The New Zealand release of Claustrophobia/Serial Slayer appears to have finally happened, after a series of flips and flops. Originally I thought it was coming out last May, concurrent with the Australian release, then learned it was slated for November 17 in NZ, then found out it was today! (It still may be generally unavailable until the 17th, but I'll err on the side of danger this time.) Anyway, this is happy news as so many Kiwis worked on the film. Now hopefully their friends and families can admire their contributions. Things have otherwise been quiet on the foreign sales front, though at least I did get a fairly firm date of March 20, 2006 for the UK video release, and I'm assuming - since I got paid for it - that the Thailand video release has already happened, though it's impossible for me to track down any information about this due to language difficulties. If there's anybody reading this in Thailand who's willing to do the legwork and find my film, I'd love to hear from you.
I'd also like to take a moment to plug the DVD release of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which happens in the US November 8 and shortly thereafter around the world. As mentioned below, I designed some of the interactive games on the second disc. They turned out great! The DVD doesn't credit those who worked on this stuff, so let me give credit where it's due, in case anybody is Googling this title or the people themselves. Whereas I, your humble servant, Mark Tapio Kines, storyboarded all the games and created the graphics for the "Search for the Golden Ticket" game, several of my friends did the rest of the work. They really are cool, these games. Possibly even better than Burton's movie itself.