Precious Metalhead #18 – Porcfest, Test Screening, Distribution, Volbeat

PorcFest Screening, Stefan

We are back and dried out from Porcupine Festival – this year we actually got days of sun and heat before the rain came in to soak us at the end.  There were lots of really interesting people there this year, including F. Paul Wilson, Boston T. Party, Angela Keaton, Kevin Innes, Jeff Berwick, Stefan Molneux… I’m really not a name-dropper, so let’s just say there were just lots of cool people there and I had lots of great conversations.  Thanks all!

A high point for the show was our test screening.  OK, our movie wasn’t done – there was incomplete animation, lots of missing sound effects, and it was 1/4 the final resolution. But the story was 100% in place for all to see.  The swampy hot room was packed with over 150 viewers, who were laughing, crying, and cheering throughout.  It was festive. And I learned a lot from talking with everyone.

The enduring comment was that people liked the story – the dramatic arc of the characters was engaging and interesting to folks.  That’s the most important thing of all. We’re finishing our animation, but it is really hard to fix a broken story.   Some folks were surprised to find that Silver Circle is an action movie, but this is our genre of choice – we’re no nature documentary.

Another high point was our “Envisioning 2028″ sequel discussion with Stefan Molyneux. Between the both of us and an active audience, we easily spent two hours talking about the universe of the sequel.  This landscape is kind of like a cross between a Stefan podcast, and Mad Max.  If you are up for spoilers, you can hear the discussion .

Visit from Major Studio, Animation Progress

We had more encouragement this week from a studio visit by a friend who is an animator for one of the major movie studios.  The animation team spent all day with him comparing notes, reviewing footage, learning, and hanging out.  He could not believe how far we have come with our limited means and tiny team.  Our struggles and work are very much the same as the big guys, and in the end, we both create a movie of the same length. It was a huge boost to our crew and a nice validation for our hard work!

We are in the final throes of animating our final scenes, adding special animated effects (like fire and pouring beer), tweaking composites, and moving on to final movie-size 2K rendered frames.  Our little render farm is running 24/7 to convert our models+electricity into movie frames+heat.

Trading cards, New Round Design

We are introducing two new silver concepts this month.  First, we have finished designing the new face of our round, and I’ll unveil it here:

It’s all new with the 2012 date and a nice little film strip to commemorate the release of Silver Circle.  Even though in this day and age, we don’t actually need to output to film.
Second, Davi had the tremendous idea to merge the idea of (a) dime cards (as pioneered recently by Don’t Tread on Meme) with (b) comic trading cards (for example by Marvel) .  The result is a trading card with silver-based value. As we roll them out, you can collect one for each of the heroes and villains of Silver Circle, and ultimately its expanded sequel universe.

We released a prototype of the first card, #0 for Jefferson the dog, at PorcFest, and sold quite a few.  The satisfying thing is that the kids there knew right away what they were!

Comic, Film Distribution Announcements

By next month, I’ll be able announce the details of how we are publishing the comic book, plus initial cities and details about the film release!  The film still depends a bit on the outcome of the Toronto and Telluride film festivals, but all of this is now in the works.  If you would like to help organize or sponsor a showing in your home town or school, please sign up here to be a Silver Circle Agent or just contact us – we are eager to make it happen.

FreedomFest, Shows

I will be at FreedomFest in Las Vegas this week, promoting Silver Circle as always. Please stop by our booth #710 if you are there!  Also on Friday night at 8pm in Palace room 6/7, I will be delivering a nice talk about promoting liberty in mass culture, at the Anthem Film Festival.  Be there!

Song of the Month – Volbeat – Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood

I ran into a really cool article about heavy metal in Botswana, here – I loved the article and imagery, but wasn’t impressed enough by the music by the band SkinFlint to make them my band of choice.

But this month our song goes Volbeat, for Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood. Not only are they on tour right now with our buds Jon Schaffer and Iced Earth, but the lyrics begin to capture a little of the Mad Max Musician vibe that I’m looking at now in the sequel… You’ll have to wait a couple of years to see what I mean unfortunately.

Looking forward to seeing Iced Earth+Volbeat play in Vegas in a couple of days!

Hang in there!

See you in the theatres!

Pasha.