filmmaking

Chris Knight's avatar

YEEEEEAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!

So earlier tonight, this idea hit me like a bolt out of the blue. I have no idea what might have been going on in my neurobiology, the myriad of connections that led to everything “clicking” in place for this crazy notion.

Holy cow… if we can make this thing work… and I think that we can make it work…

I’ve already spoken to two people who would be involved. We’d have to be way careful about how we do this. But both of them believe it’s feasible.

I’m working on a treatment to pitch to The Powers That Be(tm). It doesn’t even have a working title yet. Maybe one will present itself in the next little while.

Hot darn, this idea has me stoked!! It’s definitely in the realm of filmmaking, but it’s going to be quite a few other things rolled into the package too.

Don’t expect ...

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Are people really this hostile toward their fellow man, without caring about how cruel they are?

Please don’t answer that, ‘kay?

So earlier this evening I read about filmmaker Uwe Boll, director of House of the Dead, BloodRayne, Dungeon Siege and other movies that have endured lackluster performance at the box office. Boll has said that in light of how ill-received his work is, that he will retire from filmmaking if a petition calling for him to quit garners 1 million signatures.

So this being the Internet there is now a massive drive to do exactly that, in order to compel Uwe Boll to make good on his word.

I took a look in the past little while at the animosity toward Boll in this petition drive. And even though I’ve never really cared much for Boll’s work, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the ...

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WGAL in Lancaster, Pennsylvania has a great story about teachers there who have made a series of Star Wars-inspired short films designed to help local students prepare for their state standardized tests. The PSSA Wars videos, offering tips on how to handle the critical exams, feature such characters as “Duke Skywriter” and “Math Solo” and even include the classic Star Wars saga-style scrolling intro. And not since Hardware Wars have there been such glorious special effects in a Star Wars spoof! Seriously though, I watched the episode that WGAL is hosting on its site at the link above, and I thought these teachers did a terrific job! Thanks to TheForce.net for this awesome find 🙂...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Today has been one of the best, most fun-filled days that I’ve had in quite a long time. And most of that is because of how I got to talk about being a filmmaker and show some “tricks of the trade” for the students of Monroeton Elementary School in Reidsville, as part of the Cultural Arts Day that it held today.

Cultural Arts Day had folks coming in to demonstrate arts like painting, sculpting, mosaics, music and storytelling. And in Mrs. Marsha Lipford’s room, we set up a “mini movie studio” – complete with camera, greenscreen and even some props and costumes – for the kids to check out…

There were five groups of students who came in during the day. Here I am telling some fourth-graders about how I got into filmmaking and how they can get into this too. I especially told them that if they want to ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

So how does the prospect of being in a television commercial that will be broadcast all across the state of North Carolina sound to you? How would you like to earn money from the gig? Well, have we got something for you!

As of tonight I’m putting the word out via this blog and a few other places that we are making a wide-spread casting call. There is a very cool project that the KWerky Productions/Knight Vision Media staff is working on right now.

And for it we need actors and actresses of all ages and all physical types. We especially need young children, from ages 5 to 12-ish, who have a bit of patience and aren’t easily intimidated especially by loud noises. Good screamers are particularly needed. The child actors will be compensated also for their time.

Interested? Then you need to send me an e-mail at kwerkyproductions@gmail.com and ...

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It’s being reported this morning in industry trades (and I first heard about it from Ain’t It Cool News) that Guillermo del Toro is the likely choice to direct the upcoming film duology of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. The series is already being produced by Peter Jackson, as a prequel to Jackson’s earlier mega-successful The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

I’ll admit some disappointment here, because I was sure that del Toro was also in the running to direct Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (which is also said to be a two-part production). But that aside: del Toro is a superb choice to bring The Hobbit to life on the big screen. I’m a huge fan of his Hellboy movie (and am looking forward to seeing Hellboy 2: The Golden Army) and I thought that Pan’s Labyrinth, although I didn’t quite “get” it, ...

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Over the weekend I finally, finally, found time to do an “updated” version of Schrodinger’s Bedroom. This was the short film that I made last year as an entry for the short-lived Fox “reality” show On The Lot. It had already been uploaded to YouTube, but that was the version that was submitted for the competition, and unfortunately because of the limit on length that was in the rules I didn’t have time to put proper credits in this film. That’s always bugged me. So now I get to fix this and let it be, in my mind, a true and proper film that gives a nod toward everybody who helped make it.

So without further ado, here is Schrodinger’s Bedroom starring Dawn Swartz, Chris Otto, Selassie Amana, Ed Woody, Olivia Woody, Doug Smith, Tyler Richardson, Melody Hallman Daniel, Chad Austin, Veronica Jones, and a cameo appearance ...

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It’s true! Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have made nice and are producing a big-screen feature of The Hobbit, just as Jackson did with The Lord of the Rings several years ago.

But that’s not all: the deal also includes a sequel that will “bridge” the events of The Hobbit with The Lord of the Rings that took place sixty years later. If you’ve ever read some of Tolkien’s other works, you know that there was a lot more going on in that period that the books just hinted at.

Ain’t It Cool News has more, including an official press release and some mention about how Howard Shore may already be working on the music for the new movies.

The Hobbit will hit theaters in 2010.

(Okay Lisa, you can stop worrying now: they are making this finally 🙂...

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Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News and me on the night before Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9

So here it is: my review of Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9, the annual 24-hour long film festival hosted by Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News, which was held at the Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz in Austin, Texas this past weekend on December 8th through 9th. It might be worth noting that according to the yearbook that we all received, I was the attendee who was from the most obscure town anywhere: a miniscule spot-on-the-mind somewhere in North Carolina, as opposed to being from Austin or Los Angeles or Atlanta.

This was also my first Butt-Numb-A-Thon.

First film festival ever for that matter.

Heck, this was my first time in Texas, period.

I left my friend Deborah’s house around 10 a.m. and was in Austin about 30 minutes later. I parked at the Hilton ...

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