Seems Majandra is going to be doing one of the voices in this live action movie called Heidi 4 Paws. According to IMBd the movie is completed.
It's nice to see Majandra working with Holly Goldberg Sloan again and how cool that she's working with Angela Lansbury.
"Heidi 4 Paws" is a live-action re-telling of Johanna Spyri's 1880 children's classic, "HEIDI", but with fully mouth-articulated dogs in all of the roles. "Heidi 4 PAWS" tells the story of the young orphan (this time as seen through the eyes of a yellow lab puppy) who is sent to live with her reclusive Grandfather (in this case an old sheepdog). Just as Heidi adjusts to her new life in the mountains, she is taken away by her social worker (a scrappy beagle). Heidi finds herself living in the big city with Clara Sesehound (a cockapoo mix), who has been made an invalid after a debilitating illness. Although Heidi comes to love Clara, her quest to return to the mountains dominates her stay. In the end, she is able to reunite with her beloved Grandfather. When Clara later comes to visit, the final miracle of Heidi's story is revealed when Clara regains her ability to walk.
Director:Holly Goldberg Sloan
Writers:Holly Goldberg Sloan
Johanna Spyri (novel)
Genre:Family
Cast (Credited cast)
Angela Lansbury ... Grandmamma (voice)
Steve Guttenberg ... Sebastian (voice)
Majandra Delfino ... Miss Rottenmeier (voice)
Stephen Rea ... Doctor (voice)
Richard Kind ... Grandfather (voice)
Marshall Bell ... Mr. Sesehund (voice)
Kimberly Beck ... Frau Ragaz (voice)
Joanne Baron ... Detie (voice)
Meghan Strange ... Heidi (voice)
Kai Vilhelmsen ... Grandpaw the Narrator (voice)
Darius Anderson ... Driver Dog (voice)
Daniel Hanson ... Peter the Goatherd (singing voice)
Theresa Hanson ... Heidi (singing voice)
John O'Campo ... Male Opera Singer (singing voice)
Mike Fishburne ... Mr. Usher (voice)
Crystal Barron ... Female Opera Singer (singing voice
Full Version: Majandra's New Movie--Heidi 4 Paws
This is wonderful news! I love that story, it will be interesting to hear Majandra's voice as one of the characters.
Thanks for sharing this information!!!
Tammy
Thanks for sharing this information!!!
Tammy
I know this should be cute.
what a news!Something entiely different for Majandra;)!
That's awesome news!
Great so see her work with Holly Goldberg Sloan and Steve Guttenberg again!
Great so see her work with Holly Goldberg Sloan and Steve Guttenberg again!
Well I loved Stephen Rea in The Crying Game and Richard Kind is a riot. He was a hoot in Mad About You and Spin City.
Elmira Siblings give voice to singing K-9s
Hansons may get big movie break
By SAMANTHA BATES
ELMIRA – The Hanson Family Singers are yodeling their way to Hollywood.
The family may be featured in a new film that takes the classic children’s novel “Heidi,” and gives it a twist.
“Heidi 4 Paws,” recreates the story using a cast of all dogs.
“I took my two obsessions, one with dogs, the other with Heidi, and put them together,” said Holly Goldberg-Sloan, director of the film.
Since childhood, she said, she’s enjoyed the story of Heidi. “It was one of my favorite books. It was the first piece of children’s literature told from the point of view of a child character.”
Goldberg-Sloan, who also wrote Disney’s “Angels in the Outfield” and directed “The Big Green,” grew up in the Willamette Valley and graduated from South Eugene High School in 1976.
To keep in touch with her Eugene roots, she often reads the online version of The Register-Guard several times a week. It was there that she discovered the Hanson Family Singers and their yodeling talents.
“I noticed this really cute picture of a kid in a cowboy hat,” she said, referring to the newspaper’s Web site, which included an audio link. After she heard 12-year-old Daniel Hanson yodel, she contacted the family.
“It’s just a serendipitous thing,” she said. “I never would have found them if I didn’t have such strong feelings for Oregon.”
Daniel, the youngest of seven children in the Hanson family, won the international yodeling championship last November in Albuquerque, N.M.
“They contacted us to see if they could use some of our yodels,” said Wayne Hanson, the patriarch of the family singing group.
To give Goldberg-Sloan a real taste of what the Hanson Family Singers had to offer, he had Daniel and his sister, Theresa, 14, sing a two-part harmonized yodel.
“They loved it,” Hanson said. “They said that’s exactly what they were looking for.”
The Hansons have traditionally done western yodeling, but they were willing to modify their style to fit the Swiss style of Heidi.
“We’ve done some Swiss yodeling before,” Daniel said.
The family went to a local studio and recorded 15 yodels, even though Goldberg-Sloan only asked for two.
Daniel, Theresa and Lisa, 16, sang three-part harmonizing yodels. Daniel and Theresa recorded singular yodels. And even their father joined in for an echoing yodel to be used in the background.
The Hansons are veterans of the recording studio. “In the studio we’ve learned that we have to relax,” said Wayne Hanson. “We take charge of the situation to produce our best, and that’s what we always want is our best.”
Hanson videotaped the recording process for special featured for the film.
After the family sent the recording to Goldberg-Sloan, the studio had to match the mouths of the dogs with the yodeling sounds by using computer animated mouths.
Goldberg-Sloan said the animation process is similar to the process used in classical animation. They shoot the dogs in live action and high definition, record the voices, then animate the mouths of the dogs to match the video and audio recordings.
After working on “Heidi 4 Paws” for over two years, Goldberg-Sloan said she is two months away from finishing the movie.
She plans to pitch the film to studios like MGM, Paramount and Disney. She is unsure, however, if it will be produced for television or theatre release before going to DVD.
She hopes it will be the first in a series of eight movies adapted for man’s best friend. Robin Hood is next on her list.
But future movies depend on the success of “Heidi 4 Paws.”
“I’ve been working on the movie for two years,” said Goldberg-Sloan.
“It’s bigger than anything we’ve done before,” Lisa said of the local family’s singing efforts.
“It’s a new dimension for us,” Hanson said. “I think that people are going to love it.”
“The singing is truly one of my favorite parts of the movie,” Goldberg-Sloan said. “His singing is one of the sweetest parts of the movie.”
*******************************************************************************
Who, who, who let the dogs out
Iris Bickett
Issue date: 10/11/04 Section: Campus News
PrintEmail DoubleClick Any Word Page 1 of 1
Media Credit: Vincent Nixon / Special to the Breeze
Backstage snap snots from the production of Heidi Four Paws.
Ocean Park pictures along with Television Productions classes TAT-60 and TAT62 are filming the movie Heidi Four Paws in the VSS production studio.
Heidi Four Paws is a child's movie using dogs as actors about the classical story of Heidi. The movie will have the animals talking, aided by a green screen effect.
Ocean Park Pictures is using the production space in the VSS building and students for production assistance.
While the production is filming, students help with the animals, costumes and anything that meets the needs of the film and crew.
"Production on campus gives students experience in what production on a movie is like and what the environment is all about," said Daniel Holechek, production studio technician for Chaffey.
The animals being used are from Jungle Exotics of San Bernardino and Bow-Wow Productions of Hesperia. There were between 10 and 20 dogs used in the filming on campus.
