| | First Showing of The Good SamaritanWe're holding the first (private) showing of The Good Samaritan at The Jewel Box (part of the Rendezvous bar) in Belltown tomorrow night at 7pm - and Jeremiah will also be showing his film Temporary Enlightenment. He then leaves pretty much directly from there to Thailand, where he's going to be making films for the next year or so. We wish him good fortune and happy trails. It has been a long road getting to this stage, but it's good to know that finally the short has been finished and put to bed. I'll post some photos from the showing up online after the dust settles. Time to buy a bottle of champagne, methinks. | | | | | The Final Cut is the Deepest??Well, Jeremiah and Simon have been happily beavering away on the final cut of The Good Samaritan, and frankly it's looking real nice now. Things are coming together rapidly, and we have only a couple of things to fix (foley work, soundtrack, and a strange stuttering frame problem that we can't quite isolate in After Effects), and then we'll be done. Next stop: Applying to the Seattle International Film Festival for the world premiere. The interesting thing? Apparently you don't even have to pay an application fee if your film was over 50% filmed in Washington State (ours was 100% filmed here, so that should work well in our favor). So, this has been a long road and an excellent learning experience. The next short should go even smoother - and after that, who knows? The credits have been assembled, and at this point they look something like this. We still need to do something about the audio credits - as soon as they're put into stone, I'll update them here: Starring
Joseph DeLorenzo as Chester Director - Jeremiah Hundley
Producer - Simon Cooke
Screenplay - Steven J. Freeman
Story by Jay Passer
Also Starring (in alphabetical order)
Simon Cooke - Disgusted Yuppie
Beth Frye - Disgusted Woman
Jeremiah Hundley - Guitar Player in Store
Emily Nelson - Chester's Love
Jay Passer - Guitar Player in Store
Peter Torr - Guitar Player in Store Cinematography - Jeremiah Hundley
Assistant Director - Peter Torr
Grip - Tracy McElroy
Makeup - Cherry Chau
Production Assistants - James D. Newman and Jay Passer
Wardrobe - Joseph DeLorenzo and James D. Newman
Second Unit Camera - Simon Cooke and Peter Torr Editing - Simon Cooke and Jeremiah Hundley
Music - Jeremiah Hundley
Executive Producer - Simon Cooke Copyright (c) 2005 Popcorn Films, all rights reserved
| | | | | Farscape: Peacekeeper WarFarscape is one of those shows that you just have to see to understand. It's possibly one of the best science fiction shows ever made - always unique, always pushing the boundaries, and never stale or one to take the expected twist to the story. Well, a while back, the SciFi channel cancelled Farscape (it was funding half of the series - each episode costs $1.5 million to make, and SciFi were paying half of that). The fans didn't take this too kindly. As a direct result of their actions, the show is back for a miniseries premiering on Oct 17th and 18th at 9pm Eastern / 8pm Central on the SciFi channel. Four hours of the best science fiction entertainment ever made - so why wouldn't you want to watch it? What does this have to with Popcorn Films? Well, two of us (Simon and Steve) are complete Farscape nuts. We love this show. And we're glad it's back. If you're at all wondering what kind of show inspires this kind of loyalty from its fans, you'll just have to watch it to find out. Enjoy the journey. Hold your questions. Use your mind. And share the wonders we've seen. Now, as for the obligatory Popcorn Films related piece, we're still working on The Good Samaritan (day jobs and computer problems have got in the way of putting together the final edit, but it's getting there). To prove that we're not just making this up, here's a picture from the short. 
