Here are some welcome words from Yair, The Great Fiasco new set designer. Like I wrote here earlier, Yair and I coincided with our projects, which both were dealing with Israel in the year 2033. I asked Yair to write a few welcome words, as one of the most important people to work on the film. This is what he wrote:

Future Days, 2033.

Man loses the need for search and redirection in the traditional urban streets as we know them. Computer systems take over on our day to day life, and space starts losing the meaning of structure and size. The Euclid Geometry we got used to dictating our surroundings for hundreds and hundreds of years is no longer needed to improve the efficiency of building engineering, which is now managed by mechanical and biotechnological computerized systems.

Urban space requires completely different housing systems to comply with every need – security, socializing, climate… this place is a “displace”, just as philosophers dreamed throughout history, and reality and virtual are mixed together.

This is where the film takes place, between flying parks, social tubes for recreation and culture, far in vision from what we know today. Despite the fact this system is located in a city, it has its own separate space, it’s an organic structure and the sky is the new basis for movement, and the ground is no longer relevant.

Good news! Yair Avidor, an extremely innovative architect and designer, has read the script and agreed to be the film’s set designer! We clicked because of the strangest coincidence that we have been working on different projects – but both of them were speaking about Israel in the year 2033! It was very strange, the same year…

Yair showed me his sketches and I was amazed by the sheer genius of his ideas. I immediately offered him to read the script, and he did, and from there the road was clear: we are going to do this together.

Here are some samples of his work, to show the general idea of the way life is going to look like in Israel, 2033…

In another radio interview today, at Radio 106FM, I officially called for animators to join me in creating a 90 seconds trailer for the film, so that more money can be raised, and also so that you can see the worth of your money so far, in moving pictures.

Here’s the interview!

This is a rough sketch for the Hospital’O'Mat – the automatic medical services vending machine located at every Israeli mall and capable of giving medical services, from simple plague checkups to actual child delivery. Oh, and It can be also be bribed into giving blowjobs.

Designed by Eitan Vineshtock.

This is another view of the uniform of the soldiers from the script, WIP. Soon the full design will be posted here, and Eitan, the designer, will explain exactly how things are going to work. Stay tuned!

Rockingauctions.com is a site which gathers special eBay auctions from around the world and posts them in a special spot – and guess what – our characters auction was elected to get there!

Click the link to see:

http://www.rockingauctions.com/2007/09/name-film-character-after-you.html

Here’s a peek at the "making-of" I did for the animation series I have been writing and directing in the past couple or so years. While filming this, I weighed about 13 kilos more than I do now, and I had to wear this stupid moustache to hide it. Anyway, and also since "The Great Fiasco of the Last War" is going to feature some animation in it too, I thought it would be nice to show you this.

You can now download (on the left sidebar) a new sample from the script, and this time it’s one of the musical numbers from Tamir’s and Tsafrir’s show about their sons’ deaths in The War: it shows Tamir as an IDF representative showing up at Tsafrir’s house, when he comes to bare him the message of the death of his son. While Tsafrir’s pain breaks him apart, Tamir tries to convince him how great it is that his son died: he will now receive payments from the TV reality show "War – LIVE!", showing reruns of this most spectacular death. And anyway, in nowadays Israel, it’s really expensive to have kids…

Israel. The year 2,018. The government finds it hard to finance the ongoing war and turns to the big corporations for help. The agreement is clear: the army’s uniform are from now on decorated with commercial ads for their supporting corporations; a special "publicity core" is established, it consists of cameramen and soundmen who follow and document army activities and broadcast it in the biggest reality show ever: "War – LIVE!".

This is the first sketch for the uniform design. If you’re affiliated to any kind of company who would like to use this great platform, here on the site and in the film itself, for placing your ads, and at the same time contributing to an important idealistic cause – you are most welcome to contact me about it at ido@thegreatfiasco.com.

After the interview on radio 99fm, in which they got the actor I wanted for the leading role on the air to speak to me about the script, I called him, delivered the script to him – and today I got an email back:

Shalom Ido,

First let me tell you that I was very excited that you have chosen me to play a leading role in your film.

