Category: The Film Business

Jun 07 2012

“Big Island Daily” Reviews Strange Frame

By Hadley Catalano

There is a budding film scene on the Big Island. Not just with Hollywood’s attraction to the untouched beauty of the island’s pristine landscape but within the working vessels of its emerging entrepreneurial residents.

Geoffrey Blair Hajim, known as “GB” is one such motivated up and coming filmmaker. A digital animator, writer, artist, producer and director, the jack-of-all-trades has made a name for himself among animators and videographers both in his home of Hilo and abroad.

This past May, Hajim’s animated sci-fi feature film, “Strange Frame: Love & Sax,” debuted in its world premiere at Sci-Fi London: The International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film. Directed and co-created by Hajim and his close friend and San Francisco area musician Shelley Doty the animated 96-minute movie has been billed as the first animated sci-fi lesbian rock musical.

“We wanted to create an adventure for lesbian teenagers and young adults that would also work for the greater sci-fi fan base,” said Hajim whose co-creator Doty is an African-American member of the LGBT community, has release two critically acclaimed independent CD with her band the Shelley Doty X-tet, and has performed with Sarah McLachlan, The Pretenders, the Neville Brothers, No Doubt, and Train, among others. “Lesbians of color need a hero of their own.”

Both the local director and rock musician were drawn toward science fiction as a socially progressive form of literature, describing an ideal, said Hajim, of what we could become. A more tolerant version of our current status, showing us what could happen if we display continued intolerance.

[note color="#FFCC00"]To read the full article, please click this link: http://bigislandweekly.com/ae/big-island-filmmakers-premiere-animated-film-in-london.html[/note]

Jun 02 2010

Film & Festivals Magazine Talks About Animation

Film and Festivals Issue 22 is all about animation and transmedia. A must read! Click this link to register using HP MagCloud (it’s free): http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/89299/follow and then you can download the magazine issue to any e-pub reader.

May 01 2010

To 3-D or not to 3-D

When we started production on strange frame I had a few discussions with some big wigs at Buena Vista and Sony. Without committing anything to our production, they were laying in the heavy talk about doing our movie in 3-D. “If you really want it to sell…” blah, blah, blah.

Well, today, Roger Ebert, wrote a good article about the subject:

I write ‘good’ because he outlines pretty much all the points that went through my head some 5 years ago. The few other points that I mulled were outlined in an another well thought out piece called “The Final Word: Is 3-D better than 2-D?” By William Bibbiani.

Both articles are worth a read. I do have a low budget horror comedy in development. It might be fun to make in 3-D because the movie is supposed to be campy. Camp is how I see 3D and now I know I’m not alone in this.

Mar 17 2010

The Wind Cries Mary

image2

Florida state is trying to pass a tax credit for filmmaking in their state ‘as long as the film has no gay and lesbian content’. This makes me very sad, angry and determined to make ‘Strange Frame’ a big thing. It makes Parker sad.

[qt:/uploads/2010/03/sc122sh4h264.mov 480 240]

I did the artwork and animation all on Monday.

Mar 04 2010

More about distribution and film festivals

I’ve been wary about film festivals. In 1999, I did the production on a feature film called Ka’ililauokekoa. It was a low budget film, but never the less did very well at the film festivals. When I did the math on the ticket sales at these festivals I found that these festivals grossed 2 times the budget of the film. This was very unsettling for me since the film never got a theatrical deal.

There are definitely festivals to go to where the exposure is worth giving the festival free content, but that is the conscious decision every filmmaker must make: Who am I willing to give free content to? What is the non-fiscal payback?

Tribeca recently announced they are following Sundance into the VOD distribution model. David Poland sums up this idea better than I can: Festivals Raping Filmmakers… Or Just A Friendly Reach Around?

A Synopsis

Parker, a saxophonist, leaves a comfortable life to play music in dangerous Ganymede City. Rioting breaks out and a debt slave named Naia escapes and then rescues Parker from one of the regime’s thugs. They fall fast in love and form a band. Soon Naia is enslaved again, this time to the deadly stardom of the 28th century. Though down and out, Parker sets out on a quest to free Naia and redeem their love.

"...a dreamscrape..." - Shelagh M. Rowan-Legg, TwitchFilm

Connect with us

Link to ourFacebook Page
Link to ourRss Page
Link to ourTwitter Page

Special Offer

strange-frame

You can order directly from our distributor Wolfe!

Strange Frame is available on Amazon!

Strange Frame is available on Amazon!

This gorgeous animated sci-fi story explores the theme of the transformative power of love between two women. As our story begins it is the 28th century, 200 years after the Great Earth Exodus. We re on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons. Our hero Naia is a feisty, young singer-songwriter who falls in love with the beautiful saxophonist Parker. The two embark on their new relationship and also form a band and now they have to not only make it as musicians but also to fight for their freedom. Dramatically rendered in rich, hand drawn animation, Strange Frame brings us into a world of space pirates, indentured slaves and genetic mutations infused with music throughout, to create a dreamlike tale unlike anything you ve ever seen. EXTRAS- Featurette: In the Studio with Claudia Black, Tara Strong, Ron Glass,Cree Summer, Juliet Landau, Michael Dorn & George Takei Featurette: Claudia Black: On Strange Frame, Sex Scenes and Sci-FI Deleted Scene Trailer More from Wolfe Closed Captions

Price $19.99

http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Frame/dp/B00AX7PIK2

Login Form