Tag: feature film

  • 2018: Meme, Rubber Ducky, and It’s Normal

    2018: Meme, Rubber Ducky, and It’s Normal

    It has been a minute since I’ve updated this site. Between keeping Meme and 4MileCircus up to date I tend to forget to keep this one up. So, here is a quick look at my three projects for 2018. 

    Meme

    Meme is, of course, the biggest project on my plate for 2018 as it is my first feature. Post-production wrapped at the beginning of the year and in January we held a very successful cast & crew screening. This was then followed by the joys of the film festival submission process. As of the writing of this post Meme has been accepted to three festivals: The Underground FilmFest, The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, and Cucalorus

    Meme has already screened at The Art of Brooklyn in June and they awarded the film Best Feature. It was a lovely festival and I tried to go to as many screenings that week as I was able to. The staff and volunteers were great. I’m looking forward to going back to it again, whether I’m screening or not, next year. 

    Meme will be screening on November 10th and 11th at Cucalorus in Wilmington, North Carolina. I’m currently preparing to head there for the long weekend. I’ve heard wonderful things about the festival and I’m excited to experience it for myself. 

    In addition to festivals Meme has also gotten a little bit of press. I did an interview with Spoiler Free Movie Sleuth, and then they had one of their writers review the film. It was a very positive review:

    “Meme masquerades as a common relationship drama, when in fact it presents a fascinating existential commentary that is perfectly tied up in a full circle approach”

    Tasha Danzig, Spoiler Free Movie Sleuth

    More news on Meme will be coming for 2019. In the meantime, here is the latest trailer: 

    Rubber Ducky

    Rubber Ducky is a short film I wrote and directed in 2017 during Meme post-production. I completed post-production for Rubber Ducky while waiting to hear back from festivals on Meme. I am currently submitting it to festivals. It had it’s premiere at the August screening of Congested Cat’s IndieWorks. Rubber Ducky is a fun odd little film I hope to share more widely soon. Here is the teaser for Rubber Ducky: 

    It’s Normal

    I started writing It’s Normal after the 2017 presidential inauguration. I shared the draft with Nicole Solomon, my business partner at 4MileCircus and she was very eager to make it. I worked with her on revising the script and she took on directing duties. The film is at its core about the normalization of fascism, but it uses vampires instead. We shot it in the spring of 2018 and finished a cut of the film just in time to premiere at the Ax Wound Film Festival November 10th. As I’ll be with Meme at Cucalorus in North Carolina, I won’t be at Ax Wound for the film’s premiere, but Nicole will be in attendance. I’m looking forward to hearing about the audience’s reaction to the film.

    Wide Poster for It’s Normal

    Nicole wrote a blog post about It’s Normal on the 4MileCircus blog.

    2019

    While 2018 isn’t over it is about the time to start working on 2019. There will be updated reels and more screenings and we’re looking forward to releasing all three of these films through platforms that will allow anyone and everyone to watch them. More updates to come. 

  • Meme Year-End Update

    Meme Year-End Update

    Meme-Updates

    It has been a bit of journey getting this film to where it is right now. At this point in 2013 I was looking at our unsuccessful Kickstarter for the film and thinking about how or even if we’d be getting the project off the ground. A lot of things changed. I simplified the script. I made some new connections that made shooting possible. With the help of a lot of generous people we shot the film through the end of 2014 and most of 2015. Now, we’re in post-production.

    So far the post-production process has been interesting. I’ve never made anything this long so it’s a bit overwhelming to even look at the film’s timeline. Post started back in December 2014, really. I put together all of the office scenes we shot in November 2014 for a clip to share privately with cast and crew. Then as we progressed I assembled early cuts of scenes. By early August 2015 I had a linear assembly of everything we’d shot up until the final scenes we needed to get. By the end of September I had a slightly refined version of that assembly with still plenty of work to do. It was good to have it then because it wasn’t long before we realized the film needed to be shaken up a little.

    With the amount of time it took to shoot it gave us the opportunity to have a parallel extended time to get a look at the film as a whole. It works. The characters and story progress, but the flow of the edit needed something more. So, because we already were able to look at everything and see how it fit together over time and come out of our final days of shooting with an assembly in just a few weeks, we were able to see that we could make it better by shaking it up a little and taking the form of the film in a slightly different direction. What direction remains to be seen. We’re still working with it, but I’m very happy that we can work with it. I’m also excited at the possibilities.

