A lot, actually.

First, and foremost, I became a daddy. ZOMG I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT! She’s so tiny and sweet and cute and…okay, I could go on for hours. Suffice it to say my wife and I couldn’t be happier.

And did I mention she’s cute?

Anyway, when I’m not feeding her or changing her or just holding her for the hell of it, I’ve managed to find some time to work on several tasks, some for Timewarp, some just for me.

I submitted a full-length script to Final Draft’s Big Break Competition. The deadline was June 15th and I just squeaked in at the last minute. Many thanks to those who proofread and offered feedback; I missed a few embarrassing typos.

I’ve heard mixed things about screenwriting contests in general, but I wanted to give it a shot so I could see how my writing compares to other potential screenwriters–at least in the eyes of the Big Break judges. If I place, I’ll be ecstatic, not to mention the nice prizes they offer. And if some A-list prod. co. is interested in the script, awesome! Final Draft, in case you’re wondering, is one of the premiere screenwriting packages on the market. It’s used by many industry professionals, and is my software of choice. “Just add words,” is so true.

I’ve also been working on the Dead Hunt DVD set due to be released this summer (We’re hoping to have copies for sale at Horrorfind in August). This is the most ambitious DVD project I’ve worked on. The 2-disk set will have 2 audio tracks for the feature (including commentary), a stills gallery, alternate endings, bloopers, making of, and even an Easter egg. I have a few more tweaks, then it’s off to the presses. For those interested, I’m again using DVD Lab Studio for the authoring.

Finally, I’ve started research for a new feature I’m writing for Timewarp (while I am a wannabe Hollywood screenwriter, I do write for our low-budget film company.) I’m looking into the world of Military Special Forces, so to say the film will be action-oriented is an understatement. But don’t worry, it will have plenty of suspense and horror as well.

And for those eagerly awaiting news about Crawler, fret not, for my team and I will be picking up the pace once the Dead Hunt DVD is completed.

Adobe recently announced the release of their upcoming Creative Suite 3 (CS3). I always keep an eye on Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere Pro to see if the update will make my life easier. And it looks like Premiere Pro CS3 definitely will.

In addition to some nice perks like direct-to-disk recording, DVD / Blue Ray output, support for mobile devices, and the long-awaited time remapping, Premiere Pro CS3 will also include Encore, Adobe’s DVD authoring software.

To date I’ve been using DVD Lab, a capable, low-cost alternative that got me through my first professional project. But the makers of DVD Lab are the first to admit that if you’re doing professional authoring work, you should get a professional authoring program. So, now that I fit into that category, I’ve been looking a little harder at Encore.

Even before the announcement, choosing Encore over other professional authoring software was a no-brainer. It has a good reputation, and integrates extremely well with Premiere and After Effects, which I use. And now that it comes with Premiere Pro CS3, it’s just an upgrade away.

Thanks, Adobe.

Click here for more information on Adobe Premiere Pro CS3.

Now that Dead Hunt is in the can, we need to make it available to had a pretty good track record with distribution–Don Dohler’s reputation plays no small role in that–but we’re hoping we have some choices, or at least one really good deal.

I asked Don if I could create the DVD screener that we send out (I’ve wanted to do that since I got my first DVD burner). He agreed, so I dove in. As I said, I already had a burner, but I didn’t like the picture quality of the OEM encoder (Nero), so I had to find a better encoder and an authoring tool. By the way, encoding as I use it here refers to converting the digital video of our movie, which is in Quicktime, to MPEG–the format needed for DVDs. After some online research, I found a solid and low-budget solution in DVD Lab and Tmpeg. Let the fun begin!

I wanted to have a really cool menu (see above–click on image to view the full-motion menu), sort of a collage of all the characters showing really cool expressions, and awesome music. I also wanted the movie to look crisp–at least as good as the edited master stored in Adobe Premiere (That’s where Tmpeg came in). And we all wanted the box art to look great, too. That job fell to Rob Long, who did a wonderful job. For the music, I picked my favorite segment from Justin Timpane’s score. It actually took only a couple of days to create that cool menu, with the cool music, and the crisp-looking picture. The rest of the month was spent trying to get the resulting DVD to play on Don’s DVD player–a first or second generation player. Oh, it played in my new player, all 15 attempts played fine in there; some even played fine in a slightly older player I have, but about 3/4 of the way through, Don’s player would choke and die.

So, it was back to the internet to find some answers. The makers of DVD Lab have a forum that provided a lot of help. And VideoHelp.com proved an invaluable resource, complete with some free helper tools. The deal, as I discovered, is that “burning” DVDs on a computer isn’t the same process used by mass distributors. They use glass masters, which are more precise. Not to worry, however, most newer DVD players easily play the DVD-R, +R, etc. formats; it’s just that older players may have trouble, and since we wanted to make sure potential distributors would be able to view our movie, it had to play on as many players as possible. That’s when media and hardware came into the mix.

If you look on VideoHelp, you’ll see a huge list of media reviews; that is, reviews of the various brands of blank DVD-Rs you can buy. Apparently, not all brands play well with old players, or with all burners. In fact, not all burners create media that plays well with all players. It feels like a crap shoot.

Ultimately, I discovered that my original burner (an internal Lite-on) was the culprit. When I burned the image to a newer external (also a Lite-on), it played fine in Don’s player. Problem solved.

The image above features the stars of Dead Hunt: Dennis Hill and Sara Cole, and the killer in the background.