21. November 2009 by admin.

(Before I start this blog I realize that this might possibly be my earliest post ever)

One quick sidenote:  Chemical 12-D will be playing at the Portage theater (again) as it has been accepted to its six film festival in under 2 months.  Movieside Film Festival presents Terror in the Aisle 3 thats on December 5th.  I’ll be there with my DP as we play again with DVDs.  Be sure to come.  Now, since that is out of the way, we move right along…

Last night the teaser poster for our new movie was photographed and now is being edited.  My due date of Monday may not be met, which in the grand scheme of things is actually ok because we got some help.  Matt Schenke, a photography major at Columbia, offered us some help as we never shot a poster before.  The raw image to me looks great and I can’t wait to see what he does with it.  Prepare for what could be a really kick ass poster that’ll hopefully start some nice buzz around our movie as we release tad bits of what will the story is about.  I think the poster will raise enough questions and curiousity that we should be able to start getting up some money.

Speaking of which, I am announcing that Chemical 12-D will be available for sale online for the duration of one week.  We can only do sell for this long online because of our film fest circuit does not allow us to release the film so early in our run.  No worries, we have unlimited copies and you’ll have your chance to get them for one week (the price has not changed, $8.00 a DVD).  Also, a possible Water Cooler Productions fundraiser is in the works for mid-December.  I will keep you updated on that as well.

-Mac Eldridge

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19. November 2009 by admin.

Although the film I am working on currently is slated to be the biggest Water Cooler Production so far, a first is happening for Water Cooler Production.  And it starts like this:

Writer Robert Sandoval handed me a script some time ago in June called Cubicles.  Its a fun little movie, and although it was well written, I had no intention of directing it because of working heavily on Chemical 12-D at the time but also because I knew I wasn’t the director for the project.  I got it but it wasn’t calling for my style of direction.  So, I gave him notes on it and told him it would eventually get made (I was not lying, I knew someone would do it).

Flash forward to roughly one month ago.  I was playing on XBox live and I received a message from David Trojan, my assistant director, telling me that we need to make another movie.  Then I realized it right then and there that David Trojan would be the perfect director for Cubicles.  Its his style, he read the script when I did and thought it was great.  I then messaged Trojan and told him, ‘yes, we will make another movie.  We’ll make Cubicles.  You direct it and I’ll produce it.’  He met me with enthusiasm and has been all for it ever since.

Currently, we are finding the location for the short, 5 minute piece and then we are off and going in January.  It’ll be a short shoot and hopefully will be completed by February.  Its a great piece and a first that I decided not to direct something that comes out of Water Cooler Productions (outside of a doc Billy Bitterman did).  I’m excited to prepare a shoot as a producer and I’m going to do my best to make sure the shoot goes smoothly, post production runs quickly, and the film is finished on time.  It’ll be a short that will be seen online and I think it’ll be a blast.

Keep your eyes out for Cubicles in February, Messiah in January, and the teaser poster for the next big Water Cooler Production Monday.  Business isa boomin’.  Stay tuned.

-Mac Eldridge

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17. November 2009 by admin.

Even though Chemical 12-D has just begun its festival run, Water Cooler Productions is beggining work on its next short, with the intent to blow everything we’ve ever done out of the water by a huge margin.

And a teaser poster will be coming out this Monday.

Thats right, although I refuse to give out any details right now, it is safe to say I know this project will be my baby more than any production ever.  Yes, I wrote and directed Chemical 12-D however I always saw that as David Wagenaar’s project because of how badly he wanted to do a zombie film and he also had the rough idea about the short when he approached me.  I directed Messiah but that is writer Billy Bitterman’s movie, as it is his view on faith more than it is mine (although I inserted some of my own feelings in it).  I also directed Such As It Ends but thats Robert Sandoval’s movie as he wrote it and because of how close he considered the project.  But, with this movie, I wanted to do it and now since its happening, I hold it closer than any other project I’ve been able to wrap my arms around.  I hope it becomes everything I am trying to make it and more, as we are pushing every boundary of Water Cooler Productions to make it.  I hope the poster being created for it can really deliver the message of no more fun shit, this next project is meant to be fucking scary and is really meant to hurl the audience into all sorts of emotions.  I know this will test my attachment to character as a director than any other movie I’ve done before.

I hope you all will like it.

-Mac Eldridge

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15. November 2009 by admin.

As this long weekend comes to a close, some events have came and went, and Chemical 12-D has progressed (in my opinion).

First off, Chemical 12-D has received another review, this time coming from the blog “A World on Fire.”  Its a great review and well worth the read.  Very concise, too the point, and it also talks about why I enjoy Chemical 12-D.  I hope you enjoy it as well.

