The Scoop - November: Season Finale

We ended the fall with a bang.  Z.A.S.A. is easily Stranger Things' best performing video right out of the gate.  It will be a hard video to follow.  For that reason, it's a good thing that we're going into our off-season.

For the last two years we have tried to film during the winter.  Even though it's been nice to have material to put out, it has been a miserable nightmare to pull off.  During the last holiday season I was working third shift, trying to watch my daughter and sleep during the mornings, and somehow edit Armory at the same time.  During the rest of winter I was outside in negative temperatures every Saturday morning so that I could film the dawn for Minnesota: Winterscapes.

This year we're going to try a different approach.  We're going to do an off-season.  I'm going to stay inside.  I have a few larger projects I want to work on (not all of them movie-related), but the constant film production has limited my ability to commit time to them.

Yet, there is still plenty of finished STS material to release.  Such as: 

Zombie Simulation: Alone and Uncut

This Friday (November 15th) we will be putting out our last supplemental video for Z.A.S.A.  What I've done is isolated the zombie simulation, and re-cut the movie with a more intense and serious tone.  I found it to be a fun experiment in editing - to take a comedy piece, and just by way of altering the footage, turn it into a thriller.

Other than that, there are still plenty of Z.A.S.A. production photos to release on Facebook.  I also have sat down and typed up Director's Notes for all the movies since February.  I will be releasing those regularly until I'm finally caught up.  We may still randomly put out a movie during the off-season.  Who knows?  If we do, it will be something we made spur of the moment, and will not be a full fledge production by any means.

I have various options for where to go with Stranger Things in the coming year, as well as for myself as a film maker.  It's just a matter of deciding what will be the most rewarding.  Regardless, when we fire up production again, it will be strong, focused, and with a bigger picture in mind going forward.

In the meantime, keep warm, enjoy the holidays, don't work to hard.  I'll keep everyone up to date on the monthly with everything going on.