Monday, December 8, 2008

"THE BLACKOUT" WORLD PREMIERE AT THE LANDMARK

Monday, December 1st in West L.A at The Landmark Theater with a packed house. It was a hit! The audience ate up the entire film! They laughed at all the jokes, gasped at the suspense, and threw popcorn into the air at the scares! We couldn't be happier with how well the premiere turned out. The Landmark is an amazing venue and the film looked gorgeous on the huge cinema screen.
























Thursday, November 13, 2008

WORLD PREMIERE OF "THE BLACKOUT"


It's finished. Finally!

Post-production took twice as long as originally anticipated, but we believe the final product was worth the wait. An exclusive world premiere for cast, crew, friends and family is scheduled for Monday, December 1st at the beautiful and technically-advanced Landmark Theater in West L.A.

The movie's signature set piece is the elevator shaft finale sequence. Shot using only a partial set consisting of only one floor of the elevator shaft required the rest of the environment to be added digitally in post. The ambitious sequence was the main culprit for post-production taking as long as it did. The custom animation required to finalize the film's creature also proved challenging and time consuming. All in all the film includes 265 visual effects shots. That's a lot considering the film's budget!

Recently milestones also include putting the finishing touches on a Dolby Digital 5.1 discreet sound mix. Color grading using Apple's advanced Digital Intermediate software "Color" helped unify the film's four locations into a single setting, The Ravenwood building.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The Full-Length Theatrical Trailer Debuts!

We are very pleased to debut the new full-length theatrical trailer for THE BLACKOUT.

VIEW THE TRAILER HERE!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008


Pre-Release Teaser Poster - "Home World"

Pre-Release Character Poster - "Kyle"

Pre-Release Character Poster - "Ashley"

Monday, August 4, 2008

Musician Chris Fayz


We are proud to announce that musician and composer Chris Fayz has been hired to score all the original Christmas music throughout the movie. As many of you know THE BLACKOUT takes place on Christmas Eve. We are excited about Chris' involvement in bringing a warm, fuzzy, analog sound to the Christmas tunes of the movie.

Welcome Chris to THE BLACKOUT team!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

MANTRA:

There are 24 hours in every day; and if that's not enough we'll work nights too!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Canon Event at Birns & Sawyer


I have been invited to speak at Birns & Sawyer, the famous camera facility in downtown Hollywood, about our experiences using Canon's XL-H1 high-definition camera on "The Blackout". The event takes place on Wednesday, April 30th from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. I will be showing a few select scenes from the movie as well as discussing our digital HD workflow.

The event will most likely sell out. If you'd like to attend you must RSVP using the link below:

Canon Video – NAB Recap (4/30/08)

From its inception in 1954, Birns and Sawyer has been a premiere rental and sales firm of motion picture equipment in the United States. Birns and Sawyer has been a Hollywood standard for quality and dependability for the last fifty years and continues to assist the needs of filmmakers and progress with new technology.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

We Have a Composer - Justin R. Durban

The ink has been applied and Team Blackout would like to welcome Justin R. Durban aboard as the film's official composer. Justin has a great resume and demo and his compositional style is perfectly mated to this project. You can view samples of his work at his website.



We just completed the "dry" spotting session tonight. By "dry" I mean no temp music track. Trying to describe, scene by scene, what we want for the score without the aid or use of actual music is actually pretty difficult. The English language is utterly inadequate in trying to describe a film score that does not currently exist. Several weeks ago we screened a rough-cut of the film for Justin, complete with temp music culled from various appropriate blockbuster movies, so he could get a sense of the movie we were going for - tonally. Tonight's session was the first time we would discuss the movie in detail, moment by moment.

Several things became immediately evident this last week as we prepped the movie for delivery to Justin. We switched off all temp music tracks and watched the movie "naked". And we discovered that the movie actually works exceptionally well in key places without the aid of music. When electrical power goes it there is a certain sense of quiet...certain exterior sounds start to seep into interior spaces - and that became a more powerful sound-design motif to use during those scenes. Places where we had placed originally music originally, but now removed, suddenly played more tense, more suspenseful, more "real". What a revelation!

We're all very excited about Justin's contribution to the movie.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The First Teaser Trailer Debuts - The Beast Revealed!


We are very pleased to debut the first Teaser Trailer for THE BLACKOUT. A more in-depth Feature Trailer is in the works [to be debuted at a later time].

So please, take your first footstep into the darkness of the blackout...

VIEW THE TRAILER HERE!

Thursday, March 6, 2008

POST-PRODUCTION UPDATE v2


We're very close to locking the cut. Which is a major milestone to finishing the movie.

Soon we will be delivering the cut to our composer (who we will be announcing once we have all contracts in place).

Next steps are to finish the 221 visual effects shots. That number represents a wide variety of effects. Some are simple paint and roto shots (painting out background lights), some are digital set extensions (the elevator shaft sequence) and some are digital animation (beast tail and eyes).

Exciting times!

Friday, January 11, 2008

The Spire!


This special effect uses a high resolution digital matte painting of a rock spire protruding through the floor (courtesy Oscar Rodriguez), Photoshop patches to remove lighting from the existing location, footage of real smoke, and TONS of rotoscoping.