Hot/Cold... is "warming" up...

Daniel is posting...

As per usual, a day working with Frank and Robby was very insightful. We were doing some last minute location scouting, which is always frightening, because things have to go well. But I think things went better than I had expected. We are almost ready to make a movie. As much as I like to just Produce, I am switching into AD mode for the shoot and this week is well the week before the shoot. So my mind is going everywhere trying to make sure I am confident about ever aspect of our two shooting days this weekend. I am very proud of this project and am lucky I get to be such a big part of it.

It is pretty crazy to jump in to straight between two shoots, knowing that swimming through only leads to a larger ocean of work and production. I drove past Caves on the way to one of the locations we were looking at today and I was remembering back when I would've gone for a beer on Memorial Day a few years ago. I would've sat at the bar during happy hour and talked about how I wanted to make movies. I'd talk about crazy ideas involving Werewolves or Aliens, but instead of making that happen I sat there on the barstool enjoying what I thought at the time was a deserved rest. Now I spend almost everyday working toward production or on a production of a friends. It has been a nonstop ride since AFI ended and I think I starting to get back into it. After Post Production on Sleet/Snow I was completely drained, I had directed and finished 8 films in 2008 (Sleet/Snow was the last), and that feeling I can now say is over.

That said there are also a ton of films I want to see this Summer and I have picked up at least one job to fund my getting to see them all so I can report about them here. In no particular order they are; Summer Hours, Lorna's Silence, World's Greatest Dad, Revenche, UP (which will be the first PIXAR film I will have ever seen in a theater), Paper Heart, and all the big uns (which I won't write about instead I will probably talk obsessively about to anyone in my close proximity... sorry in advance).

Also Lemon is moving towards a big step, will update soon. Also Coming soon is an Adrian Make Movie DVD, hopefully featuring all of the shorts made with Adrian Make Movie Productions... more on that soon as well, don't forget to come out and support our sister company Manamal Productions' 24hr Video Race film, which I co-wrote/directed, "Sweet Potatoes" this Tuesday 7pm at the Angelika Dallas.

24hr (continued...)

See "Sweet Potatoes" on the big Screen at the Angelika in Dallas on Tuesday at 7pm! ($5 for non racers)

or

You can watch it here


or


here.

24hr Video Race Done

Daniel here...

If you didn't follow manamal on the tweet hot line, we finished our movie at 10pm. Managed to make a new cut by 11pm and turned in a really nice film. It is called Sweet Potatoes, which was the joke title for a script I was working on last month, and it is about two sisters who are left with their Uncle Steve by their father for the afternoon and he takes them out for some mischief. The film is about responsibility, growing up, etc. I am very happy with the film overall. We technically had an unprecedented 6 writers. (!!!) It was the first film for Adrian and I to work on together creatively since Sleet/Snow, and post our mini-festival run for said film. I don't think it is much fun a Schadenfreude, but we didn't focus on last year. We just focused on making this film. It was very liberating to think of it that way.

I will be posting our final film by tonight for all your viewing pleasure, but even still it is always best to see any film on a big screen so we will be updating here on the Manamal Twit for all screening times. Our first and potentially last will be later this week. Congratulations to everyone who participated, especially to those who finished. I was happy to see so many of friends going through this bull shit on their own terms. 24hr is a fun shitty ride, and I'm glad it is over.

the Reel

ENJOY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwpSzYLm6ic

UnderExposed 7 Wrap Up Blog!

Daniel here,

Adrian Make Movie Productions and their filmmakers sweep UnderExposed Awards. The awards were selected by a jury of three, Chris Simpson, Keith Alcorn, and Melissa Kirkendall, and so here's the results. UnderExposed is a film festival made by students to showcase the work made by students, all the films are selected by the same jury, and Adrian and I were on the committee to put on the show. I had nothing to do with the awards, but it sure was neat to get one. So here's the wins.

Best Cinematography (tie)
Noe Medrano Jr. for Gillface
Bret Curry for Sleet/Snow

Best Writing
Nathan James for Gillface

Best Narrative and Audience Favorite
Aaron Holloway for Big Hands

Best Directing
Daniel Laabs (ME!) for Sleet/Snow

and

Best in Show
David McGinnis for Gillface

Other films that screened at UnderExposed 7 from Adrian Make Movie were Noe Medrano Jr.'s Hurtgenwald and Jayson Mekala's The Moving Rows. Thanks to everyone who came out.

In other news, The Adrian Make Movie team er Myself and Adrian will be joining forces with our Big Handed friend, Aaron Holloway and Manamal Productions (which I proudly have been involved with for a year now) to enter the 24hr Video Race under the Futurevision Catagory. This is our second year doing the race our first year we took home first place for our film "Schadenfreude."



We will post live updates during the 24hr Race, via the manamal twitter.

Alright well that's it for news, more festival updates for "Sleet/Snow" coming soon!

TEAM HURRICANE LOVES YOU

Adrian (the guy who wrote this) and Daniel were recently invited to the greatest podcast ever on Earth, "Team Hurricane Loves You". Our good friends, Shaun and Darrel host an incredible podcast where they talk about important current trendy topics like puppies, laserdiscs, cheese enchiladas, and electric bongos. They have been pugging our film, "sleet/snow" since their first podcast and have been fans of us since the beginning of time, so we thought we would grace them with our robot clones.
I have to say those clones were an amazing investment. We pre-program them to be smart and witty and it takes about 15 minutes for them to warm up, but once they do, they're awesome. So, if the podcast has a slow, rocky start... just stay tuned and it will pick up and by the end, you will love The Darrel and The Shoo-awn Hawm-eel, as well as rekindle your eternal love for The Daniel Rock Laabster and Amazing Adrian Test-o-Leone.
We talked about LOTR, Star Trek, Wolverine, sleet/snow, Gillface, Elvis Saves Christmas, Lou Diamond Phillips, Adrien Brody, Jeffery Tambour, Charelton the Elvis Impersonator, and Evan's Vacuum Cleaner Store and Hulu.
If you are fans of any of these things then you will thoroughly enjoy the "Cowabunga Adrien!", Team Hurricane Loves You podcast.
Other than that being the most awesome thing that has happened to us in the past who knows how long, we ate McDonalds, wrote emails to Bart about what we're going to do with our lives, ate McDonalds again, laughed at our own voices, then ended the night with a high five and said, "Adrian Make Movie's gotta stay high!"

We also plugged the UTA/SFVO Student Short Film Festival that will be on May 12th and 13th, from 7pm to 10pm
It will be at the Studio Movie Grill in Arlington Highlands, 225 Merchants Row, Arlington, TX, on I-20 and Matlock.

The festival is going to be awesome. It's a lot of shorts from a lot of our friends as well as some "Adrian Make Movie" Productions.

Sarah Harris, the senior shorts programmer at AFI Dallas International Film Festival, Melissa Kirkendall, the producer/director of the Fearless Film Festival in Fort Worth, Chris Simpson, local producer and industry professional and former SFVO President, and Keith Alcorn, creator of Jimmy Neutron, local animator, and UTA Alumni will be judging the festival.

It will be great movies, good food, and great fun, so come on out to the UNDEREXPOSED 7 Film Festival!

and don't forget to tip your filmmakers...

ha!


Adrian