2011 Beverly Hills Film Festival

I made some postcards for the promo table at the Beverly Hills Film Festival.

I'm going to a couple movies tomorrow then I'll stop by the after party tomorrow night.  Hopefully more movies Saturday and then the gala Sunday evening.

The 2011 Beverly Hills Film Festival starts Wednesday.

The other TV show that I work on besides Intervention, called Relapse premiered tonight.  The AV Club, where I get a lot of my news, reviewed the show, which is exciting to me.

 

The secret guest star on The End. was Orlando Brown from "That's So Raven," Major Payne, etc.  Watch him in the "The Rise and Fall of The Boomshadow" arc, episodes 17, 18, 19 and the yet to be released episode 20!!  I wrote 18, 19, and 20 specifically for Orlando and he agreed to do it.

We shot the finale of The End. a week or two ago and it went great, a couple familiar faces show up in the end of The End.

In sad news, the Producer who wanted to make Happenstances her first feature production got a new job and will not have time to work on producing it in the foreseeable future.  I'm supposed to meet with her next week to talk about it.   

Happenstances is definitely the script I've worked the hardest on, I've done probably ten to fifteen drafts of it over about six years.  At least I never get excited about anything and thus never have any expectations so I'm not too crushed, but I am bummed nonetheless.  But, with Christian coming this summer, which is when the Producer wanted to shoot the movie, it wasn't the ideal time for it to get made anyway (except financially for me, haha) so hopefully when Happenstances gets made, because it will get made, it's my max out credit cards and call in favors movie, Christian will be older and I'll be able to fully devote myself to making the movie.

There are so many things I want to do and stories I want to tell, I hope I get a chance to do a fraction of it at some point in my life.

Anything else?  I don't know, it's late.  I'll try to post more this month.

My screenplay Addicted to You is a finalist in the 2011 Beverly Hills Film Festival!!  My Happenstances screenplay was a finalist last year and the festival was great, in fact, going to that festival put me back in touch with the Producer who is working on getting Happenstances produced right now.

Here's the synopsis of the script in this year's competition though:

Addicted To You
Jake, a producer for the Intervention style documentary show "Confrontation," is devastated when is longtime girlfriend tells him she's cheated on him the night he set to propose. He goes into depression until his next "Confrontation" shoot. When he gets to the documentary subject's hometown he meets a girl named Amber and falls for her instantly. He continues to the subject's house and finds that Amber is the addict he's supposed to be documenting.
WGA # 1410852

Speaking of which, the Producers of Intervention have been producing "Relapse" a new addiction-based show that I worked on (and will continue working on when it hopefully gets picked up for more episodes). There is finally information about it here. I've seen a couple of the episodes and if you like "Intervention" you'll like this show, it's really good, emotional.

Here is a behind the scenes photo from on the set of Walk By Faith 2: After The Honeymoon 

You can now watch The End. at Web Series Channel.

Here is the latest episode of The End.



You can see who the secret guest star is in the credits of that episode, he just barely shows up in this one but his character has three more episodes that we have already shot, the next one will be released on Sunday.

I wrote the script for the season (series possibly?) finale and it's awesome, I can't wait to shoot it. You can check out every episode of The End. here with proper credits.

I finished a feature a week or two ago and I've been working on another one but I have also been thinking of ideas for sketches to write and act in.  A couple of people I know out here do sketch comedy, The Outside Joke and Friends R Us.  The guys from Friends R Us actually got hired at Funny or Die as writer/ directors and have had a couple super popular sketches so far.  I would like to put together a group like that, I would also love to take improv classes, but with my work schedule it's hard to do much.  I hope to shoot something in the next month or so though.

I screened Nora's Hair Salon 3 Saturday night at the LAFSC theater as sort of my birthday party. It was fun watching it with an audience, the director came. Thanks to those who attended.

I found a clip of Walk By Faith 2: After The Honeymoon on Youtube:



HA! I think that's the first fart scene I've ever written into a movie and I'm sure it won't be the last. As I was writing it I was thinking 'Am I really going to go there?... Yes, yes I am.' Those socks are inspired by my life. For more relationship comedy and drama check that movie out. Here's a customer review (the only review on Amazon actually):

Walk By Faith 2 After the Honeymoon, February 15, 2011
By Larry Tate
This review is from: Walk By Faith 2 (DVD)
I received this movie as a gift and I was reluctant to watch it but I have to say that this film was very entertaining to watch with some stand out performances by Keikabou holland and Lance Gipson and the rest of the ensemble cast, nicely directed and edited by Brett Stumpp. Despite a lower budget this film was beautifully shot, great lighting and camera work by cinematographer michael woxland. This is a religious based movie about two couples where one couple married for many years and the other newlyweds who are both struggling to make there relationships work. I found this film to be very entertaining and touching and I would recommend it to anyone.

That's really nice.

Also, this is from the The End. blog:

 

We recently shot a several episode arc of The End. with an incredible new character (the most electrifying and controversial character since Chad The Casual Cannibal) played by a veteran Television and Film STAR. If you already know who it is don't spoil it for anyone.


Also, Bryan Mayer (The End.'s Johnny) got a haircut!!

Please watch all the previous episodes and spread the word about our guest star.

Thank you.

-The End.

We'll release the info in a week-ish, I'm not positive exactly when. We also put up some more behind the scenes photos on the blog.

No new news about any of my other writing projects but that could change any minute.

The Independent Film Channel has heard of Nora's Hair Salon 3: Shear Disaster and has included it in the DVD new releases for 2/8/11 here.

Nora's Hair Salon 3: Shear Disaster (2011)
Directed by Rico Johnson
Released by 1-2-3-4-Go

Amazingly, this "Barbershop" knockoff for the ladies has stuck around for one more film than the original that inspired it, bringing Miguel A. Nunez Jr. into the fold as a reality show producer who wants to do a series on the salon, but may not be as benevolent as he appears.

Barbershop for the ladies, I like the sound of that. I just got my copy of Nora's but I won't be able to watch it all weekend due to work and shooting for The End.

Big The End. news coming soon by the way.

From Amazon.com:

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this DVD Nora's Hair Salon 3 with Walk By Faith 2 ~ Gabriel Casseus DVD $15.49

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Price For Both: $30.98

Show availability and shipping details

I haven't seen NHS3 yet (soon, soon, soon) but I think this would make an awesome double feature. 

Two movies I wrote were released today! Here's what Rob Gonsalves over at http://dvdnavigator.blogspot.com/ had to say about them:

Nora's Hair Salon 3: Shear Disaster - I guess there was more story to tell that wasn't explored in Nora's Hair Salon and Nora's Hair Salon 2?

Walk by Faith 2 - Sequel to a movie nobody except devout African-American Christians even knew existed.

Haha, although super sarcastic he's kind of right! I'm sure he'll never watch either of them though, but he should, I have yet to see NHS3 but Walk By Faith 2 turned out pretty good.