Despite its success in achieving some widespread audience with film festivals and internet, I’ve secretly been kind of disappointed with the underachievement status of Purple Heart’s Final Beat. We’re approaching the three year anniversary of filming and despite an audience of over 40,000 viewers on YouTube, not nearly as much has come of it as I originally hoped it would. This is a film that needs to be seen – not because I made it, but because it addresses a real problem that the maniacal establishment of this country seeks to keep under wraps so that enlistment can go up and IQs can go down.

 

The director’s cut went online December 29, 2010 and underperformed to a less than impressive start. Considering the first cut of the film had over 10,000 views within about six months, I was certain this version – with a more provocative headline (“The Reason for Veteran Suicides”) – would blow up even more. As of two days ago, I was right. The film sat on YouTube with no more than 1,300 views. Now, logging into YouTube today to look at some comments, I have to ask… what the hell happened?

This is unprecedented (well, at least it’s unprecedented for a video without cute kittens or people face-planting in embarrassing ways). Over 7,000 views in just two days have come in. And apparently we have a new website in Germany to thank for it: http://www.20min.ch. I’ve never heard of this site before, and despite a rudimentary knowledge of the language to guide me, I’ve been unable to find the article that accompanies the film’s posting on the website. What I do know is that this is the single largest blast of a viewing audience I’ve ever experienced. Nothing like this has ever occurred with our work and I can only hope that the trend continues and the film gains the audience it deserves.

 

Second Class Citizen founder Terrence Popp will be speaking at the Michigan capitol building on December 3 on behalf of our cause. If you’re within earshot and you’d like to lend your support, contact him at [email protected] for details.

 

Thank you all for your continued support of Second Class Citizen and Lightcraft Entertainment.

Tomorrow night (well, technically tonight; November 8) is Zombie Night at Connie Mangilin’s Mitten Movie Project. It’s her favorite month out of the year because, let’s face it, zombie flicks rule. When they’re done right, anyway. There are definitely some that suck, like the “so bad it can’t even be a good kind of bad” piece of aromatic dog excrement, Shatter Dead. If you haven’t heard of this movie, consider yourself lucky. Even if it were popular and you think you’ve been hiding under a rock, I’m sure it’d be a nice rock worth living under compared to this garbage. The movie was so god awful I couldn’t even finish it. Later on I discovered online interviews in which the director, aptly named Scooter McCrae (no, I’m not making this up) dismissed any and all criticism of his work, stating it had obviously gone over people’s heads and they can’t appreciate art and blah, blah.

A word for director Scooter (and I use the term “director” very loosely): Your movie and your self aggrandizing horse vomit both need to be locked into porta-potties outside Packer Stadium and set on fire. Suck it long and suck it hard, Trebek.

For quality zombie films, here’s a list of my favorites:

George A. Romero’s Dead series (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Survival of the Dead)

Three films by the great Italian director Lucio Fulci: Zombi 2, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond

Dan O’Bannon’s great 80’s zombie horror spoof Return of the Living Dead

Although it’s technically not a zombie film, I’d be remiss to not make a nod to 28 Days Later (I still haven’t seen the sequel)

Edgar Wright’s amazingly hilarious and brilliant Shaun of the Dead

Those are just to name a few. If you can make it to the Main Art Theater in Royal Oak for Zombie Night to see some homemade Michigan zombie action, admission is only $10 at the door, and the winner of the Audience Award for November will be featured on January episode of The Haywire Effect. Come one, come all!!

After living in the same home for 17 years, enduring all kinds of hardships, and of course creating most of the memories of my life there, I have finally moved out into my own place at the age of 28. Yeah, I know, I sound kind of like a momma’s boy, and maybe I am, but there were other reasons I stuck around (I certainly wasn’t living there for free).

 

Needless to say, trying to keep post-production going smoothly with all of this going on – not to mention a fast-incoming season of Oakland University athletics to design graphics for – has been next to impossible, but I plan on playing a fast and furious game of catch-up for the next couple of weeks. Not only do I have three videos left to cut, but the long-overdue Haywire Effect episode reviewing Star Trek V. Plus I will begin scripting the Haywire Effect Christmas Special shortly.

 

To all the couples out there, thank you for your patience and your willingness to work with me during this time. It’s been as emotional as it has been physically wracking, but I have faith that this will be a big step toward a better future for myself and Lightcraft Entertainment.