First of all, for those of you who keep track of such a trivial thing as time, we apologize for the lengthy absence between postings. We had a very busy, eventful 2011 and it limited blog postings. Quick update: We picked up some new RED Epics this fall but lost an Aaron B Smith along the way. (Okay, a very quick update.) Many emotions, but, overall, the Grand Rapids production scene has been good to us.

Enjoy our latest collaboration: The 2011 Gorilla Demo Reel! You know how to watch it, don’t you? You pop it full screen, crank it up, and keep time with the beat. Cheers.

The future is now. Check out this quick video clip of our RED One streaming live to an iPad via the new Teradek Cube. It’s video assist at it’s nerdiest.

Well it’s over. Until we actually make it. Principal photography for the New Saxony trailer wrapped last night in a flurry of snow, bonfires, and Nordic wild men. The concept trailer, created in collaboration with 10 West Studios will soon be edited for use as a pitch piece to (hopefully) secure funding for a full length feature film.

In the meantime have a look at this short BTS of our work-in-progress.

And now for a quick update.

We’re having some fun in the frozen north of Michigan. It’s cold. It’s snowy. And we found a Goat Man.

In May of 2010, Gorilla Pictures took a trip to Philadelphia, PA with a few of our friends from Amway. The goal? To document the work of Amway’s Positive Sprouts initiative, part of their One by One Campaign for Children. There we filmed the creation of an inner city garden, purposed to teach children about sustainable food sources and healthy living. The resulting effort was pretty cool. Philadelphia’s Amway community showed up in a big way and worked with the Frankfort Boy’s and Girl’s club to literally create the garden in a day.

The video we created to document this event has been accepted into Boston College’s, Center for Corporate Citizenship Film Festival. While our work was only a small part of what Amway is doing through their One by One campaign, we’re excited to have contributed and wish them lots of luck in the film festival.

If you would like to see the video and cast a vote to help it win, simply follow this link and scroll down until you find the entry labeled “Amway.” You can’t miss it.

For more info check out Amway’s blog: blogs.amway.com

Today is a big day. It’s the opening day of “Big Momma’s House: Like Father, Like Son”, the third film in the Martin Lawrence-helmed series. And as of 2:38 PM, Friday Feb 18, the film is currently rated at 0% on the Tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes … which might be a bit generous. Let’s go to the reviews.

Cruel: “Agonisingly slow and laughter-free.” Charlotte O’Sullivan — This is London

Crueler: “The movie is at least 20 minutes too long. Actually, it’s 107 minutes too long.” Roz Laws — Birmingham Post

Cruelest: “The world’s least funny comedian returns in this lazily written, pointless and painfully laugh-free threequel … that should be avoided at all costs.” Matthew Turner – ViewLondon

Brutal. But this got us to thinking about other films like it. Films that use the “Hey, look at me! I didn’t even try to come up with something new!” big, red font for their titling. So, in honor of the opening day of “Big Momma’s House: Like Father, Like Son”, we present to you several more marketing schemes that give good proof to this equation: Red Font + Comedy = Terrible.

I never thought I’d be sitting on an office floor using a pair of scissors to hack at an innocent teddy bear while a stuffed duck looked on with black beady eyes, awaiting its own sad fate. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the hides of these fluffy friends were going to a noble cause. These plush pals will soon find themselves as wardrobe pieces for tribe members in the trailer for New Saxons.  I, the new Gorilla intern, Meredith Laden never imagined I would be completing such a task, but would I trade it for the mundane office work that many interns find themselves saddled with? Absolutely not.

As a photojournalism student, I’ve had a few internships in the newspaper business, which were awesome learning experiences, but in this, my final semester of college, I knew something else was in order. After I graduate I hope to find myself across the globe somewhere as a photographer/videographer/writer of some sort for a missons organization. With that goal in mind, I set out to find an internship to sharpen my skills in video production.  Long story short I met a young man named Caleb Slain in a lovely coffee shop called The Bitter End. He told me about Gorilla Pictures and got me in contact with Aaron Smith and the rest is proverbial history.

I already feel like this internship will be an awesome growing experience for me. Not only in knowledge of video production, but in creativity. The Gorilla office is a relaxed and creative environment – very different from the newsrooms I’ve worked in before. There’s much more of a communal feeling and a lot more fun in the air. The Gorilla gang has been so gracious to me in my first few weeks here- giving me Final Cut tutorials, letting me play with the Canon 7D, and getting me in the swing of things.  As mentioned earlier, these first few weeks of Gorilla interning have been filled with running around town with Naomi gathering wardrobe pieces for New Saxons, getting acquainted with everything here in the office, and planning out projects for me to start working on in the future. So here I am, a part of the Gorilla crew, ready to soak up the knowledge, expertise, and artistry of the folks here.

