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PERSONAL HISTORY is Coming to Tallgrass!

8/29/2022

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The cat is out of the bag!

We've had to keep quiet about it for over a month, but it has finally been announced that PERSONAL HISTORY will be screening at the Tallgrass Film Festival on October 2nd. It's hard to illustrate how big this is, but needless to say, we are very excited. You can find out more information about that screening HERE. We did our primary form of announcement with a video where we try a little sampler of hot sauces from the show Hot Ones. You can see that video HERE. In addition to the Tallgrass screening, about a week before, there will be sneak previews of the film happening around IBC 2022 in Amsterdam. We're still planning more screenings for the future as well, we can't wait.

That isn't the only great news we have! We are also adding a new member to the team. That being, Jillian Terrell! Jillian helped us tremendously with sound on PERSONAL HISTORY and has since joined us for several upcoming projects. Having gotten to work with her, it became very clear that we would love to have her be a part of our crew.
Additionally, we have done a few co-productions with other local teams. First was Fritz Robinson's GOOD LISTENER. This was a fun little comedy short we shot in the spring and it will soon be premiering at No Coast Film Festival in Emporia, KS on September 10th.
We also recently participated in Take 36 (a 36-hour film competition) with our friends Gina & Roy in which we made a short film called CHEKHOV'S HAND GRENADE. This screened at the Orpheum here in Wichita and at the Tallgrass Film Center a few weeks later. We've decided to do a little bit of extra ADR work before releasing it online. It was a lot of fun to make and we plan to work with them again fairly soon.

​Lastly, we've been working on our animated holiday short for THE DOG PARK for the last few months. Animation is well underway and while the upcoming busy months will surely bring turbulence, we are still on track to release the short on time. After screening the animatic, I think everyone will really enjoy it.

With that, I'll disappear again until the next update. See you when I see you!

- Tyler
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WISH YOU WERE HERE Premiering Soon!

3/5/2021

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BIG NEWS!

WISH YOU WERE HERE is making its world premiere on April 5th at the Starlite Drive-In here in good ol' Wichita, KS! We've been working hard behind the scenes to form a release plan and especially make this screening happen.
We've been dying to release this movie that we have been more or less sitting on since 2019 and this seems like the safest, best way to pull that off. It's a way all of our cast and crew can attend and given our previous great experience with the Starlite through HorrorFest, it seemed like a no-brainer.
Ticket info will be coming soon. I believe that will be done through their website. We'll find out. We do have a Facebook event page if anyone wants to follow that. We'll do our best to update it with any new information.
As for the future, it will be a game of wait and see. We plan to take our time with the theatrical / festival side of release. There are many ways to approach this and we want to explore every avenue. 
In the meantime, there is plenty to look forward to. We will be releasing a trailer next week and we've already shot a handful of fun IC TRIES episodes to promote the screening. Stay tuned for all that!
In other news, you can now catch us every Wednesday on Twitch (in addition to Thursdays) for new art streams. We'll be working on our new comic THE DOG PARK. Feel free to come hang out and chat with us! 
There are even more cool things we could talk about. But why do it all now? I'll save some of it for later. That's all I've got for you. Catch you next time!

​-Tyler
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News for this year and next!

12/26/2020

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Wow. I can’t believe I haven’t made a blog post since Halloween. Yet at the same time, I can. Things have been busy around here, but there has also been a lot in the air. That said, I believe it’s time to unpack all of it.

