Is Disney Doing Right by John Carter or Not?

I am so frustrated with Disney’s abysmal attempts to promote the “John Carter” of Mars movie. They have waited until virtually the last minute to release promotional posters and videos. They have barely allowed the actors to talk to the media over the past year or so, and when they do talk it’s mostly about the other films they are appearing in.

How to promote your independent Scifi film on the Web

Except for all the differences that distinguish it from all the others, today is a day like any other day. I just don’t have time enough in my day to do everything I need to do.

I wonder if Hermione’s Time Turner would help me catch up on things that I need to do.

So, anyway, like there’s a thousand things happening that I’m aware of but I’m so buried in Web projects I just haven’t had time to come up for a breath of air.

But in case anyone is watching, the Mothman Prophecies Website has now been renovated. It’s a popular part of Xenite.Org and probably should have been updated long ago but it was one of the few content sections that sort of stood on its own.

We were approached by the studio or their PR agency to help promote the movie online. I asked if they would provide me with content to create a site, rather than just post some announcement and they agreed.

Studios do occasionally contact Xenite.Org and ask if we want to be added to their list of fan sites. Sure, we’re glad to accept the press releases but if you’re letting a dozen fan sites publish the same press release you’re not getting much bang for your buck.

Another studio contacted us this week about an upcoming Steampunk movie. I’m trying to see what they’ll let us do. If they just want us to link to their site, we’ll pass.

Here is a tip to all the small film studios that want to use fan sites to promote their movies: Don’t just distribute press releases. Give the fan sites something extra to work with. Create “Web Kits” that include background information, images, interview transcripts, etc.

And don’t sling this stuff out to all the major sites like UGO, I09 and then hit the smaller sites as an afterthought. Give people an opportunity to do something unique.

You’re only hurting yourselves because, frankly, I can get a LOT of Websites to mention my special projects when they stand out from the crowd. But I don’t have time to go out of my way to create something from scratch for every little film that is coming out.

Xenite.Org is a true fan site — we’re not commercialized database-driven keyword-injected promo site and we don’t have a staff of journalists writing 10-20 stories every day. We get thousands of visitors each day but we do this out of the passion we feel for the topic.

And that’s my rant for the day. Thank you for listening, but send me real, substantial content, please.

District 9 star coming back to science fiction

Heat Vision is reporting that Sharlto Copley, who played the lead character Wikus Van De Merwe in “District 9” may take a leading role in an upcoming movie, “I am one of four”, which is based on a set of six children’s books that will be published later this year.

“District 9” had a pretty interesting storyline that was a thinly veiled criticism of racial policies around the world.

And that is really all I can think to say about the deal. The Heat Vision article is too short for me to summarize or quote it here. They provide some more detail about cast, writers, etc.

Science fiction and fantasy movies seem to be all the rage for now. It’s impossible to know if this will just be a “thing” that happens for a few years or if the film industry will settle on them as a long-term option. You don’t see many western movies any more but they dominated the film industry calendars for decades.

Avatarize yourself on the Web

Fans of the James Cameron spectacular movie “Avatar” can create images of themselves as Na’vi characters. I didn’t have a good picture available to work with so the image below does not do justice to what the tool can do.

Play with it at Avatarize Yourself.

You can choose between two backgrounds, two sexes, and two moods. You can also add a message up to 300 characters in length and you can share the image.

Here is a sharable URL for my image: Michael Martinez has been Avatarized.

You can also add an Avatarize Yourself widget to various social media platforms including WordPress, Blogger, and Facebook (among others).

Update on John Carter of Mars movie

The Disney Company has created a Facebook fan page for “John Carter of Mars”. The wall includes links some minor articles with updated information.

For example, actord Bryan Cranston has won the minor role of playing Carter’s partner in Arizona.

In January IESB reported that principle photography was underway in London (watch where you move the mouse over that page).

“The Poster”, a Twilight Zone tribute film

This is a pretty amazing homage to Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. Evan Peters’ “The Poster” tells the story of a young man, Anthony, who works in a comic book store. Everyone picks on him and the girl of his dreams ends up with a total jerk. One day, Anthony cannot take the abuse any longer. A mysterious poster appears and begins to help him deal with his tormentors.

Of course, Anthony’s life is a living hell so the apparent cause of his salvation is not necessarily going to be any better. In classic Twilight Zone fashion, Anthony takes matters too far and allows the situation to seize control over his life.