The director on this film is Holly Goldberg-Sloan who helped write the movies Angels in the Outfield and Crocodile Hunter. She also wrote and directed Big Green and Secret Life of Girls.
Chaffey was chosen because of the close proximity to the dog handler, Joe Camp of Jungle Exotics in San Bernardino. He is famous for training the dog for the movie Benji, the cat in Austin Powers and many others.
"Since the whole cast is all dogs, we wanted be close to them," Goldberg-Sloan said.
"We went up and saw the dogs (at Jungle Exotics) and even thought about shooting up there but Mr. Camp didn't have the space," said Tim Goldberg Executive Producer/Owner of Ocean Park Pictures.
For production Chaffey had an amazing facility for filming green screen, according to Goldberg.
"You have the latest maps, computers, equipment, A.V. department. We are really impressed," Goldberg said. "And it's a community college."
According to Sloan, the students of Chaffey are also wonderful to work with.
"We actually shot one day in May here and we loved the location and students, so we came back," Sloan said.
Lizette Mendez, a film major who worked as a production assistant on the film, started her day at 6 a.m. She didn't finish until 5 p.m.
"It is hard work and I am tired, but I don't mind it. It is what I want to do," she said.
MGM Studios paid for the test of this movie. Since then MGM was bought out by Sony so who will pay for the film is unclear, according to Goldberg. MGM will , however, distribute the film.
For more pictures of the production click on the link below.
Hansons may get big movie break
By SAMANTHA BATES
ELMIRA – The Hanson Family Singers are yodeling their way to Hollywood.
The family may be featured in a new film that takes the classic children’s novel “Heidi,” and gives it a twist.
“Heidi 4 Paws,” recreates the story using a cast of all dogs.
“I took my two obsessions, one with dogs, the other with Heidi, and put them together,” said Holly Goldberg-Sloan, director of the film.
Since childhood, she said, she’s enjoyed the story of Heidi. “It was one of my favorite books. It was the first piece of children’s literature told from the point of view of a child character.”
Goldberg-Sloan, who also wrote Disney’s “Angels in the Outfield” and directed “The Big Green,” grew up in the Willamette Valley and graduated from South Eugene High School in 1976.
To keep in touch with her Eugene roots, she often reads the online version of The Register-Guard several times a week. It was there that she discovered the Hanson Family Singers and their yodeling talents.
“I noticed this really cute picture of a kid in a cowboy hat,” she said, referring to the newspaper’s Web site, which included an audio link. After she heard 12-year-old Daniel Hanson yodel, she contacted the family.
“It’s just a serendipitous thing,” she said. “I never would have found them if I didn’t have such strong feelings for Oregon.”
Daniel, the youngest of seven children in the Hanson family, won the international yodeling championship last November in Albuquerque, N.M.
“They contacted us to see if they could use some of our yodels,” said Wayne Hanson, the patriarch of the family singing group.
To give Goldberg-Sloan a real taste of what the Hanson Family Singers had to offer, he had Daniel and his sister, Theresa, 14, sing a two-part harmonized yodel.
“They loved it,” Hanson said. “They said that’s exactly what they were looking for.”
The Hansons have traditionally done western yodeling, but they were willing to modify their style to fit the Swiss style of Heidi.
“We’ve done some Swiss yodeling before,” Daniel said.
The family went to a local studio and recorded 15 yodels, even though Goldberg-Sloan only asked for two.
Daniel, Theresa and Lisa, 16, sang three-part harmonizing yodels. Daniel and Theresa recorded singular yodels. And even their father joined in for an echoing yodel to be used in the background.
The Hansons are veterans of the recording studio. “In the studio we’ve learned that we have to relax,” said Wayne Hanson. “We take charge of the situation to produce our best, and that’s what we always want is our best.”
Hanson videotaped the recording process for special featured for the film.
After the family sent the recording to Goldberg-Sloan, the studio had to match the mouths of the dogs with the yodeling sounds by using computer animated mouths.
Goldberg-Sloan said the animation process is similar to the process used in classical animation. They shoot the dogs in live action and high definition, record the voices, then animate the mouths of the dogs to match the video and audio recordings.
After working on “Heidi 4 Paws” for over two years, Goldberg-Sloan said she is two months away from finishing the movie.
She plans to pitch the film to studios like MGM, Paramount and Disney. She is unsure, however, if it will be produced for television or theatre release before going to DVD.
She hopes it will be the first in a series of eight movies adapted for man’s best friend. Robin Hood is next on her list.
But future movies depend on the success of “Heidi 4 Paws.”
“I’ve been working on the movie for two years,” said Goldberg-Sloan.
“It’s bigger than anything we’ve done before,” Lisa said of the local family’s singing efforts.
“It’s a new dimension for us,” Hanson said. “I think that people are going to love it.”
“The singing is truly one of my favorite parts of the movie,” Goldberg-Sloan said. “His singing is one of the sweetest parts of the movie.”
*******************************************************************************
Who, who, who let the dogs out
Iris Bickett
Issue date: 10/11/04 Section: Campus News
PrintEmail DoubleClick Any Word Page 1 of 1
Media Credit: Vincent Nixon / Special to the Breeze
Backstage snap snots from the production of Heidi Four Paws.
Ocean Park pictures along with Television Productions classes TAT-60 and TAT62 are filming the movie Heidi Four Paws in the VSS production studio.
Heidi Four Paws is a child's movie using dogs as actors about the classical story of Heidi. The movie will have the animals talking, aided by a green screen effect.
Ocean Park Pictures is using the production space in the VSS building and students for production assistance.
While the production is filming, students help with the animals, costumes and anything that meets the needs of the film and crew.
"Production on campus gives students experience in what production on a movie is like and what the environment is all about," said Daniel Holechek, production studio technician for Chaffey.
The animals being used are from Jungle Exotics of San Bernardino and Bow-Wow Productions of Hesperia. There were between 10 and 20 dogs used in the filming on campus.
The director on this film is Holly Goldberg-Sloan who helped write the movies Angels in the Outfield and Crocodile Hunter. She also wrote and directed Big Green and Secret Life of Girls.
Chaffey was chosen because of the close proximity to the dog handler, Joe Camp of Jungle Exotics in San Bernardino. He is famous for training the dog for the movie Benji, the cat in Austin Powers and many others.
"Since the whole cast is all dogs, we wanted be close to them," Goldberg-Sloan said.
"We went up and saw the dogs (at Jungle Exotics) and even thought about shooting up there but Mr. Camp didn't have the space," said Tim Goldberg Executive Producer/Owner of Ocean Park Pictures.
For production Chaffey had an amazing facility for filming green screen, according to Goldberg.
"You have the latest maps, computers, equipment, A.V. department. We are really impressed," Goldberg said. "And it's a community college."
According to Sloan, the students of Chaffey are also wonderful to work with.
"We actually shot one day in May here and we loved the location and students, so we came back," Sloan said.
Lizette Mendez, a film major who worked as a production assistant on the film, started her day at 6 a.m. She didn't finish until 5 p.m.
"It is hard work and I am tired, but I don't mind it. It is what I want to do," she said.
MGM Studios paid for the test of this movie. Since then MGM was bought out by Sony so who will pay for the film is unclear, according to Goldberg. MGM will , however, distribute the film.