    While we’re working on all this post-production we’re also heavily involved in building a following for the film. We’ve been active on social media since the first day of shooting and established dedicated accounts for the project across multiple social media services early in 2015. We’re currently building on those services and sharing some fun things. We’ve got big plans for them later in 2016, but before we get there there’s still plenty of fun stuff to share. So, if you use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, please follow us on any or all of those services for regular updates. If you’re not into social media but don’t mind getting an e-mail on a monthly basis, join us on my e-mail newsletter, where I’ll be updating regularly on the progress of Meme.

    In 2016 we’re looking to complete post-production by about mid-year and pursue screenings at festivals. We have a plan set forth for that but as with anything it will evolve as needed because it’s more important that the final product is good and what we want it to be than to meet any particular deadline. As I said we have plans in the works for our social media. Some behind-the-scenes photos and clips to share and some videos like our Wotan beer commercials that we’ll be sharing. Maybe more. You’ll have to keep an eye on us to keep up to date. So, please do keep an eye out by following us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, or signing up for the e-mail newsletter.

  • Meme Principal Photography Wrapped

    Meme Principal Photography Wrapped

    Meme-Updates

    In 2013 I decided it was time to make my first feature. I’d put together many shorts over the last few years and it was time to step up to something bigger. I came up with a concept that played on some of the themes I’d been toying with and started writing a script. That film was eventually called Meme. Near the end of that year I tried and failed to crowdfund for Meme. I took a break from the project and dug into a few more shorts. Mostly they were quickly put together projects shot with what was on hand on weekends whenever people were around. Then, I did Time Signature in 2014 and I again felt like I could pull off Meme, but I decided I should just try and make it as I’d made so many of my shorts, with the change in my pocket and favors from talented people. Our first day of shooting was November 23, 2014 in Brooklyn. We shot a whole subplot of the film that weekend that takes place entirely in a conference room. It was very satisfying to get such a big chunk of the project complete in the first 2 days. Due to holidays and how difficult it can be to schedule during the end of the year, we weren’t back at shooting Meme until January of 2015. We shot Meme on weekends whenever we could get the people and equipment together. On August 22, 2015 we wrapped on principal photography 9 months after our first day of shooting. We shot for a total of 17 days.

    We also had a three day shoot in the middle of all that for Beneath the Black Moon, a horror parody, which will premiere online this fall and which will also appear in a limited form in Meme. I’ll write an update on that soon.

    There’s still a little more to do but for the most part Meme is complete. It’s on to post-production, much of which has already been started (having everything spaced out so much allowed for me to put together an assembly as we got things done). Post-production will take up most of the next six months as there is a lot that needs to happen from editing it together, to some relatively minor effects work. Then there is sound editing, music, and color correction that all needs to happen. Our goal is to start submitting to festivals before the middle of 2016 and to make the film available to the public one way or another before the middle of 2017. You can follow the progress of the project on our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Trust me, you’re going to want to follow us. We’ve got more than a few fun things planned for the next year that tie-in to the movie and build on what we’re doing. Come and be a part of it.

    Before I wrap this up I just want to thank a few (dozen) people without whom this project just would not have come together: Jessica Mannion, Carolyn Maher, Peter Westervelt, Sarah Schoofs, Kitty Ostapowicz, Nicole Solomon, Erin Clayton, Diana Molina, Cheryl Hampton, OneGlassVideo, Stephanie Testa, Shivantha Wijesinha, Lauren A. Kennedy, Rory Lipede, Chaz Cleveland, Alley Scott, Kima Baffour, Warren May, Matt Gershowitz, Ryan Kramer, Christina Raia, Liam Billingham, Jeanette Sears, Jessica Cele, June Dare, Alex Bone, Philip Andry, Tara Cioletti, Matt Addison, Lauren Shaw, Jeremy Mingaro, Heinz Liu, People Lounge, Corinne Fisher, Krystyna Hutchinson, Nurah Stanley, Valerie Opielski, Singularity & Co., The Creek and the Cave, Ian Bibby, Karen Fleisch, David Jackson, Josh Johnson, Katie Carman-Lehach, Julian Barbosa, Lisa Hammer, Levi Wilson, Ginny Leise, Zac Kish, Alia Janine, Annie Such, Sarah Albonesi, Lizzy Andretta, Jason Keith Davis, and everyone else who was part of the film or helped or even offered to help in the two years since I first started working on this film.

    Here are a couple of photos from our final day of principal photography: