Production News

It's hard to believe it's been almost six months since the slacker revenge film Red White and Blue wrapped shooting in Austin. An update in August from writer/director Simon Rumley revealed that he was hard at work editing the film. Simon and co-producer Bob Portal have now completed work with the last stages of post-production with their sound editors and Post house Prime Focus. The film is now fully color timed/graded and sound mixing is completed, ready for Hi Def delivery.

Great news, as it has been officially announced that Red White and Blue is having its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival in the Netherlands on January 29. Rotterdam is the festival where Simon first premiered his previous film The Living and the Dead, which had its American premiere at Fantastic Fest in 2008.  

I've been out of town for the past week, and the best way to catch up on Austin film news is to share it with everyone. Hopefully at least some of the following items are news to you, too.

• RIP to actress Brittany Murphy, who was not a Texan but played one on TV, very convincingly, for over a decade as the voice of Luanne Platter (a name I have always adored) on King of the Hill. Murphy also had a role in Robert Rodriguez's film Sin City. She died on Sunday; some news sources are reporting heart failure, others attributing her death to natural causes. She was 32.
• We've mentioned the search for the young female lead in the Coen brothers' remake of True Grit a couple of times. Looks like last month's Austin auditions didn't turn up that perfect actress, so Paramount is now holding an online casting call for teen girl hopefuls. The film will be shot at least partially in Central Texas in Spring 2010 -- Blanco County News reports the Old Blanco County Courthouse may be one location used next April or May. [via @tamarlovesu on Twitter]

Beatdown is filming in the Austin area, and Paul Gandersman, who is working on set, snapped a picture of film stars Rudy Youngblood (Apocalypto), Danny Trejo (Desperado, Machete).  The Mike Gunther directed action/martial arts film also stars Eric Balfour (Hellride), and MMA fighter Michael Bisping.

[Photo Credit:  Paul Gandersman]

It's Monday morning, so let's see what's been in the news recently for Austin filmmaking and movie events.

• Austin filmmaker Kat Candler's short Love Bug just won the audience award at the Little Ripper Film Festival for short films, in Melbourne, Australia. The film has played a number of Texas film fests this fall, including Austin Film Festival, where it won the Narrative Short Audience Award.
• Save the date: Looks like Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek will be holding an Evil Dead trilogy movie marathon on March 26, 2010. Groovy. We'll post more info as it's available.
• Texas Archive of the Moving Image is holding an open house on Wednesday, December 9, at 501 Studios from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. I don't know much of anything about this organization so I'm hoping to stop by and find out more. They promise refreshments and some screenings of films from their collection.

Here are a few news items related to Austin films and filmmaking from this week. Well, I say "a few," but once I started digging them up, it's actually been a pretty busy week! The news includes updates on local filmmakers' projects, awards, casting news, and other useful info.

• Austin company B-Side Entertainment has just announced that Sundance Film Festival will use the company's scheduling engine for its 2010 online film guide. If you're going to Sundance next year, you'll get to use the very helpful Schedule Genius program to fit all the movies you want to see into the most efficient time possible. B-Side also powers the film guides for local festivals Fantastic Fest, Austin Film Festival, Austin Asian American Film Festival and aGLIFF, and provides an unofficial guide for SXSW.
• Bad news for local filmmaker Richard Linklater (pictured at right): As part of Miramax's big cost-cutting drive this month, they have put his romantic comedy Liars (A to E) on hold. Movieline reports that Linklater doesn't have another project currently in the works yet, although we suspect it won't be long before he's his usual busy self. [via Austin Movie Blog]
• Speaking of Linklater, Austin Film Society would like you to know that tickets are still available to the Austin gala screening of his latest film, Me and Orson Welles, on Monday, November 30 at the Paramount. Linklater will be in attendance along with two of the film's stars, Zac Efron and Christian McKay.

Austin film-related news does seem to have a definite musical theme going this week. Or maybe I'm just stretching the point to justify the above title? I do have a whole lot of movie news today, some of which has nothing to do whatsoever with music, but you can always sing while you're reading or play some nice show tunes in the background.

• A small paragraph in the Arts: Casting Call section of the Austin Chronicle provides us with the news that Salvage Vanguard Theater and Doctuh Mistuh Productions are planning to stage Evil Dead: The Musical in Austin in the near future. They're still holding auditions this week, so contact Elle Mahoney at stylelle [at] gmail [dot] com for details. I'm looking forward to seeing this very curious theatrical production when it opens: Ash! He sings, he dances, he uses a chainsaw!
• The celebrity-spotting related to Machete shooting in Austin has already started. Several people, including our own Jenn Brown, spotted Danny Trejo (pictured at right) catching a movie at Alamo Ritz over the weekend. In addition, Austin Metblogs' Tim Trentham got a peek at Tom Savini while at the Paramount watching Forbidden Planet. Obviously if you want to see the coolest cast and crew from Robert Rodriguez's production, you should go to the movies. (I know my audience: I bet most of you would rather see Savini than Lindsay Lohan.)

It's not quite three weeks since Jenn and I blogged about our experiences during the Austin filming of the slacker revenge movie Red, White and Blue. In a recent email, writer/director Simon Rumley revealed that he has already edited over half the film. This is pretty amazing considering he'd been too busy shooting while in Austin to get into the editing suite, and needed some time back in London to recuperate from his first film experience in Texas.

Here's more from Simon:

What was it like filming in Texas during the summer?
Before I came to Austin, everyone was saying how hot it was going to be so I was kind of prepared for the heat and I kept asking "Is it going to get hotter!?" and everyone kept saying yes! In the end we shot on one day when the temperature reached 110 and all the crew kept going, "Oh my God, it's so hot!" but actually, it wasn't clammy. It was a dry heat so compared with a sometime London or, say, New York summer, it was a very bearable climate. Added to this that DP (Director of Photography) Milton Kam is originally from the Tropical Suriname and Noah Taylor, the lead actor playing Nate is originally from Australia. The producer Bob although from London (and probably because of this), was very keen on tanning himself semi-naked at any given chance. I think we adapted to the Texan heat much better than the Texans we were working with! That said I did quite often get severely sun-burnt!

Continued from Part One ...

Having a film crew and cast set up for two days of shooting Simon Rumley's latest film Red, White and Blue in our house was what I'd expect it would be like to have an small army moving in. Despite the small production, at least 20 people invaded our house en masse with cinematography and sound equipment, wardrobe, and makeup supplies. It was quite obvious that by day 12 of the 18-day shoot the crew knew exactly what needed to be done as they quickly set up.

Our house had been selected to be the home of slacker bandmates Alvin (Nick Ashy-Holden) and Franki (Marc Senter). Production designer Josh Crist dressed the house with band posters, Lone Star beer bottles, and other "slacker" accoutrements. My boyfriend's PA system was assembled in the garage along with a loaner drum kit. As the first scene was set up, neighbors I had never met before came out of their houses, inquisitive about the "punk rock" band playing in our garage.

When I first heard about the call for locations for Simon Rumley's new film Red, White and Blue, I was eager to offer our house as a location.

I had the pleasure of meeting Simon when he attended South by Southwest Film Festival in 2006 to support his friends who produced Darkon. I am quite a fan of Simon's work, which includes The Handyman and The Living and the Dead.

Reading over the list of locations needed, one in particular caught my eye. "Ed's - Slightly older contemporary of Franki/Alvin's etc. Lives with his girlfriend and young daughter. Has backyard and two floors." I thought it sounded like a perfect fit. My boyfriend Ed and I live in a two-story house, and my niece often stays in our guest room.

Last week, director Simon Rumley's latest feature finished filming here in Austin. Red, White and Blue, touted as a "slacker revenge thriller," filmed in various locations around town, including one afternoon at local honky-tonk landmark The Broken Spoke.

A few weeks ago, Tim League, executive producer of the film and co-founder of the Alamo Drafthouse theaters, posted a call for extras to the Alamo blog and Twitter, with the promise of fun and standing around and drinking beer.

I've got friends in Vancouver who've been extras on a few films, and they were telling me to bring a book or two, it'll be boring. It'll take hours to shoot a single scene. Well, okay -- it took 3.5 hours from the time we were asked to be there, to "That's a wrap. Thanks, folks." Even if I had brought a book, I wouldn't have had a chance to look at it. We were too busy having fun. And it helped a local film, so even better.