Another year, our friends, and another list of our favorite films. Now, a little disclaimer here: these are the films that we most enjoyed watching — not what we believe were the films that will win the most awards, or the ones that will be bronzed in statues outside of Philadelphia Art Museums. Also, we weren’t able to see all that we would’ve liked to. Eric Johnson, for example, wasn’t able to get out and see some of the four-starrers (ala “Black Swan”) because of two new additions to his family, and Eric Machiela, while forehead deep in film production in Mexico, wasn’t able to get to the theater for a spell and unfortunately didn’t get a chance to ogle his man-crush, James Franco, in “127 Hours”, which he surely would’ve enjoyed.

Happy 2011 to all. I think it’s going to be a good one for Gorilla. Now, enjoy our terrible opinions.

Scott Brookens

1. The Social Network

2. 127 Hours

3. How to Train Your Dragon

4. Inception

5. Winter's Bone

6. Toy Story 3

7. Black Swan

8. True Grit

9. The Town

10. The Fighter

Aaron Smith, who included TV — and not necessarily from this year. (I don’t think he got the exercise.)

1. Exit Through The Gift Shop

2. The Town

3. Mad Men (Season 4)

4. The Social Network

5. Restrepo

6. Breaking Bad (Season 1, 2)

7. True Grit

8. Sick: The Life and Death of Supermasochist, Bob Flanagan

9. Winter's Bone

10. Arrested Development - Complete Series

Eric Johsnon

1. Winter's Bone

2. How to Train Your Dragon

3. Easy A

4. The Social Network

5. The King's Speech

6. Toy Story 3

7. The Town

8. The Ghost Writer

9. Animal Kingdom

10. True Grit

Eric Machiela

1. The Social Network

2. How to Train Your Dragon

3. Black Swan

4. Toy Story 3

5. The Fighter

6. The King's Speech

7. Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

8. Tangled

9. Winter's Bone

10. True Grit

As you may know, we’ve brought our film production from Grand Rapids, Michigan down to Saltillo to assist our friend and director, Joel Vallie, in producing a feature film, a microbudget experience with a hundred headaches but a thousand grins. So when he writes a scene that has 100 demons in make-up running down Mexican streets, I might be tempted to say, “Oh, Joel. That ain’t gonna work. How are we gonna feed them? Where are they going to make their water? No one is going to show up anyway…and if they do who is going to do the demon make-up?” And his response was always the same, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get on it.” So we didn’t worry, trusted his favor, and sure enough, he delivered by bringing Hawgfly Productions on to set last week.

This movie has some intense special effects make-up and we needed a team that was up for the challenge. Meredith Johns (co-owner) recently finished up working on “Spy Kids 4″, this year’s Coen Brother’s movie “True Grit”, and last year, she was the head make-up artist on Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete” (which by the way, if you haven’t seen, is a 2010 gem that was overlooked). So what is she doing on a film where we’re paying people in tacos? Cause she loves film and helping directors reach their vision…on any level.

So, she brought down three amazingly talented, patient, hard working make-up artists with her and they worked magic on a very small budget, utilizing freaky contact lens, patented Hawgfly blood, tattoos of veins, and dentures that would scare even your father. We would’ve loved to have spent $5,000 dollars on face molds and all that good stuff but unfortunately it’ll have to wait for the next time.

See a very brief picture show of the process here:

A relatively clean Ben Chamberlain

Applying some vein tattoos h'yeah!

He passes it to the man...

And BOOM goes the dynamite!

Pretty cool, huh? And we also had to make up our 27-year old production assistant as an old lady demon:

Ah, yes. It’s been good times down here. We’re on Day 19 of 20 today and everybody’s about to roll out of here tired and exhausted but, we think, rewarded. We have 5 days of film production for this movie scheduled in Michigan in April that we will need some help on (and by help, I do mean “free labor”). So who’s interested?!

More later.

PS. Somewhere on this trip, our little Gorilla van that can has developed a new rattling somewhere in the undercarriage, but she’s still running like Prefontaine. 2,800 miles and counting on this trip…

Well, we just about made it through week one before the press showed up. See the article here: VANGUARDIA NOTICIAS

Joel (our director) claimed that he wanted to shoot this film on the down low, not attracting any attention – especially that of the press. But my gutty parts tell me otherwise. Look at that “working pose” he strikes in the Vanguardia article. Something tells me he’s enjoying this. And here are some more photos from the week!!

Actors Ben Chamberlain and Kristen Barrett

Kaelin (actor) getting bloody ...

Gabe, Eric, Joel, and Mike involved in man talk

We didn't know how to film the scene where the car hits Ben without making it cheesy. So we just hit him.

We're filming with this stud, Ernesto D'Alessio. The senoritas love him.

Ernesto's adoring fans show up all the time and he delivers autographs like I deliver high fives. Quite freely.

More soon. Thanks for tuning in.