The South By SouthWest Film Festival (SXSW) is holding a competition in association with Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Desperado) to create a “fictional movie trailer” for the upcoming film Grindhouse , a partner work between Rodriguez and Tarantino.

Here are the details:

SXSW and Robert Rodriguez Want ‘Grindhouse Trailers’ for 2007

Austin, TX – January 15, 2007 – The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival is putting out a call to filmmakers who would like to submit their best “grindhouse trailer,” in honor of the April release from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, Grindhouse. A sample of the best submissions will be judged by Rodriguez himself, and presented during SXSW, on March 11, 2007.

Filmmakers have a deadline of February 12 to submit their “grindhouse trailer” (no longer than two minutes in length) to SXSW. The trailer should be made for a fictional feature-film, just like those being made by celebrity directors Eli Roth and Rob Zombie for Grindhouse. From those submissions, Rodriguez will determine the best of the bunch, and it will screen during a special presentation entitled “Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse 101” on Sunday, March 11. During the presentation, Rodriguez will share stories and footage from the making of the upcoming Dimension Films release.

“We really want filmmakers to come up with something fun, scary, freaky, and out-of-this-world for the competition,” says SXSW Festival Producer Matt Dentler. “This competition, like Grindhouse itself, is in the true spirit of innovative and fast-paced filmmaking.”

Submissions must arrive no later than February 12, to: “SXSW Grindhouse Trailers,” P.O. Box 4999, Austin, TX 78765. There is no application fee, but the trailers must be under two minutes in length, and made within the last 12 months. Films that have already been submitted to SXSW for 2007 consideration, are not eligible. The 2007 SXSW Film Festival occurs March 9-17 throughout downtown Austin, TX. Grindhouse will open nationwide on April 6, 2007.

I’d really be into doing this, and I hope people back at Salisbury might want to try it too. Anyone interested?

Well, well, well…

Your trusty blogger and President has been away for quite some time now.
Sorry, busy New Years, hope everyone’s went well. It seemed to go pretty good for the film industry, with a hugely successful financial weekend bringing Ben Stiller’s family vehicle, Night at the Museum (a very good move in his career since his comedy is rarely anything higher than juvenile anyways) up past the 100 million dollar mark. Runner ups were feel-good films Pursuit of Happyness, Dreamgirls, Charlotte’s Web, and the surprisingly critically-loved Rocky Balboa.

It seems like even the film industry got into the holiday spirit, gracing viewers with some of the most quality films of the year in the last few months. Many websites and critics agree. I suppose that Casino Royale could prove to be the turning point for a critically despot year in which the box-office was ruled by super heroes and pirates. I personally love escapism films as long as they have a point, and thankfully the crappy ones have seemed to have faded out in a year where we have been stuffed to the point of vomiting with absolute crap. Flimsy flicks like Eragon have quickly fallen off the radar, and all is well.

The crap we have to look forward to next year? A Ghost Rider adaptation starring Nic Cage that has yet to inspire any life outside of a hunt for director Mark Steven Johnson’s (Daredevil) head, Hannibal Rising which could be either crafty horror-revenge humor a’la the first two Hopkins films, or a tacky joke like Red Dragon (which I liked, but found very pale and shallow)…

You know what, I just looked through the first four months or so of films being released to theaters, and I can’t say I’m very disappointed. Things seem to be going in a better direction than I assumed. It seems like things won’t die down for the industry at least until April, when that won’t be a problem anyways because the Tarantino gore-fest Grindhouse will come out and obviously dominate box offices like every Tarantino movie. Ever.

IN OTHER NEWS: It seems that the general Internet press was wrong about the Silent Hill 2 News and that until further notice from the man himself, Neil Gaimen has nothing to do with it. You can see for yourself at www.neilgaimen.com This is VERY disappointing news.
IN STRIKE A POSE FILMS!!! NEWS

Multiple projects have gone under way, but so far only one has been sucessful this season: Joe Belivitz in: CAR TROUBLE met with plenty of good film to edit and seems to be one of the best works we’ve produced so far. The PEREGRINE SAGA short, In the Darkest Places is in the writing process and should hopefully come to fruition in the next few weeks with some scenes at least planned if not filmed for a summer 2007 shoot. Sam Anderson’s swing-oriented action movie, The King of Swing (tentatively title) is still in the writing process. Please check the forums if you’re interested in either of those two movies!

Meanwhile I’ve been working with Sony Vegas and learning new editing techniques. I almost wish I could blast the muzzle flash demo from memory, as now I have way cooler effects to work with that are proving to create much more professional looking film.

A demo of my new-learned techniques will be up soon with a Devil May Cry 3 AMV: Dante’s Had Enough with music from Breaking Benjamin.

So let’s see some COMMENTS! I want to know what you guys think is up! Reviews requested? Film plans in search of? Anyone wanna act? This is going to be the best year YET for STRIKE A POSE!!! Films, so stay tuned!

Well the crew’s finally going to get a chance to get together, maybe this Sunday, who knows?

In other news, I found a link to a podcast featuring David Lynch, director of Dune, Eraserhead, Mulholland DR., and creator of the T.V. series, Twin Peaks.

Also- if you’ve played Silent Hill or seen any psychological film in your life, it owes credit to Mr. Lynch.

Here’s the link thanks to Salon.com

More films and cast pages to come up this season!

STRIKE A POSE!!! Film Productions will be changing its location for now, moving away from Salisbury for the next six weeks back to Montgomery County for some more filming!

Hopefully a lot of editing will get done- CURSE OF BODANGOFISH needs tweaking, THE CLASH OF STUFF (a tenative title for the improv show we did at the end of the Fall 06 semester), and hopefully some music videos will get done.

So what’s on the slate for Winter 06-07 season? Well:

BLIND-SIDED could get a couple of scenes filmed, you never know.
A special ending for CURSE OF BODANGOFISH
Hopefully some sort of HORROR MOVIE
A couple of fight scenes to maybe re-do TURF WAR if people aren’t inebreated…

Perhaps another demo chapter of THE PEREGRINE SAGA?

Sam Anderson, the “Bruce Campbell” of STRIKE A POSE!!! Productions had a great idea of making THE SWING KING (tenative title), a kungfu/swing dancing hybrid flick. He also has plans to work on a DOCTOR DUCTTAPE MOVIE or series of shorts. Watch out for those!

Throw in a couple of shootouts, and we might have one of the best seasons yet!

SO WATCH OUT MONTGOMERY COUNTY! YOU’RE ABOUT TO STRIKE A POSE!!!

Well I still couldn’t come up with a title for it, but over here at SU the STRIKE A POSE!!! Film Club worked on about 50% of the Improv Character storyline that we came up with over the last few days.

It went pretty well too, with plenty of great shots, some good humor, and a decent amount of footage for the editors (Myself and Matt “Jack” Horst) to go through.

So congrats guys! You’re getting stuff DONE!