The DONATION STATION

You may have noticed the extremely obvious DONATE button at the top of the page. Well, it's that time again, folks: Marlon is in the closing stretch of postproduction, and we're gearing up for FILM FESTIVAL SEASON. We want to take Marlon to 25 film festivals across the United States (and Canada), to maximize our chances of picking up a distribution deal, or landing jobs for the cast and crew (or winning awards. Let me dream).

Unfortunately, Festivals aren't free. To take it out across the country, we're trying to raise $1,000 to help cover submission fees. Everyone who contributes will be thanked in the credits, because we truly can't do this without you, just as this movie couldn't have been made without your help. So please, give what you can, so we can get this movie to the masses.

We're so close.

P.S. - Just tested the donation button myself. It works, is secured through Stripe, and made me ridiculously happy.

The marlon curse and the failure of pianos

So.

A podcast was supposed to go up yesterday, but rather than record it, I spent the day prepping for what was supposed to be a five-hour recording session in Escanaba this morning. The plan was for my pianist for "Ave Maria")and I to drive over to Esky with her kick-ass electric piano, meet Dan Zini (audio god) and Enron (pianist for the epic, three-part "Marlon Suite") at Studio 10, and record all the piano parts for Marlon morning. Wake up at 5:00 a.m., pick aforementioned lady pianist up, drive drive drive, start recording at 7:00 a.m.

I got a text at 2:30 a.m. from the girl who was meant to be playing "Ave Maria" in a few hours' time. Her boyfriend's radiator had exploded in his face and she was dealing with a crisis of infinitely greater importance than my little indie. The fact that she contacted me at all (and perhaps even suggested she might still be able to record) is a testament to the fact that I found the right girl for the job. She's got that thing you need to be part of a Marlon crew: that tilt of the chin, that razor glint in your eye, that "Why not?" attitude that takes you to a horror movie set in the middle of the woods at two in the morning, or driving to a recording studio at five because fuck it, why not? Why not make pretend with fun, funny people?

Of course, she's not insane. She stayed with her fella, tended her wounded, and told me to tell her when another recording window opened up.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened on Marlon. I think it was Ryan Sitzberger who said it first, but I might be misremembering. He called it "The Marlon Curse."

The night before we were scheduled to start shooting, my lead actress emailed me and told me she couldn't be involved with the film anymore. (I redrafted the script the following morning and cast John Scheibe as "Jules" a few hours later.)

The night before we were meant to shoot a party scene in my friend's basement, her house burned down. We had considered hauling the gear over a day early, but didn't. (We shot it elsewhere, and I never ended up using it after all.)

Arriving at the cabin location one day to shoot all the scenes set in my Uncle's sauna, which was situated at the back of his garage, we discovered that his garage had collapsed. We ended up having to crawl through wreckage, under icy, bent metal beams and over leaking, ruptured fuel tanks to get to the sauna. We lit the scenes with deer shiners and clamp lights on hundred-foot extension cords running out of the rubble, but we got the shots. They look great.

The day my brother and I were meant to haul all our gear (guitars, drums, amps, speaker cabinets, etc.) to Escanaba to start the soundtrack recording sessions, Dan's computer and the sound board for the theatrical show he was working on at the time were completely fried...the day before opening night. He had to spend the day redesigning an entire show and replacing the destroyed electronics. (Sam and I hauled the gear two days later, and recorded all the tracks we needed in two days. We'd scheduled six.)

Then this morning. Marlon hasn't made it easy, not once, not ever. But it's been mostly fun, and my revolving-door crew and I keep making it the way we always have: one step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

I ended up going to Escanaba this morning. Poured my coffee, left at 5:30 a.m., and got there on time. Dan and I discussed what we could do instead of recording piano parts (Enron was tied up all morning and we had to reschedule him as well). I recorded the vocal tracks for four of the six metal songs: "Churchburner," "Dogma," "Sick on Sunday Morning," and "White Whale." I've got the sore throat familiar to me from the good old days of high school, tracking original metal with my brother in our bedroom / studio / jam space.

Now I'm drinking green tea with honey and listening to the Cranberries with my wife. She's mainlining caffeine and plowing helter-skelter ever-deeper into the color grade. She's working on the scene that makes me cringe every time I see it (Mariah knows which I mean), and everything feels right.

It's a dog's August, hot and clinging and salt, but fall is in the air.

And this fall, I'll have a finished film on my hard drive. Marlon will be ready for my friends, family, the festivals, and the world.

--Max Peterson

August 13th, 2015

The Ultimate Update - August 11, 2015

Where do I begin? Not at the beginning. We covered all that. Me begging for money, fueled by a podcast, a good friend, a stoned cult film giant, an idea.

