If we posted this a week ago, we would've been telling you how excited we were to announce the premiere of the film. However, First City Film Festival, which was set to be the premiere screening, had to cancel the event this year. It's a sad announcement to have to make. We've enjoyed screening there in years past and we hope they are able to bounce back for next year. As for our premiere, we're cooking something up. Don't you worry.
PODCAST We've kicked off our 11th season of the Illumination Cinema Movie Podcast. Starting with our annual Golden Jamies episodes and more recently, Direct to Dumpster Vol. 10. Be sure to stay tuned. There will be lots of great episodes this season.
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Hello everyone!
It's that time of year. The beginning of the year! 2023 was a wild ride in so many ways. We had so much going on that we couldn't fully get to everything we wanted to do, which might be a good problem to have. I'll do my best to catch up on everything we've done since our last update and let you know what we have coming up for the future. 10TH ANNIVERSARY As many of you may know, 2023 was the studio's tenth anniversary. There were a lot of things we wanted to do in celebration of that, but not a lot we had time for (as mentioned before). What we did manage to do, was a fun stream in celebration featuring Chris, David Young and I. We chat about past experiences and play a little IC trivia. That can be seen HERE! A SCRIPT CALLED MISERY After five years of off and on work, it is complete. The first comic book series we produced is finally finished and fully available with all five parts of the story. Links to every issue can be found HERE! It feels very good to have weight of this one lifted off of our shoulders. There was a point in time where we wondered if we would ever see the day, and it seriously bummed me out to think we would leave something half finished like that. Luckily, we were able to strap in and get it done. THE DOG PARK While on the topic of comic books, it's probably a good time to jump to this one as well. You'll probably notice that the last couple updates on it were more or less giant shrugs. We sort of surprised ourselves with a major push to complete the other project, which we pretty much anticipated the opposite of. Sadly, it meant there was no movement on this series and that may remain the case for a while. Optimistically, I would love to put out a single issue or something, but that will also be hard to promise. There is a lot of work finished for the second volume. All of the scripts are complete and many of them have been penciled. It all comes down to time, which I know I won't have much of. We'll make announcements if progress is made, but I certainly wouldn't expect it. SHORT FILMS We spent the entire year talking about a couple of short films we made. Those being HOLE IN THE GROUND and DEATH IN LAVENDER. Both of which is still currently in the festival stage. I'm sure we'll be switching gears to an online release for the former soon-ish. Probably some time this year? Definitely. I have to assume at least. The other is completely up to Fritz, whom we co-produced the film with. 2024 should see a couple new short film productions as well. We've been talking about some possibilities recently and are excited to pursue them. ARRIVE ALIVE Getting into the big topics now! Principal photography for our live action feature was completed in November. To call it an undertaking would be an understatement. We had 18 shoot days spread over 3 months and it was a lot of work to coordinate. We have a few things to pick up here and there and editing will begin soon. Needless to say, December was spent enjoying a bit of down time. Time will tell where this thing goes, but we're excited to send it out to festivals this year! THE TWO OTHER FEATURES Yep. We've teased both of these a bit, so here's a little update on them. Considering we're not giving titles yet, don't expect much. First up, something that has only been lightly talked about, Christopher Strong is directing a feature documentary. We're very excited as this is the first real foray into this field. We did a nice readthrough of the script last month and we're ready to go into production this year. As for the other, we have previously mentioned a new animated feature film. This finally made some real strides in 2023. We spent a good amount of time gathering voices and making storyboards, which culminated in screening the first complete animatic of the film at our studio holiday party. All in all, it's coming out great. I guess I haven't said it here before, but I will be serving as writer and director for the movie. Much like our last animated feature outing, the process will be long. However, we are employing new methods in this production which could potentially quicken the pace (or maybe it will slow us way down, who knows). THE PODCAST Last but not least, we have the podcast. Season 9 wrapped up with a nice holiday special. While the studios tenth anniversary has come and gone, the podcast's has just begun. Season 10 will be premiering very soon with the Golden Jamies as our launch episode. Should be lots