Eyeborgs Preview & Teaser Trailer

I just reviewed the TV movie Highlander: The Source, starring Adrian Paul. It's obviously a bad review, but I don't blame that on Adrian Paul. He's a great actor, I loved him on Highlander: The Series, and I've heard that he takes all his work very seriously.

I actually got a chance to meet Adrian Paul recently. There was a low-budget science fiction movie called Eyeborgs that was filmed here locally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in July 2007, and Adrian Paul was the star of the film (not sure if he was playing the lead role, but he was at least the biggest name actor in it).

My friend and local director/producer/writer/editor Ike Quigley was the script supervisor on the production. So, when I and the other producer on our 48 Hour Film Project entry had to meet with Ike (our director on our 48 Hour project), he let us come by the Eyeborgs set and watch the crew blow up a van and set a guy on fire for some pyrotechnic scenes.

Adrian Paul was not in the scenes but eventually came out of his trailer to watch the pyrotechnics. Ike introduced Paul to myself and our producer's husband who also got to hang around and help with still photography. I only got a chance to say, "Hi, nice to meet you," to Paul before he went back to talking to Ike about the previous day's footage. I get to meet famous people so rarely that even that was kind of cool.

Anyway... While looking up Highlander and Adrian Paul stuff online while writing my Source review, I came across the Eyeborgs preview at its official site. There are several shots of the Winston-Salem skyline throughout the preview. There's a scene in the preview of a "Spy-der" robot harrassing a pedestrian. The pedestrian looks like Eyeborgs' director/co-writer Richard Clabaugh, who I think is also a film professor at North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.

And, just now, I dug a little further and found the Eyeborgs teaser trailer on YouTube. It's different from the preview, which has a more documentary type feel to it. The teaser trailer is embedded below:



I recognize The Depot in Greensboro, NC, as one of the shooting locations for the teaser trailer. We got clearance to use The Depot as one of our shooting locations for the 48 Hour Film Project too. In fact, I scouted The Depot for 48HFP the same day that either Eyeborgs or another local production was filming in the building.

In further Eyeborgs/48HFP crossover trivia, several cast & crew from Eyeborgs worked on our team, 9 lb. Hammer, in the 48 Hour Film Project this year. In fact, the lead actor in our entry, entitled Dekay, was Juan-Carlos "J.C." Guzman, who is also in Eyeborgs. Also, several other crew members of Eyeborgs were veteran directors of the 48 Hour Film Project in Greensboro as well as other local productions.

---

[UPDATE] After even more digging, I also found an extensive Yes Weekly article about Eyeborgs by local movie reviewer Mark Burger, who had full access to the Eyeborgs shoot (I also got to meet him the night I visited the set). The article was written back in June and includes a lot of details about the cast, crew, and shooting locations of Eyeborgs.

Near the end of the article there are a few mentions of the Millennium Center, one of the movie's shooting locations. The Millennium Center is an old, large, historic building in downtown Winston-Salem which used to serve as the central post office a long time ago and looks a lot like a museum from the outside. It's been used as a shooting location for a variety of movies, from student films to big-budget productions.

The Millennium Center also happened to be the primary shooting location for our entry in the 48 Hour Film Project in 2006, entitled Gone to Ground. Ike Quigley was also the director on that project, and I was one of two assistant producers. If you've ever noticed the video of Gone to Ground on the right column of this blog or in my MySpace profile, that's why it's there. I was also used as an extra in the boardroom scene. You can see the side of my face as a few other people talk. Originally, I had a line of dialogue, but we had to scrap it to conserve on camera setups.

Ron Paul & Mike Huckabee Videos

Ron Paul on the Daily Show, Monday 04 June 2007


Ron Paul in 3rd Republican Debate, Tuesday 05 June 2007

---

Mike Huckabee in 3rd Republican Debate, Tuesday 05 June 2007

Ron Paul Coming to Comedy Central; Mike Huckabee Debate Videos

According to his campaign MySpace site, Ron Paul will be on...

