The Deep Blue Good-By Cover

Darker Than Amber Fight

Louisiana Production Report 9.28.09

Info compiled from Production Weekly, Solomon Street Films, and Louisiana Film & Television:

Pregnancy Pact
Lifetime MOW
UPM: Chris Morgan
POC: Deb Kaufmann
4001 Division St.
Metairie LA
318.918.1776 (production office)
504.889.9767 (production fax)
- Also doing the ABC Family MOW The Business of Falling in Love

The Mechanic
Feature Film
Scared Productions, LLC
Matt Leonetti-UPM
Jenn Ray-POC
300 Jefferson Hwy, Suite 202
Jefferson, LA 70121
504-832-9940 office
504-832-9941 fax
Starts ~Oct. 14

Love, Wedding, Marriage
formerly known as...
"Keep It Together"
Independent Feature Film
First Wedding Productions, LLC
1231 Prytania Street, 4th Floor
New Orleans, LA 70130
Tel: 504-525-2818
Fax: 504-525-2946
keepittogether09@gmail.com
Dir: Dermot Mulroney
LP: Joel Hatch
POC: Jen Wall

Chesterfield
Chesterfield Motion Picture, LLC
Starts Prep Late September
Films 2 weeks in NOLA, 4 elsewhere
Email for Resumes: Chesterfieldfilm@gmail.com

Battle: Los Angeles
Studio Feature Film
10000 Celtic Dr
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
225.330.6960 - phone
225.330.6961 - fax
UPM: Thomas Harper
POC: Karen Jarnecke
battlelosangeles@gmail.com
- Also filming some in Shreveport

Straw Dogs
Studio Feature Film
SONY
UPM: Beau Marks
Prod Spv: Valerie Sharp
400 Clyde Fant Parkway
2nd Floor
Shreveport, LA 71101
318.221.8083 O
318.221.8109 F
Starts late August

Secretariat
Studio Feature Film
Fast Track Productions
4021 B Ambassador Caffery Parkway
Lafayette, LA 70503
secretariat.themovie@gmail.com
337.984.9789 - O
337.984.4177 - F
Starts Sept 28

Unearthed
SyFy MOW
Andrew Stevens Entertainment
468 N Camden Dr, Suite 212
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
310.285.5358 - O
310.285.5359 - F
Starts Sept 23

Treme
HBO Series
1231 Prytania St, 3rd Floor
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.799.0116 - O
504.581.1630 - F
blowndeadlineprod@gmail.com

WWE NOLA, LLC
"THE BIG SHOW PROJECT"
824 Distributors Row
Harahan, LA 70123
email resumes to: wwenolallc@gmail.com
Line Producer: Bob Del Valle
UPM: Todd Lewis
POC: Ruth Kesler
Shoots 10/6 for 5 weeks (Tues - Sat)

Ticking Clock
Motion Picture Corp of America
10635 Santa Monica Blvd
Suite 180
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310.319.9500 - P
310.319.9501 - f
Brendan Garst, UPM
- October in Baton Rouge or Shreveport

Fight or Flight
Freefall Films
10850 Wilshire Blvd
6th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90024
info@freefallfilms.com
- October in Baton Rouge

Shotgun Wedding
Indie Feature Film
De Line Pictures
4000 Warner Blvd
Bldg 66, #147
Burbank, CA 91522
818.954.5200 - P
818.954.5430 - F
- November in New Orleans

“Locked Down”
Aka “The Cage”
Blaine McManus, producer
Dawn LeFever, UPM
Shoots October/November

Bullet Films:

Monster Wolf
The Bullet Films feature film Monster Wolf is in pre-production in Lafayette with shooting scheduled from September 21 through October 14.

Swamp Shark
The Bullet Films feature film Swamp Shark is in soft-prep in Lafayette with shooting in Lafayette scheduled from Oct. 26 – November 18.

Resumes and inquiries are being accepted by e-mail at jobs@bulletfilms.net.

