Hey everyone,

It’s been a while since we’ve had time to sit down for a bit of a chat. But Carlo and I found a couple of minutes this week to discuss what’s been happening at Tunnel HQ. From the sneak peek screenings of the film to launching pre-orders for the DVD. 

On another note:
We’ve had a few questions lately about some articles in the media that have misquoted the production budget for ‘The Tunnel’ at $435,000, which is whole a lot more than the actual budget of $135,000. We are not quite sure how people have reached this figure so we just wanted to make sure it was clear for everyone – straight from the horse’s mouth – all the money to make this film has come from you. So far that means we’ve raised just under $36,000 of our target. It is thanks to our incredibly understanding cast and crew we’ve managed to keep the ball rolling, get the movie finished and will soon be able to put it out for everyone to watch.

Not long now!

The 2-Disc DVD Hard Copy Edition of The Tunnel features a 70-minute Behind The Scenes Documentary on how the team put this thing together, from the early days of launching the website, through to completing the movie.

Here are the first few minutes of the doco for you to have a look at – please hit up our Facebook wall or Twitter, drop us a line below, or push us out to your friends if you reckon it might be worth checking out!

Any pre-orders of The Tunnel before May 19th receive a free eBook!!

Thanks to our good friends at Aphotic Audio, we have 5 CD copies of “Surge and Subside” to give away to our Facebook fans!

The compilation features some of the most awesome underground / industrial acts around, including Motion Fused, whose track on the compilation “Reflection of Madness” features heavily on “The Tunnel” Soundtrack – check out the video below:

Hear previews of the tracks on this epic 41-track compilation (that’s over 200 minutes of kickass music!) at www.surgesubside.com.

This competition is open to out The Tunnel fans on Facebook. To enter, hit up our Facebook wall and write “I want a copy of www.surgesubside.com!” and the first 5 people off the mark will score a copy of the CD. While you’re there, check out Aphotic Audio on Facebook, too – they have some great artists on their label.

Finally, if you like what you hear, do your bit to spread the word about the compilation, as all proceeds from sales of the CD or download go to helping out the victims of the Queensland floods, who are still trying to rebuild after the devastating disaster.

IMDb.com’s decision to reject our film was *REVERSED* less than 72 hours after the debate went viral on Digg, reddit, Slashdot and Gizmodo.

The Tunnel on IMDb.com

A great big thankyou to everyone who made lots of noise online about “The Tunnel” and IMDb – as of the weekend (and not the 29th of Sept as the listing seems to cite) our project is officially listed as in post-production on IMDb.com!

We’re very happy to see that IMDb is still able to listen to their users, the people that made them the massive resource that they are over the last 20 years.
We’ve sent an official thankyou to IMDb.com, shown in full below:

(continue reading…)

After taking a short time to digest IMDb’s response to us and the comments by the head of their PR department we have been left scratching our heads. Here is the reply we have sent to IMDb:

Dear IMDb,

Thank you for your prompt reply to us and to questions raised by the Australian media. We are still disappointed, however, that your responses seem to be at worst, lacking in a direct response to our questions and, at best, contradictory.

We still do not have a clear reason as to why we are being consistently refused a listing. Without this information you give us no avenue of addressing the issue.

From your responses, the most specific information we can ascertain is that we have been rejected “most likely due to a lack of information, such as a release date, specific and detailed production status, distribution information, details about festival screenings etc.” All of this information has been provided to you in our submissions to you, are freely available on our website at www.thetunnelmovie.net, and have been announced in several trade magazines. This information is also visible in our most recent IMDb submission, reference number: 100930-090238-359000. (continue reading…)

Thanks to everyone for your support. The blogs, tweets, articles and chatter seem to have had an effect.

You can see IMDb’s response to The Sydney Morning Herald here, and IMDb’s Help Desk response to our letter in full below:

IMDb Response

Mr. Tedeschi:

Thank you for contacting us.  Please rest assured that your concerns have been forwarded to our editors for their consideration so that they may look into this specific matter and re-examine your submission.

However, just to clear up any misunderstandings, it seems like the letter/document linked in your message repeatedly refers to an alleged inability on our part “to verify the existence of [your] title”. The existence of a project is not an issue — our documentation specifically refers to the need to verify existence and eligibility. (continue reading…)

To The Person In Charge Of New Title Addition Reviews,

We are writing to you regarding our feature film project ‘The Tunnel’.

We here at ‘The Tunnel’ production team, as well as our stakeholders and thousands of fans, have been frustrated over the last few months at IMDb.com’s consistent refusal to list our project. We have repeatedly addressed IMDb’s requests for further qualifying information, as well as puzzling requests for proof of the existence of our production.

Time and time again we are refused a listing on your database, because of what we feel is an unfair judgment based on our online distribution model via torrents. We seek to present our case one more time, putting forward the requirements sought by the IMDb. Also, to seek answers not just for us as producers, but for the thousands of fans and the independent filmmaking community at large, looking to use the Internet to find new ways to connect with an audience.

While we completely understand and respect the need for IMDb.com to screen all submissions in order to maintain an accurate database that is not filled with fake or erroneous listings, we feel that this screening process has failed this time.

Allow us to elaborate: (continue reading…)

Well after a hectic few weeks of little sleep and way too much caffeine we have finished the underground location shoots. Everything went much better than we could have hoped, the cast and crew did an amazing job and the footage is looking awesome. But we still have more to shoot so please keep spreading the word!

Anyway for those of you interested in how The Tunnel team went underground here’s a little overview from Enzo and I – including a few sneak peak shots that I’m pretty sure will make the final movie…

j.

Director Carlo Ledesma and a slightly frazzled Julian Harvey debrief after Day 2 of shooting early scenes of the script in the office.

The cast and crew eased into an ‘easy’ week of shooting this week with three days of office locations and party scenes. Day 1 had rain, the Australian Prime Minister, and one of our cast almost getting run over by truck. It’s going to be an interesting few weeks.