UFS was among the crowd that attended the heated forum on June 25th at Austin Studios regarding the issue of their leasing out Studio 4 to Soundcheck (from Nashville).

To find out more about this issue go to http://www.austinstudios.org/about/news

New Music Video for singer/songwriter Jason Blum

We finished the music video for singer/songwriter Jason Blum's "Blissful life" and stars beautiful actress Jenny Jemison. It's dark and dreamlike-enjoy.

Get Yourself the Golf Cart Tour at Spiderwood Studios

The folks at Spiderwood Studios were kind enough to invite us on a golf cart tour of their new studio. Our repeated reaction was, "This place is huge!" It's set on 200 acres that has the Colorado River running through it. Check out their website for more information-http://www.spiderwoodstudios.com
But as they showed us and the website explains, this Studio offers everything you would ever need to make your motion picture come to life such as; Three Sound Stages, Production Offices/Suites, Set Design/Prop, Audition, Make Up/Wardrobe, Dining area, Control, Edit Bay, Render Farm and Animation rooms for Motion Pictures, Animation and Music Productions.
Owner Tommy Warren thought big and it is an inspiration for everyone in the movie making biz. So go get yourself a golf cart tour!

On Location

Enjoy some still shots from the film, Blood Sun Town- the current feature film that Unidentified Flying Studios is working hard on editing now that filming is complete.

Stuntman On Fire

Unidentified Flying Studios is currently busy editing the feature film, Blood Sun Town. In the movie there is a high risk (freaking dangerous) scene where a stunt man is set on fire while shooting a weapon and having to hold his breath to prevent from swallowing the flames. Director DivineGordon kept everything safe and cool.
Check out the behind the scenes and watch him burn here...

Final Shoot of the Jason Blum Music Video.

We had the pleasure of working with the beautiful actress, model and all around lovely lady Jennymarie Jemison for the final part of this shoot.

http://www.jennymariejemison.com/

Future Farmer Accepted Into Fearless Film Festival

John Gibson's short sci-fi film, Future Farmer, has just been accepted to the Fearless Film Festival in Fort Worth Texas.
Big Congratulations! To learn more about the festival, go to http://www.myspace.com/fearlessfilmfestival.

Filming music video with singer/songwriter Jason Blum

Unidentified Flying Studios shot singer/ songwriter Jason Blum's new video for the song, "Blissful Life" from the album Deliver. (http://www.myspace.com/jasonblum). The new video will have a dream-like quality that will be accomplished with a unique rendering process done by Director John Gibson.
David Byrne and Norah Jones, fellow friends and artists of Jason Blum are already huge fans of Deliver. It is simply a sublime record with honest production, lyrically and musically compelling.
Jason Blum's music is steeped in a rich tradition of roots songwriters (Willlie Nelson, Townes VanZandt, Alejandro Escovedo, John Dee Graham, and Dale Watson to name a few), Jason rubbed elbows with some of the greats and shared the stage with many. He is living in New York City where almost immediately upon his arrival he was welcomed into the songwriter scene. Lee Alexander who has played consistently in the band with the lovely Norah Jones, approached Blum about backing him up with Andrew Borger, (both played in Norah's and they happened to be on a hiatus). They called the band "The Take-out Kings." The band played for over a year in NYC and did a small tour hitting Blum's adopted hometown of Austin and San Fran before making a record with Tom Schick (Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainright, and Norah Jones) at Lee and Norah's home studio... and this is how the record Deliver was born.

When Norah's band went back out on the road, Jason continued to write songs, performing and recording with bassist, Paul Frazier (David Byrne); drummer, Steve Williams (David Byrne, Sade, Keith Richards); pedal steel and guitarist, Sam Cohen (Apollo Sunshine) and keyboardist / producer, Joel Hamburger. The final scenes for the video will be shot this weekend in Austin, TX.
"Blissful" life will be available for audiences to view soon...

The Future Farmer Short Revealed

Below is the trailer for the short sci-fi film that brought together a team of amazing CGI talents, actor's and crew. You can also view this on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qbs6PfNck
Feel free to post comments.

Future Farmer is about one farmer who engineered a flawless animal/fruit hybrid on a farm in the future. Kelly farms has patented a technology to produce sweeter, juicier and longer-lasting specimens. And now, everyone wants a piece...

Unidentified Flying Studios Introduces New Producer

We are pleased to announce that we have hired a new Producer/ Director here at the Studios, DivineGordon Asaah. DivineGordon was born in Cameroon, West Africa where his love for movies occurred at the tender age of six when he snuck into a movie theatre and watched a few minutes of an action film before being quickly and brutally kicked out. He spent his entire childhood in Catholic Church Theater and school drama clubs and directed plays ranging from Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes to Shakespeare's Hamlet. He also wrote, produced and directed several short and feature length films on video before obtaining a bilingual degree (English and French) in Performing Arts. He traveled to Greece on a scholarship and spent many years journeying across Europe working as a lyricist, a freelance photographer and a documentary filmmaker. In 2004 he immigrated to Hollywood, California to pursue his greatest passion- a life behind the camera.

