I received my tickets to the world premiere of "Trannies!" the movie that I worked on last summer. Trannies! is an ultra low-budget, non SAG, movie that was shot on DV for (about) 20 days last July. It was written, directed, and produced by Matt Hals, who I met through my co-worker at UCSC Zach Davis (who co-produced, and was the DP.) The film follows three friends who move to Santa Cruz to start anew and get harassed by the local surfers. The cast was a mix of young professional actors, and local Santa folks, and is funny as hell. It is premiering next Friday, August 15th, at a local Santa Cruz theater (the Rio on Soquel st.), and I encourage you all to come check it out (the show starts at 9!) It has been a long year of post production, where Zach and Matt slaved away editing and mixing the film. I've seen a rough-cut and it is really funny! Since the cut I've seen, all the surfing action has been cut together and the film has undergone an extensive color correction process using the "Magic Bullet" software, so I'm very excited to see the final product.

And speaking of surf movies, tonight I finally got a chance to see "Blue Crush," the "surfer chicks are hard core too" movie from last summer. This film came out right in the middle of production on Trannies! and I was hoping it would herald the return of the surf movie. The movie was bad. It wasn't horrible by any means, in fact it had some nice shots and an interesting editing style. The surfing scenes were cut using a lot of different speeds, and freeze frames. It tried to be a little too hip for its own good in its visual style, but at least if HAD a distinct visual style. The script was weak, and the acting was... Well it was atrocious. I mean REALLY REALLY bad. The acting in Trannies! is considerably better, and I'm not just saying that!