The wheels are set in motion. Capitulo Unus will finally get a 2011 realease date.

More details on launch dates very soon. In the meantime; we’ve just uploaded the final version of the trailer.
This will be the trailer that will be promoting the movie along with the other 2011 lineup of Venevision International movies.

Capitulo Unus has screened at HBO’s New York Latino International Latino Film Festival, at the Vistas Film Festival and at Una Noche de Gloria in San Antonio, TX.

Posters for the film are being sold in the black market here, here and here.

Capitulo Unus is expected to be found on pay-per-view (Comcast, Dish, DirecTV), at major retailers on DVD and online via Netflix or Jaman.

More to come soon!

Ash Wednesday: Capitulo Unus Trailer

It’s been a tumultuous several months.
The most important element for any thirty-something-artist-with-a-family is money.
I hate to say it. But it is ever so true.
I had been “surviving” from freelance job to freelance job but we have finally broken strides and have come back (almost) full time back to writing.

I have been making a ton of very cool videos, experimenting with a new camera, the new avid, brushing up on my after effect skills, AND making money.

Unfortunately, I have good and bad news.
The good, is that I now have money to support myself for a good while.
The bad, is that I am still not satisfied with the script. This means that the completion date is being moved (again).

But like all good stories, herein lies a silver lining: We are shooting for excellence and excellence takes time.

The overall outline is complete and I am building upon this.

Not much from the old script will make it to the new one, and many pivotal scenes and characters are being improved. The new outline is more straightforward, simpler and awesome.

It sucks that it is taking more time than originally intended, but that’s the difference between making movies and making great movies.

Life is too fucking short to be making bad movies.
More to come.

PS: I’ll be posting our new videos this week.

We all gamble one way or the other.
I live in the only place in Texas where there’s a casino, and I know many avid gamblers including my beautiful wife.
Today she opened the doors to her new business.
It’s a learning center. A place where kids can learn and have fun. A place where adults can learn either English or Spanish. Teenagers can improve their algebra or reading.

This business had been in her head for many years, but she never had the money for it. Or maybe she had the money and the thought of investing gambling on a new business seemed too scary, too damn risky.

When she finally took the step to quit her job (as a college professor), to take care of our son (full time), she suddenly got her last check ($10,000) and after months of talking about a business, she finally took the plunge and rented a place, invested gambled thousands of dollars and created a place exactly how she envisioned a learning place should be.

Was she successful? YES.

On the first day she opened her website (the place was still in the works), she had filled a whole summer camp session (without any advertising).

The lesson: We all have to gamble; and if we gamble smart, on actual human ability, on passion, on great ideas… Well, you really can’t go wrong with gambling like that. It’s something that will pay off, in some way or another.

On the movie front, our goal is to create the best movies in the world, and we’re gambling with our time. And since time equals money, we have a very valuable asset.

I’ve been hacking at this script for quite a while now, and I am at the final stretch. However, this is a very important piece of the filmmaking process and we cannot afford this to be mediocre or lame. If we are going to put a great amount of money, human effort, belief, passion and a shitload of hard work, then this script has to be fucking great.

If all else fails. We can always go back to initech.

PS: Congratulations Gaby.
PSS: Grisi, thanks for your talent and dedication.
PSSS: Thanks to everyone (on standby), who will help to make the Heart of Treviño possible.

For more info on Gaby’s new biz, head on to: www.thecenterofintelligence.com

To me, the most crucial part of any movie, are the first 10 minutes. If the opening act doesn’t work, then why should I care what happens next, right?

In the book Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters, the author Michael Tierno states that all (great) movies have a simple question that needs to be answered by the end of the movie, and that this question should be planted by the beginning of the film.

I agree 100%.

I used to use the “sling-shot” method (wish I could remember who coined the phrase): What happens in the first part of your story is what is going to drive the rest of the movie. The whole weight of the first act has to thrust forward the rest of the movie.

Except that it didn’t work for the biopic I am writing.

I found that this “Question/Answer” method would work much, much better than what I had.

I have no conclusion for this post, but I do have several examples from this “Question/Answer” method:

Rocky: Will Rocky succeed in “going the distance” with the champion (against incredible odds). Answer: Yes

The Shawshank Redemption: Will Andy Dufresne escape from Shawshank? Answer: Yes.

Scent of a Woman: Will Lt. Col. Frank Slade succeed in killing himself (after a great trip in New York). Answer: No (and that’s ok). It’s OK because the question gets answered. They closed the loop, and we got a great movie.

PS: It also the job of a great filmmaker, to not only answer the question, but offer so much more.

From the Quick Dirty Trick Blog:

http://quickdirtytricks.blogspot.com

Official signing ceremony

This week I finally signed the distribution deal for our second feature film Ash Wednesday: Capitulo Unus!
It’s been a long and winding road and I’m glad that that part of our lives has finally come to a close.

Of course we’re thrilled that it is going to be distributed, however the distribution chase has been exhausting (to say the least).

We made Capitulo Unus with the intention of making a mark and making things happen for our careers. It was risky, it was bloody but it was the movie we really wanted to make. A meaningful action movie with a strong statement.

When we finished it in 2007, we had high hopes.
We were sure we were going to take everyones breath away. Which we did. Just not the way we intended to (HAHA).

I submitted to distributors and got several positive responses.
One from our old current distributor Venevision International and the other from Laguna productions.
Laguna offered us $13,000 and a piece of the gross revenues (too good to be true, to tell you the truth, but we went for it). Venevision had offered us a little more upfront but nothing on gross points.
We went with Laguna, I signed and sent the contract.
More than six months passed and I never received a contract back. The deal was signed on our side, but not on theirs.
The deal was still on (I guess), I got anxious and canceled the whole deal.
Their excuse was the usual, “…in this economy”. Lost cause.

Our friend Hector had gotten another offer from a new distributor.
Their upfront offer was okay, but they wanted to keep the rights for 21 years!
We finally told them what we wanted and that’s where communication broke down.

We were back to square one.

We finally went back to Venevision International.
We were not exactly received with arms wide open, but we were received nonetheless.
Thankfully, an offer was made and accepted.

Conclusion

In any artistic profession it is very challenging to get your work published.
To have your work published is to have your work validated. It means that your work is worth watching and worth paying for.

I am very grateful to all the incredible people that helped make Ash Wednesday: Capitulo Unus.
Even though we didn’t reach the outcome that I expected… Well to be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect, but I am not disappointed. I am thrilled to have worked with such incredibly talented and interesting people, the good times were great and the bad times were very awful (jajaja incredible stories to tell).

We met some really cool people and it took us to some really cool places, frankly I couldn’t ask for anything better.

If this movie would have been a giant success from the get-go, we would have never had met the incredible Jesse Treviño.

So there you have it. The written and recorded (brief) version of how we distributed Capitulo Unus.
Capitulo Duos in the making? Maybe. But first we got two movies to knock out first.

In the meantime we are in the pre-production stages on THE HEART OF TREVIÑO.
We are hoping for more great times and awful times alike.

Satisfied!