Coming in 2010:

Hungry Rabbit Jumps
Endgame Entertainment
9100 Wilshire Blvd
Suite 100W
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
310.432.7300 - P
310.432.7301
- January 2010
- New Orleans

Drive Angry
Feature Film
Millennium Films/Nu Image
April 2010

Green Lantern
Studio Feature Film
Warner Brothers/DC Entertainment
12233 W Olympic Blvd, #240
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310.405.7924 - P
310.405.7925 - f
LP: Herb Gaines
PM: Sara Flamm
Early 2010

Imagination Movers
Kids TV Series
800 Distributors Row
Harahan, LA 70123
504-818-3884
Kati Johnston, UPM
POC - Justin Groetsch
Resumes/Inquiries: imnola504@gmail.com
Shoots Mar - Sept

Current Wallpaper - Queen & Country

What Movie Posters Should Look Like

I wished movie posters looked like these.

Cthluhu PSA

Nextel - If Film Crews Ran the World

Production Update 9.20.09

Info compiled from Production Weekly, Solomon Street Films, and Louisiana Film & Television:

Pregnancy Pact
MOW
UPM: Chris Morgan
POC: Deb Kaufmann
4001 Division St.
Metairie LA
318.918.1776 (production office)
504.889.9767 (production fax)

The Mechanic
Feature Film
Scared Productions, LLC
Matt Leonetti-UPM
Jenn Ray-POC
300 Jefferson Hwy, Suite 202
Jefferson, LA 70121
504-832-9940 office
504-832-9941 fax
Starts ~Oct. 14

Love, Wedding, Marriage
formerly known as...
"Keep It Together"
Independent Feature Film
First Wedding Productions, LLC
1231 Prytania Street, 4th Floor
New Orleans, LA 70130
Tel: 504-525-2818
Fax: 504-525-2946
keepittogether09@gmail.com
Dir: Dermot Mulroney
LP: Joel Hatch
POC: Jen Wall

Chesterfield
Chesterfield Motion Picture, LLC
Starts Prep Late September
Films 2 weeks in NOLA, 4 elsewhere
Email for Resumes: Chesterfieldfilm@gmail.com

Battle: Los Angeles
Studio Feature Film
10000 Celtic Dr
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
225.330.6960 - phone
225.330.6961 - fax
UPM: Thomas Harper
POC: Karen Jarnecke
battlelosangeles@gmail.com
- Also filming some in Shreveport

Straw Dogs
Studio Feature Film
SONY
UPM: Beau Marks
Prod Supvsr: Valerie Sharp
400 Clyde Fant Parkway
2nd Floor
Shreveport, LA 71101
318.221.8083 O
318.221.8109 F
Starts late August

Secretariat
Studio Feature Film
Fast Track Productions
4021 B Ambassador Caffery Parkway
Lafayette, LA 70503
secretariat.themovie@gmail.com
337.984.9789 - O
337.984.4177 - F
Starts Sept 28

Unearthed
SyFy MOW
Andrew Stevens Entertainment
468 N Camden Dr, Suite 212
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
310.285.5358 - O
310.285.5359 - F
Starts Sept 23

Treme
HBO Series
1231 Prytania St, 3rd Floor
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.799.0116 - O
504.581.1630 - F
blowndeadlineprod@gmail.com

WWE NOLA, LLC
"THE BIG SHOW PROJECT"
824 Distributors Row
Harahan, LA 70123
email resumes to: wwenolallc@gmail.com
Line Producer: Bob Del Valle
UPM: Todd Lewis
POC: Ruth Kesler
Shoots 10/6 for 5 weeks (Tues - Sat)

Ticking Clock
Motion Picture Corp of America
10635 Santa Monica Blvd
Suite 180
Los Angeles, CA 90025
310.319.9500 - P
310.319.9501 - f
Brendan Garst, UPM
- October in Baton Rouge or Shreveport

Fight or Flight
Freefall Films
10850 Wilshire Blvd
6th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90024
info@freefallfilms.com
- October in Baton Rouge

Shotgun Wedding
Indie Feature Film
American United Entertainment
9595 Wilshire Blvd.,
Beverly Hills, CA. 90212
Phone: (310) 684-3555
info@americanunitedent.com
- November in New Orleans

“Locked Down”
Aka “The Cage”
Blaine McManus, producer
Dawn LeFever, UPM
Shoots October/November

Bullet Films:

Monster Wolf
The Bullet Films feature film Monster Wolf is in pre-production in Lafayette with shooting scheduled from September 21 through October 14.

Swamp Shark
The Bullet Films feature film Swamp Shark is in soft-prep in Lafayette with shooting in Lafayette scheduled from Oct. 26 – November 18.

Resumes and inquiries are being accepted by e-mail at jobs@bulletfilms.net.

Coming in 2010:

Hungry Rabbit Jumps
Endgame Entertainment
9100 Wilshire Blvd
Suite 100W
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
310.432.7300 - P
310.432.7301
- January 2010
- New Orleans

Drive Angry
Feature Film
Millennium Films/Nu Image
April 2010

Green Lantern
Studio Feature Film
Warner Brothers/DC Entertainment
Early 2010

Imagination Movers
Kids TV Series
800 Distributors Row
Harahan, LA 70123
504-818-3884
Kati Johnston, UPM
POC - Justin Groetsch
Resumes/Inquiries: imnola504@gmail.com
Shoots Mar - Sept

$150 Space Photos - DIY Space

More DIY space exploration:

We are a group of MIT students seeking to share the artistic aspects of science with others. On Sept. 2, 2009, we launched a digital camera into near-space to take photographs of the earth from high up above. (see “Flight”)

Several groups have accomplished similar feats (see “Other Launches”), but as far we know, we are the first group ever to:

(1) Complete such a launch on a budget of $150 total. All of our supplies (including camera, GPS tracking, weather balloon, and helium) were purchased for less than a grand total of $150.

The Mechanic Posters

Louisiana Production Update 9.13.09

Info compiled from Production Weekly, Solomon Street Films, and Louisiana Film & Television:

Pregnancy Pact
MOW
UPM: Chris Morgan
POC: Deb Kaufmann
4001 Division St.
Metairie LA
318.918.1776 (production office)
504.889.9767 (production fax)

The Mechanic
Feature Film
Scared Productions, LLC
Matt Leonetti-UPM
Jenn Ray-POC
300 Jefferson Hwy, Suite 202
Jefferson, LA 70121
504-832-9940 office
504-832-9941 fax
Starts ~Oct. 14

Love, Wedding, Marriage
formerly known as...
"Keep It Together"
Independent Feature Film
First Wedding Productions, LLC
1231 Prytania Street, 4th Floor
New Orleans, LA 70130
Tel: 504-525-2818
Fax: 504-525-2946
keepittogether09@gmail.com
Dir: Dermot Mulroney
LP: Joel Hatch
POC: Jen Wall

Chesterfield
Chesterfield Motion Picture, LLC
Starts Prep Late September
Films 2 weeks in NOLA, 4 elsewhere
Email for Resumes: Chesterfieldfilm@gmail.com

Battle: Los Angeles
Studio Feature Film
10000 Celtic Dr
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
225.330.6960 - phone
225.330.6961 - fax
UPM: Thomas Harper
POC: Karen Jarnecke
battlelosangeles@gmail.com
- Also filming some in Shreveport

Imagination Movers
Kids TV Series
Back for Season 2
800 Distributors Row
Harahan, LA 70123
504-818-3884
Kati Johnston, UPM
POC - Justin Groetsch
Resumes/Inquiries: imnola504@gmail.com
Shoots Mar 30th - Sept 17th

Straw Dogs
Studio Feature Film
SONY
UPM: Beau Marks
Prod Supvsr: Valerie Sharp
400 Clyde Fant Parkway
2nd Floor
Shreveport, LA 71101
318.221.8083 O
318.221.8109 F
Starts late August

Secretariat
Studio Feature Film
Fast Track Productions
4021 B Ambassador Caffery Parkway
Lafayette, LA 70503
secretariat.themovie@gmail.com
337.984.9789 - O
337.984.4177 - F
Starts Sept 28

Unearthed
SyFy MOW
Andrew Stevens Entertainment
468 N Camden Dr, Suite 212
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
310.285.5358 - O
310.285.5359 - F
Starts Sept 23

Treme
HBO Series
1231 Prytania St, 3rd Floor
New Orleans, LA 70130
504.799.0116 - O
504.581.1630 - F
blowndeadlineprod@gmail.com

WWE films
- Series of low budget feature films
824 Distributors Row
Harahan, LA 70123

Bullet Films:

Monster Wolf
The Bullet Films feature film Monster Wolf is in pre-production in Lafayette with shooting scheduled from September 21 through October 14.

