Salt of the Earth Poster


Salt of the Earth Poster #1.

I've also set up a "Salt of the Earth" group on Facebook- if you have an account, check it out and join!!

Peppering the Salt

Howdy! It's been a wild and busy month. I've finished helping with Oisin- editing, editing sound and color correction and have handed it back to Russ Adams.

With that, I have turned my attention back to Salt of the Earth, which I have gone down and dirty with the edit- refining it so the pace is appropriate to all the scenes. I've also been storyboarding out the pickups which will give the first scene an entirely different context than just a simple conversation in a plaza. As I have been editing it, I've been color correcting it as I go. Here's some more grabs:








I've also asked my long time associate Brett Stagg to create an animation for me that will play at the beginning. Once all of that is done, it's the business of cleaning up the audio, doing the sound design and scoring it. I was really hoping to have been to this point, but projects and freelance kept popping up!

The second of the "future noir" shorts has been written, and I have been working with a few people on getting it planned. More on this as we get all the i's crossed and the t's dotted.

Winter Plans

Editing on Oisin has been slow but steady... things have been extremely hectic lately and I've been interrupted quite a bit, so it's made it challenging.

Salt of the Earth is on hold until I can finish Oisin, but I found some concept images I had created that I was originally planning on using at the beginning of the short. The idea was to have a flying car fly down and into the city:

than behind this statue:

than over a building which we use in our establishing shot, where it tilts down showing Yolanda Arrey having her morning breakfast at a sidewalk cafe. But it didn't seem convincing to me and we don't have flying cars in any other part of this short (they are a part of the story's world, but we found they're expensive to rent) so I decided on a more sinister approach to the beginning- which I have been storyboarding out.

Because of our rickety economy, I've decided to turn one of the three future shorts I had for the Unreleased-Named-Future-Noir-Feature-project into a web comic. Don't get me wrong, I am not taking an easier path by doing a web comic- they are very time consuming and tough; I'm trading in hundreds of phone calls for arrangements for hundreds of hours cramping up my drawing hand... not that I'm complaining :)

But in all reality, the main reason is the season- the future noir shorts take place during warmer weather... so it's a wait until spring time to get those going again, and I'll be doing something over the Winter in the meantime.

Michael Turner: 1971-2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Turner_(artist)

Before my advent into filmmaking, I was an aspiring comic book artist. I was good, but I was way, way, way too slow. I would always marvel at the amazing talents of it all... and Michael Turner was definitely one of them.

I've known he's had a long battle with cancer... and with sadness came across the news that he had passed yesterday.

Thoughts and prayers with his family.

...

Digital Television and You!

These were written and produced by none other than Todd McGowan! I helped with the "animated" segment by drawing the kids watching TV, and there's some small chunks from "Love's Confession" and the TV Specialists spot in there that I did a few years ago. Car Time's open is also in there!

Enjoy and get edumacated!

Part One


Part Two

Red Scarlet

Holy wow~! I want one! The 3k Red Scarlet

With it having a smaller acquisition of 3k compared to their flagship Red One at 4k, I'm guessing that the price will be proportionately smaller. I guess we'll find out next year.

However, it's always the glass that's the most expensive part, isn't it?

Video Archives - Corner of the Mind's Eye Rehearsals: Summer 2006


Corner of the Mind's Eye - Rehearsals Summer 2006 from Juan Maestas on Vimeo.

Laron Wilson and Katherine Joan Taylor rehearsing a scene behind Black Hawk Entertainment's Studios for Corner of the Mind's Eye back in the summer of 2006. Directed and shot by Juan Maestas on a Canon XL-1.

Updated Concept Art Gallery

I finally got the concept art gallery up and running again. I'll soon be adding more images to it, including Archangel Alpha Conceptual Art and Two Sides of the Moon.

http://www.lostskies.com/backlot/jmaestas-gallery.html

Lost Skies Facelift

Lostskies.com had a major facelift a month ago, but I had conceptualized this logo and had been working on refining the look for a while. I'm planning on animating it for the opening slate on all future productions. Let me know what you think!

I've also finished my second feature-length screenplay and have registered it with the Writer's Guild of America. I'll be announcing more on this in weeks to come!

A3 Concept Art and Future Plans

Here is some early concept art for Archangel Alpha.  These were used in early funding pitches.

Alphas Attack


Old Friends Contemplate the War


Elena and the Sea of Glass


Alex's Apartment in Old Rodinia

Aaron has been busy working on his spec trailer, you can read all about his adventures here:

As for Corner of the Mind's Eye... I've been giving this quite a bit of thought.  COTME is essentially a road movie.  Most of the action takes place in the desert, in small towns, a roadside diner, a hospital, a gas station... quite a bit of locations that require quite a bit of money to produce.  That said, I am working on a script revision to help with a weak b-plot and I'd like to shoot a spec trailer to approach others for production funding.  The necessary evil of it... but it's good- people will get paid, the sets will be insured (as they always should be) but the biggest thing is to pay the people at least a percentage and the rest is on deferment.  

With that, I've been working on a brand new project that will not be hard to produce on a literal shoe-string budget.  The cool thing is that I'm still working within the sci-fi genre.  I'll talk more about that as the now 106 page script gets polished and I get the crew I've been talking to into place.  I will mention that I've been collecting spaghetti jars for the past month for a very eerie and wild scene.  Fun fun fun.  I love this stuff!!  Armed with my Canon HV-20, which takes AMAZING low light shots, I'm ready.  I just gotta polish that script.

Well, that's it for now!  More to come soon!!!


Lostskies Website Update

Lostskies.com has been re-designed! A couple of little bugs to iron out, but the new look is up. I've also signed up for a new Vimeo Account... I tested it with this clip that I animated a year ago.


Are you ready for Car Time? from Juan Maestas on Vimeo.

Storms in the Lost Skies

Things have been quite turbulant lately- in a good way. I've managed to pick up quite a bit of subcontracted freelance doing corporate videos and storyboards. Can't say who or what... but it's been very hectic.

Here's a little visual treat as I was messing around with After Effects a month ago, trying to place matte paintings into existing footage. I used an old Public Domain movie... see if you can guess what movie it is: