The Beast is in the Stream

People have been asking us for ages how to see The Beast of Bottomless Lake on line.  We haven't had an answer for them - let alone a good one... but that is in part because we hadn't settled upon one. We did explore a number of options. The ones we were most interested in had too high a bar of entry - either requiring a significant investment we didn't really expect to get back, or having gate-keepers who could not be dashed-past (it rhymes with "pet-chicks"). When we took a step back and asked ourselves what our main goal was, the answer was "for people to see the film easily."  Once that was clear, our top option became pretty clear... the number one free video platform on the internet - YouTube.

So, here it is - THE BEAST OF BOTTOMLESS LAKE is AVAILABLE to VIEW on YOUTUBE for free.

But wait! There is more!

Not only is the movie available on YouTube on a dedicated channel, but so are every single feature from the DVD. ALL the commentaries. ALL the deleted and extended scenes. ALL the featurettes. As well as a few specially created playlists for watching all of the latter two groups of videos together in one sequence, and (yeah, more) a playlist which includes every video about The Beast of Bottomless Lake from the main Provost Pictures channel, as well as a few that we found on various other channels - news items and interviews mostly in that latter designation.

So, if there is anyone you've really wanted to tell about The Beast, or whom you wanted to see it, it has never been easier.  Just send them the link.

And a bit of a teaser....

Obviously the posts about The Beast of Bottomless Lake are getting fewer and farther between, and truth be told, after this announcement, there isn't likely to be much more to shout from the rooftops...
HOWEVER...!
In the process of preparing to put the Beast on YouTube we came across a bunch of amusing material that has never been seen - at least not clearly.  Behind the scenes photos.  Text from various printed props. That kind of thing.

There will be a few posts of some of these gems over the next while before we officially sign off from this blog (until such time as there is something unexpected to report upon.)

Bringing the Beast Home

Okay so they mis-quote me with a typo... I'm hardly concerned about that.

All press is good press and this is really heartwarming, this one.

I am SO looking forward to bringing "Beast..." to the Okanagan.  It may not be my home, but this festival is truly going to be "bringing this movie home."

The World Premiere

It has been a long time coming.

And I really only just kind of realized the significance of this announcement this morning.

We know roughly when and where The Beast of Bottomless Lake will have it's World Premiere, and it could not possibly be at a more appropriate place.

While we don't know the exact date and time yet, it is official: the film will first be shown to the public at the Okanagan International Film Festival this July.

We had some discussion about whether premiering at a smaller festival like the OIFF was what we wanted to do, but when it came down to it, the Okanagan deserves it.  We could not possibly find a better way to thank the region than by revealing the film to the world there first.  Of course, we have to thank OIFF for giving us the opportunity.

More specific details will be posted in mid June when the schedule is posted.

An 'Expert' Invite & the Sighting of the Beast

Well, this is amusing.

I've been invited to speak about the Ogopogo at the Vancouver 'SkeptiCamp' this up-coming month.

It should be fun comparing and contrasting the views of both the credulous and the skeptical with a host of people whose hobby it is to delve for evidence and pick apart irrational belief. I am after all, just an artist who, with some friends, made a movie about the mysterious beast - heck, it can be argued that really I re-made Moby Dick, and the Ogopogo just played the part of the great white whale. But Keith's original idea began with 'Pogo, not Moby - it just morphed towards the literary parallel as we gradually began to see the connections.

But it makes me wonder how/where I stand in the spectrum of Ogopogo experts. I don't know the minutae like Arlene Gaal, but at the same time I'm not the sort to accept flimsy evidence either. I would love to find out that there is something significant in the lake that has yet to be recognised by the biological record, but I find it hard to believe that if such a find is ever made that it will prove to be a 40 foot serpent - but that doesn't make me ideologically or methodologically Joe Nickell, either.

Yet, let's say that a deep dwelling species of fish (possibly evolutionarily stunted, like a sturgeon) that has yet to be discovered lives in the depths of Lake Okanagan. Let's say it surfaces in great numbers to spawn, and THAT is the explanation for the Ogopogo that isn't either boat-wakes, beavers ferrying logs, otters, pranksters or any of the other answers which most readily survive a close shave with Occam's Razor. That would be amazing, and awesome. But I fear that anything less than a pleisosaur or basilosaur will fail to excite the ardent believers.

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As to the secondary topic;

When I say 'sighting', I do mean that we have had our viewing of the rough cut of the film. It was great to finally have the chance - almost a year after we finished filming. I have of course seen most of the footage, but some of it is new to me.
I can't actually say a lot without giving things away, but from a film-maker's perspective we learned a lot, both about our craft and about the project itself in watching what currently exists. Naturally there are pick-ups to be done - in a month or so, and it shouldn't take more than a weekend.
We also discovered - or in fact Mike, the editor, voiced a viewpoint of our narrative that we had spoken of previously in different terms. But what Mike said - I'll have to talk about it more specifically at another time - was not at all a surprise, though it does bring a narrative issue into focus in a way which answers the very problems it necessarily presented by it's very nature. (Could I be more indirect?) Significantly, this is exciting as it presents an aspect of our film to us that we had previously not fully grokked. THAT is cool - and the sort of discovery in editing that I have been looking forward to all project long.