Low-budget direct-to-DVD indie horror movie Cold Storage is unexpectedly rewarding. Independently made in 2005 for around 1 million, it won DVD distribution in 2010 with a May release. Watch it soon because it deserves appreciation. (The director made 2 previous micro-budget features that had some exposure on cable, which I haven't looked up, and this looks like the height of his movie making career so far.)

-Minor spoilers ahead-

Cold Storage begins when a pretty blonde lady, Melissa, leaves her philandering but sorry husband. Her wish to start over draws her towards a nearby rural town, where a summer theater acting gig is waiting.

Melissa’s journey takes her down a dark wet country road. She’s thinking about her new start, when something flies out of the night and shatters the windshield, and everything goes spinning. Seconds later, her car is a wreck and she lies paralyzed and helpless on the lonely road, a heartbeat from death.

A driver in a creepy old car happens on the gruesome scene. It's ominous when he doesn't leap to help, and instead he slowly backs in with unknown intentions. It’s a retarded hillbilly, who tenderly takes Melissa’s barely breathing body to the passenger seat, and tows her car to hide it where nobody should ever find it.

From this point, the first half of the movie becomes the story of Clive Mercer, the retarded loner who hides in a desolate shack on the outskirts of town. It drags a bit with only one active character, before it branches out when Melissa’s husband and sister resolve differences to team up and find her. The movie seems headed for boringville at first, but Clive’s scenes really help it cook later on, because they win genuine pity for his loneliness (a minor feat of cool writing). He becomes a sympathetic monster while he gives a horrible kind of love to his special secret friend. Despite his disgusting role, he’s not the nastiest character in the story when it reveals more than it seemed to hold at first. It’s also cool that the character who might slay the monster is hardly better. The town’s cloddishly dumb, jowly sheriff can barely be bothered to search for a missing lady, because he's dumb and doesn't care for city slickers. In one notable scene, he slurps egg yolks through a soda straw in a way that’s grosser than the worst gore in this movie.

The movie’s best asset is the way it relies so little on action, cheap scares, or effects (not that it’s afraid to go for a few hilarious gross-outs), and branches out with it’s characters in a humorously off-kilter way. Even incidental characters with just a few lines reveal a small town full of stories, such as the faded glamor queen who runs a thrift shop where Clive dares to buy something weird for his special secret friend. The movie draws from well known genre sources and combines them with it’s own personality. It doesn’t sit in one genre (horror, suspense, black comedy), it does things it’s own way (even when it’s clunky), and it mines entertainment from taboo. You can tell it has personality by the way the titular situation is only one brief episode in the story. Basically it defies category and probably wasn't easy to market. Unlike crappier horror movies, it's a book you can't judge by it's cover, and it's 73 times better than other much more financially successful ones.

I’m not saying it’s a flawless classic, but it makes me hope the creators make more and better (some of the actors have already had success with recognizable TV parts). It's worth the attention of people who like underrated, creatively creepy movies. Netflix has it, and you should give it a try.

Here's a little pirate animation, 1 element from a scene.

Last week I completed the main 4:00, and wrote :45 or so of new "bookend" scenes to flesh it out. Today I'm rendering video for final audio edit, and on thursday we're meeting for new dialogue recording @ _fluffy's.

Wow, a 4 month gap in posting here, this might be rambling.

A next step for the cartoon will be working with my friend Dave to set up a new blog dedicated to it. Dave runs Website in a Weekend.

I'd love to have my efforts complement Dave's, and vice versa. We talk about this idea that personal creativity and collaboration is strongest in a crappy economy (they say a recession is best time to go to school.) These days it's also easier to start things and reach people, but harder to keep them going or get people to care.

I got sick of updating livejournal with random crap hardly anyone will read. I have an urge to always be doing something, and it's better to have a goal for it. A blog or a short cartoon- which one has more lasting value? (Well, ideally 1 would help the other.) I don't expect too much when the cartoon is done- just film festivals or whatever, but getting it done is a personal reward. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Making short films seems like a waste of time judging by audience and money. People who are known for making theirs can probably get named on one hand. On the other hand, a short film is where an animator can "direct" and make something personally notable. It doesn't happen too often with tv shows or movies. People go to a live movie because it's a Scorsese flick, but they usually watch animation because it came from pixar or __ channel.

Speaking of how it's easier to start things and harder to keep them going, I know talented people who have millions of views on youtube, but that and a dollar gets you a cup of coffee. Ask musicians and journalists what they think about their work being available free... expect ambivalence. I say it with a little experience from my home business (but there's a physical object value with stuff I sell that helps.)

It seems like successful indie creators are using a whole package of efforts to maintain notice. A good example: Marc Maron and WTF podcast. Some of the tentacles on the octopus of their mini-empires are:
- name recognition (even trivial recognition that brings people once, with regular updates or email list to bring them back)
- the main content (a film, book, or album)
- some merch (tshirts and stuff that can be sold often- you can't crank out a film that often)
- some live element (readings, workshops, shows, or events)
- and cross promotion with other people who help bring credibility.

