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So I can't believe I get to announce this. Driftwood, my first feature film as producer/editor and first feature written/directed by my longtime friend Paul Taylor will be premiering at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival!

Here is the trailer for anyone interested

EDIT: Can't seem to link to the trailer without the whole window coming up as you see.

All Vimeo links do that now on the board, it's fine! And congrats!

Ditto on the congratulations. Hopefully he'll be able to get distribution quickly.

https://vimeo.com/150146617" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

After picking up the award for best low-budget feature at the Paris Indie Fest, Short Supply moves on to Berlin showing Feb 15th at 22.00 at the Babylon cinema
http://www.berlinfest.com/?page_id=1710" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As JFK said whilst in Berlin 'I am a doughnut'

Would appreciate some thoughts on my latest feature (clocks in at 62 minutes). The budget was a huge $0, but that's usual with me. So whatever. Any comments would be appreciated. Have two more features I'm shooting this summer, also!


https://vimeo.com/152954197" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Based on the Wallace Stevens poem, BLUE GUITAR is about a relationship between two people; their internal turmoils, their external boredom, and their manipulations. Returning to the "relationship fallout" films I've done in the past (2011's CLEANERS; 2014's NIKKI), Kole Riggs stars as a man seemingly oblivious of the distress he puts his girlfriend through. Tiffany Jordan plays her, and shows - via an incredibly natural performance - her frustration, her personal conflict, and her exhaustion from the games played without her consent.

As BLUE GUITAR begins, there isn't an entirely big idea of what's going on - but there are key actions that take place that build and concede to the dynamic between the two characters. The dialogue turns from harmless bantering to something deeper, and silences become more and more bored for a character - highlighted by a ten-minute long take that taps the viewer into her state of mind. But while my trademarks are here (the aforementioned long take of silence, twentysomething characters, familial angst, fourth wall breaks, artistic expression), there's a more interesting direction I wanted to go with this story. One that seems to be chaotic, random, and ambiguous - but also is a little more concrete than you initially think.

Grand Wazoo wrote:So I can't believe I get to announce this. Driftwood, my first feature film as producer/editor and first feature written/directed by my longtime friend Paul Taylor will be premiering at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival!

And wow, in one of the larger shocks of my life our dialogue-free feature won the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance! I can't convey the surprise and elation, especially considering some of the truly strong competition films.

Here's a great write up on Driftwood from Twitchfilm in case any of you are interested.

Wow, good work!

How are you gonna use the legal services?!

mfunk9786 wrote:How are you gonna use the legal services?!

I'm pretty sure I'll need it for situations like this.

I've been away from the forum for awhile, but thought I'd post my latest film.
Misfire: https://youtu.be/GREU15t5aGQ
A part of an Exquisite Corpse project that premiered two weeks ago at the Portland Art Museum (NW Film Center)
I shot it on Super16, with a steadicam (this is my first time operating a steadicam, so it's not quite as smooth as I'd like)
obviously an homage to Béla Tarr (and, to a lesser extent, Gus Van Sant).

another film I will post is one of my latest experimental films (shot on Super8)
Spatial: https://youtu.be/2cN6eFmjHNE
This one premiered at last years NW Filmmakers Festival
Warning: it does strobe in case anyone has photosensitive epilepsy

Grand Wazoo wrote:I made this film, Sonnet 82, which was officially released yesterday.

It is part of The Sonnet Project, an endeavor to produce short films for all of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, each one featuring a different director, actor, and New York City location. They are up to almost 100 now with a new film being released each week. It's a really great idea that, quite frankly, I'm shocked they've kept up with and will actually be completed. These types of series often fizzle out, so it's a credit to the drive of everyone involved that it's still chugging along. I know Joanna Gleason and Alan Cox just shot parts for it, so the profile is growing.

Also, these films are viewable on The Globe Theater's media player, something I would never have expected to say in relation to my work!

This year I was invited back to direct another installment of the series, this time working with actor Rich Sommer aka Harry Crane from Mad Men.

**EDIT: Removed the video.**

This is the April 2016 rough cut of my feature film debut Warwick.

The film is still in the process of post-production: color correction, sound design, and a few edits here and there (also, this upload is LQ, compared to the 1080p ProRes quality of the final cut itself). Please keep that in mind while watching. (An example of some significant changes would be the removal of a moment of over-exposure in the first ten minutes, which I had trouble patching up in editing.) Overall, the flow of the final cut is here.

The film has been submitted to around 25 film festivals for the 2016, so far, being accepted into two.

Any and all thoughts appreciated.

My short film, THEIR DREAMS OF LISBON, is currently available for public viewing at the Thistle Film Festival:

https://vimeo.com/146479346" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We've screened at the Glasgow Short Film Festival and the Selby International Film Festival so far. Hope people enjoy it.

Hey guys,

So Driftwood, my first feature film as producer/editor which you can read about a few posts up, will be screening at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood on Sunday Sept. 18 and Chicago on Wednesday Sept. 28 as part of the Slamdance Cinema Club series. Both screenings are at 8pm. I will be at the Hollywood screening along with director Paul Taylor for q&a afterward (moderated by critic Ben Umstead), and Paul will be at the Chicago one (I may show up but my schedule is iffy right now).

If any members here would like to attend either screening, I have some comp tickets for each. If you PM me your info and are certain you can make it, I could add your name to the guestlist. This forum has added so much to my cinematic education over the past 10 years that it would be an honor to have any members in the audience for this feature that Paul and I have put so much into, plus you'll see it on the largest screen a project of ours has ever been projected upon!

After five months of color correction, sound editing, and constructive criticism based on responses to the rough cut, I've finally finished Warwick this evening.

This screenshot is too large, so I'll just have to link it, rather than embed it: http://imgur.com/skyP1KM

My only issue now is, to further screen it, I have no idea what to turn to in uploading a 72GB video.

Nice job on the grade there.

I would squeeze it back down into an MP4 file with a generous bitrate, then upload to Vimeo. If you're editing on Premiere, you can do it with Media Encoder; with FCP X, Compressor; or just use Handbrake.

Thanks so much for your advice! I took it!

I tried out Handbrake and got it compressed as well as I could (took about three tries, because of my ignorance).

But here we go, the final cut of Warwick:

https://vimeo.com/181551438" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just signed a contract for my last short to be acquired for streaming by an LGBT company. Thanks to those here who took time to check it out and send comments, we had a good festival run last year and now working on some new stuff.

My experimental student short, Chalk and Numbers:
https://vimeo.com/187503235

miless wrote:I've been away from the forum for awhile, but thought I'd post my latest film.
Misfire: https://youtu.be/GREU15t5aGQ
A part of an Exquisite Corpse project that premiered two weeks ago at the Portland Art Museum (NW Film Center)
I shot it on Super16, with a steadicam (this is my first time operating a steadicam, so it's not quite as smooth as I'd like)
obviously an homage to Béla Tarr (and, to a lesser extent, Gus Van Sant).

I plan on going through many of the films shared here, and this was my first go. I just wanted to tell you that I absolutely loved it.

I'm surprised I didn't take advantage of this earlier.

This blog contains information regarding the only scripts I have made available to a wider public and currently the only film I have made to my name: http://relate3.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Behind the scenes, I have way too many ideas and several scattershot projects in various stages of development.

https://vimeo.com/185100206" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hey guys,

I'm an associate producer for an upcoming film, Door County. We are raising the initial funds for our film via kickstarter, to the tune of $20,000. As of this post, we are a third of the way there and have only a few weeks to raise the rest.

Departures is a short film which doubles as an extended trailer for Door County and debuted at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago two weeks ago:

https://vimeo.com/189253689

Also worth checking out is director Vince Labriola's USC thesis film, Fox the Gambler, which was presented at the Chicago International Film Festival a couple years ago:

https://vimeo.com/55072755

I would be forever grateful for your generosity via donation and in spreading the word to get this kickstarter funded and this project off the ground.

While I don't post as often as I'd like, the comments and critiques from members on this forum have been instrumental in the expansion of my cinematic knowledge and appreciation. I am thankful to be part of such a community!

If anyone is interested, this is a film I assembled after a visit to an exhibition at The Getty. What I am proud of coming up with is using a combination of subtitles and borrowed dialog from a French film to create a sound film from essentially home video footage. As an amateur filmmaker, I am constantly shooting "stock footage" to one day use in a film, so every shot in the film I took myself, except for the credited slow motion lotus shot.

It's called "Within and Without" and runs under ten minutes. I would classify it as "experimental French New Wave science fiction."

https://youtu.be/lxZ-sT57Sts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh, and if you happen to speak French, the whole effect goes down the tube!