THIS IS A LIST OF SCREENINGS OF "THE GRATEFUL UNDEAD" PRESENTED BY PATRICK MAY AND ALLEN RILEY LATEST UPDATE: 10.30.17 PREVIOUS UPDATE: 11.15.14 IT ALL BEGINS WITH TWO TRENCHCOAT WEARING TEENS IN THE THICK OF THE LATE 90'S... 1999-2001 we doodle and come up with a backlog of ridiculous movie concepts: negromancer (vodou zombie slave revolt), the abortionist ("the right to choose... to not stay dead"), zombies of the apocalypse (office humor zombies later realized off by sean of the dead), zombie high ("the dead of the class"), and the grateful undead ("they were so stoned they forgot to die"). treatments were written, scripts in the works. 2001-2005 we go to college, periodically meeting up to create fantasy soundtrack albums for our imaginary movie, the grateful undead. songs featured: "i don't live today" by jimi hendrix, "ain't it fun" by peter laughner, "she said" by the beatles. march 2006 upon graduating from college it becomes apparent that neither of us have any marketable skills so we decide to actually create the movie. april 2006 pre-production involves borrowing books from the public library and purchasing a dry-erase board. may 19 2006 production begins and everyone cries forever. someday i will go through the tapes and figure out what happened. it was really exhausting. its worth emphasizing that we decided to make a movie on march 17th and began shooting two months later. we never looked back and never had to re-shoot anything. (except the scenes with captain future.) [POST-PRODUCTION] august-september. downtime. we have no idea how to edit a movie. "do you do that on a computer? how do you get the tape into the computer?" october-december. editing the movie. we are masquerading as students in a local university computer lab. every weekday patrick and allen meet at 2:30pm and work until 7pm. "they can smell that we're old." we finish the rough cut right before january and take a break from "the grateful undead". 2007 january. downtime. patrick works on his novel (title: EYE OF SAND) and allen works on an academic paper about prosthetics, videogame interfaces and the undead. february-may. emsiac reconvened at the end of january to begin working on the soundtrack for the grateful undead. we drew upon the talents of the local avant-garde supergroup the new federal hillbillys and our friends on/off in nyc to record a diverse improvised score. we had many time-consuming false starts with various potential post-production audio engineers who ultimately didn't have the incentive to spend the many hours of frustrating work necessary to make this movie watchable. eventually we found evan anderson, who put up with all of allen's bullshit and did a bang-up job. we also took this time to experiment with the possibility of color correcting the movie with the extremely talented danny cannizzaro, who salvaged a lot of our underexposed photography. emily roberts animated the title of the movie and a trailer is thrown together with a voice-over by jim krull from on/off, recorded in nyc on allen's laptop. may-june. the purgatory of post-production is getting to us. tension mounts. allen works on the rest of the titles and comes up with a method of stop-motion animating acrylic paints on the surface of a glass window. by the end of june the opening titles are done. july-august. allen works at a summer camp and helps the kids create an awesome barbarian movie. the grateful undead is not finished. still needs end titles and evan anderson's sound mix hasn't been incorporated. we experiment with sending the movie to festivals, who totally ignore us and steal our money. the rhode island international film festival in particular doesn't even pass the movie along to the horror department. "we don't need them!" september-october. downtime. allen is in new york. patrick is in providence. we're burnt out and sick of the movie. "how can we finish it?" november. allen moves out of his nyc sublet and invites matt ando to come live with him for two weeks so they can finish the movie. the titles are completed, the sound mix is totally revised, and some things get cut. the movie is finishd by november 12th. that same day we attend the rhode island film collaborative meeting and announce the completiong of the film. everyone is shocked because they had never heard of the movie before then. mike ryan suddenly drops from the sky and tells us he can get us a screening later in the month at the columbus theatre. finally we can move forward! [POST-POST-PRODUCTION: SCREENING, TOURING, DISTRIBUTION] november 25th @ public access statewide interconnect. the grateful undead makes its debut on television! sleepless loners across rhode island flipped across blips of papps elroy's twitching fork at 1:30am. sourced from vhs! november 27th @ columbus theatre, providence ri. first public screening. ninety people in attendance after only one day of street promotion! we didn't introduce the movie properly and everyone was confused. residual hype follows, both good and bad. friends gained, friends lost. someone recognizes brendan at louis' the following week. november 29th @ east stroudsburg university, pa. state college auditorium followed by a late nite house screening. first audience responds with silent bewilderment. second audience very enthusiastic. marks first time someone laughs at shot of lucy w/ glowsticks. november 30th @ college hill independent, providence ri. newspaper article "youth culture in purgatory: an interview with the creators of the grateful undead" written by dillon savage. december 2nd @ public access statewide interconnect. second television screening. december 4th @ brooklyn coffee & tea, providence ri. terminally underpromoted event yields one audience member. he likes it! JANUARY 2008 TOUR [someday i'll add descriptions of these] january 2 @ random house, philadelphia. january 3 @ johnstown pa. january 4 @ temple court coffee & dessert, mansfield oh. january 5 @ the cinemat, bloomington in. january 6 @ normal il. january 7 @ well-oiled robot, chicago il. january 8 @ mocha dreams cafe, rocky river oh. january 9 @ tower 2012, cleveland oh. january 10 @ labyrinth press company, jamestown ny. january 14 @ bsr 88.1 fm welh providence, ri. allen