And so I add another site in my quest for total media coverage on the web.
You can now follow me on twitter.
http://twitter.com/diafpictures
NOTE: The url might change.
-DIAF
14 years ago
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
2009... a look back
Hello, once again.
I've taken this time to write about (should say brag about haha) my previous work. Now, the past month and these following two months, DIAF & Co. Entertainment is celebrating 4 anniversaries:
"DIAF's The Man Kills" (3rd Anniversary - July 29th)
"Bury the Hatchet" (2nd Anniversary - May 14th)
"DIAF's The Tell-Tale Heart" (2nd Anniversary - May 17th - Recut June 23rd)
"BTH2: The Gathering" (1st Anniversary - May 23rd).
And so I take a moment to share some thoughts about each one of them.
- The Man Kills: My first short-film, and the most original for me. This little opus of mine cost me a great deal. Friendships were on the line. I remember we arrived on a Thursday afternoon at Foxploration and shot most of the short, but I was not happy with the results. We ran out of time and I hadn't finished. I remember I was completely stressed out, saying to myself: "Maybe people are right. Maybe I'm not cut out for this shit". Anyways, the next day I convinced my friends to go and re-shoot the whole damn thing. And in 4 hours, "The Man Kills" was born. I re-wrote the whole script the night before and I was really proud of my work. I was determined and convinced I deserved an award for it. The editing process flew by fast and in 2 days my work was done. Later that summer, the Foxploration Movie Awards came and I was thrilled by the fact that I was in the nominees for best film. I'll be honest, I was really pissed off that I didn't receive first place, but when my name was called I knew I've done it. I had proven to all the people that knew me, that I could do it. I proved that a 16 year-old boy with no prior studies in film-making could do a good job. And that is why I am proud of my little shortfilm, even though some people don't like it.
-Bury the Hatchet: Probably my least favorite of all. This movie was actually successful by accident. I was done shooting "The Tell-Tale Heart" when this little baby came along. I mixed together my favorite horror films and gave it a grindhouse treatment. When the 1st screening came along, I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to go well at all. But the audience responded quite differently. BTH was actually a pretty good B-movie. Especially for the way it was done, I mean come on! Shot in 3 days (10 hours of true production), without script, with no actors and everything improvised? It doesn't exactly say "quality" all over it. But I embraced this as my own and it has been sitting on the shelf for now 'cause I am taking it to the next level. I composed an all-new score for it and will re-edit it as my true vision (the previous version was slightly censored). The first chapter of "The Hatchet Trilogy".
- The Tell-Tale Heart: This project was hard to make. I had been planning an adaptation of the E.A. Poe classic for some years now and finally the opportunity came. I tried to stay as far away as possible from previous adaptations and decided to change my visual style. Normally, I prefer to use a steady-shot, real oldschool, but this time due to the darkness of the film and the time we had for production, I decided to shoot this in a more raw/edgy way. We finally got better quality
equipment and the opportunity to shoot in 24p, giving it a more "cine-look". For this movie, I tried to do a lot of things, visually. I wanted a dark film and I deliverd a dark film. When the first screenings came along, we did fine but people said it was too long (36 minutes being the original cut). After several test screenings, I decided to shorten the lenght and make it more faithful to the short story. Thus, "DIAF's The Tell-Tale Heart Recut" was born. On the premiere of this new cut, audiences reacted well. Festivals loved it. Poe fans liked it. It's been my most "challenging" project so far (There were so many scenes I couldn't shoot due to time and money), but I can say with certainty, it is my favorite.
-BTH2: The Gathering: The cheap-quel for my previous film "Bury the Hatchet". As I have said in previous posts, this is the little crappy short film that could. It was basically the same case as the first one, but this time I decided to add a bit more "crappyness" to it. Comical characters, less graphic-bloody violence, something a tad more weak, per se. We would follow the same story line as in the first one, group of friends have fun, killer appears, everyone dies, big climax, the end. But this one blew the other away by a mile. Audiences seemed to love this piece of crap even more. I was certainly amazed of how well received this movie was. After some small screenings I decided to shelf the project and it wasn't until this year that BTH2 is back, recut with an all-new score. And surprise, surprise! Festivals are accepting it! I don't know why but it is such a bad short film, that it actually makes a good b-movie. After seeing the results, I decided to go on and make a third installment for this b-movie trilogy.