of fun. We're trying out a lot of fun new stuff in this year's schedule, so we're all very much looking forward to it. I'm sure there is more to say. But hey, what ever that's enough for now. We all know I'm terrible at updating this blog. So I'll probably see you next January! - Tyler There were many times I sat down with full intention to update the blog and thought, "it would be a lot funnier if I didn't". At some point, the bit has to come to an end. I do unfortunately have to write a post. What a sad day. PERSONAL HISTORY Our feature film, PERSONAL HISTORY, was released in July. It is available to rent or buy on Vimeo OnDemand. You should totally check it out. I heard all kinds of great responses on the festival circuit. Such as "Wow good job", "I liked it" and "Please tell me that was a real documentary. I'm afraid of dying". 'Nuff said! Go to the film's page HERE! A SCRIPT CALLED MISERY This was another thing we released, that I talked about on the last post. Issue 4 was released in May. That leaves one left to go in the series. The good news is, it's pretty much finished! I have a few notes that need to be applied, but other than that, I wrapped it up back in the spring. The team seems to have responded very well to the ending of the series, so I look forward to having everyone see it. I'll go ahead and throw out a release date of November 24th! Why not? A BUNCH OF SHORT FILMS At the beginning of the year, we were working on a few short films. Those have hit festivals and have made for a great fall run! HOLE IN THE GROUND has especially been doing great. Kicking things off at 307 Film Fest in Wyoming, going to Tallgrass along with DEATH IN LAVENDER and it will be finishing up this leg of its run in November with the Will Rogers Motion Picture Festival. We'll see what the future plans are with all of them some time next year. We're debating on what else we want to do. Keep an eye on our upcoming events and screenings to see if any of them are coming to a fest near you.
Hello everyone!
2022 has officially come to a close and we're moving in to a new year. Ol' 22 was pretty decent to us. We saw the premiere of our latest feature, a new animated short film and a handful of great collaborations. As you can imagine, we're still very early into 2023, so there is a lot to be determined. However, I'll do my best here to highlight everything we're looking to accomplish. PERSONAL HISTORY With the film having made its debut, there has been a long waiting period on what our next move will be. That said, it may be a little longer before we know. Broadly speaking, the film will see a digital release, likely in the middle portion of the year. In less important news, we released the soundtrack album a few weeks ago. That can be found HERE. SHORT FILMS We have a couple of co-produced projects that have yet to be released online left over from last year. Fritz Robinson's GOOD LISTENER will likely be released after wrapping up its festival run. The Take36 project, CHEKHOV'S HAND GRENADE, is just waiting on a bit of ADR. Briefly mentioned on the latest episode of our podcast, we have been working on a horror project with Kurt T. Choate. We will be shooting this in the first part of the year. The short is called BLINDISGHT and will be helmed by David Wayne Young and Kurt. We're also continuing to work on another short film with Fritz Robinson called DEATH IN LAVENDER. This is a 16mm crime short. There is one more day of shooting left to go in the spring before we move into post-production. Finally, we are producing a short film directed by Gina Bryant called HOLE IN THE GROUND. Also to be shot in the early part of the year. Needless to say, we'll be busy for the next few months. NEW FEATURES We've sorta softly announced these in the past. We are currently developing a live-action horror feature as well as a new animated comedy. It wouldn't be smart to say much more this early in the game. It will probably be a while before there is any news of substance on these. I'll leave it at that. ANYWAY! COMICS It's probably a good time to throw out an update on where these projects sit. Ideally, we would love to release THE DOG PARK Volume 2 this year. We made a good amount of progress last year. The animated short definitely sidelined it a bit. I'd say at best, we could try for the end of the year on this one. It will be a big undertaking no matter how you look at it. As for A SCRIPT CALLED MISERY, there has been no major movement since the last time it came up. It's a low priority at this point. We are still determined to get it out there eventually. This project has just been a victim of circumstance. PODCAST We're about to move into the ninth season of our movie podcast. We'll be kicking things off with our annual tradition of The Golden Jamie Awards, running down every new film we saw in 2022 and declaring our top five favorites. We're all very excited for the line up of episodes we have this year. We have a lot of fun topics and guest appearances that we can't wait to do. The future remains unwritten as usual. We'll see how everything goes. Bottom line, we hope to putting out cool projects for you to enjoy. Have a Happy New Year! - Tyler |
