Cutting it Close

Hola,

As I promised I would try and get around to posting more then once a month. And here I am at the last moment fulfilling my promise. Cutting it close? Maybe, but that's how we roll at Krej Productions!

So what's been going on at the scuttlebutt? As always a lot!

Starting casting for my new movie "Of Rats and Men". I have just a few roles left to fill. The big difference between this production and "Tim and Katie" is we are going outside our pool of friends to bring in actors. Thankfully Steven, Trent and Grantzy have been taking improv classes and have met new/talented people to help fill our ranks.

Another big change is the use of more locations. Which is proving to be the Achilles' heel. We are desperate for a house we can film in for a weekend, and a Pest Exterminator's office we can film in for about a day. The idea with all this new stuff is to up our production value. We want each film to be better then the last in some way.

In other production news Hannah Davis has begun story boarding the "Hero Sandwich" short. With a little bit of luck we will be able to show you more much sooner then later.

How about them Braves? Been hard to watch the 8 game loosing streak. But it's only April, and I have this deranged gut feeling that they are going to turn things around on May. Go Bravos!

For the three of you who keep up with the "Douchebag of the Month" competition, I have some news. Young Steven Tuechert is well on his way to clinching his first win. He easily has my vote. So if over the weekend he declares himself winner, he has my support.

As for the long lost "Director's Critiques" of "Tim and Katie" I will be honest with you. I haven't worked on it one bit. Not enough time on my end. Pre-Production for Rats has been taking up my time. And I feel that is infinitely more important. But if the stars align and I find some free time I will try and finish it up (when I last stopped I was about halfway done).

Last but not least, Jerry did a great job adding the "Talents" page to the website. Just needed to give him some props. Also if you want to help out with our summer productions let us know!

Peace out Krej Heads!
Your Hero,
Big Daddy K

P.S. You STILL need to listen to Titus Andronicus, that band has been getting me through a very craptastic week.

Back in the USSR.. err the ATL!

Well hello there folks! I'm comin' atcha from KREJ HQ, I have once again returned to my domicile, after a lovely near-two week stint of visiting Greg & Hannah down in Savannah, GA.

Also, a belated Happy St. Paddy's Day to you all!! This weekend will bring many things, one of them, the arrival of Da Grub. Another being a St. Paddy's party this weekend with some friends coming over to KREJ HQ. It should be quite the blast, as you kids say.

Unfortunately, there still exists a problem with our internet, and I am currently using our apartment complex's internet cafe wifi network, so it's slow as dog molasses.

I saw a bunch of movies/films while I was down in Savannah. Among them, Crazy Heart; which was every bit of excellent I hoped it would be. Mr. Bridges was nothing short of superb in his role as an old, busted up country singer trying to reclaim a slice of fame and joy in his musical career, battling the super evils/terribleness of more modern 'nu-country', as well as a beastly case of alcoholism.

I also watched Boondock Saints II : All Saints Day. It was pretty alright; as most people would tell you, not as good as the first, but still enjoyable. Plenty of action, a couple plot twists/reveals, and the usual helping of what us guys love most, guns, swearing, blood and more swearing.

Did a little more design work in planning for the poster we are putting together for Hero Sandwich. Really excited about working on that! Also changed my personal site design like 3 times. So yay?!

In my email inbox is a short version of our feature length script Rat Bastards. Will probably try and read it tonight, or else someone is gonna give me the third degree. Read your scripts people send you kids!

Until next time,
-Matt

Hey there!

So a lot of little things going on in full and half swing, got a couple films in writing and heading for pre-production phases, as well as Hero Sandwich work chugging along.


Make sure you head on over to the KREJ video page to check out our newest item, the trailer for Tim & Katie as well as Saving Suburbia if you haven't yet seen it. which if you don't know what that is, or haven't yet seen the IMDB page, go here.



Headed to Savannah, GA for the weekend & next week, will be hanging with Hannah all next week, yay! So smell ya later!
-Matt

Rants and Ravings!

Krej News, Movie Review and some more rantings and ravings...

Hero Sandwich - Hannah has finished character designs on Captain Deluxo and Turbo Tom. And they look amazing. Jerry did some coloring that somehow made them even better. I also got to see some early concept work for Titanium Cranium (Don't know who any of these characters are yet? Don't worry you will soon). I am exceptionally stoked about this project, it's going to take time but should be worth it. Keep your eyes open thar may be a "Hero Sandwich" poster soon!

In more Krej news Jerry and myself started working on an outline for a new summer project. The concept is still in it's rough form. We want to incorporate lot's of motion graphic effects and an existential/absurdist* story. My concern is it might be to "out there", even by my standards.

In even more Krej news, Steven has begun working on a mock-umentary script for summer production as well. I am tempted to go into more detail, but I think I will let Steven himself do that. I will say this, he is basing a character on me who speaks with a very thick french accent.

Movie Review

Saw Kevin Smith's new film "Cop Out" today. It was pretty good. Not "Mallrats" amazing, but also not "Jersey Girl" trash either. Tracey Jordan really shines, his comedic chops are borderline immaculate. Something did seem to be missing from this. I don't if it was the fact that Smith didn't pen it or not. At times the plot seemed overly complex (for a comedy anyway), and the extra stuff took away from the truly funny.

The Tracey Jordan/Bruce Willis combo was a sight to behold. They worked very well together. The opening scenes show this very well, but as the movie trails on some of that magic fades. My hope is this will propel Mr. Jordan to a major movie comedian, he clearly can hold his own with Willis. Over all I give this flick a 7/10.

Other ranting and ravings...

Been watching a lot of "Man Vs. Food" as of late. I enjoy the show, but at the same time it is a good example of what has become wrong with us as a society. Gluttonous America is in all it's glory. I can't imagine starving kids in poverty stricken areas of the country or the world would appreciate this show. But enough ranting.

Now for some raving!

How about all these natural disasters. Maybe the end of the world is coming. Probably not though. It's highly important to note George Carlin's view on the end of things. "The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked". That's the absolute truth, it wouldn't take long after humanity ceases for Earth to fix itself and be "normal" again.

Which means all those environmentalist are going about this the wrong way. They should launch a "Save the Humans!" campaign. A source close to me assures me the dolphins are working on that though (get it? 42? Don't Panic? Hitchhikers? Thanks for the fish?).

Lastly and certainly most importantly, The Grub bequeathed us with a new word this week. In his infinate genius he decided the words otherwise and either/or needed to be fused together. Thus The Grub spoke and we were given "Eitherwise". How does one use this, an example. "We gotta stop ruining this planet "eitherwise" we will find ourselves on the wrong end of extinction". Thank you Grub for allowing us to be privy to your insanity and general loathing of the English language.

Well that's all I got in the tank for now. Going to work on a script for my new short and some storyboards for the same project and "Hero Sandwich".

*note this is in reference to the absurdist philosophy, which is connected to comedy style but not necessarily comedic in it's raw form.

My Pencils are the hotrods, my paper is the tarmac.

And they're speeding along to get Hero Sandwich character sketches on their way.

Character design is a fun way to work, especially when you're working with people you like and have just as much fun as you do. You get to dive in, create, and learn. This is especially interesting for me since I am a very detail oriented person and this kind of work has to be fairly simple in design and structure, so it turns on another part of the brain.

So far I've worked on a few sketches and things are moving smoothly along!

And of course, working with friends also helps. But I already said that.

And the winner is...

Yes, I know. I haven’t blogged in a minute. Been way too busy watching way too much LOST. So, I figured I’d take this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: to give an update on what’s going on with me, and to announce the January Winner of The Douchebag of the Month Award (albeit a few weeks late). Last things first…

The winner of the KREJ Douchebag of the Month for January is… our very own Trent Whitmire (naturally). You can come claim your prize of an old trucker hat I found, a bag of Skittles, and a good old fashion ass whoopin at KREJ headquarters.

Ok, so as for me, I’ve had some crazy stuff going on with me lately. I got a new car yesterday, and it’s about time. I forgot what it was like to have a car with working windows, seat adjusters, ac vents, and an overall lack of old rain towel stank. Now, I just need to get the stereo replaced with the one in my old car. Luckily, the dealership said they’d do that for me for free. I know Trent won’t mind taking another trip up there, seeing as he has a fondness for a certain ”Baby Girl” that works up there.

I just had some family in town, so I haven't been able to get too much writing done. I did however get to spend some quality time with my ten-year-old cousin, Nick, who you may recognize from the Cheese Bit in the Behind-The-Scenes Doc from Tim and Katie. He's almost a bigger fan of zombie movies than I am, and most definitely a better video gamer than I.

Lately, I’ve been working on getting the script for the Tim and Katie Redux up to snuff. I’m gonna do one more formatting pass, and then all it needs is a good dialogue pass. After that, it should be ready to shelve and move on to the next project. As for my next writing project, I’m not sure what it will be. I’ve got a few different ones in the works.

The voice recording for the very first Hero Sandwich short went very well and was a lot of fun. You can see evidence of all the fun had at the below link: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=694285532&ref=ts#!/profile.php?v=app_2392950137&ref=ts&id=694285532

And lastly, Trent and I took a little Valentine’s Day trip to the park. We took an assload of pictures which we’ll be uploading soon. Stay tuned. It was cute. Warning: NSFA (Not Safe For Anywhere)

That’s all for now. I just bought Skate 2 for the XBOX 360 machine, so I’m gonna go play the shit out of that until the sun comes up... or at least until I finish downloading every episode of "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant."

Word to the biggest bird,

-Grantzy

Wish Granted!

I have a habit of drawing, which requires paper, which of course for me requires a forest. This evening the great G$ (my husband, he chooses the most absurd, if not fitting nicknames for himself) and I made our rounds about town and I now have my grubby bony hands on...

The official Hero Sandwich Sketchbook.

What does this mean? Well, probably not much to some- but for me it will be the treasure to tote around and work on, specifically for character designs. Heck, I may consolidate Hero Sandwich and KREJ conceptual illustrations into this one, singular, amazing and sadly empty sketchbook.

That's really about it. I figured I'd rub it in. The fact that I have a blank sketchbook...


AWHAAWH.

This thing on? Hello?

With the New Orleans victory over the Colts we find ourselves in a pickle. No sports to watch, got a full month until Spring Training starts (Braves fans keep an eye on Jason Heyward). Doubt I will watch the Winter Olympics. Guess I will have to focus and keep writing instead of being distracted.

So whats the action here at KREJ HQ?

Not to much, tonight me and lil' Stevie T (who has yet to post here, despite signing up for it) did a touch up on the new "Hero Sandwich" short. Which we will be recording the audio for it tomorrow night. I am really excited about doing an animated piece, should be interesting to see the process happening. Hannah should be starting to crank out some concept art for it soon. Maybe she can post something about what styles she is looking into doing (wink wink).

Been having fun with my script writing software, it has this great function where it will reread the script with various computer voices. Aside from sounding really funny, it is a very useful tool for catching little things you might breeze (or bleeze as the Grub would put it) over when reading.

For anyone looking to get into writing I would highly recommend "Movie Magic Screenwriter". Might be a bit pricey, but totally worth it.

Despite habitual threats none of the other KREJ guys seem to have anything to post about. I will have to double my efforts to get them to speak up.

I feel I am starting to ramble , and Lewis Black just popped on Comedy Central. So I am finding myself fully distracted again, peace!

Your Hero,
Jeff K

Happy Super Sunday!!!

It's that time of year again, Super Bowl 44!! Time for an hour of football and 5 hours of commercials!!
For the record: GO SAINTS!!


But in other news, it looks like Tuesday we will be recording audio for Hero Sandwich. So YAY!! Had a great weekend so far, got to talk to a certain person about bringing them in on some KREJ projects in the future, and talked some more about the future of KREJ (both near and distant futures). Been brainstorming more for ideas for the Weekly Scuttlebutt video blogs we will be producing in the coming weeks, really hope everyone enjoys them! We're bringing back a format we abandoned about two years ago at the fall of our last studio venture(read:disaster). Should have a title sequence for TWS (The Weekly Scuttlebutt) done some time soon as well. It's gonna be too legit to quit.

