Go have a ball, a Murderball...

I caught "Murderball" last week and was humbled by the humility and inspired by the spirit of those rolling rugby players. From the opening scene of Mark Zupan dressing himself for the day, to the wild melee of the game, this film showed me a world that, frankly I'd never thought about before. Directors, Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro do a good job of balancing the individual stories with the main drama of the USA Wheelchair Rugby Team's effort to reclaim the title of World's Best from their arch rival Canada. This film has everything; conflict, humor, suspense, great dialogue and characters; so imagine my dismay when I read this CNN article called, "Why is nobody going to 'Murderball'?"

Ticket sales have been slow in comparison to the movie's buzz, and the distributor worries that America just isn't ready for a frank documentary -- even a really good one -- about guys in wheelchairs.

Read rest of the story

Indeed. Cynically enough I am not surprised that the masses are flocking to "The Dukes of Hazards" instead of "M-Ball" after all reality is pretty heavy right about now and the urge to escape is strong. Even though, ultimately what I took away from "Murderball" was something better than two hours of mind-wash. What I got was a glimpse of the nobler side of any of us, all of us and how some face hard realities with grace, strength and style. Do yourself a favor, catch "Murderball" not out of pity or duty or whatever, but because it's just a damn good film. Zahdah.

OK HW

Zank you very much

Zank is ready. You might be more excited about this if you knew what "Zank" was, so let me tell you. "Zank" is a short stop motion animated film that I made a few years ago for the Flicker Film Festival in Richmond, Va. Every fall they hold an event called "Attack of the 50 Foot Reels" where participates create a movie from one roll of b&w or color silent Super 8 film. It's an in-camera edit and the filmmakers see their effort warts and all the night of the festival along with a crowd of one hundred plus folks. I've dared the task twice now, the first time I contributed a mini-documentary about my wife's painting called "Float" and then there's "Zank". I had been itching to do some animation and stop motion fit with the limited time available. I considered various ideas and roughed out some thumbnail storyboards, and that thing happened to me. That thing is the bad habit of getting too elaborate, biting off the big chew and never finishing the project, so I decided to try a different approach. Instead of trying to figure out every little detail, I'd just wing it. I had a "feeling" a definite "theme" was manifesting itself, so I gathered together some simple, pre-made characters to film (called toys) and over the next few nights wandered my way through the fifty feet of film. I finished well before the deadline, posted the exposed reel off and forgot about it until a few days before the event. That's when I thought about a soundtrack, what to do? At previous events, I'd seen folks do everything from live accompaniment on electric guitar to spoken word to just throwing on a commercial CD. As I had no particularly music in mind when I was shooting and lacking in musical skills my own self, I started hunting for a song. My criteria was: one - had to be around three minutes and twenty seconds long (the length of a fifty foot roll of Super 8 film projected at eighteen frames a second) and two - it had to be funky. What I wound up selecting was a Tom Waits song off "Alice" called "Kommienezuepadt" which met the requirements better then I could have designed. The night of the festival, "Zank" unreeled to lots of laughs and a big round of applause. "Kommienezuepadt" eerily matched the rhythm and feel of the animation, so much so that I had a hard time thinking about other music for the piece. I briefly considered looking into getting rights, but that provide beyond reach and I shelved the piece and life rolled on.



Fast forward to April 2004. I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland attending "Dead by Dawn". There I have the good fortune to met Neil Spencer Bruce; film fanatic, world traveler, blogger, and most importantly musician. Between b-movies and pints Neil volunteers to write, perform and record a new soundtrack for "Zank". The world is full of people who enjoy talking, in fact many of those same people believe that by talking about something, you have actually accomplished something other then converting O2 into CO2. Neil is not one of those people. E-mails started appearing in my inbox with links to copies of "Zank" with new soundtracks and every time I made a suggestion, WHAM Neil was on the job adding in his own good ideas until I couldn't remember the Tom Waits version. Yeah, Neil is that good.

So, without further ado I present:

"Zank"

note: this is a 5.82 Mb QuickTime movie. Neil will be hosting a WMV version soon.

I'm looking around for festivals to enter, so if you have any recommendations hip me to'em.

Thank's for looking and any comments are welcomed.

OK HW

Coming Soon - Zank

Putting the finishing touches on a short animated film called "Zank". More soon.

OK HW

The Hiking Report

Updated the hiking progress bar with my July efforts. Managed to
squeeze out 41 miles last month to bring me total of 352 miles for
the year so far. That leaves me just under 60 miles average per month
for the next five months, so I'm a little behind which for me is
always a motivator. Where are my boots?

OK HW
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Link update!

Just added a new link to another scrrenwriting blog. This one straight out of Oklahoma (where the wind falls mainly on the plains) called The Moviequill. Todd there lays down a fine post and unlike some people (like me) actually sticks to the theme of his blog and has provocative thoughts to share, so please pay him a visit.

OK HW

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