IN THE SOUP Restoration & 25th Anniversary Re-Release
Created by Matt Grady, Factory 25
Help restore the damaged archival print of Alex Rockwell's 1992 indie Sundance winner IN THE SOUP before it's lost forever.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
SEYMOUR CASSEL doc, Seymour t-shirts, Michael Imperioli, more!
over 8 years ago
– Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 02:22:57 PM
Attention Backers!
Huge news day. We've far surpassed our goal for saving and re-releasing In the Soup, and we are so so close to the soundtrack and Lenz stretch goals. But in speaking to the cast and longtime fans of this film and of Rockwell, one name keeps coming up: Seymour Cassel.
Today, with the support of Seymour's children Dilyn Cassel Murphy and Matt Cassel, friends, and collaborators (including the In the Soup cast), we have a new stretch goal:
Let's make a mini-documentary as a tribute to Seymour
I'm proposing a new project on top of what we've already accomplished: Let's make an eight- to twelve-minute short documentary film about Seymour's life and career, and distribute it online and along with In the Soup's re-release. I outline the budget and rewards I propose below, but first, a little about the man himself.
. Seymour, who is a true independent spirit, made his film debut in John Cassavetes' first film, Shadows (1959).
Nine years later, after making a name for himself as a character actor, he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Cassavetes’ Faces. He continued to collaborate with Cassevetes throughout the director's life, and he went on to act in many studio films — Dick Tracy, Tin Men, Indecent Proposal and Honeymoon in Vegas to name a few — while keeping true to his indie roots with roles in Steve Buscemi’s directorial debut Trees Lounge, as well as Wes Anderson's Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
And as we know well, he blew minds and won hearts in In the Soup, not to mention winning the first Actor's Award ever given by Sundance for that performance.
What drew me into Cassel’s world was Cassavetes, but his loyalty to indie cinema is really everything that Factory 25 believes in… He had once said that he would be in any independent film for the price of a plane ticket if he liked the script.
He was the real deal, and getting the chance to make a short film about him him really excites me as the it will be the perfect lead-in for In the Soup in theaters. It would be such an honor to do this in collaboration with Seymour's family, friends, and long-time collaborators and for all of you, and for Seymour(!), to see it when it's done.
. What We Need
I've broken out the budget. Right now, we have nearly $76,000. If we reach $98,500, we'll have enough for all our current goals and:
Shooting interviews in LA and NYC
Editing, color-correcting, sound-mixing, and completing na eight- to twelve-minute short film
Screening the miniature documentary along with the In the Soup restoration in theaters
Making it available online
Sending it to all of you as a reward!
I haven't been as excited about anything since, well, restoring In the Soup! I really think we can do this. But I'm going to need your help and the help of other fans, obviously. So:
What You'll Get
In part I'm creating this because I really want one. If you loved Cassavetes or In the Soup or Wes Anderson as much as me, maybe you do too.
If you back at (or upgrade to) the new $85 level, you'll get the In the Soup tote, all the digital rewards up through "Digital Rockwell," and YOUR CHOICE OF T-SHIRT — In the Soup (which I just shared the final design for in this Update yesterday) or Seymour.
We'll ask you after the campaign in the reward surveys which one you want.
DISCLAIMER: The shirt may not look exactly like this. This is a ROUGH IDEA of what I'm thinking for the design. What do you think??
. Help me get the word out!
We told longtime Seymour friend and film colleague Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos) what we were up to, and he was so excited about the idea, he made this video. Check out Michael talking about Seymour and this project:
. Seymour has been in important influence and inspiration for a lot of my favorite people in film. If you have friends who love him or would love this project, bump them the above video, or some of these compelling words from Wes and Steve:
. Thanks all for all your support, suggestions, and enthusiasm so far. Keep it coming.
Onward,
Matt Grady & the In the Soup team
Final t-Shirt design unveiled, Stretch Goals progress, hello!
over 8 years ago
– Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 04:26:28 AM
The original poster for LENZ which Alex dug out of his basement this week!
. If you back for at least $25, you'll get both in addition to the rewards you're already signed on for. If you back for $100 and up, you'll get the vinyl! Things have been moving really slow this week but we are less than $4,000 away from achieving this so please help spread the word on social media and to friends who love good music and independent film.
Meet the official In the Soup Kickstarter t-shirt
Near unanimous love for this design in the comments means this is our pick — the original French key art for In the Soup!
. Here's the shirt everyone at level $60 and at $200 will pick up, and we're looking into how to make this an other in-high-demand rewards available to pledge for as one-offs when we send your backer surveys.
Scott Marvel from Teetsy in Chicago is on board to help out by screen printing the t-shirts and totes!!! Scott and his awesome screen-printing company make hand-screened tees, posters, and more in a basement with love. Excited to have them on board.
Love for Lenz
Alex's friends at the Arsenal Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. in Berlin were so excited to hear that we're working toward the preservation and digitization of Lenz that they dug through their archives and found the original press release for Lenz's release in Berlin, which gets at one of the reasons, perhaps, why this film has lived on there: "More than an indication of the fine talents of the filmmaker, "Lenz" is an important statement about what non-commercial feature films can and should be."
Gesa at the Arsenal was also so kind as to send some original press from Lenz. Including just a couple below, for any of our German-speaking backers. I don't speak German so I'm going on a hunch that these reviews are favorable, but as soon as I have time I'll be typing these word by word into Google translate!
Backers in Berlin and elsewhere, would love to hear your translations of any stand-out quotes from these in the comments!
More soon,
Matt Grady & the In the Soup team
Let's talk STRETCH GOALS: Here's what we can do next
over 8 years ago
– Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 01:10:50 PM
Hey everyone,
Again, thanks for all you did in getting us to this point. Here's the Update I've been working hard on since we surpassed our goal on Wednesday night!