Read the review here

In other news, 12-D also played at the Zombie Outbreak Film Fest this weekend in Chicago.  We were lucky enough to sell some DVDs, make some acquaintances, talk to some good people, and, more importantly, get a great reaction out of the audience.  At this point, I have seen Chemical 12-D hundreds upon hundreds of times because of the writing, shooting, editing, etc. that I no longer watch the movie when its playing rather I watch the audience and see their reactions to what myself and Water Cooler Productions has made.  Watching people jump is my fuel to keep going, I love getting that reaction out of the audience.  After the screen went black and the first title card popped up, we got a great loud applause and as the main credits faded and the scrolling credits came up, we got another round of applause.  It was a great reaction and if I can watch audiences react to the film like that a few more times, then I will be satisfied with the project.

Also, a new change is coming for the Water Cooler Productions website.  I know I am not much of a website builder person and the site has been described as “cookie cutter” which I can agree with, and I also can agree with it doesn’t knock the socks off of anybody and it doesn’t get the job done.  Well, I’m making my first attempt at making it more of a successful site because  I will be putting the DVD for Chemical 12-D online for sale and it’ll run $8.00 a DVD (shipping costs included).  I hope to have the DVD up for sale online within the matter of days, so I will keep you all posted on that.

-Mac

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12. November 2009 by admin.

Well, after roughly 5 months of vacation time, I am starting up again,

I gotta say I feel pretty lazy because of how I completely bounced  from the blog.  I’m assuming I stopped for a week or two because of everything that was happening for 12-D and then I just never got back into the swing of things.  I apologize for that.  But now, for the same reason why I stopped writing this blog (12-D, not laziness), I decided to start again so anyone who is looking up stuff for Chemical 12-D can check in here, at the official blog of 12-D’s conception.  I’m sure if you flip some pages back you can see my thoughts as we wrote, shot, and finished 12-D.

So, just as a quick update, here is everything that is going on in the world of Water Cooler Productions, and more notably,  Chemical 12-D.

____

We have been accepted to 5 different film festivals since 12-D began its film cirucit run.  We’re currently pending quite a few of the bigger fests, but for now, here is our list.

• Chicago Citywide Film Makers Film Fest (Chemical 12-D won the audience award here)
• Fractured Lens Film Festival (there were no prizes awarded at this film fest, very lame.  They also were going to charge me to watch my own movie, so I didn’t attend.)
• Zombie Outbreak Film Festival
• Tromadance New Mexico
• Lake County Film Festival (2010)

Chemical 12-D has two official reviews and they both are gleaming.  These two reviews alone have begun our hype online as I’m being contacted now by quite a few individuals on the project.

 Day of the Woman review

Vault of Horror review

I think they’re great reviews and thanks to both Brittney and Brian for writing them.  We are delighted to see you like our work.

Lastly, starting at the Zombie Outbreak Film Fest this weekend at the Portage Theater in Chicago we will begin selling the DVD of Chemical 12-D for a special price of only $5.oo!  The DVD comes with 3 different audio commentaries, 2 documentaries on 12-D and Water Cooler Productions, a deleted scene, some upcoming work stuff, and, as a little treat of embarrassment towards myself, we also have put on Water Cooler’s first zombie movie, In A State Of.   Online the DVD will run a bit more because of shipping and such, but please help support us as we’re trying to fund our next project.

I hope I continue writing here as I actually do like it, and hopefully this site will come more and more useful as both Chemical 12-D and Water Cooler Productions grow.
Cheers,

Mac Eldridge

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9. June 2009 by admin.

I have always heard that most film makers absolutely hate test screenings.  I can see why.  An audience gets to make guesses to what your film is all about, not understand it, and have the studio make you do reshoots in order for your film to be more “audience friendly.”  It can be frustrating and it can be down right ridiculous how one small audience receives your film.  But, that was not the case tonight for Chemical 12-D as the film first played in front of an audience of roughly 20.  Everything went so much better than I could have expected as I got everything out of the showing I wanted (including notes that will only strengthen the film).

So whats next and when will Chemical 12-D come out?  Well, as for now, I can’t really say with an answer that I would truly believe in.  We are making a few simple edits to the visuals and then we will be onto the final sound mix and then the all-important score.  I want to say it will be done in hopefully less than a month.  Hopefully we can make a good fest run with the project as well as get some great responses and views online.  We are rapidly approaching the end to this film as we finish our first web series (Messiah, which hopefully will be done soon).  Then what?  Well, the next production of course, what else would anyone expect of us?

-Mac Eldridge

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28. May 2009 by admin.

Just to keep everyone up to date on Chemical 12-D I thought it’d be nice for everyone to know that we are nearing the end of post production as we are onto our sound mix and score.   I would say that, for the first time, this is the only film that I really feel like a score would do it justice.  In Such As It Ends ther was very minimal music and it may have lasted for 30 seconds out of the 18 minute film.  Then, for the upcoming Messiah web series there will be a very minimal amount of scoring in that also.  However, I feel like Chemical 12-D could only be strengthened by some great scoring.  I am unsure of who will score it yet but I know that it will be finished relatively soon.

With that said, I cannot express how upset I am with Messiah not being finished yet.  In an effort not to start confrentation I will not name names, but there are individual’s holding the project back.  I would say the film has been pictured locked (mostly) for roughly a month now and we are waiting on a few people to wake up behind the wheel and get going with what obviously needs to be done.  You can quote me when I say Messiah will be finished and it will be awesome when it sees the light of day.  Although I see Chemical 12-D finishing up before Messiah (for 2 reasons; 1. Its a third of Messiah’s length and 2. way less post production work as all effects were done practical) do not worry because it will be releasing and I know everyone is excited for that just as well.

It is late so with that, I abid everyone a good night.

-Mac Eldridge

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27. May 2009 by admin.

Hey all,

Can’t apologize enough for not blogging for a bit, I was knee deep in pre production and then shot all weekend and I am now finally getting to breathe.  And yes, Chemical 12-D is a wrap and is now in post production (which I promise won’t be too long until it’s all done).  In fact, I already have a rough cut done that clocked in at roughly 8 minutes.  There have already been a few changes to the final cut as compared to the script for a handful of reasons.   Regardless of it’s script changes, I think it is a great project and I am pumped for all of you to watch it.

The weekend went overall pretty well.  Although we fell behind schedule in accordance to where and when we should be, we never shot an hour over schedule each day so that is something to be really excited about.  I got all sorts of compliments this weekend as to how smooth the shooting went and hopefully people really meant that when they said it to me.  I had a great time (for the most part) and worked with a ton of new people I will hopefully collabate on with in the near future.  Also I got to work with the Water Cooler Production usuals which is always fun and a great experience.  I tried my best to run a set that worked and I think the final result will show how hard everyone worked and how well everyone worked together.  I couldn’t have been happier with everything.  I also have to shout out my actors, after editing this, I know they gave me performances that are excellent and I will work with them in the near future as well.

I’ll keep you guys updated as post goes through it’s numbers.  In the meantime we only have one re-shoot this Saturday.  If you’re interested in being an extra, contact me either via facebook or email (watercoolerproductions@gmail.com).  I hope you all are as excited as I am to see this short finished.

-Mac Eldridge

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20. May 2009 by admin.

I don’t really have an excuse for the lack of blogging.

I read blogs all the time with filmmakers updating their sites during pre production and production itself and I have fallen asleep behind the wheel.  My appologies.  Now since I have said my apology, I digress…

We are all set to film Chemical 12-D this weekend.  It seems like every facet of production is just as excited to shoot something that has now turned out to be our highest budgeted short film yet.  I myself have been busy trying to make things happen and getting things prepared to make the shoot as smooth as possible.  My only concern is the lack of time to shoot.  It is only 4 pages but due to the amount of SFX we are doing, it would have been terrific to get one more day of production time.  Then, we’d be relatively relaxed as we can get shooting.  The only thing we are short of now are extras to play dead bodies and zombies.  If you’re at all interested in being an extra, email me at watercoolerproductions@gmail.com for more details.

I wish I could tell you all the things we have planned and are set up to do for this short but I cannot be a spoiler to my own film.  Stay tuned and hopefully I can get some good production stills to show around online before we release the film.

-Mac Eldridge

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12. May 2009 by admin.

I love how I said in my last post that I would try to blog every day and my next post comes a day late… In my defense, I do in fact blog every night essentially.  Take last night for example, I blogged around 10PM because thats when I got done with my daily shit.  Tonight, however, I am finishing late thus I am blogging late getting me in Tuesday’s day.  It shows as me skipping a day but I say fuck it, I really didn’t.  Anyway, we digress;

As I said in a previous blog, I was doing a commercial for Timothy O’Toole’s.  We shot the project Thursday night from roughly 11PM to 3AM and I think we got something really succesful with great heart.  Our go-to actor Nathan Polzin rocked the shit as always and it runs a minute in length.  We’re trying to get the project finished by Friday so hopefully by then I’ll be able to throw it up online.

Thanks to everyone (the extras) who made it possible.  If you were there then you would know I was really worried about attendance and although I wish we could have had more there, I think we did a good job.

On another note, Chemical 12-D got it’s last revision tonight and Thursday will be another casting session.  I’ll try my best to keep you all up to date.  Take it easy.

-Mac Eldridge

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