HOLIDAY SALE
Before we start getting into the meat and potatoes, I just want to mention that we do have a holiday sale going on over on VHX and with our two films on Vimeo OnDemand. We knocked $2 off of everything. Movies, comic books, you name it. Okay, pretty much just those two things, but still. Definitely worth checking out if you’ve been wanting to get any of these things. This will be going on until December 31st.
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LEFT HOOK
This month, we’ve been releasing some fun material for LEFT HOOK on our social media pages. Mainly mini-featurettes with some of the cast. Also a special IC TRIES where we do the One Chip Challenge to bring attention to the film. The biggest development however, is that among all the other spots it has landed, LEFT HOOK can now be streamed on AMAZON PRIME! It took much longer than I would have liked to get that finalized, but I’m just glad I can finally say it.
Recently, I was interviewed on INDIES ON INDIE to talk about the film. It was nice to follow up because I also appeared on the show back in early 2018 to promote the fundraiser. It was nice catching up with Patrick Poe and I hope everyone enjoys the episode. While the main focus was LEFT HOOK, we also touched on a few other things that I can announce here today.
WISH YOU WERE HERE
David Wayne Young’s feature film WISH YOU WERE HERE, for those unaware, is a live action film we shot back in the summer of 2019. Back then, we thought it would probably be released this fall, but the world had other plans. We took our time in post-production because of this. Now I’m happy to say, the film is complete.
Release is something that we are discussing right now and we’re still figuring things out. Ideally, we would like to get things moving next spring and hopefully we’ll have better luck in 2021 as a whole. We’re all pretty stoked about how this thing turned out. While it certainly had its challenges, seeing the final product feels really nice. I mean, you didn’t hear it from me, but I’m very proud of David’s work on the movie and I’m elated that we got to work on it together.
Look forward to more updates about that one as time marches forward.
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A SCRIPT CALLED MISERY
Our current comic book, while moving slowly, is moving along. With 3 out of 5 parts released, I fully expect for this to be wrapped up next year. The idea is to finish releasing the singles digitally and then to print an omnibus for conventions.
While that is cool news, the even cooler news is the additional plans we’ve been putting together throughout the second half of this year. When the omnibus is released, we will also be putting out a motion comic movie paired with a fully voiced audio track. We pulled in several of our good actor friends to be a part of it and I’m equally as excited to get that out there as I am the other two issues. With cast members like Elijah Muldrow and Harrison Hallows leading the project, how could I not get excited!? It will be similar in presentation to this promo for Issue 3. I don’t want to give a solid timeline for it just yet. However, we do expect it to be out next year.
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THE DOG PARK
Well-well-well! Something new!? That’s right. I announced it a little sooner than I originally intended on that interview I mentioned earlier. But I couldn’t pass up the chance. Honestly, I’m super passionate about this one. It’s a big deal to me. I won’t do a deep dive into exactly what it’s all about until later, but it’s a graphic novel featuring multiple episodic stories following a very fun group of characters. They’re all dogs. Don’t worry, there are no bad dog puns or anything. They just happen to be dogs. Seriously. It’s not even a big deal.
The approach to this one will be different to that of A SCRIPT CALLED MISERY. Aside from being released all at once, we are going to try out a pre-order format through Indiegogo this time. That seems to be the common way to handle indie comics these days. Though, we do plan to have copies at conventions as well, whenever those get going again.
THE DOG PARK is a series that I used to write when I was a kid first learning to be a writer and an artist. So like I said, it’s a passion project. This time around I’m illustrating things myself and mostly writing by myself as well, with fantastic contributions from a story team of Beth and the Davids.
All of this said, DOG PARK will be more than just a comic book. We already have plans for companion cartoons and a few other fun things to go along with it. Alas, these are all things we will need to cover later as well.
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THE PODCAST
Season 7 of the podcast has begun! We kicked things off with our annual holiday special and much like last year, we tried to get as many IC peeps on the episode as we could. We will have an episode all about Mandalorian Season 2 coming up soon featuring Cantu and I. This will be the exception to our plan which is to have one episode every month. The goal is to release each of them on the last Tuesday of every month. Also, we will be premiering each of them on our Twitch channel. Speaking of…

TWITCH THURSDAYS
We’ve been going strong over on Twitch every Thursday, with an occasional bonus stream. We’ve done a couple special events for the holidays. Usually with multiple hosts and some type of theme. Something we have coming up though, for New Years Eve, we will be streaming LIVING AFTER MIDNIGHT! You can follow our Twitch page and check ​the schedule to stay updated about the goings on over there. We usually also post on our social media stories whenever we’re on.
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To wrap this up, we all hope you had a great holiday season and boy, oh boy, a happy new year would certainly be nice! That’s all I’ve got for you today! Catch you later!

-Tyler

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Happy Halloween!

10/31/2020

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Boo!

Did we scare you? We stuffed this month pretty full of Halloween themed content. Or at least as much as we could given the circumstances. Here's a full list of what has dropped and links to see them.
  • NIGHTMARE DRIVE (Our newest short film!)
    • Bonus Features for NIGHTMARE DRIVE! Including an Outtake Reel and Behind the Scenes Documentary!
  • IC HALLOWEEN PARTY (An abridged version of the stream without the short films is now available)
  • The new HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 4 of our podcast is available to listen to. David Young and I talk about the 90's Dracula and Frankenstein films.
  • We also released several new IC TRIES episodes centered around various Halloween themed treats.

Hope everyone has had a Happy Halloween! Big news coming next month!
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Catch Up & Coming Attractions: October & November

10/18/2020

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Fall generally ends up being our busiest time of year for one reason or another. No exception this year. A lot has happened. To the point where we've been making posts almost every day. I'll try to break it down here as simply as possible.

NIGHTMARE DRIVE
Our newest short has started it's festival run. I said before that I didn't expect much. We got two selections so far out of the very few festivals we submitted to. Very proud of it. The most important screening to us was definitely the premiere back on the 12th. We played at the Starlite Drive-In here in town (both NIGHTMARE DRIVE & ANOTHER DAY COLDER). We went to the first showing and had an awesome time. There was also an encore presentation on the 17th. As we've said before, big thanks to Leif Jonker for making that happen. We also had a screening in Columbus, OH on the 15th as a part of the S.O.S. Horror Film Festival.
Currently, there are two other events related to this film. The first is the IC HALLOWEEN PARTY. This will function as the online premiere of NIGHTMARE DRIVE, but will also feature a couple of our other shorts along with special segments we've programmed where the cast and crew play horror trivia and do a special IC TRIES. This is a pre-shot show, but we will be streaming it on the IC Facebook page on October 24th. After that, the film will be available here on our website.
Speaking of IC TRIES, we prepared several new Halloween themed episodes to go with the release of NIGHTMARE DRIVE. There will be a new episode every Monday in October.
Lastly, we have a screening on the morning of October 25th in Austin, TX as a part of the Ethereal Horror Film Festival. We've also been nominated for "Best Animated Film". I'm sure it will be a great time. The jury is still out on a couple other festivals, but those were all delayed until next year, so who knows what will happen.
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Beth Christine & Scott Reacher at the Starlite Drive-In for Scary Movie Mondays
LEFT HOOK
This year has been rough on LEFT HOOK. We had big plans, but they had to be ever changing to compete with all the twists and turns. All-in-all, it hasn't had the worst run. It hasn't had an ideal run! But not the worst run. We've garnered several nominations and even a few awards along the way. Recently, the film was put on Vimeo OnDemand (to buy or rent) and Troma Now (to stream). We're excited to expand the platforms for the film and hope to have more in the future. You can see all your options on the LEFT HOOK page.
But, the biggest piece of news for local fans and film lovers, we're actually going to have a screening. On November 6th, LEFT HOOK will play at the MTH Theater in Kansas City, MO as a special presentation by First Friday Film Festival. A huge thanks to Matthew Dunehoo for setting this up. Honestly, this is the cherry on top for me, I've been dying for a festival experience with this one and I'm finally going to get it. Plenty of precautions are being taken and I feel really good about it, you can read up about the event HERE. 

TWITCH THURSDAYS
We've recently introduced something new that hopefully some of you will be interested in. We've launched an IC Twitch channel. This is something a few members of the team have been wanting to do for a while, but it always felt like it should be separated from all of our more serious work. Twitch seems like the best place to do this. As of right now, the goal is to stream weekly on Thursdays with a rotating cast of hosts. We've been playing around with it for a couple weeks now and seem to be getting the hang of it. We also have archives of streams up on our Miscellaneous Stream page, for when they roll off of Twitch. We're looking forward to seeing what fun we can have on here.

I'm sure more great news will be rolling out soon. But for now, that's all I've got. Catch you next time!

​-Tyler
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Left Hook Trailer & Another New Feature!

8/30/2019

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Hey everyone!
Sorry we’ve gone so long without an update. A lot has happened and we haven’t really had time to talk about it.

LEFT HOOK
First of the two biggest pieces of news, the trailer for LEFT HOOK is now available online. It came out last month, but this is the first chance I’ve had to post about it on the website. A lot of work went into producing this thing and we are very proud of it. Check this thing out. More information soon to come.
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WISH YOU WERE HERE
As some of you may be aware (not good at keeping secrets here), we’ve been working on a new project. For those familiar with our previous history with that title, it is in fact a feature-length remake of our short film WISH YOU WERE HERE. It is very different from the original while still holding similar themes.
The new film is directed by David Wayne Young and was co-written by he and I. It stars a variety of local talent, as well as a few familiar faces.
Principal photography wrapped earlier this month, but there is still a long road ahead of us. We’ll be taking our time with post-production and more than likely, the film will be released next year. I’m very proud of our cast and crew and can’t wait to see this thing assembled.

NIGHTMARE DRIVE
At the start of July, we did a tiny bit of filming for this live action and animation hybrid short. We haven’t planned to do a whole lot of shooting for this project in particular until LEFT HOOK is out of the way, but we did a handful of special effects shots while the timing was right. There is some really stellar footage from that shoot.

Really quick, as a general notes. We have made some updates to the website. We added pages for both aforementioned projects WISH YOU WERE HERE and NIGHTMARE DRIVE, as well as teaser posters for both films (seen below). There is also a new blog-style page for our IGTV show, IC TRIES.
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PODCAST
As for new podcast episodes, we’ve got three Godzilla themed episodes with Showa (Part 5), Heisei (Part 1) and Heisei (Part 2). Then, David Wayne Young joined me in seeing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
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FESTIVALS
We will be playing HOW MUCH at the No Coast Film Festival in Emporia on August 31st. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to attend. However, if you are in the area, check it out! We are in the second block of films.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Until next time!
-Tyler
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It is now May and this is an update for May. Thank you.

5/9/2019

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A few things have happened in the last month and some of them haven't been touched on for every platform, so I'll try to go over them as quickly as possible here.

LEFT HOOK
Still working away on this. Just finished my first bout of work on the final fight scene of the film, so I'm getting close to the end of this phase. Everyone else is working on some other aspect. We're in very busy, but exciting times. Also, it's a pretty old video, but we just made an Animation Update that was given to the backers in December available to the public. See that HERE.

PODCAST
We have done a few podcasts since the last update. Including: "James Bond", "Godzilla: Showa (Part 4)" and "Ralph Bakshi". All pretty good ones. Check 'em out! More coming soon.

IC TRIES
We've done a few of these recently which can all be found on our Instagram. But the one I'm going to leave you with has been a long time coming. I sent our very own David Wayne Young his own bag of Carolina Reaper jerky (he sent us one a few months back). After much peer pressure, he finally did it. Check it out below...

I can't think of anything major happening this month. But we'll be sure to keep you updated when something comes along.

Stay gold, folks!

-Tyler
View this post on Instagram

After the IC crew tried a similar bag of jerky sent by @david_theginger , Tyler decided to send him a bag that might prove to have a little more kick...

A post shared by Illumination Cinema (@illuminationcinema) on Apr 28, 2019 at 8:46pm PDT

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Golden Jamies 2019, Apex, Etc

2/27/2019

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So we've had a few things come out this month that I want to throw out there...

PODCAST:
We've had a few podcasts drop this month including a two part Golden Jamies special. Part 1 is us listing off every movie we saw in 2018 and Part 2 is our top 5 films. We also just had GODZILLA: Showa (Part 2) come out today. This year has been looking good so far when it comes to the podcast and we hope to continue this streak.

IC TRIES:
A bit of smaller content, we also have a few new posts on IGTV including videos of us trying Diet Rite and other stuff. 

FESTIVALS:
Our screening of HOW MUCH at Apex in Tucson was fairly well received, it seems. In March we have THE BROKEN KEY playing in Leavenworth, KS at the First City Film Festival. Not sure if we're going yet, but exciting none-the-less.
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David Wayne Young (middle) in the Q&A panel at Apex Short Film Festival

​Not a lot of news this time, but it's a short month, what do you want from me!? Hope you guys had a good February and we'll see ya next time!

-Tyler
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Kicking Off Godzilla & Other Exciting News!

2/6/2019

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That title could raise some eyebrows.