For more pictures of the production click on the link below.
Yay..this sounds great. Majandra is playing the baddie then, Miss Rottenmeier was the strict housekeeper in the original story wasn't she 
Wonder what kind of dog her character will be?? Oh this sounds so much fun and I bet Majandra had a blast doing it 
Thanks for the update
Wonder what kind of dog her character will be?? Oh this sounds so much fun and I bet Majandra had a blast doing it Thanks for the update
Aww 
Can't wait for this!
Can't wait for this!
I don't know how accurate this is but it sounds like the movie will be shown on PBS.
How the Holechek Brothers' '305' Went From Hit YouTube Short to Full-Length Film
By Luke Y. Thompson
Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 3:00 pm
Double Feature
How Costa Mesa's Holechek brothers turned their YouTube short into a full-length film on a spartan budget
Jennie Warren
Dan (left) and Dave (right) prepare a grim fate for one unlucky Persian
Through a small, inconspicuous door on a Venice street, down a white corridor that feels like part of a construction site, inside a mini office suite, an epic battle is being filmed. Two participants at a time.
A small green screen is draped over one wall, in front of which a pair of extras improvise fight moves they hope will be funny. The scene will be digitally inserted into previously filmed sequences to make them look like they're surrounded by more than the tiny handful of cast members who are actually credited. Today, the movie's producer dons a toga in preparation for a battle with a Persian. The film's star, Brandon Tyra, who has already played multiple roles, ties on a bandanna, dons a fake beard, and then gets on his knees to play a dwarf.
Lord of the Rings this isn't.
It's one of the last days of pick-up shooting for 305, a mockumentary normally described by its creators as "300 meets The Office." One could also make a case that it does with 300 what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead did with Hamlet, focusing as it does on minor characters in a similar universe: the five incompetent, mostly out-of-shape Spartans who didn't go to Thermopylae, but instead were assigned to guard the secret goat path that ultimately seals the Persian victory and who ran away at the first sign of trouble. Today's shots will embellish a bar-fight scene, making the brawl look like . . . a bigger brawl, with not exactly a cast of thousands, but at least a cast of tens, placed against digital backdrops that evoke 300's visual style, with a Flintstones-like modern spin (these Spartans have pizza delivery and cable TV and drink coffee at Spartanbucks). All this on a budget that co-directors Dan and Dave Holechek hint is "in the four-figure range."
But these twins are used to filmmaking beyond their means. This is already their second feature, and they're only 26. It's also the first to be based on a YouTube short.
* * *
Vanguard University (VU) is a private, coeducational, comprehensive university of liberal arts and professional studies that believes its Pentecostal/charismatic Christian community provides a supportive and challenging environment in which to pursue a quality education. The university assumes that it is essential to offer educational opportunity within a context of free inquiry and academic integrity. Such opportunity includes examining the Christian heritage, the claims of Christ, the charismatic involvement of the church and the revelation of God. VU is a community that encourages individual integrity and responsibility in accordance with biblical Christianity and its social and ethical implications.
—from Vanguard University's official website
* * *
The story behind the making of 305 begins at Vanguard University, a small Costa Mesa college, which lured Dan Holechek out from Colorado with a basketball scholarship (which he quickly decided wasn't his true calling). The Hawaii-born brothers already had family in California and liked the weather, so Dave joined him.
The religious nature of the school was also a factor, but the Holecheks aren't your typical faith-based filmmakers. Their debut feature, Arizona, shot in six months while they were at Vanguard and completed three years later, is the surreal, moody story of a troubled college student estranged from his ne'er-do-well brother and abusive to his girlfriend, whose sister has decided to leave her life behind and head for Arizona. It features two attempted murders, rape, vomiting, a couple of profanities for good measure, and an ambiguous ending that doesn't necessarily reward the protagonists. The style owes more to Gregg Araki and David Lynch than, say, VeggieTales or the Left Behind movies. Pat Robertson might raise an eyebrow or two.
"We had our first big screening at Vanguard," says Dave, who does most of the duo's talking, "and the students who showed up knew what to expect, but there were some interesting conversations we had with people. We actually got some letters from teachers—'How can you call yourselves Christians and make that kind of movie?' I don't think we set out to make a Christian movie; it was just our way of viewing the world coming out. Arizona represented my state of mind at the time, and even though it's kind of a somber movie, I tried to put a little bit of hope at the end." Dave adds that the central relationship in the film is based on that between himself and his younger brother, but in real life, all their personal issues have since been resolved.
Adds Dan: "Doing a feature film is really daunting. When you're in college and have no resources, it can be a challenge, but it's actually a lot of fun to try to make something like that work. You don't have a lot of pressure, but you have this freedom to do whatever you want. It helps a lot, too, to have people say you can't do that with that budget, or you'll never make the story work, especially with our personalities. We're like, 'Oh, yeah?'"
Dave: "We started it in college, and people were saying 'You're never gonna finish this!' Then when we finished, we went, 'You had a point . . . but we got it done!'"
* * *
Elsewhere at Vanguard, a fellow student named Ed Portillo formed a comedy troupe, Market Fresh Produce, in 2002, but it really clicked in 2004 when he recruited a hefty actor named Tim Larson and Sunny Peabody, whose sister Heaven starred in Arizona. Joined later by David Leo Schultz—the only non-Vanguard student—the troupe performed in "theaters, churches, conferences and coffee shops . . . It was intended as a springboard to another career," Portillo says. "The goal is never to limit what we're trying to do, but we're not trying to do lowbrow stuff—we're not trying to make American Pie: Beta House 3. The goal is to be funny." Despite the university's built-in religiosity, the troupe isn't above letting a few profanities fly in less-pious settings—after all, Trey Parker and Matt Stone's hilariously vulgar Team America: World Police is one of their favorite movies.
Eventually, Market Fresh Produce and the Holecheks found each other. The opportunity to go forward as a group—along with Tyra, who had appeared in Arizona—came when MTV held a contest to tie in with their annual movie awards, offering aspiring filmmakers the chance to submit their best movie parodies. The Holecheks suggested a riff on 300. "I remember sitting in their living room, going through thousands of ideas, and trying to come up with a way to do it that wouldn't be boring already," Larson recalls. "At that time, there were already millions of 300 YouTube parodies. When you can't go five minutes on the Internet without hearing somebody say, 'Tonight we dine in . . . !'—you just know. So we asked ourselves, what are we good at? What's funny? And the idea of doing a mockumentary came up because we're all big fans of Christopher Guest and The Office. For the short, it had a little more of an Office feel to it. We tried to graft characters a little bit closer to that, but not identical to."
Indeed, in the short, Larson's clueless, overweight Claudius seems patterned after Ricky Gervais from the original U.K. Office series, while Schultz's obnoxious assistant Darryl is a total Rainn Wilson riff, glasses and all. But the comparisons break down after that. Tyra's Testicleese (a reference to both gonads and Monty Python—clever!), the only Spartan of the group with the trademarked chiseled abs, is a deadpan leading man prone to uttering overly earnest absurdities such as "They say you're only as strong as your weakest link. . . . That concerns me." Peabody's Demetrius is a blind lounge singer. And Portillo's Shazaam is mostly a straight man because his character is the gag—he's quite obviously a Persian disguised as a Spartan, but that's never brought up.