Here's what we can already accomplish:
Because we raised that $54,000, now I can work with the preservation labs to secure the repaired In the Soup archival print, work with IndieCollect to create digital transfer to preserve it, make new prints for archival purposes, and we can transfer the brilliant new edition to all the formats necessary for a victorious and long-awaited re-release. And, I can create all your rewards!
The cast, the director, and I are very excited and proud and I hope each of you are too — we did this together.
Here's what we're excited to do next:
It's also of note that we are now more than $16,000 beyond our initial goal, and growing!
So, based on conversations with the director, other collaborators on the film, and many of you, here's what we can do if we keep working together and pushing thing further:
If we raise enough, we can release a limited edition of the film's original soundtrack on stunning, colored vinyl, in a beautiful gatefold package full of In the Soup photography. And, we can add it to the campaign rewards!
This will be the first time the soundtrack has been available in any form so I am super excited to bring it into existence.
I go into more detail about this goal, about the music, about the composer, and more in this Update.
Many of Alex’s films — and many indie movies shot on film, for that matter — require scanning, digitizing and proper archiving in order to be preserved.
As I explain in more depth in this Update, in the case of Lenz, only one 16mm print remains, which puts the film at great risk of disappearing forever. “When that print goes, poof, it disappears,” says Rockwell.
If we raise enough we can preserve this film and make it available digitally for the first time ever. Literally, it is not currently available to home viewers in any form, so with your help, this will actually be the first film I’ve ever distributed without watching it first. That said, I think we should trust Alex (and the taste of the Berlin and London film festivals which screened it) and take that leap!
Learn more about Lenz and watch a Q&A between Alex and me about this stretch goal here.
Preserve Alexandre Rockwell’s cult feature Lenz for future generations, and release it for the first time as a digital stream and download.
Make the original music from In the Soup available for digital download for the first time.
Create amazing limited edition vinyl release of the soundtrack to, I hope, be cherished by Rockwell and In the Soup fans, vinyl fans, music fans, and to help bring the movie to an even broader audience.
Provide all this stuff to you guys via the campaign rewards!
And, once we hit the mark, here's what you get:
I’ll add the first-ever DOWNLOAD OF LENZ to every package that includes a download of In the Soup ($25 and up).
I’ll add the DIGITAL SOUNDTRACK to every package that includes a download of In the Soup ($25 and up).
I’ll give the VINYL SOUNDTRACK for free to anyone who has backed at $100 and up (You’ll just need to upgrade to the “+ Vinyl” package which will include shipping! I'll message you if and when we hit the goal and let you know it's ready to go!)
I hope you guys are excited about these stretch goals — I definitely am amazed and hopeful that we are so close to bringing this stuff into the world.
More soon,
Matt Grady & the In the Soup team
STRETCH GOAL: Releasing the 'In the Soup' Soundtrack for the first time
over 8 years ago
– Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 10:46:40 AM
We can make the In the Soup soundtrack available for the first time ever.
We can make the music for In the Soup available digitally and in a beautiful limited edition vinyl release! This will be the first time the stand-alone soundtrack has been available in any form, anywhere.
The Music
The original music for In the Soup was composed by Mader, a French composer and musician who, in his decades of scoring films, has worked on Rockwell's Hero, Sons, and In the Soup, and many others including Ang Lee's ground-breaking films The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink, Man Woman. (Read a Q&A with Mader below to hear more about his collaboration with Alex, and some of the original inspirations for the music.)
The Format
We'll release a limited edition soundtrack on colored vinyl in a gatefold, with exclusive photos from photographer Phil Parmet. The vinyl edition and digital downloads will be added to the campaign rewards if we hit the goal — check out the rewards packages on our Kickstarter page for details!
"I am happy to see this score released finally, 25 years later," says Mader. "SONY France was going to release it at the time, but it never materialized. It’s great news for the fans of In the Soup out there who never got a chance to hear the soundtrack by itself — the music rounded up the characters and story beautifully, especially with Phil Parmet’s opulent black & white cinematography!"
Mader, composer of the original music for 'In the Soup'
A Q&A with Mader about his work on In the Soup
How did you and Alex Rockwell begin collaborating? Alex and I met in NYC around 1982. We were next door neighbors, he an aspiring film director, and I a struggling musician. I handed him some tapes he could cut into his early feature Hero, and then he asked me to score his next one, Sons, which was the one preceding In the Soup.
Aside from these, I worked on a couple others of his later, Somebody to Love, and in 2010 Pete Smalls is Dead (starring Peter Dinklage).
What was your creative process for composing music for In the Soup?As often with Alex, at least for the films I’ve scored, the themes were character driven. Alex handed me a few jazz tunes he liked from the 40’s and 50’s as reference. Joe’s exuberance (Seymour Cassel) needed something upbeat and fun, as opposed to Aldolpho’s (Steve Buscemi), which needed a deep melancholic tone, due to the character’s desperation. For this one, Alex played me a jazz rendition of Ravel’s “Pavane;” beautiful, and haunting; I thought to myself: How can I ever top that…? I wrote “Spleen,” which astounded Alex. I’m still very proud of that one.
Peter Gordon, was brought in by Alex to help produce the score. Peter secured a great cast of New York musicians and a nice offbeat recording studio on the top floor of a building in the stock market district. We had a lot of laughs… fun!
What's your favorite In the Soup scene? I’ve always loved that opening scene, as well as Stanley Tucci’s scene… hilarious!
What are you working on now? Right now, I just finished revisiting and recorded a solo album of songs which had been waiting on the shelf for… 25+ years (!), due to my career as a film composer taking off at the time. I’m hoping to mix it by the end of the year to release it in the spring of 2018. People can tune in on my website: madermusic.com
