The Catman do Films Blog

2009-04-15T01:05:00.000-07:00

Success! I was miraculously able to open the ancient Gamma Squad Final Cut 2 project file from Mac OS 9 with Final Cut 5 and link it up with the raw footage I pulled from my backup drive over spring break, allowing me to access the most recent cut of Expendable in full quality! I am grateful to be spared the tedium of reconstructing the latest cut from EDL files or, worse, re-editing it based on a quicktime.

This is a huge leap forward on the Expendable restoration project. I think I will try to do a little more sound design and then the film should be ready to print.

Now I finally have a high quality teaser trailer. I cleaned up the audio a bit and posted it to YouTube (check it out in high quality if you have the bandwidth):

I also now have access to the materials I need to start working on the DVD extras... although I think Nate would appreciate it if I channeled my efforts into the LS3 fine cut instead.

2009-04-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

From the Catman do vault comes the short that started it all:

Liquid Strike: Action Redux Edition

Note: B is the canonical ending, though C is our favorite.

As for Liquid Strike III... I have no idea where the past two years went. I am still waiting for Nate to pick music he likes for the briefing scene. I have also not worked on the fine cut or sound design for a long time. On the plus side, I now have access to Soundtrack Pro, Protools, and a large professional SFX library thanks to Chapman. The only thing I lack is enough free time. I will try to make time to work on it, and hopefully we can have a premiere by the end of this summer.

I am currently restoring Expendable. I have a fine cut printed but scene 2 is out of date, and it is taken from an intermediary copy which may have slightly degraded the video quality. I just pulled the raw footage off my backup drive up north so I can work on it at school down south, allowing me to incorporate the final cut of scene 2. While I'm at it I may also go back to the source footage for scene 1 where possible to ensure the highest video quality.
Once I'm done I may sweeten the soundtrack a bit, and I can put it up on YouTube. I'd like to spend some more time on the DVD- commentary, featurettes, easter eggs, etc. so don't hold your breath on that.

2008-05-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a short film we made over winter break to demonstrate our blood effects rig.

2007-06-15T03:10:00.000-07:00

Here at Catman do, we're gearing up for the release of Liquid Strike III. It's coming soon- hopefully we'll premiere it in a few weeks. I cut this theatrical-length trailer to give you a taste of what we have in store. (Also to stop Nate from showing the crappy months-old quicktime of my unfinished assembly cut.) Enjoy!

2006-10-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the release of the first teaser trailer for Liquid Strike III via YouTube. If you want the high-quality version, send me an email.

2006-10-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

In film news:
We have nearly finished shooting Liquid Strike III: Blood Legionnaires. All that's left to do is to shoot pick-ups and edit. I'd say that I'm about 1/4th done with the rough cut, optimistically.

We also decided to start our own YouTube channel for showing our films. A lot of the videos that used to be hosted on my website but were taken down due to bandwidth concerns can now be re-posted on YouTube.
You can access the Catman do Films channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/catmandofilms

We will be adding videos in the coming weeks. Maybe you'll even get a teaser for Liquid Strike III!

2006-06-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

A few updates for the record:

I have finally finished the Wedding Video and burned it off to DVD.

Production has resumed on Liquid Strike III. We are about halfway done with shooting.

That is all.

2006-01-08T21:17:00.000-08:00

In film news:
I will be resuming work on the wedding video. Also, we have made a new film for Nate's German class called Deutsches Kino Heute (German Cinema Now). And yes, it is all in German.

Also, an article about Nate and our films is soon to be published in the school newspaper. Hopefully it will attract new members to film club.

Technical note:
BlogBack, our previous comment service, has closed. I've fixed this blog to use blogger's internal comment system, but all comments made under the old system are currently unavailable.

2005-06-21T19:03:00.000-07:00

Robert and I have made new Special Effects Lab page on the Catman do Films website. Enjoy!

2005-04-09T22:50:00.000-07:00

Good news! Bike has been awarded first place in the 'instructional' category at the Windy Hill Kids' Film Festival. We've got ourselves $170 worth of software as a prize... too bad we don't have any macs!

