Joe M. O'Connell: Austin Studios

Showing posts with label Austin Studios. Show all posts

Friday, March 8, 2013

E.T.'s Henry Thomas in Texas Film Hall of Fame

Photo by Joe O'Connell

My report from the Texas Film Hall of Fame for the San Antonio Express-News:

AUSTIN — If Henry Thomas hadn't become an actor, he'd likely have spent his adult life saving and rehabilitating horses. Instead he was inducted Thursday into the Texas Film Hall of Fame.
Save for a lucky break in an open audition for the 1981 film “Raggedy Man” (directed by Jack Fisk and starring Fisk's wife, Sissy Spacek), Thomas, who called himself a “pretty good horseman,” might have missed out on a career spanning more than 30 years — including memorable roles in films such as “All the Pretty Horses” and “A River Runs Through It.”

Read more here.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

'Machete Kills' seeks extras

Machete is back in Robert Rodriquez's Machete Kills starring the ultra-cool Danny Trejo, and they need extras. An open casting call is slated for Saturday, June 2, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Austin Studios' red building. Men and women ages 18 and up are sought and there is money (though don't expect a lot) involved. Knowning Rodriguez, you'll end up signing some sort of confidentiality agreement.

Some interesting names have joined the cast including Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard and Mel Gibson.

Now the big question is whether they'll seek Texas filming incentives...

Friday, March 11, 2011

Texas Film Hall of Fame awards

Renee Zellweger

Rip Torn

Connie Britton

Kyle Chandler

Britt Daniel of Spoon

Connie Britton and Kyle Chandler of Friday Night Lights

Ted Nugent plays "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Tattoos on Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson's head

Beth Broderick in the crowd

Emcee Wyatt Cenac

Richard Linklater

John Hawkes of Winter's Bone

Robert Rodriguez

Liz Smith

Actor Shiloh Fernandez and director Catherine Hardwicke

Gary Dourdan of CSI

Britt Daniel

Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson

Ted Nugent and John Pierson

Joey Lauren Adams

Ted Nugent, Shemane Nugent and their son

Birds?

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Make Watch Love Film

That's the title of the big fund-raising event Friday, June 18, at 6:30 p.m. at Austin Studios featuring Richard Linklater, Mike Judge, Robert Rodriguez and Elizabeth Avellán at Austin Studios . The evening honors movie prop-meister Moody Anderson and celebrates CHAINSAWS, SLACKERS AND SPY KIDS: 30 Years of Filmmaking in Austin, the new book by Alison Macor.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Nesmith's Video Ranch rocks Austin Studios

Michael Nesmith personally invited me to visit the set of his Video Ranch production at Austin Studios today. How could I resist an offer like that? The guy who is credited with creating the music video is now trying to create the future--live streaming video of bands performing as viewed by avatars who can directly interact with the band and with each other. Fascinating stuff going on through Sunday at videoranch.com.

(You can see my Dallas Morning News article about this here.)

Michelle Malone's bluesy band poses with Michael Nesmith (center, partially hidden) and emcee A. Whitney Brown in front of the green screen at Austin Studios.

A. Whitney Brown, axe player Phillip Skipper and Michelle Malone.

What the band sees as they play--the avatars of viewers.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Austin Studios brew-ha-ha continues...

Seems to be a film faction brawl waging these days regarding the lease of a hangar at Austin Studios to Soundcheck Austin. The Austin City Council is set to decide the issue tomorrow. Here's the Austin American-Statesman's take on it.

UPDATE: The city council approved the deal with Soundcheck.

What they're saying about EVACUATION PLAN

"Tales alternately gentle, dramatic, surrealistic, that collectively affirm the beauty of being alive, even as they acknowledge that all of us face the necessity of making our own 'evacuation plan.' "
-- Brad Buchholz, Austin American-Statesman

" The chapters about Matt and the short stories demonstrate O’Connell’s ability to develop sympathetic, true-to-life characters using intriguing details and compelling dialogue. The stories remind us of those times when a brief encounter with a stranger left us wondering about that person’s past. In Evacuation Plan, O’Connell satisfies that curiosity. "
-- The Texas Observer

"It was very hard for me to put this book down. It carries us through the deepest meaning in life and most painful, most hopeful memories for a wide range of fascinating characters. Based in a hospice, this book could have easily resorted to cheap sensationalism, or whacked us upside the head with stereotypic melodrama, but instead it was respectful, honest, and tender. The characters will stay with you - you may even recognize some of them within your own life. "
-- Award-winning author Carmen Tafolla

"An excellent, thought-provoking diversion from our own inevitable plummet toward the grave, and we highly recommend it to you, the living."
-- Wayne Alan Brenner, The Austin Chronicle

"O’Connell has drawn some colourful and believable characters. The material relating to the hospice and terminal care rings true, all the way to reconciliation and forgiving."
-- Dr. Roger Woodruff, International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care

"The tales are nicely written, and some are quite compelling; “The Male Nurse,” for one, is a dreamlike reverie."
-- Texas Monthly

“Evacuation Plan: A Novel From The Hospice by Joe M. O'Connell is nothing short of remarkable … a novel that walks hand-in-hand with death and yet, somehow, the reader finishes the book feeling inspired to live.”
– The Paisano

"A wonderful blend of lives ordinary but with sometimes extraordinary elements. We all share these stories of life in some way, despite moments of harshness or unforgiving pain. There is always a common thread of humanity and ultimately forgiveness to be found, even if it's in the last moment of life."
-- Elaine Williams, author of A Journey Well Taken

"Reading Evacuation Plan is akin to unwrapping a series of small perfectly-chosen presents. Both human and humane, The book resembles a modern Spoon River Anthology with its vivid, touching glimpses into the lives of those in and around a hospice."
-- Tim McCanlies, screenwriter The Iron Giant, writer/director Secondhand Lions

"In Evacuation Plan Joe O'Connell does for the process of dying what Sherwood Anderson did for middle America in Winesburg, Ohio--he shows us in brief flashes the aching beauty of the grotesque, and shows us how extraordinary small lives and quiet deaths can be."
--John Blair, Drue Heinz Literature Prize winning author of American Standard

"Here's a book so rich with stories of the living, so filled with people's bountiful problems, as well as incidents of wry forgiveness, one realizes over and over the circling forces of life's completeness. It's not a sad tale nor a needless feel-good account but a balanced, sometimes comic, affirmation of what is here and what we all know is waiting."
-- Carolyn Osborn, award-winning short story writer

"The broken, the hopeful, the frustrated, the clueless, and the forgiving touch one another with words, remembrances, and hands. Inevitably, readers will quietly wonder about their own evacuation plan."
-- Will's Texana Monthly

O'Connell's protagonist skillfully navigates under the guise of a writer seeking raw materials for his craft in the stories of the dying, but mines and refines instead the stuff we're all made of. In this finely crafted novel, we come away with much more than the astute observation that many of the best stories begin at the end. But, then again, that notion is also worth a lot.
--Jesse Sublett, cancer survivor, rocker and author of Never the Same Again

"Joe O'Connell's Evacuation Plan--this Decameron of the hospice--encompasses a paradox. Death comes for everyone, but death is the only human universal because everyone dies, and witnesses dying, with private, unspeakable shame. Yet there are a few minutes left to speak. As people die, they tell stories which spawn new stories, which remind us that death is agony, a violent struggle, but so is living."
-- Debra Monroe, Flannery O'Connor Award winning author of Newfangled and Shambles

Joe M. O'Connell