Tales is screening on Sat, July 31 at 9 p.m. The show will be followed by Q&A with director, Albert Pyun, writer, Cynthia Curnan and Director of Photography, Phillip Waters.  Please anyone in the nearby area come and join us.  We’d love to see you!

We will be there on August 1 too.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have been forced to cancel the TALES premiere at the Hard Rock Hotel during Comic Con. More details will follow within a week.

Albert is very hands on with all aspects of his movies including all the screening specs.  He checks everything before locking a venue.  Below are pics of the whole process:

Comic Con is in the San Diego Downtown Gas Lamp Quarter

Gas Lamp 15 Box Office

Gas Lamp 15 lobby. This theater is an old grindhouse.

Gas Lamp 15 projection room - 35mm and digital projectors

The Christie digital projector won't do because it's LCD and Albert wants DLP. He'll have to bring in another projector.

Albert looking at the ceiling trying to determine if the immersive sub-woofer could bring it down.

Albert checking the space available for his sub-woofer sound system. You have to wonder if Albert has to bring in a projection and sound system, does he need a traditional theater?

Next choice, the Hard Rock Hotel across the street from Comic Con

If we have to bring in everything, would the Tales premiere/Live streaming, plus Q&A event be more fun at the Hard Rock?

The streets will be mobbed during Comic Con. Look for the TALES Royal Guard, Vampire Warrior Women and Maidens in the crowds.

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Abbey Road Screening Lobby. We'll stream video the night of the screening.

Albert has a lot to figure out between now and July 21st

We made a movie called “Invasion” (AKA as Infection) back in 2005. It was an experimental film that consisted primarily of just a single unedited shot that ran for 60 minutes. Tony Riparetti and I worked a year on the soundtrack which we wanted to be as immersive as possible. Jim Hagopian shot the movie and we used a fixed lens mounted on the dash of a car. This single point of view made up 95% of the movie.

We screened the film a total of 7 times. Four times in Los Angeles, once in Spain and once in Brussels.

What we found at each screening was the film had the ability to enable the audience to hallucinate. It had a very strong hypnotic effect on the viewer and was able to reach into their subconsciousness. So the movie gave the audience a real experience.

With Tales, we decided to try that same immersive technique but evolve both the sight and sound to make the sword and sorcery fantasy world even more vivid. Not vivid in a realistic way but in a psychological manner. So audiences that see Tales in a theatrical event, will experience the movie and just view it. It’s 4D or 3D for the brain. Magic Rock will be exclusive licensor of this technology.

We’re having a special sound system built that can reproduce Tony’s mix and the picture is retinally optimized. Audiences will literally FEEL the movie and we’re going to put warnings in that anyone with a heart condition or psychological condition should probably not see the movie in its theatrical presentation. We’re hoping the experience is as visceral as riding the world’s scariest roller coaster. The movie isn’t loud and busy but works on a more subtle level dealing with brain waves and the way the brain and body process stimuli. The quietest moments will be some of the most tense and frightening. We have even added rest areas in the movie for the brain and body where there is no sound and the picture is black. So brain waves and body functions can go back to normal.

It’ll definitely be a great experimental process. Can a Fantasy movie (or any movie) provide such the vivid experience of a heightened real life situation.

If you’re in San Diego, please stop by to experience Tales. We’re doing a live stream over the internet of audience reactions to the movie as well as providing a enhanced VOD stream of the movie for rent. Sort of like a Pay For View event where the theatrical screening and VOD stream begin at the same time.

One of the challenges on the limited edition DVD’s has been to figure out a way to get some of the experience aspect of the movie onto the disc.

Albert

The San Diego premiere will be the first

Albert Pyun’s “Tales” Stand Tall

By Stephen Saito on 06/22/2010

Albert Pyun, photo courtesy of www.pyun.com
In the independent filmmaking world, Albert Pyun is a little more independent than most. Having made his directorial debut with “The Sword and the Sorcerer” in 1982 after serving an apprenticeship under Akira Kurosawa, Pyun carved out a unique niche as a director of low-budget, high-concept genre films starring casts slightly past their prime.  More Story: http://www.ifc.com/news/2010/06/albert-pyun.php

My apologies for not blogging the past several weeks but we’ve been working around the clock on getting Tales ready for its release. We actually created a “theatrical” version of the movie which can only really be played in a theater. It requires special optical and audio systems to playback fully. A lot of R & D went into developing this version of Tales into a unique film viewing experience.

I’ll describe the process and the effort required to play the film in the next blog. But it’ll be unlike anything viewers have experienced.

Back in 2005, I made a one shot movie that we were only able to screen 8 times because of the elaborate set up required. The movie was called “Infection” (Lions Gate released it as “Invasion” in Dec 2006). It consisted of almost entirely of just one single unedited shot. The film had the ability to cause hallucinations and create acute anxiety and paranoia in the audience. I’ll go more into those screenings in the next blog as well . It was the best reviewed movie of my career to date and it won a few fest awards. Because the effectiveness of the experience was dependent on specific screening conditions, we turned down most festival invites.

As we were finishing Tales last month, I started experimenting with image and audio technology to see if we could bring the same experience into the world of fantasy adventure. I believed we’ve accomplished this sort of 4D headtrip – albert

First, thanks to everyone for their patience as we sort through the finish and shipping. What we’ve been working on is how best to secure the DVD from piracy. Bulletface has been pirated more than 100,000 times and we don’t want Tales to go that way. So we are talking with experts on how best to secure and protect Tales so that the possible franchise has a chance to become an ongoing series of films and not be decimated by pirates.

We’re exploring a few options and its difficult because today’s technology can quickly be cracked by tomorrow’s. As part of this we are looking into releasing an app for iPad and Droid users that should enable access to special features only for their use such as the Cyborg bonus, the Tales commentary, etc.

Plus in the interest of hopefully stemming or at least delaying the tide of piracy, we intend to release Tales of an Ancient Empire 2 within weeks of the first episode’s release. The idea is to present Tales as a serialized saga like The Wire or Dexter or True Blood. Where the thread is a continuous story line. And we intend to get these episodes out every two or three weeks if we can manage it. 16 to 18 episodes would make up a Tales “season”.

We think this has a chance to blunt piracy to some degree. I hope so.

albert

Many of of you have asked for information and availability dates to purchase the Limited Edition DVD package. While we sold ot of the initial run of DVD packages, there were a 100 or so surplus unexpected copies created by the manufacturing run (those machines don’t stop on a dime I guess). So if any of you are still interested, you need to contact: curnanpictures@gmail.com.

If you really want to secure one then I would do this sooner than later. Even Kevin has requested ten additional DVD packages. Its going to go pretty fast - Albert

Well, all the comments and suggestions were extremely helpful if not critical to how the Tales trailer will be accepted by the public at large. I really enjoyed the process of collaborating not only with my fans but with those who pre-purchased the movie in advance. I think this is how we will do things going forward, perhaps offering private viewing of scenes and sequences as they are being edited.  Please share this link with your family and friends as we try to create momentum for our small but important movie in the crowded marketplace.

HD version – http://vimeo.com/11811140

Standard version - http://vimeo.com/11812655

The next step is to take what we learned from everyone about what they wanted to see in the trailer and try to enhance the movie accordingly – Albert

Okay, below is the link to the version that tries to encompass as many comments as we got while still retaining the overall thrust of the concept I wanted to press forward, which is namely a film that works on a level of subtext with deeper and more complex emotional conflicts than normally found in fantasy movies. Those who have pre-ordered can use the same password they have been given via email from Curnan Pictures. Please comment on this latest version!  Hopefully its closer to what you expected. The link to the trailer is: