50 Years (2025 restored version) Directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

 Originally released in 2002 under the title "46 Years", "50 Years" is a recollection of memories and events as they relate to Ralph Hodgdon and Paul McMahon and their life-long love for each other. 

I revisited them 5 years after this was screened in Provincetown, Massachusetts and put for sale on Amazon as times had changed and the couple were able to get married on their 49th anniversary. It seemed right to do an additional interview after their 50th anniversary of the day they met and one year after they were able to get legally married. 

The restoration started in January 2025 when I discovered I had many, but not all the originals scans of the photos used in the film. My software also avowed me to take out the background music and improve the sound and more easily rework some edits. I still had the music done by David M. Puryear and was able to add it back in after the changes were made. 

Shot on Standard Definition video, before HD was a thing does limit how much improvement I could do on my own. I did clean up the titles between sections and updated the credits. I also had to take a break when Ralph got very ill and died in April 2025. Paul had passed in April 2011 and it was just too difficult work on. 

The 2020 version of the movie is for sale/rent on Amazon Streaming Prime Video.

The Twleve (restored 2006 documentary) 2025 directed by Vincent-louis Apruzzese

 Originally released in 2006 on Amazon and then updated several times later, this documentary is about Boston’s most diverse dance club, open from the 70s to the 90s. Three floors, a piano bar and pool tables in the basement, a new wave punk dance floor and then a classic disco dance floor… plus in good weather a roof deck with a grill! The entire LBGT+ community was welcome and mixed together as well straight people and a few other minorities that were not welcomed in other, straighter bars at the time. 

This version is recut, new graphics, where possible, with better sound and upscaled to HD. It was filmed on zero budget with an old video camera and a mono microphone from the Radio Shack so I’ve tried to improve it where possible but tech is only so magical, even these days.

The goal is to give people who were not able to go to this wonderful place and a sense of what it was like and to remind the world of Boston’s gay history and a world that is now gone and lost.

Documentary restoration: The Twelve - Boston gar bar logos

 I started my next documentary restoration. Each one gets more complicated and prepares me for the next. This was originally made in 2006 and, as usual, with no budget. The former 1270 security head, Bruce, found all sorts of photos and some very rough video about the club, its owner and the people who went there. I had a clip taken from a memorial video that showed many of the old gay bars in Boston which wasn't ideal but it was all I could find. 20 years later, there is a lot more info on the web but still not as much as I would like. I went through photos, newspaper and magazine ads and found a good 20 logos I could clean up or redraw and give a consistent look too to replace the bad video with something more professional. In 2011 I re-edited the 2006 version and took out some bad graphics of my own and this time I hope to do more of that and elevate the doc closer to today's standards. I discovered Final Cut Pro will isolate the voices  and it took out the background music which will give me more options for re-editing the film as the original interview files are long gone. 

Indiiference: Short Stories by No one in Particular - Book release!

My book of short stories, Indifference: Short stories by No One in Particular is no for sale on Amazon! There is a Kindle and a paperback version.

These stories are based on earlier versions and notes about various things that have been lying around since the late 80s and through the mid 90s as well as some screenplays turned into short stories.

The subject matter does have an 80s punk/new wave feel to them and the humour is a little... odd, as some might say. I have spent almost two years putting this together so if you are interested...buy a copy and make every person you have ever seen in the entirety of your life buy one as well. If you like it, please write stunning review and rate it so it has a chance of others finding it. If you don't like, we need never speak of it again.

I do not have any social media accounts, so feel free to tell people on Facebook, Instagram etc about it. To be honest I have no idea how to promote this thing other than what I am doing here, right now.

Amazon paperback: 9.99$ USD
Kindle: 7.55$ USD

https://www.amazon.com/Indifference-Short-Stories-One-Particular/dp/1704586208/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=indifference+apruzzese&qid=1573414316&sr=8-1

Part One my digital evolution

My entry into the world of design came long before the arrival of the computer. I started doing illustrations for advertisements and setting up text, which in those days meant using rub on letters (one by one on white paper the size of the ad) and hoping you made no mistakes. There is no “erase” or “control Z” with those things. Design was a lot more art oriented and a lot less tech oriented back then. You still had to be fast and able to change things last minute, so that much has stayed the same. My specialty was pen and ink illustrations, tedious work that I really love to do. I did an entire catalog of hats once for a local hat-maker in Boston that took weeks to finish.

By the 80’s things were changing. I was one of those who had a Vic-20, one of if not the 1st home computer. It basically did next to nothing but in those days, the little it could accomplish seemed miraculous. I didn’t do much else with computers until the Amiga arrived. This platform still exists for a small number of diehards and I have to say it was my favourite of all time. It had the visual “double click” method of a Mac and the ability to fiddle with the DOS. The graphics were amazing, in fact digital effects for shows like “Babylon 5” were all Amiga based and still hold up today. Many TV stations used Amigas to run themselves also, but it never caught on with the public in any case. With it I started to change my work flow to include the computer. At first just text which now could be corrected, spell checked and changed instantly was a huge step forward and a big time saver. My computer has 100 megs of hard drive and 8 megs of RAM... a super computer in those days! I remember friends asking me “What on earth could you use all the memory and RAM for?”

Before long is was printing in “photographic” colour.. using all all 64 colours and 16 shades of gray available in a state of the art ribbon printer. My first scanner looked like a window wiper and had to be dragged manually across the image very slowly and precisely. For colour, you needed to make 3 very precise red, green and blue passes... all by hand. Of course I thought the results were spectacular. Not quite “press ready” however.

During this period, I experimented with 3d too. A single image with transparency would take 25 hours to render. This was “blazing fast” unless you had a dedicated “Video Toaster” system which used Lightwave as the 3D modeler. Out of my range financially, but I really, really wanted one.

Home computing was still very young, convincing clients to use use the stuff produced ion them impossible. I KNEW that this was the future somehow... the technology advanced more all the time and I could just see on the horizon a time when all work would be done on home computers.

Next... MAC-PC and The internet