Evan Peters is from Louisville, KY where he gave a radio interview in May (which you can listen to here — it starts playing automatically). I cannot find an official Web site for Peters but he does have a YouTube channel and a Vimeo profile (where you can watch a “Making of ‘The Poster'” short feature).

Another project he has produced and promoted is “Wheelchair Defender”, a name I have come across before. Peters has been showing “The Poster”, which stars Justin Toon and Destiny White, at film festivals around the country. Peters himself has a brief role in the film.

Here is Part One of “The Poster”:

Here is Part Two of “The Poster”:

Here is Part Three of “The Poster”:

SciFi Short Film, “Nora”

This is a very interesting science fiction movie that was created by Film London and the London Arts Council. It tells the story of a sentient android, Nora, who is sent on a mission to find something. She finds something very unexpected.

The concept is not entirely new but this is a good treatment of the core idea, the inherent conflict between humanity and the human-like machines it ultimately comes to rely upon.

The animation is pretty good. I am finding more and more well-made animated short films on the Internet. I don’t know what the software to create these kinds of films costs. I have seen some animation studio packages demonstrated at SF conventions but of course you can never see the full potential of any product (or all its flaws) in any demo.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

Following Gabriel Cowan’s “Growth”

I never heard of Gabriel Cowan (as best I can recall) until a few days ago when I stumbled across the trailer for “Growth”, an independent science fiction horror flick. (That link, btw, takes you to the other SF-Fandom blog, where I often post content you won’t find on this blog).

Most of these movies I never really hear anything more about, though I try to keep an eye for news about them. In this case I did find a few blogs where people mention working on the film and discuss it in the context of larger topics. Those are both WordPress blogs and they may appear in the related links below this article. I’m not sure.

On of the interesting points made on the Background Actor blog is that the movie was filmed using a Red One camera. This is, I am told, the latest state of the art in video technology (or was earlier this year). One of the people from Star Trek: Phoenix told me they are using a Red One camera, too.

“Growth” is generating a little bit of buzz in the science fiction and fantasy related media and blogmedia. For example, you can find the “Growth” one sheet on Twitch.

I wanted to put together a little blog post that rounds up the sites I know about that discuss “Growth”. If you know of any others, please leave a comment with a link. Inappropriate links will be deleted, of course.

Weird animated SciFi short – Malice: The Alien Wars

I’m not sure why I’m posting this, except that it does show a lot of work went into the production (if not a whole lot of plotting, directing, and writing).

Amateur film-maker Jay Shah has been working on this movie for over a year. It’s a 3-D animated feature that, I suppose, appeals to the classic cliche fanboy.

After the glorious and challenging destruction of the Underground Hellzoth base at Earth, Malice and Zoc return to Zoc’s home planet Zelligolga 7. Malice is shown Zoc’s alien home planet for the first time and wants to see and enjoy everything they have to offer. As Malice is relaxing and meets her much ALIVE helper from the Hellzoth Underground base, Dead Boy, AKA Kyle, Carver The Evil Rabbit shows up mysteriously and threatens to kill Malice and her new friend. …

The mayhem ensues from there on and it seems like the film pays homage to “Alice and Wonderland”, “Tron”, and Arnold Schwarzenneggar — or maybe just Dire Straits’ “I want my MTV” video. I’m not sure which.

If you have about 10 minutes’ spare time, you don’t need to read any more of my meanderings. Just watch the film and be sure not to let your jaw hit the floor. Jay, I give you credit for being able to create animation — I can’t do it by any measure.

Trailer for “Daybreakers”, 2010 vampire film

Well, any movie with Sam Neill in it should be pretty good although I think he has been in a couple of stinkers. Other leads include Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke. Isabel Lucas, who caught the eyes of many young male fans in the second “Transformers” movies, also has a major role in the movie.

The premise is that by the year 2019 some sort of plague has transformed much of the human race into vampires. The majority of remaining humans are captured and placed in blood farms. A small group of vampires may have found a way for everyone to get along.

Here’s the curious thing about this movie: IMDB and other sources say the movie opens on January 8, 2010 — but if you scroll down the IMDB page to the comments you’ll find that someone has written a long, thoughtful, fairly detailed review of the movie.

What’s up with that?