PODCAST:
We recently released a new episode of the podcast. That being, the first part of our new mini-series on all of the Godzilla films! This first episodes starts off in the Showa era with Godzilla (1954), Godzilla Raids Again and King Kong vs Godzilla. This will more than likely be spread over ten parts this year. The idea is to do one every other episode. We'll see how that works out. We weren't sure what the next episode would be, but we're thinking we'll be doing the 2018 Golden Jamie Awards next. Expect that in the coming weeks.
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MORE FESTIVAL NEWS:
We attended the Kansas Day screening of THE BROKEN KEY at Doc Sunback. The film was chosen to be the first selection into the actual festival this June, making BROKEN KEY the big winner of the night. We couldn't be any happier for Fritz and the rest of the team. It was a great night and we spoke with many wonderful people. Can't wait until the festival this summer!

IGTV:
We're still experimenting with IGTV on Instagram and continuing our IC TRIES series. This time we all ate some Chuck E Cheese pizza. Some curiosity is better left alone. Keep an eye out over there for more QUALITY CONTENT.

Anyway folks, that's all I've got for you. Talk to ya next time!

-Tyler
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Exciting Things on the Horizon!

12/17/2018

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Hey everyone!

We've only got a few things to cover. But since this might be the last post before the end of the year, I just wanted to briefly talk about how great this year has been. It really feels like we've made a hell of a lot of progress this year and I couldn't be happier. Two short films released, a debut comic book and our friends, family and followers helped us to raise additional funds for our upcoming feature film. We attended more film festivals than ever this year and had our first booth at a convention. We even added a new member to the crew. All-in-all, it's been wonderful. I speak for everyone here when I say we are very thankful for all of the new followers we have gotten recently and all of you who have shown your continuous support throughout the years.

Believe me when I say, the achievements listed above only speak to what we have publicly released. We have accomplished much more than that behind the scenes and we can't wait to share everything else in the coming months, years and so on.
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PODCASTS:
Season 5 of the podcast is here and that is cause to get excited! In the past couple weeks, we have released two new episodes. "Creed II"; featuring Chris, Tyler and Beth. As well as, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse"; featuring Tyler, Beth and Scott. Our next episode will be the newest Christmas special with a fun twist. We listed several Christmas films (good and bad) and randomly selected them out of a hat to do a "Christmas Roulette". Should be a good time....for you.
Like I've said before about this and every season previous, we will be constantly trying new things with this year's line up. One long form mini-series within the show that I'm particularly excited for. So stay tuned.
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LEFT HOOK:
I've done a pretty bad job of keeping this blog up to date on all things LEFT HOOK. Mostly because we have been posting about it elsewhere. ​A lot of progress has been made. Can't stress that enough.
Speaking of the help we received with funding, the animators that you helped pay for have finished their work on the film! Everything else is being handled here, in the studio. Can't thank those who donated enough, because the work these artists have produced is incredible.
We've been slowly releasing our behind the scenes videos to the public (six months after the backers see them) to give insight into the process of a film like this. All of these videos can be seen HERE. There are plenty more on the way, so check those out.
We are still on coarse to release the film next year, though I would never give a release date until I'm 100% certain that we will hit it.

NEXT YEAR:
Speaking of next year, we have several plans for 2019! With some of them, it is too early to talk about. We recently had our company Christmas party and discussed a new major project that will be underway after the completion of LEFT HOOK. Very excited for that one to say the least.
There are several small concepts for side projects that we would like to explore. Such as more live streaming and more content for Instagram. We have already been taking advantage of streaming and IGTV for our "IC Tries" videos. In which we try interesting or potentially gross items. Usually snacks and drinks. We've also played a few card games on livestreams this and we may do it again in the future. We may also do some other things on streams. We aren't sure yet. Lots of possibilities.
We do plan on releasing a few more issues of the comic next year as well as at least one short film. You may have seen the title, NIGHTMARE DRIVE, floating around and that would be the film's title. We're not entirely ready to say too much about it, but we have recorded with several actors and plan to begin working on it as work on LEFT HOOK slows down (similar to how HOW MUCH was made). The project will be spearheaded by our newcomer, Scott Reacher. He and I co-wrote it from his own concept and David Young and I will serve as producers. We're very excited to make it happen. The idea is to take as little time away from our priority projects as possible, but we do want to create some free content for you next year and short films are the best source. There will be more updates as time goes by.

Speaking of which, that's all I've got today. See ya next time!

​-Tyler

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