Whenever I get around to finishing a better site/blog to host films, Pat's Animation is too tame a name. Maybe it will be: "Pat's Media Empire, a Division of Pat-O-Dyne Industrial Concern(TM)"

I was at my favorite neighborhood sandwich shop a little while ago, and daydreamed about how their space would be perfect size for a storefront for my home business. That's been growing lately- I broke my all-time personal records twice in 4 months- although it's still packed into a small San Francisco apartment. There's no extra overhead, no worries, it leaves me flexible to make animation today and sell more tomorrow (to fund animation.) Flexibility is a big deal.

I talked to the owner of the shop about the commitment of maintaining a space. SF rents are crazy. Having a storefront space is something I've thought about often, and had some light experience with, enough to get a feel for how much work it takes. The overhead will "eat you alive!" -as Dave said. Even if profits aren't a goal, self-sustaining is a challenge that kills good ideas.

Running a bookstore in this economy would be a challenge... the usual attitude I hear from home dealers is that "succeeding" with a storefront means breaking even. Maybe gaining a few new ties to the community or justifying ownership of a building... but not much extra money. Indie retail shops are also having a hell of a time competing with Amazon and Border's.

"Succeeding" on personal level in creative work means just getting to do it on your own terms. Breaking even is some kind of achievement. Who makes a short film and expects to make anything compared to cost of labor? Most likely it's a creative, social reward, or a calling card to get a company job.

Nerd culture used to have social spaces to host it. (When candy bars were a nickel and nerds didn't have giant corporations selling them billion dollar movies... Marc Maron is selling "nerd cock" t-shirts because nerds won the coolness battle against alpha jocks.) I'm thinking Syracuse NY, early 90's. "Tales Twice Told" was the wacky used book shop where I took my carefully saved $100 paper route money, and blew it on stacks of sci-fi books. They also ran Magic card tournaments, like the collectible shop in the mall where we hung after school and I made money from cards. Buttons was the ghetto video game arcade, where you could get a fat pocket of tokens for $5, and play retro Pac-Man till 4AM. These days a lot of that stuff happens via internet or video games at home. (Poop on World of Warcraft, it's the treadmill that makes you fatter.) How many of those places still get enough customers to stay open? The social dimension is kind of lost and taken over.

Cost of rent where I am might also make me miss the social dimension. Places have to keep moving customers through, things aren't casual. But San Francisco is supposed to have the highest proportion of readers in the US, and it does help small book shops more than other areas. They're still hurting, but this is a good place to start a wacky niche business. There's a beekeeper store down the street from me. I should check out the neighborhood comics/coffee shop.

Kidrobot has a shop here, and it's interesting that they get people to pay lots for special limited edition custom toys. If they get fans to support a commercial space for such a thing, I wonder if animators and short films could? Festivals are the only place I know that short films get special notice, and that's a tiny non-commercial niche.

How many galleries are there that showcase animators? I think it would be really cool to start a comic, book, art, screening space that might include a cafe too. Like this-
-You can stop in for coffee, hang out, browse books and art. Maybe the coffee is complimentary as a draw and something to enjoy while you eyeball art.
-The gallery isn't just on the wall. You can pay a buck to start a film at one of the dedicated machines for each artist on display. Like paying a buck for a game at an arcade- it's not interactive, but it's hard to have coffee and game at the same time anyways- and there's also art games. Each artist could include merch (books, prints, shirts etc) in their section, and the place could draw support because it's a more special connection than seeing the stuff on the internet. Like a longer-term convention dealer space, curated by the gallery. What if you dealt with an artist who's already prepared for conventions a few times a year and they just ship a box of their stuff in, and then you ship the remainder back after a month with payment for what sold? Shipping is cheap. (Use an internet escrow deposit as security to build trust- consider paying shipping as promotion to gain artist interest, and plan to make it back on commission.) Could work like the upscale antique mall where I had a space along with dozens of other dealers, and the front desk handled everyone's sales.
-It has to be pretty hard to sell art as a gallery, and near impossible to run a tiny screening space, but maybe the other retail stuff could make a package of draws. That and regular special events.

This might be "The homer" of business ideas.


The local Cartoonist Conspiracy just started meeting at Borderlands cafe. Drawing at a cafe connected to a sci-fi bookshop, that's a fun crossover of a happening.

Just some ramblings, but I'd love to know more from people who deal art or manage commercial space.

OH and a clip from the film in progress:

http://www.patsanimation.com/pirates/14/shot14testb.mov



I'm too busy to render an updated one with the improved BG, but there's the char animation frames. Enjoy.

Got your attention. This is a movie nerding nerd post. I just saw ZARDOZ (1974). It was fun with guys and pizza and beers. I had been wanting to see it for a while.

They must have had a hard time making this while transporting all the crew and extras and horses into the vortex. You can only get there inside a giant flying stone beast head that barfs guns and dynamite.


The movie starts with this guy's flying disembodied head giving a tacked-on introduction to help explain the plot, which is all symbolic and stuff. The movie likes flying heads. Yes that's a drawn-on-with-a-sharpie beard & stache, and a dish towel on his head. He's a magician.


It also has Sean Connery in a wedding dress. I recommend this movie non-ironically. 2001 and The Fountain are in the same ballpark.

I love digesting a movie by reading about it after...

John Boorman has always been on my list of favorite directors, gifted with film language. His autobio has been on my TBR shelf for a long time. It's interesting that he is apparently directing a CG-animated version of Wizard of Oz right now. That would be his first animated film after almost 50 years in movies.

http://www.allmovie.com/artist/john-boorman-82431
Boorman: "Filmmaking is the process of turning money into light and then back into money again."

I like him for being a fairly indie-minded director. It was very ambitious to make Zardoz, after a big success with Deliverence, with only $1 million budget. [That's what a source says for production budget... the quote below may refer to higher spending for post.]

Along with the highly symbolic sci-fi plot, he goes way out there with psychedelic visuals. There's the hall of mirrors scene, and a scene where he projects films of eyes and bugs and stuff onto people's moving bodies. It's a successful low-tech solution. These days they would expensively try to make that scene with CG, as my 2 friends said when we watched.

http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/zardoz
"...You are right in surmising that Boorman is attacking the culture that it was aimed at. I remember reading in an interview with Boorman years ago that the idea for the film came about as the result of a dream he had after a visit to a California commune in the late 60s (communes being a way of cutting yourself off from the outside world) and imagining what it would be like to spend the rest of eternity gazing at your navel.

The part of Zed was originally written for Burt Reynolds as a followup to DELIVERANCE (hence Connery’s mustache and hair) but he was unable to do it. Who knows why Sean took the role but he gives the role a dignity that Reynolds couldn’t have. It was shot on Boorman’s estate in the Wicklow mountains of Ireland and was made for $6 million (low even for the time when you consider the effects).

The prologue at the beginning of the film was added after it had wrapped because Fox executives saw the first cut and said “What the ...?”. Reviews were mixed at the time but even the negative ones praised Boorman as a filmmaker for trying and creating something different. You are also right that it could only have been made in the 1968-77 period. Boorman followed this up with EXORCIST 2: THE HERETIC (a guilty pleasure of mine as is ZARDOZ). It’s astounding that he ever got funding again. Of course he redeemed himself with EXCALIBUR in 1981."

Who in Hollywood would dare trying to make a movie with such wacky premises today??

-----------------

SEE Boorman's 1967 movie Point Blank if you are into movie history... it's certainly one of the best ever made.

It has Lee Marvin's best performance I've seen... one of the most amazing hollywood directing debuts... and I love it for taking from film noir and euro new wave, and helping bring the 60's hollywood renaissance. The action is amazing. It's pre-computer smash editing, kind of like The French Connection or Bullitt. There's really unique split editing with sound, too. (that was brought into use shortly before this movie, with Bonnie and Clyde, another key hollywood rennaissance film. Split editing is where you hear a sound before cutting to the visual. Thanks to this top movie editing artist who is great to know about... Dede Allen. http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-A-Ba/Allen-Dede.html)

The intro of Point Blank has the sound of a man's footsteps walking thru an airport for 10 minutes, overlapping a bunch of time leaping cuts... then the footstep sound pauses outside a room... SMASH thru the door! Wow, it's quite an intro.

Point Blank has "a fractured time-line, disconcerting narrative rhythms (long stretches of almost Bergmanesque silence followed by sudden outbursts of violence) and a carefully calculated - and highly unusual for the time - use of film space."
http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue8/pointblank.html

Start with this movie to see what influenced the Tarantino stylish/derivative action movie trend.

Speaking of San Francisco related films, there don't seem to be that many, but Bullitt (1968) and Vertigo (1958) give nice glimpses of their times. Point Blank was the first movie that filmed in Alacatraz prison after it shut down.

I found out that Ben Spurgin, a talented animator, musician and friend, passed away unexpectedly on 10/13. He often bugged me to learn Flash and I finally did, but I never got to show him the pirate cartoon in progress. I'm going to dedicate it to him. He entertained people with hundreds of thousands of views of his cartoons on newgrounds, and here's a tribute there from another friend of his. http://mindchamber.newgrounds.com/news/post/391394

"YARRG! A Pirate Movie" (working title) screens Sat 10/3 (well, the work reel with placeholder art)- in Project 21. Check out their giant list of other events too, looks like an awesome film fest.

http://www.projecttwenty1.com/Default.aspx?tabid=236

Quietly working on completing the rest on my own, in between part time work and my home business. In the past month, I completed 1 min. of animation. It could be faster but it's solid progress. Every other stage of work is done, so it's just a matter of completing frames of the characters and dropping them into the project. As it goes it will probably get a bit faster, since I worked on some of the tougher shots first, and art will get some re-use. Looks like another 8-10 weeks. When the whole thing is done, I'm going to shoot it out to lots of festivals.

Hi livejournal! I read, even if I'm too busy to reply to posts & comments lately. Here's another clip of animation from the film in progress.

Here's 1 shot from the cartoon I'm making, all animated.

http://www.patsanimation.com/pirates/animatic/pirate-test01b.mov

More cartoon BG's

More cartoon BG's- will have more animated elements- birds, flags, waves, pirates, etc.