November 17, 2006
8 am
I'm not sure I've heard anyone complain about being up on a weekday at 8 am as much as Jin.
This morning Shaun and Jin came over at, yes, 8 am to make a short video. You see (deep breath, because I'm not sure there is a good explanation for this) on Tuesday Ze Frank used an intro that had been submitted by the MSU improv group Lab Rats. He issued them an assignment to film some short form improv with what we used to call a "tower of suggestions" -- "OK, so you're in Disneyworld and you're scouting for a major league pitcher, in the style of a soap opera, and one of you has bad breath." Shaun decided that we should take those suggestions and turn in a video, too.
So we stood on my back porch in the early morning cold and... did not improvise very well.
And then I uploaded the video in a format that Ze Frank's Gallery doesn't understand (MP4! It's very standard!) and so no one could watch our video unless they downloaded it and changed the extension from _mp4 to .mp4. Which is very unlikely.
Anyway, the Lab Rats did their video, too.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:53 PM | Comments (6)
November 16, 2006
Ted 2
I'm not sure why it took me so long to get this video online, but here it is:
Forgotten Heroes: McGuillicutty II is nominally a sequel to Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action, though the name is spelled differently (oops) and the only character who has returned is the villain Elvis (Shaun Himmerick) who seemed to be dead at the end of Ted. Like Ted, Ted 2 is an entire action movie compressed into a few minutes, though this time instead of taking place within a single apartment building, the action is spread over the city of Chicago. We also re-used our notion of having one actor play "everyone else" with Sean Cusick taking on multiple roles. Brian Goodman rounds out the cast as our hero, Joe McGuillicutty.
Like many of our short films, this one was filmed for the Fast Forward Film Festival.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:27 AM | Comments (1)
November 6, 2006
Politics
Bagel and Croissant are spreading lies like they were cream cheese. It's time to spread a little truth:
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)
Zombies! and Man Eater
Sean and Atom were smart to schedule their horror-themed edition of the Fast Forward Film Fest for the weekend after Halloween -- what costumes and supplies were left at Walgreen's were all 75% off. We bought all the fake blood they had.
But, backing up half a step, the really crazy thing was that when we got to Atomix Coffee to pick up the topic suggestion for our film, we discovered that Shaun and I need to communicate a little better -- we had both signed up for a slot for FuzzyCo. I like to think of mistakes as opportunities, so I said we'd do two movies.
We got, then, two topics: a "Zombie" movie with the sub-topic "no public restrooms" and a "Monster" movie with the sub-topic "fired from a part-time job". Erica pretty instantly had an idea for the Monster movie, and I had a simple idea for the Zombie movie. We went back to Shaun's place to meet up with the rest of the crew: Shaun, Kristen, Jin, and Don Hall. We brain-stormed around our ideas for the zombie movie for a while. That is, for a little bit too long. But once we got in gear, everyone suited up as zombies really quickly and we hit the streets to film. I all the shots pretty well visualized in my head (which is so nice when that happens), so it was just a matter of capturing them all on video.
We finished filming that first film at around midnight and sent everyone but Jin home. Erica and I dragged Jin over to the Old St. Andrew's Inn and then back to our place to film the shots that had both of us in them. Then we let him go, too, and stayed up until 2 am or so filming each other.
In the morning, editing went really fast. Erica did sound effect research on her computer while I zoomed through the video on mine. We were done with both movies by 2 pm and when we got over to Atomix to drop the movies off, we were the second group to turn in our films. Yay us!
The screening was at Dessa Kirk's studio, which was pretty awesome. I've been a fan of Dessa's work since I encountered some of her pieces in Grant Park last year, so it was cool to be in the space where she creates those things. And she turned out to cool, too, which is always a bonus -- I can separate the artist from the work, but it's nice when you don't have to.
And then, the screening. Both of our films were well received. (And it made me feel a little smug when the second FuzzyCo logo came up and someone in front of us said, "two films in one night? That's not possible.") And then the judging and...
Zombies! took the second prize! $80, a pound of coffee, and an Atomix travel mug. And we're award-winning filmmakers (again)!
And, finally, here they both are:
Zombies!
Maneater
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:09 PM | Comments (3)
October 17, 2006
I'm on Ze Frank's The Show!
For, like, 5 frames. I recorded an intro for his show out in front of
"Z" Frank Chevrolet and he used a tiny clip at the start of today's show.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:50 PM | Comments (3)
Local News: Cooking with Tou Khen
Cooking with Tou Khen, Ethnic Reporter. Written by and starring Jin Kim. Off-camera voice by Kristen Freilich, camera by Shaun Himmerick, and edited by Fuzzy Gerdes.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2006
Local News: PSA from Thor
I'm trying out YouTube for hosting these little videos. Is this easier or harder for y'all than when I host the videos myself? To my eye, the quality is lower, but do you care?
Anyway, this is Thor Skørvald, the producer of The Local News, with a Public Service Announcement.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:49 PM | Comments (3)
October 7, 2006
The Clapkees!
I love having friends who ask, "are you busy Saturday morning? Can you come shoot a video for us?" and then have the edited video done by Saturday afternoon. Presenting, The Clapkees!, a Blewt! production (with camera work by yours truly):
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:36 PM | Comments (3)
September 25, 2006
Silly Horse Whisperers
Steve has set up a Blewt 'channel' on You Tube and he's filling it up with episodes of Talkin' Funny (Erica and my appearance is here) and with the appearance, finally, of Silly Horse Whisperer.
SHW completes the Silly Triology. Each of the videos consists of 30 people doing something for two minutes in front of a green screen. Steve added crazy backgrounds and royalty-free music to each and the result was an hour of... comedy? bewilderment? something. (I was in Silly Faces but missed the taping of Silly Dances.) The only problem with the You Tube videos is that they're divided into the 2 minute segments, which means that you lose the "what?! there's more?!" quality of watching the DVDs. But that said, here's Erica:
And Cowboy Fuzzy:
And who's hidden under that handsome gorilla mask?
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:19 PM | Comments (0)
May 31, 2006
Biking
Trip Odom 7.15 m
Moving Avg 13.7 m/h
Time-Moving 31:26
We've dipped under 60 days on the wedding counter, and so, vanity, vanity, I'm trying to get in shape so I'm not all puffy and blobby for the wedding photos. The wedding is one day, but the wedding photo is going to be up at our parents' houses for-ever. Hence the yoga class last night, and I'm trying to ride my bike to work more. And I love riding my bike anyway, and I always want to be riding to work. My rule is that if it's over 50° and not raining and I don't have anything really heavy to carry to work, then I ride my bike. Except I break that rule all the time. Today was the fourth time I've ridden to work this year. Pathetic.
But hey, I got my new Tony Hawk HelmetCam (why? why not!) and so I shot my whole trip into work this morning. And then sped it up to make it one minute long. And added a delightful midi sound track of the song that you are required to add to sped-up video (it's a law). The camera's not really that bad, but somewhere in the compression to make it not a 26 meg download, the whole thing acquired this sort of soft-filter, dream-like quality. Which I don't think is actually that bad for this sort of video, so I'm not going to fix it. Anyhoo, Fuzzy's Commute (2.6 Meg Quicktime movie).
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:37 PM | Comments (3)
May 30, 2006
Challenge 2006 - Editing Day
In the Challenge, you get 14 hours to write, 24 to shoot, and then 34 to edit. And, um, just between you and me, I didn't need all that time.
A number of people on the team offered to help me edit, but none of them edit, so in the absence of just trading-off the editing suite, there's not much someone else can do. I dove in alone and had a finished video by 5 pm on Sunday night. I went back to it about an hour before it was due on Monday and tweaked a few bits of sound, re-exported it and handed it in. That was the trickiest part -- the films were due at 400 E Randolph, on Upper Randolph and I kept getting turned around trying to get there. And leaving, I discovered that over by the lake there's Way-Totally-Lower Wacker -- a Wacker Place under Lower Wacker Drive. And you can't get anywhere from Wacker Place. I think I'm still there, driving around and around.
So now, we wait. I'm not sure all the whys, but after all that hurry-hurry, the showing is not until Sunday, July 2 at the Lakeshore Theater. The showing will be judged by Image Union and winners will be shown on that program.
