freedom at last!

hey guys,

last night i finished my last paper for class this semester... which means i'm free for the next month! which really means, i now have no excuse to not work on the film!
... but really i'm looking forward to having some solid time to dedicate to it!

ema's working on editing it down a bit this week (really just tweaking it hear and there)... and then it's pretty much just color correction and the score...

i'm excited to come back to california... it's getting quite chilly here in new york :)

-marc

Decemberpost.

This is the first week of December, which is as good of a reason as any for a new blog post. So here we are.

No news on the music thus far, although we expect Richard and Katie are hard at work at it. After all, you know what they say: "You can't rush art." Of course there's the obvious example to the contrary - we shot Parachute Kids over seven days, and finished editing in about a month and a half - but that's besides the point. I like to believe somewhere in the strange, fantastical regions of my mind that writing music is different.

Unless it just so happens that Beethoven finished his Symphony No. 9 in less than 24 hours. Nope, I just checked on Wikipedia. It took him six years. Ha! My argument still stands.

slashfilm.com posted this on John Hillcoat's next film, which he also briefly talked about when Marc and I were at the Apple Store in Soho for The Road. It was pretty depressing. Apparently Nick Cave had just finished a screenplay, people had read it and agreed that it was better than The Proposition (which is a pretty high bar to eclipse), Hillcoat had gotten big-profile names like Shia LaBeouf, Ryan Gosling, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson interested in it, but it's going to be nearly impossible for him to secure funding for it because film execs these days are all half-assed pussies only willing to push "franchise films and low budget comedies".

But anyway, they're going to call the film The Promised Land. Which is very funny, but only because a film in the works by a good friend of ours (and the co-director of Parachute Kids) David Kirkeby, happens to be titled Through the Promised Land.

Marc pestered him about the title on Facebook, and he kind of mutely replied, "generic title". Which it is, in a way.

UPDATE: Just heard this, but apparently Richard has started recording the score! Hooray! I can't wait to hear it.

John Hillcoat.

Marc and I were at the Apple Store in Soho last Tuesday.

No, we weren't there to admire the Appletech on display, although I must admit that it's one of my favorite pastimes. John Hillcoat, director of the soon to released film The Road was there to speak about the movie. As Marc and I were ardent fans of The Proposition (a badass Australian western, also directed by Hillcoat) and Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road, it seemed like a pretty logical thing to do.

The moderator/interviewer wasn't too inspiring, but things got a lot better when they opened up the floor to questions from the audience. Marc totally got up and asked a question, which is only cool because they were filming the interview which means that if you download the John Hillcoat interview from iTunes Podcasts, you'll probably hear/see Marc in it. Well, his question was pretty cool too, but the fact that he's on the podcast is so much more fucking cooler.

Another guy admitted to having smoked a joint before asking his question, whereupon things in the room immediately got very quiet and awkward. I wonder if they left the guy in the podcast. I have a feeling they might have edited him out.

What made it all worthwhile, though, was when John Hillcoat started to paint a very dreary, apocalyptic view of the future of the film industry. Well, what he basically said was, "for the next eighteen months, the film studios will fund and release nothing but franchise films and low budget comedies." He then railed on about how the faltering economy had scared film studios out of taking risks, and that in this day and age it would be nearly impossible to get the studios to agree to produce a film like The Road. Or for that matter, a film like There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men (Marc can probably think up of better examples).

Pretty scary. But Marc got his copy of The Road signed by Hillcoat, which made everything better in the end.

I feel like this blog is slowly becoming The Adventures of Marc and Michael.

Hi There!

Michael's been bugging me for the last month to post something up here... so here it is!

In case you don't know me... hello, pleased to make your acquaintance.
I was a director on the film, Parachute Kids, along with David Kirkeby. I'm currently in New York and working hard on finishing the beast... well, I'm not working so hard anymore, but the film is being worked on...hardly... i mean, very hard... i mean, well (this is dumb, i know)... we're trying to get the score together before i get back to L.A.. Picture's pretty much locked, just need that music...

This film has been in the works for a long long time and everyone who worked on it put so much love and effort into it. It wouldn't have been possible without all the wonderful passion and support we've gotten from everyone involved. It's been one of the best experiences i've had so far (in film, in life). So, thank you so so much! I hope you get to watch the film soon, and I hope it doesn't disappoint.

enough cheesy sentimentality...

we will be posting more as soon as progress is made... well, Michael will probably be posting... or maybe Adriana... me if you're lucky...

spread the word!

