We've been running ragged getting things done for the end of the year. Sorry things have been a little quiet on the blog front lately, but Synapse Films has been super busy releasing titles and, admittedly, hasn't been very good at the updates here. 2007 has been our busiest year yet and the end of this year had some of our best releases ever! We're moving as fast as we can folks... arguably FASTER than we've ever been in our 10 years!
Take a look at what we've accomplished in the last half of 2007:
JULY 2007
ANITA [IMPULSE]
AUGUST 2007
HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN
SNAKE WOMAN'S CURSE
SEPTEMBER 2007:
BLACK ROSES
SCHOOLGIRL REPORT 2 [IMPULSE]
OCTOBER 2007:
BASKET CASE 2
BRAIN DAMAGE [RE-RELEASE]
NOVEMBER:
LEGENDS OF THE POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS: FEMALE DEMON OHYAKU
LEGENDS OF THE POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS: QUICK-DRAW OKATSU
LEGENDS OF THE POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS: OKATSU THE FUGITIVE
10 titles in 6 months... Thats a record for us, I think!
In January 2008, we have 42ND STREET FOREVER V3: EXPLOITATION EXPLOSION.
In February 2008, we have SCHOOLGIRL REPORT #3
- The website redesign is almost there... the webcart/shopping section is still a bit buggy. Once it is fixed 100%, we'll continue to add the rest of our product (and other studios product) to the site for sale. We haven't updated the site 100% because the design and implementation of some of the things isn't quite there yet. Honestly, I'm not 100% happy, so we may make some further changes. We'll get there eventually...
- The final QC for 42ND STREET FOREVER: EXPLOITATION EXPLOSION is done. A few last minute menu nav fixes (and my SUPER paranoia about things playing correctly, progressive scan, etc.) have dragged this on a bit longer than expected, but it should be going to press by the end of the week. The commentary is so informative and fun, I've listened to it about 4-5 times now. This one is on schedule for the January 29, 2008 release.
- We are finishing up the audio on HOME SICK right now. There was a bit of a problem when the audio mix originally got lost and Adam Wingard had to redo everything. Now, we have the restored audio and the levels are a bit uneven (I noticed this during the July Fantasia screening) and, unfortunately, the audio was mixed in 24fps instead of 29.97... so that's the delay. I had to go back in and re-EQ and re-sync everything and tweak the audio. BUT, that being said, it's almost done. I'm a perfectionist and I want some things fixed, so it's taking me longer than expected.
- We are currently in authoring on PARTY 7 and KARAOKE TERROR. They should be done soon. MADAME O is headed to authoring this week. P7 and KARAOKE TERROR should be out April 29, 2008.
- SCHOOLGIRL REPORT #3 is finishing up the subtitling right now... and, yeah... in NTSC it's 95 minutes so this one IS uncut compared to the Japanese 79 minute release. We've checked it against the previous release and it is much longer than the Japanese DVD. So, no fears on this one. It's schedule for a February 26, 2008 release.
- Early next year, if I can get to LA at the end of January, we hope to start our high-definition restoration and mastering on THE KINDRED.
- We have quite a line up ready for SMALL GAUGE TRAUMA 2 and plan on releasing that in June or July '08. The last possible submission just came in on Friday...
- We have two AMAZING film from Argentina in the works right now, too. Look 'em up... ANIMALADA (horror film about a man in love with a sheep... it's insane) and ROSARIGASINOS (GANGS OF ROSARIO... a GOODFELLAS-like crime drama that is pretty amazing). These are getting prepped for release now and will be available in the Spring.
- Besides the SCHOOLGIRL REPORT series, we have some upcoming goodies coming from IMPULSE PICTURES. The one finishing up now, THE SECOND COMING OF EVA, is amazingly sexy!
- As soon as Josh Becker is ready (he's working on a new movie right now), we'll be starting the restorations and HD mastering on our new THOU SHALT NOT KILL... EXCEPT and RUNNING TIME releases. We were able to get some fun stuff from Bruce Campbell for these.
More to come... Jerry and I are hard at work! Right now the DVD market is in the shitter, so we're moving as fast as we can! All I can say is to support all us indie-DVD companies right now. We can use the support.
Our August releases did... ok.... not great, which was a shame. HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN and SNAKE WOMAN'S CURSE could've done better. Honestly, these are two of the best titles we've ever produced, so it's a shame they didn't catch on as we'd hoped. The November POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS titles did even worse... I know these aren't for everyone, the economy is in the crapper and the DVD market is pretty bad, but we really need your support on these three! There was something in the NY POST about them on Saturday, so maybe this will help the sales somewhat. Eh, ya win some, ya lose some, ya know?