DivineGordon is currently completing postproduction on his feature 16mm action drama Blood Sun Town. He is a naturalized United States citizen, speaks English, French, Greek and three African dialects and currently works as a Producer and Director for Unidentified Flying Studios in Austin, Texas.

He offers inspiration to a new crop of filmmakers by regularly finding six year olds in movie theaters and promptly kicking their asses out.

John Gibson's GUNS-N-ROSES music video

Due to the overwhelming pleas for more videos of John Gibson's "early" work, we have posted the FULL version of the video of John at age 12 doing his first music video. If you don't have 3 minutes to spare, I suggest you skip ahead to the 2:50 minute marker where you can see him lick himself and rip his shirt off like a true rock star. So here it is, John doing GUNS-N-ROSES, "Welcome to the Jungle" in his closet wearing his mother's blonde wig. We will be posting more retro videos in upcoming blogs.

All of us here at Unidentified Flying Studios get a laugh every time from this particular video of John. He obviously hadn't refined his craft just yet (nor a centered camera shot) but you can see the passion is definitely there.

Famous Producer, Director & Screen Writer Ben Taylor

The Austin Network Mixer (networkaustinmixer.com) hosted a presentation by Ben Taylor this month where the folks at Unidentified Flying Studios had the amazing opportunity to meet and talk with Taylor about his current projects.
Ben is the screenwriter of over seventeen produced films and TV-movies, both in the U.S. and in Europe, including the Disney film, "Venus and Mars" . Ben began his career on the HBO series, "The Hitchhiker" before writing a string of hit films in Germany, including the Disney release "Stadtgespräch" ("Talk of the Town"), the top German film of 1995 starring Martina Gedeck ("The Lives of Others") and Moritz Bleibtreu ("Run, Lola, Run"). As an actor, he can be seen in various works such as "Walk the Line" opposite Joaquin Phoenix and in "Stop Loss" and "Friday Night Lights". He’s most proud of The Ben Taylor Workshop.
His most poignant pieces of advice are summed up and listed below because they were simplistic enough to bullet point but powerful enough to give you the courage to keep creating.

"I wish I could bring a pile of all the scripts that didn't sell. That pile is just as important as my big pile that has sold"

"Sheer perserverance is almost more important than talent"

"Be friends with this up and down [of acceptance and rejection] because it never goes away"

"Meet someone you know you will disappoint but don't want to"

"Be nice. You go alot further being nice to people than being an asshole."

Unidentified Flying Studios Visit Troublemaker Studios

Director John Gibson was honored to have Troublemaker studios Special Effects guru, Rodney Brunet, work on his latest short film Future Farmer. Recently, Rodney invited John to take a tour of the famous Troublemaker Studios here in Austin, TX. The studio is creation haven for box office mega hits such as Spy Kids, Grindhouse, Sin City and many more! John got an hour long tour that included amazing sights such as the green screen studio, props studio, design and special effects room. Above is a photo of John exploring the prop from the film Grindhouse. Like Unidentified Flying Studios, Troublemaker is homegrown here in Austin, TX.
John was thankful for the experience and continued inspiration that this awesome location and group of hardworking people continue to offer to the film community here in Austin.

UF Studios Producer Meets Elizabeth Avellan

Unidentified Flying Studios Producer, Rainey Gibson, attended the RISE conference in Austin and had the opportunity to attend an intimate session with Film Producer Elizabeth Avellan. Elizabeth Avellan has produced box office hits such as Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn, Spy Kids, Sin City and Grindhouse.
Unbeknownst to her, Elizabeth Avellan’s career path has been a source of inspiration to Rainey for a long time. There was many nuggets of inspiration that can be taken away from her presentation but a particular favorite was when she exclaimed, “If you’re a writer, then write. If you’re a filmmaker, than make films! It’s as easy as that.”
Rainey asked Elizabeth Avalon to scribble something in a small notebook that she carries. She requested that it be something that helps Elizabeth herself to keep going in times of struggle. Elizabeth eloquently wrote,
“ One moment at a time. One step at a time. One Breath at a time. Look to the heavens for your inspiration, strength and faith.”

The Founders of Unidentified Flying Studios

John & Rainey Gibson are the founders of Unidentified Flying Studios located at 716 S. Lamar Blvd. Austin, Texas 78704. Their working relationship and marriage is unique because of the way in which it harmonizes from the smallest things to the biggest of projects.  They were first aware of this strong harmony when talking about the things they love and hate on their first date. John loves small crowds, Rainey loves large ones. John loves to make films, Rainey loves to produce them. John loves eating, Rainey loves cooking.  It is from this harmony that Unidentified Flying Studios has been able to bloom so quickly and successfully.  It also doesn't hurt that John Gibson has been Co-founder and Director of his previous video production company, Real Normal Productions.

Elizabeth Avellan, Producer & Co-owner of Troublemaker Studios has said before of her long term working relationship with Robert Rodriguez that, "Robert is like the kite in the sky that everyone loves to look up and adore while I'm the one holding the string on the ground and milling around talking to all the people."

Thank goodness Rainey loves kites and John loves the wind. 

Please check out more of our upcoming projects at ufstudio.com