Montgomery, TX. - Recently in the ill darken indie film society of Austin, Texas has there been so much talk about a mini-series that has taken the Goth community by storm. Filled with a new line of young actors who stuck to the commitment of filming for over two years and devoting to working within a small team ethic, the fruits of their labor have captivated the film scene in two of the largest cities in Texas, making the return of mini-series web productions a tremendous broad step in the right direction.
PIECES OF 8 [PO8] had very little to offer in it's initial inception, but a script re-write and several intimidating scene locations took the new venture into dark territory, drowning the visual aids with a dark, murky abyssal tone that would bring a spine tingling chill to anyone who watches the mini-series gasping for air at times. Is this article just just another attempt at boosting interest or embellishing the studios attempt at releasing a new indie film?...well, of course it is. But even more spellbinding to present in this write up is that Meta Data has proved that PO8 has already crossed over the 100K threshhold in streaming, making this film more profitable than what the entire budget took to get the whole project into production.
Producers Patti Weisler Hall and Barbara Johnston are truly awestruck as the series not only covered the expenses of production, but that a strong fandom has begun to follow the series at such a high expectancy, that there's already talks about putting forth a second series and starting that production sooner than expected. A strong case of the prime success of this feature project is largely due to the new format in production, which was once considered a "No-No" within the indie filming community but was used extensively throughout the series production. So much so, that the studio will be starting production on a SciFi series in May entitled, OPERATION ISCANDAR, after that series also fell under an extensive rewrite that forced the studio to cast another new line of actors to get the production lined up for pre-production.
Series developer, D. R. Quintana, has had very little to say about what has caused the studio to rewrite scripts and change the direction of his studio teams production efforts on at least four different planned studio releases that have now been indefinitely shut down until further notice. In every new direction change, it seems that the planned projects have either been completely dismantled or one project was transferred into another project, further bolstering storylines and plots to each new project, even further challenging the character development towards a higher plane of existence than previously planned. PO8 not only pushed the studio to "aim high" with the actors performances, but it also used set locations that challenged the crews lighting throughout the entire presentation.
The producers claim that a lot of PO8's new strength came from Quintana being recently influenced by the production efforts seen in Season 4 of TRUE DETECTIVE, shown on HBO MAX, starring Oscar Winner Jodie Foster. That series was glamorously filmed and all of the outside scenes were filmed entirely in the natural dark. Some might say that PO8's director had the same experience while filming the studios vaunted feature, ZERO-ZERO-ONE, that is still under a myriad of re-shoots and re-casting over 40% of scenes and changing the dynamics of the plot and story by adding a new ending to the film. None of ZERO-ZERO-ONE's cast believe that the mass changes in the film were intended as overkill, but all desire to see what the changes will do to the original script that was chopped away, and for good reason.
PO8 has not only opened new doors for the director to enhance his filming technique, but it has also proven to be the foundation for reinforcing the studios desire to punch out more projects in the near future, will limited production time and budgetary costs. In a project filled with so many well planned practical effects, PO8 is not only mostly free of green/blue screen effects, it has proven that the all actors were given free realm to perform in a theater type environment, that proves that these actors can act, and not pretend to act, hoping that split scene can bring magic to a performance that might lack substance. The studios new filming format reinforces that the theater-style approach has cut production time and costs in every take of the series.
But "why time traveling vampires?" one might ask. According to the director, the idea has never been attempted before. It is suffice to say that any idea of seeing a vampire film or series always has a presentation of immortality, seeing one character live through a millennia of time progressing forward, but never backwards and u sing the past as a reason for justifying the taking of ones life force who was to die in a horrendous historical event, say a fire, a plane crash, or other catastrophe. PO8's success also lands on the wardrobe choices of John and Jennifer Lindsey, who provided and altered many of the costumes in this futuristic vampire opus, directed and written by Quintana.
The studio continues to efficiently advertise it's projects, producing cutting edge ads and also design a platform for viewing new releases on a new indie film streaming service that is independent from high cost hosts that usually bog down indie films upon their release; making it hard for fans to see the film. In retrospect, the studio has surely distanced itself from the badly arranged glut of indie film teams that continue to release low budget B-films that absolutely have no chance in the marketing or gaining the thresh hold Meta Data required to comfortably succeed in gaining the needed respect of consistently high viewing numbers within the streaming monetary world of professionally successful indie films.
Maria Pesito
Contributing Writer, Studio Advertiser Mgr