2005-03-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

In case you don't already know, your two favorite budding film-makers were featured in the Mercury News in an article about the Windy Hill Film Festival.
Here's the snipet you know you want;

"Eliot Lash and Neyht Barker, both 16, sent Shelby a copy of ``The Belmont Bridge Project,'' a film commissioned by the Belmont City Planning Department about the need for a Highway 101 overcrossing for pedestrians.

The two Carlmont High School juniors already have years of filmmaking behind them and they know what they want -- they worked on a seven-minute anti-war film called ``Expendable'' for four years.

Eliot wants to be a film editor, Neyht a director, and their college plans are forming accordingly. But ``my mom wants me to minor in something like business so I can support myself,'' Neyht said."

In other news, production of Liquid Strike III has begun. We're off to a rocky start but will hopefully resume shooting over spring break. If everything goes smoothly, we might finish before summer break.

[EDIT by Eliot: Also, Tomas has drawn us an awesome poster. Check it out, yo.]

2005-01-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

It seems as if our hard work for the city of belmont has payed off. Last week, Neyht, Becky, Raeyln, and myself were presented with certificates of appreciation from the city of belmont, as well as $20.00 a piece towards tickets at century theaters. We agreed that our troubles were probably worth the twenty bucks.

A friend of mrs. chun's wants us to make a wedding video for them. Sounds good, and the pay is $150 per person.

Evidently, Neyht is making some progress on the choir video. I'm glad that I don't have to log that shit.

LS3 is coming along, albiet slowly. We've drawn out a good portion of the action, certainly enough to shoot the first half of the movie. We just need to find a good time slot- the cast is so massive that it will be difficult to synchronize everyone's schedules, and some people may not be able to make it at all. We'll have to work around them if this is the case.

That's about all for now. And don't try to bum movie tickets off us, go make your own goddamn public works video.

2004-09-09T08:23:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what? An update!

Most of my news is about Eliot, so any errors are his fault for not updating this himself. Eliot's finally ready to release the remastered version of Expendable. This means a couple new sound effects and not much else. I will contact the Media Center after I view the new version and see about airing it.

Catman Do is also pleased to announce some new news regarding the epic that is Liquid Strike. Eliot has finished a rough cut of Liquid Strike II Brotherhood of vengeance (the movie that Josh fucked up). In addition, we will begin our next project, Liquid Strike 3 (we are still undecided on the title).

In case you didn't know already, the Film Club will be meeting on the third Friday of every month. This will be a great place to showcase new projects. The best part is that we'll have real meetings where we actually do things, Woohoo! So come on down.

2004-07-02T00:10:00.000-07:00

Good news all around!

The first piece of good news is that we have begun our first project on film. Once the Super-8 is developed, we will be able to edit it with either a tape or cement splicer, depending on what supplies we have at the time. I don't have any sound editing equipment, but one option is to get a transfer to DV and edit the sound on-line.
I could also try getting my hands on a DAT Deck, but I'm not sure how feasible that would be.

The second piece is that Expendable may be shown on the Palo Alto area public access channel (27&28). It's currently in the works, and details on the time of the showing will be posted once they are determined.

The final piece of good news is that Catman do Films is still burning, tooling, and kicking CBP's ass with renewed vigor. Shit yeah, ladies.

2004-06-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

The Expendable premiere will be on Monday, June 14th in B-7 (Mr. Craig's Room).
Spread the word!

2004-05-11T00:49:00.000-07:00

New Scene 2 stills posted from the creek shoot.

Josh looking really pissed. Must be the mosquitos.

Neight's response when I reminded him that Jonathan's character was named "Alloy", not "Kurni".

2004-05-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

We finished filming today. By this I really mean all filming. No more pick-ups. No more retakes. No fillers. Nothing. The footage is on the computer and being edited in. We did some other editing too. A few parts of scene one and two were taken out because they only caused more problems than they solved. This includes opening shots of Somers and a shot of Robert. Some of Tyler’s scenes were re-edited too.

But CBP’ers, don’t start the party yet. We still need to do the muzzle flares and sound effects. It shouldn’t take too long. Maybe two weeks? (I’m serious this time!) We just need to find a reasonable way to get footage to Ernest. After that, the premiere should be at Eliot’s house.

2004-04-15T23:58:00.000-07:00

Today we shot all of Josh's pick-ups. As long as they are satisfactory, our remaining production tasks are to film a close-up of Robert's eyes and possibly a few shots of Neight and me. If we can get them out of the way this weekend, I could probably complete the Rough Cut in about a week and have the Final Cut done a week after that (without muzzle flares).