That's all I have to say for now on these matters. Keep checking back for more updates on the festival run for "BTH2: The Gathering" and further news on the next projects!
-DIAF
I've taken this time to write about (should say brag about haha) my previous work. Now, the past month and these following two months, DIAF & Co. Entertainment is celebrating 4 anniversaries:
"DIAF's The Man Kills" (3rd Anniversary - July 29th)
"Bury the Hatchet" (2nd Anniversary - May 14th)
"DIAF's The Tell-Tale Heart" (2nd Anniversary - May 17th - Recut June 23rd)
"BTH2: The Gathering" (1st Anniversary - May 23rd).
And so I take a moment to share some thoughts about each one of them.
- The Man Kills: My first short-film, and the most original for me. This little opus of mine cost me a great deal. Friendships were on the line. I remember we arrived on a Thursday afternoon at Foxploration and shot most of the short, but I was not happy with the results. We ran out of time and I hadn't finished. I remember I was completely stressed out, saying to myself: "Maybe people are right. Maybe I'm not cut out for this shit". Anyways, the next day I convinced my friends to go and re-shoot the whole damn thing. And in 4 hours, "The Man Kills" was born. I re-wrote the whole script the night before and I was really proud of my work. I was determined and convinced I deserved an award for it. The editing process flew by fast and in 2 days my work was done. Later that summer, the Foxploration Movie Awards came and I was thrilled by the fact that I was in the nominees for best film. I'll be honest, I was really pissed off that I didn't receive first place, but when my name was called I knew I've done it. I had proven to all the people that knew me, that I could do it. I proved that a 16 year-old boy with no prior studies in film-making could do a good job. And that is why I am proud of my little shortfilm, even though some people don't like it.
-Bury the Hatchet: Probably my least favorite of all. This movie was actually successful by accident. I was done shooting "The Tell-Tale Heart" when this little baby came along. I mixed together my favorite horror films and gave it a grindhouse treatment. When the 1st screening came along, I'll be honest, I didn't expect it to go well at all. But the audience responded quite differently. BTH was actually a pretty good B-movie. Especially for the way it was done, I mean come on! Shot in 3 days (10 hours of true production), without script, with no actors and everything improvised? It doesn't exactly say "quality" all over it. But I embraced this as my own and it has been sitting on the shelf for now 'cause I am taking it to the next level. I composed an all-new score for it and will re-edit it as my true vision (the previous version was slightly censored). The first chapter of "The Hatchet Trilogy".
- The Tell-Tale Heart: This project was hard to make. I had been planning an adaptation of the E.A. Poe classic for some years now and finally the opportunity came. I tried to stay as far away as possible from previous adaptations and decided to change my visual style. Normally, I prefer to use a steady-shot, real oldschool, but this time due to the darkness of the film and the time we had for production, I decided to shoot this in a more raw/edgy way. We finally got better quality
equipment and the opportunity to shoot in 24p, giving it a more "cine-look". For this movie, I tried to do a lot of things, visually. I wanted a dark film and I deliverd a dark film. When the first screenings came along, we did fine but people said it was too long (36 minutes being the original cut). After several test screenings, I decided to shorten the lenght and make it more faithful to the short story. Thus, "DIAF's The Tell-Tale Heart Recut" was born. On the premiere of this new cut, audiences reacted well. Festivals loved it. Poe fans liked it. It's been my most "challenging" project so far (There were so many scenes I couldn't shoot due to time and money), but I can say with certainty, it is my favorite.
-BTH2: The Gathering: The cheap-quel for my previous film "Bury the Hatchet". As I have said in previous posts, this is the little crappy short film that could. It was basically the same case as the first one, but this time I decided to add a bit more "crappyness" to it. Comical characters, less graphic-bloody violence, something a tad more weak, per se. We would follow the same story line as in the first one, group of friends have fun, killer appears, everyone dies, big climax, the end. But this one blew the other away by a mile. Audiences seemed to love this piece of crap even more. I was certainly amazed of how well received this movie was. After some small screenings I decided to shelf the project and it wasn't until this year that BTH2 is back, recut with an all-new score. And surprise, surprise! Festivals are accepting it! I don't know why but it is such a bad short film, that it actually makes a good b-movie. After seeing the results, I decided to go on and make a third installment for this b-movie trilogy.
That's all I have to say for now on these matters. Keep checking back for more updates on the festival run for "BTH2: The Gathering" and further news on the next projects!
-DIAF
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