Who's gonna be our next president?

Personal politics aside, I think OBAMA will win. It's not about my choices or preferences, but simply the mathematical numbers.

Making it all local to Ohio, a definite RED STATE and home of corrupt election practices, in DAYTON OHIO, when McCain came in to announce his VP, they had to charter their own buses for the republican party to get enough people there to make it look like a crowd was there and 2 days later when OBAMA was in DUBLIN OHIO, it was well over 20,000 people, driving themselves from as far away as Indianapolis Indiana just to see the guy and hear him speak.

The regular news media ain't reporting facts; they're reporting their political point of view.

Obama will win, but it won't be a "landslide", as people will vote what they always vote, conservative or liberal. I believe Obama will win, but it will be by less than 10%.

Did anyone else see McCain agreeing with a woman wanting to institute a new DRAFT for the military? That will do well for him. People like a draft. Especially parents and young people.



And I think both of these guys made terrible choices for VP. Obama's guy is so devoid of any kind of personality and charisma, it was "INSERT OLDER WHITE MALE HERE". Then McCain, thinking the overrated Hillary supporters would rather have any female ("INSERT VAGINA HERE") , picked a woman with no experience, except being mayor of a town of 8,000 people and Governor of Alaska for less than 2 years. McCain would be older than Reagan was when he took office. If anything would happen to him, like senility, SHE would become the president. We have to look at her as if she might be the next president, and I don't think a lot of people would vote for her for president. The republicans just took the whole "experience" attack angle off the table against Obama now.

Oh well. Politics remain a less fun time waster filled with sound bytes and out of context name games. All of this made worse by 24 hour news organizations desperate to keep ratings via controversy, even when it's manufactured. 

The Inalienable Rights of the Ignominious

And the hits keep on coming! Oh, Acolytes of Boo, your faithful narrator keeps himself quite busy these days. I’ve been formulating a script for several months now. It’s a short, but that’s because the story I want to tell is not feature length, but a complex story that only lasts a dozen or so pages. One night the story literally woke me up. I was in that state of nearly sub consciousness when this idea occurred to me and I turned on the light, scribbled the basic idea down and then promptly fell asleep fully, having exorcized the demon of the muse.

I have been an avid fan of courtroom dramas (and even comedies) for well over 20 years. I even worked as a deposition videographer for a short time. The world of the legal fascinated me, but simultaneously I have never had an idea I felt was compelling enough to attempt to put to movie. This idea moves me enough to make it the next thing I shoot. It mixes serious issues of race and politics, so I’ll be able to stab at the heart of a politician I hate more than any other because I know him personally. I met this raging moron former state legislator on several occasions in my various video jobs over the past 8 years. Now I’ll take him to task, and with a very harsh view.

Last night, whilst awaiting my dinner date at Easton, I had this notion to bring with me a notebook. I had a pen in my pocket. Instead of reading CINEFEX on the article on the visual FX of IRON MAN, I was compelled to start writing the screenplay. I just… did it. No real thought or decision was involved, it just started. The damn broke and scenes and characters that my mental outline had never even pondered suddenly started appearing and saying things. I felt more like I was transcribing a TV show I was watching in my head than “writing”, but then again, the best writing I know of comes from this kind of serendipitous experience.

I will soon have a completed first draft typed up and the re-writing phase will begin, but the biggest hurdle is always the first completed draft. I sometimes cheat and cut corners in scenes and dialogue just to cross the finish line and feel that relief that comes with a draft completion. Then you go back & fill in the gaps with re-writes and little changes that quite frankly continue all the way through rehearsals, shooting, editing, and ADR in post production.

Something is inspiring me. I don’t actually know what it is, but I’m getting things done. The compulsions to finish old projects and start in on new ones has me aflutter. I have so much more to do and the energy and will resides in me to see it all done.




On a completely other note, today I finished the final DVD master of GOODNIGHT CLEVELAND, complete with trailer and deleted scenes. I did myself a favor last year that I failed to remember. I renamed several sequences of scenes that were removed as “deleted scenes” so they were very easy to find and export as individual scenes. ROCK ON, which made life much easier today.

An initial master disc is made, the DVD art and disc graphics are now done too. Tomorrow I’ll get some of the inserts made, and on Monday (no holiday for me), I’ll burn several copies for the cast & crew. Unfortunately, I can’t do full color inserts et al for the entire cast & crew, but then again, I don’t know hardly any of them and I’m not the one who promised them this movie 12 years ago. I’m just an editor and I’m already going wayyyyy over the top to help a bunch of strangers by finished their movie and then screening it for them in a movie theater.



Speaking of which, I already made the DVCAM master tape and DVD backup of the first COWTOWN FILM SERIES show tape. Unlike most people I know, I’m not gonna wait until the last minute to prep a show. This is too important to slack on. I’m going to test the projector and cables and lighting several days before the show.

I have entrusted the presentation of the shows to other people in the past and both times it bit me in the ass; one of those times it bit my ass and also my own wallet. Never again. Two bit know-nothings will not affect these screenings. People are going to be paying money for these screenings, so I need to make them as classy and without mistakes. Exhibition and theatricality often get overlooked by alleged filmmakers presenting their movie to an audience. I am motivated by my years as a movie theater projectionist/manager and also from some film festivals with really poor presentation. I feel compelled to give people something a little extra and make absolutely certain that the filmmakers movies are shown as best I can. I can’t imagine a more disrespectful thing than to screw up someone else’s screening by not being thorough and checking everything ahead of time.

The world spins in my direction these days my friends. Over a year ago I bought a pair of the precious VANS. I have worn 10 and ½ since puberty and this time, my feet were too big to wear them. So I ordered a 2nd pair of size 11’s and on my left foot, the one that gets hit with Gout, and it was still too tight. So both pairs of perfect VANS have sat in a closet unworn and brand new. By a fluke, I tried them on yesterday and BOTH pairs fit perfectly. I must be losing some weight, although not in the gut area. Going to the gym has helped a lot. I’m still swimming, but I’m still not anywhere near where I want to be. As I get older, it gets harder & harder to lose the weight. I’m only up to twice a week at the gym and I want to be at 4 times before the end of September.

Peace and Love and Good Happiness Stuff,
Peter John Ross

It is Complete. GOODNIGHT, CLEVELAND! has been recorded to master tape

The karmic goodness continues! As my Sonnyboo Fan Club of 5-6 readers no doubt already know, the sun is shining in Rossdonia these days. The future looks quite good, both short term and long term. The summer may be coming to a close soon, but the sun continues to shine its golden rays, good guys win, bad guys lose, and your faithful narrator has nothing but exciting news.



Last night at approximately 11:29PM, I put GOODNIGHT, CLEVELAND! to master tape. I finished someone else’s feature film. Even though it’s not mine, a level of satisfaction permeates.

Sadly, Micah Jenkins was not present for the momentous occasion. I would have bought us a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Micah revived this and brought it back to life last year. His interest, more so than my own, got this movie to be finished. Micah has been laboring on the audio fixes for close to a year, one night a week in my basement.

Part of what took so long was that I was only willing or able to donate one night a week to the project with some occasional weekends. Since GOODNIGHT, CLEVELAND! is an ultra low budget movie, there is very little coverage in many scenes, which means awkward pauses, extraneous dialogue, and everything else – you’re stuck with it. Another element, very often overlooked is AUDIO overall. Upon LISTENING to the movie, the audio levels, dialogue tracks, ambient sounds, electricity humming, refrigerators, air conditioners, crown noises, these are all cursed with this movie.

Most people simply do not put the time and effort into editing the audio as much as they do their picture edit. It shows in the work, especially if you’ve ever played your cheap ass audio in a movie theater’s sound system. There have been times where your sound is great on your PC speakers, but put it in a real Dolby rated movie theater and you can hear every single flaw at decibels you didn’t know existed.

With Micah having both finished his audio “fixes”, meaning making it as good as we can without re-recording or spending any real money on it, it was my turn to finish up. I always knew that from the rough cut and even picture lock last year that I wanted to do more music spotting. Spotting is the process of determining where music goes in the movie and “how” it goes in. Will it be ambient music, like a radio or TV in the movie, or the music only montage sound, or will it be layered into the scene’s audio, but still be a main player in the moment.

This past Sunday, because the clock stared me down like a barrel of a shotgun with the screening in less than a month, I dived in headfirst into my job of music. George Caleodis had given me 2-3 CD’s of a band he was in from the 1990’s called THE IDEA and told me I could pretty much use any of it, so I did. Since the film takes place in the 1990’s (since it was shot in 1996-1997 it’s considered a “period piece”).



I’m an amateur sound designer/sound mixer. I am in no way a pro or even necessarily good at it. There are some serious and real people out there, but I have no budget to hire the folks who I normally would use for this job. Micah & I had to do it ourselves with whatever off the shelf software we had available to us.

