One Night Only!

When: Thursday, Dec.17th @ 8pm (Yes that’s tonight!)

Where: Camera 3 @ 288 S. Second Street | San Jose, CA 95113

What: Public showing of a collection of short films including the premiere of my newest opus…

To celebrate the end of a long, productive year of film-making my fellow auteurs  and I will be holding a free film screening at the Camera 3 tonight!  This is a celebration of the hard work and collaboration that was mentioned in this week’s Metro cover story! The seating is first come first serve so get there early! Theatre opens @ 7:15pm, show starts @ 8pm! We plan on being sold out so you’ve been warned! See you there!

and if you’re into that whole facebook thing…

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=218573305768&ref=mf

Well last weekend was a wild ride to say the least. It all started at 7pm Friday night (Aug 14th). Within 48 tiny hours my team and I collectively wrote/casted/produced/directed & edited a 6 minute short film titled Ratón. It’s now viewable online both at Vimeo & YouTube.  My sis Chelsea represented our team, named “Stroganoff” in downtown San Jose. After drawing from a hat she made a call and informed us we scored Sci-Fi for our genre. Having pre-chosen The Diamond Laundry as our location for the shoot we got busy with story ideas. With a mini crises at 4am I began to feel my brain melt and pour out the side of my head. The story we had been working on for 8 hours just was not working. We slogged away at the keyboard for another hour before passing out, when I awoke at 7:30 I discovered we had 3 decent pages. As cast and crew began to show up at 8am I hung onto that keyboard for life as everyone’s impatience gathered momentum in the community room of my building below.

After going downstairs and getting the peeps up to speed on our story we were off! I had an amazing team, everyone on set invested every minute into the film. Actors doubled as makeup people, producers doubled as PA’s! It was truly amazing to see everyone give their all for 18+ hours. My friend Tony personally catered the whole shoot, his recipes both rejuvenated and intoxicated everyone to keep working, and smiling all along!  The picture below was taken at about 2:30 am I believe, half of the “Rat People” were loopy, which helped a lot with their performance I think.

We shot until 5am, wrapped set at about 6 and everyone went to sleep until 9am. Sunday, our day for post-production was magical. Breakfast arrived at 10:30 along with lots of filmmakers from the shoot. Each of us had our task and we all dug in for the final run, grabbing sound effects, creating music on the fly, doing titles and cutting the film together. My sis raced us downtown in my car and we turned in our film with 10 minutes to go on the clock! After that we drank! The picture below was taken two days later, before we went to see the film play on the big screen at Camera 12 downtown. It was a wonderful evening and there were some great films. They played our film last which, and from the applause I think we have a chance to win some kind of audience award. Keep your fingers crossed, we find out tomorrow in Los Gatos for the official 48 Hour Film Wrap Party. If I don’t see you there I’ll let you know how we did in my next post.

Again I just want to thank everyone who worked so hard and intensely on this project  from start to finish. I know this project started a spark in everyone’s soul to get on with bigger projects, hopefully ones that don’t have to be finished in two days!

Leave comments about your thoughts on the film, post whatever. Best comment for this post will be awarded a Moleskine notebook for all your ‘on the go’ creative endeavors!

A gifted and giving crew, everyone brought something special to the sleep deprived process and we came out better for it, the whole lot of us!

Ben first saw it by pure accident. Usually he takes Colma Avenue to connect the never ending series of events in his life. But today there was road work, nothing but brake lights and shaking heads all the way down the line. He could see the dusty residue of a concrete saw turning the whole scene into some kind of apocalyptic snapshot. It could have been the heat that forced his hand to jerk the wheel, it might have been the dust, but regardless of what forced him from his familiar path it was a move that would permanently change his world.

The heat and dust combined with his broken AC created a lust in his throat he hadn’t felt since his childhood. Another red light, this one was a cyclops burning into his forehead, and that’s when he saw it. Floating above the above the fence like a crazy dream, a ceramic ice cream cone. It was exactly what he desired and there it was just sitting in the sky with a cherry on top. He lurched his beaten heap into the lot and now saw the device that held the cone on a pedestal. The Pedestal was a dilapitated old stand, barely big enough for two bodies to occupy simoutaneously. The roof was faded green, wooden shingles that reminded him of Snoopy’s dog house. Below that the body of the shack: faded pink with thin, dirty white trim. There was a window for ordering shaped like the silhouette of an ice-cream sundae. Above the window hung seperate letters spelling out a word that wouldn’t ever leave Ben’s head: UGLY’s. The lowercase “s” threw him the hardest, now he just had to see what the fuck this place was about. He slung the trannie into park and searched for an “Open” sign. Nothing in site. No sign of life either, no matter if he didn’t investigate it would eat him all day.

As he approached the spot he saw something dark and small move inside. Maybe ice-cream was in his future, and damnitt if he didn’t deserve it. “Hello”? More movement but no response. “Hey you open?” The figure remained hidden behind a stack of food supplies “Yeah, gimmie a second” the haggled voice of woman echoed. Ben’s heart raced as his mind began to explore every variety of ice-cream that ever touched his lips plus a few that hadn’t. Berry dream, Cinnibon, patato chip, Pesto, bubble-gum, red licorice, brandy, banana mousse, triple dark chip w/ five kinds of nuts, rasenberry, snauzeberry, fairy goo, golden prelains, cookie monster, blood orang- “What is it?” A voice came disintegrating his ice-cream dreams. Ben’s head whipped up to her, an older woman, or perhaps just old. She had matted hair, wrinkled puffy cheeks and a double chin. Her eyes still sparkled but she didn’t smile, nor frown. Ben wondered if this was Ugly? By all accounts she wasn’t gorgeous but at the same time wasn’t unpleasant enough to be called ugly, even when she wasn’t smiling. The whole thing was suprisingly perplexing. “Any special flavors today?” “We don’t do Kosher.” “I’m not Jewish. What’s your best flavor?” The woman began to wipe the counter with a dirty rag “Polish.” I’ve never tried polish ice-cream before, what’s it like?” She stopped mid wipe, a smile creeping along her mouth “we don’t serve ice-cream, haven’t in 12 years.” Ben’s dreams melted away from his soul. He took two big steps directly back and cracked his neck upward. “what the hell is that then?” “false advertising.” “Is this some trick? I totally had my heart set on an icy, creamy treat and now I’m lost.” “I’m totally upset about it, Ugly’s serves dogs, nothing else. Ask anyone in the neighborhood.” “shit.” Ben mumbled to himself. “What’s the matter, you don’t like dogs?” “I’m more of a cat person.” “Pussy.” “Excuse me?” “You’re a pussy lover.” “I’ve never heard it put quite that way before but, yeah I guess I am.” “what’s your cat’s name, or do you have more than one?” “Well, actually… I don’t have a cat.” “Now who’s false advertising?” “I don’t go around wearing a hat with a ceramic cat sitting on top.” “Maybe you should, you might actually get some.” “Oh, I get it, you’re ugly on the inside.” “With a hard chocolate shell, so you wanna suck on a dog or what? I’ll throw in a free lemonade, best on the block.” “That’s a safe bet, fine. Gimme’ a Polish with the works.” “One rumble fish for the sarcastic no pussy boy. Be up in 10.” “That’s a long time to wait for a meat product that’s pretty much ready to eat since it came into existence isn’t it?” “I said 10.”

Welcome to the meat market! How may we serve you?