Bloggity Blog Blog
I love to blog. I love to let you all know what’s up in my world and how the movie making business is going. This is a difficult stage for a lot of my projects: if I told you everything that was happening day-to-day, I’d get a lot of people mad at me. This is the “behind the scenes” part of moving projects along that people don’t talk about until deals are done and the trailer is running in theaters. So on one hand, I feel this people-pleasing urge to gush about some stuff, but know that it will cause harm (and a smackdown) if I share too much.
Okay, I’ll spill the beans. Zac Efron is playing Gobo. There! I said it. That feels so good.
Alright! Real information! I will speak in code and say as much as I can. But if I “disappear” after this, you’ll know corporate goons have yanked me off the street and shoved me in an abandoned airplane hangar somewhere (I always love how in the movies, when someone is nabbed by goons, instead of being tied up in a hotel room, it’s always in some kickass art directed airplane hangar or steel mill with some huge neon sign outside one window.
Where would we be without Michael Bay?*).
The certain studio that has just released a movie about killing Nazis is now very happy, since said movie totally “scalped” at the box office (sorry). And while said studio is interested in moving ahead on Fraggle Rock, they have also been entertaining interest from other parties who want to come aboard to co-finance. These other parties are entities that make big, big movies. These parties would not only give me the budget I need to make this picture, but would market the poop out of it. Armed with some pretty tasty production art (so cool, I wish I could show you) and storyboards, I have had some great meetings with these entities and will continue to meet with more. We are on the CUSP, people. I know this boy has cried wolf for months, but it’s true. The cusp!!
And I apologize to the few Fraggle fans who just get pissed off by these empty reports with no identifiable progress. But the progress is real. It’s just very hard to put into words why this takes so long and to describe all of the hoops I’ve had to jump through to move towards production.
What else… I’ve got my dream lead actor saying he is IN. That’s good. I’ve got a major music talent saying that they want to write songs. I’ve cut three storyboard sequences to temp dialogue and music. I’ve tweaked the script again to make it tighter and more emotional and just turned that in to the aforementioned Nazi-scalping studio. Still very excited about the script and what you guys will think of it.
And the other reason that it’s been hard to blog a lot is that I am awaiting the birth of my second child. And he’s coming like, any second now. To say that event has preoccupied my life a lot would be an understatement. I usually keep the personal stuff out of this blog, but that’s my whole world right now! Baby comin’!!
Good grief, I didn’t even have time to post my SAN DIEGO COMIC CON wrap-up blog this year. I go every year, and always have fun. This year was a little lean on the industry shmooze for me, but I did enjoy the Henson Publishing panel (Fraggle Rock comics, coming soon) and spoke with Brian Henson for a moment after the Farscape panel. What a cheery, positive guy that is. You’d think he grew up around puppets or something.
And then I have to say that DISTRICT 9 ROCKS. It has its critics, but man, I thought it was fan-ding-dong-tastic. Loved it. Blew my mind and my ideas of what sci-fi can be. Go Wikus!
Before I close out, can I just kiss some fan butt for a moment? You Fraggle/Muppet fans are awesome. You’re opinionated, you’re passionate, but you respect what I’m trying to do. You’ve been so positive over these months with encouragement as you voice concerns and excitement for what is to come. And it is coming. (Sing it with me) Every morning, every day… every evening, calling me away…
Stay Fraggley. Peace out.
*We’d be watching better movies, that’s where we’d be. Hey Mike, can you “Transform” my movie ticket into a refund?
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Not that you know me personally, but I'm glad to finally hear another post from you about the progress. I was thinking just literally last night "I haven't seen a post on Cory's blog for months. Maybe I'll just email him and find out what is up."
But glad to hear that things are moving along toward the cusp. May it truly cusp over soon… or whatever the appropriate verbiage is for that. Fraggle away!
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
*offers to help push over this cups … or scups … wait, what word was it again?*
September 4th, 2009 at 5:50 am
Good luck with it all, sounds like things are going well – if you ever doubt yourself remember to go and speak to Marjorie, the all knowing trash-heap, she'll sort you out.
