March and April have been busy months!

We began March with finishing Principal Photography for Episode 2 of The Templetons, shot all on HD in a studio against a professional chroma screen.  Work continues on that to get the effects done, as Writer/Cartoonist Matt Voss draws all the backgrounds.  The Templetons Episode 2 was shot by Tom Krymkowski and will be screened / released sometime in Fall 2009.

April projects in production:

• Postproduction continues on Hella Fresh’s production Devious, Inc. (which incidentally was also shot by Tom Krymkowski)
• Matt Voss and I did a quick stint on Michael Schrecker’s music video for local band Fingermonsters (moving animated backgrounds)
• In association with Scary Cow Productions, I’m lighting Digant’s Kasundra’s hysterical new “cult movie,” which this time is literally about a cult… shot by Tom Krymkowski. Hmm, is there a trend here?
• We’re in “effects trials” preproduction for my personal project, a horror-themed short film. On camera is… uh… Tom Krymkowski. What is the deal with this guy?

Maybe I should get Tom to work on the Finger Monsters video!

We’ve just finished the first weekend of shooting on the second episode of Matt Voss’ The Templetons, and boy does it look awesome. We’re shooting with most of the same stellar cast as the first episode, but with much better gear and a make-up department that kicks ass.

Also in the works: a short project with some gory special effects I’m running with other members of Scary Cow. I’ve very psyched about this project.

Of course, the editing and postproduction on Devious, Inc continues– it’s a long haul!

Digant Kasundra’s S is for Psycho won the major prize at Scary Cow 7, along with another film called “die Mekaniks.” a film which had something like between ten times and twenty times our budget!  Those guys rented a bus, rented the Palace of Fine Arts, an entire theater, and had a hellish drive to the desert that they ruefully told us about at the afterparty over drinks.  Good work guys!

In other news, I’m hypersensitive to this since I did the color, but be sure and watch our version online, since the projection color was slightly off (!).  Compare to the 1970’s TV show Starsky and Hutch– I actually collected a database of freeze frames and we corrected consumer-grade HD to look like 1970s film-shot TV, a nice yellow look.

Join me and the rest of Scary Cow for our 7th Showcase, screening at 2:30pm this Saturday, February 7th, 2009, at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. Buy tickets here while they last; this show will likely sell out.

What do I have playing here? Well:

• Digant Kasundra’s S Is For Psycho, a hilarious homage to 1970’s buddy-cop shows. I was the Director of Photography on this one and did the color.
• Alan Dunkel’s music video for Tony Maddox’s song “The Waiting Game.” I edited the first cut of this one.
• The trailer for Devious, Inc., a feature film produced by Hella Fresh Films, due out this summer. I edited the trailer and did the color and effects; I’m cutting the feature even now.
• Currently missing: a clip from the Huun Huur Tu documentary I crewed (lighting).  They’re still editing this one.  They shot a week’s worth of footage, so it’s understandable.

Noah Zimmerman and Heather Pocaro star in a silent comedy thriller about love and fate. Noah knows the mysterious girl in his class likes him — but every time he sees her he has demonic hallucinations! How will he deal with their forbidden love?

Shot and edited on 16mm film as part of a class taught at UC Extension in San Francisco, “produced” by our teacher, the illustrious experimental film director Dominic Angerame. Other names of note on the crew: John Vasicek went on to write and direct the feature film “Voyeur,” and Nina Chaudry produced the documentary series “Wide Angle.”

Curation note: I don’t have a separate page for this on this site because it’s a very early work, and I directed a very small part in it — specifically the dream sequence.

Somewhere I edited a version of this (on a linear editing system even!) with a soundtrack, but since I don’t know where that tape is, nor do I own the rights to any of the music, it will remain un-internetted. Music selections included parts of the soundtrack to “Hellraiser II” and parts of works by the quirky klezmer-flavored Tin Hat Trio.

At long last Devious, Inc. is in the can.  We shot the last footage with Precious Moments in an apartment in San Francisco, and it was a bittersweet affair.  Working with the Devious team has been like suddenly gaining an extended family that would make middle America’s head explode.

I am hard at work editing first the trailer, and getting some of the scenes together.  The trailer will debut at the Scary Cow Showcase at the end of January 2009 (or beginning of February?  Gah!).  The release for the film is currently scheduled for Summer 2009.

I am also editing Alan Dunkel’s music video for “The Waiting Game,” which I’m pretty psyched about.  That too will screen at Scary Cow.

The Hella Fresh crew is still crankin’ on Devious, Inc., directed by film auteur xuxE. We completed our last full weekend shoot, with less than 5 shooting days remaining!

As for me, I am now officially the editor for Devious, Inc.. I am very excited to be a part of the core team. We’re going to start with a zany trailer and jump straight into the musical numbers.

Preproduction work continues with Matt Voss’ The Templetons 2.

I’ve been spending every weekend working on the crew for Hella Fresh’s feature film Devious, Inc., directed by my friend xuxE who I met through Scary Cow.

I’ve decided to recruit more crew for my Chaayaa Samaadhi (Mindful Filmmaking) production technique. We’ll be shooting a series of “park bench scenes” for this effort, early in the mornings during the week. My goal is to crank out at least 4 five-minute shorts using this technique.

…aaaaaand Digant Kasundra continues slogging through the editing process on S is for Psycho. It’ll happen!

The Templetons won a couple prizes at Scary Cow Showcase 6, including “Best Special Effects” and “Outstanding Original Score,” but also including a “Judge’s Award.”

And five hundred bucks. Woot!

We’ve completed all filming on Digant Kasundra’s S is for Psycho. We got a nice yellow 1970’s buddy-cop-show look (like in Starsky & Hutch).

We shot principal photography over two weekends and one weekday evening– the first weekend we shot some car scenes in my driveway (with a chroma screen in the background), and rented a room in the Fort Mason Center to stand in for a police station briefing room, for the first and last scenes. The second weekend we shot on location at Sharon Huff’s house… as we did for Cursed. Maybe we’re stuck in a rut, I dunno. The last day we shot the bedroom scene in Diggy’s apartment.

We ran a little over our allotted schedule this time, so we ended up shooting the remaining shot (just one!) with just me and Diggy playing the guru. That was a fun shoot though; we started editing immediately afterwards.

Diggy’s editing the film for a October 5th screening at Scary Cow Showcase at the Victoria Theater.