I put in a few songs to be “ambient”, meaning songs that are coming from unseen TV’s and radios in the scene. To make it sound more “natural”, you don’t just lower the volume or gain on the music. I used an EQ setting where I kill out the bass and it sounds a bit more like a small radio or TV would sound. In one case, I even started the music as “scene music”, meaning the song at full volume, mixed with the sounds of the scene, then slowly EQ’d out the bass to make the same song appear to be on the radio in the next scene. It made a perfect transition. Hopefully no one will even notice it’s there, but I’ll know I did something cool to get us from one scene to the next using audio to smooth it out.

In other scenes, like the “love scene” (if it can be called that), I added a song to it that plays into the moment and lifts the scene up some. Similarly, at a more “action” oriented scene towards the end of the film (it is a film, shot on 16mm), I added an upbeat rockin’ song that also seemed to elevate the tension and excitement whereas before there just wasn’t much there. In other cases, the ambient music just smoothes over the horrendous inconsistencies of regular audio in the scenes.

I had a new mantra with Micah these past few months as the deadline of the COWTOWN FILM SERIES premiere loomed. I said, “We can’t make it good, we can only make it better.” Striving for perfection is not a bad thing. I often do in my own works, as best I can, but with this project we just needed to see it finished. That’s all. It’s been 12 years in the making, 5 of which in my world. I checked my emails looking for end credits info and I saw that my first real emails to Miguel and George about taking on the completion was in summer 2003.

It took until winter 2004 to get the film out of DuArt labs in New York. Then I personally paid for the telecine transfer to digital video. We attempted for several months in 2004 to edit this and just get the audio synch to picture. It failed because schedules and what not didn’t allow anyone from the production to give us some kind of road map to link the sound and picture.

In 2007, Micah pushed to bring it back to life. Micah and I know several of the investors and even though we weren’t involved in the shoot in any way, we felt an obligation to try to give them a finished movie, even if it’s just a DVD. As one of the investors said, it would be “closure” to the whole thing. On September 11th, 2008, we’ll close the book on GOODNIGHT, CLEVELAND! and show people this flawed masterpiece.

I like GOODNIGHT, CLEVELAND! It’s a weird, yet strangely appealing movie. It has warts, like all movies, but I really like it. A charisma of story and character gets to me. I only hope it gets some other people too. I’ll find out September 11th at 7:00PM at the Screens at the Continent.

What a strange feeling this is right now. A giant albatross has been lifted from my neck, albeit a self imposed one. I can’t tell you why, but in the last week or so, I’ve just been getting more Shiite done. Life is setting up the pins, and I’m knocking ‘em down. The stars have just aligned perfectly for me so the next year or so will be BOO TIME.

Peace and Love and Good Happiness Stuff,
Peter John Ross

What's in a Name?

My name is not actually “Sonnyboo”. Nor is it “Sonny” or any variation therein.

I was born Peter John Ross on January 24th in Reynoldsburg Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. I am the 4th child in a family of 4 kids. My mother named the other 3 so my dad finally got to name me for once. I was named after “Pete Rose” and “Johnny Bench” of the baseball team the Cincinnati Reds from their heyday of the BIG RED MACHINE. When I was a kid, I was called by friends & family “Pete”, but never “Peter” unless I did something very wrong and got caught. So by the time I lived in Wadsworth Ohio, I heard my name as “Peter John!” a lot when the police would bring me home in the back of the squad cars, quite a bit more often than maybe I should have, but I was young and most of what I did was harmless.



When we moved to El Paso Texas, I was addicted to the music of the Sex Pistols, and although my preference was for bassist Sid Vicious, I was subbed “Johnny Rotten” for my behavior by friends and teachers, and the family still called me “Pete”, but I didn’t spend as much time with them, so it was always “Johnny Rotten”.

Moving back to Ohio, to Pickerington, no less, for my last 2 years of High School, I felt like a different person, but somehow similar to whom I was, so I went by “John”. Somehow, people wanted to specify which John, so it was “JohnRoss” almost like one word.



Shortly after high school, I worked at a movie theater, and quickly rose into management, as in an Assistant Manager! The company policy required that I be called “Mister Ross”, but I was all of 18-20 years old, and so I said to the staff, “just call me ‘Ross’” and that has been my name ever since. I don’t know why, or how, but that has been my pseudo preference ever since. It’s just kinda been how I am addressed and what I respond to, but to be honest none of those names really match. I don’t know what name I would choose now.

When working as a broker for Bank One, I even had my name plate say “ ‘just ‘Ross’ “ plus another one that simply says “Ross, as seen on TV” which was a joke then, and not so much these days, although whenever I tell my parents I’ll be on the local news, they ask me what I did wrong this time.



Professionally I go by “Peter John Ross”, cursed with three first names like a presidential assassin, but I can tell my friends or people who know someone who knows me if they refer to me as “Ross”. If I get an email or a phone call asking for “Peter”, I assume it’s a bill collector or telemarketer or that I’m still in trouble so then I kinda hide. Old habits. Some people think I hate my names or that it irritates me. I don’t hate being called “Peter”; I just don’t really know who that’s supposed to be. If you want to gauge whether or not I like you, I’ll tell you to please call me “Ross”, otherwise. The big clue that I don’t want to talk to you, I’ll let you keep calling me “Peter”.



That is the etymology of “Ross” as my name. Not really all that interesting if you think about it.

48 Hours of Frivolous and Fornicating Frogs

Well, I did something I didn’t want to do. I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project here in Columbus. No offense to TJ, the director/producer, as he did a good job and his team was cool, but I was not in the mindset. I did what I could as an editor, but overall, I wanted more time and that just isn’t what this is about.

Mostly I detest any level of competition in filmmaking. I have always fought hard against giving awards at screenings and festivals that I am involved with. It’s art. It’s subjective. There truly isn’t a “better”, although you might like one movie better, we get into the entire “preferential/subjective” versus “overall/objective” arguments. What I love about my theory is that I have to be presented with an argument that has not been placed in the eternal loop of being subjective. I used the Socratic Method on this hypothesis and proved it as a theory for over 25 years since I was in grade school and first learned sciences.



The screening of the 48 Hour Film Project went well. I thought virtually all the films had merit. Some had great ideas, others great technicals, and others had both. The movie that I predict will win hands down is AIDAN 5, a sci fi movie with Bryan Michael Block as the actor playing 5 clones. It deserves to win, it was freakin’ AWESOME. Style, music, camera work, and most especially the performances were great. Again, they used hand drawn sketches instead of Photoshop illustrations, or even higher end material – but the idea was so visual and so well executed, it only ADDED to the experience.



Again, I hate “competition” in the arts because can you really compare a high end, produced at a studio piece to literally some community college kids with a camcorder shoot? There will always be perspective and preference. I respect and like both types of movies, but I understand people want to apply this Jock mentality to filmmaking. It’s like people need an adversary or external motivation in order to push themselves to achieve more. That works for some people, but not others. I am self motivating, so I don’t need that crap. I’m never truly satisfied with what I’ve made so I’ll be trying to improve my moviemaking perpetually.



If anything the screenings just verify my theory that Filmmaking is the new “Garage Band”. In the late 80‘s, cheaper guitars and amps made it possible for the everyday Joe to be a musician and start a band. Today, cheap HD cameras and home PC’s are making it possible for that same Joe (or Josephina) to make movies. And they do.



Last week I shed off my biggest freelance client, voluntarily. Given the economies instability and the prospects of the future look quite dim, maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did and I don’t really regret it. I’m looking forward to getting some of my free time back. I had this imbecile of a “producer” who in 8 months was on time a total of 4 times. Last week, I was so pissed off that when she was 90 minutes late, I left. Over an hour later, she called my cell phone pissed off I didn’t call her. She said she wanted to pick up her hard drive of materials and I told her it would be packed up and ready for her. I can’t abide people who don’t respect my time and efforts. I happily handed her back the drive. I made sure to email her the information that half the video files are in the Matrox hardware codec. She didn’t know what a codec was. Most people outside the film industry don’t, but an alleged producer with 10 years experience should have at least heard of it. She’s incompetent.







Now that I have time again, I can focus even more on the upcoming screenings. We’ve got Uweekly doing a story already. A good start and I want the WEEKENDER to do something for us too. Promotions are just as much work as making a movie. Most indie filmmakers don’t seem to grasp that, and even some of the ones that do think that by simply following in your footsteps will be enough. It’s not. Cheap knock offs of my promotional efforts don’t always equate to the same level of payout.



