Flaming Death Stockroom updates

I made a few changes in the way the Stockroom operates. All orders are now tied into PayPal, and it's pretty slick. For some reason, the donation button in the left menu isn't working properly in IE but works with Firefox, so if you're having issues when donating and don't have Firefox then just use the e-mail button and let me know so we can circumvent the issue. There's a couple other tweaks I need to make, but I'll save that for another day. Off to bed!

Sodanation news

"Computer Life", the song featured in "Luke & Leia", is getting its own video, and they've got photos from their video shoot. Check 'em out!

Updates & other progress

First of all, I've added a lot of updates to the Luke & Leia site. Pictures, cast, crew,...well, see for yourself!

Second, I've finished downloading all of the footage obtained so far and created clips from it. The next step will be editing the clips into a meaningful and flowing scene. The sound needs a little work, but that's to be expected. The good news is that almost all of it turned out great. There was only one line that will need to be a voice-over piece which compared to Yoda's Treasure is a vast improvement (which had the entire first act redone in voice-overs). I also have Sunday the 24th lined up for filming the intro scenes with Marshall, so I'll have all my footage before the end of the month barring any problems.

How it went

Sunday, I started downloading the film footage from Saturday and got as far as Marshall's lines. So far so good. I'm hoping that I didn't forget anything while filming. I might get Matthew and Marshall together again for a photo shoot, though. That should be easy enough to do locally. I should have thought of that while everyone was together on Saturday. Actually, there are a few things I forgot on Saturday, but they're nothing that can't be worked around. Like I intended for Marshall to wear his hat backwards and be chewing gum. Not too important, but the backwards hat thing I can do in the intro to the movie which I have yet to shoot with him, plus we can do it in the photo shoot as well. I also had intended for someone else to run the camera. It's a bit messy trying to find each take since I just kept the camera rolling in some spots, but it's workable. I'm planning on getting the rest of the shots downloaded by the end of this weekend.

Ouch!

Matthew Carlson, one of the two leads in "Luke & Leia", had a little accident last night on his skateboard ("I fell on my face"), and it is more than likely going to leave him with a nice black eye which he can mostly cover up with his long hair. Alan (his father) looked at it this morning, and it wasn't bad (yet). Swollen a tiny bit, too. If nothing else, maybe I can work it into the script. And no, his character won't be attacked by a wampa in the first act to account for his injuries.

I also received a call from Marshall last night to confirm Saturday's plans, and he informed me that the person that we were thinking of using for a waitress is having her wisdom teeth out so she will be unavailable for filming. Must be the time of year for yanking out teeth! My daughter Shelby lost two of her baby teeth in the past week, and my youngest daughter Savannah lost one of hers just last night!

We do have a second camera for Saturday (courtesy of Wade), but I want to use it as a behind-the-scenes camera instead of one of the main cameras. For one thing, it doesn't have an audio input jack and must rely on an internal mic. Second, I'd like to film everything that's going on to catch those funny moments that aren't always right in front of the main camera. It'd be a nice supplement to the finished film up on the website.

In other news, after taking a look at the options I had available in PayPal, I added a direct link in the left-side menu to a PayPal donation page for Flaming Death Productions. I'll take a look at maybe getting the Flaming Death Stockroom set up with PayPal as well, but that'll be a little ways off. I'm assuming most of my time in the near future will be spent working on the editing of "Luke & Leia" instead once we have footage.

All set!

We're less than a week away from filming now! It looks like we're out one camera operator, but I'm sure we'll be able to find someone to fill in for that job. As for the wisdom teeth issue, Marshall has agreed to step in if Mitchell isn't up to it. Matt has his plane tickets, so I'll be picking him and his camera up Friday evening. Everything is finally coming together, and after two or three years of planning this thing it almost seems surreal.

It's always something....

I was informed earlier today that one of my leads, Mitchell, is having his wisdom teeth taken out August 8, the day before the shoot! How this will affect filming is yet to be seen, but I've asked if his brother, Marshall, might take his place. If all else fails and we can't get someone to fill in that role, I have an idea for alternates but I'd rather not think of that right now. Think positive! Do, or do not! There is no try!

