AFM Diary (3): D-grade celebrities and night work
On Day 3 at the American Film Market, Luke Hardiman meets a bionic man and does an overnight, hotel room edit of Skyline – the new US indie alien invasion movie – content.
Today we decide to divide and conquer. My partner Melinda heads to Hydraulx studios for a few one-on-one interviews with the directors and cast of Skyline, which Hopscotch are releasing in Australia. Skyline is a very impressive looking “epic indie” created by the Strause brothers who own and run a VFX house here in Santa Monica.
They were responsible for effects on Avatar, 2012, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many more. The entire film from concept/financing/ shooting through to post and delivery took place in 11 months. For a large sci-fi blockbuster with over 1000 FX shots its quite astounding. They’ve broken from the studios and have created a very high tech and streamlined approach to filmmaking. With the premiere on here tomorrow night, the cast and crew are understandably both nervous and excited. Jarrod who plays the lead, comments that it is a life-changing week for him.
Not quite life changing, but certainly an adventure, back at AFM I have lined up 6 meetings. First however, D-grade celebrity spotting: Lee Majors (the Six Million Dollar man) in the reception of the Merigot. He triggers a spate of bionic man noises from people sitting in reception who look like they should know better.
We are getting a good reception from some of our meeting, with the time difference working in our favour, sales agents can see the benefit of an edit being done while they’re asleep. Social marketing is also getting a better reception than I had expected, with sales agents interested in building up the film’s brand worldwide to boost the work distributors do locally.
I spot the guy from our meeting yesterday in the café and he seems interested in sending us a small trailer to get the relationship going. Good news, but to early to break out the champagne
Instead it’s coffee as I settle into an overnight, hotel room edit of the Skyline content. Luckily with the jet lag, I’ll edit while the distributor sleeps. By the morning it should be ready for Australian viewers of youtube/hopscotchfilmsent and I’ll return to pitching to the Americans the advantage of the difference in time zones.
Haywire is an entertainment marketing company that provides full service advertising for Australia’s leading distributors, production companies and online publishers. Established in 2004, Haywire’s clients include Hopscotch, Southern Star, Austar, ABC, Fairfax Digital and ninemsn.
This article was probably written by an F-Grade down under writer with a low grade script who can’t get their project funded. Why pick on Lee Majors the coolest guy out there? He didn’t do anything to you! At least he’s had a very successful career for the past 47 years which very few actors can say!
User ID not verified.
I echo the feelings expressed by Jane. The author’s comment about Lee Majors, let’s face it, was superfluous, and quite aside from its general meaness, seemed a cynical attempt to impress others by way of putting down a celebrity he has probably never met, but about whom he feels qualified to speak and rank celebrity.
Whether you are a fan or not of Lee Majors, nobody can dispute he has been a succesful, not to say iconic actor for five decades, especially for three of those decades. Hardly the stuff of D-list celebrity!! Frankly, the author should be so lucky to achieve Mr Majors’ level of celebrity, let alone career success. I won’t hold my breath.
Actually, if he took the trouble to meet Mr. Majors rather than diss him on sight he might find the man is quite a decent quy.
User ID not verified.
I don’t think that was an attempt to put down lee majors. relax all
User ID not verified.
I agree. It was nothing more than a major (pardon the pun) humour attempt fail.
User ID not verified.