(Fake) Trailer of the Week: Tape-Man

A fake grindhouse trailer. It's been one of my favorite videos ever since I discovered YouTube. To this day, I'm impressed with the filmmaking techniques used here. It deserves more views.

TAPE-MAN!!

Trailer of the Week: Alien 2: On Earth

No, not the Alien you know and love. Not even Alien. You probably don't even know about this one.

Alien 2: On Earth is an unauthorized Italian ripoff of the Ridley Scott classic. I'm not sure about the budget, but I assume this was made for about twenty bucks, and that's being generous.

Don't watch if cheapo effects scare you. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Yeah, the trailer kind of speaks for itself. The film itself is very obscure, and was pretty much impossible to find until they released it on Blu-Ray.

Trailer of the Week: The Astro-Zombies

The Astro-Zombies (1968). Perhaps the cheapest trailer I've seen in my life (it even gives Drive-In Massacre a run for its money).

Featuring Tura Satana, better known for her role in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965).

Natalie Nun - short script

If you haven't heard, I've recently started a film club. And while it got off to a rocky start, we're gradually getting a nice group.

Our first project, Natalie Nun, is a short action/comedy similar in ways to Disposing Dwight, except here we're tackling the harsh, serious subject of hitman nuns, rather than mustached teenage gangsters.

"Dillon is troubled, to say the least. But when a hitman nun begins stalking him, it looks like the trouble has just begun... For his stalker."

It's a pretty far-fetched story to say the least. Me and about three others worked out an idea during one meeting, and I was in charge of putting it to paper. I pounded out a 16 page rough draft for today's meeting, where we did a table read.

I was relieved when the script seemed to go over pretty well, even got a few laughs. To be honest I was a bit worried about the reaction to my numerous monk puns and jokes about priests... high priests.

I'm posting the whole thing here for your reading pleasure. We start filming next month.

Natalie Nun - Revised first draft (2/28/13)

The Attack - early short film

We paid the art department a lot of money for this.

Since my other post with old short films seemed to go over pretty well, I dug up this gem and decided to post it here.

"The Attack" was probably the first of a series of improvised short films, shot from 2011 to early 2012. These films were almost always slasher, and were known for their intense violence and breathtaking special effects. Not to mention brilliant soundtracks. We made this one in May of 2011, before I even knew what a "Director of Photography" was.

Yeah... uh... I know. This was mostly written by my youngest brother, which pretty much tells you all you need to know.

Funny thing, we even made a sequel to this, "The Attack Part 2". I'll post it whenever I find it...

And stay tuned for FOLLOWED, the long-awaited cult classic from Screenriff Productions!

Merry Christmas

Below is my custom made Disposing Dwight Christmas ornament. (Only two in existence! Mustache not included.)

Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

My favorite holiday, St. Patrick's Day being second.

Below are some pics of a jack-o'-lantern who's having a bad day. (Don't ask how a knife did that-- it's just awesome.)

Poker with Jake (short film)

New short film. My first upload. Feedback is appreciated.

Days 3 & 4 on set

Overall the shooting is going well. We're almost halfway done, and I'm hoping to wrap shooting by the first week in July. The release will hopefully be sometime in September.

I've learned a lot about filmmaking over the week. I've gone from "Holy crap, I have no clue what I'm doing!" to "Well, off to work."

Day 3

We shot part of an interrogation scene and an entire outdoor scene, where the hitmen leave the kids beside the road in the middle of nowhere. Why would they? It's a long story.

The challenge with the outdoor scene was that we were filming the whole thing in my neighborhood at an empty wooded lot (nobody has bought it yet.) We were restricted in the camera angles we could use, since we couldn't show any houses in the frame.

Above: pretty much the only angle we could use.

Another issue was the cars. Usually there isn't much traffic in my neck of the woods, but for some reason, Wednesday was the day everyone decided to go out-and-about. Which meant about every five or so shots were interrupted by cars.

One red truck drove past about three times. On the fourth time, the driver stopped and rolled down his window. We weren't really in the mood to talk to this guy, since he'd already ruined a great take (and a great take is very rare with the actors I'm working with.)

"Did you buy the lot?" he asked. The heck was he talking about? We're kids! We can't buy the lot.

"No," I answered, "just making a movie."

"Oh," he said, and drove off.

I wondered why he'd given us such weird looks when he left.

It wasn't until later that I realized I'd been wearing my fake mustache the entire time.

He probably thought I was thirty.

Day 4

Today we shot the remainder of the kitchen scene. It's the opening scene that's taken us about three days to shoot. Don't ask why. It's not even a long scene-- it's just that dialogue isn't my actors' strong point.

Later we filmed a scene down at the nature trail near my neighborhood, where we were yelled at by a creepy guy who was with his dog in his backyard. See, the nature trail is a long concrete path through the woods. There's a neighborhood nearby, and the backyards of these houses border the trail. There's also a creek that runs in between the backyards and the trail.

There's a log that runs across the creek, and when my actor for "Jack" attempted to walk across it, the guy told him to stop.

It wasn't a big deal-- it's just kind of strange that a total stranger would even care, since the creek isn't even on his property.

You meet some weirdos in the film industry.

Adjusting our awesome mustaches.