The Daily Show: Monday 04 June 2007 at 11:00PM on Comedy Central
New Hampshire Pres. Primary Debate: Tuesday 05 June 2007 at 7:00 on CNN
The Colbert Report: Wednesdary 13 June 2007 at 11:30 on Comedy Central

Just as a reminder, his links are:

Ron Paul Official Campaign Website
Ron Paul Congressman Website
Ron Paul @ Wikipedia
Ron Paul @ MySpace (Pres. 2008 page)
Ron Paul @ MySpace (Congressman page)
Ron Paul @ FaceBook (profile)
Ron Paul @ FaceBook (group 1)
Ron Paul @ FaceBook (group 1)
Ron Paul YouTube Channel

The video below is from Ron Paul's appearance on Bill Maher's show:

---

And, in case Ron Paul isn't your cup of tea, I also like another Republican candidate, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Please give these non-frontrunners a chance. If you have problems with McCain, Giuliani, or Romney, they're not the only ones in the race.

Huckabee's links are:

Mike Huckabee Official Campaign Website
Mike Huckabee @ Wikipedia
Mike Huckabee @ MySpace (official)
Mike Huckabee @ MySpace (supporters)
Mike Huckabee @ FaceBook (profile)
Mike Huckabee @ FaceBook (group 1)
Mike Huckabee @ FaceBook (group 2)
Mike Huckabee YouTube Channel


The videos below are from Mike Huckabee's answers to six questions in the 2nd Republican debate (I think I may have miscounted him at five questions & answers in my previous blog entry):

---

The 2nd Democratic Presidential Debate is tonight at 7:00PM on CNN and the 3rd Republican Presidential Debate is Tuesday at 7:00PM on CNN.

Entertainment News

Battlestar Galactica's 4th Season Will Be Its Last

According to several sources, executive producers David Eick and Ron Moore have officially announced that Battlestar Galactica's fourth season will be its last. A while back, when Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama) said that season four would be the last, the producers announced soon after that that was not necessarily true. Now it is true, but I don't think it's been confirmed whether the producers intended to go for a fifth year too or if year four was also intended to be the natural end.

I like the current trend of shows deciding early when they are going to end. It keeps them from dragging on forever, gives them an "endgame" goal to work towards, and allows ample time to wrap up lose ends in the final season. Just a few weeks ago, there was a little of industry buzz when the producers of Lost announced that their show would have three and only three more seasons. Six total years is a good run, more than the expected five which had already been rumored earlier. However, to compensate for the extra year, each season will only have 18 episodes, rather than the usual 22 to 24.

Lost, of course, gets a lot of credit for making this groundbreaking decision to end their show so far ahead of time. But, this is not the first time such thing has been done. Back in the '90's, TV producer & writer J. Michael Straczynski firmly declared that his show Babylon 5 (my all time favorite TV show) would last only five years and no more than that, and he declared this before a single frame of footage was committed to film.

Changes to On The Lot

I like the show, but apparently, ratings have been too low for Fox's comfort. According to TV Guide, the competition show and the results show would be combined into the same night. If America is supposed to be able to vote by internet and phone, how is it even possible to combine both events into the same night? Perhaps the judges will make the selections instead of the home audience.

Picture of Speed Racer Movie's Mach 5 Released

The picture of the Mach 5 looks pretty good and remarkably similar to the old cartoon version. I'm surprised they did not change the design more.



According to Wikipedia, the live-action Speed Racer is being produced by Joel Silver; directed by the Wachowski brothers; and stars Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer, John Goodman and Susan Sarandon as Speed's parents, Christina Ricci as Speed's girlfriend Trixie, Matthew Fox (probably) as Racer X, and a real chimpanzee (supposedly) as Chim Chim. It has a release date of 09 May 2008.

