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Big Day Tomorrow

Posted by Gabby
So. Tomorrow is the big day. The big one. The one we have all been waiting for. I listened to Giant Steps by Tony Robbins again this morning, what a fucking great tape. It’s like everything you need to know, all of life’s wisdom summed up in two easy hours of listening.

I am ready for this meeting. Tomorrow I am going out to dinner with one of Donner Films youngest, hottest executives named…Aaron. I don’t know if I’m supposed to give away his name here on our blog - I might be outing him or something, but I’ll just give you his first name: Aaron.

Gives me the chills. Like maybe he’s a young Aaron Sorkin? Or maybe a peppier Harvey Weinstein? Who knows. Either way, I am meeting with Aaron, and I am psyched. We’re going out to dinner at Spago - holy shit! I have never been there, and I am so excited. I’m assuming dinner is on him, but just in case it’s not I’ve taken out some money from my IRA to cover it.

When we talked on the phone, I could tell already it was going to be a great meeting - he sounded enthusiastic, youthful, energetic, open to new ideas, which is what I think Barking Spiders really needs. It’s a new genre, and it needs a fresh perspective to really open up and penetrate the market. I think Aaron is going to be just the person to take this project on.

Alright, I gotta go now. I’m putting the finishing touches on a Barking Spiders LLC budget mock-up. I think he’ll be impressed. Tex, did you finish getting our logo together? Here’s a sneak peek at what we’re thinking:

More Medea Please

Posted by Tex

Tyler Perry just signed a deal to shoot two more films this year. This guy cranks movies out like he’s on…well crank. Hey Tyler, here’s some ideas for followups to your current lineup:

- The Great Medea Caper

- Pirates of the Medean: Dead Man’s Medea

- Medea vs. Mechamedea

- Medea: A Spike Lee Joint

- You’ve Got Medea (in Seattle)

- The Curious Case of Medea Gump

- Medea In Space

Interview Sneak Preview with the Quintana!

Posted by Ethan
Looks Like Barking Spiders is ahead of the curve! Julian Quintana wants to get into sci-fi?! Check it out! Filmonomicon has a great preview of their interview with Julian Quintana coming out next month!

From: Filmonomicon Magazine

“The Cool and The Dead: An All-Too-Brief Conversation with Julian Quinatana”

Julian Quintana’s films include “Where Rats Go To Die”,”Blood In My Blind Spot”,”Clench & McTeague”,”Sisterhood of the Scorpion” and the Oscar- and Palm D’Or-winning “Death Wears a Duster” I caught up with Hollywood’s undisputed master of brass-knuckle cool and machine-gun dialogue on the set of his new film, the much-hyped “Pistol Pennyworth.” Set in late 19th-century England and featuring Rose MacGowan and Franke Potente as two derringer-packing governesses on the run, it’s a two-fisted hybrid of a Merchant-Ivory period piece and the gnarliest offerings of the Peckinpah canon. Think “Howard’s End” meets “Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia.” Or, as Quintana himself puts it: “Jane Austen with balls.”

Filmoniicon: So, how’s the shoot going?

Julian Quintana: Unreal. Aside from the usual weather issues, which you expect shooting in Vancouver, it’s been a dream. Franke and Rose are just perfect and have really thrown themselves into the thing and Dakota [Fanning] has been kicking ass, holding down her end with her two big sisters, as she calls them. We shot the escape from Peregrine Abbey yesterday, and we could not get her off that Gatling gun. Even after I’d yell ‘Cut!’ Dakota would just keep strafing the extras, the crew, anybody she could get in her sights, laughing her little ass off. She was ankle-deep in shell casings after like ten minutes of shooting. These women are nuts. I love them.

FM: Edwardian England is a departure from the usual setting of your films. What was the attraction?

