http://www.ebaumsworld.com/2006/01/barebacktopgun.html

Looking forward to the latest collection, when can we expect it to be published?

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Showtime’s Masters of Horror (a series of one-hour horror films directed by “masters” such as John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon, John Landis and others) is adapting my short story “Pelts” for its second season. The notorious / infamous and enormously talented Dario Argento (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000783/) has chosen to direct it.

Since MoH films all of its features in Vancouver, that’s where I went. I couldn’t spare the time for the entire two-week shoot, but I could manage a couple-three days.

A few words about the adaptation: They’ve kept the basics but altered the ending and added lots of sex. My story held the promise of sex – it fueled one character’s actions – but it never happened. (Ah, frustration.) In fact, not one of the people who schemed to gain from the pelts got what they wanted. That was one of the points of the story.

Am I upset? No. Am I about to throw a hissy fit for you? No. Sure, I’d have preferred them to follow my nobody-got-what-they-wanted arc, and preserve the story’s symmetry, but when you sell film rights, the operative word is “sell” – which means you no longer own them. They belong to someone else. You hope they’ll treat your story with respect, but there’s no guarantee. I learned that the hard way with Michael Mann’s adaptation of The Keep (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085780/). But in that case my book was raped. Here, “Pelts” has simply been tarted up without corrupting its essence.

If you’re not JK Rowling, with every filmmaker in the world bidding to adapt Harry Potter, thus allowing you to demand cast and script approval, you either take your chances or refuse to sell any rights at all.

So, I arrove in Vancouver late Tuesday night, too late to visit the strip-club shoot. (NB: There’s no strip club in my story, but that shoot would have been, um, interesting.)

Wednesday is a night exterior shoot with crew call at 3pm. Mick Garris (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0308376/) – the creator and guiding light of the series – calls in the morning and invites me to go to the location along with him and director Dario Argento. We all gather in the lobby at 1:30. I've met Mick before. He’s a screenwriter, director, producer, novelist, and a gracious, unpretentious, genuine man – about as unHollywood as you can imagine.

He introduces me to the maestro and his translator, Francesca. Dario Argento turns out to be a slight man, about five-eight, with a quick smile and an amiable manner. His heavily accented English is serviceable and Francesca helps him when he gets stuck on a word.

The location for the Jamesons' farm is a historic site about 40km outside of Vancouver. We all make small talk and stroke each other for a while, then Dario and Francesca put their heads together over the day’s call sheet while Mick and I catch up.

We turn off a country road onto a dirt drive lined with equipment trailers and cranes and generators and the all-important catering truck. Even though it’s after 2pm, they're serving breakfast. I have some peppers and eggs and bacon while the other three grab fresh-made grilled-cheese sandwiches.

Two hundred yards from the road sits the house. It has no power lines running to it so it’s perfect for a remote place in the Jersey Pine Barrens. The set designers have wound vines all around the front to give it a more unkempt look.

Beyond that, on a rise behind the bend, they've erected two walls with a roof to serve as an old Piney woman’s shack – from the right angle you'd think it was a complete building that had been sitting on the spot for fifty years.

Beyond that the land slopes off to where they've erected the “ruins” Dario requested. In the story there’s a species of spleenwort growing in a straight line. It can't grow in the acid soil of the Barrens, so when you see it you can be pretty sure a building (or maybe one of the “lost towns” of the Barrens) used to sit there and the stuff is growing over the limestone of the foundation.

Since this is film, Dario wanted a more visual hint that some other structure preceded the Jameson farm in the area by a long, long time. What they've given him is a couple of piles of worn, broken blocks (styrofoam, but you'd never know) indicating maybe an ancient gateway, and beyond that something that may have been a monolith or temple stone in its heyday. I’m impressed.

A light rain begins as they start the shoot. People grumble but it isn't going to stop them. Today’s scenes involve furrier Jake Feldman and his assistant as they find the pelts and what’s left of the Jamesons. John Saxon plays Pa Jameson but he’s not involved today.

Meat Loaf (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001533/) plays Jake, and Mick introduces me to him as the guy who wrote the original story.

“You dreamed this up?” Mr. Loaf says as we shake hands. “You're one sick guy.”

I hear that a lot; I give my standard reply: “Thank you.”

Between setups Mick, Meat (his folks named him Michael Aday but he wants to be called Meat -- I kid you not) and I sit and gab in the set’s “video village” – a tented area where we can watch monitors and see what the cameras see as they shoot. He’s natural and unassuming, and serious about his acting. He wants to know more about Jake and how he feels when he first sees the pelts. I tell him these aren't just pelts, they're uber-pelts and he’s seeing his whole future open up before him. He's seeing paradise by the dashboard light.

After hours of lots of activity and very little footage being shot, I'm ready to go. The temperature has dropped, a wind has sprung up, and I'm not dressed for this. Mick is heading back to the hotel to meet with Tobe Hooper about budgeting his upcoming film, and so I hitch a ride.

Back in my room, I write into the night.

(I'll post photos in a few days.)

Hey there all and sorry i started a whole new thread here but i can barely contain my enthusiasm. Just finished Gateways and i turned to look at my stack of books and noticed i had no others the ones i ordered have not arrived yet. hope i can last till then.

one observation not a spoiler at all. Being a Jersey boy and all i love RJ even more. Loved Gateways every bit as much as Hosts, finished this title in one work day. Loved the story and thirst for more.

XXXXXXXX SPOLIER AHEAD XXXXXXX

LOved oyv gotta get me a dog like him and loved anya or kother or whoever she is. The whole thing with Jack's dad was fantastic and it is good to learn about RJ who he is and all that and even sal too.

xxxxx END SPOLIERXXXXX

just wanted to let my adrenaline out here for a bit before ig et depressed when i realize i have to wait to read more RJ.

Oh my God!!!! I watched this on Comedy Central last night, and I don't know if I have ever laughed so hard. Hilarious!!! I remember this guy from the early 1990s back when stand-up was at its peak. He hasn't lost a step. His show involves 5 dummies, each with individual and HILARIOUS personalities. Hopefully, they will rebroadcast it. Find this, and watch it. You won't be disappointed.

http://www.onastick.com/

Just wondering, is there anyone out there that would be interested in some Seinfeld trivia once the RJ trivia is over with at the end of this week. I have about 200 questions ready. They range from basic knowledge to hard-core junkie difficulity. Let me know if there is any interest out there.:confused:

couldn't get them in order but just finished reading Hosts. RJ is the man. loved the story and can't wait to get more into it to find out about the otherness and the adversary whom i will assume with my limited knowledge is sal roma or whatever. one question i have is the russian lady with the dog. it seems to me she fills the same role as the oracle in the matrix or have i just over simplified it or even overshot the whole damn purpose of this woman.

shame Kate had to die and Sandy too actually liked the kid and liked Beth too.

Gateways is my next trip and i hope to learn infinite amounts more about this world and oh yeah almost forgot gotta love Abe too

Russian lady mentioned tests and etc in the scene at the end. was this something that happened to happen, meaning the death of kate, for him to be able to continue down the path that has been chosen for him. im sure im way off base here or was it the otherness trying to slow him down.

oh god i cant wait for gATEWAYS and the rest.

i am starting to reread all the RJ novels from the beginning and i was wondering if you ever learn Jack's real last name in any of them. i know we have met his entire family, but i don't know if his real name was every given. does anyone know it or is it forever a mystery?

Here's an article from the L.A. Times. What do you think about the idea of horror films going straight to dvd and bypassing the big screen? Some recent movies, Hostel, Stay Alive, and others could have went straight to dvd and probably made more money. Whaddaya think?

AC

Warner Video Takes Horror Straight to DVD
The studio, a longtime holdout from the disc-only market, enters with three small films on the grisly side.
By Claire Hoffman, Times Staff Writer
April 9, 2006

If Warner Home Video and a trio of established TV and film creators have their way, sci-fi and horror fans will soon be watching three gruesome new movies — the fruits of Warner's first deal to bypass movie theaters and go straight to DVD.
Very loosely inspired by the 1960s TV series "The Twilight Zone," the scary movie slate — released under the banner Raw Feed — will be put together by men with proven track records for inducing fright.

Daniel Myrick, the director of the 1999 indie thriller "The Blair Witch Project," Tony Krantz, a producer on the Fox TV show "24," and John Shiban, a TV writer who has penned episodes of the WB series "Supernatural" and "The X-Files," will direct a film apiece, each shot in L.A. for less than $5 million.

Krantz said he and his partners would work on each others' films and would share crews and a common goal: creating a modernized homage to Rod Serling's famous show "but with a different energy: raw, edgy, realistic."

Last year, consumers spent $22.8 billion buying and renting DVDs, up about 8% from the prior year, according to Digital Entertainment Group, a trade association. Of that, purchased DVDs accounted for 71% of the money spent — or $16.3 billion. By comparison, domestic ticket sales in movie theaters in 2005 totaled $8.99 billion.

"You can really launch a new product on DVD without having the benefit of a theatrical release," said Jeff Baker, a Warner Home Video vice president.

Raw Feed's combination of a big studio and proven talent is unusual in the direct-to-DVD market. To date, such fare has mostly been animated family films and sequels or remakes made with B-list actors and unknown writers and directors. A recent example is last year's prequel "Carlito's Way: Rise to Power," a Universal Home Entertainment release that featured little-known Jay Hernandez as the young Carlito Brigante, the role Al Pacino made famous in the original 1993 film.

To hear the Raw Feed guys talk, however, direct-to-DVD distribution may be the next frontier for filmmakers eager to get their cinematic visions in front of an audience. They, too, will be casting new faces, but they say the stories they'll be telling will be as fresh as those of big-budget movies.

"I just want people to watch it and I just want it to get out there," Shiban said during an interview on the set of what will be the first Raw Feed release: "Rest Stop," about a young couple terrorized during a cross-country road trip.

Unlike some directors, Shiban said he and his comrades were not bothered by the thought of never seeing their films on the big screen.

"We can tell different kinds of stories and not appeal to some big marketing plan," he said, referring to how expensive studio releases face increased pressure to have plot lines that are easy to sell.

"The market is big enough to hold this kind of thing," said John Fithian, president of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. "As long as there are enough movies made of quality and quantity for theaters, we understand the studios' expanding. Our biggest concern is with the misguided notion that movies should be released in theaters and on DVDs at the same time."

Fithian is referring to proposals to close what's known as the "theater-only window" — that months-long stretch in which movies have traditionally played only on the big screen. This year, writer-director Steven Soderbergh released his film, "Bubble," in theaters, on DVD and via video-on-demand over a four-day period.

The Raw Feed deal came about after Endeavor Agency, which represents Myrick, Krantz and Shiban, pitched Warner on its clients' vision of DVDs for DVDs' sake. The horror genre in particular lends itself to the "extras" that DVDs provide.

After "Rest Stop" is in the can, Raw Feed has more gore on deck. "Sublime" will be about an outpatient who goes to the hospital for minor surgery only to discover his legs have been severed. In "Cult," a man visits the religious community his brother joined and learns he has arrived on the day everyone plans to commit suicide.

"We're trying," Shiban said, "to portray reality" — or at least one version of it. "We don't try to hide anything."

I recently read Nightworld and then I just finished The Keep #5 which reminded me of something that I had forgotten while reading Nightworld. (It's been a while since I read The Keep).. in The Keep it says that if Rasalom dies then Glaeken dies.... Glaeken was alive at the end of Nightworld, so does that mean that Rasalom lives???