YTU Videos for Teen Session 2010

Another teen session at YTU has come and gone and with it; another round of student produced films.

From Catch up

The partial cast and crew of "Italian's 8"

This year we had a grand total of 4 films written, produced and directed by the students at YTU and edited by yours truly. All of them are pretty silly but were quite a bit of fun to edit. Congratulations to all the students, I know for most of you these were your first films ever. Take a look at the finished products below.

Taming of the Shrew

Congratulations to the cast of Salt Lake Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" on a successful run, most especially my girlfriend Sarah Young who was hit, spit on and objectified multiple times throughout the performance. You did great.

From Catch up

A truly wonderful cast and crew featuring some old friends and a few new ones!

I saw it 3 times, each night with a different energy. I'm proud of everyone involved, in spite of the fact that I wasn't cast =) Mazel Tov!

"The Bike Thief" Back from the dead.

Nearly 3 years ago, I acted in a feature film spearheaded by Santa Cruz based filmmaker Chris Tomasso. After spending a glorious weekend by the beach and eating better than I ever had my freshman year of college I headed back to San Francisco awaiting the final cut of "The Bike Thief."

However, life happens, and Chris had a few other projects going on so the final product was put on hiatus for a while. For almost a year I wondered if my performance would ever see the light of day but a friendly email from Chris requesting some voiceover revived my spirits.

"The Bike Thief" is back and better than ever, having been recut a total of 3 times! Below you'll find the trailer. Stay tuned for the final product, I haven't even seen it myself.

Producing the Neutrino Project with YTU - UPDATE

The Neutrino Project is a completely improvised, 30 minute film using 3 teams of improvisers who each produce 3 scenes of the film.

Joe Rogan of Jokyr and Jesster fame has been training our YTU students on the art of improvised filmmaking for the past 3 weeks. Meanwhile I have been training myself on the usage of Qlab software and stealing video mixers from Jared Wright in order to make this happen.

The grand equipment list includes 10 FlipVideo cameras, 4 MacBook Pro laptops, a video mixer and a projector all crammed in the balcony of Kingsbury Hall.

The show is on August 6th at 7:00pm on the Kingsbury Stage. Come support Annie, Autumn, Cate, Jaxon, Josh and Vanessa and see their improvised films wind up in the capable hands of me, your video mix-master.

From Catch up

Here's a great shot of the control surface I set up to run the show. Everything went off without a hitch, the video turned out as seamless as it could be. We managed to capture the whole thing to DV tape from the clever FireWire output from the mixer so expect it to show up on this blog very soon.

Special thanks to Stuart Ford who donated his laptop and helped me run the show as well as David Darais and Colin McDermott who also donated laptops. Another big thank you to Jen and Steve Jackson from Grey Company who donated their students to us to be used as slaves during the production process. Sorry for all the running. Finally a most heartfelt thank you to Green Company for pitching in and buying me a copy of Starcraft II so I could play it while I recovered from surgery. You guys are great!

LARP Read Through - Let's make this film!

From So Many Readings

The LARP creative team diligently reads.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of reading a very funny script with a group of friends. My former Theatre School co-teacher Nick Dunn teamed up with his friend Ehren Remal to write a hilarious script.

From So Many Readings

Nick's brother Colby Dunn going over the storyboards.

The story follows an MFA Writing student as he tutors an undergraduate and soon learns of the wonderful world of Live Action Role Play. Prophecies, ancient relics and legendary weapons swirl together in a blend of imagination and reality and build to a literally fantastic and climactic battle.

Due to the number of bit parts in the script and the limited number of chairs around the table, I was reading several roles including a blacksmith, rouge soldier, and the town magistrate. I tried to make them all as different as possible although I'm sure a few of them just sounded like slightly altered versions of myself.

From So Many Readings

Sarah was with me as well, reading for Cindel, who is described in the script as a personification of Princess Zelda. How appropriate.

From So Many Readings

A couple of my students from YTU were there as well. Dylan Vessel and Max Huftalin were playing characters named Max and Dylan respectively. Guess they wanted to change it up a little.

Everything at the read went very well and I just received the 30 page business plan for the film today! I've already been emailing it to all my hook-ups in the industry because I want this film to get made so bad. Never have I read a script and felt like the story couldn't survive without the film version being produced. Therefore if you're interested in investing, don't hesitate to call or email me, I'll send the business plan to you right away.

48HFP 2010

From Catch up

It was a long night but super fun. I wasn't involved in the production element of this particular film but John Lunbeck, Jim Heiner and I composed most of the writing team for Effervescent Media Works' 48HFP entry for 2010.

