Random Signs in China

I'll be updating with more China stuff later in the week. For now, some random shots from the trip ...

DEADGIRL

Well, it's truly the end of a long trip for DEADGIRL (at least for me, anyway). After writing the script nearly a decade ago, years of collecting dust on the shelf, then production two years ago followed by an amazing year of festival play, DEADGIRL is finally available on DVD in the States.

Naturally, there have been tons of new reviews written about it and naturally people seem to love or hate it. I don't really feel like linking to all of the new reviews - fundamentally, everything that's going to be said about the film has been said already ... over and over. But if you wanna read all about the reaction to the DVD release, I'd recommend heading over to the Official Deadgirl Blog:

DEADGIRL BLOG

DARK SKY has done a pretty good job of getting the movie out there. I bought a copy at Best Buy and have heard that it's available for rent at Hollywood Video. Not only that, but the DVD has deleted scenes (including one that I REALLY wish they had just left in), a making-of, and an audio commentary track. Not only that, but the sleeve artwork is reversible. One side is the "green girl" art and the other one is like our festival poster:



For those of you who just want to watch the movie NOW, however, we're available for Instant View on Netflix, where the film has been rated over 17,000 times and reviewed almost 300 times ... all in a little over a week!

Definitely my biggest hit so far, I think.

Dave Navarro (guitarist for a little band called Jane's Addiction, maybe you've heard of them) has a radio show on Indie 103.1 and talked extensively about how disturbing he thought the movie was and had the Deadgirl herself, Jenny Spain, on for an interview the other day. It was funny to hear how much my little movie creeped out a gothic rock and roller.

So ... there's no excuse not to check DEADGIRL out now. I hope that you dig it. Thanks to everyone for the support during the film's long trek to being released.

In other film news, SUTURES has been selected to be part of the competition at this year's SHRIEKFEST here in Los Angeles. The movie will be having its World Premiere Sunday, October 4th.

SUTURES World Premiere at Shriekfest 2009

Oh, and they finally put the trailer up on youtube, so here it is:



I'll post with more of the China diaries in a few days. Thanks for visiting.

-T

KILLJOY 3

Okay, I've had a day to recuperate from the 14 hour time difference. Figured I'd take a little time every day this week to give a bit more details about the different aspects of the China trip. So ...



... The real reason for me going to China in the first place was to shoot KILLJOY 3. Seven years ago I was Producing and starring in Killjoy 2 in the outskirts of Los Angeles. If you had told me then that I was going to end up in China under the makeup for a part 3, I would have laughed. But you never know what's gonna happen.





We shot in a relatively new and small studio in Guangzhou, China, which is about two hours outside of Hong Kong. The studio has three sound stages where all of the locations were built. The place was completely self-contained, with its own kitchen, showers, editing suites, camera rooms, and makeup rooms. This was the third English-language production shot here and the second one with Full Moon (they shot a Puppetmaster sequel there last month). In typical Full Moon fashion, the entire shoot was nine days long. I worked as Killjoy for 5 of them.





The film was directed by John Lechago, an immensely talented guy who really had a vision and worked hard to bely the picture's relatively low budget. John's background is in visual arts, so the movie has a striking visual element to it that the other installments didn't have. I got to work with Tom Devlin yet again. He's always a great person to work with and his creature makeup in this one is really something. In addition to Killjoy, there were three other demons to make in addition to all of the other makeup effects. I even had a stunt double for the first time (see pic below)!





It was hot and humid and I was in full makeup with the contacts and the teeth and under the hot lights, but it wasn't too bad overall. Movie-making ain't easy and it's even harder under conditions of time duress, but I think that everybody really kicked some ass and we got something interesting in the can at the end of the week. I guess we'll all find out when it hits DVD sometime very early in 2010.

Here's another behind-the-scenes video from youtube:



More tomorrow!

-T

MADE IN CHINA ...

Okay. I just got back from 12 days in China last night. I'm kind of jet-lagged and trying to catch up with all of my correspondences and laundry and that kind of thing. I'll give the brief run-down and then do a few more updates later on in the week (cause I took a TON of photos and don't feel like re-sizing and stuff at the moment).

On Wednesday, September 15th I hopped on a plane at 2:00am with a few of the other actors. Fifteen hours later we landed in Hong Kong. Took a taxi to the Hong Kong train station and caught a train to Guangzhou, China, which is about two hours away.

I shot the movie for the next six days at a studio in Guangzhou. Long hours and it was hot and muggy, but we got the film in the can. All of the actors, the special FX guy (my main man, Tom Devlin), the DP, and the director were the only English-speaking members of the crew. The Chinese crew was incredibly hard-working and accomodating and we were able to get the film in the can in a mere 9 days!

The day after I wrapped I flew to Beijing where I took some meetings, ate lots of amazing food (I can finally scratch Jellyfish Heads off of my food I've never eaten list), and took in some incredible culture including The Forbidden City, The Great Wall, and the Tomb of the Third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

Here are some shots from the Forbidden City:







And the Great Wall, which was an amazing feat of engineering in addition to being an aerobic workout to climb:




Finally, I had a quick 2 days/1 night in Hong Kong where there was a big celebration to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China:







Returned last night to the very successful DVD release of DEADGIRL, which has already been rated 11,000 times on Netflix in less than a week. More on the DEADGIRL phenom later ...

So, it's been a heck of a month. First Slovenia and then China. And China was really incredible. Not to mention the fact that I put another movie in the can!

Oh yeah, and what was the movie? The "top secret project" that I've been alluding to?



That's right ... KILLJOY 3.

As I said, I'm kind of busy and jet-lagged right now, but I'll probably be updating every day this week with more photos and details and news ...

Oh, and here's a video I just found on youtube. Behind the scenes from the China set of KILLJOY 3:



Craziness. Come back for more tomorrow!

- T

Not Much ...

... to blog about at the moment. But I start shooting my "top secret project" that I alluded to in the last post tonight. I'll be shooting for the next 11 days, so no updates until after September 20th. But rest assured, there'll be a ton of photos and news and whatnot upon completion of the project, so come back then.

In the meantime, an official trailer went up for SUTURES. If you look really close I actually make it in there a couple of times. Unfortunately, it's only on the imdb and they won't let me imbed, so follow the link below:

SUTURES Trailer

DEADGIRL played one last festival in Lisbon this week before the DVD release. Here's a shot of directors Gadi and Marcel with Stewart Gordon and John Landis right after the screening:



And, finally, DEADGIRL will be released on DVD September 15th. Please go to Best Buy (or wherever DVDs are still sold that isn't WalMart, cause they're not stocking it) and pick up a copy!



Okay, that's it for now. As I said, BIG update coming in about two weeks ...

-T