Then I shot a movie.

Then I pretty much disappeared.

Sorry about that.

Let’s start with this, since it’s taken on as much a life as Marlon ever did: I’ve got the podcasting station set up again in the upstairs office, and Bird and I are going to be dropping Chat-Man and Robin Episode 21 on schedule, on Wednesday, and hopefully will keep on track from now on. The move from the Brookton house threw us off a bit, and audio postproduction for Marlon took up so much of my headspace that I just never got back to it.

Bird and I have been working opposite shifts lately, her in the morning, me at night, so that I rarely get to see her for more than an hour at a time, and then we’re both so exhausted from work that we can’t manage more than some stupid television show and going to bed early. I miss talking to her, hanging out with her, engaging with her on a level deeper than “How was work? Tiring? Me too? Good night.” Maybe it’s strange, but Chat-Man and Robin is one of my favorite things in the world to do, and since it’s something I can do with her, yesterday I dug out the mics and the mixer, dusted off my more colorful pieces of profanity, and turned the office into a podcasting station again.

But not all things can be as they were. I’m officially retiring Chat-Man and Blabbermouth, which I did with Mariah Rosado once upon a time (we’re both live busy and much different lives than we did two years ago, when we recorded the first episode), as well as Morning Word. Morning Word was at its best when it was me and Alice Snively in the early morning, with our coffee and our booze and Carey Grant and controversial subjects. Without her, there’s something missing. Besides, I couldn’t fill the guest spot on even a bi-weekly basis. It’s harder than you think to get people to come hang out and bullshit with a microphone in their face. Who knew?

So CMR continues, the others go to the dustbin (maybe I’ll put all those old episodes up somewhere on the site someday, but for now I’m just pulling them down to make room for the future.

The future? Oh, let me tell you about that.

To get some more time in front of these mics I love so much, I’m currently putting together a new podcast to fill the hole Morning Word will leave behind. It’s one Joe McAuliffe (a longtime friend to Marlon and me in general, and one of the coolest, kindest guys I know) and I kicked around back in the day, back before ever I’d said word one into a mic. The concept was simple: once a week, we’d get together and indulge in our vice of the moment while talking about shitty old movies. It sounded like a roaring good time then, and I still think it does.

I’ve updated the concept a bit: I’ll sit down once a week with my clever, funny, movie-loving friends, we’ll imbibe, and we’ll talk about good movies. Each guest will have a genre we’ll work within, so the listeners can have some sense of what to expect week to week. For example, Mike Rutecki and I are going to make commentary tracks for movies about music (probably mostly rock, punk, and blues); when Matt Nicely drops by, we’ll dig into weird, cerebral, outside-the-box flicks like Killer Joe and Requiem for a Dream; when I finally wrangle my brother into the chair, we’ll watch fighting flicks and action movies: think Warrior, Rocky, Die Hard...that sort of thing.

When my filmmaking friends are in town, I’ll do guest spots where we watch whatever we damn well please.

Some of my favorite podcasts have been the ones where I sit down with Alice or Bird or whoever and just yammer over a great flick. Obviously, movies hold a dear place in my heart and have had an enormous presence in my life. I’ve said it before: watching movies is like going to church for me. My Pulp Fiction and Godfather DVDs are my bible study. Thomas Theaters is my Cathedral. I pray in slug lines and Courier New. This is a great excuse to watch wonderful movies with wonderful people and hopefully hit you with a couple laughs as well.

I still haven’t decided what to call it yet. I’m thinking “Through the Lens,” “Behind the Lens,” “The Monday Movie Mumble...” Any suggestions? Hit me up on Twitter (@MaxJPeterson) and let me know, or leave a comment.

Now then.

Marlon. That’s what this is all really about, I suppose. None of this comes without that, and everyone’s been waiting so patiently while I go to film school day to day on this thing. So let me tell you where we are:

1) THE COLOR GRADE: Once Bird and I finish the color grade, Marlon will officially be picture-locked, which means that the final cut is completed, the color grade is finished and just the way we like it, and that’s that. Once this is done, the video portion of Marlon is completely done.

Come hell or high water or ulcers from coffee, Bird and I will have the color grade done by Sunday, August 16th. (Renowned FRT Actor Adam Lowe is getting married on Saturday, so we’re undoubtedly going to lose that day. What an asshole, right?)

2) THE SOUNDTRACK: There’s a studio down in Escanaba, called Studio 10. It’s run by Shadd, Kevin, and Dan (when he’s not being the busiest man in the world), and they are the coolest crew of audio nerds I’ve ever met. Incredible guys, who went way beyond the extra mile, and made recording 16 tracks in two days possible. We had scheduled two weeks to record those tracks (see Marlon tab for a track listing for the soundtrack), but because of these guys, we did it in two days.

