Tag: film

The Shortest Horror Movie In The World

By Bylinegmcd on

The Shortest Horror Movie In The World

I give you – The Shortest Horror Movie In The World.

It’s got everything; an identifiable character, a universal theme, tension, mystery and a surprise ending that doesn’t spoon feed you the answer, leaving the interpretation up to you. All in 25 seconds. Only a slacker would need 2 hours to tell a story.

A silly spur-of-the-moment video I made while I was out location scouting although I’ve been told it’s better than the Blair Witch Project.

After my encounter in the desert, I’m happy to say I’m doing fine. It was a close call but I came out the other side. A little roughed up but okay.

A lot of hard work went into making this film and I’m very proud of the result. I think this is the one they’ll remember me for. It’s a pinnacle, a zenith, a high bar and a tough act to follow but I’m up for the challenge.

Related: using natural light for video

You never know what you’ll find location scouting

I was location scouting in the high desert for my short, Nowhere In The Universe when I shot this. It won Best Comedy Film and the Audience Choice Award at the LA Film Forum.

Scouting locations in the desert is always a good time for me. Strange, cool and/or creepy things always seem to to pop up.

Related post: watch my after party interview at the La Jolla International Fashion Film Festiva.

On this trip, I not only found the locations where we later shot the film at (where I made this video was one of them) but I also found several other locations that might be good for something some day.

Several broken down abandoned buildings and an interesting dry river bed stood out as places to make note of for future shoots. I also found a military zone as seen in the photo below.

Military zone with unexploded devices in the area

The sign says there are unexploded devices and dangerous weapons in the area and not to touch anything. No prob, you had my attention at ‘unexploded devices.

They don’t make motels like they used to

It was somewhat of a surprise to come across Roy’s Motel and Cafe on this trip. I had seen photographs of Roy’s before but wasn’t sure where it was. It’s located in Amboy, California on old Route 66.

The motel has long been out of operation and only a small gift shop is open inside the old gas station. However, I didn’t venture in. It looked like it was filled with the typical tourist crap you can find anywhere.

There’s a vacancy at Roy’s Motel & Cafe.

Although not in operation, the old motel rooms are open for people to walk in and check out. Helpful tip for when asking a tourist to take a photo of you: make sure they speak the language you do.

I asked this woman who got off a bus full of tourists if she could take a photo of me in front of the Roy’s sign. I said, “make sure you get the whole sign”. She nodded and trained my cell phone at me.

After snapping a couple of pics she handed my phone back to me and off she went to join back up with her tour group. I looked at the photos and this is what she took.

I asked her to make sure to get the whole sign. She smiled and nodded.

Well there’s my origin story on how the shortest horror movie in the world came to be.

Related: alien makeup timelapse.

After Party Interview

By Bylinegmcd on

After Party Interview

Earlier this year I found this clip of our after party interview at the La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival. I’m with cinematographer Roberto Correa and we’re talking about our film, The Selfie That Changed The World. I remember doing it but forgot all about it until I stumbled upon it.

Where you drunk during the interview?

Even though this interview took place at the after party around 1am at The Lot, a bar and restaurant in La Jolla, and I appear to forget what I did on the film near the beginning of the video, I assure you I was very lucid.

We had a very good time at the festival and our film got a great response. The film is a fashion comedy that takes a peek inside the mind of a selfie addict. It was nominated for Best Creative Direction and Best Narration. The actor, Brandon Bernath, got nominated for Best Actor in CinéFashion Film Awards put on by Cinémoi.

festival best creative direction la jolla international fashion film
Brandon Bernath, nominated for Best Actor in the CinéFashionFilm Awards

You can watch a clip of Roberto and I introducing the film at the festival on the Fashion Film Network‘s vimeo channel and read about it in our post here.

Related article: we won Best Comedy Film and Audience Choice Award.

The best moment of the festival

The best moment of the festival for me was when another filmmaker came up to me and said because of the film, no one was taking any selfies after the screening. Yes! The film had some kind of affect.

It felt good to get a strong reaction like that with the film. Not to mention, selfies are to photography what McDonald’s is to food so the stopping of selfie taking was a good thing and I feel I made the world a better place if only for a short time.

Related: the shortest horror movie in the world.

Needless to say, the self-imposed selfie ban didn’t last long and people were back to snapping selfies later on. But it was nice while it lasted.

Read more in our blog post about us at the La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival.

Need a break? Of course you do! Take 1.5 minutes and watch No Words, a video poem. A short film about nature and our neglect of it.

pretty blonde woman in sunglasses in comedic fashion film
Christine Wood in The Selfie That Changed The World

No Words, a video poem

By Bylinegmcd on

No Words, a video poem

What do you do when your filming options are still very limited because of the restrictions on working and gatherings of people due to the Coronavirus pandemic? You make a new video out of existing footage and other assets you have available to you. I made No Words, a video poem out stuff we had laying around, a poem and footage I had already shot.

No Words is a 1.5 minute short film about nature and our neglect of it. The poem was written and voice by Lorraine DuRocher. I supplemented previously shot footage with a couple shots filmed by cinematographer Roberto Correa.

Related: using natural light for video

Get creative with your existing assets

Even though small media shoots have been deemed essential businesses and have been allowed since the beginning of the shut down as long as safety and CDC guidelines are followed, many companies are still apprehensive to schedule video shoots. Big budget filming, which was not deemed essential and was shut down is starting to come back with extensive new safety guidelines.

With the current environment, making new videos and repurposing your existing assets like footage and graphics is still a great way to keep your content flowing and to save money on production costs.

a man on a bike and two other people look frozen in time at a city street intersection while they wait for the light to change
Scene from the video, No Words

The poem No Words really spoke to me. Nature takes care of itself instinctually without words and without thinking about it. Nothing in nature instigates its own self-destruction. Why do we?

When I re-read the poem recently (I read it years ago when Lorraine wrote it), I thought what it says is very ‘right now’ and thought it could make for a nice little cinematic piece. So we dusted it off, recorded the voice over and I went through old footage to go with the narrative.

Fun fact: the idea was to make all the footage of the insects, bees and of our parrot, Fast Eddie to look like it was shot in a forest but it was all shot on our porch and front yard.

Read about my short films about aliens and selfie addiction on Amazon Prime Video. Watch me introduce The Selfie That Changed The world at the La Jolla Int’l Fashion Film Festival.

The time to pay attention is now

In a macro sense, No Words speaks to what we have been and are currently doing to our environment. Now that we’ve destroyed it and have brought it to the possible point of no return with climate change, we’ve become aware of it.

The time to pay attention is always right now. You can’t eat the hamburger today and pay for it on Tuesday. Wimpy’s old saying from the Popeye comic strip, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” is where we are as a country and as a global community.

Come Tuesday you know Wimpy is not going to be able to pay, Well, environmentally speaking today is Tuesday. It’s time for us to pay up for our past consumption but the problem is we ain’t got no money.

Related: read about my video series, Hemp Already about helping to save the planet by using sustainable and ecofriendly hemp.

On a personal level, No Words speaks to how we treat our bodies. We get caught up with the hustle of the today and our day-to-day business and we ignore our bodies until it’s too late. My intention with No Words, a video poem was to use the human body as an allegory of the environment.

Let’s learn from nature and from animals. Stay in tune with your body and environment which is an extension of our body and let’s take care of both of them today.