Of course, these times are highly tentative. However, it's important that we get them done as soon as possible because I'm going to have to figure out some way to get the 14 gigs of footage off of Heather's machine in about three weeks from now (she is going to be working on another project). I can still put them back on, or work on only portions of the final cut, but there will be a period of time where editing will not be as easy as it is now due to shuffling of files.

2004-04-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

The shoot today went well.
We weren't able to film the scene 2 pick-ups, I'm hoping to get that out of the way this weekend.
However, the rest of the day went smoothly. I am happy to announce that we are now entirely done with production for scene 1, and the Expendable rough cut is nearly complete. All that's left to do (besides the pick-ups) is to add sfx, tweak the sound mix, get all the cuts nice and trim, and perhaps do some color correction.

We also made a short today, entitled "American Death Rider". We were just fucking around with a toy ATV and a toy gun, but I filmed it and I find it pretty funny. Once Neight gives it the okay I might upload it for you to enjoy.

2004-04-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

We're planning to shoot the outpost sentry sequence today, as well as the rest of the Scene 2 pick-ups. If all goes well, we will have officially completed production for Expendable by the end of the day. Stay tuned for further updates.

2004-04-06T08:48:00.000-07:00

With production hopefully coming to an end this Thursday and Eliot's Blog celebrating its third anniversary today, I've decided to release the Expendable Teaser Trailer to give you a taste of what is to come. (20.3 Mb)

2004-04-02T20:47:00.000-08:00

Scene 2 pick-ups were slated for today. Unfortunately, we're going to have to roll them forward to Thursday because we ran out of light.
On Thursday we will also be shooting the outpost sentry sequence for Scene 1.

2004-04-01T22:44:00.000-08:00

We're sorry to announce that after careful consideration, We've decided to scrap the Expendable project. We realized that it would simply never come to light, and we apologize to anyone who was anticipating it.

The good news is concerning our next movie. It's going to be a combination of jackass and trigger happy tv. It's gonna be cool, we're shooting on camcorder and editing in iMovie, stay tuned for more updates.

2004-03-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

The Scene 1 rough cut is underway. I can't complete it until we shoot the outpost sentry segment, which we haven't yet scheduled. Remember, you can track our progress on the Catman do Homepage.

We're planning to shoot Scene 2 pick-ups this Friday (April 3rd). We should have the Scene 2 final cut ready in about two weeks.

The Independent Film Club is meeting on Monday the 29th. We will be showing a trailer for Expendable, so come to Mr. Craig's room, B-7, at lunch to see it. I'm also planning to show The Duel and Moonlighting (Not Catman do, but still fun).

2004-03-21T20:37:00.000-08:00

New Expendable Scene 1 production stills posted.
http://eliot.bambi.net/eliot/Film/stills/

Neight watches from behind as Garrett and a rather goofy-looking Chris work out the action of the scene.

2004-03-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

Production for Scene 1 of Expendable has now officially begun. The screen tests we ran tonight forecast a good shoot tomorrow morning. No bugs, no police, no water, no Arkadiy and Tyler eating our food and taking our props. Okay, maybe Tyler will eat some, but we have a whole fridge left.

2004-02-24T00:58:00.000-08:00

We've just acquired a preview monitor for our editing station, completing the current setup. This allows us to watch the current edits on an actual color tv screen to see how they look. No more ferrying shuttle tapes to the VCR! Haha!

2004-02-23T18:26:00.000-08:00

I got part of the generals costume this weekend. I picked up some General’s stars at Travis Airforce base. I bought enough stars so that we could have a one star and a two star general. I wound have gotten more, but rank pins are expensive. Yay for that.

2004-02-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

Just called the costume store. There are army-officer costumes. That's good. The price ranger per costume ranges from 35-70 dollars. I don't mind if we have the best of costumes. All we have to do now is to get insignia from the surplus store. But I can do that with Josh in Vacaville.

2004-02-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Yah, Expendable is quite the nightmare now. We were off to a brisk start with high hopes and now things sorta fizzled. I cant figure out what we are gonna do about the General's outfits. I have a bad feeling the outfits will take a long time to get. I am crossing my fingers that they don't need special alterations. I am also worried that the costumes will cost A LOT of money. Something I am bereft of right now. Although it’s not like I pay for things anyway.