"I thought it was good, but I didn't think it was good-good," Schultz says of the short. "We were really last-minute on the project, and I didn't think we had a chance, but I liked what we came up with. Then we didn't win, so I was right!"
* * *
The Holecheks posted the short on YouTube, hoping their work would at least get seen. And viewers went crazy.
"It just kinda sat there for a few weeks," says Dan. "And then I came in one morning, logged in, and it was the No. 1 featured video. I thought it was an error at first, but then I got an e-mail from the editor, who said they really liked it and wanted to feature it."
Adds Dave: "Then MySpace said they wanted to promote it. Then we got on VH1's Best Week Ever, and it was even on CNN." The short currently boasts more than 3 million views.
Nate Hopkins, who worked on the visual effects and also plays a Persian emissary, remembers visiting his family in Florida around that time. "My sister-in-law says she saw it on one of the local news stations down there," he says. "They showed the whole short!"
Having cut the short down to five minutes for the MTV contest, Dave intended to reincorporate some additional footage for the YouTube version. "So we put TO BE CONTINUED at the end because we were gonna put the longer version online—which we never did—but that was the intent," he says. "But then we got literally hundreds of messages and e-mails and MySpace comments asking, 'When's the next episode coming out? We wanna see more!' That's what got us thinking maybe we should do something more."
It wasn't just casual fans who noticed. "The first week it was featured, we got a meeting with someone who eventually made their own 300 full-length parody that has yet to be released," says Dan. "We thought they were being nice, but it turns out it wasn't really that."
"They were drilling us for ideas," adds Hopkins.
"So the plan was, let's do another episode, let's expand to maybe a 20-minute thing, and then our imagination got the better of us," says Dave. "We had to call it 305—that was what the original was—and we threw around the idea of a bungling-heroes-getting-together-to-save-the-day, Three Amigos concept, making a full three-act structure out of it. We just got really excited about it and said, 'Let's do it!'"
* * *
They shot the film on weekends while working day jobs doing editing and post-production work for Orbit Media—work that also came with equipment they could use after-hours. The production budget came out of the brothers' own pockets, but once they wrapped principal photography, they showed the project to their bosses, who were impressed enough to come onboard as financial partners, letting Dave and Dan finish it during regular work hours for the same pay.
"Once we decided it was gonna be feature-length, we had to structure it so that the story wouldn't be just 45 minutes strung out with interviews and stuff like that," Dave says. "We had to have enough going on to keep people interested the entire length. If it was just a series of gags, it would've felt a lot more thrown-together."
A 300 parody that plays like a thrown-together series of gags? Perish the thought. But before 305 could be finished, that's exactly what hit theaters: Meet the Spartans, a hastily made parody film from Epic Movie's Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (though these were not the idea thieves the Holecheks had met with). Meet the Spartans topped the box office in January, proving that a nonstop barrage of stale pop-culture references is enough to bring in a certain demographic. Fortunately, 305 is nothing like it, despite their common inspiration. It isn't bereft of pop-culture touchstones—ESPN's SportsCenter, Home Alone and Etch-a-Sketch all get nods—but the big difference is that they aren't treated as punch lines in and of themselves.
"We try to stay away from direct references, like quoting lines—'We dine in hell!' and stuff like that. We try not to be too obvious," Dan says.
"What we're making fun of is portraying these men as heroic ancient figures," Tyra says. "I think our movie is more getting to the point that today's man, especially in movies and television, is this dopey kind of character who's had his fight taken out of him."
Demonstrating a true sense of Christian charity, Tyra is willing to give some credit to the competition. "You have to at least give Meet the Spartans props for exploiting the loophole that they found with throwing crap up on the screen and getting people to buy it," he says. "Whether or not you agree that it's crap or not, I don't think they really care. They're showing you the check at the end of the day. And you almost have to say, 'Well done, good job, you just figured something out.' They can make all their money, but we're gonna do something we actually care about and thought about. We don't need to go through the bureaucracy of the film industry, and I think that's also what YouTube is opening up."
When Hopkins hears this, he jokes that Tyra sounds like an indie-rocker cliché, which sends Tyra into a comedic riff that concludes with him saying, "You know what we should do? We should not sell our movie. That way we'll be successes. Let's put it away in the closet. Let's just have one copy and keep it at our house. Dave, you can have it Monday, Wednesday and Friday."
In fact, the DVD will soon be up for pre-order at www.the305movie.com. Dave won't say who the distributor will be, but he hints that it was originally going to come out in February on a smaller label, but recent interest from a bigger company pushed that back. It's a safe bet it won't be Vanguard Cinema, the coincidentally named indie imprint that put out Arizona. ("People say, 'Oh, how cute! Your school released it!' No. Different company, thank you. I interned there," says Dave.) And if you can get to Palm Beach, Florida, in April, 305 will have its world theatrical premiere there. It's not local, but hey, not every submission can get into the Newport Beach Film Festival.
Meanwhile, the Holechek brothers' future seems bright. Holly Goldberg Sloan—screenwriter for such family films as Made in America, Angels in the Outfield and The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course—recruited the Holecheks just out of college to help her with making commercials and the forthcoming PBS movie Heidi 4 Paws (a retelling of the classic Heidi with an all-canine cast, voiced by celebrities such as Steve Guttenberg and Angela Lansbury).
"If I walk into a room, they're my secret weapons—they just have all this talent," Sloan says. "I'm kind of hesitant to tell the world—it'd be the last time I see them. Though, of course, I only want the best for them."
But first things first, says Dave. "I'd like to be able to finally pay our actors."
How the Holechek Brothers' '305' Went From Hit YouTube Short to Full-Length Film
By Luke Y. Thompson
Thursday, February 28, 2008 - 3:00 pm
Double Feature
How Costa Mesa's Holechek brothers turned their YouTube short into a full-length film on a spartan budget
Jennie Warren
Dan (left) and Dave (right) prepare a grim fate for one unlucky Persian
Through a small, inconspicuous door on a Venice street, down a white corridor that feels like part of a construction site, inside a mini office suite, an epic battle is being filmed. Two participants at a time.
A small green screen is draped over one wall, in front of which a pair of extras improvise fight moves they hope will be funny. The scene will be digitally inserted into previously filmed sequences to make them look like they're surrounded by more than the tiny handful of cast members who are actually credited. Today, the movie's producer dons a toga in preparation for a battle with a Persian. The film's star, Brandon Tyra, who has already played multiple roles, ties on a bandanna, dons a fake beard, and then gets on his knees to play a dwarf.
Lord of the Rings this isn't.
It's one of the last days of pick-up shooting for 305, a mockumentary normally described by its creators as "300 meets The Office." One could also make a case that it does with 300 what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead did with Hamlet, focusing as it does on minor characters in a similar universe: the five incompetent, mostly out-of-shape Spartans who didn't go to Thermopylae, but instead were assigned to guard the secret goat path that ultimately seals the Persian victory and who ran away at the first sign of trouble. Today's shots will embellish a bar-fight scene, making the brawl look like . . . a bigger brawl, with not exactly a cast of thousands, but at least a cast of tens, placed against digital backdrops that evoke 300's visual style, with a Flintstones-like modern spin (these Spartans have pizza delivery and cable TV and drink coffee at Spartanbucks). All this on a budget that co-directors Dan and Dave Holechek hint is "in the four-figure range."