| | | | | The Good SamaritanWow. Its been quite a while since we updated this site... UNSEALED has been put on hold for now (until we can afford to do it), but our latest project The Good Samaritan (working title) is now well under way. In fact, we're going to be shooting in and around Seattle's University District on Saturday June 26th and Sunday June 27th. The story of a homeless man who finds a guitar in a dumpster, it's a mostly silent piece about 10 minutes long. Currently, people involved in this project are: Jay Passer (Story / Director)
Steve Freeman (Screenplay / Director of Cinematography)
Simon Cooke (Producer / Assistant Director)
Joseph DeLorenzo (Lead Actor) We also have a smattering of extras, and production assistants (to be announced). Jeremiah Hundley (Director / Cinematographer of Temporary Enlightenment) has agreed to come on board to shoot the piece for us. We're looking for a Makeup / Wardrobe person to help out during the shoot, and to help us create a crusty / distressed look for Joseph. If you want to help out, please contact us by email. The project page for The Good Samaritan will be up online as soon as Simon gets a free moment. And yes, we're still planning on shooting UNSEALED as soon as we can find somewhere to shoot it. We need a bar / restaurant for about 8 weekends. We can shoot around your schedule, but ideally we'd be shooting during the day. Preferably somewhere not too near a main street. | | | | | We Need Your HelpWe're not kidding. We really need your help. We're trying to raise the $10,000 we need to make filming UNSEALED possible. Now, because of certain SEC laws governing how you can get investors involved (ie. you can't, unless they've got a spare $100,000,000 lying around), and because it's a short film (ie. probably no revenue at the end, but if you're lucky, you'll make back what it cost to make it. Real lucky, that is)... well... it kind of gets in the way of seeking funding. Now, speaking from our point of view, we're damned certain that UNSEALED is worth making. All of our feedback so far has been exceedingly positive - people love the script, and want to see it get made into a real honest-to-goodness movie. A movie about 40 minutes long, but a movie nonetheless. So we've decided to do something about it. And we're doing it Backwards. No, we're not insane. Well, not much. What we're doing is selling T-Shirts and Mugs on CafePress.com. Now, CafePress has pretty high prices to begin with, so we're deliberately labelling each item with how much each one sold gives us towards the film. It's a vague hope, but it's a hope. So friends, Romans, countrymen... open your wallets. Buy cool stuff. It's all for a good cause. And we think the mugs and T-shirts are very cool - especially the Shut Up And Drink ones. Each item sold has a limited-edition heartfelt note of thanks. That heartfelt note will not be on anything we sell after we start principal photography (unless we really really need the money to keep filming). It'll be a collector's edition. Priceless, if you will. Heck, you could probably sell it on eBay in 20 years for... well... maybe enough to buy yourself a nice sandwich. And if you know anyone who's feeling in a philanthropical mood, please, send them in our direction. We'd like to start shooting by the middle of February. Pretty please :) | | | | | Unsealed Starts PreproductionWe've starting the casting process for the roles of Scarlet, D.K. and Phil for UNSEALED. Open auditions will be held in the near future, so check here regularly for more information. If you're interested in auditioning, either turn up on the day, or please email us your headshot and resume at casting@popcornfilms.com. We're also looking for a sound engineer (preferably with their own equipment) and a make-up artist to join the crew for the project. Also, we're looking for a location; a closed bar/restaurant where we can shoot weekend for several weeks. If you have any information, please email us at hotbutter@popcornfilms.com. | | | | | Unsealed Listed On IMDBWoohoo! Unsealed now has an entry in the Internet Movie Database. According to the IMDB's figures, the short film is currently about as popular as The Brit Awards 2003. Not bad for a movie which hasn't actually been made yet... (cough) You can find our entry at the following link: Unsealed (2003). And no, Simon isn't Simon Cooke III in real life. He's just the third one to be entered into the database. But hey, he's British, so you never know... Update (7/24/2003): The info at IMDB is a little out of date right now. We're waiting until we enter principal photography before we update the listing in one go. | | | | | Unsealed Enters Pre-ProductionAfter a little over two months of script-writing, UNSEALED, Popcorn Films' first official project has entered the pre-production phase. The screenplay (drama / extremely black comedy) is complete, and currently stands at a little over 36 pages. The short film will be directed by Simon Cooke and Joseph DeLorenzo, who have also co-authored the screenplay. | | | | | Popcorn Films Website Goes LivePopcorn Films, an independent film company founded by partners in crime Simon Cooke and Steven J. Freeman, is now live and online. But heck, you already knew that - after all, you're reading this website. Our aim is to produce films of the highest quality. There's an old adage - if something's worth doing, it's worth doing well. Well, we believe wholeheartedly in that. In our case, if something's not going to be done well, we're not going to waste our time and energy on it. It's a motto we've decided to live and die by. If you're interested, you can find out more about the people behind Popcorn Films, and why we set up this production company in the "Who We Are" section of the website. | |
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