Confirmed!

August 9 is now set as the date to film "Luke & Leia"! We'll be shooting at the Chula Vista restaurant in West St. Paul, and it's looking like we'll be starting somewhere around 8am. On top of this great news, Matt, my partner in crime, may also be here all the way from Michigan for the shoot! Not only that, but we'll also planning on hitting the Star Wars Exhibit at the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul to fulfill a perfect day.

Yesterday I met with Mitchell, one of the two leads. We briefly went over the script, chose the proper wardrobe, and viewed the Kevin Smith short film "The Flying Car" for character observations. The extra role of waitress or waiter will either be filled by Mitchell's "significant other" (sorry... I can't recall her name!), or by Marshall (Mitchell's brother). I hope to meet with Matthew, the other lead, in one of the weekends leading up to the filming date.

In other news, I'm hoping to set up a small booth next weekend at our huge garage sale to present "Yoda's Treasure" to people and sell a few DVDs (at cost, mind you!). This will be a test of what we could do at other events in the future but on a smaller scale.

Updates!

Yes, there's been an update! I now have music that will be used in "Luke & Leia" from the band Sodanation in the downloads section of that film's website (although it's not exactly a download but streaming audio instead). There is also a link there to the band's website where you can hear the full version of "Computer Life" with vocals. Many thanks go out to Charlotte and of course Sodanation for use of this song which was exactly what I was looking for.

So, once again I'm going forth on the "Luke & Leia" project with the other two actors I had in mind for the main roles. Matthew Carlson is from Rochester, MN and is the son of a friend of mine way back from our college days. Mitchell Fratzke is from New Prague and is one of my twin nephews. I also have three roles up for grabs including a waitress and an elderly couple. I may have someone in mind for them, but I'm open to suggestions so give me a shout if you're so inclined. As for the location, that's up in the air at the moment until I can contact Chris and Tina Marler. Hopefully I can get that predicament handled soon.

This leaves us with a tight filming schedule. I'm hoping for August 9 to work otherwise we'll be looking at sometime in September for the earliest date after that.

Somewhere in this busy year I hope to get my annual Sci-Fi party scheduled, too.

DOH!

It seems I've lost all contact information for the Marlers since they've moved! So, if either of you two are reading this (crossing fingers), please give me a call or e-mail.

*UPDATE* I got a hold of Chris yesterday. Thanks Chris!

This year's Sci-Fi party

Some of you have questioned me about it during the past couple of months, and yes, I will be having my annual sci-fi party this year. I just don't know exactly when it will be yet. I have updated the webpage, though, at http://flamingdeath.net/scifiparty/.

This would also be a good opportunity to do some planning for L&L. By then, things should have settled down for me as far as the housing crisis goes, and I should be more available. However, then we hit the problem of getting people together again for filming. Just can't win....

I've also decided to keep the Google advertisements on the site. It's not making me any money... well, I take that back. It looks like I made two cents this past week! Anyway, it gives the site a certain level of credibility, in my opinion.

Blah....

Looks like the Google advertisements aren't doing a bit of business for me at all, so I'm considering taking them down in the near future. It was a good idea, but we just don't get high volumes of traffic here to make it worthwhile. Any thoughts? I guess they do make the site look a little more busy and official though.

Second, it looks like any forthcoming projects are again on hold. With the Marlers moving shortly as well as myself, there are just too many uncertainties to deal with.

Third, Atomfilms has announced their deadline for this year's fanfilm awards: May 27. Details are right here. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll make it in time if L&L gets off the ground before then.

Lastly, I got rid of the falling snow here. After dealing with this winter and no heat in my car, I'm ready for ALL snow to leave. I don't even want to spend any more time in the Misty Mountains in LOTRO because of all the snow there. Bring on spring!

Let's get rolling!

Hey all,

Okay, it's about that time to get serious about making this "Luke & Leia" movie we've been talking about for two years. ;-)

First, I'm sending this posting in an e-mail to quite a few people who were involved with "Yoda's Treasure", a couple of them (Chris and Travis) who will actually be on screen, but the rest as candidates for camera-work and other technical aspects behind the camera and perhaps extras. If you're interested in joining the crew, reply back ASAP so I have an idea of who's all going to be involved.

Second, after having an idea of who the crew will consist of, I want to try to get us together at least once for a pre-production meeting. That means I need two dates from people that they're available, the second date being the shooting date. I'm guessing that an early morning would work best with Chris' restaurant and everyone involved rather than waiting until after close, but Chris…if you could let me know which one is best, I'd appreciate it. So, to reiterate, I need two open dates from people, so the easiest way to get this is to tell me all of your open weekends and I'll compare them all to get the magical two dates.

Fifth, I have yet another film idea, this one unwritten as of yet, that I would like some feedback on to flesh out a good story. We can all discuss this at the pre-production meeting. Matt, you could join us via Teamspeak for your input as well since you already know what I'm thinking of here.

That's about it for now. Check those calendars! :-)

P.S. Yes, I can count. I meant to do that. However, it's a good hint on what that new film idea is. ;-)

Merry Christmas!

...and Happy New Year!

(and a happy birthday to meeeeeeeeee!)

New to the site: Google Advertising

After a discussion with my sister-in-law, I checked into putting up some advertising through Google AdSense. I figure if it brings in any money, I can use those funds to pay for the domain name charge and keep the website operational that way. The way that the ads are chosen is from taking key words from the text on this webpage. Since there's been a lot of talk about the shirts recently, it is finding ads that deal with that subject matter in some way or form. So, if I start talking about Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar every day, we'd probably see ads for Lord of the Rings Online if Turbine is still promoting that way. Anyway, here's hoping for some advertising income!

Oh, the irony of it all...

Two days after I sent the "Luke & Leia" script to the two people I was going to use in place of Travis and Chris, I get an e-mail from Travis saying that he's finally coming back to Minnesota. So, I made the decision to go back to using Chris and Travis for the film. Maybe we'll get something done by year's end.

Recasting and FDP Store news

First to the store news. I have it pretty organized the way I want it now except for the graphic ad on the main page here and a better store name to sprawl across the main store page. I'm open to suggestions on what we can call it besides the Flaming Death Productions Store or FDP Store. FDP just sounds too much like FDS to me, and we're not selling feminine deodorant (or at least not yet). Heh!

Second, I've finally decided to recast "Luke & Leia". After two years, I just decided that it's time. I have two people in mind for the leads, but I don't want to put any names out here until they're locked into place. Preliminary negotiations are looking favorable, though. SO... watch this site for the latest updates! Yes, we're finally going to make another movie!

The "Yoda's Treasure" DVDs for sale!

I don't have everything in the store worked out yet, but I did make up a page for ordering the "Yoda's Treasure" DVDs. It's located right here until I organize the store and set up the side-bar links. At $7.50 a DVD with USPS Priority Mail shipping included, it's not too bad of a deal, don't cha think?

The store is open!

Yes, you're not hallucinating! I finally gave Lord of the Rings Online a rest tonight and got the FDP store up and running. We're only selling the t-shirts at this time, so that's all you'll see for now. Hopefully we'll include more products at a future date including "Yoda's Treasure" which itself would only be sold at cost due to copyright restrictions. If you have any other ideas that we could use for items to sell, let me know via the e-mail link here on the site.

In other news, the filming that I though would take place this summer has been delayed. (Surprise! Surprise!) So, now the contest begins! Who will make it back to Minnesota first? Travis (in Nevada) or Matt (in Michigan)? I'm placing my bets on Matt. hehe!

Long time, no posts

Yep, it's been a while since the last post, so I thought I'd give everyone an update on what's happening.

"Luke & Leia" is still currently stalled (imagine that!). However, while sitting at work a couple of weeks ago, I came up with two more ideas, one of which I wrote a script for. This one should be a little easier to do, but does require both Chris and Matt to be around at the same time. It just so happens that Matt will be back in the area at some point soon, so perhaps we'll have some filming going on soon!

As for the t-shirts, I'm finally starting to get around to making the online order form. Yes, I've talked about doing it for quite a while, but I can blame two things for getting in the way: "Starcraft" and "Lord of the Rings Online".