Sweet and Creepy

Challenge 5.0 was based on fairy tales. We were tasked with filming a script based on the Three Little Pigs. Below is the resulting director’s cut.

The Challenge is produced by Split Pillow every year here in Chicago. This year Jim and I entered as team “Johnny Utah and the Mnemonics”. It was an educational experience to say the least. Sadly, the interpretation of the script we wrote is SO bad, I don’t have the stomach to put it here. The other two are watchable, if not funny.

The first film on the block is Krotislava. This is the director’s cut, meaning Jim and I both shot and edited it. The script was written by another team and makes no sense, but I think the performances are a lot of fun.

The second film is called A Day With The Doctor. It was written and shot by other teams, but we edited it. The footage we received was boring and terribly filmed, so we took it upon ourselves to spice it up.

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Alrighty, so this is my first Short. It’s called Furry Fury.

I worked on it from October thru December of 2005 as part of a class I was taking on digital filmmaking. It screened at the Chicago Filmmakers in December to overall positive responses. Watching people watch your movie is a great feeling.

Kelley graciously offered to be my star even after I told her that she would be in sweats for the length of the movie. What a trooper!Jim Vendiola helped out a lot too. He came up with some great shots and worked the lights for me (when they worked). He also suggested the Japanese store where I bought the bears. Check out their other awesome toys at Rotofugi.com.

The whole thing takes place in my apartment, and we shot with Kelley for two days and then another two of shots that she wasn’t in. Unfortunately I was forced to use two different cameras for the shoot:

The Panasonic DVX100a
and the Canon XL1

I did my best to blend the two in post-production despite them being shot at completely different frame rates.

One part of the process that I was suprised to find how much I enjoyed was sound editing. There is only one shot in the entire production that used live sound, every other bit of noise was added later. It’s amazing at what you can suggest by adding a little sound here and there. Very cool stuff.