THE SUN NEVER SWEATS

My hopes with RELATIONSHIP CARD was that it would go “viral”, meaning take off as people see it, like it, and pass it on. This may or may not happen at the levels of millions of views, but so far it has developed some legs of its own in very little time. The first day I publicly posted it on VIMEO.COM, it had 300+ views. The next day, it dropped to 170, the day after 160, and then I started to think it would sink into the 10’s and 20’s and eventually go single digits day after day like all my other videos. Suddenly, it went back to 170, and the next day 200+ and today is on track to go about 200 again. So far 1,300+ views on VIMEO, not including the other sites (Yahoo Video, FunnyorDie, etc.). Not bad for very little promotion.

Luckily the “referrers” are showing that 2 different Spanish sites are linking to it and racking up the most views for me. There are a few other sites that are more for “people”, meaning not friends, family, or most importantly Filmmakers. I find filmmakers in most cases are the worst audiences. They either want to dissect the production or they have such odd tastes that entertainment and losing themselves into a movie is the furthest thing from their minds. This was evident in the local Indie Club screening. Getting laughs was like a dentist pulling a tooth out with that vice. The Cleveland Indie Club screening was much looser and more enjoyable, plus I got Marie's Pizza again en route.



I am taking both RELATIONSHIP CARD and REFRACTORY to a few festivals this summer. I’m mastering a DVD this week and prepping the new “festival” packet to promote both works.

Will RELATIONSHIP CARD go big? I have no idea. Of course I want it to, but it takes support and I don’t have the endless amounts of time I used to have. Besides I want to prep the next project, which some people already know about, but it’s a secret so if you know about it and you shouldn’t, then you should tell me you know, but don’t tell anyone else what you know or if you even know it.

Peace out

Vapidly Insipid

So now the new short, RELATIONSHIP CARD is out there and racking up the views. I’m so proud of George and Amanda. For two people who had never met, they certainly had a great chemistry on camera. George thinks I should categorize this movie as science fiction. Not because of the graphics and animation but because he thinks no one will believe he could land a hot hot hot chick like Amanda and it comes off as unrealistic. Eh, people say the same thing about me and My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ because no one understands why a hot chick like her is with a fat guy like me. Since I based the short partially on that reality and aspects of our relationship, it seemed oddly fitting to cast it this way.



Hopefully the video will find legs and other people will pass it along from to people they know. So far, the unbiased, I don’t know these people responses have been a great majority positive. It seems people who have been in a relationship “Get it”, and get it completely. That’s cool.

It took me months to do the graphics work. TJ designed the elements, but choosing the look, color, texture, etc. all were vexing me. It was a little too overwhelming to have limitless options. Most of my time was spent experimenting with looks, styles, and ideas. Once I established the basic “look”, it was only 2 weeks to animate and finish the rest. I may still revisit this piece in the next week and shorten it by about 10%. Vince Rocca, director of KISSES AND CAROMS actually took it upon himself to re0edit the movie and sent me a link. I liked some of what he did, but he cut more than I would have. Still, it was nice to have someone else edit the piece and have that give and take like you’re supposed to have with an editor. I wish I had more editors that I could approach to work on my stuff for free, but the best ones are too expensive these days.



Not much else going on. I feel like I’m knocking these “past due”, or “pending” projects down so I can keep on trucking. Work is busy this week (a nice change considering how dead it’s been of late). One of our annual big projects that dominate my life for about a week and a half has hit and “V” is NOT taking it well. 12-14 hour work days are unusual for me and my cat doth protest. Loudly and as soon as I walk in the door.

Last night My Sexy Girlfriend Veronica ™ went to see the new TERMINATOR movie. Dinner came out quicker than I realized and we had 30 minutes to kill in the empty theater. Out came my handy ZUNE ™ and we watched a DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART in the theater with one ear piece each. That passed the time with actual entertainment as opposed to re-reading the same 6 “trivia” slides. Is it really trivia to ask “What Oscar ™ nominated actor returns in this summer’s ANGELS AND DEMONS?” whilst showing a picture of Tom Hanks? That’s not trivia; it is trivial. Anywho, I’m getting some great usage out of the new toy my friend Moe sent me. I have also used it to walk a mile each day for the last 3 days during a break from the long work day. I am in piss poor shape and I need to address that even more.

Until next time,
Peter John Ross

Relationship Card™ ® ©

RELATIONSHIP CARD - 4 min
http://www.vimeo.com/4620796

a troubled couple tries to work out their emotional credit with the new Relationship Card ™ ® ©


starring George Caleodis and Amanda Howell

written by Joanne Fromes and Peter John Ross

directed by Peter John Ross

produced by John Fromes

cinematography by Scott Spears

assistant director - Rachel Hanna

key grip - Derek Rimelspach

art director - Leyna Haller

graphic design - TJ Cooley

special thanks to
Andrew Kramer & www.videocopilot.net

© Copyright 2009 Sonnyboo Productions

Relationship Card from Peter John Ross on Vimeo.

A Cantankerous Buffoon

I inserted the new pickup shots into the new short film I’m working on. It’s only been 3 months. WOW, I feel better though. They fit in very well for continuity, but far more importantly, they make the edit flow much much better. The performance fit like a glove and it’s amazing to have an actor acting against no one (me) in a pickup and in the edit, have it seamlessly feel like these two people were interacting on the spot. What I am most pleased with is my discipline to make sure it was right before giving up on it. Even 2-3 years ago, I would have accepted the error and just went with it instead of working to correct it and make it as good as it can be. I’m glad I have raised my standards on myself.

Friday I worked until nearly midnight on the graphics. I started to find that groove place. I made major headway and got about a 3rd of the shots done. It feel better to have some FX that need tweaking in place even though I might have to re-do them or replace the shots later. The piece begins to come together more cohesively.

At the end of the night, I put the movie to Quicktime ® in 1920x1080 24P so I can view it at home on Ye Olde 42” LCD TV. Now, talk about an eye opener. The amount of detail you see blown up at full resolution jolted my eyes a bit. Things I thought too small to be concerned with blared up and smacked me. I need to type 24 pages of what should have been a tiny word scroll on screen. I have to paint out 3 millimeter long logos that I never saw before. High Definition means more detail and that translates to a lot more work and effort. There’s no skimping in HD.



ZUNE – My buddy Maurice sent me an unsolicited gift, a 300 gig ZUNE from Microsoft ™. This is one of those cool gifts because it’s something you might not ever go get yourself, but it’s a really damn cool toy. It can play videos, music, and you can store pics on it too. My sole complaint (not to my friend, but in the design) is that it’s really odd about getting the accurate video settings, so most of my videos will have to go through 2-3 steps to get them on the damn thing. Now that I’ve got the best settings, I’m putting about 100 hours worth of video of various things on it tonight and tomorrow.

I think the purpose of the portable media device Zune was a not so subtle attempt to get me to exercise more. Shows that I might otherwise sit on my ass to watch, I can watch while walking, you know at the park so I can ignore nature. I have a weekend long delay on starting any real exercise because of the technical glitches of getting stuff on the damn thing…



I watched the Blu-Ray of the DAVINCI CODE, an extended cut of the film. I read the book, loved it, and was lukewarm about the movie the one time I saw it in the theater and never wanted to see it again. Since the sequel (prequel book, sequel movie) ANGELS AND DEMONS is about to come out, plus I have 3 years of distance from the book, I gave it another whirl. I liked it a LOT better this time. I couldn’t remember anything added to this movie, but there’s 26 minutes of new material in it. I guess it stays remarkably loyal to the source material and this viewing was so much more enjoyable (mostly because of my LACK of expectation).



We went and saw the new STAR TREK in IMAX. I liked this a lot too. I’m not a Trekkie or Trekker, however I can see some serious continuity errors on many levels, but you know what? I DON’T CARE. If all you care about is how it wasn’t possible to identify a Romulan by site in 2231*, then you don’t enjoy movies they way a normal person does. This movie was for normal people, not Trekkies. It moved at about a million miles an hour, but the first sequence was incredibly well done and emotional to boot. It still did not dethrone WRATH OF KHAN as the greatest thing TREK has ever put out there, but if the only 2 movies of STAR TREK anyone sees is this new one followed up by WRATH OF KHAN, the franchise might warrant more respect.


Enjoy the days,
Peter John Ross


• I have no idea Trek timelines, so if this inaccuracy is notated by you, then you are a TREKKER…

Superfluous Necessities

FINALLY, I got to do the pickup shots for the next short. It’s only been 3 months…. All because of a stupid mistake I made during the shoot itself in that I forgot to shoot these elements. So with a skeleton crew, minimal lighting and one actor named Amanda, we got ‘er done in about an hour, mostly in setting up the lighting to match as best as possible. I had my handy laptop with an HD copy of the movie in Quicktime up on screen to match everything as close as possible. I had one minor change in performance on the delivery of one of the lines from the original, and the rest was repeating as close as possible what we did before in February.