Editing for the movie has been going well though. We still need a few extra shots but that’s not a problem. Outsider sources have revealed that yes; the movie does look quite funny now. That feeling should dissipate after we set up a more serious tone in the first scene. That just means that everything rests on Garrett and Chris’s shoulders. But I have faith in them.

2004-02-18T16:19:00.000-08:00

The Catman do Films Homepage is online! Check it out and tell us what you think. (Best viewed in a maximized window.)

2004-02-18T01:44:00.000-08:00

I've got the preliminary design for the Catman do Films website completed. Still more work to do, but looking good so far.

2004-02-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

Our shoot slated for today sort of vaporized before it even began. We need to get a little more organized before we plan our next shoot, which will hopefully be next weekend.
We will try to use the extra time we now have to get costumes and actors organized. We want to get this done.

The Gamma Squad Yahoo Group has now been officially repurposed as the Catman do Films group. The URL is now:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catmando/
Please update your links. Or whatever.

I've also decided that the Catman do Homepage is going to utilize CSS, so I've begun to teach it to myself. More updates to come.

2004-02-14T18:50:00.000-08:00

I was thinking we should shoot the war room stuff monday afternoon, meaning we'd have to find costumes in the morning. We can shoot the outpost stuff later- we'll have to organize it better than we've done for Scene 1 so far.

We also have to double-check that Tyler can make it.

2004-02-10T15:55:00.000-08:00

Thats funny. HAHAHA. O like how we get al excited that the ROUGH CUT s done. The ROUGH CUT of all things. Talking about costumes. MAN! Whats the deal with that?!?! Thank god we dont have a deadline or something. Tell me more about this creek. Pictures are nice.

2004-02-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

We are happy to announce that the Scene 2 rough cut has been completed. Preproduction is moving forward on Scene 1, we're currently attempting to secure costumes for the generals. We've also found an ideal creek near Canyon Studios where we can shoot the Scene 2 pick-ups.

2004-02-03T23:05:00.000-08:00

THIS IS THE LAST FUCKING TIME I WILL PUT UP WITH THIS BLOGTHIS DEFAULTING SHIT. IT IS REALLY GETTING ON MY NERVES.

2004-02-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

Things are looking good for Expendable. We are currently in preproduction for Scene 1. I would judge that we are almost exactly halfway done. Here is the remaining task list for Expendable:

Film Scene 2 Pick-ups

Complete Scene 2 Rough Cut

Complete Scene 2 Final Cut

Get Costumes For Scene 1

Film Scene 1

Edit Scene 1 Rough Cut

Edit Scene 1 Final Cut

Edit Expendable Final Cut

Record DVD Commentary

Assemble DVD Special Features

Send DVD Materials To Unscripted Studios

Create and Finalize DVD

Burn and Distribute DVD

If all goes well, we should be releasing Expendable in several months. We may be able to post some sort of online preview or trailer once the final cut is completed but before we have the DVDs ready.

2004-01-27T23:16:00.000-08:00

Neight and I have discussed various titles for Gamma Squad and have decided that "Expendable" would probably be the best fit.
It seems as if we may have to shoot some pick-up material for Scene 2 after all. Hopefully we'll get it all done on private property, I'd hate to go back to Water Dog Lake after the incident with the cops.

We also have ideas for a new film about hitmen and close-quarters combat* which we may be detailing later.

*The close-quarters thing was actually Kurney's idea.

2004-01-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

Discussions have been held on a final name for Gamma Squad.
Some people think it sounds stupid. I have grown attatched to it, but after all, it's just a working title. It also reminds me too much of the Ghostbusters theme song.

We will most likely be calling the finished movie "Dispensable".

2004-01-26T23:23:00.000-08:00

The Scene 2 rough cut is nearing completion. I need to have Neight work with me to smooth the flaws out. We might have to shoot some pick- up stuff. I'd like to stay out of water dog lake if possible.

2004-01-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

Making headway on the Gamma Squad Rough Cut for Scene 2.
Gamma Squad movie and production stills have been posted. Here are a few:

"We're not getting out of here."

Thicker than water.

