The problem with blogs...

So the problem with blogs is that you have to update them regularly. Otherwise the site just falls into disrepair and looks all sad. Like maybe it's been a year since we posted here. Maybe it's been a little longer.

You've all seen those blogs where the dude is like, I'm really gonna start posting again. This is it! The new chapter in my life. And then two weeks later the postings stop and that was in 2009 and the blog just sits out there mocking you for your inaction. And you think, Did he die? Or go to prison? This is really upsetting me.

Well good news! I neither died nor went to prison! I did have a project fall through (but for the right reasons this time) and was a quarter-finalist with the Nicholl Felowship on a script I co-wrote with the super talented Alisha Brophy. And I have other projects cooking with the equally-as-talented Collin Cannaday and Matt Dunn.

So what becomes of this blog? Will it be updated or rot away into digital oblivion? Hopefully this will serve as a home base for all of the various projects we've got going on this year. 

See you again in two years!

-- Scott

2011 - The year we make contact +1

So today marks the first of many major milestones for 412films in 2011. Our podcast hits iTunes today, a free download in which Collin and I discuss many pop culture niblets that may have fallen through the cracks of a fractured media landscape. Too often, it seems, really amazing work is going unseen by the public and we want to shine a light on it. Maybe it's weird indie stuff, foreign films or just older movies that somehow got passed by. We also discuss music, TV, books, food and anything else that we want to recommend. 

We hope it's both fun and informative. We'd be having these conversations anyway, so now we just record them. Which is really just one step up from abject laziness, but still, we're excited.

We also have two music videos for local Austin musicians that will drop in the weeks ahead. Add to that the overwhelming support we received from the local web series community during SXSW and the long-rumored plans for a secret project being shot this summer. Okay, maybe not so secret, as I tend to tell everyone I meet about it. Let's just say awesome plans.

Check out the podcast at the link above or at http://bit.ly/eDZcC6

- Scott

Inspiration, pt. 1

Two articles I've read lately have stuck in my head and will no doubt play a large part in deciding what kinds of projects we do going forward. Both speak to the lack of originality in movies these days, one discussing why it's happening and the other gives a solution on what we can do about it (sort of).

"The Day the Movies Died" by Mark Harris - GQ magazine, Feb 2011

Unsurprisingly, the fanboys online hate this article as much as the studios probably will. There's a fair amount of blame to go around and nobody gets off so easily. But Harris is right about one thing: we need more intelligent films aimed at adults and that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Maybe the studios will hit another creative low-point and we can have another boom like the 60s and 70s. I'm ready for it. I'm a big believer in the whole "Give them what they don't yet know they want" philosophy of filmmaking that the article touches on.

"Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die" by Patton Oswalt - Wired magazine, Dec 2010

I've been feeling this for awhile but this article puts it into words much better than I could. Thanks to the internet, we're all geeks about something (movies, sports, comics, food, whatever) and while that's undoubtedly a good thing, maybe we've gone too far. At this point, we're just recycling other people's original creative ideas and if we don't start coming up with new ones - and soon - pop culture will implode. 

So where do we go from here? I don't know. We'll figure that out along the way.

--Scott

It All Begins Here...

Four Twelve Films is officially rebranding itself in 2011, with a new look and several exciting projects on the way. We've got a twice monthly podcast beginning in March and plans for a major project shooting this summer.

New year. New resolve. New website. Same ol' weird sense of humor.