I read the script, and I think it’s a very important film, the idea is excellent, to make a musical out of The Big War, especially when you see only yesterday on the news a scene which looks as if it was taken from your script: an over motivated lieutenant is on a mission to capture Palestinian terrorists and decided to get creative – together with his soldiers they kidnap a Palestinian’s taxi and start creating chaos everywhere.

I have a feeling that the time jumps in the script, which are excellent, are still not quite clear visually. I felt the script is very verbal, I understand you focused on the song lyrics, some of which are very good, for example the song Tsafrir sings about the Israeli PM’s constipation.

The characters are fascinating, of course – they need further development.

I would be extremely happy to see this project moving into action.

Good luck!

Eli Gornstein.

As promised, you can now make a dream come true and name one of the characters in the film after you!

I’ve opened up an ebay store at ebay, in which you can pick up your own character and name it after yourself – from main characters, to people walking in the street! (currently only main and sub-main characters – more will be added tonight).

Download the characters catalogue HERE, and then enter THE STORE – and make your dream come true!

Yet another one – this time for the IDF radio station ("The Last War"…). Went along great!

Ever dreamed of appearing in a film? Well, “The Great Fiasco of the Last War” can make your dream come true!

Sort of.

In a few days, you will be able to purchase any of the characters who appear in the film – and name it after yourself! I will post the characters’ catalogue on ebay.com, and the highest bidder will win the great privilege of having a character named after him. The prices will vary according to the character’s importance in the film, its screen time, and its amount of dialogue.

Until this happens – feel free to download the catalogue (in English) and browse it, until you find the best character to fit your desire (right click on the picture and save the file to your hard drive).

Good luck!

Out of all the interviews and hectic media interest, one woman just made my day today.

She was trying to buy a pair of tickets. I could see through the site’s control panel that she’s having problems with the payment system, and since she already submitted her email, I decided to contact her and see if there’s anything I can do.

Don’t expect anything grand – she wasn’t a Hollywood film producer, or a millionaire of some sort who wanted to endorse the film, or anything. She was just Miriam Kantor, a very nice woman whom I’ve never heard of, who saw on of the articles, entered the site, read the synopsis, the characters’ descriptions, the scene sample, the blog – and said to herself: "this is something I want to contribute to".

And I was touched. For real. I’ve gotten several support emails, most of them from professionals who wanted to help in making the film. There are also many people whom I don’t know who’ve bought tickets, of course, but I never spoke to any of them. And she was just someone who really liked the idea, and for no other reason – paid for it.

There are sometimes things which rise above any purpose, which can inspire and give hope. And Miriam Kantor, today, was one of them.

…and today, I was interviewed to a TV morning show in Israeli Channel 2.

Media Interest!! After today’s article in "Maariv", I was interviewed to an entertainment radio show in 99FM radio, Israel. The interview was great – they even got Eli Gorenstein, the actor I wanted to play Zafrir (one of the two leading roles in the script) on the air! We talked, he really liked the idea of the script, and we set up a date!

Here’s the interview – it’s in Hebrew – and as promised, will be translated as soon as I can.

"Maariv", one of Israel’s leading newspapers, interviewed me for a double spread article about the site. The reporter they sent was very skeptic. In fact, he was so skeptic that he forgot to even add the url to the article… anyway – here it is (Press the picture below. Sorry English readers: I’ll translate all the Hebrew articles to English as soon as possible!).

The full (and silent) 46 minutes film I made in 2001. This is a Freudian interpretation to the biblical tail of Cain and Able. It was shot in 6 days, in a very low budget, in the Negev Desert. The shots were storyboarded completely before shooting, including sound and music references, which I knew in advance (I have a thing with PRE doing thing, apparently…) – hence the fast shooting.

Press "PLAY" and then pause it for a while, to let it load. It takes time. You can also download it HERE to your harddisk.

New designer hired to work for the film: Eitan Vineshtock (a.k.a. "Mr. Shoosh"), an extremely talented (and good looking!) guy whom I know from the animation series I’m writing and directing. His first mission: to design the army uniform for IDF in the year 2,018. This is important, because the IDF soldiers in the script are nothing but walking commercials to products of companies who help the government to finance the war… and maybe this way they would also help finance the film!

You can read all about in the sample scene – and browse Eitan’s past designs here and on his site.