I’ve been working for 2 weeks on the animations and promotional items for the screenings. I was already doing “pre-show entertainment” when Paul Landis handed me several slide cards to play before the show. I was already doing some, but these were cool for the most part. I just had to omit a few. I don’t want people thinking I’m associating with some of these people/companies. Mostly because I don’t want anyone to get scammed or screwed and complain to me that I promoted those ones. Combine that with PAID sponsors, and I’d rather just not use those. It’s probably best to avoid promoting people who lie or just plain don’t deliver.



I’m going to use the solid state COMPACT FLASH card video player that plays MPEG1 and MPEG2 video files. I used this in Cleveland at my booth on an LCDS player, but for the shows, I’m going to play out of this thing into the Line In of the DVCAM/HD decks. It auto-loops, and I already have five 15 minute programs of pre-show that I’ve tested with this setup. I’m using trailers of upcoming films in the series, plus other local films, with drive in style promos, and animations I’ve made for the Cowtown Film Series.



I can’t stand projecting of DVD. First off, DVD’s are unreliable and never 100% guaranteed to work. They sometimes skip. DVD’s sometimes lock up. DVD’s also having such a high level of compression that the details are lost, especially when showing them on a 50 foot movie screen. Colors get muddled or lost on DVD when projected like this. I feel a responsibility to people paying to see this, nonetheless the filmmakers whose movies I’m presenting, to give them 110% and make certain we present things as best we can. DVCAM, being a mechanical tape, but at a much higher color and resolution gives a very good presentation format. When we screening HORRORS OF WAR off DVCAM, depending on the size of the screen and resolution of the projector, it looked almost as good as a 35mm film print (and better when using the Texas Instruments DLP projectors) with full colors and great amounts of detail on the big screen.



What I made yesterday, that I’ve been mulling over for 3 weeks how to do, is something for the actual main presentation. I wanted a special “please turn off your cell phones” promo, so I made this:




COWTOWN - Turn Off Your Cell Phones from Peter John Ross on Vimeo.


I used After Effects, Photoshop, and some funky fonts with some images I already had in the cue. Then I used, yet again, a tutorial and plug-ins purchased from VIDEOCOPILOT.NET and I processed this to look like old film. It was NOT a film look plug in, but rather an actual blank film clip, keyed in over top of the footage. I used the tutorials to see how to add the jumps side to side and top to bottom, along with a glow and the film sprocket holes on the sides. Strangely most of the images are from a FONT that came with our DVD duplicator.



In a very rare move, I recorded my own voice for this. Working on My Sexy Fiancé Veronica’s Holocaust documentary, we’ve been pouring over March of Times films from the 1930’s and I just had that generic old school narrator’s voice and accent in my head, so it was easy to exorcize that demon into this piece. I then processed the voice and the music with a high pass filter and added a loop of the static/film projector sounds and Oila! We have a semi-authentic sounding bit.



I feel pretty damn good lately. I can’t really say why (I mean it, I am forbidden from saying), but the sun is brighter, the air a little fresher, and my outlook has improved. As with all things, it seems karma pays out. You do some good things, and then good things return to you. I love life and fate because I seem to always get what I deserve, and those things tend to be happy.



As I have written in the blog before, the creative ice melts, and I’m coming back to life. My ambitions return with the creativity. With my new free time, I have a new book to write, this time something a bit more centralized and focused. I’m going to write out of the psychological effects of filmmaking and analyze the reactions of audiences. I’ve been mulling this over for a while and the threads that connect basic filmmaking techniques on emotional reactions fascinate me. I just want to write out my observations and put them out there. Plus I get off on having books that I write tangible in my hands. It makes me chuckle.



I got some royalty checks in from the other books. TALES FROM THE FRONT LINES sells a lot better than the HORRORS OF WAR ILLUSTRATED SCREENPLAY. The screenplays just aren’t moving as well.



Well, I need to get to finishing the last bits of sound design and music for GOODNIGHT CLEVELAND. What do I do with my time off editing full time? Edit. I am sooooo obsessive-compulsive when it comes to film.



Peace and love and good happiness stuff to the Acolytes of Boo…

All 4 of you.



Your faithful narrator,

Peter John Ross

PJR, the man, the myth, the legend always in boxers

The Seinfeld-Twin Peaks Connection

Ever since Doc Hayward (Warren Frost) & Mrs. Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriski) appeared on Seinfeld as George Costanza's soon to be parents in law, the Ross', I often wondered if there was a connection between Seinfeld and Twin Peaks.

There were as many as four Twin Peaks cast members on a single episode of Seinfeld. The aforementioned two, along with Jacque Renault (Walter Olkewicz) playing a "Plaza Cable" guy who terrorizes Kramer and the mysterious Mrs. Tremond (Frances Bay), who already appeared on Seinfeld getting a marble rye stolen from her, all showed up in a season seven Seinfeld episode called "The Cadillac". A previous Seinfeld episode also had three of them, plus character Emory Battis (Don Amendolia) who worked at Horne's Department store and was tricked into letting Audrey Horne work at One Eyed Jacks played the owner of a horse carriage owner who loans his rig to Kramer. Sue Ellen Mischke from Seinfeld played Ms. Jones, the assistant to David Warner's Mr. Thomas Eckhart, turns out to be an assassin who tries to off Sheriff Harry Truman. Even Elaine's boss Mr. Pitt (Ian Ambercrombie) appeared in Twin Peaks as Tom Brockman, the insurance man.

Strangely, no one in the casting department for either show is shared, nor can I find any producers/writers shared. These two shows couldn't be more different, and yet there are strong ties with the bit actors and day players.

What is the connection? Why were so many of these actors crossing over from the Pacific Northwest to the Big Apple? Who bridged these two productions?

A mystery without an anwer....

March of the Swivelheaded Ant Man

Let’s start with the mystery of my opinion of THE DARK KNIGHT, since I last left off before seeing it. I dug it. It rocked. Yes, they clearly used HEAT (1995) as a basis of the overall plot structure, which was a good thing. If the idea was to make Batman ™ seem “realistic” they took that ever further in this one than BATMAN BEGINS (2005). I’m seeing it again soon in IMAX™ and I have since read the script. There are some subtle details in the words, but mostly I’m enthralled with the very well written dialogue. Very natural and something filmmakers should bear in mind.

Well, we just did another INDIE GATHERING in Cleveland this past weekend. They are always fun. I set up a booth, sell some DVD’s, give away CD’s and hand out for upcoming events. Of course, I sell more DVD’s and books when My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ sits at the booth by herself. How odd that the pretty girl sitting alone gets more and more convention boys to buy more product!

I did 5 panels on various aspects of film. I haven’t done much of this stuff lately, as my public appearances have voluntarily dwindled. The social and public coma I have been in for the past year has started to fade. As I prepare for the next few months, I’m already turning up the volume on what I’m doing.



On the way home, the magical MARIE’S PIZZA was had with a brief stop in Wadsworth Ohio where my arteries choked on the most blissful combination of tomato sauce and cheese on bread. Every time I’m within 50 miles, I stop off in my old home town to partake of the pizza I grew up on.

Cleveland fascinates me. They have so much more in the way of older buildings, gothic architecture, and MOM & POP stores. There’s a lot more identity to Cleveland than Columbus. I feel like if Columbus were to be defined, it would be a strip mall with an Applebee’s next to it. There are these tiny pockets of originality here and there, and I wish they could succeed and explode to drive away the corporate, test-market-y stains of retail that permeate everything else.

I cannot blame the giant anonymous “they” of the corporations. They are only 50% to blame. The other half is the people and consumers themselves that prefer this generic, uninteresting blah.



GOODNIGHT, CLEVELAND! has almost finished its sound mix. We’re on time for the Sept 11th premiere, but it has not been an easy road. Miguel Baldoni Olivencia has decided not to Alan Smithee the movie, and take credit. This pleases me immensely. It’s his movie, not ours, no matter how different the “intent” was during the shoot and the “result” from the edit. Micah Jenkins works his head off with these edits and smoothing of audio from 1996-1997 in the new digital realm. I often have to say, “We can’t make it good, only better”. That’s the mantra for a film this old.



THE COWTOWN FILM SERIES just got our big wish. For the Halloween screening on October 30th, I wanted a HORROR film, and specifically I wanted to screen Bob Kurtzman ’s THE RAGE. THE RAGE was shot here in Ohio after Bob Kurtzman
moved back here from LA. For those not in the Know, Bob Kurtzman is the “K” in KNB Effects. He worked on movies like EVIL DEAD, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, AUSTIN POWERS, & SCREAM. Rob is also the originator of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, writing the story that Quentin Tarantino adapted into a screenplay and Robert Rodriguez directed, and he made his mark as the director of WISHMASTER, and more recently THE RAGE. What most people don’t know is that Bob Kurtzman came from Crestline Ohio, interestingly, the same place my entire mother’s side of the family came from. Bob has come back to the Midwest and planted a firm foot in the community and away from either coast. He’s started the studio PRECINCT 13 and setup shop doing visual FX for movies like Rob Zombie’s DEVIL’S REJECTS and more.

I might be losing friends as I turn down some shorts that have been offered to me for the whole series. I asked for a public call for entries, but not all of the pieces are up to snuff. I’d rather play fewer shorts of surpassing quality than let something go because I’m friends with someone. It’s a business and I’m sorry. Here’s an idea of what I’m doing with graphics/animation thanks to VideoCopilot.net’s tutorials.

Work shows no sign of letting up. My head hurts. Very little sleep for me as the August heat destroys the equanimity of cool air distribution on the 2nd floor of Rossdonia. I have picked up a cheap futon for the basement so that I might get some proper sleep at night on various nights. The problem is removing the old family blue couch from the basement, along with it dolly, and dolly tracks, and even a ¾” deck for relocation to the Production Partners studio. This is more than a 2 person job. At least I can afford an El Cheapo futon with a decent pad.



I once reposted a story about the great Stanley Kubrick
and how a London reporter got to go to his estate 2 years after his death and discovered all his boxes of research and information. It’s now a documentary and I found it hilarious and fascinating.

CLICK HERE to watch video



We upgraded our 2nd edit system (Edit “B”) here at work to the Matrox RTx2 system for real time HD editing. I am pleased that it works well with the other motherboard, as Matrox products are sticklers for compatibility. We’ve also increased our storage by 3.5 Terabytes at work, and I added 2.25 Terabytes of storage at home for My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and her documentary. We have some progress. A rough cut is done, some graphics work is complete and now we have some archive footage from MARCH OF TIMES from the HBO Archives to go over what selects we’ll use & buy for the project.

We re-watched NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN in Blu-Ray™ last night. What strikes me best about this movie is the maturity of the filmmaking. Most people don’t grasp the concept of subtlety. Very little is spoken out loud in this film, so is not to beat the audience over the head with obvious or pointless dialogue. In a 3 minute film by John Whitney locally, “A FAMILY MATTER”, reminds me of that kind of mature filmmaking where the story is told visually with the words being spoken often telling you something other than the blatant plot points.


This was a big one, but I’m busy, so I gots ta G.O.

Peace out homies, and I hope the crazy people find peace in reading my blogs.

- Ross

Sonnyboo's Blog: THE DARK KNIGHT EDITION!

Well, I’m pumped. I’m going to the midnight screening of THE DARK KNIGHT. As I’ve said before, I’m not really that big of a Batman fan. I’ve never purchased a single Batman comic in my life, and I’ve had many a comics. I’m a moderate when it comes to Batman movies. I liked the 2 Tim Burtons, hated the 2 Joel Schumacher ones, and thought BATMAN BEGINS was okay. Well, ever since I saw that IMAX ™ clip, now officially dubbed “The Dark Knight Prologue”, I’ve been eager to see this movie.

I bought a BLU-RAY DVD of Batman Begins (my first batman movie purchase), and it contained in full HD 1080P glory the IMAX™ Dark Knight Prologue scene and I’ve played it at least a dozen times on my 42” HD screen with the 5.1 surround blaring until my ears bleed and the kitties hide in terror. I recently read that director/writer Christopher Nolan used the movie HEAT (1995, Michael Mann) as an influence. It shows. I called it last December (see previous blogs). Even my Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ will attend the midnight show tonight, and she doth hateth the Comic Book movie genre.





I watch my webstats pretty closely, even when I don’t have new material out there. I like to watch the trends in viewers and what people like and don’t like, especially in regards to things I write and direct. What surprises me most is that HORRORS OF WAR ’s WEB DOC on the making of SCENE 6 has been the biggest hitter lately, at least on YOUTUBE ™. It averages a steady 150 views a day, some days more, some days a little less, but so far, it’s the front runner. The HORRORS OF WAR trailer still ranks highest in views, with the MOVIEMAKER TECHNIQUES not far behind, but I can’t figure out the attraction to the SCENE 6 WEBDOC . Granted, it’s my personal favorite, and it was the first one I did, but where are the hits coming from? Who is watching this and telling others to see it? I cannot trace the links to it, nor explain the months long fixation by several thousand online viewers.



A site called PERFORMING ARTISTS site] has linked to and used one of my articles trying to help struggling actors and directors avoid some pitfalls. When I stop getting giddy about seeing something I write or make mean something to other people – that is the day I should quit. Until then, I get excited.

I’m pumped. I feel like I just work up from a year long bad dream. With the upcoming COWTOWN FILM SERIES , where I’m showing 9-10 feature films made in Ohio, along with a new TV series shot in HD, I feel pretty darn supercilious towards many. It’s not unlike getting revived with a jolt of energy in the gullet. My voice has returned, and with it, my inspirado.



I’ve lined up a local celebrity host for both the TV series and the COWTOWN FILM SERIES . Depending on if I go to Japan (looking more and more unlikely as each day passes without an airline ticket), I will have more time to dedicate to promotion and marketing for the film series. I benefit by having some of my shorts play before hand, but also, the general good will of working as a collective to support each other. If we can make a success out of these screenings, more wallets might open. Not only to shell out some $$$ to see locally produced movies, but also from potential investors who might see the future in what we are doing.

I started creating title sequences for the various “segments” of the show that are heavily inspired by the teachings of Andrew Kramer and Video Copilot.net . The kid’s a freakin’ genius. From some of the HORRORS OF WAR screenings, people seemed to really like my “pre-show entertainment” segments of material that played before the show. This time, I’m taking it up 20 notches. I’m 2 months out and already putting my Shiite together. I won’t take any chances, and taking my lessons learned.

Time to take everything up a notch. It’s been far too long, my faithful droogies.

=- PJR

Harry Potter and the Things I’ve Been Up To

My schedule remains fairly tight, but with some loose ends. I was able to take some time and relax two weekends in a row. That’s nice. Since my weekdays are still quite long, arduously taking client work as best I can, I found some interesting reading material. I discovered the Harry Potter books.


I have seen the movies, but I am a casual fan at best. At the same time, given that the Internet and even conversations are fraught with the peril of having the endings of the next two movies ruined – I felt I should take the plunge and read them before anything gets spoilt. I enjoyed the movies a lot, but I did not own them until now.

I went to Half Priced Books and picked up the lot used for under $40, and then I got the boxed set of all 5 movies in high definition used for $43 including shipping (Thanks Amazon!). In less than 3 weeks, I plowed through all the books and thanks to the weekends, I managed to finish of book 7 yesterday. I’m a convert, I loved these. Great fun, although I agree with Stephen King’s assessment that JoAnn has many clever and creative aspects to the books, but the opening chapters with the Durseley’s get boring.

I rank the movies well, as I thoroughly enjoyed Chris Columbus’ direction in the first two films, but the third one under Alphonso Cuaron (later did CHILDREN OF MEN) still ranks as by a large margin the best in the series so far, not withstanding my preferential treatment of any film that casts Gary Oldman. The last two films were lukewarm to me before, but the books fill in the depth that a non-reader would never have gotten.

As I explained to some fellow filmmakers, it’s interesting to note that in the latest two (and soon to be 6th film), that Chris Columbus is no longer involved in the franchise directly. At the time, because the main stars were unknown kids, the big “star” attraction to the film was its director who had smash hits HOME ALONE and MRS. DOUBTFIRE. His salary was $10 million plus back end points. His paycheck on film two is not disclosed, but I’ll bet it was more. He produced film three, but never came back to direct, even though he wanted to. The other directors get $1 million plus points. To most directors, this is more than an ample payday, so Chris Columbus never gets to come back to the world he shaped. Interesting to note, that many choices a director would get to make, he already made. The main cast of principals and especially the students and teachers, are already made. The location styles, the costumes, props, set design, art direction in general, as well as musical motifs, are all based on what Chris Columbus decided as director on the first two films. His mark remains in the series till the end.

Overall, I enjoyed the books a lot. The films I definitely liked better after reading the books. I love geeking out and getting into fantasy films and books, but the reason I liked this best was the depth of the world and the backstory was compelling. I love a good backstory and setup as it grounds everything in its own reality.


Enough on the exploits of the geeks with glasses…

Looks like the Japan trip may really happen! I can’t believe it, but they called me and I talked to someone on the phone about the details of the trip. The location is north of Tokyo in a megacomplex with tons of HD and all around high end production facilities. I hope they come through with the airline ticket soon so that I can book the trip as a whole. I’d love to spend a month in Japan teaching filmmaking to 60 students.