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)
Challenge 2006 - Production Day
Saturday was Production Day for the Challenge -- we got up Saturday morning and emailed off our script and received a different one. (That's an innovation for the Challenge -- previously, there was one big meetup each day of the Challenge. Now, each team is responsible for doing the hand-off to the next team however they want, which for the scripts meant email.)
The script we received was titled "Weddings are Cool" and was basically a single scene of things going horribly wrong during the preparation for a wedding.
We've done enough of these things now that it all seemed pretty standard -- Shaun and I read through the script separately and then had a quick phone conference. Shaun called everyone to coordinate the costume pieces they needed to bring and then he and Kristen emptied out their spare bedroom to turn it into our set. Meanwhile, I made a prop run, heading down to Strange Cargo to get a titular shirt made for Shaun and a tuxedo t-shirt for me (I want to get one of these full-length screen-printed ones, but on short notice Strange Cargo does an iron-on that they can go on any shirt. Is it weird that I kinda want one on the back of a work shirt?) and then over to CVS for a disposable video camera. The script called for the videographer character (me) to be using a "disposable video camera like from CVS". I guess we could have used any of my other crappy video cameras, but I thought if it was available, we might as well be faithful to the script-writer's vision. The camera was rather pricey for a one-use camera with 20 minutes of storage ($30), but fortunately it can be hacked for re-use.
We all got together at noon and applied hideous amounts of make-up to Andrea. With only one location, there wasn't much need to build a complicated shooting-list, so we just started stepping through the script getting closeups and wide-shots of each line. It took longer than I thought it would, but not as long as Shaun thought it might, and we were done by 4:30 -- plenty of time for Andrea and Erica to make it to their KOKO show at the Playground.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:11 PM | Comments (0)
May 27, 2006
The Challenge 2006
FuzzyCo is doing the Challenge again this year, and I just got home from writing our script. The Challenge is the oddest of the fast-filmmaking contests we enter -- over the course of this long weekend we'll make a third each of three movies. The script we wrote tonight will passed off to another team tomorrow morning, and we'll get a script that was written for our team's actors. And then Sunday morning we'll hand off the footage we've shot to yet another team to edit, and receive footage that we'll edit.
The past two times we've done the Challenge, I was exempt from doing the writing portion since I was going to be doing the editing segment all by myself. This year, though, we had a couple last minute back-outs and the writing team was down to just Shaun. So I said I'd help him. Thinking I was excused, I had already planned on going to see X-Men 3 tonight. Driving from picking up the suggestions we needed to base our script around (genre: sci-fi comedy, target audience: desparate housewives) to the movie, I got a flash of inspiration and so I had a couple of phone-conferences with Shaun to get him started working on a script based on my brilliant ideas. When I finally met up with him (awesome movie, by the way), he had been unclear enough about my ideas that he had decided to just wait for me. Well, heck, it's my blog so let's just say that I wrote the whole thing while Shaun played Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and failed, over and over, to get past Moloch.
Oh, here's a weird thing... the actors we were (I was) writing our script for: we know them all. Megan Grano, Allison Bills, Bumper Carroll, and Pat McKenna. All four great improvisors, so we thought for a minute of just handing them a script that said "say funny things here".
OK, I'd better get to bed, so I can wake up in time to do the hand off in the morning and start filiming.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:41 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2006
Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action
When I started my little vodcast (Video-pODCAST) back in November, I thought I'd be posting a short film a week, since I planned to just start by working my way through the FuzzyCo back catalog. Well, it's May and this is the fourth film I've posted. Oh well.
But to get things started back up, here's FuzzyCo's hit -- Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action.
We filmed Ted back in January 2003 for the Fast Forward Film Festival. You can read the entire story of making the movie here. Since that time, Ted has been selected by the producers of the Fast Forward for their Producers' Choice DVD, won an award at the Chicago Really Short Film Festival, been shown on WTTW's Image Union and screened at the Music Box Theatre as part of Image Union's Short Film Showcase, and was a semi-finalist in the Second City Shortcuts Film Festival.
Anyway, here's Ted ...
Click to play 10 MB Quicktime movie - requires Quicktime 7. (You can also right-click here to download the movie.)
Vodcast XML file (for your newsreader or aggregator) or subscribe with iTunes.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)
April 26, 2006
It Had To Be Me
Here's It Had To Be Me, the Vidiocy-winning video from Phillip Mottaz that I'm not in:
Posted by Fuzzy at 8:49 AM | Comments (8)
April 16, 2006
Vidiocy update
That movie Phillip Mottaz made that I'm not in? He won. So I'm not saying that your films will win awards if you cast me but then edit out my footage, but it's worth considering, isn't it?
(And Cesar Jaime borrowed my camera and he came in fourth. My perhiperal involvment in your project is just good luck, people.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:01 AM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2006
Cutting Room Floor
Phillip Mottaz's latest Vidiocy project, It Had To Be Me, has made the semi-finals of that contest, which means that it will be shown this Wednesday night at 8 pm at the IO Theater and is eligible to win fabulous prizes.
I filmed a short scene for that movie a couple of weeks ago. I drug myself out of the house, dog-sick, I might add. But my scene didn't make the final cut of the movie. I'm sad, but I'm happy, too, because I've seen plenty of Vidiocy entries that treated that contest's 10-minute limit as a challenge to fill the time. I'm glad that if the scene just didn't fit that Phillip took the needs of the whole piece into account and chopped it.
(Or maybe I was just terrible.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:23 PM | Comments (3)
February 9, 2006
Dog, SINema, DSTW
Your FuzzyCo weekend:
The FuzzyCo short film Dog will be screened, along with other "Best of Split Pillow" selections, at the Around the Coyote Arts Festival at Rodan (1530 N Milwaukee) at 6pm on Friday, February 10, 2006 and Sunday, February 12, 2006.
(I think I've remarked before that for a producer of mostly live theater, films are this odd thing that they're still there months or years later, unlike a stage show. And they can go places without you. Dog was selected as a Best Of for this festival without me having to lift a finger. (Jason of Split Pillow is, I'm sure, working like a dog*. Which is one of the reasons he's great.))
Friday night at 11 pm FuzzyCo and Lavender Cabaret present SINema at the Improv Kitchen. People are making noises about extended runs already (the show has sold out both weeks, so reservations are recommended), but we're still only contracted through the end of February so I'm going to say Only Three Weeks Left!
Saturday night at 10:30 pm at the Playground it's your favorite crazy live game show, Don't Spit the Water. This week Erica will be performing as Cutie Bumblesnatch and I'll be filling in for Timekeeper Willis. As Clockwatcher Fuzzy or something.
* No pun intended.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:54 PM | Comments (1)
January 30, 2006
Dog will screen at Around the Coyote
Jason Stephens of Split Pillow writes:
The Around the Coyote Arts Festival, one of Chicago's biggest festivals, is having their winter show in Bucktown Feb. 10-12. As part of the festival, they screen short films at Rodan (1530 N Milwaukee) at 6pm on both Friday the 10th and Sunday the 12th. This year, the festival asked to screen exclusively "The Best of Split Pillow." A movie you were involved with has been selected by the Festival selection committee (we gave them every short film Split Pillow had ever had a hand in producing and they made the decisions). Congratulations.
The FuzzyCo film being shown is Dog. It was filmed for Split Pillow's Challenge, so over Memorial Day weekend 2004 we filmed a script written by another team (Jamie Pilarski & Lauren Austin) and we handed off the footage to yet another team to edit (Jennifer M. Fah). The FuzzyCo team included Shaun, me, Sarah Pappalardo, Andrea Swanson, Clifton Highfield, Jin Kim, and Ryan Stone.
I live-blogged our efforts, so take a little trip down memory lane with me:
Challenge - first night & day
Challenge: 1st Location
Challenge: 1/3 done
Challenge: 2nd location
Challenge: Editor Friendly
Challenge: 2/3 done filming
Challenge: Exteriors
Challenge: 99% done
Challenge: 100% done (filming, anyway)
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:36 PM | Comments (0)
December 2, 2005
FuzzyCo Shorts: Candyland
Click to play 14 MB Quicktime movie - requires Quicktime 7. (You can also right-click here to download the movie.)
Whoo-oo, I've posted the second short film, so now it's really a series. Very occasional, but a series none-the-less. (And if you have already subscribed to the FuzzyCo Shorts vodcast (or via iTunes) you would have gotten this short last night.)
Candyland is a short we made for the Vidiocy short film festival/contest back in July 2004. We were given a single word suggestion ("Candyland") and had 21 days (or so) to make a film under 10 minutes long. We made a two-minute film that's a sort of a parody of Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece The Seventh Seal, only with (and I'm giving away the only joke here) the game Candyland instead of chess. (Remember in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey when they play all those games against that bald Death guy? Same thing, only Shaun wouldn't shave his head.) But then we added onto that 2 minute film another 2 minutes of "alternate endings", and then another 2 minutes of out-takes. The interstitial screens are supposed to be like you're watching the special features on a DVD. Does that come across?
The Vidiocy fest pre-selects 8 films out of the 50 or so that are made to be screened for the judges and actually be in the running to win their prizes and Candyland made that cut, but didn't get any farther in the judging. C'est la vie.
If you'd like to go back and read what I wrote about the making and showing of the film in July 2004, it's here: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4.
Posted by Fuzzy at 8:39 AM | Comments (1)
November 22, 2005
First Kiss BTS
Ben Taylor home-studioing his little heart out creating the soundtrack for First Kiss.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:31 PM | Comments (1)
November 15, 2005
First Kiss
Click above to play First Kiss, the movie we made for the Fast Forward last weekend (5MB Quicktime movie, requires Quicktime 7) (you can also right-click here to download the movie.)
This is also the first movie in my new vodcast -- occasional FuzzyCo short films delivered straight to your favorite newsreader or iTunes. I'll be working through our FuzzyCo back catalog -- I'm hoping to post a movie a week -- and as we film new shorts they'll show up on the vodcast also.
Vodcast XML file (for your newsreader or aggregator) or subscribe with iTunes. (Hmmm... looks like I'll have to add a link for iTunes later...)
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:28 PM | Comments (5)
November 12, 2005
Fast Forward
I'm burning the DVD right now to go turn in -- this may be the earliest I've finished one of these. And it's been an easy process.
Last night Erica and I had a lovely evening shopping at Rotofugi and having a bite to eat at Cleo's and then picked up our topic ("First Kiss") and Dan Hendricks' as well (his Fast Forward plan involved drinking to celebrate his birthday and then filming under the influence). We met up with Dan and his friends and Shaun at Hopleaf, and then Shaun, Erica and I brainstormed as we walked back home. Jin and Kristen came over, we were done filming by midnight or so, so Erica and I went home and watched this week's America's Next Top Model. What a weird judging...
So this morning I got up later than I wanted to (10 AMish) but I had a first edit done by noon, took that over to Ben Taylor's house where he composed and recorded an original score, came back to add the music into the mix, final tweaks, and the DVDs (gotta have a backup) are done now and so I'm off to turn in our movie.
Come see our short (and 24 others) at Open End Gallery (2000 W Fulton) tonight. (Or, you know, I'll probably have it up on the web on Monday or so).
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:37 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2005
Good question
Noah asks, "Why were you by the Division Blue Line?"
A couple of months ago, Ben Taylor introduced me to Seth Boustead, the executive director of Accessible Contemporary Music. Seth was putting together a concert of silent movies with new scores written by ACM members and he was looking for shorts for the project. It was mentioned that some of the musicians might be improvising their scores, so I suggested that it might be cool if I improvised some video as well, shooting just before the showing. I hit on the idea of making a sort of portrait of the Milwaukee, Division, Ashland intersection, where the Chopin Theatre is located. I think Seth was a little skeptical, until he came and saw the Neutrino Project and saw that we really could shoot quality video very quickly.
So, on Thursday night, Erica and I got off the train at the Division Blue Line stop and starting exploring and shooting. All the edits were done in-camera, and about an hour later we had a 4 and a half minute silent short and we headed over to the Chopin.
I was introduced to Jason and Ryan who are We Can and We Must and gave them a quick overview of the short. There wasn't any time to show them the short before the show started, so they just, you know, improvised.
Here's the short again, now that I know how to make a poster frame. It's a 11 meg Quicktime movie that (probably) requires Quicktime 7. (You can also right-click here to download the movie.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
Ted at Image Union screening at Music Box
FuzzyCo's award-winning short film Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action will be shown at the Music Box Theatre (3733 N Southport Ave) at midnight on November 4 and 5 as part of Image Union's Short Film Showcase.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005
Let's see...
I'm heading OUT the door to go to NYC with Don't Spit the Water, so if this doesn't work, I can't fix it.
But this should be the movie we made last night, scored improvisationally by We Can & We Must
Click here to view the movie (or right-click to save it to your computer).
Oh, and you probably need Quicktime 7.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:56 PM | Comments (1)
October 11, 2005
This week in FuzzyCo
It's a week chock-full of Fuzzy, but in unusual ways...
Tonight (Tuesday, 10/11) I'm going to be on Talkin' Funny on Chicago Cable Access, CAN-21 at 7:30 pm. Talkin' Funny is hosted by Don't Spit the Water's Sasha and the Noob (in character). I'll be talking about producing non-mainstream improv shows like the Neutrino Project or Cinema 2.0 and the show takes audience calls (though, hopefully not as many as they took last week when Don Hall was on) so if you have a question, call on in.
Wednesday night (10/12), I'll be shooting a short movie around the intersection of Division, Milwaukee, and Ashland (doing Neutrino Project-style in-camera editing) and then taking it inside the Chopin Theatre (1543 W. Division) where it will be shown and improvisationally scored as part of Accessible Contemporary Music's Sound of Silent Film. I'm a little nervous because I've stuck to my improv guns and resisted every opportunity to prepare material ahead of time. Erica and I will be showing up at the Division Blue Line stop at 6:30 with a camera and a blank miniDV tape and minds open to the possibilities of the neighborhood. Eek.
Friday night (10/14) Don't Spit the Water will be performing in New York at the UCB Theatre (307 W 26th) at 8 pm. Erica (as Cutie Bumblesnatch) is one of the featured comedians. I'm tagging along to help out with gear and video cameras and such. And if you see someone in a gorilla costume...
Saturday night (10/15) we'll be back in Chicago to see Mike Doughty and his band at Park West. You'll be able to recognize me -- I'll be the one in the audience.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:13 AM | Comments (7)
September 27, 2005
Revenge of the Tux
That $10 tux is serving me well. Last week I got an email from Phillip Mottaz asking me to come be an extra in a wedding scene. He and Chris Vander Wal were making a Vidiocy entry (and I had blown off being an extra in a court room scene the weekend before). I emailed him that I had a tux and asked if that would be too dressy to be an attendee at the wedding. "A tux? You're the groom!" he replied.
So Saturday I stood around a gazebo in a park at Western and Montrose and got 'married' to Phillip's wife, Rachel, who had pulled her actual wedding dress out of storage. Actually, all we did was stand around and do the best man's toast over and over. We nearly ran out of sparkling grape juice.
The good news is that the film, Long After, is one of 8 semi-finalists (out of 31) for Vidiocy 9. The 8 films will be shown, judged by judges, and then the finalists will be voted on by the audience, this Wednesday (September 28) at 8 pm. If you happen to be at the showing, maybe the splendor of my tuxedo will hypnotize you into voting for Long After?
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:14 PM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2005
Weekend round-up
When last I left you, I was on my way to record Superpunk's Phillip Mottaz say a grand total of 4 words to edit into my short intro film for the CIF mainstage. I got to Shiel Park just as Phillip was about to start teaching a sketch class for the festival, so I we gave those 12 young students a sneak peak at the super-professionalism of the Chicago comedy scene, as I pointed a video camera at Phillip's face and he tried to time his lines between the shouts of the warm-up taking place in the next classroom.
The editing went fine, though, and I got a couple of compliments on the film. Hopefully they were sincere.
Friday night I bounced back-and-forth between my DVD-player-button-pushing duties at the Athenaeum and shows at the Playground. Press play at 7:30, run to the Playground to perform with CCC at 8:00, run back to the Athenaeum to press play at 10:00, run back to the Playground for the closing night of Don't Spit the Water.
Saturday night I actually stuck around to see the Cast of Anchorman do an Armando with Bill Kurtis as the monologist before splitting for the Playground and the Belmont Burlesque Revue. Saturday afternoon, you will be as dismayed as I was to learn, the entire front lens assembly of my trusty Sony F707 just came off. Boo. So I took pictures, but it was with a Nikon D1 that I've had sitting around for awhile but hadn't really ever taken to, my F707 was so luverly. The two cameras feel very different to operate -- the F707 is light, and with the tiltable camera body, I tend to compose shots on the back screen; the D1 is heavy as all get out, and it's a true SLR, so every time you take a shot, you can hear and feel the mirror assembly getting out of the way of the lens. Very visceral.
Sunday night Erica and I went and auditioned for DSI's Documentary South. Despite (or because of?) my cold-ravaged voice, I was cast. Because of her talent and charm, Erica was, too. Yay, us. Much like FuzzyCo did when we produced Armando Diaz' Eventé, Ross White, the creator of the show, is in town for a few days and will be doing two intensive rehearsals with us tonight and tomorrow, after which the show will be in the hands of director Dan Telfer.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:47 PM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2005
Touchups
I've been running so hard this last week, my body has just given up. I'm coughing up bits of pancreas.
So, of course, instead of sleeping in, I'm off to record Phillip Mottaz, the narrator for my little CIF film, saying two lines. One politically-important name got misstated and another left out in the script - and besides the politics, I like accuracy. Three different people looked over the script and no one noticed the problems until it was on the big screen at the Athenaeum.
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:00 AM | Comments (0)
April 22, 2005
Done done done
I'm waiting for another couple gigs to tranfer to the backup drive so I can go to sleep and not worry about the last few hours (and by extension, few months) of work going up in smoke via bad computer mojo while I sleep (it happens! don't think it doesn't).
Jonathan Pitts, producer of the Chicago Improv Festival came to me in January (mid-January, let's be clear -- I've only had 3 months, not 3 1/2) to talk about the intro video for the mainstage of this year's CIF. I did the one they used last year and it was a nice piece of eye candy, but it didn't really say anything (and yes, I did it at the very last minute). This year, Jonathan said, the goal for the whole festival was to not treat it as a surprise when April rolled around. (Which is exactly and precisely what I always do -- oh, Jonathan you can see my darkest secrets.) And the idea for the intro video was to use it to do a little education about the Compass Players -- the first modern improv ensemble -- on their 50th anniversary.
Well, yay, I said and left the Golden Apple scribbling in my little notebook ideas for different ways of combining historical footage and modern interviews and "Ken Burns" fades and so on and so forth. And I had plenty of time, right? Three months!
And I just finished. Which is an improvement on last year -- last year I was rendering video in the dressing room of the Athenaeum at 6:15 or so on opening night of the festival. Lookee me -- there's 16 hours until curtain!
I'll probably want to fiddle with parts of it tomorrow, but it's done enough that I could show it to 1000 people at the mainstage and not be embarassed. And there's a chance that the people watching might get a little bit (a tiny bit) of an education about who the Compass Players were and what they did that was so cool.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:21 AM | Comments (1)
February 18, 2005
It's an honor, but...
... when will the Hollywood studios stop ripping off ideas from independent movies?
[Thanks Matt for pointing this out]
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)
January 7, 2005
Some brief press mentions
The Chicago press is full of Sketchfest articles this weekend and we get a few nods:
Newcity says, "Highlights include performances by Chicago's FuzzyCo ..."
Chicago Reader says, "Rhythm Method and FuzzyCo. These are two local groups."
And MicrocinemaScene has reviewed Dancing With Gaia, that indie film I was in. About my contribution to the film the reviewer says, "Featuring ... Fuzzy Gerdes ..."
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:39 AM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2004
FFFF: done!
I just finished editing our FFFF entry and I'm waiting for the DVD to burn on the other machine so I can race (it's always a last minute race) to Atomix to turn it in. It's a fun little movie -- it starts slow and intimate and ends up going 90 miles an hour and expands out to (literally) the whole world.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:22 PM | Comments (0)
FFFF: Finished filming
Here's Jin and Shaun with the stunt dummy that we built tonight to stand in for Shaun (getting thrown from the balcony) and Ryan (getting hit by a motorcycle). Usually we write our FFFF script (well, outline) on Friday night, film Saturday morning, and then I spend Saturday afternoon editing. Shaun wanted me to have more editing time, so we shot this one tonight. The theme of the whole FFFF this time is "The End of The World" and our team was given the topic "close before striking, strike before closing".
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:20 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2004
Fast Forward Film Fest: Start and Stop
This last weekend FuzzyCo participated in the Fast Forward Film Festival #15. Our topic was the pair of words "Start and Stop" (other groups got "Give and Take" and "Listen and Learn"). Also, everyone's movie had to include footage of Bob and Zach, two friends of the organizers. We came up with a short-and-sweet twist-in-the-end story of a glitchy robot. We included the footage of Bob and Zach as a fighting video game that the Robot and his girlfriend were playing.
The Robot (Jin Kim) and Guy in Intersection (Alex Farlow)
The Robot and Guy on Playground (Fuzzy Gerdes)
The Robot and The Robot's Girlfriend (Erica Reid)
The Robot and his Girlfriend play "Bob and Zach: The Video Game"
This was the lightest attended Fast Forward yet, with only 13 teams registered and, by my shakey estimate, only 9 or 10 teams submitting completed films. So, we were fairly optimistic about winning one of the three prizes this time.
We didn't.
The first place film deserved to win, but it rankled a little that one of the other winning films recycled their own footage from a Vidiocy entry. I don't think it's actually forbidden (the Fast Forward isn't very rule-bound), but it seems to go against the spirit of the Fast Forward.
Which is probably how we ended up in the street outside the showing shotgunning beers. Shaun didn't quite believe that I had shotgunned a beer with Alex at the Village Idiot in New York a couple weeks ago. Somehow the deal became that if I would shotgun one beer, Shaun would do two.
Some peer pressure and manhood-questioning later and we were on our way. Mmmm... MGD.
That's Shaun's dad looking on and laughing.
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:06 PM | Comments (2)
July 21, 2004
Denied
So, kickball was rained out last night. It worked out for the best, because otherwise I would have been late to the Vidiocy showing and wouldn't have seen Candyland (it was shown first).
I hopped into a cab at Chase Park and the cab driver told me he wouldn't take me to Belmont & Broadway -- he was on his way north to pick someone up who had called for a cab and had just picked me up because he assumed he could drop me off on the way. I guess I understand (I'm a little too reasonable sometimes) but it was raining! Because of an accent barrier it took us a block to figure it out (he thought I said Balmoral & Broadway -- I thought he was asking what route I wanted to take to Belmont). Sometimes I wish I could get a good angry on -- yell at the cab driver and glower for an hour or two or something. Instead, I said "all right, then", got out of the cab, waited at the corner and caught another one fairly quickly.
For some reason I decided it important to document my wet self in the second cab.
At the Vidiocy showing I met up with Candyland stars Shaun and Jin Kim.
Candyland was, as I said, shown first. People laughed at all the right parts, so I was happy. The other 7 semi-finalists were all fine films. A standout, in my mind, was Rick Rios' Sugar (starring, full disclosure, my co-worker Scott Anderson) (Sugar ended up coming in fourth).
Candyland was not one of the four finalists. And it's chock-full of copyright-infringing songs and dialogue (the dialogue I might get away with as parody, but not the music) so I don't think we'll be submitting it to any other festivals. So onto the shelf it goes. Good-bye, Candyland. The short time we had together was... short.
Death (Shaun Himmerick)
Antonius Block (Jin Kim)
The game
Megan Diemer in one of the alternate endings
Jin Kim and Brian Goodman in another of the alternate endings
It was all a dream...
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:44 PM
July 19, 2004
More semi-action
Our entry in the latest Vidiocy contest, Candyland, is one of ten eight semi-finalists (out of 49 entries). The showing is tomorrow night (Tuesday, 7/20) at the Lakeshore Theater.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:06 AM
July 16, 2004
We put the semi- in semi-finalist
Semi like a truck, that is -- I just found out today that Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action has been selected as one of 15 semi-finalists (out of 113 entries) in the Second City Shortcuts Film Festival. The semi-finalists will be narrowed down by a committee to a field of 10 and shown on July 31 and August 7.