I was playing some mini golf at Salt Lake Art Center when I got the call outlining our genre (comedy), prop (an egg), character (Ed Keegan; reporter) and line of dialogue (that's why I'm here). I promptly set down my putter and ran to the brainstorming fortress set up in Rebecca Mabey's grandparent's house.

As Jim, John and I arrived we were met with our fearless director, Brandon Wade Ho and our producer Adam Collet as well as the final member of our writing team Joey Reidhead.

Jim had somehow managed to come up with a wonderful mob-comedy while we were still in the car and although it went through a few changes we ended up using it over the other ideas presented. Way to go Jim!

The story follows a Hand Model who gets mistakenly kidnapped by the Mob and forced to tell his wife the truth about his profession. Featuring witty lines of dialogue provided by all of our sleep deprived selves the story unfolds to become the most fantastic 7 minutes of your life!

The film itself turned out very well. Here are a few stills that I stole from Adam's facebook.

From Catch up

From Catch up

From Catch up

Now for some bad news. For some reason, I'm still not sure, our team turned in the project 6 minutes late. Therefore we were unable to win any of the prizes or qualify for the national competition. Although this is upsetting, I'm still proud of the work that my writing team and I did. This is the first screenplay I've ever written that I haven't produced myself and although it turned out differently than I imagined, it wasn't any better or worse than it was in my head. Great job team! Thanks for bringing life to my words.

Cast!

Exciting news everyone!

I have been cast in the University of Utah's upcoming production of "Hay Fever" where I will be playing the role of Richard Greatham. If you recall my previous post The Joys of Casting I recount my experience waiting for the casting decision to be made. Well my patience has paid off and I shall return to the stage this fall.

However that's not all I'll be doing for the show. I'm also a proud recipient of the Theatre Department's Margetts Scholarship which pays me to create a dramaturgical packet for a University show. Therefore I will be researching everything possible for this delightful sitting room comedy and get credited in the program as an actor and as Dramaturg.

This is the sort of theatre that excites me. The sort where I'm not limited to my one role but instead getting my hands dirty in all aspects of the show. My good friend Christine Moore is the stage manager so perhaps I can turn a few wrenches as well!

"Hay Fever" runs November 5-7 and November 10-14, come support me in both my jobs as well as a fantastic cast and crew. See you there!

First Paid Film Gig

Due to the agreement I signed I can't talk about the content of the film I helped produce.

But...

I can tell you that I was working once again with John Corser, you may remember him from my accounts of the FilmUtah Launch Party. His company was contracted to make a very awesome video that we shot on the stage at Ron Hill Imagery using their huge grip/lighting package in addition to their Red camera!

Everything about this shoot was pro. The director was flown in from LA and the small crew we had were the best in Utah. I had a wonderful time working with John's company and I hope I get the opportunity to do it again.

I wish I could say more but my Non-Disclosure Agreement prohibits me from saying anything about the film itself. I just wanted everyone to know what a great experience it was working on a real film set for the first time....awesome!

First Print Casting

I don't really have an interest in modeling but I got a call from my agency saying they needed models who could mountain bike. Because I'm an actor that can mountain bike, I was pretty close to what they needed.

However, in the world of modeling, one doesn't turn in a headshot and resume but instead a tool called a comp-card is used. Really it's just a photo collage of different "looks" so the booker can see how versatile you are as a model. Because I'm not in any way a model, I stole some pictures that Colin McDermott took of me while I was in Las Vegas and spliced them together with some screen grabs of me biking.

From Plugs

It looks pretty legit despite being thrown together at the last minute. Thanks to Clint Lantz for the photo editing, he made my oddly lit pictures look more normal.

The Joys of Casting...

It's been a busy few weeks. I've auditioned for every Theatre Dept. show at the University of Utah and I moved out of my parent's basement. I'll also be auditioning for "Taming of the Shrew" this week at Salt Lake Shakespeare and for "Hamlet" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" at Pioneer Theatre Company. It's the least I can do to deal with all my "ACTING TALENT!"

The cast list for the Theatre Dept. shows was supposed to be posted last week but apparently there have been developments. I quote...

This is a casting update. I apologise, I always forget how anxious this process makes people. So here's the scoop: Chuck is auditioning for "Hamlet" and "Dracula" on May 20th and 21st. Then he is going to work on putting the casts together and get back to me with his Intern desires. Once he has done that Hugh, Ron, Xan and I can formalise our casts and post. So news will be out by the end of the month not before. Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

Oh the joys of being an actor. Nothing ever happens when you want it to, and when it does, something unexpected comes up. The constant guessing game is stressful, but if you're willing to deal with it, you will be rewarded. I hope I am...