John August

Projects

Trailer competition, second update

Projects, Software, The Nines, Video

Just so you know, the radio silence around the [trailer competition](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/trailer-competition-update) is not for lack of interest or intent. Stuff got very crazy, very quickly, and we had a hard enough time getting the real trailer finished up. (Plus there was [other](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/the-big-fox-deal) [stuff](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/home-from-africa) going on.)

We have all the clips ready to go, but we’re going to delay the launch until sometime early in September. That will give people — the New York and Los Angeles people — a chance to see the movie. And it will give us about five seconds to breathe.

Because I’m a curious geek, I threw all the trailer competition footage into Apple’s new iMovie 2008. The good news is that the application seems optimized for MP4 footage — it was really simple to throw the clips together. The bad news is that the program is almost unusable, at least for anything beyond the most basic vacation footage.

Some frustrations:

* It freezes the last frame of every clip. My workaround was to use half-second dissolves on every cut, which is incredibly hacky and unacceptable.
* Only the roughest volume changes are possible.
* You can’t split audio from video.
* The spacebar works differently than any Quicktime application. It doesn’t play/pause. It jumps within the clip.
* It uses a text-selection metaphor for grabbing footage, which is innovative but really imprecise.
* The “handles” for marking the edges of clips work differently depending on which mode you’re in. It’s bewildering.

I really wanted to like the program. It demoes well. But it’s a disaster.

Press Day

Meta, Projects, The Nines

Today was press day for The Nines, which meant six solid hours of talking about the movie. And it was fine. I conducted all of my interviews sitting next to [Melissa McCarthy](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0565250/), so it was a good excuse to exercise our pact of mutual appreciation.Ryan and I have a similar covenant, but the world is pretty sick of it after the last publicity barrage. So we left him to fend for himself. And I slandered him, repeatedly.

Nines postersThe event was held at The Four Seasons. While driving there on Burton Way, I passed a construction site, and muttered under my breath about when the fuckin’ Nines posters were going to get plastered on every available plywood surface.

And then I saw one. It was enough to make me start believing in that book The Secret.That and a disbelief in the laws of science, logic or the fallacy of egocentrism. So, seeing the poster, plus those three things.

This picture is actually from St. Andrews at Hollywood Blvd. So there are at least two places in LA to see the wilding posters.

secondlifeNear the end of the press junket, we held a roundtable in Second Life, which was actually held in the SL re-creation of my house.It’s on Metaversatility island, if you want to stop by.

Lest anyone doubt that it was really me at the other end of the keyboard, here’s photographic proof. It was frustrating only because the questions came too quickly. I wanted to answer all of them, but by the time I’d finished one response, five more had gotten stacked up.

The Nines in Austin

Projects, The Nines

nines posterI’m happy to announce our first expansion outside of New York and Los Angeles: Austin. The Nines will be starting at the [Alamo Drafthouse](http://www.originalalamo.com/default.aspx?l=4) (South Lamar) on September 28th. There’s a Q&A in the works for that weekend with me and Ryan — most likely on the 28th — so be sure to check back for details.

Originally, we were going to open in Austin the same day as NY/LA, but the Venice Film Festival threw a wrench in that. The logistics of getting from LA to Austin to NYC to Venice proved insurmountable, and we didn’t want to open without a Q&A. September feels better, anyway. Classes would have just started on August 31st, and that first week of school is more about mini-fridges and freak-outs than trippy meta-movies.

I’m a frequent panelist at the Austin Film Festival, and Ryan just shot a movie there, so it’ll be good to go back and catch up with friends and colleagues. And the bats.

As [previously noted](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/the-nines-at-the-nuart), The Nines opens August 31st in New York and Los Angeles, with a special Q&A at the LA screening on August 31st at 7:30 pm, and an introduction at the 10 pm show. [Tickets](http://www.movietickets.com/house_detail.asp?house_id=464&rdate=8%2F31%2F2007) are [on sale](http://movies.aol.com/movie/the-nines/28598/showtimes?date=20070831) now.

Cannibals in canoes

News, Projects, The Nines

Honestly, I feel like I’m cheating on all of you when I guest-blog for EW.com. [But I did it again.](http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/08/guest-blogger-1.html)

And then there are the non-Nines variables: babysitting grandparents, geriatric pugs, and the Tim Burton retrospective I want to attend. Plus eight more lessons of Pimsleur Italian, so I can politely explain why I’m throwing myself in a canal.

[Click here](http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/08/guest-blogger-1.html) to read the rest. I can only hope you’ll forgive me once all this Nines business is over.