It's odd how un-nervous I am about this -- probably because we did the real work so long ago (though my contact did suggest that I color-correct part of Ted before I handed in my final copy). So much of my background is in live performance that it still feels a little magical to me that we have this tape and people can see it who haven't seen it before and they enjoy it as much as people who saw it before.
Update: Here's the list of the 15 semi-finalists
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:04 PM
July 13, 2004
Candyland
Right now I'm waiting for a DVD of Candyland to burn. I think I'm done editing, but I'll bounce it off Erica tonight and Kyle tomorrow and see what they say.
Tonight was a little tweaking of the edits, but mostly sound. Lots and lots of sound. Surprisingly for something shot at the beach, the sound isn't too bad. Every now and then you can hear someone in the background yelling at their kids (or you could until I went through and replaced those sections with generic wave crashings).
Bing! It's done. That was fast. (Of course, the thing is only six minutes long.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)
Candyland
I'm waiting for a section of a movie to render right now (it's gonna be in black and white and I shot the whole thing in color, so I have to strip the color from each clip, which is turning out to take longer than I expected) (oops - I was applying the same effect three times to each clip -- no wonder it was slow).
I'm editing FuzzyCo's latest Vidiocy entry. (The official site always seems to be a showing behind -- here's info about the current contest.) Vidiocy is yet another of Chicago's fast filmmaking projects -- this one you get three weeks or so. Which is really too long for me to handle. I lose that delicious sense of urgency I get from the 21 hours of the Fast Forward Film Festival. So I lolligag around and before I know it, it's a day or two before the due date and we have rush around as though it was the FFFF and the results suffer in comparison to people who really did spend three weeks of effort on their films.
This time we didn't do as badly, planning-wise. Shaun and I story-boarded out our ideas last week, called some friends, and planned for a shoot all day Saturday. Shooting was going to take all day and it was our last chance to shoot before the deadline, because Shaun is out of town all week for work.
Unfortunately, on Saturday, half of our cast was delayed at a charity kickball tournament. As time wore on and we got through more and more of VH1's 40 Greatest Reality TV Moments on the TiVo we realized we weren't going to be able to film everything we had planned, especially the "traveling all over Chicago" part. So we decided to chop the movie down to the part on the beach, especially convienent since the beach is a few blocks from our house.
But that generated a plot problem -- how to end the movie in its truncated form? Shaun noticed recently that all our improv training means that we're really good at coming up with beginnings, but not so great at conclusions -- on stage you can just sweep a scene away and start anew.
"Well," I said, "it's one of two endings -- either Jin wins or Death wins. ... Why don't we film both? In fact, why don't we film a dozen extra endings?"
So that's what we did -- our short film, a parody of The Seventh Seal with chess replaced by Candyland, is followed, ala 28 Days Later, by a few alternate endings.
It'll be shown Tuesday, July 20, along with the other entries, at the Lakeshore Theater.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2004
My mooovie is on teeeeveee
Tonight (June 25) at 10:30 pm, Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action will be shown on WTTW (Channel 11)'s Image Union. (And Monday, June 28, at 1 am, too, I guess). I'll be running over to Schadenfreude's last show of their run at the Lakeshore Theater, but I'm TiVoing Image Union for a time-shifted viewing party.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM
June 11, 2004
Challenge: Winners (sorta)
Dog, the short that FuzzyCo shot for The Challenge was the winner... for best writing. I still consider that a win for FuzzyCo -- would anyone have noticed how good the writing was if we hadn't shot it well? (Or Jennifer M. Fah edited it so nicely?) I think not. Anyway, a nice side-effect of the win is that you can watch Dog online (parental/safe-for-work guidance: good-natured profanity, a kinda gross run-over "dog").
(The Challenge consisted of three parts -- the FuzzyCo crew wrote a script, but then handed it off to a randomly chosen team and we were handed one by "Quick and Dirty" (Jaime Pilarski & Lauren Austin). Our script, it turns out, wasn't really filmed -- the crew that got it made a short film about actors sitting around making fun of our script. That is, I suppose, their right. (Their right to be jags.))
Oh, and the winner for "Best Editing", March of the Misunderstood, features the prop that FuzzyCo brought to The Challenge -- Shaun's Mortal Kombat II SNES cartridge.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:34 PM | Comments (3)
June 2, 2004
Challenge: Soooo done
I just wanted to show the proof that we handed in our Challenge editing job.
If you'd like to see our movie, and the 13 others, they're all being screened Thursday night (June 3) at the Biograph Theatre (2433 North Lincoln) -- doors open at 6, the screening begins at 7.
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:33 AM
May 31, 2004
Challenge: Done
I'm just dumping a safety copy of "Time-Lapse" right now -- I've already dumped the final copy to miniDV.
Today was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. I got a few hours sleep and then got up for a meeting and then spent most of the day trying to find Ben to score the movie. (I did get some good comments from Shaun and Lillie Frances on the rough cut.) When I finally got ahold of Ben, I put a few hamburgers in him and then we tore through the scoring. I just plopped (it's a technical term) all the music in, made a few tweaks based on Shaun and Lillie's feedback, and voila!
Now, it's off to the Leadaway Bar to drop off this package and then get home to start packing for Colorado.
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:23 PM | Comments (0)
Challenge: Rough Cut
Hey! 4 am! I'm dumping a rough cut out to tape right now so I can get some comments from Shaun in the morning and maybe get some score music out of Ben Taylor.
In the absence of good logging (or a shot list or any idea of really what the shooters were going for), I eventually just got a feel for the footage ("hmm... I need an overhead shot of Eva here, I seem to remember one in the first 10 minutes or so...").
This might actually all work out.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:14 AM
Challenge: Edit, Edit, Edit
If you happen to be an actor in a movie, especially some sort of fast-filmmaking movie, please don't look at the camera as soon as you've said your last line of the scene. It tends to make your footage, oh, unusable.
(2:30 am. 1st bag of M&Ms, 2nd bottle of Coke.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:37 AM
Challenge: Let's say it
Let's say it out-loud: I wasted a day. Of only two days.
And now Final Cut Express is crashing. Damn.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:44 AM
May 30, 2004
Challenge: Back to Work
OK, really brief because I shouldn't even be typing this (since I wasted so much time on Chic-a-go-go and then dinner). I'm back to editing. Just discovered a major setback: my editing software (Final Cut Express) is not detecting the start/stop markers in the footage. Usually, even with unlogged footage, "Detect Start/Stop Markers" would at least give me different takes or scenes. So now I just have 3 unmarked, unlabeled, unlogged 20-minute clips, each containing dozens of scenes and takes. Eek.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
Challenge: Start of Editing
Good morning, Sunday. (Except that the careful eye will see that the time stamp on this post says it was posted around 4:30 pm.) I woke up this morning just in time to get our footage to the meet-up at noon. So then of course had to have breakfast. Clif started to log the footage (sigh -- the team who gave us our footage was not so editor-friendly as we were trying to be) but it evidently slow going, so by the time I got back from breakfast he was only 15 minutes into the tape. Then this and that and before I knew it it was 3:30 before I really got started in on capturing this footage. But we're in progress now (I'm watching the tape being captured in the corner of my eye). But... I'm going to interupt editing soon to go to a Chic-a-go-go taping. I know it's ridiculous -- this whole weekend is such a time-crunch already, and I'm doing all the editing by myself, why am I making it even harder? But I've been meaning to go to a Chic-a-go-go taping for so long, I really don't want to put it off any more. Any it's only 2-and-a-half hours, I keep telling myself. Sigh. I'm dumb.
After reading the script and watching this footage so far, I think this is going to be much more a mood piece than anything else -- which is both freeing (no plot points to hit) and scary (no plot to follow).
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:35 PM
Challenge: 100% done (filming, anyway)
OK, I put sound effects, the script, production stills, and the FuzzyCo logo on a CD for the editors and we decided not to film the car/motorcycle chase. So... we're done. At least, until noon tomorrow when we hand all this over to another team and get a similar manilla envelope and run off to start editing.
Before I forget, I want to thank Jamie Pilarski & Lauren Austin for writing such a good script -- just three locations and a straight-forward concept (a blind date gone wrong).
