These Amazing Shadows Poster, People, Places and Things

Screen grab from the moviegoods.com website.

First it was Peter Golub's score available on itunes...now it's our Brian Oakes designed poster for sale on moviegoods.com...what could possibly be next? Dr. Billington and George Willeman lunchboxes, bobbleheads and mousepads? Gift giving becomes simple for Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Winter Solstice (for our pagan fans) 2011. Here comes the vast merchandising of These Amazing Shadows!
These Amazing Shadows Poster: http://www.moviegoods.com/these-amazing-shadows.asp
(in addition to standard sizes our poster is available in bus shelter poster size 43' x 62" for those of you that live in a warehouse size home)
These Amazing Shadows score on itunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/these-amazing-shadows-original/id435119696

In the fall the DVD (and hopefully Blu-ray) of These Amazing Shadows will be released by PBS Video. We spent the past week putting together our DVD bonus features. We're quite proud of the extensive DVD extras that will include:
- Lost Forever, a 25-minute short on film preservation and restoration. It's quite entertaining and educational. Seriously, we're not kidding.
- A behind the scenes look of our score being recorded in Prague, Czech Republic. It includes an interviews with composer, Peter Golub, and score mixer, Scott Johnson, that are inter-cut with actual footage of the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra performing/recording Peter's score.
- A behind the scenes look at our week at the Sundance Film Festival 2011.
- Outtakes from our interviews with John Waters, Christopher Nolan and Tim Roth.
- Deleted and alternate scenes. Example: one of our favorite people, Mick LaSalle, film critic and author describes what makes Gold Diggers of 1933 so great.
- And, a short fun piece on "My Favorite Movie" in which you will find out the answer to the burning question: Who does Christopher Nolan identify with - Han Solo or Luke Skywaker?

(l to r) Alex Calleros, Christine O'Malley, Paul Mariano and Doug Blush pose in front of the giant head of Leo.

Los Angeles is such a wonderfully interesting and challenging place. Paul and I live in different parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of the people we worked with on TAS live in LA so we have spent a lot of time down in the Southland. Paul and I just returned from a short trip to LA to work on the above mentioned DVD extras. We began our meeting with editors Doug and Alex and producer Christine with our traditional lunch at Fred62 located in the Los Feliz section of town. Super hip place - very LA. Right across the street is a gigantic mural of film stars that include Leo DiCaprio, Uma Thurman and Johnny Depp. If you keep your ears pricked up you can hear conversations during lunch of actors complaining about casting calls, casting couches and demanding directors.

Panoramic of Fred62

Panorama of mural across the street from Fred62.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences recently asked us to send them a copy of our poster for their collection. Very cool request. That lead us to discover a couple of fun videos on their site:
1) How a Oscar statuette is made - http://www.oscars.org/video/watch/making_of_oscar.html
2) The conservation process for a giant poster - http://www.oscars.org/video/watch/mhl_poster_restoration.html

We recently had the good fortune to screen These Amazing Shadows for employees at Lucasfilm and next week will do the same for the employees at Pixar. Stay tuned for photos and info from those screenings.

These Amazing Shadows Trailer!

Our brand new trailer was just posted to The New York Times website. It can be accessed at the following link:
http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/01/19/movies/1248069574720/trailer-these-amazing-shadows.html

The trailer was cut by Stephen Garrett of Kinetic Trailers in New York City. We think he did a great job. Particularly in his selection of movie clips and the way he used Peter Golub's music.

The trailer will be available Friday on this blog.

Our new end credits...can you identify the movie posters we use???

You are getting a sneak preview of our closing credits. We are taking the unique marketing ploy of releasing our film in reverse. We're really proud of the music by Peter Golub and graphics by Brian Oakes.

We've had a heck of a time with these credits because just when we thought we had everything right someone would spot a typo. We would correct it, re-do all the graphics, feel great...then spot another typo. I do not want to tell you how many times this happened! If you spot a typo DO NOT TELL US! We want to live in our fantasy world that these credits are correct and finished.

Paul and I can't understand why Brian selected a movie poster for our "directed by" credit card that shows a man and woman (ya know...since Paul and I are both guys). Personally, I wanted our poster to be from the movie, Shaft, but Brian gave it to our director of photography Frazer Bradshaw. And, please notice that Brian gave himself Star Wars. Hummmm...how to get our revenge against Brian.

Here is a quiz that could win you a valuable prize. Name in order the movie posters we use in the end credits. Send your list to: knorton@gravitasdocufilms.com
Deadline is 5:00 pm PST Wednesday, January 12. The prize will be a These Amazing Shadows related semi-cool collectible. Possibly a Christine O'Malley or Doug Blush bobble-head doll.

Please don't re-purpose this video without our permission because it is copyright 2011 gravitas docufilms.

Composer Peter Golub in Prague recording the score.

City of Prague Symphonic Orchestra at the Smecky Recording Studio

It is 5:48 am PST and I am listening in on (via Source-Live Gateway - an online service to get instant world-wide access to audio studios) the live recording of the score for These Amazing Shadows. Our composer, Peter Golub, along with music editor, Scott Johnson, and music contractor, Ted Hinckley, are at the Smecky Recording Studio in Prague, Czech Republic working with the City of Prague Symphonic Orchestra. After months of listening to temp tracks of various sorts it is extraordinary to sit here in my pajamas in Oakland, California and hear (through the miracle of the Interwebs) the score coming to life.  Between takes there are exchanges between the conductor, Richard Hein, in the recording studio and the interpreter, Staniaslave Vomackova, in the recording booth - sounds quite serious but not tense, but since I don't speak Czech I really don't know. I'm beginning to hear smatterings of laughter from the musicians so things must be going well - or at least they are having a good time. The audio atmosphere has an old world quality. Every so often the musicians will all tap-tap-tap, which apparently is an expression of appreciation (for Peter, the music, themselves, snack time - don't know - probably all). In this session Peter is working with the full orchestra minus the brass (trumpets, trombones, horns and tuba). Those parts will be recorded separately tomorrow.

Peter just emailed this report: "We think it's going really well. When we add horns and brass it'll sound even better."

Peter's report on Prague: "It's beautiful, quaint and cosmopolitan...but, boy is it cold (21 degrees Fahrenheit)."

City of Prague Symphonic Orchestra: http://www.city-of-prague-philharmonic-orchestra.org/en/article.asp?article_id=6&lang_id=2

Smecky Recording Studio: http://www.barrandov.cz/en/smecky-recording-studio