JQ: Well, First off I knew I wanted a change of pace from the noirish urban, Old West, and Shaolin Temple settings I’ve been exploring in my previous films. I’ve always been drawn to those great English interiors in the classic period films like “A Room With a View” or “Barry Lyndon.” There’s something about a crystal chandelier, Chippendale table or a beautifully upholstered fainting couch that just makes me want to fuck its shit up, you know? Blow it to flinders. And in “Pistol Pennyworth”, we do that. In spades.

FM: What’s your next project?

JQ: I wanna take a long, hard look at sci-fi, just because, you know? I love all that shit, especially the readiness of the genre to absorb and transform other genre’s tropes. But I don’t want to do anything noble and flawed like “Outland,” which was essentially “High Noon” in outer space, but just kind of layed there, twitching miserably. I want to go for broke and really fuck with people’s expectations, with their comfort zones. So I’m looking at a project called “Hardplace”, which is more like “Deadwood”, but underground.

For more of our interview, pick up the newest issue of FIlmonomicon, out next month!

Michael Mann Ready to Rock Your Junk. Again.

Posted by Ethan Damn. Thats what i’m talking about. Michael Man lives up to his last name yet again. I just watched the new trailer for Public Enemies and it looks like the director of Manhunter, Heat, Last of the Mohicans, and Collateral is ready to out-machismo himself once more. The manly deck is stacked in favor of this movie. First of all it’s about a bank robber. Fuck yes. Not just any bank robber, John Dillinger. Sure he’s being played by Johnny Depp, but if anyone can butch up Edward Floppywrists it’s Michael Mann. Secondly, two words: Christian. Bale. The man is 100 percent pure testosterone. I personally can not wait to see him dual wielding two tommy guns as he walks through a blazing fire while while screaming a sub-bass torrent of pure rage and chewing on a mobster’s decapitated skull. (I’m just guessing that’s a scene in this movie, but i’m pretty sure it’s accurate.) Mann is a genius and I think he’s gonna knock it out of the park. His ‘86 movie Manhunter was solely responsible for the dropping of my balls. This take on the Hannibal Lecter story was 5 percent man-sweat, 5 percent big hair (it was the 80s after all) and 90 percent ass-kick. (I’ll take Brian Cox over Anthony Hopkins any day, btw.) His work reminds me a lot of what i like to do when shooting stuff. Bold unapologetic machismo coupled with grace and control. (Watch the Barking Spiders trailer to see what i’m talking about. SO sit back, relax and get ready for your balls to drop a couple more inches. In the meantime, heres the brilliantly filmed last scene of Manhunter.

Note From an Actor

Posted by Ethan

Hey guys, I just got an email from Cal, one of the actors in “Barking Spiders” and i thought I would share it with you.  Dude is a real pro.

“Hey fellow Spidermen and ladies! Just wanted to tell you all how excited I am about reading all the spider news and views on our arachno-riffic blog! My parents and sibs are green with envy over my supporting role as DEPUTY COOPER in our little mini epic. Happy to say that my burns have almost completely healed and most of my hair on that side of my head is totally grown back. Thanks for everyone who checke in with my progress on Facebook, and super-special thanks to Darcy out intrepid makeup wizard for the concealer and eyebrow pencil tips! Love you, D! I got a super exclusive peek at the semi-finished product recently and I feel like it was totally worth it, even the three hours we kept filming til the ambulance got there. I’m just glad we could do the whole hostage negotiation scene just shooting my left side. Ethan is truly a WIZARD! You can only see I’m missing an eyebrow for like one second. Good job guys! Anyhoo, I’m back at work an good as new, so come on down and see me, I’d love to talk about old times - I might even be able to hook you up with some steep discounts on the day-olds, yo! Hopefully Hollywood will be calling us all soon, though, because as the intrepid DEPUTY COOPER would (and did) say, “I’m getting too old for this sh*t!”  ;)

BTW, if anyone knows the number for Trish, that girl who did craft service for that one weekend when Fernando was sick, could you send it to me? I wanted to talk to her and the number she gave me was wrong. Thanks! See you on the silver screen!

Fin”

Thanks for all your dedication Cal, Your shit came out great.  That death waltz is still one of my favorite scenes.

The Trailer Has Exploded in Your Face.

Posted by Ethan

It’s here.  The trailer for our first film as a creative team, Barking Spiders.  (Look to the right.)  Hope you like.  It took a handful of all-nighters, 12 six-packs, countless bags of funyons, and several trips to a certain neighbor of mine (thanks, K), but it is now finished.  And I think it’s damn fine. I would like to thank Tex for making such a crazy script, Gabbs for gettin the money together, and me for blasting out the vision and pullin it all together. I also want to thank the crew and actors. they kicked some major ass and helped us realize our totalfuckinggenius.

If you all think this trailer is the shit, wait until you see the feature.  It’s gonna bash you’re head in.

Please contact us if you have interest in screening the short or investing in the feature length version of this genre-bending masterpiece.

Opportunity

Posted by Tex

A lot of my friends in my writing group (a big shout out to those guys btw) asked me about what sort of lessons I learned in making Barking Spiders. Truthfully, the first draft was very different than what we wound up shooting and as our budget dwindled, so did my “vision.” That might sound a bit regretful, but it’s actually not. Because, in the end, I feel like the changes we made to the short gave us an end product that really leaves people wanting more. And after taking a deep breath and stepping back, I was reminded of the fact that our whole goal with the short was to get people salivating and wanting more from us. So when our money started to dwindle more and more, it became less of a “problem” and more of an “opportunity.” And I really think that’s the key to success in this business.

Taking the “problem” of not being able to afford the CGI for the Tarantula Orgy and turning it into a scene that is intercut with jarring flashbacks, which Ethan did an amazing job of setting up. Taking the “problem” of not being able to afford the latex to make the spider egg sac embedded in someone’s lower back look good and simply turning it into a reaction shot. Taking the “problem” of a batch of bad squibs and turning it into a scene where someone instead gets impaled on a samurai sword. Those are the kinds of lessons that turned making this film into both a learning opportunity and ultimately a career opportunity.

Thanks, Grandma

Posted by Gabby

Ethan and Tex are up finishing the trailer for Barking Spiders tonight.  God bless the two of them, not that I believe in God.  But it’s so damned inspiring watching the two of them work together, makes me think that this is what it must have been like for the Coens.  Two brothers, sitting side by side creating something from beginning to end, making something tangible out of thin air, out of what began as a spark of an idea. 

I think it was Tex who first came up with it - probably when he was literally farting around one day - Barking Spiders, a gross-out comedy with echoes of Mars Attacks and Raising Arizona.  I mean, this isn’t the kind of thing I would normally go for, but I remember the night the two of them started riffing on the idea of a planet overcome by silent but deadly spiders, and something took hold of me.  I knew they had landed on something.  A spark.  An idea.  Something that could carry us through. 

And by amazing coincidence, it was not a week later that the funds to create such a thing appeared.  My grandmother Cecily died.  Now this may seem like an alarming and potentially amoral subject to bring up, but keep in mind that this was a very special week.  Not only had Ethan and Tex landed upon a fantastic idea that they were already playing out on paper, but that week I also happened to be listening to Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, which, if you’ve read or spent any time listening to it, you’ll realize the POWER OF NOW.  Of doing things now and rapidly and listening to the universe when it speaks to you.  And that week, the universe was speaking so loud to me I could not ignore it. 

These three realities converging in my life - Barking Spiders, Eckhart Tolle, and my dead grandmother - made me realize there was only one thing I could do: honor my blessed grandmother by using her inheritance to fund Barking Spiders.  There was nothing my grandmother wanted more than to see me give birth to something in this life, and I knew that by shepherding this project into existence, I would be satisfying her up in heaven, or wherever she is.

Grandma, if you could see Ethan and Tex now, laughing and crying as they pick out the perfect fart sounds for the Bean Parade onslaught, I know you would be proud.