A Look at the Planned Blu-ray Releases.

I just wanted to give a studio update and talk a bit about filmmaking since I've been in recovery and haven't had a chance to do anything yet. I will hopefully have two or three Blu-rays out in the near future. And I say "or" for a good reason. I might put the 720p masters I am doing for Exploitation in the Third-Dimension on Blu-ray. It's one I am on the fence about, considering that the films are pretty much remastered from standard definition material. But the Blu-rays I will be doing for my studio will be Orlando Eastwood Films Collection; Nosferatu: 90th Anniversary Edition; and possibly Exploitation in the Third-Dimension. I was originally contemplating putting Nosferatu on the disc with my films, but, considering it's not something I made and it's something that I am basically going to try to clean up and restore, it deserves it's own Blu-ray.

Nosferatu might be on a BD-25 depending on how it turns out. Considering that the frame rate varies and that there is scenes missing from my print, especially at the beginning, I'm thinking I could easily fill a BD-25. The release of Nosferatu: 90 might be delayed though due to my accident. I was hoping on getting it transferred over to HD over this summer but it's hard to tell. One thing I was actually planning on doing was re-doing the title cards and doing it on my Super8 camera and have them developed and spliced in digitally to make it all look like transferred film as opposed to nice clean digitally made title cards done in The Gimp.

Considering that there's no audio on my print for Nosferatu, the plan was to create several new soundtracks from the film as well as ripping the soundtrack from the Public Domain version. I am lucky to have friends and family members who are musically talented. And this is the perfect opportunity for them to shine. I am also toying with the possibility of doing an anaglyph 3D conversion as well, but I will not push it if the regular 2D version takes up most of the disc space. And for bonus material, we're planning on recording a commentary track and getting a few cast members from stuff I've done to talk about the film. Also, we might create some trailers for the film.

The Orlando Eastwood Films Collection Blu-ray will be a BD-50 and contain however many films I can cram on the disc. Now, I know that might sound bad, but hear me out. Traumatic Possession 3D and Into the Madness were shot on cheap 720p cameras. The file sizes are small as hell. But the main thing I am contemplating right now, is whether or not I want to blow the films up to 1080p from the original 720p resolution. Right now, I figure the disc will contain the following:

Traumatic Possession 3D (2.35:1)

Traumatic Possession 2D (2.35:1)

Traumatic Possession: Video Version (1.33:1)

Into the Madness (2.35:1)

I figure that is a good 35GB of material alone, with the "Video Version" of Traumatic Possession being standard definition because it's going to be transferred from a video taped source. A third feature will be put on the disc leaving 5GB left which will be left bonus material. When I say I want to fill the disc; I mean just that. I want to give you, the viewer, the bang for their buck. Plus, I also believe that if you want to be able to make it in this home video market, you have to resort to putting more than one film out there.

I want try to pack the disc full of subtitles. I want to be able to sell this to anyone in the world and make it easy for them to view. I might have found possible distribution lined up in Sweden, but it's not set in stone yet. I am planning on paying for translations in the next few months for French, German, and Spanish and if all goes well with Sweden; Swedish subtitles as well. I'm also planning on producing French and German dub tracks on Traumatic Possession 3D and do the dubbing for myself in those languages since those are my second and third languages. There won't be any dubbing, nor 3D for Into the Madness since it's a documentary.

As far as bonus features, there will be some trailers. Given that Into the Madness was originally going to be a short behind the scenes and that it's turned into a full blown feature length documentary, that kinda narrows down bonus features for Traumatic Possession 3D. However, the two trailers that I have posted will be present, even with the first trailer being presented in it's open matted, 1.78:1 form.

With Exploitation in the Third-Dimension, I would do a BD-25 and see how many volumes I can fit on the disc in 720p. I was almost completed with Volume One which was going to contain Night of the Living Dead and Horror Express but then with my accident, I'm halting production currently on them. I'll be resuming work in a few weeks. I'm just not sure if my brain can handle watching anything in 3D right now. The movies weren't coming out that big in size after the conversions, about 3GB each. I could probably three volumes of the series on one BD-25 disc. I won't be trying to market these outside the U.S. due to fact that these might not be Public Domain outside the country.

Right now, with all this work, I'm taking it easy. I'm looking to start shooting the next movie in a few months once I can finally get my rhythm back. I love making movies and I honestly don't know where I'd be without it. And I look forward to entertaining as many as I can, in this life, and after with my films. A life might not last forever, but these sure movies can.

- Eastwood.