I'm working my way through all the US/Canadian episodes of the series over in Scotland. Did you ever see the UK version of the show with the lighthouse keeper instead of Doc?
Rumour is there are only 12 episodes of the UK series left in the archives, not sure how true that is. If you want to read an interview with the producer of the UK show please head over to my blog, he has words for any new director/producer – http://adventuresinprimetime.wordpress.com/2008/06/01/return-to-fraggle-rock/
Cheers,
Jon
September 4th, 2009 at 6:55 am
To those who get "pissed off" at the lack of details in Cory's updates here, I have the following to say:
While I've never worked directly in professional film, I have worked in amateur film before. Back in 1995, I wrote, produced, directed, edited and starred in a 26 minute short film; I know first hand what a mountain of work filmmaking is even for the simplest of productions.
When we watch a film, the whole point is that the film entertain us so, naturally, watching a film doesn't feel like work. The best films, like the best songs, seem self-written they're so effortless and fun to watch. Those who have not actually tried to make a film, however, don't realize just how much mind numbing work is involved to create that experience.
For that matter, until I made my short film, I did not appreciate the level of work involved. My little no-budget short film took me six months to complete from blank page to finished picture. The hardest stage was post production; it took me almost three weeks of 12 hour days to complete the final cut and sound mix. Granted, I was working with extremely primitive equipment (a flying erase head VHS VCR hooked through a sound board connected to the camcorder (to play and edit the raw footage and production sound), two cassette decks, two CD players (for music and sound effects) and a reverb unit (to add special audio effects to the production sound for one particular scene); to monitor video, I had a little Commodore 1701 monitor) but still it gave me a new appreciation for the art of filmmaking. Going through hours and hours of footage to find the takes you need to assemble your vision can be a mind-numbing process; by the time I got to the end of it, I was just thinking, "OK, I just want to get this over with." By the end, it was so mind-numbing it wasn't fun anymore.
However, it was worth every moment of suffering. I still have that movie today, having recently transferred it to DVD and, even now, almost 15 years later, I'm still proud of my work.
Anyway, my point is that fans who get annoyed at the lack of detail in Cory's reports on the progress on the Fraggle movie really need to cut the guy a break. My film was done with primitive equipment and minimal crew and it was grueling; imagine what it's like for Cory trying to coordinate a multimillion dollar film that not only includes live actors but puppetry and likely CGI and other effects technologies, not to mention original music and sound plus promotion and distribution deals, all the stuff that I, working out of my proverbial garage, didn't even have to deal with.
Also bear in mind that films are among the hardest of fiction forms to keep secret until their official release to the public just because so many people are involved in the creation of a film. Cory can't go around giving out details of what's being developed behind the scenes without risking spoiling the experience for the audience (a la the classic "I am your father" Empire Strikes Back spoiler). I'm sure he's busting at the seams to tell us more (I would be) but, if he did, he'd be doing us fans a major disservice.
So. Try to remember how much work, how much detail goes into making a film. Just because Cory can't tell us about it does not mean nothing's getting done; he's just trying to keep things under his hat so we'll enjoy the story when we go see the film (and so he won't p*ss off anyone he's working with who also don't want their surprises spoiled ;)).
Yes, it's taking a long time but, as Mike Holmes says, "It takes what it takes."
September 4th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
YES! This is news we like to hear! Thanks for risking the agents of darkness to bring us updates!
I just passed a bus stop designated for "Humans Only" yesterday. I'm not sure who I love more, the cast and crew of District 9, or their marketing team.
September 6th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Hey Mr. Edwards,
you´re such a nice guy! I´m reaaaaaaally (!) curious about the movie so take this Weinstein-money and run… but to the movie set please.
And by the way: Now that you´re best friends with Mr. Henson – please ask him how they can punish us german supporters. "Muppet Show" (though Disney now) seems to be one gigantic problem with the rights, "Fraggle Rock" rights are splitted up between different publishers. Grrrr…..
September 17th, 2009 at 3:08 am
congrats, cory! that's beyond bizarre how a movie about scalping nazis means a quicker greenlight for a fraggle rock movie.