-marc

Rambling.

Just checking in to make sure I don't lose your attention.

We seem to be in that awkward phase where we don't have much to do work-wise with the film but this one thing, and we're all waiting eagerly for that one thing to get finished. But because it isn't yet, I think we're all pretty unsure what to do with ourselves.

Mind, we've been working on Parachute Kids for about a year and a half now. Probably more. It's a bit of a surprise to all of us that we actually got it finished, and now that's it's nearly done, our hands (and I suppose our minds, at least figuratively) are being fidgety.

We've thought of a few ideas as to what our next project might be, but none of us really wants to commit ourselves to anything just yet with Parachute Kids still unfinished. Oh, and just a sidenote - when I say "we", for the most part I mean just me. Now that I think about it, I'm not quite to sure what that whole "we" thing was about. Huh.

Anyway, expect to see more mindless rambling hereabouts. Just a disclaimer. I'm going to try and get Marc and Adriana and some other people to post some as well, just to spice things up. And if anything substantial does happen to Parachute Kids (updates on the score, festival submissions, what have you) we'll keep you posted.

Haha. I've always wanted to say that. "We'll keep you posted." Although I've realized that it's what people say when they find that don't have anything else to say.

Back from Brooklyn, folks.

Marc and I just got back from Brooklyn, and both of us are superbly excited.

It wasn't Brooklyn that was our source of excitement, I'm sorry to say. It is a nice place, and reminds me a lot of home, but our little excursion into Brooklyn was a lot more than a nighttime boredom adventure.

We met up with Richard Vagnino, who going to be scoring Parachute Kids. Which is great, great news. So, a brief update on why that is: we're pretty much finished with editing, sound, and most of the other things that comes along with post production (of which I can't seem to name, because there really isn't much I do know about post production). But the film's Achilles heel has been that we haven't been able to find anyone to score it. We have temp music, but we would have run into licensing issues and the music was all very rough.

Music is always such an integral part of a film as well. In my own personal opinion, music is what helps bring out the heart and soul of a film. And film without heart is a film that is literally heartless. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a bad thing, as there are many heartless films that may or may not have been enjoyable. But it is sad. Like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz sad.

That's pretty much what we were worrying about Parachute Kids, but it looks like we're now back on the right track. And this also makes the film entirely ours. Up until now, everything but the music was.

We don't have a clear deadline as to when we'll be done with the music and such. Richard is going to be collaborating with Katie Costello on some songs for the film and the score. Katie Costello, if you remember, wrote and sang the song "City Lights", which plays with great effectiveness in the second half of our trailer for Parachute Kids. Hopefully we'll have finished everything in time for submission into festivals.

I cannot help but express my excitement for what's to come.

New website!

Well, the new website is officially up and running. Check it out.

The first post.

The first post is always the least important post, because you don't do much but introduce yourself, your blog, and try to sound interesting enough to garner as many followers as you can. Which is very, very tough work. Trust me. I would know. This isn't my first blog, you see.

Of course, this blog isn't exactly "mine", per say. In purely professional terms, this would be the first post for the official blog of PARACHUTE KIDS, a feature film directed by Marc Katz. Trumpets and fanfare. Another note. I'm not Marc Katz. I'm just the lowly writer-person with no actual power. But hey, if Adriana (the other writer) and I hadn't written the script in the first place, there wouldn't be a movie, would there? It's a shame directors tend to completely ignore that fact.

But I'm just being sarcastic here. Marc's a great guy.

A bit about the film. Here's basically what the film's about:

Directed by Marc Katz and David Kirkeby, PARACHUTE KIDS revolves around a group of four Korean American teenagers living together in a house in a suburb of Los Angeles. Sent to America for the sole purpose of studying, these kids live in a place that has no supervision, no boundaries; where any semblance of actual authority is 5956 miles away.

Away from their parents and away from home, they form a family. And like any other normal family, their story is a progression of ups and downs, of moments both happy and sad. Together they struggle to forge for themselves lives of their own, one that is in their control. Together, they are, PARACHUTE KIDS.

Nice, right? Well, of course it is, cause I wrote that too.

We shot the film in a week two and half months ago over the summer. We're still in post production; prepping the movie for submission into festivals and all that. But I won't say anymore, or else we won't have anything to write about, will we.

Our teaser website and trailer are online: www.parachutekidsfilm.com, and our fully flash featured website should be up and running in the coming days. That's pretty much all I have to say for now. Go check out that trailer. And spread the word.