic subsitute. What is this mystery fluid? Its tinge of saffron belies any thought that this be water. Apple juice? Perhaps rain water from the gutter? Tell me Tim did not pee in that bottle. ... Again, tell me please that this is NOT the product of Tim's micturation. Crap.

Hump Day at Fat Monster

This week Tim and I have been graced with the presence of one of our most valued team members from up north (Oakland). Of course, I refer to none other than the peripatetic Scott Bullis (referred to always as Bullis - never Scott). Bullis occasionally runs a steadicam rig for us and otherwise serves as a grip on more than 90% of our productions. A skilled chef, Bullis also runs the kitchen when he is in town or on set.

Tonight Bullis and I are quaffing Hoegaardens and Stellas at Fat Monster HQ while Tim is off with lowlifes prowling the bars and stripclubs of San Bernardino County. We're thinking things will get interesting around, say, 2:00 am. when Mr. Hyten and friends return. We shall have the cameras ready.

THE HOST relieves Mark of some of his Kim-Chi phobia.

After last night's screening of THE HOST, Mark decided it was time to get acquainted with the Korean culture. I don't know how many times I tried to take him to the Korean BBQ located a few block from our house. Although still petrified of the rabid Kim-Chi consumption, I reminded him that he would never excel or understand cinema until he immersed himself in the culture. I do believe he is now a convert, although he is just as wary of the pickled cabbage.

We are busy working on our latest project entitled "Where the Heart Lies" for the upcoming DVXuser.com festival set to begin February 14th. Check back often for updates as we now have our shit together and are really looking forward to this production.

More Updates soon.

Tim Hyten.

Fat Monster Movie Rental Recommendation Part Deux

Lawdy Mamma!

Last night we got around to screening Joon-ho Bong's monster flick "The Host" and if you have not seen this we insist that you get it now. This is the best monster flick ever made. Does that sound trite and hyperbolic? Well, it's true. The scene where the creature is first seen is the finest example of cinematic monster-making in existence. We are planning to move to Korea as soon as we can save up enough for the tickets.

Fat Monster Movie Rental Recommendation

If you haven't seen Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy in BOWFINGER, you must go to netflix or your local blockbuster and get it now. We here at Fat Monster Films have learned a lot of filmmaking techniques from the guerilla tactics in this film! Some of our favorite quotations from BOWFINGER:

DAVE: But movies cost millions of dollars to make.

BOWFINGER: That's after gross net deduction profit percentage deferment ten percent of the nut. Cash, every movie costs $2,184.

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We need a guy with a fabulous ass, and mine is the wrong color.

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Did you know that Tom Cruise didn't know he was in that vampire movie until two years later?

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She had the personality of a zip code in Kansas.

Major News: DirectTV restored at Fat Monster Films office

Yeah, it sounds trite and unworthy of mention to you, but when you've been living on the stuff recorded on our TiVO for two months it IS life-changing when new eyeball junk food becomes available. I mean, how many times can you watch Pick of Destiny and those seven episodes of Mythbusters? (we were rather unaggressive in our TiVO recording before unplugging and moving to this office). Anyway, obtaining the moving pictures required installing the DirectTV dish (illegally and without permission) on the rafters above the entrance. Not willing to capitulate to "the man", we refused to call the installer-geeks. Having lost the mounting bracket we made do with what we had (three different-sized picture hanging screws and a funny looking piece of metal). After 40 minutes of tediously moving the dish trying to figure out what 151 degrees azimuth, 40 elevation and 101 tilt meant we finally got a signal. Not a great signal, mind you, but a signal nonetheless. So, we called it 'good' and left the thing out there crazily tilted and ready to collapse with the first half-ass wind because the HBO was working and we figure that by the time it goes off line we'll get Bullis to fix it.

Tuesday blahs

Gotta drag myself to Starbucks and try to jumpstart my carcass. Now, that's a strange word. Try looking at "carcass" and saying it 10 times and it really gets bizarre.

Here's some behind-the-scenes frames from our little short film IN EXTREMIS in which we used greenscreen compositing to shoot a suicide jump from the Golden Gate Bridge:

We ran across an absolutely amazingly cool short film produced by a fellow filmmaker in Ireland. It's called The Silent City and it has some of the best VFX we've seen ever produced by a single artist. Check it out here:

http://www.ruairirobinson.com/main.htm




Mark

Halloween at Fat Monster Films

On Halloween night an assortment of Fat Monster friends assembled to watch films and drink beer. We recently put together a short film entry in an on-line festival and we all enjoyed pointing out how sucky the competing entries were, while ignoring the fact that ours was mortally wounded due to not having enough time to complete post or finish editing.

The NUDE music video has finally been released and is playing to rave reviews from the fanbase (see www.myspace.com/nude). The video itself will begin rotation on MTV Mexico before going to MTV Japan and then, finally, to MTV 2 here in the US hopefully. It all depends on the response and popularity of the video.

We are close to finishing the edit for the EVERDAE video and expect it to be released within the week. Stay tuned.

FAT MONSTER FILMS