Scanned in all the Hero Sandwich art and will be getting that in Hannah's hands sometime this week, and then will be working on backgrounds and maybe a quick title sequence for it too.

In unrelated news, I picked up Bioware's newest offering, Mass Effect 2 on Friday: it is freakin' AWESOME!! Even though Grub informs me I have a long ways to go, I've played a couple hours already and have really enjoyed this game. The voice cast alone is impressive: Martin Sheen, Carrie-Ann Moss, Tricia Helfer(Six from the newer BSG!!), Michael Dorn, Adam Baldwin & Yvonne Strahovski from NBC's Chuck, Keith David, Michael Hogan (Colonel Saul Tigh from the newer BSG!!) and even Seth Green. The play style is pretty dope too, its the normal squad setup in Bioware games but it also works as a FPS, which I really dig, cause I have been in dire need of a new FPS to play.

I think I might be getting sick again. Bleh. If my favorite beer is Blue Moon's Spring Seasonal, and it's already out and in the fridge now, doesn't that mean all of this cold weather should eff right off and spring should be upon us? Right, I thought so too. I'm sick of the cold weather. Literally. And I still need to catch up on my most recent of guilty pleasures; USA's White Collar. Don't judge me.

Till next time,
-Matt

Hey again!! We got news!!

Welcome back, time for another installment of The Daily Scuttlebutt!!

A couple of us had a bit of a brainstorming session this evening on the future of this website/blog to come up with ideas to liven things up a bit. We've decided to bring back the ancient art of the weekly news update; in a hilarious manner of course. So in the coming weeks, we'll be bringing you videos with all sorts of news, national and local, from entertainment to technology, social media, restaurant reviews and we'll even be handing out weekly awards to those deemed worthy of our praise. There will be two different awards; one will be the highly coveted/or-not-so-much-coveted Douche-Bag-of-the-Month Award. The other is still being discussed. 

We can't wait to bring you all the important news and updates you never knew you needed; and we hope you'll bear with us and check back often! We hope to have the first episode online in about 2-3 weeks.  

In other news, we're hoping to record the primary audio tracks for Hero Sandwich sometime this week. Then Hannah and myself will begin work on character redesign/ streamlining & background design. I can't freakin' wait to begin animating and I am looking forward to trying out some digital matte painting for the city background(s).

The Tim & Katie trailer will be done relatively soon, and should be up on our IMDB page sometime after that. Rather than try to include parts of all the different excellent songs we had contributed to our film's soundtrack, I scored something simple yet intense, so hopefully people will really enjoy the trailer.

Much love,

-Matt

A Break to Blog

While I wait for some delicious chicken wings to arrive at my doorstep, I'll find a way to entertain you for a time.

When I was a kid, I drew on my walls, on desks, on tables and whatever was within reach. One would think I'd be a great graffiti artist but instead I decided (after a numerous few time-outs and no supply of drawing materials) drawing on paper kept me out of trouble and I could actually KEEP it rather than watching it get wiped from previous surfaces.

When I was a kid, I was not your average girl. No barbies for me, please, let me have a GI Joe or He-Man. Ghost Busters or Ninja Turtles. When I grow up, I want to to have a Transformer as a friend! No skirts, I hated dresses and frilly things, please don't perm my hair or scar me for life with make up kits. I liked bugs, I liked snakes, lizards, bees, mud, getting dirty. I liked bringing dead things home to show my dad, "Look what I found!"

As an adult (Hahaha, I'm old) who's gone through art college, marriage, I haven't changed much. Actually I'd say I haven't changed much at all. Admittedly I've grown a little fonder of "girly" clothes like skirts and flattering shirts, but all in all I would still rather be outside playing in my vegetable garden, watching birds, and drawing whatever comes to me.

