Best concert, book and movies of 2011

Since the year is over. Thought I would share my views on 2011 with respect to music concerts, books and film.

Concerts:

            This year I was lucky enough to see Eric Clapton at the MGM in Vegas. Jeff Beck at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Rod Stewart in Vegas at the Forum and Andrea Bocelli in Tampa.

Winner for best concert – Jeff Beck.

            An incredible performer at age 66 emits high energy and is considered one of the best guitarists in the world. Beck is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds; (Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page). He also formed The Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart and Beck, Bogert & Appice. Interestingly he does not use a pick but instead gets incredible sounds from his fingers and the vibrato bar on his Fender Stratocaster. Curious fact: Jimmy Page played bass for a short time with Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds.

Winner for best book – Top Secret America: The rise of the new American security state. Dana Priest and William Arkin.

            Both authors are relentless reporters. Priest has won two Pulitzer Prizes for her work. In this book they uncover the explosive growth of America’s secret world since 9/11, it’s staggering. The waste, redundancy and domestic surveillance steps the government is taking is scary. The novel focuses on the Pentagon’s secret army that has killed more terrorists than the rest of the US forces combined. After 9/11 Congress gave a blank check to America’s secret security agencies with no public accountability. We worry about the government checking our email…oh it’s much worse than that. All the money, in the hundreds of billions and over 800,000 employees doing “Top-Secret,” work and guess who they’re focusing on next??? Us…!

Winner for best movie – Martyrs

            Okay, this is not a new movie (2008) but new for me. I saw it this year, heard about it for a while and it is the best horror to come out in years.

            This is a disturbing movie!!!!!

It’s a French film written and directed by Pascal Laugier. It is being ranked as one of the scariest movies ever made. The last 30 minutes is gruesome, some say the most intense ever filmed. It’s not the bloodiest but it’s intense. The reason why the torture is happening is so unexpected…it’s brilliant.

As a side note here’s a few of my favorite Netflix streaming movies:

            Let the Right One In

            Frontiers

    The Horde

    Them

    Creep

    Isolation

    High Lane

    Deathwatch

Norm Applegate author of:

Shockwave

Amazon

Director John Botelho

I have a guest blogger today, Director John Botelho who has filmed three book trailers for me; Into the Basement, Blood Bar and the just released First to Die. He does such great work. I have people send me emails with questions every week so I thought what the heck, lets get John to explain his process a little bit. I've added the trailer at the bottom, enjoy!

O.K. Folks. Here are some answers to the many questions I have had about the "First to Die" book trailer.  The trailer was shot on HD digital video with a Sony HDV 1080i/mini DV camera. We did have one back-up camera on the set for secondary shots and cross shooting, but we never used it. I felt that each clip should be simplistic to give the feeling of a documentary style film. The set was located on a secluded ranch in Harper Texas. We shot from about 10PM till 12AM. There was no electricity on the set so we used numerous flash lights. Our cast and crew consisted of only nine people. Since it was such a small shoot, the cast doubled as set crew.  The Cowboy/Hunter in the opening shots is Producer Tim Taylor. He showed up to the shoot wearing the best shoes and outfit for the project, so I chose him.  The females vampires were: Jacy Vickers, Cori Taylor (Daughter of Tim Taylor), Deanna Brandt, and Ashley Wahrmund. Cori Taylor brought her Boyfriend Nik Tarsikes to the set, and we used him for our dead body in the foreground shot. Nik is the guy that does the death twitch at the end.... We loved it!!! We used chocolate syrup for blood. I chose this because of the low light shots, and the film degradation technique I use in post production. The intestine strands used on the dead body were made by Production Assistant Sean McRea. He combined chocolate syrup and toilet paper to get the effect. YUM YUM!!! Horror Writer Norm Applegate ran slate (or also know as a "clacker"), and Producer/Director Happy Gray was my Assistant Director.  We averaged about three takes per shot and filmed less than 20 minutes of footage. Everything was shot in sequential order because we wanted the do the messy blood shots at the end (chocolate syrup dries fast and attracts Texas Fire Ants).  The film was edited on a Apple Macintosh using IMovie HD 6.0.3 (we dislike the later versions so we use this older version). The entire piece (including the lettering) was purposely color degraded to give it a documentary/creepy feel.  The two music pieces used in the film were taken from ILife Sound Effects and the background jungle noise was take from Skywalker Sound Effects (both applications are public domain and can be found in the IMovie media section).  The vampiric scream was a "guttural style screech" I found on the internet. I filtered the sound and changed the pitch qualities thru the IMovie Audio FX application. The original pitch was low (it was performed by a male), so I had to bring it up to give it female qualities. I did not bring the pitch up too much because I still wanted to leave a hint of male masculinity.   I hope that answers most question about the "First to Die" book trailer. If you have addition questions feel free to email us at triadpictures@yahoo.com. THANKS!!! -J.L. Botelho Director