Swamp Shark
The Bullet Films feature film Swamp Shark is in soft-prep in Lafayette with shooting in Lafayette scheduled from Oct. 26 – November 18.

Resumes and inquiries are being accepted by e-mail at jobs@bulletfilms.net.

Upcoming:

Drive Angry
Feature Film
Millennium Films/Nu Image
April 2010

When the Saints Go Marching In - Louis Armstrong & Danny Kaye

Shuttle Launch Sounds

Found via Warren Ellis:

The Math of Gambling

From the New Scientist:

FIVE years ago, Londoner Ashley Revell sold his house, all his possessions and cashed in his life savings. It raised £76,840. He flew to Las Vegas, headed to the roulette table and put it all on red.

The wheel was spun. The crowd held its breath as the ball slowed, bounced four or five times, and finally settled on number seven. Red seven.

Revell's bet was a straight gamble: double or nothing. But when Edward Thorp, a mathematics student at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, went to the same casino some 40 years previously, he knew pretty well where the ball was going to land. He walked away with a profit, took it to the racecourse, the basketball court and the stock market, and became a multimillionaire. He wasn't on a lucky streak, he was using his knowledge of mathematics to understand, and beat, the odds.

No one can predict the future, but the powers of probability can help. Armed with this knowledge, a high-school mathematics education and £50, I headed off to find out how Thorp, and others like him, have used mathematics to beat the system. Just how much money could probability make me?

When Thorp stood at the roulette wheel in the summer of 1961 there was no need for nerves - he was armed with the first "wearable" computer, one that could predict the outcome of the spin. Once the ball was in play, Thorp fed the computer information about the speed and position of the ball and the wheel using a microswitch inside his shoe. "It would make a forecast about a probable result, and I'd bet on neighbouring numbers," he says.

Thorp's device would now be illegal in a casino, and in any case getting a computer to do the work wasn't exactly what I had in mind. However, there is a simple and sure-fire way to win at the roulette table - as long as you have deep pockets and a faith in probability theory.

Apollo Robbins: Essential Books on Cons

Found here:

"The Modern Con Man: How To Get Something For Nothing" by Todd Robbins

"How To Cheat At Everything" by Simon Lovell

"Conman: A Master Swindler’s Own Story," by J.R. "Yellow Kid" Weil and W.T. Brannon

"Travel Advisory! How to avoid Thefts, Cons, and Street Scams While Traveling," by Bambi Vincent and Bob Arno

"A Dictionary of the Underworld," by Eric Partridge

"The Art of the Steal: How to Protect Yourself and Your Business from Fraud, America's #1 Crime," by Frank W. Abagnale

"The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man," by David W. Maurer

"Whiz Mob: A Correlation of the Technical Argot of Pickpockets with Their Behavior Pattern," by David W. Maurer

"The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security," by Kevin Mitnick and William Simon

"The Modern Con Man: How to Get Something for Nothing," by Todd Robbins

"The Professional Thief," by Edwin Sutherland

"How to Cheat at Everything: A Con Man Reveals the Secrets of the Esoteric Trade of Cheating, Scams, and Hustles," by Simon Lovell

"Players: Con Men, Hustlers, Gamblers, and Scam Artists," by Geno Zanetti and Stephen Hyde

Variety on Louisiana Film Production

Story in today's Variety:

Louisiana upped its production tax credit to 30% from 25% in July, buttressing its already commanding position as the country's third-largest motion picture and television production center -- after Los Angeles and New York.

...

Also, a Louisiana Economic Development report issued early this year gave a big thumbs-up to the incentives program based on the positive impact it has had so far on the economy. According to the study, the state attracted 135 movie and television projects worth $2 billion between 2002 and 2008. In 2008 alone, 80 projects qualified for tax incentives.

The industry helped to create 6,230 full- and part-time jobs statewide, and employment in the sector has been growing at a sizzling compound annual rate of 22% from 2001 to 2007. In 2007, $429 million in direct production spending translated into $763 million poured into the state economy.

And another story on New Orleans:

"In terms of the goods, services and crew needed to service the film industry, New Orleans has completely recovered from any effects of Katrina," says Jennifer Day of the city's Office of Film and Video. 2008 was a record year, with 21 major productions in the city. At one point, as many as six features were shooting simultaneously.

