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Lots of fun news that we can cover today! It can all be broken down into two categories. THE DOG PARK: Things have been going well for THE DOG PARK. We released the first in a series of podcasts called...wait for it....THE DOG PARK PODCAST! Very creative name. Basically David Young and I chat about each story and go into detail about any behind the scenes info that we can. This first one however, was mainly focused on the origins of the series itself. This is a video show and we will be streaming new episodes on Twitch every second Tuesday of the month. Afterwards, they'll be available on our website at THIS PAGE or on our Facebook page. We've also made a limited number of paperback copies for the free first chapter available at a couple local Wichita comic shops. Those being Hero Haven and Prairie Dog Comics. Many thanks for them for allowing us to give them out there. Coming this Tuesday, there will be another cartoon out. I'm very excited for this one especially. Can't wait to share it with you. For anyone who is interested and hasn't jumped on it yet, you can check out the Indiegogo page to pre-order your paperback or digital copy of Volume 1.
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. 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.
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. 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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I know for a fact that we've had several podcasts come out since the last time I mentioned them on the blog. The most recent one being our episode on Boomerang Movies. Chris, Beth and I watched a few classic cartoon films on the Boomerang app. It was a lot of fun. That one had to be done remotely, like the old days. We'll probably be doing that for the next few as well until all this crap blows over. It didn't seem to make a difference in quality though. So no loss there. We planned for very few podcasts this year to give ourselves a breather. Perhaps with the current conditions, we may increase the amount we're doing by a little bit. OUR OTHER PROJECTS I've been hesitant to really dig into how the current conditions have made us change plans. Mainly because things have been so up in the air for the last several weeks. That and it's just a bummer and everyone, well most people, are sick of hearing about it. However, I feel like there's plenty to be addressed, so we kinda have to. First off! While LEFT HOOK's current line up hasn't made any changes since our last post, there have been several other events that were unannounced that were shifted around or all-out cancelled. Some of which are extremely disappointing. We planned to make a convention appearance this year, but we're having to pull out (if the event itself even proceeds) because with the change in timing, our plans for that time will no longer line up. The idea of releasing in the spring is a lost cause. The summer is more likely, but impossible to confirm. We will know where everything is truly sitting in a month or two. We've been making plans for every avenue we may come across in order to be prepared. We'll try our best to keep a level of optimism about it. Then there is WISH YOU WERE HERE. Full transparency; I finished my edit in March and we are picture locked. Feels good to have gotten that far. We now have sound and music being worked on by outside collaborators and we are giving them plenty of time to do those tasks. A big thing we won't be able to accomplish will be ADR. Again, something we'll just have to wait for this to blow over to execute. We preemptively eliminated any worry about our window of time as we have decided to move the film's release to next year. Which may sound like a big jump, but in all honesty, if we had started the festival run in autumn, the film wouldn't have been released on digital platforms until about next spring anyway. With the beating LEFT HOOK's release is taking, I wouldn't want to see this movie suffer the same fate. As for NIGHTMARE DRIVE, we technically haven't budged on it since February anyway. Since I haven't talked about it here, I can quickly say that we shot a majority of the live-action elements for the film already. We still need to do animation and miniature work, but that is currently on hold. We planned to get rolling again this month but we have yet to discuss the new plan. Something I'm sure we'll be meeting about soon. I'm sure the release will be effected, but I can't tell just how yet. Hard to say when there is still so much work to do and no way to do it for a little while. Yet another thing we'll tell you about when the time comes. All of this said, I can happily say that we aren't coming to a complete and total halt. I've seen plenty of good work getting done and from the second conditions began to change, we have been discussing what can be done to keep things moving. We'll try to keep a little hope if you do! That's all for now! Later! -Tyler Sorry for the sparse updates. As you can imagine, we've been very busy. The goal of this post is to get everyone up to speed on everything we've done recently and what is to come with all of our projects.
LEFT HOOK I'm not sure where all I have said this. The backers have known for a little while now. But, the movie is finished. We have made a few submissions and we will hopefully know when screenings will be happening in the next few months. We're very excited for people to start seeing this thing. As you know, we've put a lot of time into it. We have a plan for over-all release of the movie, however, things could always change so I will keep my lips zipped. There will be plenty of updates on this project on the future. No need to worry about that. WISH YOU WERE HERE In November, we re-shot a few scenes and got some additional footage. Consider this project in post-production now. We're not currently in a rush to edit it, but will probably do so this spring. We've been attacking this one a little bit at a time. For those brief moments, it is going by pretty fast. I don't want to make any assumptions for this one because it could go any which way, but I'm confident in our ability to knock this one out pretty fast once we get around to it. HEY MAN Right after our re-shoots, David Young put together another little project. This one is a short film made specifically for IGTV. We shot it on an iPhone with the intention for it to be watched on a phone. It was a fun experiment. This is the first chance I've had to talk about it here. You can find out more HERE! A SCRIPT CALLED MISERY It has been a while since we've been able to budge on this one. In late 2018, not long after the release of the first issue, Beth had a majority of Issue #2 illustrated. The entire thing has been roughed out and most of the pages had finished line-work. Work on the book had to come to a stop so that Beth could focus fully on her responsibilities for LEFT HOOK. The project has sat there ever since. We are currently getting back on track with it. Issue #2 should actually be done very soon. I don't know when we plan to release it as we want to take advantage of the break in order to get a little bit ahead. But the long and short of it is, the comic is Beth's priority this year. We plan to get as much done as possible. NIGHTMARE DRIVE With LEFT HOOK in the bag, the other person who can focus their efforts on their own project is Scott Reacher. A few of the live action elements of this hybrid short film have been done, but a majority of the work is still to come. We do have a plan to execute this one and we will see how the results turn out. It'll be nice to finish this one. Most of it rests on Scott. There will be more updates on this one soon. PODCAST I honestly don't even know where I left off on this one. Our last update was in early October. Since then, we've ended Season 5 and launched Season 6. A lot of episodes have come out. The main thing that wrapped up was our mini-series following the Godzilla films. FINALLY! It was a chore to say the least to get through all of those. Especially when time was tight while working on LEFT HOOK. But we managed to finish it. Unfortunately, we had to cut some episodes last season to keep things moving. I tried to have episodes made without me, but nothing much came of that. This year, the schedule is a little more loose. I haven't planned very much, so we can add to it or stick to the plan. Expect an episode a month. Give or take. Plenty of fun should be had. That should be all for now. 2020 is shaping up to be pretty exciting. A lot of projects led by a lot of people should be making their way out and we couldn't be more excited. Last year was a little poopy considering we spent all that time working on these projects and didn't get to release any of them. The future is looking pretty good. We'll see you in it! -Tyler 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. 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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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. 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 |