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:58 AM | Comments (1)
May 29, 2004
Challenge: 99% done
It's just before midnight and we're 99% done with filming. We have one more scene we could film, but don't have to, because its action is already described by another character. And the motorcycle battery died, so we'll only be able to film it if the battery recharges before we all fall asleep.
I also still need to assemble our credits list and (more editor-friendliness) I was going to try and find a few sound effects I think they'll need.
But 99% yay!
And above, 4 pictures of me (thanks Sarah) as the menacing "Motorcycle Rider". It's also the only continuity error (that I know of) in our film -- my glasses suddenly appear after I get off the cycle.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:57 PM
Challenge: Exteriors
Here Jin Kim as "Dog Walker" surveys what's left of the dog he was walking after "Walt" gets done with it. I have to say that our quick special effects (a hamburger and some ketchup) looked almost too good (good as in "really disgusting").
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:37 PM | Comments (1)
Challenge: 2/3 done filming
No time for pictures -- we're off to film our exteriors...
Posted by Fuzzy at 7:59 PM
Challenge: Editor Friendly
We're trying to be as editor-friendly as possible. We're logging all our footage as we go. (And look who's still around -- we've already shot all of Sarah's scenes, but she's just hanging out to help -- FuzzyCo peeps are the best!)
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:48 PM
Challenge: 2nd location
Clif Highfield as "Walt" and Ryan Stone as "Benjamin" in "the guys' apartment" (my living room).
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:40 PM | Comments (5)
Challenge: 1/3 done
We've shot all the girls' apartment scenes. Whoo-ray!
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:35 PM | Comments (1)
Challenge: 1st Location
Andrea Swanson as "Myra" and Sarah Pappalardo as "Frances" in "the girls' apartment" (my kitchen).
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:30 PM | Comments (1)
Challenge - first night & day
So we're working on the Challenge right now. Simply, the Challenge is an all-weekend event where 17 teams each work on 1/3 of 3 movies. On Friday night you write a script for a 7-minute film, working with actors' headshots, a song, and a prop. On Saturday morning you hand that script off to a different team (the one whose headshots you had) and get the one written for your actors. You have all day and night Saturday to film that script and then Sunday morning you hand in your footage, get a third team's footage and have until Monday evening to edit that footage into a completed short movie.
Because I'm going to be the main editor, I was excused from writing duties, so last night I went to the screening of Party Beach U.S.A. (It was very well-received by the actors and all of Phillip's friends (it's a low standard, but if you don't even get above the actors-and-friends bar you're in real trouble).) I came home at 1:30 am to find Shaun, Sean, Jin, Ryan, and Clif huddled over three laptops in the living room. They were round-robining the writing of the script, as well as writing character bios for all the characters. I went to bed with them still chugging away -- this morning they handed the script off, but none of them seemed sure exactly how it had turned out. Hopefully it made sense.
Our script looks pretty good. The first thing we did was cut two characters (we're ruthless) and recast the whole thing from what the writers had intended. Then we sat down for a couple read-throughs and a screen-breakdown and shot list. We finally started filming around 2:00 and we're on our 5th scene (of 26 scenes) about now. The trickiest will be the stuff in the car. I'm taking a quick break here -- Shaun is the camera and director and Clif is fulfilling my AD role right now by logging the footage as we go (to make life easier for the poor sap who has to edit this stuff).
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:33 PM
May 28, 2004
Party Beach showing
I finished some final sound tweaks on Party Beach U.S.A. last night, just in time for its world premiere tonight at The Church, 3030 W. Cortland. The evening starts at 9 pm and there will showings of other short films (like both Teds), door prizes, etc. It's all a fund-raiser for Superpunk's upcoming trip to L.A.
If you can't make the showing, flip through these unlabeled Party Beach U.S.A. stills very quickly, humming old surf music to yourself.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:43 PM
May 27, 2004
I'm all vaguely legit
Matt worked his butt off and got Dancing With Gaia listed in the Internet Movie Database. Which means that I now have a listing in the IMDB.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:43 PM
Set your TiVo
I've just been informed that my award-winning(tm) short film Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action has been scheduled to be shown on WTTW's (Channel 11) Image Union on Friday, June 25 at 10:30 pm. I have a Chicago Comedy Company show at The Playground that same night, but I'm guessing we'll head home after the show for a time-shifted viewing party.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:25 PM | Comments (3)
April 20, 2004
Rough Cut
Phillip and I have been editing Party Beach USA for a month of Mondays now and tonight when we got to the end of our editing session we finally watched a rough cut of the whole film. We've got some bits and pieces to fill in, normalize the sound through-out, etc. But it didn't look half-bad.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:04 AM
April 16, 2004
Dancing With Gaia DVD
I've mentioned that Dancing With Gaia is available on DVD and VHS for general purchase. But I'm mentioning it again. Because Matt pointed out a nifty affliate program from the place selling the DVDs, so if you follow one of these links and buy it, I get a few pennies. Pennies!
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:10 AM
April 10, 2004
External Validation
Details to follow (it's 3 am and I have a video shoot at 8:30 tomorrow. Umm... today. Soon.) but suffice to say that the Chicago "Really" Short Film Fest was a lot of fun and I am now an award-winning filmmaker.
Update:
Well, the whole evening was pretty fun. The films were a big variety -- some comedy, some drama, a couple music videos, mostly from Chicago but a couple from California and New Jersey -- and all under 15 minutes. And three bands played, including the roof-tearing-off The Mystechs.
Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action came home with two honors -- Ted was one of three films chosen from the festival to be shown on WTTW's Image Union. And Chicago film critic Erik Childress chose Ted as the winner of the "eFilmCritic.com Award" (it's a very nice certificate).
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:06 AM
April 9, 2004
"crazy hat guy"
OK, this isn't a review of Dancing With Gaia, it's a review of the trailer for Dancing With Gaia. And they call me the "crazy hat guy". But I'll link it up anyway.
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:48 AM | Comments (2)
April 8, 2004
"a cross between Will Ferrell and Philip Seymour Hoffman"
Erik Childress, who is one of the judges at the Chicago "Really" Short Film Festival, has posted reviews of all the shorts. I quote his entire review of Ted here in full:
Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action is so funny that it may not strike you until near the end of its 4 minutes that it’s all been one unbroken shot. Imagine sticking in every cop movie cliché you can into a confined setting that our hero must maneuver through. In just a few minutes, filmmaker Fuzzy Gerdes and star Dave Colan (whose style strikes one as a cross between Will Ferrell and Philip Seymour Hoffman) produce a satire that gloriously pokes fun at those tidbits savvy moviegoers grow weary of. Truly hysterical stuff.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:24 PM
April 5, 2004
Hmmmm.... Succulent
And in more film news, a short film by Melissa Cordero, This Meal Is Succulent, will have its world premiere next Friday, April 16, from 6-9 pm at Hanging Gardens, 8301 W. Belmont, River Grove. With musical guests One Below Nothing, who scored the film.
This Meal IS Succulent stars me, Shaun, Sean Cusick, Dori Goldman, Mike McNamara, Elizabeth McNaughton, Jessica Rogers, and some actress whose name I can't remember. Sorry. Maggie Malone.
We shot this film from March to June 2003.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:40 PM
Ted PR
Got an email from Rick Ramirez of the Chicago "Really" Short Film Fest today, letting me know that the Fest had been plugged on Nick Digilio's WGN radio show by Erik Childress. Evidently they specifically mentioned Ted and me and fuzzyco.com. I should check the logs and see if there was a spike in traffic Sunday morning at 2 am. In any case, coolio!
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:52 PM
March 30, 2004
"A good 'un"
![[Chicago Really Short Film Fest]](http://www.fuzzyco.com/news/mime/reallyshort.gif)
"For a one-shot action comedy shot in 21 hours, it’s a good 'un." That's the official festival description of Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action, a FuzzyCo short that has been accepted for the Chicago Really Short Film Festival, Friday, April 9, at The Abbey Pub (3420 W. Grace). $1 off with this flyer.
Ted, as it's affectionately known around the FuzzyCo office, was originally shot for the Fast Forward Film Festival back in January 2003. It was shown at that FFFF, and was chosen for the FFFF best-of DVD, but this is the first film festival with a selection process I've submitted it to, and so its first acceptance. Yay!
