This weekend we had a photo shoot to create new images to use as The Down Home Alien Blues posters. Of course, photography is a lot easier when you have two good looking people and a good camera.

Best of all, it was fun! There is nothing better than working with great people.

GUEST POST:
I watched my first viewing of the full "editor's cut" of the movie last night. It's the first time I've seen all the special effects and color correction put together at the same time. WOW!

I was worried about the special effects integrating smoothly with the footage, but they fit marvelously. The cuts are smooth and make sense.

The acting is of very high quality throughout. Nathalie, Jay, Eric, Aaron, Kristen, Renata, etc will all be proud of this one.

There are still a million little niggley things to do, like matching contrast from cut to cut, sound, music, etc., but I love it! Everything has come together very nicely.

Duke Marsh - Director
The Down Home Alien Blues

The official trailer for The Down Home Alien Blues is now out!

The Down Home Alien Blues is an exciting new feature length movie based on the novel, The Down Home Zombie Blues by national author Linnea Sinclair who has a niche market for women who like romance in a sci-fi setting.

The movie is directed by award winning director, Duke Marsh, and stars the exciting Nathalie Biermanns (Miss World Aruba) and Jay Mitsch. Also, featuring Aaron Groben, Eric Satterberg, Berenika Bailey, Kristen Hansen and Renata Green-Garber.

Or click this link:
The Down Home Alien Blues Trailer

I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie.

Fair warning to potential camera theives...

We were supposed to have a katana on set for the scene. We had a 5' long broad sword instead. When push came to shove, it was good enough. hahaha

Post production has started!

The first thing I was asked was "What is post production?"



Production is when the actors, director, cameraman, etc get together to create raw footage. Post production is all the stuff after that.

Like creating holograms where none existed.



Or the part I really like to see, how these very creative people come up with a whole new world of places and things, like the inside of a space ship. Do you go sleek and modern like the starship Enterprise? Or rough and tough like the Klingon ships?

It seems to me the ship reflects the personality of the characters that built it.

Its all about story...

To me, the making a great movie has always been about the story. It doesn't matter how good the special effects are, how good the sound is, how great the cinematography is, you still need a great story told by a great story teller to hold my interest.

The Down Home Alien Blues has "story" in spades. It started with a great novel by Linnea Sinclair called The Down Home Zombie Blues. (No zombies included.)








I love the way that all of the snarky humor and romance has been retained from that great novel. And to make me even happier additional social satire and fish out of water humor was added. In that way it reminds me of "Quigley Down Under" movie starring Tom Selleck. A great movie.









Ms. Sinclair described it as "Homicide detective Theo Petrakos thought he’d seen it all. Then a mummified corpse and a room full of futuristic hardware sends Guardian Force commander Jorie Mikkalah into his life."









But everything becomes twisted. Jorie is somewhat mystified how things work on earth, so even though Theo is officially a prisoner, in reality he's her partner in her race to save the earth.






"Jorie’s mission is to stop a deadly infestation of bio-mechanical organisms from using Earth as its breeding ground." said Linnea. "If she succeeds, she could save a world and win a captaincy."

But she’ll need Theo’s help and that breaks every rule in the book.

Making a movie is like a ballet.

Have you ever gone to see a ballet? There are dozens of people on the stage, each moving time to each other and the music. The crew of The Down Home Alien Blues are like individual gears in a clock all dependent upon each other to produce the final result.







The camera man, Bob Fox, and the sound guy, Steve Bernard, each must check on one another to make sure that they are coordinated and in synch.








The actors want to make sure that everything is right. Everyone is working towards a common goal. Its like a team sport, without a ball or helmets!









In a movie the gaffer, A.J. Martinson, and makeup artist, Coco Covarrubias, are working in the background unseen, but very necessary.








In a movie everyone is setting up the next shot, just like in a ballet where you can't see the orchestra, but they are coordinated with the whole effort.






Everyone wants the best images, best acting, and best sound in the most efficient way possible.