Behind the Scenes

Here's the first Quicktime in a series designed to build interest in our movie.

These were created from over twenty hours of HD produced and shot by Rocky Garrotto and Anita Gomez.

Their work will be the gift that keeps on giving as it's our primary source for building Calvin Marshall related content to help promote our premiere and eventual release.

YouTube hosts in both HD and standard def so click the HD button if your computer can support it.

Feedback and questions are welcome as the series is still being completed.

Calvin Marshall Inside Look EP 01

Austin Schedule Posted

Come on out for our CALVIN MARSHALL world premiere. The Paramount Theater holds 1300 so there's plenty of room.

It's on Friday night, October 23rd at 9:50 p.m.

Confirmed to attend (so far): All four of our producers, myself, Alex Frost, Michelle Lombardo, Andrew Wilson, Diedrich Bader, Jeremy Sumpter, Josh Fadem and the fantastic Rosie Thomas. (And we're very excited for Rosie to play a set of music at our after party!)

AFF has an interesting line-up this year and annually hosts the best screenwriting conference in the world.

Check out all the details and the entire schedule HERE

1000 True Fans

Apparently that's all it takes. As we move towards our Calvin Marshall world premiere, Malcolm Gladwell, Facebook and all the DIY tools have practically forced their way into our game plan. We never even asked for it.

It's easy for me to be cynical about this. At what point will there be backlash for this kind of self-promotion? Look at how fast myspace jumped the shark? At what point will people abandon Facebook because they don't want to be bothered with another movie or cause that's fighting for their attention?

I have to admit, though, it's unbelievably cool to do some of these things, so we're embracing it. At least most of it. And, over the next year we'll be looking for even more innovative ways to stand out and make people aware of our movie.

A lot of things are in the works, but for now, if you'd like to support our cause and stay up to date, please become a Calvin fan on Facebook by clicking the link on the upper right.

You can also spread the word about the initial teaser we just posted and rate it on Youtube

One of things I wanted to do in this blog was demystify the filmmaking process. I hoped it would be a place where both fans of Calvin and aspiring filmmakers could peak behind the curtain. With that goal in mind, we'll be posting some cool behind the scenes footage in the coming weeks.

Thanks for the support everyone.

Calvin Teaser

Calvin Marshall Teaser from Broken Sky Films on Vimeo.

Teaser

People always complain about movie trailers giving away too much of the story. On the flip side, distributors argue that if you don't give away the entire movie, people are less likely to go see it.

Both perspectives make sense to me in a way, but ideally a trailer gets people on the hook without giving too much story away or misrepresenting the movie.

We have a traditional trailer cut for Calvin Marshall that we're liking, but we're not yet ready to show it -- at least not until we have a firmer handle on our release plan. Our thought is if a trailer is online too long before someone can go see the movie or put the dvd in their netflix queue, then it has a way of wearing out its welcome.

So, we've decided (in lieu of the trailer) to release a teaser leading up to the premiere.

Our teaser gives the "feel" of the movie away with little exposition revealed. The montage is 1:18 and set to a piece of score by our composer John Askew.

The teaser accomplishes two things; first and foremost, it gives people a little glimpse into Calvin's world and the characters that populate it. Secondly, it gives people a taste of the overall tone, which is at times ironic and funny, but more often melancholic and sincere.

In addition to the teaser introducing our trifecta - Calvin, Little and Tori - we also call attention to some supporting cast. This device allows us to show shots of actors in a montage without having to give away too much story information. We couldn't fit in everyone and it's an unorthodox move perhaps, but this was an idea we liked so we're trying it out.

Hope you enjoy it. You can check it out at our website where new information and other surprises will appear leading up to our initial screenings.

World Premiere - Austin Film Festival 2009

Austin's a great city to premiere Calvin Marshall because, at least from an outsider's perspective, it seems to unabashedly embrace both sports and independent film. You don't find this everywhere.

http://www.brokenskyfilms.com/

It's Official!

CALVIN MARSHALL will have it's world premiere in October.

It's been over 19 months since we wrapped shooting. It would've been nice to premiere earlier this year, but something about this fall feels right.

We could've moved faster if we had the resources and hired a few more people. An accountant and a post production supervisor would have been great. But sometimes you only move as fast as the creative process and the budget allows. It was probably good for us to go through each step carefully, even if it took longer in the end.

Down the home stretch we were lucky to have a few pros in our corner -- Cece Hall and Mark Goldblatt. They were generous with their time and weighed in on editorial and helped us make some difficult decisions before locking picture.

After locking, we started from scratch on the sound mix. John Askew's rich score continued to evolve and our needle drop choices got better. Our post sound team (led by David Raines) created a complex layered mix that added unexpected depths and subtleties. We are all thrilled with the results.

More information around our October screening coming soon. We might screen at a few additional festivals before the movie is distributed in March of 2010. There will also be some special word of mouth screenings leading up to the release.

The distribution details are coming together but it will all depend on how much P&A we have. I'm expecting a strategic theatrical release and then VOD, DVD and DIGITAL following quickly after. This release plan could change a little, but for right now this is what we expect.