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:38 AM | Comments (2)
Editing Party
Phillip came over last night and we started logging and capturing Party Beach footage. We shot the beach scenes in August, the interiors in October (I think), and we're editing now. Movies take a long time. (Usually.)
I haven't actually finished unpacking the office yet (where did all my powerstrips go?) so I had to clear off a space to edit in. And oh, dear, dear Final Cut Express, why don't you have batch capture?
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:04 AM
March 23, 2004
Now you can own DWG, too
I know you've been jealous that I had a copy of Dancing With Gaia and you didn't. Well, now you, too, can own a copy of my feature film debut on DVD(-R) or oh-so-obsolete VHS. Order now!
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:37 PM
February 16, 2004
DWG inches closer
Matt sends proof that Dancing With Gaia has been duplicated and is inching its way towards my mailbox:
UPDATE: I've got it! I've got it!
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)
January 19, 2004
Dancing With Gaia is (almost) released
Let's see, I auditioned for this movie in February 2002. And Matt told me it was "done" in March 2003. Well, today I received an email that DVDs of Dancing With Gaia will ship on February 13, 2004. Yay!
I have an incredibly minor part in this movie (though the trailer is full of me), and in the two years since I filmed my scenes for the film, I've been involved, on- and off-screen, with a ton of short films. But it'll still be great to see the results of my first screen acting.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:39 PM | Comments (3)
October 22, 2003
McGuillicutty II
One thing that made this last weekend so busy that I'm still catching up was the 11th Fast Forward Film Festival. I looove the FFFF. 21 hours seems, to me, to be just the right amount of time to make a 3 minute film. It's an evening of brainstorming, a morning of filming, and an afternoon of editing.
This time the theme of the FFFF was "At the Drive-In" and the topics for the movies were poster tag lines from old action, horror, and sci-fi movies. Our topic was: "When the heroes are forgotten. When the stakes are life and death. There's one stand you've got to take. There's one rule you've got to break." (I just did the search to discover that this was the tagline to a medical drama, Article 99. I didn't look before we made our movie because I didn't want to know.)
FuzzyCo's FFFF crew this time was me, Shaun, Brian Goodman, and Sean Cusick. Shaun had a CCC gig Friday night and I was at a Schadenfreude show, so I coerced my friend Kate into going and picking up the topic for me. After a short amount of brainstorming Saturday morning, we decided to do a sequel to Ted McGuillicutty, Man of Action, starring Brian as Joe McGuillicutty, Shaun as the villain, and Sean as everyone else. We would use the lines from the suggestion at dramatic moments in the film.
This was our highest production value shoot yet -- we filmed at my house, on Lake Shore Drive, at the 59th Street Metra station, and all over Chinatown. We had special effects and stunt motorcycle riding and real (cheap) Chinese weapons.
Somehow, between all the running around, and then the demands of editing the film down to 3 minutes (I seem to naturally tend towards 4 minute movies) all the suggestion lines got lost. So I'm not sure if the movie looks like it was really inspired by the suggestion, but it was, I swear. I'm really happy with the result. I even turned it in 8 minutes before the deadline.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:47 PM
September 10, 2003
ADB BTS
I spent a couple hours Sunday morning as an extra in a short film Adam Devlin-Brown is shooting for the New York Midnight Movie Making Madness fast film competition. I got to sit for a while and then, excitingly, come in the door of the Gingerman take after take.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:24 PM
June 23, 2003
Wrap-up
We finally shot the last few bits for the "Dinner Party" short I was in. 4 of us had to come back and shoot the 'guests arriving' scene. Gosh, movies take a long time to make when you do it 'right'. We were there for 5 hours shooting a minute or two of screen time. I took a nap somewhere in the middle (not while I was supposed to be on camera, silly).
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:32 PM
May 27, 2003
Careful What You Wish For
I complained before about not getting cast in a short film a friend of Shaun had written. Well, our friend Lance moved to upstate New York and I inherited his part in the short. Yay for being around.
We did the majority of the shoot on Sunday night. I was very impressed when we showed up at the director's apartment (which was also the set) -- he had built a 6" platform around 3 sides of his dining room for a stedicam operator to circle us while we did the main sequence of the film (a dinner party). And that was cool -- the director had hired a stedicam and it was very interesting to see how that gear works.
But... there was some sort of problem with the stedicam monitor that ate up an hour or so. And there were all the usual things-taking-longer-than-expected problems that any film shoot (heck, any technical project) faces. And I understand that under the best circumstances acting in a film involves a lot of sitting around waiting. But it all added up to a slightly frustrated evening. I was the last to shoot closeups and so I didn't leave until about 3 am.
Double-frustrating was that since we went late, we didn't finish all the shooting. So now I can't change my hair drastically (I was thinking of going blond for the summer again) until we shoot the remaining bits of this short.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:08 AM | Comments (1)
March 24, 2003
Almost
Well, I was almost in a short indie film.
Shaun did an independent film this last summer and through the contacts he made doing that movie he keeps hearing about new projects. This last week he was asked by a screenwtiter friend of his to help cast this short. Through extreme nepotism, I made the cut.
We went to the camera guy's house today for a read-through of the script and discovered that there had been some confusion and some of the roles had already been cast. Well, one role. Mine. So... no movie magic for Fuzzy this time.
I stayed at the reading to help out by reading a different role, also already cast, but the actress couldn't make the reading. (Yeah, actress. Everybody at the read-through already made all the jokes.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:28 AM
March 12, 2003
Done!
Matt posted this in the comments of the last entry in the "Hey, I'm in a Movie" journal, but I'll repeat it here:
While producer Dallas Trinkle was throwing back beers with Robert Rodriguez at SXSW, editor Andrew Merczak and I were putting the final
finishing touches on the film, along with composer Brian Crane.
The final running time of the film is 57 minutes. You should be getting an email from us within the next six weeks with more information about when you can expect your very own copy of DWG (sorry to be so vague; I'm still getting answers on the turnaround time of duplication, etc).
Thank you all for your hard work in making this movie come to life. When I watch the film, I see the wonderful energy and art that every person contributed. This movie is truly a collaboration, and every one who was a part of it added their own spice to that recipe. It was a true pleasure working with you, and I hope that we can all do it again. See you for the sequel!
matt
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:44 PM | Comments (1)
September 9, 2002
We'll Fix it in Post
About the same time I wrote the entry above, I asked Matt by email what the schedule was. He just replied with a very detailed message, which is a great peek at the post-production process of a film. With his permission, here's his message:
Fuzzy,
I just realized I probably never replied to this email (plus, I noticed your "limbo" comment in your blog), so I figured I'd email you back and give you a heads-up.
We're actually a gnat's wing away from having the rough cut done. We just have to edit your interview and one short scene, and then the entire rough cut of the film is done. Of course, this is still months away from a release print. (I'm telling you all this because I think you might be interested. If it's too much detail, just skip down to the part where I say "DWG will probably be in the can by the end of the year.")
After Andrew (the editor, who was also our sound guy) and I finish the rough cut, the next step is to "spot" the film with Brian, our composer. This basically just means I sit down and watch it with him, but "spotting" sounds more technical. I will also spot the film with Jason (the graphic artist who is doing our titling).
Once Brian and Jason are sent on their merry way to compose the score and create the titles, Andrew and I sit down for the arduous task of syncronizing the sound. This is where we line up the sound recorded on MD with the picture already recorded (that's what the slate is for). This is the suckiest part of post-production. It's very tedious, but has to be done exactly right, or we end up with the swing dancing version of "What's Up, Tiger Lily?". This is also the time that we will record any replacement dialogue necessary (it looks like we only have one line that needs to be re-recorded, so that's pretty good).
After we get good sync on the sound, it's time for the "polish edit". This is where Andrew and I sit down and tweak the cuts (based upon responses we've gotten to the rough cut, as well as our own thoughts after looking over the material again). Basically, this is our chance to make sure the story makes sense. We also do any color-correction necessary in this step.
Once we are sure that the film is the way we want it, it goes into a state called "picture lock". This means that we will not be changing anything with the video portion - no footage will be removed or added from this point on.
