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*OTF UPDATE 05.12.2006

yo.

things are moving along in interesting ways. steve is off cranking on
a feature for the next couple weeks, we're finishing up an IDEO
project, and brent and i will be voyaging south to los angeles to
begin pitching our scripts. yup, you heard me. scripts. we wrote a
short last weekend that we think is pretty damn sweet. we're rapidly
moving into preproduction with a possible start date as soon as july.

la should be fun. we're meeting with a few producers and shopping the
script around. there seems to be some interest and we've got a pretty
sweet press pack in hand. that's it for now. hopefully next week
i'll have a lot to say.

COACHELLA 2006

right. as usual coachella was awesome. madonna didn't exactly ruin it
although she did make sunday the busiest coachella day i've ever
seen. (although, i believe that the radiohead, pixies year sold out
first). in her defense i read an article in the indio paper where
locals said, "when is madonna ever going to visit our little town
again." this is true, and as our sponsors i have to allow them the
right to see her. it's only fair. they have given me many awesome
weekends.

now, my top picks. sigur ros - damn. a wall of sonic beauty. if you
have the chance to see them please do. loud, beautiful, true
musicians. on the smaller tip, the octopus project was really fun and
energetic. their album is very moody, but their live show was just
plain fun. my favorite rock act had to be Metric from toronto. emily,
the singer, is a born rock star. her energy rocked everyone's world.
it's was really cool to see a lot of women rocking the mic. there was
definitely a lot more energy from the women in general. it was rad.

gnarls barkley was really cool. they came out dressed as characters
from the wizard of oz, and the show was wild, out of control, and
just plain fun.

i don't want to spend to much time on this, but other amazing
performances came from daft punk, she wants revenge, the go! team,
wolfmother, and ladytron. they all rocked it and made me dance my
butt off. all in all, an awesome weekend. really fun. mmmmm....

PPGG on O'Reilly

okay... so... the o'reilly factor... was awesome. they played the spot multiple times, and talked about it extensively. wendy wright, president of Concerned Women for America, called it, "drive by softcore porn." not sure what that means, but i'll take it. billy wasn't so tough on it, but i guess he's had is own scandals so...

I will say that Wendy seemed a bit wooden. I believe she was caught off guard by Bill's defense of the ad. she didn't have strong arguments and was roundly beaten by Gloria Feldt, former president of planned parenthood. My favorite insight from Gloria was, "the woman is obviously not a victim. she is empowered..."

the one thing i really take issue with is that we went to a lot of effort to put birth control at the top of the toolbox. so, our heroine is using birth control, and a condom. bill was talking about the subliminal messages of advertising. i admit that there was a lot of innuendo in the ad, but we also put in good subliminal stuff. double protection? pretty damn safe. now as far as sex as recreation... i'm not going to argue with that... but MTV shows much worse, much more "offensive" stuff. the fact of the matter is, kids are having sex and they have to be educated. lack of education is the worst thing that could happen. call planned parenthood.

Bill called it, " Dopey," heh. Maybe he meant, "dope." if you're interested in seeing the o'reilly factor coverage click here.

PPGG Update

so the latest news is that the O'Reilly Factor will be airing the planned parenthood spot in its entirety friday evening. clearly they are going to slam it, but heck press is press. i'm going to tivo it. normally you would never hear me say something like this, but watch the O'Reilly Factor on Fox News 8pm, 11pm, and 4am Eastern, 5pm, 8pm and 1am Pacific.

Here's a link to it. Then click on "Commercial Controversy"

*OTF UPDATE: Planned Parenthood Golden Gate

hey everybody. we've been having some technical problems with our
blog that will probably lead us to use a new service, but until then
we've found a cludgey way to get entries posted.

on to business. we just finished working on a really amazing spot for
planned parenthood golden gate (www.ppgg.org). we're excited about it on so many levels. first, it's just great to be working on something we really believe in. planned parenthood is an amazing organization that has helped so many people through a lot of really tough situations. we here at *ontheflyfilms support them 100%. we really wanted to make an ad that went beyond what the somewhat meager budget allowed. we wanted to make something that could stand up against the best ads on tv and win. hopefully we succeeded. you can go to the portfolio section of our site and click on "tool" to see for yourself.