"What was the line again?"

2004-01-23T01:42:00.000-08:00

Gamma squad tech check to be completed today, the 23rd.
Filming scheduled tomorrow, the 24th. Lots of mud. Woohoo.

2004-01-23T00:56:00.000-08:00

Implemented comment system. Give it a shot and tell me how it goes.

2004-01-15T23:11:00.000-08:00

I decided to dust off SawCutter yesterday, and picked up an old Twilight Zone project I had made a while ago. I gave it a whirl and came out with something pretty decent- it might even be somewhat good once I bash it around in audacity a bit.

I also had an idea to remix the Quincy Jones version of the 'Ironside' television theme. Not much done on that yet.

2004-01-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

Oh. Yeah.

2004-01-14T14:04:00.000-08:00

We've resumed filming on Gamma Squad. We will be shooting at Water Dog Lake on the 24th. This is going to be a much muddier shoot than last time, we hear some locations will be flooded. We've also had to shuffle the casting a bit, I will now be the last one to die... yay.

For news on Gamma Squad and other Catman do projects, be sure to check out the Gamma Squad Yahoo Group.

2004-01-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

Sounds great! Now all of two viewers will have a way to contribute (if they don't feel like posting)!

2003-12-22T00:41:00.000-08:00

Oh, nice. Looks like Neight has already changed the descriptions.
Neight, what do you think about me installing a comment system here like the one I have on my blog?

2003-12-22T00:38:00.000-08:00

As Catman do is now defunct, I can see this blog easily transforming into a blog for "Catman do Films".
Or mabe I'll copy the template, obliterate this damn blog, and create another one beginning with the letter "Z".

2003-12-06T13:20:00.000-08:00

This defaulting to the Catman do blog whenever I try to post to Eliot's blog is really getting on my nerves. I might delete this blog soon.

2003-11-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

Neight has proposed the use of the Catman do name and logo for our film company. I like the idea. We'll see if this comes to light, I suppose.

2003-09-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

My freind Eli (who is a techno pimp) showed me a cool site called Overclocked Remix. Be sure to check out the Altered Beast techno remix- hopefully I can get some help on my Vectorman title remix if i ever get around to it- I can't quite figure out how to extract audio from ROMs.

2003-09-23T23:58:00.000-07:00

Ahh this is irritating- the new blogthis button reverts to the catman do blog whenever i try to post to my own- not that I can't change it, but i wish it would default to my personal one.

2003-07-27T04:34:00.000-07:00

Maginationhart has recently sent me the colored pics of our Zoot Suit Cat for use in the logo. It looks really great!
All that's left to do now is some resizing, cropping, and putting on a nice little logo to top it off.
Now if I could only figure out how to export MIDI files with Audacity...

2003-06-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

W00t!
I'll be interested to hear about the Uber Mix.
Stay tuned for info on Biblioteca (Biblioblast?) and Paul's Nee (Butechno?), in concept.
Oh yeah, ever wonder what the Bombastic Sluicebox is?

Su Ot Gnoleb Era Esab Ruoy Lla.

2003-06-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello Hello!
I'm Here!
My music making has stopped due to that damn school, I shall return in das soomer (the Summer)
Bu bye for now

2003-06-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

Nate has signed up and I've added him to the team, but he's having trouble posting. Hopefully, this problem will clear up soon.

2003-06-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

I've decided not to release the audio, but I will make the text songs available sometime soon.
Also, Nate should be joining the blog team soon.

2003-05-31T16:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, so last night my grandma told me that she heard someone was planning to make a musical out of "lord of the rings". I thought the idea was so terrible that I must make tribute to it, so I wrote a few songs for "Lord of The Ring: Singing Sauron".
Here is a sample from a song called "The nastiest things"

Smealgol and deagol and slinker and stinker
Ringwraiths and balrogs and ranger-boat sinkers
Shelob and orc hordes and swords that go 'ting'
These are a few of the nastiest things

I recorded these five songs so I wouldn't forget the tune- I may make these (rather embarassing) test tunes available later.
For now, they are "One Ring", "Fly you fools", "Gandalf the White", "My Precious", and "The nastiest things".

Enjoy.

2003-05-17T01:28:00.000-07:00

Just testing out the new blog.
Put your CPU into overdrive!