2009 has also been busy, notes Day, despite the economic slowdown, with 15 major projects slated for New Orleans. Ten of those have wrapped, including "Jonah Hex" (see related article) and the HBO pilot "Treme."

Wide Screen vs Full Screen

Strange Tales Paul Pope Cover

Fantastic Mr Fox Featurette

Where The Wild Things Are Featurette

Halo 3:ODST Commercial/Short Film

Found via /Film:



Two sets of commercials form two directors and both are pretty great. But yeah, a Halo movie would never do well at the box office (shame that District 9 didn't do well at all [note sarcasm]).

100 Years of SPFX

Warren Ellis on Thunderbirds

From Warren Ellis' Wired UK Column:

Thunderbirds is Rescue Fiction. All kids respond to rescue scenarios. Rescue Fiction is emotionally maturing - it removes the wish for magic, religion or flying people to zoom in to save the day; it confirms that it is a far more glorious and dazzling thing to invent ways to rescue ourselves.

It is also about astronauts. Real-life astronauts have become an unremarkable bunch. We only hear about them these days when they die. Hell, by the end of the 60s, the brilliant and imaginative pilot Scott Carpenter was selling crap on local TV. But in Thunderbirds, Jeff Tracy is an eccentric billionaire, able to convert his private Caribbean island into a secret cosmodrome for exotic aircraft and a re-usable space vessel, with enough scratch left over to support a cutting-edge skunkworks lab, servants and an inexhaustible volume of vermouth. Are you a government minister despairing over the seemingly unsolvable need to get kids interested in science? Thunderbirds says that science is awesome because you get to fly in space and live on a high-tech island full of booze. Beat that for incentive.

Warren Ellis on how Thunderbirds inspired Global Frequency:

I defined GLOBAL FREQUENCY from the start as Rescue Fiction. if not explicitly Post-9/11 Rescue Fiction. Because Thunderbirds is the anti-Superman. Now, I just woke up, so it’s okay if that doesn’t make sense. But immediately after 9/11 I found people on message boards ACTUALLY SAYING OUT LOUD that they wished Superman were real because he would have saved the WTC. And that is an anti-evolutionary wish. What you say is, I wish the dozen or so people who knew this was going to happen could have informed someone who’d actually listen and that we had had the sense/madness to engineer a mechanical response to someone attacking NYC with flying death tubes

Thunderbirds: Darwin’s Airforce

One Way Trip to Mars

From the New York Times editorial page:

The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun’s cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive.

There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why are we so interested in bringing the Mars astronauts home again?

While the idea of sending astronauts aloft never to return is jarring upon first hearing, the rationale for one-way trips into space has both historical and practical roots. Colonists and pilgrims seldom set off for the New World with the expectation of a return trip, usually because the places they were leaving were pretty intolerable anyway. Give us a century or two and we may turn the whole planet into a place from which many people might be happy to depart.

Moreover, one of the reasons that is sometimes given for sending humans into space is that we need to move beyond Earth if we are to improve our species’ chances of survival should something terrible happen back home. This requires people to leave, and stay away.

La Voyage Dans La Lune

Wikipedia article

The New Atlantis - Article on the State of the Space Program

Great, but depressing piece on the state and history of the space program:

Four decades have passed since the first small step on the dusty surface of our nearest neighbor in the solar system in 1969. It has been almost that long since the last man to walk on the Moon did so in late 1972. The Apollo missions were a stunning technological achievement and a significant Cold War victory for the United States. However, despite the hope of observers at the time—and despite the nostalgia and mythology that now cloud our memory—Apollo was not the first step into a grand human future in space. From the perspective of forty years, Apollo, for all its glory, can now be seen as a detour away from a sustainable human presence in space. By and large, the NASA programs that succeeded Apollo have kept us heading down that wrong path: Toward more bureaucracy. Toward higher costs. And away from innovation, from risk-taking, and from any concept of space as a useful place.

Books in 2009

Prince of Thieves
Finn McCool's Football Club
Fever Pitch
How Soccer Explains the World
The Hunter
The Killer Inside Me
On Film Editing
Behind the Seen
The Big Picture
Dress Her In Indigo
The Long Lavender Look

Planetary 27 Preview

From the Wildstorm blog:

Paul Pope's Inhumans - Strange Tales

Found through The Beat: