We got him

To the men and women who fight to protect out country, To those families who have lost loved ones on 9/11, my love, my support, and my deepest respect go to you.

And I know this is the big news story right now, but I do want to say that I am thinking of those in the south who were hit hard by the storms. So much damage and still so many people missing. If you can, please make a donation to the Red Cross.

http://www.redcross.org/

We started shooting this past Saturday for Redd, and my brother is improving. I'll be posting more about all that later.

Feel free to head over to the official site for REDD.

http://www.reddmovie.com

Check out the blog or the photos section to see some of the new pics from the shoot. Like this one:

Working and Practicing

I am just blown away by the death and destruction in all of the towns hit by the tornadoes, especially in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Juli and I use to stop there when we drove cross country. We stopped and spent the night there, got dinner, and drove around half joking about how we should get a house there. It kind of became our 3rd home. 1st and 2nd going to NC and TX.

It's been heart breaking to see the footage of the devastation, and even more so to keep seeing the body count rise.

On happier news, my Brother is improving. Yesterday, April 30th, was his birthday, and I'm just so happy he's still around to celebrate it. He's got a ways to go, but it's looking good for him. Thank God.

And speaking of God, I get the feeling a bunch of people may have been a little freaked out about my last video on MAY 21st being Judgment Day. I think some folks see the title, and just don't watch it, and then make assumptions about me. When really it's a comedy piece, and I thought it was hilarious.

No I do not think that May 21st is judgment day. Yes the video I made kind of makes fun of that. Watch it, I think it's hilarious. But I guess it would help if you were a fan of 80's movies. Some very 80's references in that vid.

Yesterday, April 30th, we started officially shooting for REDD. And it's all coming back to me now. The tiring hours of rehearsal, dealing with the props,. the costume bits, the lighting, the camera, and dealing with the overall awkwardness of shooting outdoors. Thankfully the weather was nice, but I know it won't be like that alot of the time we are shooting this movie. I'm anticipating heat in the future.

I am terribly sleepy. I'm going to lay down now. I'll do a proper update later.

Something's not right. I'm going to need to ponder this for a bit.

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MAY 21st. JUDGMENT DAY?

I've made a video about the controversy surrounding this supposed date for God's Judgment Day / End Of The World.

Sadie says it

If I were to sum up and express my beliefs, it would be equal to this video. Thanks Sadie.

April Rundown

Great weekend. Hotel, Sinatra, Steve Lippia, Prime Rib, Mavericks game, brunch, and my brother is able to speak now. I'm happy things are working out and anxious to work on things to continue make things better for ourselves.

Part of me feels the more I can work on things movie wise, the better my brother will get, and the better life will get in general.

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YES!

Just got an update on my bro. He's improving greatly. Breathing on his own and everything. Big sigh of relief. He's even smiling. YES!

I'm so very thankful for all that I have and all the opportunities available to me. Despite the ups and downs, I'm doing alright.

Sorry, just sitting here eating lunch and it hits me how lucky I am. I really appreciate this life.

And now I kinda want a smoothie.

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ROUGH ROAD

This post is from the Blog for my current production REDD. I'll most likely be posting a more in-depth blog about my trip to Texas soon. But for now, enjoy.


It's been a rough road indeed. I've been doing preliminary work on this production. Working on props, re-writes, still doing a bit of casting, and securing locations.

My family in Texas informed me that my big brother, Robert, was having health issues and he was admitted to the hospital in late February. I was worried about him of course. Later in March they told me he had a heart infection. Things were getting serious. My family was worried, and I was distressed being so far away from home. I'm in North Carolina. Me and my wife were planning a trip back to Dallas in May. I hadn't been home or seen my family in 6 years. I was hoping that our first trip back wouldn't be because of bad news. So I waited day by day for updates on Robert's condition.

Late March I had reconnected with my old friend and usual set photographer, Julie Keels. We discussed REDD and the details of her involvement, and how I needed her talents as a photographer. Literally the next day, she would wreck her car in a horrible accident. The following week she would pass away.

I was already distressed about my brother, and now a close friend has suddenly been taken.

The day of her funeral my brother Phillip called. He said I needed to come home as soon as possible. Things were not looking good for my Big Brother. I wouldn't get to go to Julie's memorial service. We packed up and headed for Dallas asap. My worst fear had come true. I was headed home to say goodbye to my brother.

I was in Dallas from March 26th to April 3rd. It was a roller coaster of emotion. The surreal familiarity of coming home after so long. The heart break of seeing my brother in that hospital bed. The ups and downs, going from very profound dramatic moments all the way to the goofy comedy that still exude from my family, even in times of pain.

In my first visit to see him in the hospital, it was rather rough seeing him in such bad shape. He couldn't speak, and because of the meds his reactions were slow. The best you could hope for as a response would be eye blinking, and movement from his right hand.

I let him know he was a big part of what inspired me to make movies. We would watch movies and he would explain things that I as a kid wouldn't understand. He would be a strong part of my long history as a movie fanatic. I told him he had to start getting better. If he did, then I'd finish this movie and he could make a full recovery and come to the premiere.

He looked at me. I could see in his eyes he could hear me.

It was looking bleak. One day we had a meeting. We discussed Hospice and then Funeral Arrangements.

The next day, he started to show signs of improvement.

All of a sudden things were looking up. Thank God.

The rest of my time there was very profound and moving. Lots of nostalgia. Being with family, seeing my old hometown, walking the very streets I ran around in shooting my first feature film. Seeing locations from my second feature film. Driving past the old movie theater where I spent years as a projectionist.

I realized I needed to be here, at that exact time, to experience exactly what I had experienced. To remember where I came from and how I started making movies.

It was the shot in the arm that I needed. To feel that, to reminisce and be with my family, and to tell my brother what I needed to tell him. With everything starting to look more positive, I was ready to get back to work on REDD. To get back to work on making a movie.

As it stands now my brother is not out of the woods. There are still some hurdles for him, and it may be a long fight, but he's still in this. He's not done yet. And the best I can do is root for him, stay positive, and keep my promise. He'll get better, and I'll make a movie.

As for the great Julie Keels, I'm sad she is gone. But I'll celebrate her by doing what she and I always connected on. The movies. I respected her talents as a photographer and in her honor I'll do my best to make every shot of this movie cinematic and picturesque.

I want to thank everyone who has shown this production support. And to those who knew what was going on with me, thank you for your kind and caring words and your prayers, it is greatly greatly appreciated.

The first round of funding on Kickstarter is done, but we will be starting up another round very soon.

Production wise, re-writes are about done, we still have a bit of casting left, and props to finish. We start shooting this month and we're on schedule to finish up this summer with a fall premiere in North Carolina and in Texas.

Please like us on Facebook for more details:
http://www.facebook.com/reddactionhorrormovie

Feel free to check out my blog post about my friend Julie Keels.


Seriously, thank you, all of you.

- Patrick A. Prejusa

HOME

Home in NC. Got back from Texas last night. What I thought was going to be a depressing trip turned out to be pretty awesome. My Brother is not completely out of the woods, but he is improving, and he looks alot better. Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support. I believe your positivity has made a world of difference.

I'll post in detail of our full adventure back to my home town in a bit, but right now I've got MUCH organizing, unpacking, and regrouping to do.

More soon.

There is a lot of love in this family. It feels wonderful to feel it again. At this point, anything can happen with my brother. No matter what, in the end, It's going to be about love.

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Can't sleep. What a truly surreal, busy, emotional, day this was. I don't know what to make of it quite yet.

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It's been 6 years. I'm home. This is surreal.

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I'm afraid that I'm going to have to fly to Texas tomorrow to say good bye to my brother. It's not looking too good for him.

I feel bad for missing Julie's memorial service.  Today has been very hectic trying to get things in order.

We leave in the morning.

What an awful terrible time this is.

Exclusively For You

That was the title of the email I got from my friend Julie Keels. She got hacked and that email was actually from a spammer. The contents suggesting a link to affordable Viagra.

I emailed her back to let her know that I thought she had been hacked, or she was really suggesting I needed viagra. She responded letting me know she knew, and that she figured that I didn't need any viagra.

And it was because of a piece of spam email that started the last conversation I would ever have with Julie Keels. I told her about REDD and about how I needed her talents as my usual set photographer. She was excited to work with me again, and thought the project looked good.

Her last email to me said, "Can you call me?"

I never got a chance to. And I regret that I didn't.

The next morning she would wreck her car. Her Ford Explorer flipping over and then hitting a telephone pole. She flew out the windshield. She would remain in critical condition at Wake Forest Baptist Hospital suffering from many injuries.

She passed away earlier this evening.

My love, and positivity, and support goes to her loving family who was there with her when she passed. As crappy and sad as it may sound, that is actually a very precious thing. To be surrounded by people who love you, and to be with the ones you love when they pass on. I speak from experience.

Special thanks to our mutual friend Alexis Dehart Stephens. She was the one who really got everything together to inform all of Julie's friends about the accident. She even formed a Facebook page that was very informative and useful to all of us who care for Julie.

She was not only my set photographer, model, actress, and production crew member, she was my friend, and I will miss her.


Julie Keels played model for me in an Ad I shot for a Hoodie Commercial. The footage of her was so awesome I threw the unused footage together in a quick music video.

I'll miss our long enduring talks about film, and how easy it was for me to make you laugh. You were one of the people that believed in me and my supposed talents. I think you understood what I was going for, what my goals are, and what it meant to me to try to make truly great movies. It was my pleasure to work with you, talk with you, laugh with you, and be friends with you.

I'm sorry I didn't call you.

Photos by Julie Keels

Thank you for being there for me and for believing in me.

Clearly Defined Goals

I've gottem. Goals that is. I think the biggest problem is the amount of distraction. Always there to try to deter you from reaching those goals. And there have been many. From the trivial to the tragic, I have been shaken a little, but I never really stop working at them. If I ever stop then that is the ultimate defeat for me. I mean, you never really fail if you never stop trying.

There has been much to be worried about. Still no movement on my brother. Just hoping I don't get bad news anytime soon. Right now, no news is good news.

That plus a few other minor trivial and somewhat worrying things have distracted me from really pushing this Kickstarter cause.



I would traditionally do more updates, blogs and vlogs, but so many other things going on, I've just been too distracted and too busy.

But if all else fails I'll just start up another campaign next month. We do have 8 days left, so ya never know.

The good news I have just enough funding to get started shooting soon. We've been doing a few rehearsals here and there. I've been working on re-writes, building and painting props, establishing locations, etc.

I must admit, I was lost there for a second. Mainly due to all the personal stuff going on. But I can't let worries slow me down. Worrying never helped anything. Being prepared for the worst and hoping for the best is always the way to go. But sitting around worrying about what may or may not happen. It doesn't work.

Whether something happens or not, it shouldn't alter your work towards your clearly defined goals.

If I die tomorrow, well that would suck, but worrying about it today won't do anything for it. Maybe I'll prepare, I'll put on my bullet proof vest, look both ways before I cross the street, and take plenty of vitamin C, but sitting and worrying is nowhere near preparing, and is definitely nowhere near productive.

What if I worry and worry and worry and then nothing happens. What if I don't die and I end up living a long and healthy life. I'll have been too busy worrying and I'll be nowhere near my clearly defined goals.

So take those worries, give them their due respect, and then set them to the side while you move forward. Because this life is not worth living if you don't move forward.

So those are the orders I'm giving myself. The drill instructor shouting in my soul is screaming orders at me:

"Continue marching soldier. I don't care if the world looks like it's ending. I don't care if you've got people on the sidelines screaming that you can't do it, or you need to take cover because there's danger ahead. You trust your own eyes and tell me what you see. Do you see doomsday? Do you see danger ahead? Do you see utter catastrophe? No you don't. All you see is what you've always seen, even when others couldn't. Especially when others couldn't. You see the light. Your light. Your goals. Now you keep marching forward soldier. You march forward and you get them goals. They're yours, so you go gettem. DOUBLE TIME!"

And so I march on.

"In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it."
- Robert Heinlein

I'm very lost right now.

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BUILDING A MYSTERY

My Brother is still in the hospital. He's on a respirator. They say he's slowly showing signs of improvement. So I continue to hope for the best.

Despite my worries I have to move forward.

I would like to thank the 11 folks who have pledged to REDD's Kickstarter so far.



I'm in the midsts of doing re-writes for the script for REDD. The reason the last blog post was titled Mystery Box was because I've had Mystery Boxes, Macguffins, Plotlines, and Twists on the brain. Specifically the idea of Mystery Boxes due to this TED talk from JJ Abrams.



I swear I could watch TED talks all day. It's so enlightening and inspirational to hear intelligent, thought provoking, dialogue from passionate people.

JJ Abrams talks about his obsession with magic, design, technology, and making mysteries inside of making movies and telling stories.

This speaks volumes about what I find interesting about what I'm doing. I am building a mystery. And I often do. 24 hours a day 7 days a week. If I'm not thinking about how much I love my wife, I am thinking about stories. Movies play in my head. If you ever spy on me when I'm alone in a room, you'd think I was insane. I talk to myself. characters speak through me, I act out scenes. If not, then I'm sitting, zoned out, staring into nothing, watching the secret screening room in my head, piecing together the puzzle that is the movie that I want to make for you.

The earliest memories of me doing this were in church. 8 years old, sitting in the pew, as the Catholic Deacon reads today's passage, I was choreographing fight scenes in my head and coming up with witty dialogue. Fast forward 28 years later. Not much has changed. Even as I write this, my brain is still working out scenes. I build Mystery Boxes all the time. I place them in scenes in hopes that it will finally reach you from inside of my movie, and when you open it, you'll be taken in and blown away all at once.

And JJ Abrams is right, with today's technology, a no-budget filmmaker can do almost anything. So what ever scenes I work out in my head, I know I can make it happen.

Sort of.

I have to keep myself tethered to whatever assets I have or can get. And I've blogged about this, making movies on what you've got, it's the very essence of Guerrilla Filmmaking. The very essence of Guerrilla Warfare. (As I've done before) I quote Gene Hackman from ENEMY OF THE STATE.

In guerrilla warfare, you try to use your weaknesses as strengths. If they're big and you're small, then you're mobile and they're slow. You're hidden and they're exposed. Only fight battles you know you can win. That's the way the Vietcong did it. You capture their weapons and you use them against them the next time. That way they're supplying you. You grow stronger as they grow weaker.

In Guerrilla Filmmaking you do the same. You could see your lack of money as a weakness. But in reality it's an opportunity for you to push yourself creatively. I can't afford a prop department to build my gun props, I have to make them myself out of plastic bottles and hot glue. I couldn't afford a really expensive Werewolf costume, so I made one out of materials I already had, cardboard and duct tape.

And when you're building a Mystery Box guerrilla style, it gets even more interesting. And that's where I'm at now. There is a sense of mystery, magic, passion, and cleverness I'm trying to instill in this Mystery Box called REDD. And I'm doing it Guerrilla style. Perhaps we'll be able to get ahead production wise if we can raise the money from Kickstarter, but in the end it's still about doing this with what I've got and not letting it hinder my creative process, but letting it inspire the creation of the Mystery.

Building the Mystery Box. It's a conundrum that I love to fascinate over. I love playing the detective, solving a case with no solution. Puzzling over a riddle that has no answer. The only true answer is the one I come up with, but it has to be one that resonates with me. Only then will the entire movie truly resonate with the audience.

Inspiration is the key to opening and creating the Mystery Box, even and especially when you're doing it guerrilla style. I turn to the great words of Jim Jarmusch.

The Mystery Box

This is my first blog from my new phone. Let's hope this app works properly.

My Auntie Lina had passed away. The funeral was this week and I'm sad I couldn't attend. It's I'm San Diego and I wasn't able to leave NC.

Now my brother in Texas is in the hospital with a heart infection. I'm told he requires surgery, and even then they say he only has a 15% chance of making it. I wish I could make it down to see him. But I won't be able to travel for a few months. All I can do is stay positive, and keep him I'm my thoughts.

A lot is transpiring all at once. The exciting opportunities on the horizon, along with the possibility of more tragedy. All I can do is just take it day by day.

The Kickstarter for Redd is still underway. Less than 23 days now. 6 people have pledged and its about time for me to thank those folks in a new video blog. That'll be coming up soon.

No matter what, I must reach my goals this year. Make movies and put em out for people to see. And hopefully, make enough money to keep making these movies.

I'll get there. Despite what life wants to throw at you. Know that on some level, you are always in control of your destiny.

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REDD Concept Trailer

I made a longer Recut of the Teaser. Added a bit at the beginning, changed up the music a bit.

Right now, I'm re-working the budget, making prop lists, and doing re-writes.