More screenings! More awesome reactions and more adventures!

Greetings!  Had an amazing time in Orlando FL at the Spooky Empire Mayhem show.  Had a pretty damned good turnout for the film.  I was surprised!  There was a VIP party, a Q&A with the cast of American Horror Story: Freakshow and even a Haunted House tour going on at the same exact time and we still brought in a good crowd.  Really excited that I finally met my old friend Scott Gabbey in person.  Scott does Ultra Violent magazine and we have been friends for ages!  Also met Stephen Biro from Unearthed Films and the awesome effects master Marcus Koch.  The staff at the Spooky Empire show really made us feel welcome and treated us like royalty.  Truly a good group of people.  One of the highlights for me was also meeting Mike, the owner of Grindhouse Video.  They are gonna be our official South Florida connection!!!  Antwoine had a smile a mile wide as he signed autographs.  Hooked up with Damon Pro, Jason Fetters (my old school friend) and got to finally meet Alberto Giovannelli!  Made some great contacts and looks like we may be doing more business in Florida soon.

Drop in and catch us in Decatur!!!

Coming up next is June 12-13 the Dead In Decatur Filmfest, followed by the great Double Feature at the Drive In June 17 at the Skyline Drive In – Shelbyville, IN –  An awesome double feature with Circus of the Dead! Part of the Indie SINsations series of films! All proceeds go to support the historic Skyline Drive In Theater! Drop in and have some fun and you’ll be helping keep this awesome theater alive!!!!!!!

I am so happy with the love and support we continue to receive from Horror fans all over the world!  It has been a wild ride.  Screenings are slowing down a bit now, getting the extras finished and everything ready for the upcoming DVD/BluRay releases.  Really looking forward to that!!!

On a side note, I had mentioned a while back in this blog that there were a few rough spots in the Post Production process, and I am STILL working on the sound mix.  Many people who have seen it in a theater never notice any issues, but I am a perfectionist.  When we took it to a third party for the sound mix / Dolby 5.1 processing, it was scary as hell and even though the place where we took the film does great work and really worked hard, I have never been happy with the mix.  When we went from a Dolby Stereo to the 5.1… it just lost something.  Many of my old favorites when they put them on BluRay I notice similar issues with the new 5.1 mixes – I usually listen to the Stereo tracks.  Unless you have a proper 5.1 decoder, I feel the sound is a bit thin and “trebly” and that it takes some of the meat from the mix.  So for months I have regretted allowing any third party to touch the film.  I always said I would never allow it, and I caved in… not really by choice… I was kind of pushed into it.  And I regret it.  So I have been spending day and night remastering the sound the best I can without going WAY back to the original tracks – that was about 2 years ago and several versions of the film.  If I have to, I will do that, but so far it looks like I am going to be able to use these newer tracks and I will be able to fix them with the tools I have here.  Just goes to show that even now the film is not complete the way I heard it in my head, so I want to make sure to do the best I can to bring that version of the sound, to the DVD/BluRay.  Most theaters have the good 5.1 encoders so it plays fine…. but many home systems do not.  So I think this version is a MUST.  I want to make sure that everyone loves this film when it gets the home video release.  The documentary is finished and it is actually as long as the feature!!!!  I was surprised!!! For me, this has been a real adventure and through the ups and downs, the good and bad, the stress and anxiety and the great times, this has been my call to the world that I AM STILL ALIVE!!!!!!!!  And the Documentary really shows that.  Andrew did a great job capturing that side of things.  At first I was unsure about it, I am just seriously a NO EGO type of person… I hate it.  No delusions, no ego, no BS.  But as I saw the documentary come together, I bent a little… I realized it is an important story to tell, and my near death experience and rebirth from that was a major part of the story.  All of the extras will have impact and they will bring the viewer along on the adventure.  Also, for the BluRay, I want to include the full first uncut raw version of the film… a bit rough around the edges, it is the first draft edit, with pretty much every scene in the film.  Fans of the flick will be able to watch all of the deleted scenes in their proper place in the film, and see the changes we made.  There may even be a special commentary that I will do for that version to explain things.  We will see….

Our growing list of Film Festivals!!!

That’s all for this one…. we’ll catch up again soon…. and until then, hope to meet you at one of the screenings!!!!

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Still going strong in 2015!

Been a while since I updated the blog here. Still doing Film festivals and Conventions, as well as some theater showings, including the Horror On Sea festival in London – It was a crowd favorite! Antwoine Steele and I went to Ohio in April for the always excellent Cinema Wasteland convention and it was a massive success!!! People loved the film, but more than that, it also helped us connect with more people who wanna show the movie! It screened a week or two later in Canada at Shock Stock as well. We have a small chain of Drive Ins preparing to screen it as well as a few more Conventions. It has been in over 30 film festivals and was just accepted to be involved in the “Dead In Decatur” Film Festival…

Our growing list of Film Festivals!!!

We are preparing to screen the film at Spooky Empire in Orlando, FL on May 16th as well. We have been very lucky and blessed by the amazing response this film has gotten and the great reviews out there. Of course, we have also been planning for the upcoming DVD and BluRay release of the film… the documentary is finished for the special features, the artwork is coming along nicely and there will be two versions of the actual film, the full uncut version and the Theatrical (Festival) cut of the film. We recorded the commentary track for the Theatrical version already… with Nicole Santorella, Antwoine Steele, Bryan David, Amanda Payton, Johnnie Reed and myself (Todd Sheets). It was a good time for sure.

It is so nice to have so many people enjoy the film on behalf of the cast and crew, we thank every single person who has watched, supported, promoted and fallen in love with House of Forbidden Secrets!!!!

We hope to have the film out on these formats by mid-Summer 2015. After the next screening, I’ll be back to give another update…