House of Bones premiered on Syfy

TV premieres are odd.  Especially when they're in the US and you live in Canada.

House of Bones premiered three days ago on Syfy.  Quite likely that over a million people watched the movie, possibly twice as many.  Here in Canada nothing happened however.

When a movie premieres on TV, there is no screening to attend.  There was no cast and crew screening, no premiere to dress up for.  It just sort of happens, somewhere else.

As a director, I've found it both very difficult and very rewarding to sit in a theater with an audience as they watch my movie.  It's one of the best ways to learn your craft.  You can see the gags work, or not work.  Feel the tension in the room (you need to see past your own first), or feel the boredom.  Hear the laughter in the right places (or the wrong ones).

With the HOUSE OF BONES premiere however, as with the upcoming THIRST premiere, I get none of that.

So I've spent a large part of the last couple of days combing through reviews, user comments, forums, and even tweets trying to get a sense of how it played.  Yes, we read as much of it as we can.

I like to think of the movies I make as my children.  Well, creative offspring anyway.  TV premieres are sort of like your kid ran away before they graduated high school, and you find out about their exploits on line.

It's a little sad and lonely to tell you the truth.  House of Bones seems to be doing well.  I wish she'd write.

Tonight, Savage Island screens in a theater like a good girl.  It'll be nice to sit with an audience.

An auspicious beginning.

It's a great time to start something new. An unusual week is ahead of me, a confluence of astrological proportions.

It all begins the day-after-tomorrow, Saturday January 16th when HOUSE OF BONES, the movie I directed in Louisiana last year premieres on the SyFy Channel.

One week later, THIRST, our difficult desert survival film, starts playing Superchannel here in Canada.

And right in between those two beginnings (and entirely coincidentally), screenwriter Kevin Mosley scheduled a benefit screening of SAVAGE ISLAND here in Vancouver. Our feature debut.

One week, three Lando movies premiering.

Doesn't happen every day.

So I thought I'd take the hint and start doing what I've been meaning to do for some time now.

Share.

These are intended as dispatches from the front of indie cinema as it were. I'll be writing regularly about the ups and downs of independent filmmaking today, where I live in Vancouver, Canada. On the edge of civilization, exploring the cutting edge of technology for an edge (any edge), working the bloody edge of the collective unconscious.

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