I plan on entering some video contests this summer. I will let you know about those as they come up. I am also going to see if I can volunteer at the Nevada City Film Festival. Somewhere in between all that, I also have a script I would like to work on.

I will post my thoughts on WALL-E within the next couple of days.

ShareThis

ShareThis

However, starting tonight and almost every Wednesday night after that, I will be attending a club here at Biola called the Guerrilla Film Society. This is a club for everyone interested in the film industry, film majors and non-majors alike. Sometimes they show student films, but most of the time they have a guest speaker from the industry come in for a Q and A. There’s usually tons of great information, and I plan on relaying what I learn on to you.

Tonight, three alumni from Biola who are now working in the industry will be speaking about their experiences since leaving school. Should be interesting. Stay tuned!

I will be finding out by the end of the month if I am accepted into the film program here. I will keep you posted.

Oh, and in other news, the WGA strike is over.

ShareThis

Either tonight or tomorrow morning I will be posting something that I think most of you will be very interested in if you have any interest in the film industry.

ShareThis

Bond 22 is scheduled for release on November 7, 2008, just over 10 months from the beginning of production. Marc Forster is directing. Daniel Craig will be reprising his role as 007. Maurice Green has been cast as the main villain, Mathieu Amalric; and Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko as the lead bond girl. Also reprising their roles from Casino Royale are Judi Dench as M, Giancarlo Giannini as Mathis, and Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, Bond’s “brother from Langley.”

Director Forster has said that “audiences should be prepared for a few surprises in this outing.”

The film will be more of a journey into 007’s inner being that a globe-hopping trip around the world. As Forster explained: “When Bond began in the Connery days, travel was a luxury not everyone could afford. Today, the world has become smaller. If Bond goes to a beach with palm trees it’s almost banal now. The only interesting trip remains the journey inwards, deep in to the psyche.”

ShareThis

ShareThis

While fans all over the world are rejoicing at this announcement, I have several concerns. The films will be shot simultaneously in 2009 in New Zealand and will use WETA and all of Jackson’s facilities, but I can’t say I’m not worried about Jackson not helming the project himself. Don’t get me wrong. I think an amazing film could still be made if Jackson produced and was still very involved with the inner workings of the project, but I think he is still the obvious best choice for the director’s chair. Ninety percent of participants in a poll at TheOneRing.net are willing to wait at least a year, 76 percent indefinitely for Jackson to direct.

Right now, the two directors rumored to be considered are Sam Raimi and Guillermo del Toro. Of these two, del Toro would be my first choice, even if I pretend Raimi never made Spider-Man 3. Raimi’s films are often campy. Also, with Spider-Man, Raimi openly admitted that his changes to the canon, especially changes in Spider-Man’s origins, were made so that he could identify more with the story. I’m afraid of the changes he might make to Tolkien’s world so that he will better “identify with it.”

Another thing that worries me is that there is no writer set. Hello? Why not use the people who did such a good job at adapting and shortening LOTR?

Probably the thing that worries me the most, though, is that there are going to be TWO films. At first, many people thought that The Hobbit would be split into two parts, and I think I would be fine with that. However, several sources say that the first film will be The Hobbit and the second will be a film that bridges the 60-year gap between Hobbit and LOTR. They say it will be pieced together from various notes and information found in the appendices. WHAT? There are so many segments of Middle Earth’s history that either JRR or Christopher have completed, but the media moguls decide they have to bridge the gap. Brilliant. I’m convinced that if anyone but the original writing trio for LOTR attempts to script this, it could be a disaster.

Of course, it could be a disaster anyway. At this point, only time will tell.

ShareThis

Many of the late-night hosts will be returning to their shows in the coming weeks. Kimmel, Letterman, Leno, and O-Brien will be returning on January 2. Stewart and Colbert will go back on the air January 7. Some WGA members are criticising these hosts, but I am leaning more toward supporting their decision to return to resume production on their shows. Leno said, “”Now that the talks have broken down and there are no further negotiations scheduled, I feel it’s my responsibility to get my 100 non-writing staff, which were laid off, back to work.” Whether you agree with these hosts’ decision to go back to work, it will be interesting to see how the shows fare without their writers.

In other news, the WGA has announced that they will be picketing the Golden Globes awards ceremony. The writers will most likely not be able to picket right outside the venue, but the ceremony may be affected more by stars refusing to cross the picket line than the picket line itself.

Personally, I support the strike wholeheartedly. I have heard all the same arguments you have: writers only get four cents per DVD sale, when TV and the internet merge writers will end up getting nothing if things don’t change, etc. However, I finally fully appreciated the need for this strike when I found the following statistic: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest had almost $5 million in sales its first day on DVD. Out of that, the writers got paid less than $6,700. This is ridiculous and needs to change!

ShareThis

My ultimate goal is to be a writer-director, but I am flexible and open to other possibilities along the way, as you must be in this industry.

I do not yet have an extensive portfolio, but some of my work can be seen on YouTube under the username mrongey.

I created this website to be a place where I can express and share my love of film-making and my thoughts about the film industry.

ShareThis