Today, I already digitized the footage, yet again using the PAL 25 Cineframe mode from Sony, and converting it to true 24P with my handy Cineform codec. Then I edited it into the show timeline proper pretty much right away. I have been seeing this in my head properly for months, but now I can show it to people properly. I never used to be a perfectionist the way I feel now. I want things to be far better than I have let them be in the past. Scott matched the lighting fairly well and Amanda had the exact outfit and worked her hair into the same look. I was amazed at how flawlessly the new footage cut into the old shots. More importantly, the flow and edit of the first 1 minute of the new piece isn’t nearly as awkward and bumpy. I had some audio trickery to do, but that only took a few minutes.



This week I have made major headway in the graphics animation, but even then I’m seriously way behind. I doubled the amount of completed FX shots, but that’s just an illusions I tell myself that means I have 4 done instead of 2. That’s 4 out of over 100 shots that need extensive graphics and animation. The hardest part was deciding HOW to animate and the basic scheme for the rest. When you have limitless options, the choices get harder to make. I’m somewhat happy with the choices I’m making but I might consider some revisions at the end of the basic animation to see if someone with more talent than me can swoop in and make some tweaks and improvements.

I haven’t even started to think about the sound design and music, although I think music will be sparse, the sound design will be as intense as the graphics. One of the tricks I’ve learned in my few short years doing this – never let a visual go without some kind of sound. It adds weight and gravity to the animation. Would the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park or the robots in Transformers be believable in all their CGI madness without the incredible sounds that ground them to a form of believable reality? Of course not, but it’s amazing how few people take that into account. Even something as simple as moving titles has a more tangible “oomph” if they make a sound as they go round.


Life is a journey with endless possibilities. I love where things are headed. There’s a lot to be proud of in the near future, if only the clock would slow down a little for me…
You know what? Van Halen III was not as bad as it seemed 11 years ago. No, it’s nowhere near the magic of David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar, but it wasn’t the complete suckage I was lead to believe it would be.



“V” and Coussette are well. “V”has trouble adjusting to schedule changes and so he rebels by biting my arm when I sleep to ensure a timely awakening and getting some form attention, even if it’s negative. Coussette just gets louder as she gets older.

Perennially Didactic

It’s already been a very busy week. I went to Cincinnati for a TV interview about my last book and the other things on AMAZON.COM for sale. I didn’t even solicit this one; it just came to me. I’m amazed I own a car that can make 2 trips to Cincinnati in 2 weeks and not die on me. Viva La Employment!

Thursday night, I judged the high school film festival again. There were fewer entries, but the quality increased. I think that’s a sign of success of Lisa Dale-Press, the teacher. If the students actually LEARN, then the success shows. Every year I’m impressed by what high school kids can do in their spare time or with an elective. This is the opposite of how I feel towards many of the newbies and wannabes in my film community. I guess it’s because they don’t seem to learn anything or progress at a microscopic level. Ironically, some of the movies the high school kids did rival (and surpass)

Social Networks, like the now passé MYSPACE, and the current fad of FACEBOOK have an amazing ability to RE-connect people. Several people I knew over 20 years ago in a long forgotten chapter of my life living in El Paso Texas have literally started to haunt me. I say “haunt” because VHS home movies we made in junior high (9th grade was still Junior High in El Paso) are now surfacing in their video pages. I haven’t felt embarrassed since my birthday party when a movie I worked on anonymously credited me by name on YouTube and I was showing off how bad the movie was and BAMM! There was my name.

I can laugh at myself. I don’t mind that these videos are out there. Forgive me if I don’t promote them as feverishly as I do my current works, but I think it’s humbling to have something truly humiliating out in the world. The worst part is the “music videos” we made for Van Halen songs… before I learned how to play guitar. I really did learn to play most of the Van Halen catalog in the late 1980’s and into the 1990’s. Now even some of our “narrative” sketches are making their way online. I forgot so much of what I did then, that these are a surprise to me.



I do remember one thing we did. We did a spoof of a sci fi movie, the name escaped me until I was told it was going to be online soon, “Space Herpes”. Even though it was 5-6 of us fooling around with a camcorder, I recall coming up with how to shoot this linearly (a term I wouldn’t learn for 17-18 more years), and edit in the camera. We took one of the guys and had him be both the bad guy (wearing a Darth Vader Mask) and would “cut” (meaning stop the camera), then shoot the other angle of him still there. I had some innate knowledge of how to do this without any schooling in it. It was as if something else was driving me, or some ghost whispered the ideas into my head. I wish I had listened to that voice more and continued to do something with it then. I lost 15 years of productivity to the wanderings and muse of the song.



Ah, well. As the Talking Heads once said, These Memories Can’t Wait. I cannot change fate or time, at least according to Daniel Farraday who (SPOILER ALERT) may or may not be dead.

At least I can now see that not all my time in El Paso was bad. I made some friends who were good people, and still are I think. So much of what I remember of my time there was nefarious at best, but these are good memories.


Happy thoughts,

Peter John Ross