2011 balance

I thought it was time to recap on what went on over the year 2011 in terms of films and other -video or otherwise- exciting projects. Yes, there's a few days left to the end of the year, but I intend not to do much until Christmas, to be honest.

In January and February, I pretty much worked on Brothers day, my first feature film as a director, 24 7. Getting the cast, securing the locations, re-working the script, preparing the shots. Constantly buzzing production office. I slept once too. Great times.

In March, while I was still filming Brothers day, I did the first and last videoblog of the project, for the only reason that I was waiting for the actors and had nothing better to do. I did some VFX work for an American promo with a great pitch. And a time traveller.

In May, I went to the Cannes film festival. Walked around a lot, went to a few parties, watched a few films and saw Hugh Jackman in sunglasses. Got a new phone unsuitable for dirty fingers.

In June, I did a few more shots of Brothers day and I saw myself in the trailer for Captain America, featuring my first ever blockbuster extra role.

In July, I finally and officially wrapped Brothers day, to the surprise of everyone, especially me. Captain america was released. Enjoyed it and I THINK I MAY HAVE SEEN myself. My mother claimed to have seen me more times than I was ever there. Google released Google+ and I got absurdly excited about it. I'm feeling better now.

In August, I watched Rise of the planet of the apes. Got excited again. Longest title and best film I have seen this year in the cinema to date.

In September, I loved my new phone. And immediately started to hate it after that. Filmed some incredible bluescreen.

In October, I filmed in a warehouse and nearly got run over by a forklift, which was mildly entertaining. Filmed some stuff in the woods too.

In November, I forgot I had shown my short film Reaction to practically no one and shared it with the world. Calachurras reached its most exciting issue so far and we tried to explain a few things with a cute annex. As a reward, we finally got a fan we don't know personally. Win.

In December, decorated dozens of Christmas trees in a fake NYC and was involved in a attempt to burn down a hotel. Never toast bread if you are not completely awake.

More stuff this year ends with:  

Newfound Planet, our very own production company, is now born and the next feature film project is on the making, a very exciting Sci-fi. Which is like a Science fiction film, but with less letters. Possible the most amazing news this year.

Calachurras has reached the middle of its story, and still most people haven't got a clue what we mean.

After months of on and off work. The Brothers day trailer is nearly ready to go out. This obviously mean it will be the greatest trailer of all times. Either that or simply the most slowly done one.

Look forward to 2012.

What's been happening

So I thought I'd take the time to give a bit of an update on what I've been doing in the last few months (that feel like years!!).

End of last year, I was lucky enough to have a job as an extra (background artist :) in the Captain America movie (!!!!!!). If you want to try and see me :P (I'm one of the blurry dockers in the background) I'm in the official trailer, min 1:36 :) Although it may sound very unimpressive to some, for me it was an incredible experience that felt much too-short, and it leaves me out of breath simply to talk about it. Only Google :) can be more exciting than working in a Hollywood movie + seeing one of the characters I've been reading comics about all my life (Captain America in this case) in the flesh + getting paid for it. Incredible.

Then somehow I ended up directing my first feature film, a drama set in Manchester titled BROTHERS DAY. I'd like to blame my insistence in getting in as much trouble as possible for it, but maybe it was just sheer luck. In any case, it was a lot of fun and hard work. Luckily a strong cast and crew came together in the end and we managed to both pull it off and live through the experience! I did have to put other projects on hold, but it was all worth it. I especially enjoyed working on a feature script which wasn't my own, and working with 2 fantastic writers to make the necessary changes to the story to be able to film it with the given constraints. I just finished filming it, still need to edit it all together and such, but the footage is all in the can (well, all but a couple of days). Sadly, there is very little I can show -well, other than pictures of the shoots-, but I'm working on a trailer and I can't wait to show everybody once it's finished! :)

As if it wasn't enough, I got involved in a movie-to-be called TRAVELER ZERO, a time-travel story... based on real events! :) I only got to do some visual effects and grading for it, but it was particularly thrilling to me because the project is America-based. It's currently been pitched in L.A. to producers with important-sounding names :) and hopefully the whole movie will get to be filmed. You can see the full short film promo below.

At the comic-book side of things, my brother and I have recently re-launched the webseries CALACHURRAS. We are excited to get back to work on this after a bit of a break to give the whole thing all the color that rightfully deserved, and can't wait for you people to read the whole story and tell us what you think.

Last but hardly least, I also went to CANNES this year, for the first time. Cannes is not only a film festival, but a way of seeing the film industry from a more practical angle, and an opportunity to meet a lot of like-minded people and move projects forward. It was a fantastic and necessary experience that I recommend to all my filmmaking friends. It is both fun and a lot of work, and absolutely worth it.

And this is all for now in what's been the most exciting months of my life. A lot of exciting things seems to be happening in the near future too, but I shall talk about them in some other post.

Thanks for reading!

Busy times!

Together with a bunch of crazy, wonderful people from Manchester, last week I survived a film making marathon, called Kabaret.

I made two short films in these intense 10 days. One of them will go up next week as a trailer (ish) of The Entity!! (what!? Really!!??? Yes, finally! ) There's a lot more happening with The Entity!! but it is all too exciting for this post :)

The other "kabaret" short film, I'll still be doing a little tweaking with the help of some of the wonderful people I met there. I'm especially excited about this one.

On the comic front, Calachurras is already in production and will go up in a couple of months on the Eskimo Effect site (what!? You don't know it, shame on you, go visit immediately!), right after the last episode of the current webcomic, Cristobal-98.

Calachurras is the most complex comic-book project my brother and me have worked so far. It's also weird, fun (if we've done our job right) and -we think- definitely different! I'm very happy with the results. Also, I must say it's a great opportunity for satisfying my natural inclination towards making up strange-sounding names (and a translation nightmare, but that's a different story!). Hope you are looking forward to seeing it. We certainly can't wait to start. For now, here's the first sneak peek.

Thanks for reading!

Lately

These days, I feel like I'm closer to find my long-sought place in the universe.

...

That's it. That's the best line I have. The rest of the entry is pretty much padding.




Either that or I'm getting seriously affected by my lack of sleep. Seriously, it's all too exciting these days.


Months ago I decided I wanted to get in as much production trouble as I could possibly find, after quite a while off it. This irrational, inexplicable initiative has somehow taken me to be working hard on a couple of two independent feature films now. One of them, we start shooting in just a few days for about 2 weeks So you if you have been wondering what the $·%"& is going on with The Entity!! , you can blame Deadtime (in a nice way though, don't be mean) for generating so much work.

Needless to say, this leaves me very little time to keep up with all the necessary research needed for the feature film script I feel like I've been working on forever now. And of course for...


The Entity!! (yes, again!). Despite everything, I managed to apply for some funding recently. If the project got through the selection process, it would be a great opportunity to get the short film made earlier than I thought next year. If not...well, tough.

Also, I want to thank everybody for bringing more and more people to the Facebook group and spread the word (I'm glad that someone is doing something about the project, shame on me). Especially considering how increasingly hard it is to find your way around in Facebook these days. In any case, the community of fans of The Entity!! keeps growing (307 members now!), which in turn brings hope for the future of humankind. All the names of those who have invited other people or thrown some help at the project are being added to the "Collaborate" section of the website, and of course will be given a credit in the end roll of the film. They will also be loved immensely everywhere they go, for their hearts are pure.


So all good, apart from my lack of sleep, which makes me "go funny" and is meant to get even worse over the next few days.

Oh, and I'm thinking of kidnapping a celebrity. But that's not sure yet, will keep you posted.

Current projects

Although still outrageous, I do find that having quite a few projects going on at the moment makes up for my lack of posts for the last 3 weeks. Some of you already know about them, since these days I seem to indefatigably tell every living soul about them, hungry for feedback. Well, it's either that OR more general talk about films and (Saint) Google as usual. Thanks everyone for enduring it, and for the good ideas.

Coming back to the projects, for those still in the dark and wanting to know, here is a quick list:

• A DVD of Eso que pasó ("It did happen"): My latest shortfilm (filmed in 2004, right after the dinosaurs where wiped out from the face of the Earth). Finally subtitled in English, it also includes a "Making of" feature and even some never-ever-seen before secret material. It's pretty much ready by now. After some finishing touches I will only need to alleviate (or somehow mask) my current lack of knowledge on platforms such as ebay and amazon. As soon as I can solve this thorny issue, I will make it available for everyone who can't wait to have it. My mom assures me she'll get two copies, for instance (don't let me down, mom!).

• 3 shortfilm scripts: That is NOT to say that, after 5 long years of non-producing I've embarked myself in a triple project. Rather, I've been writing in an uncontrolled manner and now find myself with all this material that, I think, I'd really should do something with. I'll pick one to start with and off we go. More on this soon.

• A film script: Selling a script for a feature film is an idea that I have been recently entertaining (as opposed to producing it myself, which certainly isn't happening any time soon). Sadly, I literally have dozens of half-finished scripts (and of course mountains of notes). So actually finishing one looks like the logical next step now, process that I'm enjoying enormously, necessary pain aside. It's a sci-fiction story, more on this soon too.

• A website: After making a few in the past, none of them for me, it's about bloody time I had mine. The kind of thing you never get around too, isn't it? Well, it's happening now. I'm putting it together with my brother, it will cover both individual and common projects and it will be pretty pretty pretty.

• An online comic-book: Inspired by the sketch below, will be drawn by (again) my brother. After we get over the initial research-and-preparations stage, we'll start producing pages (or its online equivalent) on a regular basis. I'll keep you posted.

Well, there are some more projects on, but nothing in the realistic pipeline for the next few months. If you are even a little bit excited about any of this, I am already delighted. If not, well... (not even a little??) you obviously have no heart...

Tragic.

In any case, I'm terribly ashamed by the length of this post.