"The Burden of Choice" Now Available Free Online

Good news folks: you can now watch The Burden of Choice, in its entirety, for free online. I'm still meddling with the web site itself but the video is up and ready for your viewing pleasure.

There's no catch, but there is a donation button. If you enjoy the film, please consider donating a little bit to Warm Milk Productions so we can recoup costs and keep providing you with thought-provoking shorts like this and Halina. Every little bit counts (and is appreciated)!

Enjoy The Burden of Choice!

"The Burden of Choice" Preview Scene

I'm excited to reveal this teaser/preview for The Burden of Choice! For best video quality, you should make sure to click the little "HD" icon and pick 1080p.

As of this writing, the film is 98% finished. DP Marc did an excellent color correction job last week, and this week our friend Ken at Sound for Indies is wrapping up the final audio mix. Also I need to finish the end credits.

The final cut is on track to being exactly 13 minutes long . . . so you can imagine why I wouldn't want to make a full trailer for this at 2-minutes or more. But I hope you guys enjoy this scene and I hope it gets you as pumped for the film as I am. Also, I absolutely love the score from returning composer Steve Goldstein; you'll get a little tease of that in this clip as well. Enjoy!

Over 1,000 Facebook Fans for "Halina"! So Here's a Preview Clip!

The Halina Facebook page has flown by the 1,000-likes mark - so to celebrate, I put up a clip from the film! This little snippet comes from Mischa's very first encounter with the robot Halina.

Hopefully I'll have some good news on screenings soon, but for now I hope you enjoy this little taste!

"Halina" Trailer Now Available on YouTube

I got a few requests for this so I uploaded the Halina trailer to YouTube - feel free to enjoy, share, embed, etc.!

"Halina" Trailer

At last, here's the first trailer for Halina! Please feel free to enjoy and share. In the coming weeks the film will start being entered into festivals (mostly on the coasts) so keep an eye on this blog for possible screenings or other announcements.

Special: LIIFE 15 Year Retrospective

Here is a very special and very informative half hour retrospective of the Long Island International Film Expo's first 15 years. It was directed by John Marean and it offers a really close look at how the festival has evolved, some of the incredible names it's attracted, and some of the amazing new talent it's discovered. If you have a deep love and appreciation for true grassroot indie filmmaking, it's definitely worth the time.

Also that guy who pops up in the very very very beginning (like, as soon as you hit play) is me...

Video from Life After LIIFE Panel

Above is a report from Bryan Sansivero on the Life after LIIFE Panel Discussion from last April.  The panel featured past award winning filmmakers from the Long Island International Film Expo. You'll get to see a little bit of each filmmaker including myself, and some thoughts from the always awesome Debra Markowitz. This is really cool 'cause . . . frankly I had no idea anyone was videotaping this. It was an incredibly special day for me.

Purgatory Comics Trailer 3

Happy New Years, folks!* Here is a new trailer for Purgatory Comics, made specifically for our distributors. It has much of the same template as the second trailer, but mostly new footage. I wanted to go more into the zanier elements of the film and reveal much more than the trailer I made in '09, which was purposely vague. Plus this trailer has one of my favorite lines in the whole film ("That can't hurt me 'cause I'm a zombie...but I get the message...").

Since my last post I've been preparing a laundry list of desirables for GoDigital, which has proven difficult this week with so many businesses I need closed for the holidays. But I've still had some amazing help: I met with Todd in New York City yesterday and he delivered my hard drive with all of the digital encoding I need. Rob and I have been working on the art over the past few days (he also created the new Purgatory Comics logo you'll see in the trailer), and Monday I have an appointment with my local duplication specialists to get an HD Cam version of the flick.

See, I've been busy. Just nothing you really want to read about.

*Please, for the love of God, call it "twenty-twelve" and not "two-thousand and twelve." You don't call the year 1912 "one-thousand nine-hundred and twelve" do you? Argh.

Merry Christmas from Warm Milk Productions - New Skit!

Here's our 3rd annual Christmas card from Warm Milk Productions. I like to share these especially with people who we've come to meet and work with in the preceding year. Of course you can still enjoy last year's card here, and the first video card here. This year's card features the acting talents of our friend Cheryl who I met at the Bellmore screening earlier this year.

As a reminder, you can still Save $3 on the Purgatory Comics DVD when you order it from Filmbaby.com. Just enter coupon code XMAS10 during checkout, and $3 will automatically be deducted from the price. This special offer is only good until Christmas!

"I'm a Screenwriter"

Here's a little video I whipped up out of boredom at Xtranormal.com, using their text-to-movie program. It's a tongue-in-cheek message to fellow aspiring filmmakers. Enjoy!

Side Panels - The Making of Purgatory Comics

The "Side Panels" mini-documentaries I made during production of "Purgatory Comics" (formerly "Bagged & Boarded") have been edited together to make a half-hour feature. It also includes new footage, such as auditions from our actors.

If you're into indie filmmaking and you have 30-min to kill, check it out!

Interview from AfterLIIFE party

Another video was posted from the 2010 Long Island International Film Expo (click here for all winners), this one being an interview with me at the AfterLIIFE party. Donna Sirianni interviewed me about our 5-nomination, 4-win blowout. And if I seem overly giddy, it's because we just had a 5-nomination, 4-win blowout.

2010 LIIFE Commercial

Here's the commercial for the 2010 Long Island International Film Expo. Remember Purgatory Comics screens during the 2pm film block on July 9th 2010. If you haven't seen it on a big screen yet, or you want to see it again, come check us out!

Purgatory Comics Commentary Track

Purgatory Comics Commentary Track Snippet

Last night I recorded an audio commentary track for Purgatory Comics. I tried my best to give as much inside information about the shoot as I could but even now I'm remembering a few tidbits I forgot to mention. This is for a possible bluray project I'm working on with DP Mike LaVoie. He also has a commentary track in the can, so if I makes a bluray disc it will have both commentary tracks, and some other goodies like the trailer and a behind the scenes feature (I'm taking all the "Side Panels" videos and combining them into one feature, with new footage). If these blurays happen, it will be on a very small scale at first, with an extremely limited release. So we gotta keep getting those DVDs out there because the more of those we sell, the more revenue there is for cool things like blurays.

Mike also redesigned his web site, so check it out. In the Writer/Director/DP section you can watch some shorts that Mike himself wrote and directed. I recommend "Father Tom" since I really enjoy that one.

Last I'm going to drop this little nugget: I am in fact looking to get a table at the NY Comic Con this October. The price isn't the issue; I'm just waiting to hear back on a little more information I requested and I have to figure some scheduling out. We may have ourselves a hot little guest doing a signing. Stay tuned, I'll let you know. :)

Some Random Updates

"I can haz brains?"

Been a little bit since a nice update post, so here goes. Let's start with a film review! FilmBizzarro.com reviewed a DVD of Purgatory Comics. The reviewer wasn't really into it as it wasn't his cup of tea (he prefers his movies with lots of blood and guts and honestly, I can't blame 'em). But rather than rip it apart, he reaffirms he's just not the right audience which was cool, and if he took the time to write and plug it, I'll take the time to plug 'em. Be warned though, nsfw image of Bree Olson at the site. Read the review here.

DP Mike updated his demo reel over at his site. There's some glimpses of Purgatory Comics in there, so check it out. He has gained so many new capabilities since shooting my movie that I'm itching to work on a new project with him. In the meantime he's exploring some cool new Bluray authoring capabilities. I'll keep you posted on that. Also he made himself a top-notch editing suite so if you're in the tristate area and you're looking for a good editor, check out his site.

Angela's still at it with the youtubin' from London. Here's her latest vid:

And last: I've got two scripts in the works. Both have been in my head for nearly a year and they're both in different stages of development. A relationship movie is trickling onto paper very slowly, and a thriller is completely outlined and 30 pages of script are done. Even though the latter is further along, my passion for the former is much stronger. I'll keep you posted.

Happy Belated New Years! Resolutions coming soon...

Angela Benedict Drinking Tea in a Furry Hat

These new snapshots of Angela with the video above prove two things: she's keeping things sexy in London, and she really loves furry hats. Click to enlarge:

Of course you can see a lot more of Angela in "Purgatory Comics," which you can buy on DVD for a very low price at filmbaby.com. Their stock is refilled and ordering is both quick and easy!

Merry Christmas from Warm Milk Productions - New Skit!

Hope you enjoy this year's Christmas skit. We had a lot of fun making it and I might be biased, but I'm a fan. Exactly one year ago today I posted last year's skit, and yesterday was this blog's 3 year anniversary. Time is whizzing by.

Quick note, this Wednesday the $3 discount coupon for the Purgatory Comics DVD expires! Head over and buy! Don't sweat their "out of stock" text; I already shipped them more DVDs and they'll get them to you soon!

The Duck Song 2: Duck Wars

You'll recall a few entries ago I wrote about the history of the Duck Song. Well as promised, here is the long awaited sequel in which I playfully retaliate for the other (admittedly superior) duck animation on youtube. Enjoy!

The Story of the Duck Song

The Youtube account for Warm Milk Productions is actually our second. Our first one got deleted by Youtube because apparently Viacom took issue with something I posted... even though every single video I'd posted was 100% my material. The appeal process is set up to be very long and difficult, so rather than go through with that I set up a second account: the current one that's now about 2 years old.

I re-uploaded a lot of the old original skits but lost all of the comments and ratings. One of those skits titled "The Duck Song" (below) has gone on to be the most viewed video of the account. As of this writing, it's at 495,132 views . . . crushing the count of every other video I have including Purgatory Comics videos. I made the video in 2003 (I think) as an animation for my old web comedy show Disorderly Conduct. The crude cartoon makes little sense, as you can see here:

I will reveal that it was originally supposed to go on a little longer. The hunter would take the duck home, eat him, and then the duck would emerge from his stomach (think "Alien") intact and finish the song. In the end . . . well I got lazy. What's left is an animation that is just plain random, yet a massive youtube hit! I get comments every single day on this one. So, why fight it? All these years later, today I began animating a sequel. That's right. I'm hoping it will be up this month. My plot? Well. There's a second duck song video on youtube, and even though it went up after mine, it has way more hits than me:

Let's just say I thought it might be funny if the two ducks from the above videos met each other. To many of you this might be just a throw away project. But to my massive youtube audience that have kindly favored my account over the past two years . . . this next quack's for you.

Happy Halloween!

Disorderly Conduct Ep4 - Halloween

Here's a blast from the past: the Halloween episode of my old web series "Disorderly Conduct." If you have a half hour to kill and wanna watch some neat low-budget Halloween parodies, then enjoy!