As an illustrator I've worked a few times in the industry, note worthy of mention would be World of Warcraft (Blizzard) where I produced spot illustrations for their Lands of Mystery and Alliance Players Guide table top RPG's. I've also been lucky to provide over 170+ illustrations for Dreadmire of Spellbinder Games. I've done work for OrbisGames.com, where an amazingly enormous userbase can raise, train, breed, sell and event their virtual dogs, horses, and other animals. Older works were part of Elements of Magic from way back in the day.

My Ancient of Lore, still my favorite!



My personal work in progress is www.TalaNynn.com, an ever growing fantasy world which has been trickling through my mind since forever. On the side I take private commissions from pets and wildlife to fantasy from anyone who's interested, and since I work from home doing artwork is normally pretty straight forward and no nonsense, www.SummerDragoness.com contains those works.

From Tala'Nynn, Abigale and her family friend, Chris


Doing artwork is like breathing, so I am happy to be part of the KREJ group, participating in character designs, storyboarding, and all that jazz. Oh, and being a crazy Gypsy Woman, that's fun!

As for my interest in wildlife/pets/things that go bump in the night- I own 3 widow spiders. Two brown widows and one very large black widow. Yes they have names, yes they are quirky, and no I don't give them belly rubs. We have a "zoo" room, specifically for the two large fish tanks, the 6 year old bearded dragon BobaFace, and our hissing cockroaches. For anyone who scoffs or eeks over these monstrous bugs, let me say that they have the silliest most charming personalities.

We also own 4 cats, 1 potato dog, and one day I swear I will get my hands on some laying hens.

So, my next stop is chicken wings which have dutifully arrived on time and look mighty tasty. But I look forward to working on Hero Sandwich and future KREJ Production material- Considering I've known these nuts for ten years, there's nothing I wouldn't do for my extended family ;)

Oh Zombie Chef, this is only the beginning.

Greetings and salutations!

Yes, it's true, lately I have been under the weather. It looks like I got a wicked case of Streptococcal Pharyngitis. I thought I was getting better yesterday, but when I awoke this morning, I was in a lot of pain, my left ear hurt like the dickens, a painful ear infection, and I could no longer even swallow pills, due to my throat being in excruciating pain.

So I went up to Clairmont road to see the wonderful folks of the North Atlanta Urgent Care establishment. Within about 10 minutes of arriving I was already in visiting a nurse and getting my vitals taken. They diagnosed me, gave me a shot of some steroids and sent me on my way with 2 prescriptions; one being liquid Augmentin, antibiotics, and the other being liquid hydrocodone (which by the way, RULES), to numb the maddening pain in my throat. Liquid prescription medicine, of course, because I couldn't even swallow a tiny ibuprofen this morning. So I left there and went to the kroger near KREJ HQ and came home with my meds, dosed up and passed out.

About 13 hours and 2 doses later, I am already feeling better, my ear doesn't hurt, and I can actually eat food other than soup and yogurt!! But it will still be a few days longer before I am back to 'normal'. But tomorrow I am going to hopefully finish the Tim & Katie trailer, then begin scanning character designs for Hero Sandwich and sending them to our lovely friend Hannah; who, as you all should already know, played the Gypsy woman in the first Tim & Katie.

...

I just ordered a new, more-better usb microphone for recording audio/vocals and whatever else we decide to do, but for right now we'll begin recording audio tracks for the first pilot episode of Hero Sandwich sometime next week. After I thought I was set on ordering a Blue Snowball mic, I kept reading reviews, and listening to samples I found online, and decided on purchasing a Samson G Track USB Microphone:

It's pretty snazzy. I got a cradle mount too. Stoked to give it some test runs this weekend! will be uploading samples on this here blog.

 Late last week I was even testing out a script for use in Adobe After Effects, for setting up rigging and controllers to apply Inverse Kinematics into 2D animated characters. below is a quick little sample I made watching a tutorial in a couple hours. I put in the Flying V cause I had been listening to a ton of Jay Reatard (RIP <3).