But these twins are used to filmmaking beyond their means. This is already their second feature, and they're only 26. It's also the first to be based on a YouTube short.
* * *
Vanguard University (VU) is a private, coeducational, comprehensive university of liberal arts and professional studies that believes its Pentecostal/charismatic Christian community provides a supportive and challenging environment in which to pursue a quality education. The university assumes that it is essential to offer educational opportunity within a context of free inquiry and academic integrity. Such opportunity includes examining the Christian heritage, the claims of Christ, the charismatic involvement of the church and the revelation of God. VU is a community that encourages individual integrity and responsibility in accordance with biblical Christianity and its social and ethical implications.
—from Vanguard University's official website
* * *
The story behind the making of 305 begins at Vanguard University, a small Costa Mesa college, which lured Dan Holechek out from Colorado with a basketball scholarship (which he quickly decided wasn't his true calling). The Hawaii-born brothers already had family in California and liked the weather, so Dave joined him.
The religious nature of the school was also a factor, but the Holecheks aren't your typical faith-based filmmakers. Their debut feature, Arizona, shot in six months while they were at Vanguard and completed three years later, is the surreal, moody story of a troubled college student estranged from his ne'er-do-well brother and abusive to his girlfriend, whose sister has decided to leave her life behind and head for Arizona. It features two attempted murders, rape, vomiting, a couple of profanities for good measure, and an ambiguous ending that doesn't necessarily reward the protagonists. The style owes more to Gregg Araki and David Lynch than, say, VeggieTales or the Left Behind movies. Pat Robertson might raise an eyebrow or two.
"We had our first big screening at Vanguard," says Dave, who does most of the duo's talking, "and the students who showed up knew what to expect, but there were some interesting conversations we had with people. We actually got some letters from teachers—'How can you call yourselves Christians and make that kind of movie?' I don't think we set out to make a Christian movie; it was just our way of viewing the world coming out. Arizona represented my state of mind at the time, and even though it's kind of a somber movie, I tried to put a little bit of hope at the end." Dave adds that the central relationship in the film is based on that between himself and his younger brother, but in real life, all their personal issues have since been resolved.
Adds Dan: "Doing a feature film is really daunting. When you're in college and have no resources, it can be a challenge, but it's actually a lot of fun to try to make something like that work. You don't have a lot of pressure, but you have this freedom to do whatever you want. It helps a lot, too, to have people say you can't do that with that budget, or you'll never make the story work, especially with our personalities. We're like, 'Oh, yeah?'"
Dave: "We started it in college, and people were saying 'You're never gonna finish this!' Then when we finished, we went, 'You had a point . . . but we got it done!'"
* * *
Elsewhere at Vanguard, a fellow student named Ed Portillo formed a comedy troupe, Market Fresh Produce, in 2002, but it really clicked in 2004 when he recruited a hefty actor named Tim Larson and Sunny Peabody, whose sister Heaven starred in Arizona. Joined later by David Leo Schultz—the only non-Vanguard student—the troupe performed in "theaters, churches, conferences and coffee shops . . . It was intended as a springboard to another career," Portillo says. "The goal is never to limit what we're trying to do, but we're not trying to do lowbrow stuff—we're not trying to make American Pie: Beta House 3. The goal is to be funny." Despite the university's built-in religiosity, the troupe isn't above letting a few profanities fly in less-pious settings—after all, Trey Parker and Matt Stone's hilariously vulgar Team America: World Police is one of their favorite movies.
Eventually, Market Fresh Produce and the Holecheks found each other. The opportunity to go forward as a group—along with Tyra, who had appeared in Arizona—came when MTV held a contest to tie in with their annual movie awards, offering aspiring filmmakers the chance to submit their best movie parodies. The Holecheks suggested a riff on 300. "I remember sitting in their living room, going through thousands of ideas, and trying to come up with a way to do it that wouldn't be boring already," Larson recalls. "At that time, there were already millions of 300 YouTube parodies. When you can't go five minutes on the Internet without hearing somebody say, 'Tonight we dine in . . . !'—you just know. So we asked ourselves, what are we good at? What's funny? And the idea of doing a mockumentary came up because we're all big fans of Christopher Guest and The Office. For the short, it had a little more of an Office feel to it. We tried to graft characters a little bit closer to that, but not identical to."
Indeed, in the short, Larson's clueless, overweight Claudius seems patterned after Ricky Gervais from the original U.K. Office series, while Schultz's obnoxious assistant Darryl is a total Rainn Wilson riff, glasses and all. But the comparisons break down after that. Tyra's Testicleese (a reference to both gonads and Monty Python—clever!), the only Spartan of the group with the trademarked chiseled abs, is a deadpan leading man prone to uttering overly earnest absurdities such as "They say you're only as strong as your weakest link. . . . That concerns me." Peabody's Demetrius is a blind lounge singer. And Portillo's Shazaam is mostly a straight man because his character is the gag—he's quite obviously a Persian disguised as a Spartan, but that's never brought up.
"I thought it was good, but I didn't think it was good-good," Schultz says of the short. "We were really last-minute on the project, and I didn't think we had a chance, but I liked what we came up with. Then we didn't win, so I was right!"
* * *
The Holecheks posted the short on YouTube, hoping their work would at least get seen. And viewers went crazy.
"It just kinda sat there for a few weeks," says Dan. "And then I came in one morning, logged in, and it was the No. 1 featured video. I thought it was an error at first, but then I got an e-mail from the editor, who said they really liked it and wanted to feature it."
Adds Dave: "Then MySpace said they wanted to promote it. Then we got on VH1's Best Week Ever, and it was even on CNN." The short currently boasts more than 3 million views.
Nate Hopkins, who worked on the visual effects and also plays a Persian emissary, remembers visiting his family in Florida around that time. "My sister-in-law says she saw it on one of the local news stations down there," he says. "They showed the whole short!"
Having cut the short down to five minutes for the MTV contest, Dave intended to reincorporate some additional footage for the YouTube version. "So we put TO BE CONTINUED at the end because we were gonna put the longer version online—which we never did—but that was the intent," he says. "But then we got literally hundreds of messages and e-mails and MySpace comments asking, 'When's the next episode coming out? We wanna see more!' That's what got us thinking maybe we should do something more."
It wasn't just casual fans who noticed. "The first week it was featured, we got a meeting with someone who eventually made their own 300 full-length parody that has yet to be released," says Dan. "We thought they were being nice, but it turns out it wasn't really that."
"They were drilling us for ideas," adds Hopkins.
"So the plan was, let's do another episode, let's expand to maybe a 20-minute thing, and then our imagination got the better of us," says Dave. "We had to call it 305—that was what the original was—and we threw around the idea of a bungling-heroes-getting-together-to-save-the-day, Three Amigos concept, making a full three-act structure out of it. We just got really excited about it and said, 'Let's do it!'"
* * *
They shot the film on weekends while working day jobs doing editing and post-production work for Orbit Media—work that also came with equipment they could use after-hours. The production budget came out of the brothers' own pockets, but once they wrapped principal photography, they showed the project to their bosses, who were impressed enough to come onboard as financial partners, letting Dave and Dan finish it during regular work hours for the same pay.
"Once we decided it was gonna be feature-length, we had to structure it so that the story wouldn't be just 45 minutes strung out with interviews and stuff like that," Dave says. "We had to have enough going on to keep people interested the entire length. If it was just a series of gags, it would've felt a lot more thrown-together."
A 300 parody that plays like a thrown-together series of gags? Perish the thought. But before 305 could be finished, that's exactly what hit theaters: Meet the Spartans, a hastily made parody film from Epic Movie's Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (though these were not the idea thieves the Holecheks had met with). Meet the Spartans topped the box office in January, proving that a nonstop barrage of stale pop-culture references is enough to bring in a certain demographic. Fortunately, 305 is nothing like it, despite their common inspiration. It isn't bereft of pop-culture touchstones—ESPN's SportsCenter, Home Alone and Etch-a-Sketch all get nods—but the big difference is that they aren't treated as punch lines in and of themselves.
"We try to stay away from direct references, like quoting lines—'We dine in hell!' and stuff like that. We try not to be too obvious," Dan says.
"What we're making fun of is portraying these men as heroic ancient figures," Tyra says. "I think our movie is more getting to the point that today's man, especially in movies and television, is this dopey kind of character who's had his fight taken out of him."
Demonstrating a true sense of Christian charity, Tyra is willing to give some credit to the competition. "You have to at least give Meet the Spartans props for exploiting the loophole that they found with throwing crap up on the screen and getting people to buy it," he says. "Whether or not you agree that it's crap or not, I don't think they really care. They're showing you the check at the end of the day. And you almost have to say, 'Well done, good job, you just figured something out.' They can make all their money, but we're gonna do something we actually care about and thought about. We don't need to go through the bureaucracy of the film industry, and I think that's also what YouTube is opening up."
When Hopkins hears this, he jokes that Tyra sounds like an indie-rocker cliché, which sends Tyra into a comedic riff that concludes with him saying, "You know what we should do? We should not sell our movie. That way we'll be successes. Let's put it away in the closet. Let's just have one copy and keep it at our house. Dave, you can have it Monday, Wednesday and Friday."
In fact, the DVD will soon be up for pre-order at www.the305movie.com. Dave won't say who the distributor will be, but he hints that it was originally going to come out in February on a smaller label, but recent interest from a bigger company pushed that back. It's a safe bet it won't be Vanguard Cinema, the coincidentally named indie imprint that put out Arizona. ("People say, 'Oh, how cute! Your school released it!' No. Different company, thank you. I interned there," says Dave.) And if you can get to Palm Beach, Florida, in April, 305 will have its world theatrical premiere there. It's not local, but hey, not every submission can get into the Newport Beach Film Festival.
Meanwhile, the Holechek brothers' future seems bright. Holly Goldberg Sloan—screenwriter for such family films as Made in America, Angels in the Outfield and The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course—recruited the Holecheks just out of college to help her with making commercials and the forthcoming PBS movie Heidi 4 Paws (a retelling of the classic Heidi with an all-canine cast, voiced by celebrities such as Steve Guttenberg and Angela Lansbury).
"If I walk into a room, they're my secret weapons—they just have all this talent," Sloan says. "I'm kind of hesitant to tell the world—it'd be the last time I see them. Though, of course, I only want the best for them."
But first things first, says Dave. "I'd like to be able to finally pay our actors."
Not sure how true this is but this was posted on IMBd.
Airing on Public Television beginning Dec 2008
Airing on Public Television beginning Dec 2008
Hmmm I guess I should have looked this up because there is more info.
Heidi 4 Paws: A Furry Tale
APT FEED DATE: Sunday, November 23, 2008, 12:00 NOON ET
Heidi 4 Paws brings to life the classic children's story of Heidi but with a twist. In the tradition of Wishbone, Babe and Charlotte's Web, this movie uses animals as actors! Filmed in HD, all sixteen dogs are mouth articulated using computer-generated images. The dogs are in costume, with wigs, hats, and in many cases eyeglasses and even shoes. To view a trailer of the program, please visit www.4paws.tv. Heidi 4 Paws is the perfect addition to your Children's programming schedule over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend as well as during the month of December!
Here is the link to the trailer It does look very cute for kids. http://www.4paws.tv/
Here is another article:
For Immediate Release
October 20, 2008
WTTW NATIONAL PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE
National public television special brings the classic children's story of HEIDI to life - with a twist National Feed Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm. (ET) (check local listings)
Chicago, IL - WTTW National Productions is proud to announce the premiere of HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE. This one-hour television special is sure to delight family members of all ages as it re-tells the classic children's story of Heidi featuring adorable dogs in all the roles! Written originally by Johanna Spyri in 1881, this all-time classic has been translated into over 70 languages. Now, in the tradition of Wishbone, Babe and Charlotte's Web, audiences can enjoy a new version of this timeless masterpiece! HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE will feed to public television stations nationwide on Sunday, November 23 at 12:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).
Combining the love of animals with cutting-edge special effects, this entertaining children's story achieves an emotional depth unprecedented in the "talking animal" genre. Featuring a talented team of sixteen dogs, HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE is filmed in high definition and comes to life as the dogs are "mouth-articulated" with state-of-the-art 3D computer animation. Shot in live-action with panoramic backgrounds, each scene features real dogs in character costumes including wigs, hats, and in many cases eyeglasses and even shoes.
An impressive list of well-known actors lend their voices to characters including Angela Lansbury who portrays Grandmamma Sesehund; Stephen Rea as the kindly Doctor; Julian Sands as Peter the Goat herder; and Steve Guttenberg as Sebastian the butler.
HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE begins as the young orphan, Heidi (in this case, an adorable yellow lab puppy) is taken to the mountains by Detie, the social worker (a feisty beagle) to live with her Grandfather (voiced by Richard Kind, portrayed physically by an elderly sheepdog)who is reluctant to accept her. But with time, Heidi falls in love with her Grandfather, his goats, and Peter the goat herder (voiced by Julian Sands, played by a greyhound mix). When Detie secretly returns and takes Heidi away to the big city, they are all powerless to stop her. Placed in a family with a young invalid named Clara (voiced by Kimberly Beck Clark and portrayed by a poodle-mix), Heidi learns how to read, the true value of deep friendship and the importance of family. After a calamity of sleepwalking puts Heidi and the family in danger, she is allowed to go back home to the mountains. Joyously reunited with her Grandfather, Heidi asks for Clara to come visit. When Clara's Grandmother (Angela Lansbury) makes the trip with Clara at her side, a heartwarming reunion brings both families together. The final miracle of the story occurs when Clara regains the ability to walk in a scene which highlights why this unique version of Heidi is destined to be a classic in its own right.
HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE is written and directed by family film creator Holly Goldberg Sloan (writer of the movies Angels in the Outfield, The Big Green, Made in America and The Crocodile Hunter Movie). It is presented by WTTW National Productions and distributed by American Public Television. HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE is sponsored by VCA Animal Hospitals; The Aquarium of the Bay/San Francisco; Tails and Company; and My Gym.
About 4 Paws Entertainment
4 PAWS ENTERTAINMENT LLC is introducing a unique brand of entertainment that will appeal to all members of the family, right down to the family dog. Led by writer-director Holly Goldberg Sloan, an established name in family entertainment, the 4 PAWS founders have taken the special connection we share with our canine friends and have invented an exciting and unique family entertainment franchise.