the really great thing about this kind of work in a city like san francisco is that the whole community throws themselves behind the project. everyone we spoke to gave us amazing deals and helped make our imagination a reality. Steve Condiotti DP'ed the ad, but he also brought the powerhouse of DTC Grip and Electric with him. we can't thank DTC, steve and his whole crew enough. Urban Ore in berkeley donated almost all of the pieces we used to build the sets, Robert at Studio 1550 gave us an amazing deal on his awesome space, and Lee Utterbach Cameras hooked us up.

andy newell and josh gold at Ripe Sound rocked the sound design, these guys are truly superstars and it is always an honor to work with them. They did the sound design on the new disney film "The Wild." Go check it out. chris martin and Spy Post gave us an amazing deal on the color correction, and chris always gives us an amazing look and pushes the work to a level of professionalism that makes me smile a big goofy grin.

finally, i really want to thank matt lutz from The Herms for recording an original score. if you haven't heard them yet they rock. they are releasing their first full length CD in May and are having a release party at The Great American Music Hall. I highly recommend that you attend. they are the next wave. every review i read has a hard time defining them, and that seems like the best review possible. they sound original and yet somehow familiar. they are sure to have imitators so go see the original.

here's the link to the show info. tickets are only $8. don't miss this opportunity. this is a steal and these guys are going to blow up. check it out.

Here is the most current list of opinions about the spot... it's made a bit of a splash :)

Positive Blogs
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2006/04/i-continue-to-planned-parenthood.html

http://www.adrants.com/2006/04/power-tools-encourage-you-to-cover-your-t.php

http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2006/04/ooh_nice_tool_s.html

Anti Blogs on the Ad
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=64191

http://www.dawneden.com/2006/04/congratulations-you-just-bought-your.html

http://americandaily.com/article/12729 - same site is against immigrant rights

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=22969

http://www.lifenews.com/nat2175.html

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200604%5CCUL20060419b.html

http://www.prolifeblogs.com/articles/archives/2006/04/you_just_paid_f.php

Anti Blogs on the Tell-A-Friend Campaign
http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/5766.article

http://www.lifenews.com/nat2175.html

http://americandaily.com/article/12729

http://www.earnedmedia.org/ldint0330.htm

*OTF UPDATE - IT'S BEEN AWHILE

okay, so i'm sure you've all guessed by now that we didn't get into the sundance program. no worries, we're still proceeding with the script and may even resubmit it this coming year. i'm not really to concerned because everyone that got in has won major recognition for other work. we are on our way up. we'll be there soon. i'm just happy we made it past the first round, and i thank the sundance institute for giving us a chance. it's possible that without them we may not have even got a first draft of the script finished. they definitely lit a fire under our butts. as of 02.20.2006 we officially have a second draft, and it makes the other one look like a joke. we're really happy with it. time to start shopping it around.

anyway, as far as other *otf work we've had some good stuff. after some struggle Rape of Europa, the feature Doc from Actual Films that we've been working on, is done. i can't wait to see it projected somewhere. we just finished shooting the project for IDEO mentioned in the last update. it looks great. we shot on Super16 with Steve Condiotti DPing and it was an awesome experience. Steve really brought his A game and our crew was absolutely top notch. i can't thank them enough for what they brought to the table.

we met with goodby, silverstein & partners last week and things went really well. they do such awesome work and it would be a real honor to be involved. we've had meetings with a few other agencies as well and it all seems really exciting. i have to toss out props to our first assistant director Johnny Bennett. he's made so much possible and i can't thank him enough.

on saturday night i vjed the opel 4 year anniversary (congrats syd and opel for 4 awesome years). we've been together since the start and it's been quite a ride. saturday was an amazing party, and i hope you were there. the fashion show blew my mind. really beautiful design. it was the cherry on top of an awesome party. i personally found the night re-invigorating. it kind of felt like a re-birth. i have to thank everyone that came up to me with encouraging words. it is much appreciated and makes me realize how important this artwork is.

one final thank you and i'm done. syd gris, thanks for the support through the years. we've been together on the opel work from the start. i value and respect what you are doing for the city of san francisco and i'm honored to be a part of it. thank you.