About Friggin Time...(for a Meal)!

So, it's official now. After a ridiculously long shelf-life due to some stupid choices made by yours truly, A FOUR COURSE MEAL is soon to be available on home video. I just inked a contract with a foreign distributor who is also going to help handle domestic sales. Hopefully this means a DVD will be available in the near future.

In the meantime, I just found this silly promo teaser I put together right after I finished CUT ONE of the film. Bask in the misappropriation of copyrighted music! Soil yourself in horror at the rampant low resolution graphics!

The few of you who know anything about it will note that it includes footage from the DELETED STORY SEGMENT entitled OUTPOST 7734. Fun.


A FOUR COURSE MEAL Original Teaser from Clay Liford on Vimeo.

I have over an hour of deleted scenes that I'm compiling for the release. I'm shocked at how much stuff we shot that didn't make it in, even on our meager budgetary level.

Even though I went to film school and shot a TON of goofy films, I consider AFCM my true film school. Not to disparage it (or my tuition-based film school) in any way. I'm actually quite proud of the vast majority of what's in the final cut, and I think most of it still holds up (even post-Transformers!). The 'film school' part has to do with the hard lessons and difficult choices I had to make (both creatively and business-wise) over the life-cycle of the project. This is probably way more than you care to know, but I always find it interesting to see the point at which different creative people come into their own. AFCM is pretty much the first film I've completed that I'm comfortable with people seeing. That said, I am a totally different person now than I was at the time I wrote it. But I feel there's enough of a confident voice in there that my former-self is properly represented. I can't say the same for my actual University of Texas student films. Those need to be shoveled into a deep dark hole, never again to see the light of day.

Anyway, I'll post more info as the release approaches. I know it's been a long time coming. And for the few actual fans out there, many thanks for your patience.

As an aside, if there was an award for most aimless and rambling post, this one would surely get it. In fact, if anybody decides to make such an award, I nominate myself for the namesake. Then again, "The Clays" has a pretty crappy ring to it. Oh well.

This Movie is Presented in "HIGH" Definition!

Worst pun ever. Anyway, I know that no paragraph should ever begin with the following sentence, but here goes...

So I really liked the trailer for THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. This may be the least masculine statement I've ever made, but it's really pretty innovative. Not the movie, mind you, just the trailer. Actually, I can't speak for the movie because I only saw like ten minutes of it on my Mom's Direct TV last time I was in town visiting her. But I digress. No, the great thing about the trailer is it's basically just a truncated scene from the actual film. Like a scene that pretty much sums up enough of what the film's about and where it may be headed, without giving you too much information or any resolution. In essence, it does exactly what a trailer should do. It also has the awesome side effect of being so jarring in comparison to the standard trailer format we've unfortunately come to expect and accept, that when I saw it at my local movie house (in front of which movie I no longer recall), many people in the audience thought they stepped into the wrong auditorium. I mean you really feel like you're watching the first four or so minutes of that film. It's not even like that DARK KNIGHT promo with the bank heist, because they prep you for what you're about to see there. No this was an example of cinematic tomfoolery of the first (and best) order.

Anyway, in another potentially embarrassing paragraph header, I was actually inspired by the trailer to cut a similar one for my latest film, MY MOM SMOKES WEED. It's a truncated scene from the film (2 min). Not the opening scene, just an iconic one. It gives you a taste for the film without revealing too much information. I typically rag on short filmmakers who cut trailers for their films. I mean if a 90 minute film has a 2 min trailer, does that mean a 9 minute short should have a 20 second one? Please don't check my math on that. I didn't use a calculator. However, I thought it would be fun in this case (hypocrate, I know), and since I'm about to hit the festival circuit, this is probably the most I can show right now to the online community. Not that enough people read this blog to get me in trouble with potential festival programmers.

Anyway, here it is, my ode to THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. The MY MOM SMOKES PRADA version of the trailer for MY MOM SMOKES WEED...


MY MOM SMOKES WEED HD TRAILER A from Clay Liford on Vimeo.

This clip is also available on my youtube site.


AND, while I'm in an embedding mood, here's a silly sorta-reel I had to create for a potential investment deal on THE ABDUCTORS. It's probably only notable for the cool music I swiped from Scott Walker.


CLAY LIFORD: DIRECTOR REEL (ALSO WRITER/DP/EDITOR) from Clay Liford on Vimeo.

Hope you enjoy. Now off to rent 29 DRESSES!


Clay

***UPDATE***

When I went to youtube to search for that original DWP trailer I blathered about, it was nowhere to be found. In it's stead, I found a GENERIC TRAILER that exemplifies all things horrible about modern picture previews (and totally negates the experimental qualities of the original trailer). It basically ruins the movie for you. But, oh well. Whatcha gonna do?