About American Public Television
With more than 10,000 hours of programming in its library, American Public Television (APT) has been a prime source of programming for the nation's public television stations for 47 years, distributing more than 300 new program titles per year. In 2006, APT launched Create – the TV channel featuring the best of public television's lifestyle programming. Known for its leadership in identifying innovative, worthwhile and viewer-friendly programming, APT has established a tradition of providing public television stations with program choices that strengthen and customize their schedules, such as such as Rick Steves' Europe, Worldfocus, Globe Trekker, Simply Ming, Sara's Weeknight Meals, America's Test Kitchen From Cook's Illustrated, Doc Martin, Broadway: The Golden Age, Lidia's Family Table, Rosemary and Thyme, P. Allen Smith's Garden Home, The Big Comfy Couch, Celine Dion: A New Day, Queen Rock Montreal, Monarchy With David Starkey, Spain...on the road Again, and other prominent documentaries, dramatic series, how-to programs, children's series and classic movies. For more information about APT's programs and services, visit APTonline.org.
About WTTW National Productions
WTTW National Productions is a premier producer and presenter of original, high-quality television programs for both public and commercial television broadcast. WTTW National Productions is a division of Window to the World Communications, Inc., the parent company of WTTW11 Chicago. For more than 50 years, WTTW11 and WTTW National Productions have introduced a wide array of ground-breaking television programming – reflecting the world's rich and diverse arts and entertainment scene as well as education, politics, public affairs, business, and religion – to a national audience. Its landmark innovative series and original productions include the critically-acclaimed performance showcases Soundstage, Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis and David Broza at Masada: The Sunrise Concert; cultural series Grannies on Safari and MEXICO - One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless; the business series CEO Exchange and WordWorld, the first of four children's properties to come from the Ready to Learn Partnership.
Heidi 4 Paws: A Furry Tale
APT FEED DATE: Sunday, November 23, 2008, 12:00 NOON ET
Heidi 4 Paws brings to life the classic children's story of Heidi but with a twist. In the tradition of Wishbone, Babe and Charlotte's Web, this movie uses animals as actors! Filmed in HD, all sixteen dogs are mouth articulated using computer-generated images. The dogs are in costume, with wigs, hats, and in many cases eyeglasses and even shoes. To view a trailer of the program, please visit www.4paws.tv. Heidi 4 Paws is the perfect addition to your Children's programming schedule over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend as well as during the month of December!
Here is the link to the trailer It does look very cute for kids. http://www.4paws.tv/
Here is another article:
For Immediate Release
October 20, 2008
WTTW NATIONAL PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE
National public television special brings the classic children's story of HEIDI to life - with a twist National Feed Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm. (ET) (check local listings)
Chicago, IL - WTTW National Productions is proud to announce the premiere of HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE. This one-hour television special is sure to delight family members of all ages as it re-tells the classic children's story of Heidi featuring adorable dogs in all the roles! Written originally by Johanna Spyri in 1881, this all-time classic has been translated into over 70 languages. Now, in the tradition of Wishbone, Babe and Charlotte's Web, audiences can enjoy a new version of this timeless masterpiece! HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE will feed to public television stations nationwide on Sunday, November 23 at 12:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).
Combining the love of animals with cutting-edge special effects, this entertaining children's story achieves an emotional depth unprecedented in the "talking animal" genre. Featuring a talented team of sixteen dogs, HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE is filmed in high definition and comes to life as the dogs are "mouth-articulated" with state-of-the-art 3D computer animation. Shot in live-action with panoramic backgrounds, each scene features real dogs in character costumes including wigs, hats, and in many cases eyeglasses and even shoes.
An impressive list of well-known actors lend their voices to characters including Angela Lansbury who portrays Grandmamma Sesehund; Stephen Rea as the kindly Doctor; Julian Sands as Peter the Goat herder; and Steve Guttenberg as Sebastian the butler.
HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE begins as the young orphan, Heidi (in this case, an adorable yellow lab puppy) is taken to the mountains by Detie, the social worker (a feisty beagle) to live with her Grandfather (voiced by Richard Kind, portrayed physically by an elderly sheepdog)who is reluctant to accept her. But with time, Heidi falls in love with her Grandfather, his goats, and Peter the goat herder (voiced by Julian Sands, played by a greyhound mix). When Detie secretly returns and takes Heidi away to the big city, they are all powerless to stop her. Placed in a family with a young invalid named Clara (voiced by Kimberly Beck Clark and portrayed by a poodle-mix), Heidi learns how to read, the true value of deep friendship and the importance of family. After a calamity of sleepwalking puts Heidi and the family in danger, she is allowed to go back home to the mountains. Joyously reunited with her Grandfather, Heidi asks for Clara to come visit. When Clara's Grandmother (Angela Lansbury) makes the trip with Clara at her side, a heartwarming reunion brings both families together. The final miracle of the story occurs when Clara regains the ability to walk in a scene which highlights why this unique version of Heidi is destined to be a classic in its own right.
HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE is written and directed by family film creator Holly Goldberg Sloan (writer of the movies Angels in the Outfield, The Big Green, Made in America and The Crocodile Hunter Movie). It is presented by WTTW National Productions and distributed by American Public Television. HEIDI 4 PAWS: A FURRY TALE is sponsored by VCA Animal Hospitals; The Aquarium of the Bay/San Francisco; Tails and Company; and My Gym.
About 4 Paws Entertainment
4 PAWS ENTERTAINMENT LLC is introducing a unique brand of entertainment that will appeal to all members of the family, right down to the family dog. Led by writer-director Holly Goldberg Sloan, an established name in family entertainment, the 4 PAWS founders have taken the special connection we share with our canine friends and have invented an exciting and unique family entertainment franchise.
About American Public Television
With more than 10,000 hours of programming in its library, American Public Television (APT) has been a prime source of programming for the nation's public television stations for 47 years, distributing more than 300 new program titles per year. In 2006, APT launched Create – the TV channel featuring the best of public television's lifestyle programming. Known for its leadership in identifying innovative, worthwhile and viewer-friendly programming, APT has established a tradition of providing public television stations with program choices that strengthen and customize their schedules, such as such as Rick Steves' Europe, Worldfocus, Globe Trekker, Simply Ming, Sara's Weeknight Meals, America's Test Kitchen From Cook's Illustrated, Doc Martin, Broadway: The Golden Age, Lidia's Family Table, Rosemary and Thyme, P. Allen Smith's Garden Home, The Big Comfy Couch, Celine Dion: A New Day, Queen Rock Montreal, Monarchy With David Starkey, Spain...on the road Again, and other prominent documentaries, dramatic series, how-to programs, children's series and classic movies. For more information about APT's programs and services, visit APTonline.org.
About WTTW National Productions
WTTW National Productions is a premier producer and presenter of original, high-quality television programs for both public and commercial television broadcast. WTTW National Productions is a division of Window to the World Communications, Inc., the parent company of WTTW11 Chicago. For more than 50 years, WTTW11 and WTTW National Productions have introduced a wide array of ground-breaking television programming – reflecting the world's rich and diverse arts and entertainment scene as well as education, politics, public affairs, business, and religion – to a national audience. Its landmark innovative series and original productions include the critically-acclaimed performance showcases Soundstage, Legends of Jazz with Ramsey Lewis and David Broza at Masada: The Sunrise Concert; cultural series Grannies on Safari and MEXICO - One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless; the business series CEO Exchange and WordWorld, the first of four children's properties to come from the Ready to Learn Partnership.