guest hosts "cowboys and indie kids" playing songs from the grateful undead soundtrack, on/off, rivers, and smiling politely, his middle school band. archive: http://www.bsrlive.com/archives/playlist.php?p=7707 february 16 @ monkeytown, brooklyn. barbarian movie gets an improvised live score courtesy of on/off. it was awesome. then the grateful undead. sixty-five people! we promoted the show with a ridiculous guerrilla stunt earlier in the day. check the photolog for more info. [add something here about the dave dodge screenings in cambridge] june 4 @ local 121, providence ri. the rhode island film collaborative asked us to show the movie at one of their events. thanks, guys! screened after a locally-produced short that cost $22,000 to make. debut of the "free ticket" promotional system. [NEW ENGLAND, SPRING 2008] june 12 @ monkey house, burlington vt. thanks to paddy. the grateful undead screens at midnite following a two-hour set by local psychedelic jam band the electric halo. local talk show host howie rose approaches allen at the bar, inviting him to appear on his show the following morning. topics covered: homosexual overtones in the grateful undead, zionism, bonaroo, consciousness. june 13 @ the tinderbox, brattleboro vt. with nam buddies, thou, and luau. thanks to abby banks. abby made us an awesome poster and fed us some desperately needed vegetables. we traded a copy of the movie for a drawing by the bassist in nam buddies. thanx! june 14 @ strange maine, portland me. with dan knudsen and glade swope. thanks to brendan. weirdest screening yet. brendan made us another awesome poster. black and white pixilation on a mid-nineties digital projector. june 20 @ charter oak cultural center, hartford ct. with apple betty. thanks to meredith. forty-five people in a one hundred year-old community hall. there were about a dozen kids dressed as zombies. it was a zombie-themed event with the grateful undead as the headlining zenith of zombiedom. whoops! it ain't a zombie flick, folks. in any event, we were officially paid for the first time ever and there were a few people who liked the movie. i heard the city of hartford pays to have the lights on in all the empty downtown office buildings to create the illusion of life. how's THAT for the undead! [AUSTIN OBLIVION TOUR] june 25 @ the opera house, austin tx. first screening in austin. thanks to leah and randy. this was a great screening. the space was some sort of diy consignment shop. popcorn, beer and lots o laughs! about seven people stuck it out 'til the end. notably: there was an older guy named david who showed up early, bought me a beer and had insightful and funny comments. there were also two filmmakers from providence who bought the first "let's jam" t-shirt. june 27 @ shakespeare's pub, austin tx. 9pm. this bar was an inappropriate venue and showed a complete disregard for what we are doing. filled with forty- something dudes in polo shirts. they turned the audio off halfway through and turned on dance remixes. no one showed up in response to any promotion. met some great folks working the night shift, though. june 28 @ austin figurative gallery, austin tx. 8pm. thanks to david ohlerking, tyler wells, damon, summer and cody. the austin figurative gallery was shut down three days prior to this screening. after learning this i spent the following 24 hours scrambling around austin looking for an alternative. eventually someone lent me a projector and an amp and i screened the movie on the outside of what used to be the gallery. fucking incredible! also, i was interviewed by a local blog. thanks to kristen and james: http://eastaustinite.com/2008/06/28/the-grateful-undead-screening-tonight-1301-e-4th-st/ june 29 @ my friend kelleen's mom's house. "i thought it sucked. it didn't make a lick of sense." - linda litowsky, executive director of PACT television we watched the movie in my friend's mom's living room with the director of the local access station. she had a lot to say about the movie, which made me happy. kelleen's mom gave us tons of snacks and was super nice. july 02 @ brave new books, austin tx. 7pm. thanks to casey, joe and harlan. very quiet bookstore screens the movie. decent turnout! july 03 @ monkey wrench books, austin tx. thanks to amy. unfortunately the girl who was working in the store during the day was telling people the screening had been canceled. whoops. we did it anyways. july 08 @ the green muse. huge thanks to annie. place was packed. september 18 @ local 121, providence ri. tv interview on nbc channel 10 with rj heim. 17 people come to see the grateful undead. competed with a free screening of "moonstruck". october 10 @ ussa gallery, brooklyn ny. allen shows three short films. december 10 @ midway cafe, jamaica plain ma. cinemusk presents: the grateful undead. premiere of a new, shorter cut. thanks to dave geissler. 2009 march 3 @ as220, providence ri. 10pm screening of "the grateful undead" on the coldest night of the year. thanks to mickey zacchilli. march 20 @ pocono community theatre, east stroudsburg, pa. midnite screening of "the grateful undead" @ severed cinema. thanks to earl kess. may 5 @ as220, providence ri. 10pm screening of "the grateful undead" on cinco de mayo. competed with a free screening of "harold and maude" at the cable car. 2010-2012 THE DEMON SLEEPS 2012 october 31 @ jack, brooklyn ny (canceled). we attempt to host a movie marathon titled "the grateful undead and other homicidal burnouts" but the event is canceled due to hurricane sandy. 2014 october 31 @ death by audio, brooklyn ny. "the grateful undead" is played on loop (with audio) in the living room of a haunted house. 2014-2017 SWIRLS OF FOG 2017 august 26 @ allen's house, brooklyn ny. 10-year anniversary cast party & videozone interviews hosted by len mankowitz shalackle cast/crew in attendance: patrick may, allen riley, kathryn wallem, billy mack, matt ando, hannah kittel, allison laplatney, brendan thomas crowley, jean coleman, lucy ross october 28 @ columbus theatre, providence ri. 10-year anniversary screening. huge thanks to tom weyman. cast/crew in attendance: patrick may, allen riley, david riley, lucy ross, tucker lieberman, andrew roidoulis, jon mulligan