Back to the future

What my humble partner is trying to say here is that nothing could ever go wrong and we are working on an Oscar winning film! LOL! Ok, well it may be our first film, and it may or may not be "a hit", but it will be successful in the knowledge we gained, the people we met, and the fun we had doing it. And of course we hope it entertains you and makes you laugh and cry and scream, and allows us to make more films.

Happy Halloween and back to future!

-Arlo

P.S. This year is the 25th anniversary of Back To The Future - one of my all time favorite movies!

Almost Halloween

Not much going on here in Dirt Nap haven. We are still waiting for our actors hair to grow back out so we can shoot the last few minutes of footage. While I am waiting, Arlo is busy editing all the exisiting footage and so far we are at twelve minutes of playable film. Not bad considering I was afraid it would come up short. I am told that Arlo is also putting together the gag real and the beind the scenes section which makes me wonder. I am not really sure if I want to see myself trying to direct for my first time. With my luck there will be a shot of me pointing in two different directions at once yelling, "Go that way!." It's all good fun though. To help get this film put to bed I am doing some fill shots on my own in an attempt to get a finished product to show people. Yeah, I know there are teenagers who put up a new YouTube video every week where some kid gets hit with a tennis ball and falls to the ground in pain, but I am artist!!! Now if only I can get that documentary gig in Canada, I wonder ???

J. Allen

Birth x4

It has been a while since I wrote a little something in here. I have been waiting for Arlo and Chad (the star) to have time to finish the Dirt Nap project. With nothing but time on my hands I cleaned out the garage. I was surprised when I found two small white eggs under the wood next to where I park my car. I also found two more small white eggs where the garage door meets the foundation. I grabbed a jar from the pantry, put some dry grass in it and placed the four eggs inside then I waited. A week goes by and nothing. Well on Monday the first two baby lizards hatched. Then today the second pair hatched. So I took some pictures, tried to film the little ones then released them into the garden. I never would have thought I was a lizard wrangler. Here is a picture of the first one born. The other three looked identical to this little one too.

J. Allen

Flash Flood !!!

Today I paddled from Fort Worth to Dallas and it took me about 2.5 hours to do so. I heard on the radio that Texas had received a good 5-6 inches of rain and the ground was soft. Ok, well that makes sense as water is wet and dirt mixed with water makes mud. It does not take a genius to know this but apparently the weathermen think we are idiots. These same weathermen go on to explain how telephone poles and electrical poles are falling over due to the ground being so saturated. Alright, enough; I do not for one second believe that a telephone pole is buried so shallow as to just fall over if the first six inches of dirt get wet. All summer long these same weathermen complain that we need a good long wet rain to really penetrate the ground, yada, yada, yada. Now if these alleged poles are really buried shallow enough to just fall over when wet then it is high time to start firing some useless workers who cut corners when possible.

Before I forget, Arlo edited the first two minutes of Dirt Nap and it looks pretty good so far. I am still on the fence as to how long the finished film will actually be but it will be over ten minutes for sure. I am hoping for 15-20 minutes. We will know more when we film our missing segment.

J. Allen

Score one for Dirt Nap!

We have a composer who is working with us to score the film: http://mariolanderos.com - take a look.

We're going through the creative process to get an idea of what the right flavor of music should be. I'm still working on the rough cut of the film, but once it's locked for the final cut we'll really get moving.

Clipping Along

Arlo has been busy throwing some rough cuts together. I still can't decide if we will have enough footage to hit ten, fifteen or even twenty minutes but time will tell. On the audio front we have located a person who seems willing to produce an actual score for Dirt Nap. I am very curious as to how this will turn out. The direction we had been trying up to now was contacting the owners of certain songs and asking about using them in this non-profit film. So far each person or business has wanted thousands of dollars to use the song with the crazy limitation of Texas only, twelve months, no internet and only one film festival. I don't agree so I simply won't do business with them.

J. Allen

Edit, cut, splice, review

There is lots of editing to do and many sound fx to gather to get the film complete. We still have to shoot a missing scene that was skipped the first day but it is a small car scene and should not be difficult to add in later. I have a small raw trailer posted at http://www.zombiesquadron.com/downloads.html so feel free to download it and give it a watch. Yes, I do know the trailer is vague and does not give away any secrets but that is how I plan on getting each of you to watch the entire polished film. On a side note, I was asked a couple of days ago what was the hardest part of the film. That is an easy question, the heat. At one point during the second weekend I think it reached 104 with 110 heat index. Next time I think I will have an air conditioned trailer follow us around (wink).

More to follow.


J. Allen