Bumping up 
Has anyone seen the movie? It hasn't aired on my local PBS yet. It is playing throughout December on a variety of PBS channels.
Has anyone seen the movie? It hasn't aired on my local PBS yet. It is playing throughout December on a variety of PBS channels.
Holly Goldberg-Sloan posted on today's Huffington Post about her movie Heidi 4 Paws.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/holly-goldbe...m_b_151776.html
Holly Goldberg Sloan Posted December 17, 2008 | 01:25 PM (EST)
Two Obsessions, One Dream -- Heidi 4 Paws
This is about obsession.
There has not been a day, in five years, when it wasn't on my mind. But if I knew, when I started, where it would lead, would I again put a Labrador puppy in a custom-made, multiple-layered dress with a power-blue apron? Would the snappy red kerchief with the thin, blond braids dangle from her furry little head?
I have always loved dogs. They speak to me. And now, because of the obsession, I mean that literally.
I have also always loved the children's classic story of Heidi, written by Johanna Spyri in 1881 (and in continuous print since that time!). I first read the book in grade school. I then saw the movie starring Shirley Temple. I was committed to the narrative. Orphan kid (every child's secret fantasy at some point). Cranky grandparent (I had a couple of those). A move from the sticks to the big city (if you don't think that sounds exciting, you haven't grown up next to a park that kept elk on display in pens). And finally, the story featured goats (we owned one named Ernie when I was a kid in Oregon). It was all right up my alley.
So what happens when you take two obsessions and you combine them into one dream? You get a live-action talking dog movie for kids and a bigger mortgage on your house.
I couldn't have done it without friends. The same could be said for other adventures in my past. But this time, the net was flung wide. My older brother. My older brother's dog. My current husband as well as my ex-husband. My best friend. My son's best friend. A neighbor and his kids. One of my lawyers who has become like family. A friend's movie star mother. The list goes on and on.
So with a small army of talented people, it all took shape: sixteen dogs, nine different puppies, yards of green-screen, HD cameras, a community college with a small sound stage--the elements were assembled and we were off and running. I wrote the script. Yes, I directed the canine madness. At first we called it Heidi for Dogs, until a marketing friend who worked for a studio thought that a better title would be: Heidi 4 Paws.
And I like titles with numbers. Plus, this title was more accurate. I wasn't sure how many dogs were seeking entertainment.
But the real work started once the shooting had finished. It took a year and two dozen special effects artists, working with my core group of talented young filmmakers, to create three-dimensional, mouth-articulation to move the live-action dogs' mouths.
When you see a movie like Babe, you are seeing tens of millions of dollars worth of special visual effects. When you see our movie, you are seeing what money can't buy.
So it feels....homemade.
I like to think that's a good thing.
It took another year to find Public Television and give these dogs their first home (sponsored by Obama's Public Television stations--WTTW in Chicago--let the search for the First Puppy officially begin!).
I think broadcasters like it, because most of them are running it Christmas week. I know little kids do and not just because they like just about anything, but because a neighbor boy who has seen the movie, now calls me the Dog-Talker-Lady.
Not all dreams are deferred.
You can watch Heidi 4 Paws, starring the voice talent of Angela Lansbury, Richard Kind, Julian Sands, Majandra Delfino and Steve Guttenberg on most public television stations this month. Check local stations for times and dates.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/holly-goldbe...m_b_151776.html
QUOTE
Holly Goldberg Sloan Posted December 17, 2008 | 01:25 PM (EST)
Two Obsessions, One Dream -- Heidi 4 Paws
This is about obsession.
There has not been a day, in five years, when it wasn't on my mind. But if I knew, when I started, where it would lead, would I again put a Labrador puppy in a custom-made, multiple-layered dress with a power-blue apron? Would the snappy red kerchief with the thin, blond braids dangle from her furry little head?
I have always loved dogs. They speak to me. And now, because of the obsession, I mean that literally.
I have also always loved the children's classic story of Heidi, written by Johanna Spyri in 1881 (and in continuous print since that time!). I first read the book in grade school. I then saw the movie starring Shirley Temple. I was committed to the narrative. Orphan kid (every child's secret fantasy at some point). Cranky grandparent (I had a couple of those). A move from the sticks to the big city (if you don't think that sounds exciting, you haven't grown up next to a park that kept elk on display in pens). And finally, the story featured goats (we owned one named Ernie when I was a kid in Oregon). It was all right up my alley.
So what happens when you take two obsessions and you combine them into one dream? You get a live-action talking dog movie for kids and a bigger mortgage on your house.
I couldn't have done it without friends. The same could be said for other adventures in my past. But this time, the net was flung wide. My older brother. My older brother's dog. My current husband as well as my ex-husband. My best friend. My son's best friend. A neighbor and his kids. One of my lawyers who has become like family. A friend's movie star mother. The list goes on and on.
So with a small army of talented people, it all took shape: sixteen dogs, nine different puppies, yards of green-screen, HD cameras, a community college with a small sound stage--the elements were assembled and we were off and running. I wrote the script. Yes, I directed the canine madness. At first we called it Heidi for Dogs, until a marketing friend who worked for a studio thought that a better title would be: Heidi 4 Paws.
And I like titles with numbers. Plus, this title was more accurate. I wasn't sure how many dogs were seeking entertainment.
But the real work started once the shooting had finished. It took a year and two dozen special effects artists, working with my core group of talented young filmmakers, to create three-dimensional, mouth-articulation to move the live-action dogs' mouths.
When you see a movie like Babe, you are seeing tens of millions of dollars worth of special visual effects. When you see our movie, you are seeing what money can't buy.
So it feels....homemade.
I like to think that's a good thing.
It took another year to find Public Television and give these dogs their first home (sponsored by Obama's Public Television stations--WTTW in Chicago--let the search for the First Puppy officially begin!).
I think broadcasters like it, because most of them are running it Christmas week. I know little kids do and not just because they like just about anything, but because a neighbor boy who has seen the movie, now calls me the Dog-Talker-Lady.
Not all dreams are deferred.
You can watch Heidi 4 Paws, starring the voice talent of Angela Lansbury, Richard Kind, Julian Sands, Majandra Delfino and Steve Guttenberg on most public television stations this month. Check local stations for times and dates.
WooHoo, good news. It seems that Heidi 4 Paws has been released on DVD and is available at 4paws.tv.com.
Wonderful!! I will have to try to remember to check that out after work today. Thanks for telling us. I have been wanting to see that since we heard about it here.
Tammy
aka Forrestal
Tammy
aka Forrestal
QUOTE(Vallygirl @ Jan 11 2010, 03:25 AM) 
WooHoo, good news. It seems that Heidi 4 Paws has been released on DVD and is available at 4paws.tv.com.
Thanks for that Val. I don't think that I can order it. Can't find Austria anywhere on the list
This actually played at a film festival near where I lived last year. But I didn't notice it in the programme until after it was already over. I was working anyway so I couldn't have made it.
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