A New Year For Street Souljas

As the new year rolls around, Street Souljas is finally getting a few things accomplished. "Dixie Times" has left our hands and has apparently found its way to another editor. While this is slightly disappointing, it has opened up the time to finish up some other things we have been working on, such as some much-needed pre-production for "The Brook." You can see the progress we have been making on the official production blog at www.thebrookmovie.com.

In the world of "Lonely Love," while we were really hoping to have the flick done and off to festivals by now, we very regrettably had to put off the release due to several issues with the post production. I won't get into all of the problems we ran into, but basically, we were incredibly unhappy with what we ended up with, so we just took everything back to square one, sat down, and reworked our way back through the entire film until we finally reached a point where we felt like we had a film that we were ready for people to see. Although we still aren't 100 percent satisfied, we feel like the film is now the best it can be, or at least we certainly hope so since just this past Friday, we mailed off the finished version to enter it into the 2009 Atlanta Film Festival.

So, needless to say, the film is finally finished, and we will be planning a cast and crew screening soon. For everyone else, hopefully you will be able to catch a screening at a local festival sometime in 2009. In the meantime, be sure to stay tuned for updates on "The Brook"!

Summer Update

A few weeks ago we finally wrapped on the film we were working on with our good friend Ken Wheeler, "Dixie Times," and we are slowly but surely recovering from the month and a half of grueling filmmaking. I served as cinematographer for the film and I am now taking on the job of editing as well. Randall also came up and helped out a few days here and there. Basically, other than Ken and I, we had an ever-changing crew - no joke, I really had a different first AC almost every day. And although it was a long, utterly stressful, mostly sleepless shoot, it was a very fun experience, and we can only hope the finished product comes out as well as we have hoped. We have a temporary trailer up for the film:



In other news, "Lonely Love" is now in its final stages of post, as all we have left to do is reassemble the scenes we've fine-tuned and finish up the DVD. The long-awaited premiere should be soon now. Thanks to everyone involved for being patient with us as we have been knee deep in "Dixie Times" in the last few months.

Street Souljas on Atlanta Shorts

Today we swung by PBA to do some interviews for the TV program Atlanta Shorts.  Our friend Pat Clark started it about a year and half ago, and it has been gaining popularity ever since.  They are going to air three of our shorts on it soon: "31 Degrees," "Mike & Danny," and "Dissociation." We aren't sure yet when they will actually be aired, but as soon as we know, so will you.  If you can't wait and you want to view the shorts online, you can see them all unedited on our website!

Also, the great comedian George Carlin died at age 71 yesterday.  We will all miss him.

"The Signal" is on DVD

For anyone who hasn't already ran out to Best Buy to pick up "The Signal," this is your reminder to do so.  If you've been living under a rock in the Atlanta film community, "The Signal" is a film that was shot locally by a bunch of local guys, namely David Bruckner, Dan Bush, and Jacob Gentry, all of whom directed a portion of the film.  It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival where it was picked up by Magnolia Pictures for national distribution.  It was released on DVD a few weeks ago on June 10, and I'm sure there's still a copy somewhere waiting for you to pick it up and support your fellow local filmmakers.

Whistling Dixie

This past Saturday, we met with a good friend of ours, Greg Savage, and a friend of his, Michael Bailey. Michael, who has written several scripts and short stories, had just recently begun producing and directing one of them entitled "Brother's Keeper." However, due to some problems out of his control, he had to abandon production after a few days of shooting. The cast he got was really great, and we have actually worked with several of them before. We met with him Saturday about possibly resurrecting the project and shooting it for him, and with the cast and most of the locations already in place, it is a very enticing deal. We have a copy of the script (can't give any real details on it right now) and we are going to read through it and make a decision soon as to whether or not we feel we would be the right people for the job.

The next day, Sunday, we ventured back up to Cave Spring to help Ken Wheeler shoot a few quick scenes for his upcoming film, "Dixie Times." Along with us, he rented out a RED ONE camera for the day, and we had a downright amazing experience shooting with it. Folks, this is the same camera that films such as Jumper, Game, some of the new film Wanted, two of Steven Soderbergh's new films, and Peter Jackson's Crossing the Line were shot on. The crew was very skeletal considering it was just us, but next month the project will be in full swing.

Oh, I Wish I Was In Dixie...

Well you still could be - this weekend we helped our friend Ken Wheeler cast for his hopefully upcoming film Dixie Times.  We ran into the likes of Stephen Caudill (End of the Spear, Dance of the Dead, Dangerous Calling), Mark Oliver (Dance of the Dead, Prison Break, One Tree Hill), Justin Welborn (The Signal, The Other Side), Chris Durant (Atlanta Homicide), and several other big names in the Atlanta film community, as well as a few old friends of ours.  Right now the film is in the hands of CMT, and apparently, after a lot of convincing, they gave Ken the go-ahead to cast the film on his own down here in the south to see how he could do (as opposed to taking the script and casting off on the west coast somewhere).  I think we've got a really good chance with it; the script is awesome and hilarious and the story is really good.

As far as Lonely Love goes, we have a trailer up now:

Pre-Post begins for Lonely Love

(Yes, that is meant to be oxymoron.)

Yesterday was our final day of principle photography for "Lonely Love"!  Well, almost...we still have a few things to shoot for post (inserts, pick ups, and a small news report), but as far as our lead talent is concerned, we are done!  This week will be the "official" start of post, but the truth is, I've been editing most of the scenes as we go along, so most of the raw editing is done already, which leaves us with mostly sound editing, visual effects, and scoring left to do before we have a first draft ready to be viewed by test audiences.