TORONTO, ON – April 30th, 2008 – For Immediate Release

Infest Wisely, a lo-fi sci-fi movie about chewing-gum delivered nanotechnology, is coming out on DVD May 15th with a launch screening at The Royal Cinema.

The movie was shot in Toronto for $700 by seven directors, each contributing one episode to the intertwining story, all written by indie producer Jim Munroe.

“It’s been all over the continent at this point,” said Munroe, “We were flown out for the world premiere at a hacker convention in Las Vegas, it was shown under a bridge at a bike-in in Montreal, it was screened at a new media festival in Vancouver and a political science fiction conference in Chicago. But this will be the first time since the sneak preview that we’ll be screening it in Toronto, and we’re super excited it’s showing at the Royal.”

The Royal, one of the last independent cinemas in the city, is a College Street institution that was recently saved and renovated back to its art deco glory. “There’s nothing like seeing a movie in a theatre,” said Craig Macnaughton, who co-produced and directed one of the Infest Wisely episodes. “The lights go down, the sound of the people around you… it’s a great experience.”

But the creators haven’t limited the movie’s distribution to theatrical screenings. Thousands of people have downloaded the movie via BitTorrent and podcast from www.infestwisely.com. Then why bother with a DVD version? “It’s kind of funny — it’s costing twice as much to press the DVD as it did to shoot the movie,” Munroe pointed out, going on to explain that sponsored screenings allowed them to raise the funds required. “But as a physical object it gets out into the world in a completely different way, and to different people.”

Munroe has released videos via his website and on disc and so has a basis for comparison — in fact he’s worked in so many formats and mediums he’s been dubbed “a pop culture provocateur” by the Austin Chronicle. “It was also fun to get to include director’s commentaries from everyone.” The audio track includes do-it-yourself tips and tricks from each of the directors, who all have different takes on indie filmmaking.

The DVD is being distributed by KRK Media, based out of Waterloo, ON with over a hundred retail clients across Canada. “They really understood the spirit of the project,” Munroe said. “They distro a really eclectic mix — everything from B-movies like the Troma films to docs like End of Suburbia to arthouse movies that don’t get wide release. Since Infest Wisely is somewhere between B-movie and arthouse, it’s a good match.”

Thurs. May 15, 9pm
The Royal (608 College St, Toronto)
$10 admission or $15 admission and DVD

REVIEWS

“Infest Wisely is a great lo-fi sci-fi nanopunk flick” -Wired.com

“If only there were more people like Jim Munroe making movies like Infest Wisely.” -The Globe and Mail

“The film is chock full of interesting ideas and images.” -The Toronto Star

For more reviews: http://infestwisely.com/news.html
For more background: http://infestwisely.com/about.html
For the trailer: http://infestwisely.com/trailer.html
For the presskit: http://infestwisely.com/presskit.html

CONTACT

Screeners available upon request.

I’ve also just confirmed that there’ll be a free sneak preview screening as well in Montreal on Friday, Sept 21 8-11pm in Dare-Dare, a gallery situated in a park with no name. Myself and Craig will be there to present it and there’ll also be vids by two other excellent community moviemaking projects, The Assembly and VideoHymn. Click through to see Rickie’s sweet bilingual trippple films flyer. Update: Warren Frey did a videoblog interview of me in Vancouver.

Risa blogged about it over at Indyish.

For most of the music we found pre-existing tracks that suited the mood. The final episode, Leveller, was particularly tough, even though we had the kick-ass The New Kings music for the chase scene from early on. In the early edits, to get across the general vibe he was going for, Benny had put in temp music (AKA guide music, AKA music we didn’t have the rights to use in a final cut) for the intro and outro atmospheric music. We had a couple of tries with getting people to compose it, but they either didn’t have time or ended up making neat music that didn’t have the right build for the sequence. Happily, our marvellous sound engineer Steve Denheyer was able to hook us up with great tracks his brother Mike had made.

So I looked for another way to get it up there. I thought I was onto something with fake hair colour (and Exile stayed open late so I could buy a few cans) but it was way too watery and completely unusable. Then in a last hour save, Susan suggested the fake snow in a can we had from another project. It worked perfectly.

It’s hard to communicate how surreal and fucking awesome it was to see this stranger belting out the words I’d written just two months before:

Get out of our bodies/ you sneaky parasite / if you think we’re your new home/ you’re in for a fight!
Our leaders and rulers our rights have traded/ but I’m fuckin human and I won’t be upgraded!

Download the mp3 here.

Just try not to sing along! (Though if you haven’t watched it yet, it’s better to see it in context in episode four of Infest Wisely, “Spawning Rebellion“.)

For the screening I’d offered “nanite-enhanced treats” for attendees, planning something like popcorn with suspicious looking powder, but Susan immediately suggested gum instead — Christina installs EyeSee with a stick of chewing gum. At the time of the shooting we didn’t have any packaging for it but Craig whipped some up and then I hand-rolled 250 of them a few hours before the screening. When people got them at the door they were advised to wait until after the movie to eat them. Click through to see the hilarious package.

Kirby Ferguson directed this one and Craig Macnaughton did all the SFX. Having to design a futuristic PowerPoint presentation wasn’t exactly a stretch for him — he’s done it for years at his day job. And I know it’s just a function of the way the animation works, but the way the nanites move exactly in tandem freaks me out in just the right way.

Today, we’re releasing the first of the seven Infest Wisely episodes, Obsolete — we’ll be posting one a week until all seven are online. This ep was directed by Jon Sasaki, who years ago helped articulate the work-with-what-ya-got approach of the Novel Amusements project. It was an approach that served us well on the set of Obsolete — when the batteries for the shotgun mic died we used a MP3 player and a lapel mic to get secondary sound.

Click through for some pictures of the screening and the q&a afterwards.

I wrote it as seven 12 minute episodes directed by seven different directors (pictured here) to stand on their own, but with an ongoing narrative and interconnecting characters that allow it to combine to form a feature length movie. Check out our brand new site and watch the trailer, and if you’re in Toronto check out the advance preview screening (AKA the Infestor’s Meeting) on Friday May 18th. If you’re not in town, we’ll be releasing it as Creative Commons licenced weekly episodes soon after, so stay tuned!