I cant freakin wait to do some work on backgrounds for Hero Sandwich! Also, with the onset of production for HS, Hannah will begin blogging on here as well!! YAY!! There is also talk of fan art and concept art for Tim & Katie being released in the future. So our media section of the site is going to be expanding to suit the different categories.

...

In other, more annoying news, my slingbox has started to malfunction, so I did a bunch of online research and found out its a pretty common problem, like red rings for xboxes. Weak. So tonight I took mine apart to find that, yes indeed, my capacitors were pretty much fried and need to be replaced. Aforementioned capacitors:

:NERD RAGE: It really upsets me nowadays when companies are such jerks, that in order to save micro-pennies per unit, they use crappy components. This contraption cost like 100 bucks, and while it's a great unit when its working, the fact that something so simple and relatively easy to avoid is what leads to it's downfall, just pisses me off.

Also check out this free sample track Yeasayer are giving out -  Yeasayer - O.N.E  - from their forthcoming album, Odd Blood. Their debut album, All Hour Cymbals, was pretty excellent, and Odd Blood is starting to sound like it's only gonna get better with this wacky psychedelic / experimental Brooklyn trio. The initial single from Odd Blood, Ambling Alp was already a great release. Their music videos are just absolutely insane too. Check them out!



With nothing but love and 'tweenage angst,
-Matt

 ...
(PEE. ESS. - It should also be noted that our google adsense ads are finally related to our intentions! so feel free to click stuff!)

Hellowski!

Despite the lack of inter-web activity I assure there has been a lot going on for the Krej team.

First and foremost good ol Jerry is down for the count with some infection (I can neither pronounce nor spell it, so don't expect either from me). He just got a lot of meds, so I am sure he will be back up to snuff in no time.

Hero Sandwich!
Monday night Grantz, Steven and myself finished up a short script to test our animation prowess. And by "our" I mean Jerry and Hannah get to draw stuff while we have fun goofing doing voice overs. The plan is to record said audio next weekish. As for the final product, it will probably take months to animate. But then we will shop that around and send it to festivals, getting that puppy on adult swim would be sweet (but that is probably just a pipe dream)

Tim and Katie v2
Had a successful second reading and we patched up some minor plot holes. After a few more dialogue polishes we will probably shelve the script and start some new projects.

New Projects
Speaking of which, I am looking into shooting an actual film (on 8mm) over the summer. Got some ideas floating around in the ol noggin. Probably going to try and do a serious non-comedic project. Going to need a budget for that though, but I am not to proud to beg.

Well that appears to be all for now, I have been yelling at the other guys to post more. But until they do you have to put up with me and my inane babble.

Your Hero,
Jeff K

Rube-y Tuesday

Steven finally signed up to post on The Daily Scuttlebutt!! Yaaaay!

Speaking of rubes, head on over to the Media page! Where I've posted some exclusive KREJ pics from the past. Including a set never before seen from when we were filming Tim & Katie (A Nice Little Love Story, With Zombies) up in Lawrenceville (ew, outside of the Atlanta perimeter - scary stuff).

Today I've been working on the media page of course, among other things, like a proper about us page, perhaps with an embellished 'History of KREJ' feature. Last night I added yahoo's media-player functionality to our blog, so mp3's can be played within the page itself. This will perhaps be used in the future for the posting of rants/raves/podcast-type-shows from us. But for right now, let's try it out with a song.

Best Coast - When I'm With You

Tonight there will be another writer's meeting, followed by a KREJ general assembly meeting. On the agenda to be discussed - Tim & Katie : REDUX, future projects, the possibility of an animated short for Hero Sandwich, & moving outside our comfort zone; à propos film-making, i.e. making non-comedies. SERIOUS FACE.

In other news, the weather has gotten pretty nice up here in Atlanta. Which is both good and bad, good; because I was tired of cold weather and ready for spring, but bad because, well... it's 61 degrees outside and I'm wearing shorts in the middle of January.


Well, that's all for now - catch ya next time, Global Warming notwithstanding.

-Matt
(dictated but not read.)