New Transformers TV Spot

There have been several TV spots for the forthcoming Transformers movie, but the newest seems to be the most different from the full-length trailers. The images flash by quickly, so this movie is being very protective of it's visual surprises. It's still pretty exciting. Check it out below.



Transformers' release date has been bumped early by a day to 03 July 2007.

Mike Huckabee on CBS's "Face the Nation" Last Sunday

Now that I've won an iPod in an eBay auction, I've been subscribing to a few more podcasts, including the one for CBS's Sunday morning news show "Face the Nation" hosted by Bob Schieffer. I like Bob Schieffer. Occasionally his voice sounds like gravel in a soda can, but he's a cool old guy who asks good questions, makes insightful comments, and seems overall to be a "straight-shooter."

I remember watching Bob interview former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld one time about a year or two ago. Rumsfeld was being evasive and cryptic and half nuts as usual, and Bob wasn't satisfied with some of his answers. A few times Bob called Rumsfeld on his B.S. Rumsfeld stubbornly "answered" the questions with that squinty, "why-doesn't-anyone-understand-my-craziness" look on his face. Realizing he wasn't going to get a real answer out of Rumsfeld no matter how hard he tried, Bob practically giggled and gave up on the interview. He didn't give up in a defeated kind of way, more like a "this-guy-is-wasting-my-time" kind of way.

Anyway, the show from last Sunday included an interview with Mike Huckabee, one of my currently preferred presidential candidates. The interview went much better than the one with Rumsfeld because both Bob Schieffer and Mike Huckabee are as articulate as they are candid. Unfortunately, Bob focused a lot on campaign funds and with a fair bit of pessimism, considering how low on the totem pole Huckabee is on funds. On the other hand, Bob praised Huckabee for being an interesting, refreshing, alternative candidate. In a way, Bob affirmed that Huckabee is also a worthy candidate, despite the financial challenge. I wish the interview had been longer because Bob only got to ask two questions about the issues, one about Iraq, one about religion.

Unfortunately, the "Share" links from the CBS video viewer force you to sit through a Xerox commercial first (something you don't have to do if you access video by already being in the CBS website), and I found the links directly to the videos to be a bit buggy, so here's the link for the CBS page from which you can access the Mike Huckabee Face the Nation interview (and don't be fooled by the headline at the top--the mention of Romney's misleading hunting statement is only a tiny part of the interview). The video links are in the blue section in the right-side column.

Mike Huckabee on The Daily Show

Mike Huckabee, former Republican governor of Arkansas, is one of the lower tier presidential candidates that I like and am wanting to learn more about.

The videos below are parts 1 & 2 of his appearance on The Daily Show. He and Jon mostly talk about Huckabee's book, "From Hope to Higher Ground," (which I own but have not gotten much of a chance to read yet), and no mention is made of running for president, so this appearance must have been before he announced his candidacy.

The interview is pretty good. I like Huckabee. He has a good viewpoint on things and expresses it in an articulate way. Jon challenges him on whether what he says is rhetoric, but Huckabee seems pretty honest to me.

Huckabee is fresh on my mind right now because of an article I found online about him challenging the authenticity of a claim made by Mitt Romney's team regarding Romney's hunting experience. It prompted some clarification on the part of Romney's people, but I have to admit, it's kind of a "softball" challenge.

Anyway, here are two pieces of the Daily Show interview:

Clips from The Daily Show's Best Night This Past Week

I go in and out of phases in which I watch late night TV. In the last week or two, I've been back on a Daily Show kick.

It has been especially good lately, but they were really on their game one night last week, Wednesday, I believe.

In the first part of the show, Jon and one of the "expert" correspondants talked about the scandal in Washington. Then after the commercial break, Jon "summoned" a previous guest, who's an expert on Lincoln, to counter one of John Bolton's accusations that Jon Stewart was wrong about how Lincoln chose his cabinet members.

Below are the videos from that night. My favorite ones are the last two.