If our timing is correct, we'll be getting picture lock around the same time as Brian finishes composing the score. We'll match up his draft recording of the score with the film, and assuming everything looks (andsounds) good, he'll go off and have the musicians record the actual score.
We finish up by having the audio mix "sweetened" by an audio engineer, and possibly run the whole video through a CineLook processor (to step it down to 24 frames per second, to better emulate film stock). Then we're done!
Long story short, Dancing With Gaia should be in the can by year's end. As we get closer to release time, we'll be keeping you all posted about where/when you can see the film, and when you can expect your very own copy.
Matt
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM
August 20, 2002
Limbo
Now, we wait. This is very odd for me -- I'm used to immediate art. With (stage) improv, of course, you and the audience get to see the results at the same moment. And I used to do a weekly radio show, and our write-record-edit-present cycle was just a few days. I'm sure Matt and Dallas are hard at work on post-production, but I wish it was done now. (Though, I'd rather wait for it to be done right.)
But Matt and Dallas are obviously doing something, because there's a new poster for the movie. The side of my head made it on the poster, even if my name didn't.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)
June 1, 2002
Second Day of Shooting
Second day of shooting for me, next to last day for the movie. Make-a sense?
Oh, this movie stuff is crazy. A month ago I had to react to the dancers' performance based on my feelings about them that I improvised in a scene today. Eek. Also, I had to try and remember the voice I was doing for Mike Wellington, which had already drifted from my original idea.
I think I managed to cover any continuity problems with the outrageousness of the threats I had Mike Wellington heap on the head of poor Zoe. If Matt doesn't use the "I'll burn down your house" take, I don't know what he's thinking. And thank goodness for the beret idea - my hair's an inch or two longer than last month, but it's all hidden under that silly, silly hat.
And in more me, me, me-news, Matt said that he was thinking of using my ramblings about the art of dance (from the interview last month) as a voice-over for a trailer for the movie. Maybe he even did, he said he was going to show it at the wrap party, which unfortunately I had to miss because of a rehearsal.
A correction: Tracy is the Assistant Director. I found this out on the newly updated Gravy Train Films site.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2002
A Picture
I guess filming is going well. Matt sent me this picture of me as Mike Wellington:
Do you see the jacket and Vitamin Water bottle? We didn't until we'd shot the whole interview. It led to one of those great artistic questions - reshoot, or decide that it was "ambience"? We went for ambience.
Right now my contribution to the movie is waiting and trying not to forget what Mike Wellington's voice sounded like.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM
May 4, 2002
First Day of Filming
It turned out that my first day of shooting was also the first day of shooting for the film. So there was plenty of running around and "oh, how does this work, again?" and "where's that intern with my latte?" (Actually, I was the one who kept saying "where's that intern with my latte?" even though no one but me thought it was funny. That's my comedy secret - never give up on a bit, no matter what).
Mike Wellington is wearing a beret and a grey mock-turtleneck. He's very silly looking. (I had a picture, and a bunch of shots of the dance sequence, but a hard drive crash ate them all.)
Since this is a partially improvised movie, it would make sense to shoot the scenes in chronological order (especially so that improvised changes or surprises about the 'facts' could be justified or taken into account) . Unfortunately, the availability of locations means that they're filming in nearly reverse-chronological order. So this day's shooting was the climactic dance sequence of the movie and was shot at the delightful Dance Center of Columbia College.
The very first scene we shot was audience reactions to the dance. The 'audience' reacting was me and a principal actor and eight extras (they did pretty tight shots). Although neither of us realized it at the time, one of the extras they roped in was a photographer named Erika who went straight from the shoot to meet up with Sandy to do a model test shoot. Chicago is such a small town.
And then after a delightful lunch of big sandwiches, they shot Mike Wellington's interview, where I got to be extra silly. I lost the voice I had decided Mike was going to use, though.
And then they shot the dance sequence, which I stayed to watch for a while and took the aforementioned hard-drive-crashed-and-lost pictures.
Now I just have to not lose the clothes that Mike was wearing and wait a month for my next day on set.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM
April 29, 2002
Costume
Matt, the director, sent me an email about Mike Wellington's costume. He was thinking Mike should wear a suit, or at least a shirt and tie. I'd been thinking about how people were teasing Jonathan Pitts, the organizer of the Chicago Improv Festival, for wearing turtlenecks to host the mainstage at the CIF. Add a beret for extra crazy-arty flavor and I think we've got our Mike. Fortunately, Matt agreed with me. Then I went home to see if I could find a turtle-neck. Oops, I couldn't. Village Thrift to the rescue! Sandy found four turtle necks (and a really sweet Giant Robot/Buckethead long-sleeve t-shirt) for under a buck a piece. And I found a great courdoroy jacket. Woo-oo!
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
April 28, 2002
Hair
I have two days of shooting, with a month of real time between shoots, but the two scenes take place five minutes apart in movie-time. So... I have to look the same. Sandy colored my hair today and I hope we can get the color the same in month. Maybe I can make Mike Wellington wear a hat.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM
April 25, 2002
Happening
I got an email from Tracy today with my call times for my two scenes. The movie is still happening. That's a good thing. With Full Deck (and on my own), I've been involved in a number of short film projects that never got out of the discussion phase and so never actually happened. So it's a nice feeling to be involved with folks who seem to be organized and effective.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM
March 24, 2002
Character Development Workshop
So, I had my first (and only) Character Development Workshop, and I learned more about how this film is being put together and about my character.
The film is what I call "scenario improv" - the film makers have the outline of a plot, and it's up to the actors to get their characters from point A to point B in each scene. For example, my character is the organizer of a dance festival that the main characters' dance troupe are appearing at and in one of my scenes I blow up at the dance troupe leader. What exactly I blow up about and how the argument progresses will be improvised between me and the other actors.
The character development workshop today was for six of us secondary characters: Mike Wellington, a cop, a bartender, a stand-up host, a roommate, etc. Very few of us are going to be in scenes together, so we couldn't really work on our relationships, but we all got started hammering out the main characteristics of our characters.
Oh, and the movie is being done in mock-umentary style. Huh. So our characters know the camera is there (even though we're still not supposed to look at it). Layers and layers.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM
February 8, 2002
I'm In
Well, all my under-preparation must have worked. Tracy, the film's production manager assistant director, called while I was at a Playground show and offered me the part of a secondary character - "Mike Wellington", the organizer of some sort of dance festival. (I think all the primary characters have to be able to dance. At least, that's going to be my face-saving explanation to myself of why I didn't get a lead role.) She read me a character description that I immediately forgot. Is he "bold, but reserved" or "scheming, but cheerful"? I'll have to wait until my character development workshop to find out.
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:00 PM
February 3, 2002
The Audition
The audition was on my birthday, which made me feel special somehow. I was in the last audition slot of the day, because I'd had to reschedule for some reason that I forget now.
The auditions were supposed to be in groups of three, but because it was the last slot, there were only two of us. We each did our monologue* and then we were given a scenario ("husband and wife cleaning up after a dinner at which we were informed our daughter would be marrying outside of our faith") and improvised that scene. And then the audition was over. Wow. For some reason I was expecting a longer audition. The lesson (which I already knew, but it's good to remind yourself of these things) always give 110% in every moment of an audition.
* The audition notice said that we should have a prepared monolouge. All of my auditions lately have been for improv shows, so I didn't have a monologue prepared (in fact, I don't think I've ever had a prepared monologue). Shaun told me that sometimes he just improvises a monologue and pretends it's from an obscure play. I thought about doing that, but instead I went to Colin's Movie Monologue Page and printed a couple dozen monologues. Eventually I picked Chunk's "confession" monologue from The Goonies.
And, of course, I under-prepared (I think I like improv because of the whiff of danger). My girlfriend used to coach people for monologues, so obviously I didn't ask her for any help until the night before the audition.
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:00 PM | Comments (0)
November 31, 2001
The Start
So my brother sent me an email: some swing dancing friends of his were making an improvised movie and auditions were coming up. I've done lots of different kinds of acting: improv, sketch, conventional theater, radio... but I've never done a movie, and this sounded like a fun way to get that gap on my acting resume filled. Besides Matt and Dallas, I already knew a number of people involved with the film from some swing classes I'd taken at Blue Moon Groove. So sign me up!
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:00 PM