The Rock RACES TO WITCH MOUNTAIN

Disney is not above recycling there own films so its of now surprise that the novel “Escape to Witch Mountain” by Alexander Key is now the new pre-summer film Race To Witch Mountain starring everyone’s famous former wrestler Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock).

In the summer film tradition this new film has a lot of special FX and a lot of action and like the title suggests it “races” from one moment to the next at the pace of a Michael Bay film. Like last year’s Journey To The Center of the Earth in 3D, Race is a no-brains action kids film that easily forgotten after viewing. Kids will probably love it but anyone over the age of 13 will just wish they’d gone and saw something else.

The film concerns two aliens who crash to Earth in search of a secret experiment left on Earth that will help their own planet survive imminent danger. If they don’t get the experiment back to their planet in time then the people of their planet will invade Earth. Johnson plays Jack Bruno, the cab driver who drives them from place to place and inevitable gets himself caught up in trying to help the aliens get back home to their planet before the government gets a hold of them.

Although the special FX are really well done and there are some comic moments to be had between Johnson and Carla Gugino (from Watchmen), the film never seems fresh or new since most of what happens has been seen and done before in other Disney movies. As directed by Andy Fickman (with a screenplay by Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback), the film has very little to offer anyone with an extensive background in old Disney films. The only people that will enjoy this film are children who haven’t had the chance to watch all the classic Disney films yet (or fans of The Rock).

"A Gift" of Something Nice

Yesterday I started production on the new short film "A Gift" from co-directors Ondie Daniel and Keith Kelley. The production is part of a final project for their acting class in which I put CenterSeat Entertainment in the forefront as a co-producer in order to help get the project done.

In addition to being a co-producer I'm also the cinematographer for the film. Helping out on the film is Vernon Mui as my assistant cinematographer and cameraman and Asa Rose as my Best Boy and Sound man. These two have helped me on previous productions and were looking for an oportunity to work on something a little different then what they were accustomed to.

This being a film derived from an acting class, all the students just so happen to between the ages of three and sixteen or earlier high schoolers. Yesterday we filmed most of the exterior scenes with three of the young actors on he dock owned by the director Kelley. In fact, most of the scenes filmed had these same three boys whether on the dock fishing or up at the house camping and building a fire.

This being the first film in these positions for both filmmakers, Daniel and Kelley alternated between which films the other would take. Their job was essentially to focus on performances while I focused on the look and feel of scene in terms of all the technical aspects. It was a fast and furious film set as we tried to film as much as possible before some of the children began getting too tired or ansy or plan bored with the process of filmmaking.

Many scenes we breezed through, whether for the good or the bad, but one of the things that suffered most was the acting which we couldn't get all the actors to be "normal" in front of the camera and we may not have gotten all the coverage that we might need. I got a lot of coverage on my own without asking Kelley for specifics of what he needed (and frankly I don't think he knew what he needed).

All in all I took the experience like I do most first time directors which is that they will make mistakes but ultimately everything will turn out fine. I'm looking forward to the shoot later today because these little film shoots help me to remember that I'm a filmmaker at herat.