Slick motherboards, new power supply's and stuff for you to vote on...

With a slick, new red motherboard, equipped with as much high octane RAM as she can handle and the best power supply that $39 can buy, my PC is back and working better than ever... I'm so proud. Best part about it? I didn't lose a thing. All my files and 'works in progress' have been saved. ...and we can't lose those 'works in progress', the future of horror entertainment could very well depend on them, but I digress... I had to reconfigure a few things, but I guess that's par for the course when you get a new motherboard. I'm very excited, I have to say... and, really, I'm not joking, it's working better than ever. She booted up lightning fast and I was stoked, but I did get a little depressed when I opened up Outlook and the emails started flooding in. Side note - I really need to switch to just doing everything in the cloud, I hear that's what all the kids are doing these days and, well, you know... the kids are alright. Anyhow, after a rash of deletions and quick reads, I was still left with a lot of emails to get through and if my inbox is a giant turd, I'm still on the turtle head. You guys have a lot going on... and now, I need to pass some of this shit on to you.

First up, good friend of Dead Harvey, Blake Reigle, has his film "Beneath The Surface" up for a 'Reaper Award". If you're interested, you can check out the interview that we did with Blake about the film here. Otherwise, you need to head over to ReaperAwards.com, click 'vote now' and vote for "Beneath The Surface" for 'Best Zombie'.

I should mention that Blake offers this up in his email, "Also, if you need help on which films to choose for other categories, I played a part in the making of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (2009), FRIDAY THE 13TH: DELUXE EDITIONS, and vote for my friend's movie A HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT." As for things I'd like to mention, "Alien Raiders", a personal favorite, is also nominated. So, vote for them, too. Check out our interview with Ben Rock, director of "Alien Raiders" here.

Next up, our buddy Chris Di Nunzio, director of "Livestock", has his film in a trailer contest. Once again, if you're interested, you can check out our interview with Di Nunzio here. Otherwise, head over to Youtube by clicking here and you'll find its link in a trailer contest. There's a pile of good vampire films in there (look on the right), including "Thicker Than Water", which was a fantastic film. (See our interview with director Phil Messerer here) Torn on this one, so... vote for both!

As an indie filmmaker, these are the types of things that you should be paying attention to. It's not just about winning an award, it's about the networking and exposure. There's so much of this going on out there and if you're not on it... or at least researching this stuff and trying to pay attention, you're a big step back. Spend an hour or two each week just looking around for contests, events and things going on. It's well worth it.

So, now I've got a lot to sift through and do this weekend, but it looks like we're back on track. All I need is a lot of cold beer, access to food and to not get carpal tunnel syndrome. Now, have a great weekend... it's not too long until happy hour.

Big Trouble In Little China

Well, I guess I was playing with fire... my home PC has been acting up a bit lately and it finally died on me this morning. I'll start by reaching out to any techie readers that we may have - the computer gets power, but won't boot up, turn off or reset. The only way to turn it on or off is by unplugging it. When I unplug it, then plug it back in, the fans start up, the lights go on, but no beeping and it's just blank... and it goes right back to not booting up, turning off or resetting. My gut reaction tells me it's the motherboard, but I don't know. The real problem is the information that's on the hard drive, which I never backed up. So, if I can't recover that, I'm in some serious shit. Any ideas?

Anyway, as I have no access to my interviews, saved links and other data, I'm going to have to pull this post together on the fly. That's not really a bad thing, as I was listening to a podcast this morning, from Creative Screenwriting Magazine, that I wanted to talk about. They usually interview screenwriters, but this one was the address that Peter Jackson, Neill Blomkamp and Wikus Van De Merwe gave at Comicon about "District 9". There was something that Peter Jackson said that was particularly interesting and I wanted to pass it on to all you filmmakers... Essentially, he said that because they were on such a low budget ($30Million) and didn't have executives telling them what to do and how to make their film, they could do the film the way they wanted. The way they wanted to do it was to cater directly to the sci-fi/horror, Comicon-type audience. That's why it's a character driven sci-fi movie with lots of gore, something that might not make too much sense to a studio executive. And what happened? Well, it kicked ass and lots of people went to see it. The moral of the story is, when you're making a low-budget film, don't think like a studio executive. Think like a gore-hound. What would YOU want to see in the film? You'll create a better film if you cater to a specific niche... and catering to a specific niche will probably create more of a crossover audience, which will make for a more successful film. Anyhow, you can find that podcast here, on the Creative Screenwriting blog, if you want to download it. The end is pretty cool, where Peter Jackson talks about how watching Blomkamp make this film gave him an itch to make a low-budget horror again... could you imagine "Dead Alive 2" or "Bad Taste 2"?

It's also a good weekend at the theater for us horror fans. Both Rob Zombie's "Halloween 2" and "The Final Destination" in 3D come out this weekend... and there's really no other big movie coming out, which means that "Inglourious Basterds" should win the weekend again. Me, though, I'm a bit torn on which to go see. Originally, I was thinking about "H2", but... I wasn't too impressed with Rob Zombie's interview on "The Wrap" yesterday, he kinda shit-talked a lot of stuff (link). That's not to mention that the first one kinda sucked. However, I'm not a huge fan of the "Final Destination" series, but "The Final Destination" is in 3D and I'm really into that 3D tech.

That's all I've got for this week... have a great weekend and wish me luck on my computer problems!

Dead Computer: A Few Links To Articles

Well, I still don't have access to my PC at home, the keyboard refuses to work... I gotta say, though. It's surprising how far you can get with just a mouse. Regardless, the lack of a typing instrument does make the act of typing tough. So, I'm now at work and I'm going to quickly hammer out a post about a couple of articles that I came across.

I know that most people are far more into the creative process of developing and creating a film, but I do think it's important to understand the business end of things. I mean, if you're making a product and you're trying to get that product out there, you better know how the selling and distribution process of that product works. And this article, "Netflix Boss Plots Life After The DVD", has some great insight into how Netflix works, as well as where the industry COULD be going and how these guys are dealing with it. Good article, definitely give it a read. I thought it was really interesting that Netflix basically started out as a software system for recommending movies... a software system like that, mixed with VOD, could be the Holy Grail for indie horror.

There's a specialty horror cable channel in Canada called Scream... or, I guess I should say there WAS a cable channel in Canada called Scream. I just read the article, "Scream TV to lose gore after Dusk falls this September", where they discussed how they're going to change the lineup on the channel and rebrand it. I guess ratings were a little shy of stellar, so they added the murder mystery drama "Supernatural" last year and it bolstered their female audience by 100%. So, they're going to add a few more similar shows and rebrand the channel as "Dusk". Now, a lot of people may see this as the demise of hard-core horror and the rise of a softer, more friendly style of horror, but I see it another way. Cable channels won't run the more intense stuff, they peak out on things like horror festival films, the "Saw" franchise, old horror TV shows, things like that. So, I think the hardcore horror fans look elsewhere already. What's really happening here is that the cable company figured out that there's another demographic out there that's into watching horror on TV, more specifically... 18 - 49 year old women. That's a big demographic... and when you're planning your next project, maybe you should keep them in mind, too.

That's it for this week. I'm going to do my best to get my PC up and working over the weekend, which should mean plenty of good content for next week. Have a great weekend!