Thursday night, My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I went to a local movie theatre to see the Jackie Chan/Jet Li movie FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. God, that movie sucked ass. I tend not to thrash movies, as I’m not a film reviewer, just a watcher and filmmaker, so I want to NOT be a critic unless I like the movie. This was too crappy not to say something. By the time the historic pair duked it out; we went ahead and left the theatre. Even with fight choreography by the legendary Yeun Wo Ping, I couldn’t stand any more of this ass hurting pain. The whole movie hinged around a contemporary American story that was not only unnecessary, but poorly done. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ said it best when she said it would have been great if you were 8 years old. Too true.

The upside was that as I was leaving, I met the manager, who happened to be a guy who took a job at Super Saver Cinema in 1991 the same day I did and we wound up both being managers within a year with that company. He’s still in the biz, and he introduced me to the owner of the theatre. I have been floating the idea of doing another film festival for some time, but mostly I wanted to make it for feature films, not really shorts. I’ve been working on several features in various capacities and I know a lot of people want to exhibit their features. This is my chance to lend a helping hand again, and this time I won’t entrust any of the important responsibilities to half wits.



By the end of the conversation, we had a deal struck for the film festival, although I may change it to a film series where we show a locally made feature every Thursday for several weeks with a few short films on the head of them. We’ll see. I’m aiming for the fall and I already have at least 6 features in the cue, with another 2-3 possible from others I’m reaching out to.

And this is just the beginning of a few other projects I’m in the midst of. Kind of want to keep my dance card full if you know what I mean…

Stay true to your inner ear,
- Ross

Back to the Future

Today My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and I went to see BACK TO THE FUTURE at the Ohio Theatre as part of the CAPA summer movie series today. Last night we saw the 1968 PLANET OF THE APES last night. Any chance to see some classics on a 35mm film print at 2,000+ seat theatre never can be bad. Now on the 40th anniversary of PLANET OF THE APE was bit more of a farce as it has aged poorly, especially in the acting department. The script was still solid, as the social commentary still resonates today. The matinée of BACK TO THE FUTURE however showed that 23 years later, the movie still had legs.



Now I was already sentimental about the film, as Robert Zemeckis’ real masterpiece always appealed to me, even more so as I became a filmmaker. Now BACK TO THE FUTURE represents one of THE most perfect screenplays and also the art direction/continuity are sheer perfection.



There are so many minute details that appear to be innocuous, but layer the movie so rich in the world they created. Here are the trivial tidbits I have picked up on this movie:

1. Eric Stoltz was originally cast and had even filmed for over 2 weeks before being replaced by Michael J. Fox. I can’t even imagine the tone the film would have had with Stoltz.
2. My single most favorite little detail is that the Mall where the test the DeLorean time machine starts off being called “TWIN PINES MALL”, and even has a giant lit marquee, but after Marty McFly goes back in time to “Old Man Peabody’s farmland…had this crazy idea bout breeding pine trees…” and Marty runs over one of the two pine trees. When he returns to 1985, the mall and marquee call the mall “LONE PINE MALL”.
3. The opening shot gives so many minor clues and character/plot details that seeing it on the big screen in 35mm make them all the more visible.



A few other things about the film and specifically the screenplay that stand out for excellence:

The original intent was for the big action scene of sending Marty back to the future with the clock tower was originally going to be an atomic bomb test site. Lack of budget caused them to re-write it for the Universal studio city square set (now burned down). That sequence is one of the most well edited/directed action set pieces ever filmed. The old trick of showing the “plan” the characters set up and how several steps go wrong along the way as it actually “happens” was so brilliantly played out that most audiences can’t help but feel the tension and be into the movie at that point. Brilliant.



A film that is essentially about time travelling incest was acceptable to the audience as a comedy because of the masterful direction and editing, controlling the tone.

Virtually everything that occurs in the movie has a purpose that either furthers the plot or the character development. Things like Marty’s desire to play at the homecoming dance, then being able to in 1955, the brief glimpse of newspaper articles referring to Doc Brown’s estate and selling 154 acres to developers, explaining how he had money. Even for a brief shot as Marty McFly awaits the alarm to go off to start his car, the sign for the Motel is impeccably made as period and relating to the fictional world.

Since I recently watched RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and FIRST BLOOD, I can’t help but say I wish they hadn’t sequelized a lot of these movies. When I was young, I wanted to see further adventures of the characters I enjoyed seeing. Now, I think they bastardized and devalued the amazing vision and uniqueness of the originals. With BACK TO THE FUTURE, I really didn’t find either sequel that appealing. PART II relied far too much on the moments of the first film for emotion. With PART III, it was the 3rd or 4th time of seeing the exact same storyline with a different setting. Ugh! By then it’s really really boring.

As for PLANET OF THE APES (1968), My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ found it to be very comical. It didn’t hold up well at all, even with the 35mm film print. The Gaudi inspired set designs amazed me, but I did have to point out that there was one way as a filmmaker that I had to point out that they brilliantly accomplished one thing: During Chuck Heston’s big escape from the apes, they got out the exposition of an Ape funeral and their museum. A lot of films I see, they have a flimsy excuse to give exposition, and here it was interwoven so casually and seamlessly into the narrative. Combine that with the amazing contributions of Rod Serling’s, who always had killer cool concepts.

Coming up, I can’t wait to see THE THIRD MAN on a 35mm film print. I’ve only seen it once, but any chance to see a chunky Orson Welles makes me feel better. Tomorrow I’m acting in a piece for Louie Cowan (although I suspect it was more to get use of the studio than for any ability). I am not an actor and I have no real desire to be an actor. 8:00AM on a Sunday will suck.

Just keep making it real kids,
Peter John Ross
Your friend indeed

the Legalities of Pummeling Futility

Yup. I'm still working a lot. I'm not even getting weekends off at all either. Not a lot of break in the routines. Last night I could have stopped working when I got home from the studio or I could finish the oft ignored ETERNAL teaser trailer for the Derek . I chose to work through it. I got 'er done. I just screened the full 1080 file to the Derek and he was pleased. It's just a teaser trailer, but I enjoyed the graphics work and some of the new FX work I put into it.



I purchased some software and tutorials from VideoCopilot.net and it has greatly modernized my After Effects work. I have not gone flare crazy with some of the specific elements, but I definitely got into the style of these because there are some graphics and animation styles I greatly admire and it's easier to do now. I highly recommend VideoCopilot.net for anyone doing animation or titles (or any basic after effects/compositing) work.

Well, each day my prediction for the economy starts to move eerily closer to being reality. With $5 a gallon gas being predicted by July and the job market puckering up like a buttocks holding roll of quarters in a fraternity pledge initiation – we can expect things have not yet bottomed out.



Yesterday I shot the behind the scenes interviews with George for UNCLE PETE . By some fluke I asked him during the questioning if he wanted to do more and he said yes. I'm the one that wants to retire UNCLE PETE and not do anymore, but one thing I wanted in the originals that we never did was a sidekick character. I really wanted a puppet co-host and there just wasn't the time to make that a reality. Now… that may be more possible than I thought, and in a way that will shake the foundations of the online movie world.

I stumbled on an idea that would take the UNCLE PETE series into a very very dark, scary place where most comedians won't tread. Maybe we'll do it, maybe we won't but I ordered a puppet online today, so maybe we will. This idea might get national attention, not all of it good, but what the hell. Why not? I'm deeply inspired by Family Guy and South Park, so going in the direction of those fearless steps; I just might go for it. Stay tuned and maybe you'll get wind of the new idea. Then again, I might not do it at all if something else enters my depth of field.

I have these two friends, Bret and Linda, who have always been on the cutting edge of discovering the new trends and obscure comedy, especially from the British Isles. One of the things they showed me from 2-3 years ago was GARTH MARENGHI's DARKPLACE. I stumbled on some YouTube vids of this and it got me through a long day of mundane editing this past weekend. I've GOT to get the DVD's of the whole series. It's the most perfect spoof of 1980's television I've ever seen. Classic, great humor. In the late 1990's and the last few years, UK television has been more accessible to US audiences, whereas in the 1980's and before that, it always seemed to be very niche and specific to colloquialisms and internal. With SPACED, THE OFFICE, SMOKING ROOM, and a few others, the universal humor has been cutting edge and very relatable.

The documentary looks to be finishing ahead of schedule in some areas, and a lot more work in others. I think we'll be shooting "dramatic re-enactments" for some of the holes created by the edit and to make the story more visual. TJ's animated stills in 3D are breathtaking. Even with over a hundred stills, it won't be nearly enough. I'm hoping to have a 3-4 minute version to demo for the author in the next month or so. We've already got music from Arya of Chopin and with the first few animated stills, I feel confident that we'll knock her socks off. I can feel the Emmy ™ in my hands within a year or so. Won't that be a hoot? So I'll be able to change my post script to Emmy™ Award Winning Filmmaker. I'm not a Cylon, but I still have a plan….I want an Emmy™ and I think I can get one for this project. I've already got a few thousand dollars invested in My Fiancé's project and I am producing it with her.



I worked in a viewing of the original RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. I wish they had never made any sequels to this. The first one was perfection. So many real locations, and when they were on a sound stage, Norman Reynolds added so much realism to the production design (nonetheless Dougie Slocombe's lighting of said stages). I have seen this movie hundreds of times (literally) and I only got "out" of the movie on one occasion where I realized how much they were cutting a scene months apart on 2 continents back and forth. It was seamless and perfect. I wish Hollywood would go more towards the "realism" of this first film and divert away from the overly fantastical elements like LARA CROFT or NATIONAL TREASURE crapfests.

I need some time off soon. If for nothing else than to relax and let my mind ease off the "work mode" of editing for other people. I'm not doing enough to keep my creativity alive. I have to start feeding the muse or she might starve. I have so much to write and prep, but I'm so convinced the economy is going to drop, that I keep putting it all off. Combine that with financially supporting my Sexy Fiancé, and that makes one hard workin' narrator. At least money isn't as much an issue as it once had been.

I'm still working and digitizing. I happened to have a break where one machine was burning DVD's and the other was capturing a 79 minute tape. So I was able to jot these thoughts and ideas down for a bloggy blog.

Peace my friends. And may the good news be yours!

Peter John Ross
Sweating in the heat

POSTULATING THE PENULTIMATE AXIOM

I forgot to mention that at the Johnny Wu premiere part for THE RAPTURE, someone approached me and asked if it was true that I had been investigated by the FBI during Horrors of War for making death threats…. After a belly laugh, I had to dispel this myth. I have not been investigated by the FBI for making death threats or anything else. Aside from the lunacy of such rumors, all I can say is that I am really amused by how nutso some people can get.



Well, I predict the U.S. economy will bottom out this coming July-August. Based on what I have seen of the market and the real estate/mortgage world -> we can expect a fallow time, quite possibly as bad as the Great Depression. I’m saving up to stave off bad economic times. Also, I’m stocking up on movies to rent in my Netflix queue so that when my unplanned summer vacation begins, I’ll have plenty of visual stimuli.

I’m way behind on watching movies. I did work in a Blu-Ray viewing of Francis Ford Coppola’s YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH. It was not as arty as I thought it would be and much more comic book-y. It was shot HD and also film.

Now I’ve been working a lot. I serve basically three masters. I have my regular workload of editing, and then I have two freelance gigs that I dedicate a lot of time to as an editor. I generally work 75+ hours a week now. As mentioned, I’m saving up for the crashing economy. When it hits, I may be able to survive without working at McDonald’s. If it never hits, I’ll have a nest egg for when I start the next feature.

Having to work this much wreaks havoc with my little buddy, the cat named “V”. He acts out when I’m home because he wants my undivided attention, and a tired, worn out Boo apparently is unacceptable to him. So this past Friday, I decided I would take him to work with me. As anyone who has a cat must know, this is the start of a terrible story…

I put his body brace and leash on and took my boy out to the car. He was fine until we got in the door. He got very unhappy very fast. He climbed under the passenger seat and let it be known for the entire 10 minute drive that he hated travel. He cried and moaned a bit. I think it’s a combination of negative association – his only two previous car rides ended in visits to the vets, once for shots, and the 2nd to be snipped. Either that or cats just hate travel.

I have been a dog guy my entire life. These past few years I’m getting to know how felines are. Cats and dogs really are different. Dogs have the “pack” mentality, whereas if the people/family are there – everything is cool no matter where they are. Cats have terrible short term memory and they “rub” their oils all over the furniture and people to mark them as both theirs and also to be able to remember where they are going. Move a chair or wash things and the cats look at you like you are killing their friends.



Taking “V” out of his familiar territory and putting him in my edit suite at work was a mistake. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ told me this was a bad idea and she was right. He not only hated the drive, he just sat beside the leather couch and would not move. He didn’t cry, but he was unhappy. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ came up to pick him up within the hour. We took him for a walk outside in the grass and that seemed to calm him a lot. Then he had another car ride.

I’m told by My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ that it took over 45 minutes to get him out from under her passenger seat when she got home. She had to squirt him with a water bottle until he finally came out. He was a Velcro ™ kitty clawing into the floor of the car.

By the time I got in late on Friday night, “V” seemed fine. He doesn’t beg to go outside as much now, nor does he complain as much when I get in late since he experienced the alternative.

Since George is in town, we’re going to tape the BEHIND THE SCENES for the UNCLE PETE videos. It will be short, but I think something cool to go on the DVD’s. There are plenty of outtakes and the full length theme song might get me investigated by the FBI….

Sorry I have nothing more interesting to discuss. Not a lot going on whilst I work to the bone. Maybe next month…

Peace,
PJR, your faithful narrator

Origami and the Evils of Saki

I may get to go to Japan this summer. I’ve been invited to participate as an instructor in a Japanese Film Boot Camp type event. An all expenses paid trip to Japan…. Yeah, I might be interested in that. My book has made waves with the English speaking film-peeps in Japan. How cool will that be if we can get the deal ironed out? Let’s say I’m not going to be too picky in my salary demands.

Well, we’re working on the footage now for the documentary for My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and the footage looks amazing thanks to Gil . Time to geek out on ya’ll and let’s say that choosing to shoot on the portable hard drive recorder paid off in spades. No lengthy real time digitizing of footage. I bought a firewire card for my laptop and transferred everything over to a portable USB drive and we then kept it on that drive for back up as I moved it to my main editing machine at home. Then I did the converting to the Cineform Aspect HD codec with their little stand alone program. It uprezzed the footage from 1280x720 to 1920x1080 and removed the 3:2 pulldown automatically as it conformed it to the new AVI format from M2T. The process took about 8 hours, but it was a batch process and we didn’t have to baby-sit it (except when “V” pressed the space bar to get attention).



Now we’re into the “Logging” portion of the edit. That is we went very non-linear in the storytelling and questions with out subject. We jumped around a lot and even asked clarification questions on the 2nd day from the 1st day’s shoot. Now we’re organizing every frame of footage of the interview into bins and naming the sub-clips appropriately. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ has been dutifully accommodating and she’s doing the first few passes of the edits from Assembly to Fine Cut. We may consider making an hour long version of this for PBS, both regionally and possibly nationally. We’ll have a full 1080P final version by the end, so it’s possible to get it done.



One more Uncle Pete short to complete. I’ve had the backgrounds for this one since we did episode 1, but I still don’t have the free time I once had to dedicate to personal projects. Making money and giving so much of my time and skills can kill the inspirado. I just feel like the economy crashing has not bottomed out and we don’t have any idea how long this might last. The film/video business gets cut first on most company’s budgets. We have few projects on the horizon and that’s both good and bad. I can finally get back to what I WANT to do, but at the cost of financial stability. There are some big pay days coming in soon from recent gigs and I intend on paying the bills ahead. I think I’ll pay the condo fees for most of the rest of the year in one shot. I have been over paying on all the utilities lately, but I will still try to do that because it just feels like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.



I got the video from my appearance on INDIEFLIX , a TV show on Cox Cable in Cleveland. It was a fun show to do and the interviewers were good. I don’t really promote anything in particular, but it was cool to plug the books and the DVD’s. For anyone looking to promote their filmmaking, this show makes a nice promo piece for yourself... if you’re into that sort of thing… like getting press and your work seen by more people. Not everyone is into that, but hey who am I to judge (aside from having common sense). When I see this, I can’t focus on a single word being said because I fixate on the burly man beard I sport therein. What a dork!

Last weekend we went to the big premiere of JOHNNY WU’s THE RAPTURE at the Ohio Independent Film Festival and the reception afterwards. I had a blast as I know more people in Cleveland than I remember. Johnny throws a classy soirée and we crashed at a Motel 6 on the way home since we closed out the party at 3:30AM.



Not much else of relevance going on. The cats are doing their own thing. “V” seems to be handling our weekends away much better. Maybe he’s maturing, or maybe not. The other night he let me hold him for over 20 minutes, which is maybe an all time record. Ever since we had him snipped, he hasn’t let anyone hold him consistently for more than 2-3 minutes. Not since the young days when he would pass out on my shoulder has be been so docile and loving towards anything. He’s my pal even though he scratches the hell out of everything including our skin.

I’ve got three edit sessions tomorrow with paid clients. Very unlikely I’ll get to Uncle Pete #8. Maybe next week. So far I have very little work to do next week, but then again I didn’t have anything scheduled this week either. Is it selfish of me to hope for a temporary crash of the economy so I can get caught up on watching movies and writing scripts? I dunno…



As always,
Your faithful narrator

Vermont and the Turpitude of Others

Vermont and the Turpitude of Others

Well we went to Vermont last weekend and did the shoot. A 12+ hour drive in an oversized SUV that guzzles over $75 of gas in a tank will make John Mayer songs more strangely appealing as the cabin goes crazy.



I have never been to Vermont. It’s beautiful, but not that different than Ohio especially in the Hocking Hills area. One tidbit learned on the trip was that Vermont supposedly is not that well off. They have a lower gas tax so people from the neighboring states like to fill up on their side of the border.

We setup and shot on Friday morning. Gil Whitney was my shooter and he lit the show too. Meredith gripped then got started on a scanning of photos that are over 60 years old. The subject matter was not “up”. We were dealing with the Holocaust and being a Jew in Germany and Poland under the Nazi’s with one of the precious few survivors, and one of the very few ones with us today.



I helped mostly as a “producer”, or as that job’s capacity more commonly gets done. Brandy AKA My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ directed. We stayed in a motel only a couple miles away from the shoot. Shockingly, at the end of the first days shooting, we had a lot more footage than I had anticipated. We wrapped at about 5:30PM and decided to see IRON MAN. Brandy was none too pleased, but everyone else was jazzed about seeing IRON MAN. We had a nice dinner out in Hanover New Hampshire on the campus of Dartmouth. It was only 6 minutes away from the motel. I loved IRON MAN. Jon Favreau rocks as does Robert Downey Jr.

Saturday equally went smooth. We started at 10:00AM and went on until about 5:30PM again. We pretty much had everything I thought we needed and Brandy agreed. We tore down lights and duvetyn that was blocking out natural light from the windows. We covered all the war years of this German Jew’s life and her years hiding in Poland. Somehow, I find the story uplifting in many ways. All I can say is that hope exists in the human spirit.



That night, we saw a Woody Allen film from 2007 I had never even heard of called Cassandra’s Dream with Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell. It reminded me of Match Point in many ways, but Woody is in his UK phase where he’s making movies set in and shot in England. It’s revitalized his creativity in many ways. The movie was average for a Woody Allen film, but his average represents better than most people’s best movies.

We set off home a whole day early which was nice. Saved money and had bonus time, except immediately upon arrival I was bombarded with edit work. My freelance work has not subsided, but increased.

After buying a new car recently, I spent more on it than I had intended and it has drained my savings. Now the economy appears to be crashing hard. As burned out as I am right now, I need to take as much paid work as I can because I see some hard times for everyone on the horizon.



In between gigs, I found the time to finish Uncle Pete #7. I like these. I think they are funny, but as I mentioned before, they still have not found their audience. In many ways I think some conservative folks really don’t like the pot shots. Go figure, but still, it’s just a joke and everyone needs to lighten up. What’s even stranger is when people watch it & think I have these ultra conservative values, and then they react poorly to the shorts… Now that is surreal.

The organization of the 9+ hours of footage for the documentary is being sorted through. We’ve got months of work to go on this. Brandy has a project that means something to her, so it carries weight with me and I have a lot of that to spare still.

Your faithful narrator,
Peter John Ross

AN AFECTATION FOR ASSUMPTION

I have an idol. Without a doubt, Alan Shore, the fictional character from The Practice and Boston Legal created by David E. Kelley (married to Michelle Pfeiffer) represents everything I dig. I have been without an idol for a while. It all started last year on the way to Poland when the flight had Video on Demand. I watched THE DEPARTED and then gave an episode of BOSTON LEGAL a shot. I haven’t watched a David E. Kelley show since the first year or two of Ally McBeal. I loved that quirky sense of humor set in a law firm. Knowing that James Spader started this character on the drama THE PRACTICE, I didn’t really give this much of a chance.



When I saw this episode on the plane, I got very interested. It was the perfect blend of comedy and drama. It was reminiscent of the first thing David E. Kelley did which was a feature film FROM THE HIP with Judd Nelson in the 1980’s. I have since rented every season of BOSTON LEGAL on DVD, plus I recently acquired the entire last season of THE PRACTICE to see how this show was spun off from a purely dramatic premise.



I love James Spader’s performance. He plays off his 80’s John Hughes/Brat Pack acting of a kind of ass, but adding the heart of gold. The politics of the character also plays pretty much into my belief structure with precision. Combine that a character with a level of self loathing, arrogance, and a penchant for pissing off people with little to no effort, and let’s just say I relate to the character. All I need is a law degree and a Harvard education, and this might even be me. Also, I’d need my life scripted by David E. Kelley, but basically that’s it.

LOST this year has been consistently paying off. They may not have started with a plan (I highly doubt it), but they have mapped out the rest of the series. So far, I am very happy to see that they are going to stick to a plan. I prefer a storyline to fads. They used to react to fan discussions on their official website. How ridiculous!

Now we’re crewed up and ready to roll for the documentary shoot. I finished the non-fiction autobiography and we’ll be prepared for this. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ has all the ducks in a row, and I hired a cinematographer. We’re driving since SkyBus went out of business. I got my refund already, but that sucked.

Here’s something that happens a lot with online movies that are supposed to be “funny”. I’ve had some experience, albeit not as much as some, but more than others, so my opinion, not really an “expert” opinion is that shorter is better when it comes to funny videos on the Internet.

The empirical data clearly demonstrates this to be true. The videos that get the most views are the short ones. Generally under 2 minutes, rarely ever over 5 minute long clips get any kind of real play. The audience online has the shortest attention span in pop culture history.

What I see a lot of are either 20 minute epics that either aren’t funny, nor well made, and a ton of multi-part series that equate to about 30-40 minutes of material that would have been funny if it was 3-4 minutes of the only funny bits. Everyone thinks they are clever or funny, but only a handful really are. Those are the ones that are famous one way or another. I’m not one of those yet, but maybe I will be some day. I need to keep practicing and getting better.

I’m treading a fine line with my Uncle Pete series. Luckily, they are very short, as in under 2 minutes each or so. Total will be under 20 minutes, and I’m even considering dropping one of them entirely because it might be too similar to one that I already put out there. So far, I am disappointed in the numbers. I had well over 200,000 views for the TELEMARKETERS shorts, and I think the Uncle Pete series is vastly superior in a lot of ways. I may have already said this, but my hope will be that in time, these will catch on in a big way. I just don’t have the time I used to have to market and promote.

Well, another Uncle Pete will be coming out soon. I just have to edit it. I’m going to compile the outtakes into a “making of” and put that out too. In some ways, I’m looking most forward to. I’m still so busy with work. Commercials, industrial videos, documentaries, and other miscellaneous production work has me swamped. Luckily, I took the entire weekend off. I haven’t had a day off in a while. I’m rested and ready to tackle the week.

Peace Kids!
Peter John Ross

THRICE UPON THE DOOR

I have been busy again. I’ve been wrapping up a few projects, and nor Uncle Pete is on way hold for a short time while I finish up the paying work. Not the least of which placed upon hold will be the continuation of work on my next feature. We’re only a few weeks away from the big trip to do the documentary on the weighty subject of the Holocaust and a survivor’s story. I’ve been plugging away finishing off the non-fiction book and I can say I’m floored. I’m gripped and to hear the real life person tell her tale will put my best foot forward.



In the world of UNCLE PETE, the big news is that I got featured on the main page twice in one day on Will Ferrell’s FUNNY OR DIE, and then the next day I got my notice that the first installment will be featured on their Verizon VCAST on the mobile devices. These are big scores and a boon for a comedy short.

One of the stipulations for getting selected for the mobile devices was that there must be no cursing, which lead me to the real meat of this blog entry.



I tend to go against having cursing in most of my movies. Early on, I had a few scripts and then movies that had a lot of cursing, but in the years since, I tend to tone it down to the point of nonexistence. I curse like a horny sailor in New Orleans Parish in real life, but not so much in my scripts. If I allow a curse word, it had better be pretty intense or appropriate. I’m a stickler for making my movies not only accessible, but curse words are a weapon and they have to be used sparingly and to effect.

At the very least use of profanity had better be perfectly in character for the person saying them, or the potency of the language is lost to minutiae. Some people have a character swear up and down and so the power of those words becomes meaningless, and there was no reason for that character to even use the bad words.

How many times have we seen a movie or video online and the people swear… and swear, and then you realize it’s almost every other word? It’s numbing to the point that you wonder if they have any clue how much they are using profanity. If the choice of words doesn’t emphasize anything, then where do you go with the language?

I’m not against the use of profanity in movies, just against their OVERUSE. I cannot emphasize enough the potency of WORDS…



That leads to nudity in film. I have always maintained that at the stage where I’m at, and have been at, that it would be a failure if I had to resort to nudity to sell a movie I’m doing. Again, I’m not against nudity in film, and have no problem with other people using sex to sell their own movies. Anyone else can do whatever they want and my respect level doesn’t raise or lower – I can only put this mandate on myself and my own movies.

It was suggested in my first feature, HORRORS OF WAR in case you didn’t know the name, that we have a nude scene… in a World War II Sci-Fi-Horror-Action movie. Sure, that’s the kind of movie that has a gratuitous sex scene in it. This set my mind ablaze. I was dead set against it, but knew it might effect whether or not we get the money and distribution, so I decided I would give them their nudity and sex scene all right… but I made it a rape scene. The cliché in horror films is a gratuitous and plotless sex scene, so I made it a plot important, and unsexy, unappealing rape scene. No one will watch this and jerk off, and I placated the nudity mandate, and I got to deal with weighty, dramatic fodder. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever directed and the emotional repercussions weighed in on me.

Nudity in film is fine. I have no problems with it when other directors or films have them, but for myself, I can only use it if it’s truly essential to story, character, or plot. In movies like THE ENGLISH PATIENT or hell even PORKY’S, nudity and sex were used eloquently in their respective genres and films, but I’m not ready to make a film like that yet. Maybe, even soon perhaps, I might have a tasteful sex scene, or a shot of a naked person, but I’m still in the learning phase of filmmaking. I don’t want to use something like nudity as a crutch or titillating sellable element until I know it’s something I can control the situation and work very very very comfortably with the actors with a great deal of discretion, maturity, and sensitivity – none of which am I capable of yet.

Am I still raising the bar on myself as a filmmaker?

Both elements, cursing and nudity also relate directly to marketability. In the realm of short films, if I have a single curse word, or even the slightest edge of a nipple, I can kiss several opportunities for distribution or exhibition goodbye. There are several far “better”, or funnier shorts on FUNNYORDIE.COM, but why did Uncle Pete get selected to be on their Verizon VCAST? Because it was “clean”. I was aware of those elements as a producer, and as a director, I found it more challenging to make a dark, intense, very adult series without cursing. No one really wanted to see George nude, except maybe Micah, but still… I am making the choice to sparingly use profanity and not use nudity as artistic decisions, actually challenges to myself, but they have the side benefit for marketability.

I can’t speak for anyone else, nor am I passing judgment on anyone else’s films, choices. Believe me, I could not have made it through puberty without some of the finest Cinemax movies on after 11:00PM. God bless Shannon Tweed and Andrew Stevens!



Something should also be said about filmmakers waiving around Non Disclosure Agreements as if their ideas are sacred and have such value that they are desperate to keep a lid on it.... then have their cast/crew already telling everyone about specifics. It's a waste of time to do NDA's if you don't have any significant money involved in the process. Who will really be scared by a contract if the filmmakers can't afford to pay anyone $5 a day or $10 a day to participate? Then they obviously can't sue anyone and the NDA is worth less than the paper it was ink jet printed on.

Come on kids! If you aren’t investing money in an attorney to draft the specific Non Disclosure Agreement and you’re using the free one from SONNYBOO.COM (your source for free paperwork for filmmakers), then it’s very much the fodder for giggles behind your back. What can you do about it if someone breaches the contract? Write a blog about them? That’s about as intense as the retribution can possibly be when you have NO MONEY.

Seriously, if no one has ever paid you for your ideas or movies, then you can pretty much be assured, they aren’t actually worth anything… YET. That’s not to say that you won’t later need one, but not when making a DV short that has made no money and probably won’t. No reason to get ahead of yourself and pretend to be someone and somewhere you are not. When you have an investment that goes beyond buying people a few pizza’s to be on set, like maybe when you get beyond the tens of dollars and into the tens of thousands of dollars, the Non Disclosure Agreement might be a good idea, and make sure that a real attorney makes revisions specific to your needs. If you can’t afford an attorney, then do NOT waive a NDA in front of an actor with an ounce of experience and expect them to take it or you seriously.

The whole point of the Non Disclosure Agreement is that it represents consequences if the contract gets broken. If you can’t do anything to anyone that breaches the contract, then all you are doing is masturbating to your own ingenuity for having an NDA, but then everyone will blab anyway, long before your epic DV short gets on YouTube.

Who are you protecting the idea from? Other DV wannabes? Stop acting a fool! Get over yourself. Who are these idea thieves wanting the incredibly valuable movie ideas from unknown filmmakers that have never made anyone, anywhere a penny? If you can’t sell anyone the idea for your movie, then no one is stealing the idea and making it themselves. Spend these precious moments on an aspect of the film that might actually mean something… like investors, or a post production workflow, or casting or anything else that might be of more use than a Non Disclosure Agreement that has no teeth.

-=-=-=-=-=-=

Well my droogies, the Boo must rest. He hits the gym early in the A.M. I’m sustaining my 4 times a week at the gym and I haven’t failed to maintain, so I intend to keep at it. I only have 51 pounds to lose till I am happy. That sounds like a lot, but it’s really even more than it sounds. It feels more like 100 pounds, and looks like 150.

Peace and harmony, plus a side order of ham!
Peter John Ross

Things in the Category of “Never Thought THAT would happen”….

I held off on mentioning this before, but since it’s now happened THRICE, I feel comfortable saying so. I went to the gym. Thrice. This is something your narrator has never done before. I have gotten huge, and I’m definitely seeing a lot of weight on my personage. I’m long overdue in taking care of it. My obsessive compulsive disorder has prevented me from being more active physically because I would set goals and in the middle of trying to achieve them, I’d set some other goal thus perpetuating a situation where I never did anything.




I’ve cracked the nut. I found the one physical activity outside of sex that I enjoy and its swimming. Getting in the pool and swimming laps or even just getting under the water and swimming without a care in the world. I can’t stand jogging or even walking because I get bored, so that has never helped me. With swimming I don’t get bored, and even stranger I get a sense-memory flashback to a time when I spent my childhood at the Steiner Youth Recreation Center in Wadsworth Ohio like a fish all year round. Let’s face it; I’m in piss poor shape right now. I get worn out after a few short laps, but 5 nights a week of this I’ll be in better shape in no time.

The new UNCLE PETE short is done and online. It’s the 4th one of 8 and to me they get better as they go. My prediction? It may take 6 months, but these will pick up steam as they sit out there. Someone will discover them and send it to someone; they will send it to 3-4 someone’s; next thing you know it’ll go wide. The audiences are people in the 30’s with kids that hate children’s programming because they have to watch that crap all the time. There’s also the college crowd that appreciate the sarcasm. These are NOT for everyone. So far, the most unique responses were a group of liberals AND conservatives on one site that took the video series way too seriously. The other most unique one was this from AIN’T IT COOL NEWS:

Dude, I clicked on this with my 4 year old daughter standing behind me.

She was with Uncle Petey until he said Sharing was bad,

Then she had this look on her face like I just slapped her momma.

To which I was both horrified and equally amused. I have a few other marketing surprises once I get all 8 completed. I have an “in” with Stephen Colbert, so I’ll do what I can to get these in his hands. I have a few ideas of what that can do. Maybe I should send these to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O. to see if they’ll endorse Uncle Pete’s Play Time…



Someone recently called me a “fag”. I’m just curious, is this supposed to be an insult? Seems more like a lifestyle choice or something you’re born with, not really a tear down. I’m not a homosexual, but if I were, I’d be pretty open about my cocksucking or anal sex adventures with hairy men. I think my blog would have a different timbre, but basically the same. When I was in junior high, being called a “fag” seemed to carry more weight. In the world we live in today, it seems like some prejudice person calling me that says more about their own insecurities than it does insult me. I look at it as such a foreign thing that I liken it to saying “Hey, you like the color orange!” or “Hey you were born with blonde hair.” So I don’t find it to be insulting, just confusing.



Aside from these things, not much else to report. I’m behind on my edits for work. I’m still plugging away on a teaser trailer for ETERNAL, and I’m editing the stuff from Birmingham Alabama. FYI to those readers who want to know, Darell D-Day is a great cameraman. His stuff was exactly what I asked for, plus the other camera op named Hunter came through, so I have a good looking lot of footage.

My brain is fried and the body is taking a punishment it’s never had before. Three times to the gym in 4 days when you’ve never been to the gym before in your life has a pretty interesting set of side effects. I’m way sleepier at an earlier time. Meals seem more like a necessity rather than a fun, tasty thing to do. My arms are sore and it hurts to pick up simple objects like a pencil or a cable, or a Brandy-Weasel.

In the name of Allah, lick the lesbian love spot in the name of Sonnyboo,
Peter John Ross