Expedition Films LLC announced that its first full-length feature film, "The Surprise Party" will make its world premier at the 34th Annual WorldFest-Houston Film Festival on Sunday, April 22 at 9:00pm. An encore matinee showing will be held on Tuesday, April 24 at 3:00pm.
This is the first full-length feature film to be edited and released using Appleis Final Cut Pro software.
The Surprise Party tells the tale of Ozzie, a normal guy with a simple plan to ask his girlfriend to marry him on his 30th birthday. Ring box in hand, Ozzie embarks on an odyssey of unresolved issues that threaten his romantic plans. A funny and touching exploration of adult relationships, The Surprise Party is the feature-film debut of writer/director Garrett Rice. It stars Colin Ferguson, Amber OiShea and Dianne Luby.
After principal photography on the film was completed, the editors digitized 12 hours of video-transferred film footage into Final Cut Pro via Digital Video (DV) through the Firewire port on the Power Macintosh G3. They then used Final Cut Prois powerful editing and compositing capabilities to do create a 104 minute finished film, complete with a multi-track sound mix. Then, editing data from Final Cut Pro was used to make precise cuts on the raw film stock and build a Dolby stereo soundtrack before final assembly of the film.
As an independent film company, Expedition Films sought to put together the most complete, professional quality, non-linear editing system for the lowest cost. Apple?s hardware and software combination proved to be the most efficient and effective solution, costing less than $5,000.
WorldFest has more than 4,300 category entrants each year, submitting everything from feature films to student shorts to documentaries to screenplays and commercials for judging.
Garrett Rice, Writer/Director and former NeXT Channel Manager, and John Landwehr, Executive Producer and former NeXT Product Manager, are credited with masterminding the merger of NeXT and Apple Computer in 1996 which provided the technical foundation for Appleis revolutionary new operating system Mac OS X and led to the return of Steve Jobs as CEO.
You can find more information about the new movie at The Surprise Party Web site.