I’m still not sure how. After our first day of recording, I swear to god I thought the session had been a dream, because a dream was more likely than recording an entire metal album in a single day (we did metal first).

So where we are with the soundtrack is this: all the drums and rhythm guitar parts are recorded. The vocals are recorded for all but the metal tracks (I had to sing at a wedding, and didn’t want to blow my voice out screaming my balls off the day before).

This Thursday, I’m driving over to Escanaba with Alyssha Ginzel to record the piano part for our version of Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” My friend Enron (who lives in Esky) is meeting us at the studio to record a three-part piano suite we’re calling “The Marlon Suite.” (Bit on the nose, but hey.) My cousin Kate Williams will be heading down to the studio sometime the following week to record the vocal part for “Ave Maria.”

If I can find a crack in her schedule anywhere, my cousin Katie Jarvi is supposed to record some creepy cello for me as well. Fingers crossed, I can get her in next week as well...we’ll see what happens. If I can’t get her, the music I have will see us through, but I’d love to have some weird cello harmonics in the score.

I have to record lead guitar for some tracks and vocals for the metal. Dan has to do his bass parts for everything.

Then the soundtrack is done.

3) THE AUDIO MIX: This is the one thing I’m not sure about. Dan is working on this at home and at the studio in Escanaba. Since the soundtrack isn’t completed quite yet, what he’s working on at the moment is cleaning up the dialogue and the on-set audio track. He’s told me that everything we recorded while shooting the movie is usable, so Marlon will need almost no ADR.

Which, to be honest, is a miracle.

Mariah Rosado is going to record some Foley next week. I’m going to start on Foley next week as well, to take some of the burden off Dan, to free him up to finish the soundtrack mixes, so he can dive into the final audio mix. Like I said, this is the timeline I’m least certain about (Dan is the audio wizard. I’m basically an audio idiot, so I have no real hand in this bit, which means I’m flying a bit blind, here. But if there’s one person in the world I need to put my faith in for Marlon’s audio, it’s Dan Zini. He knows his shit, and he works harder than anyone I’ve met since the original Marlon production crew.)

Dan has told me that September 3rd is our deadline, and I believe we can do it. We’re going to have to work our asses off for a couple weeks, but that’s nothing I haven’t done before. Just ask anyone who shot with us in May, when the snow was starting to melt, or the crew that shot in my basement the day we filmed half of Marlon in a single day.

4) THE OTHER STUFF: I still have releases and contracts to send out to a few people. That’ll be done by September 3rd. Since we’re going to be done with Marlon by then, I’ll be holding the cast and crew screening the second week in September. Then a small test screening the third week in September.

Which means we’ll start submitting Marlon on October 1st.

Of course, the best laid deadlines of mice and men are often missed, but I’m going to keep positivity in the air. I’ve surrounded myself with YES People, and it hasn’t failed me yet. Besides, I’ve been working on this thing long enough. It’s about damn time it was finished.

###

So that’s where we are. That’s what I’m doing, what I’m up to. We’re almost done. I think that I can bring it in on time, with my current crew.

For everyone who has Indigogo perks coming:

I’ll get digital copies of the movie out right after the final test screening, to ensure you get a bug-free, totally final copy. If you got a DVD, that’ll be a little longer, while we finish the special features and commentary tracks and such, but you’ll get your digital copy the day it’s done. You have my word.

Soundtrack people, you’ll get that as soon as Dan is done with the mix and my brother and I decide on the best track order. Think mid-September.

The Art Book is going to take a bit longer. Working on the movie means I don’t have time to put together the art book right now, but I’ll do my best to have it done by Christmas. I’ve got a lot of cool stuff planned for it. I haven’t decided whether or not to include the shooting script for Marlon or the draft just before, which was much sexier, much more violent, and was written before I switched “Julia” to “Jules.” Thoughts?

T-shirts are getting made in October or November, and we’ll send them out as they come in.

And that’s where we are. Expect another blog in the next week or so where I start begging for money again, so we can trot this out to as many places as possible, but for now, just enjoy these little snippets and clips from the soundtrack recording sessions.

And thank you, again, all of you, for everything you’ve done for me and this movie over the past two years. I can’t tell you what it’s meant to me (but maybe I’ll try to write it into the art book).

--Max Peterson

In the third house he’s lived in since he wrote Marlon
August 11, 2015

Edit to Add: The podcast did not go up on time. Go figure. There was a very good, somewhat alarming, somewhat scary, and somewhat tragic reason for this. I'll write about it tonight or tomorrow, and the podcast will hopefully be up soon.