Cinemassacre Productions » Favorites

The Dragon in my Dreams

James — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:53:20 +0000

This is sort of a psycho-analysis of myself. It’s about my earliest memory and what drove me to make movies.

Special thanks to everyone who submitted music. I had plenty of stuff to listen through and will always look back if I need more.

Also thanks to the workers for allowing me to film there. They told me the dragon is being moved to the front of the park. Nevertheless, it was my last time seeing it the way I remembered.

UPDATE: I’ve been told the dragon has been successfully moved to the front of the park, on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, it’s a bit shorter now. It’s been cut down in size. I’ll always remember it the way it was before.

OUTTAKES VIDEO. I posted a video of some of the raw footage which captures the feeling of shock and disbelief I had coming back to the park on the same day the dragon was being moved.

Cinemassacre 200

Mike Matei — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:34:53 +0000

An autobiographical documentary of myself and how I got started making movies.

The Deader The Better

Mike Matei — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 02:00:06 +0000

Classic-style horror film I made in 2005 as an homage to the Universal Monster classics and zombie films like Night of the Living Dead. My idea was to combine the old Black & White atmosphere with the red splattery gore of modern horror films, so I decided to make the blood in color.

The cemetery set was in a garage. I built all the gravestones. In horror movies, the caretaker is usually the first character to die. (The Wolf Man, 1941, for example) A cemetery being in the #1 setting where supernatural things occur, he is kind of stuck in a trap. My idea for The Deader the Better is that this is the movie where the caretaker fights back.

The idea of colorizing the blood came from indecision. I wanted to capture the look of the classic black and white horror films, but I also wanted to show some blood. So I kept the blood red. Also, as a kid, I used to draw gory comics. I’d use a pen or pencil, but would use a red crayon to color in the blood.

This was the last “film” I made before AVGN. It stands as an example of some of the horror films I plan to make in the future on a bigger scale.

Legend Of The Blue Hole

Mike Matei — Mon, 17 May 2004 21:23:28 +0000

This was my senior film in college, (2004) originally intended as a pilot episode for a series based on actual urban legends in southern New Jersey. I was inspired by Weird NJ magazines, the Twilight Zone and anthology films like Creepshow. I still have plans to shoot the other “Jersey Odyssey’s”, but I have no idea when. Too many projects, too little time.

EXTRAS:

Commentary

Cinemaphobia (2001)

Mike Matei — Thu, 20 Sep 2001 01:59:04 +0000

A psychological dream-like film about a movie actor tormented by the films he plays in.

This was the first movie I edited non-linear, using the computers at my college, though this was not a class assignment as most of my films were. There’s been some slight re-editing over the years, making this a bit shorter than the original.

A sequel was planned Cinemaphobia: Reloaded, as a joke on the overuse of the word “Reloaded” as a sequel title and the act of “reloading” a camera. It would have delved further into the actor’s paranoid psyche watching his life being documented on an internet webcam. I never had time to make it.