Substitute teacher on trial for showing ABCs of Death to High School Students

Columbus Dispatch

The fact that someone is being put on trial for showing a Not Rated movie to minors and is under review for being a crime is a little absurd... but how does a teacher not realize until after five classes that the film is 1.) not in Spanish and 2.) filled with low brow sex and violence.

Personally, I don't care what kids watch. I understand parents and society do and I'm willing to cooperate within those rules. However, I don't understand how someone does not review a film they are putting on for kids when there are rules about showing things to children and then choose one called ABCS OF DEATH, which has 27 segments that all lead up to violent and absurd deaths. That is what the film is known for. Yes, there are Spanish language segments... but only two... but it's called ABCS OF DEATH! DEATH! Does that not ring bells?

So teachers are just allowed to put Netflix on and run out of the room now? The article states that she had her back to the screen and thought that the film was in Spanish, but after three segments in one class, you would hear that it's not in Spanish... I can't remember the film exactly because none of the shorts were actually any good, but wouldn't screaming and guts noises make you turn your head regardless of what language it's in?

Can we give this woman an award for Stupidity of the Year?

And fault the school board for incompetent substitute teachers? Wouldn't a substitute teacher that teaches SPANISH be awesome? What a brilliant idea!

Neato Kino rocks... again!

Neato Kino Films did it again! We participated in the 48 Hour Film Horror Project in October. For the most part, it was a pretty smooth weekend, yet again. I met with our trusted editor at LeftJet Studios for the kick off event. After the rules were presented, genres and elements were given. I pulled Found Footage out of the hat, but because we were shooting on a Red Epic, we opted to go for the Wild Card.

A found footage film would have been a waste of such a good camera. The Wild Card ended up being Cannibalism, which was not my favorite subject to work with because it's difficult to write a decent cannibalism film without comedy, but I could work with it.

The kick off was actually my wedding anniversary, so my husband and I decided that we would write the film together. We came up with a pretty solid concept and plot right away, so we left to get a few props. When we got back, we finished the script and sent it out to the cast and crew.

The next day, we were to begin shooting. Our location was a house mid-renovations, so we had to arrive early to move things out of the way and keep everything safe for the cast and crew. We didn't expect to have our camera until 10 AM, but it was there when we arrived at 8.

We moved things around and started preparing, but when it was about time to begin shooting, it was brought to my attention that no one brought sound equipment. It was a minor disaster that was quickly averted by one person driving home to get a microphone and a cable and another person pulling a Zoom recorder out of their car. Talk about super heroes... We were talking about reworking the script to make it a silent film!

After that hitch, the shoot went very smoothly. However, we were in a race against the sun as it was trying to leave us shooting in the dark. Our last scene had to be shot outside (and last), so we did the best we could. We didn't get as many shots as we needed or wanted, but it worked out. It also started to rain during the last scene. It didn't rain the rest of the day-- and we were shooting in a green house, so the rain was loud. We took what we had and then went straight into editing.

Storm, the editor, and I stayed up all night until we had a final cut of the video. We sent it off to our composer around 6 AM and then took a nap. While we waited for the music to come back, we slept briefly and worked on editing the rest of the sound. When the music arrived, we edited all of the audio even further to make it mesh.

About three hours before turn in, we felt like we were at a stopping point. After looking at it for so long with barely any fresh eyes, we had no idea what else to do. So we ate and then took the film to LeftJet. We hung out at Office Depot and then went back to LeftJet to wait until the doors opened. Naturally, we were the first to turn in.

A few weeks later after the initial screening, we received notification that we won an award. A few of us attended the awards screening, which was followed by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and we discovered we won for Best Sound Design.

Talk about irony!

We didn't make a trailer this time around and the film is not yet public, but we will let you know when it is available. We are working on making it even better and sending it off to film festivals. Watch out world!

Film, it is.

With great disappointment and a heavy heart, I abruptly quit my job as a working student.  Things hadn't been working out for a few weeks and I was intending to put in my two weeks and be professional, but events occurred that made me unable to continue working and living there.  I am incredibly disappointed because I was ready to tackle my equestrian career, but after a lot of analyzation and introspection, I've realized that equestrianism is probably not the career path for me.  I still love riding and horses in general, but I am refocusing my energy back on film.

I am grateful that the job got me to the west coast.  I am in a place where I have alway wanted to be and the film opportunities are much greater out here than in Cincinnati.  The film community in Seattle seems to be pretty active and I look forward to becoming a part of it.

This blog will become less about horses and more about my film career and film in general.  There may be the occasional post about gaming.

Time to pour my blood, sweat, and tears into my art and not my attempt at being an athlete.

Evil Dead (2013): The Film that Made Me Second Guess My Life

I'm normally wary of remakes, but something a friend of mine said within the past few months made me rethink my stance on remakes- specifically horror remakes.  It's great to know that horror is alive and well.  So I excitedly went to see the new Evil Dead (albeit, on Bargain Tuesday, and just before it left the theatre, but I'm broke and so busy that sometimes I even forget to work).

I was blown away.  When it comes to gore, I pretty much have an iron stomach.  I like to credit this to all the action and horror films I was not supposed to watch as a kid, but did anyway.  My current lack of squeamishness could probably also be paid tribute to the multitude of Real Life Torture Porn (AKA animal exploitation exposés) that I watch thanks to my interest in being vegan.

Actually, I'm not sure watching all of the animal exploitation exposés are really healthy either, but that's a post for a completely different time.

Anyway, despite my iron stomach, there were quite a few cringe-worthy scenes.  My inner 15-year-old boy (Yes, I do have one of those!) was cheering while my inner 5-year-old girl was crying for her stuffed pony.

I've been really bad about keeping up with all things horror lately because of my equestrian interests (having an obsessive personality kind of sucks because when I get interested in something, I lose all focus on everything else), but I read somewhere that they did not use any CGI for gore.  I have yet to do my research and confirm this, but if this is true, then I love the modern Evil Dead even more.

The art of gore is something that cannot be lost to computers... and it is wonderful when other filmmakers understand this.

So I'm obviously gushing over the film, and rightfully so, and I felt so inspired after the film that I began questioning my lack of involvement in the film industry as of late.  I have pretty much decided to put my film career temporarily on hold while I rebuild my equestrian career and because of this, I may be moving to Virginia or Oregon to do equestrian things full time.  But now I'm not so sure that's what I should be doing.

I love cinema.  I love making films.  I love writing about films.  This is why I call myself Kino...  film is so much a part of me that I CANNOT ignore it.

I have to remind myself that I can ride horses and make films at the same time and of all people, I should be the one to figure out how to make the two clashing careers work.

There are seven days in a week and 168 hours in a week.  I should be able to save a portion for film, a portion for horses, and a portion for writing.  Maybe I have to make my inner German come out and get very strict with myself about my time management.