11 comments:
Wow, sounds badass! I can't wait for "Schoolgirl Report #3".
I asked for an update and got a lot of excellent news. I'm totally shocked by Malformed Men not selling that great. I expected it to be one of your very best sellers this year. You've got my support, I'm looking forward to most of what you've announced. Kind of sad to not hear anything about Exposed... perhaps I could ask you about it on XBL? ;P
Take care & have an excellent Christmas Holiday.
Hey Don,
i wish you the best with your future titles. Yeah the DVD market is indeed in bad shape right now. Any chance of Synapse going Blu-ray or HD-DVD in the immediate future? I know I read you've had some conflicts with bringing your titles over to Blu-ray in the past. But IMHO it's the format to go with. Looking forward to the new titles. And especially the new Document Of The Dead HD disc. Any news on that? Thanks Don for reading.
take care and happy holidays! :D
Michael
Well, I know around here the only place I've found Horrors was at Amoeba in San Francisco. The Rasputin stores along the peninsula don't have any, and the Fry's Electronics (which has stocked Thriller and other Synapse releases) has never had any horrors or Poison either. Best Buy? Forget about it.
I think the shop in Japantown (Tokyo Video?) had a few, but with their usual $10 - $15 markup.
Sorry to hear this, guys. I'm putting Horrors at the top of my Best DVDs of 2007 list though. Hope that helps somewhat :)
A welcome update. Sorry to hear the new titles underperformed. After Christmas, I should be able to help a bit. :)
I was a bit bummed to not see any updates on Lucker, especially since Xploited Cinema has a PAL version of this for sale, from Perplex. The description mentions the participation of the director--including his restoration of the print due to the negatives being destroyed. All of this sounds like the work that you folks at Synapse initiated.
So, has the US release of Lucker hit a snag?
I'm really looking forward to The Kindred, Thou Shalt Not Kill, and Running Time.
Keep up the good work!
No snag on LUCKER. Just that, when we helped out with the 5 Toei films, some things got put on the backburner. We had to get those out before the end of the year.
We are working on LUCKER now, we also have participation from the director and our version will be at the proper NTSC speed with both versions and the documentary!
Malformed Men was easily one of my favorite DVDs of the year and when I write-up my Best DVDs of 2008 list in January it will be near the top. I just picked up a copy of Snake Women's Curse which I hope to see soon and I expect that I'll enjoy it as well. I can only hope that my positive review of the film will get you a few more sales since I would love to see Synapse release more Japanese films. Keep up the great work!
Glad to read this update, Don, and I too wish you the best of luck. With so many of my favorite companies from the DVD boom of the millennium starting to go belly-up, it's nice to see Synapse still going fairly strong. For what it's worth, I had myself a Synapse Christmas this year, as I told everyone I knew of take advantage of that Deep Discount sale from a few months back. In think, in all, I received 8 Synapse disks! Now all that's left is to dig into them; 2008 should be amazing indeed!
I'm disappointed to hear that the Malformed Men/Snake Woman's Curse/Poisonous Seductress titles didn't sell well. I picked up all five and enjoyed all of them immensely! I hope this won't keep you from releasing the WANDERING GINZA titles this year. I've really been looking forward to those too!
I would buy several of these, if released on HD-DVD, as it's really starved for horror titles right now (hell, you may actually sell more copies on HD-DVD than you would in the over crowded Dvd market). I know it's relatively cheap to produce for, so what do you have to lose?
"I know it's relatively cheap to produce for, so what do you have to lose?"
Nothing but money & a possibly high failure rate now that only 2 studios are left supporting HD-DVD, and even those are rumored to be either switching sides or releasing for both formats in the near future. As a adoptee of only HD-DVD the news sucks, but it's the price you may pay when you're an early adopter of any new format much less 2 new formats competing over the same Hi-Def crowd. If Synapse were to have released anything on HD-DVD it would've had to have been early on, right now it only makes sense to stay out of the format war bullshit until its just DVD & one of the HD formats left standing.
In the meantime if Synapse wants to release films in HD, they should do what Dark Sky Films has done and put HD versions on the 360 marketplace. While it's basically a rental like service, it would tie over many fans looking to view what Lemora or Street Trash will look like when they enevitably get their official HD debuts.
Keep up the excellent work Jerry & Don!
Post a Comment