The Artists’ Essentials DVDs are now available at a special pre-order price.

Go to the “Artists’ Essentials website”:http://www.artistsessentials.com to place your secure order with any major credit card.

When the DVDs are released — in about a month — you will receive the first-edition copies.

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I just received word today from our actress Yukiko Ito, who played Hitomi in Rock Paper Scissors. She’s very involved in stage work, and recently played in an historical drama. Here’s a picture of her in full costume:

p=. !/images/67.jpg (Yukiko Ito in period costume)!

We loved having Yukiko on the set. We couldn’t have asked for a better actress and person. One of the challenges of filming a movie in Japan is overcoming the language barrier. Yukiko’s english is extremely limited, yet she worked hard to understand and learn her lines to deliver them convincingly. She basically needed no direction. I don’t know how or where she figured it out, but she got the nuances of her lines, facial expressions, body language, etc, even more naturally than many English-speaking thespians I’ve worked with.

p=. !/images/63.jpg (Hitomi with Jason scene)! … !/images/64.jpg (Hitomi looks pensive)!

And we really asked a lot of her. Attached with only a rope and in an uncomfortable (and scary) position, she flung herself “over” a waterfall again and again, mocking hitting her head on a rock, until we got the take right. And, although we took the utmost safety precautions, it was still a bit scary filming on the edge of a very dangerous waterfall in the middle of the woods, with all the physical activity that was required. But she tackled it enthusiastically, never complaining or showing concern, except that she give the best performance possible.

p=. !/images/65.jpg (Behind the scenes 1)! … !/images/66.jpg (behind the scenes 2)!

One of the last scenes we shot was the opening of the movie, where she swam out in the middle of a very dirty lake in the middle of a busy public park, fully clothed, and floated for about 10 minutes while we got the shots we needed. The water was extremely cold, but again she showed no hesitation.

Thank you so much, Yukiko. Mark my words — this woman is going to go far in her acting career.

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For all my friends, it’s been pretty much radio silence from me these last few weeks. I completely finished mastering the Artists’ Esssentials Sampler DVD last Friday. It was a real learning process, and my first time completely mastering a DVD from scratch — designing menus, animation, the logic and what happens when you push which buttons, adding DVD-ROM features and slideshows you can manually advance. It’s a far cry from the plug & play simplicity of using iDVD with a stock template, but it’s what you have to do when you need total control over the product. I gave myself a crash course in DVD Studio Pro 3, and it didn’t take long to learn the ropes. But, like any programming, there were still quite a few bugs to work out and a whole afternoon of frustration before it all started clicking together.

To make matters worse, it seems I misread the prices on the duplicator we were going to be using. After calling 4 different places, I quickly came to the conclusion that we could save 75% of the cost by just biting the bullet and doing it ourselves. They’re only giveaways, so it doesn’t make sense to spend $500 on something you can do yourself for less than $100. Plus, you don’t have to worry about the order getting lost in the mail or coming in one day too late and blowing the whole point.

So I just finished duplicating 100 DVDs by hand, thanks to the new “BenQ 16x DVD+-RW”:http://www.cdrlabs.com/reviews/index.php?reviewid=245 drive I picked up at Microcenter Saturday morning. I settled on this one because it had been getting awesome reviews by the experts, and so far I’m extremely pleased. It will, indeed, burn 8x media at 16x, and flawlessly. I didn’t get a single coaster. And for those who are really interested, I used top-of-the-line “Taiyo Yuden”:http://www.t-yuden.com media, which I also got at a steal from “Meritline.com”:http://www.meritline.com — my new favorite place for DVD-Rs and labels. This is my third order from these guys. Fast shipping, reliable, and the best prices around.

With Donna printing the labeling and inserts, my focus is now turned on the finished product — full version DVD sets that we can sell at the show to make back the cost of our giveaways. It shouldn’t be too tough, and with special “first edition” pricing, it will definitely be a steal for those who stop by the “Art Spectrum”:http://www.artspectrum.com.au booth.

In the meantime, say a prayer for us — that we can get it all together in time! So far, so good…

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