The Great and Powerful Henceblog » Films

Pig Death Machine

Vv — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:28:10 +0000

For the past few weeks I’ve been working on a film by Underground filmmaker Jon Moritsugu as the Art Director. The story, whose working title has been “Pig Death Machine”, is about magical pork which grants one person super-intelligence and another the ability to talk to plants; hilarious escapades ensue.

Here are some stills from production which show a bit of what I was up to, but even these don’t quite give a feeling of the piece I was working on or the final settings of each location. But oh well, I hope you enjoy:

Choosing what sort of orchids, which the script called for, should be in the scene.

Decorating a table with false cocaine (which I made the night before), guns, bullets, and playing cards (also aging/burning the playing cards)

Printing off labels (designed by me) and working with the DP to put the labels on boxes seen by the camera.

Firstly, I made the false raw pork in the picture out of Seitan (a vegetarian meat substitute), then I also decorated the plant room with the production designer.

False Logos: Meat Farming

Vv — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 07:54:20 +0000

I’ve started working as the art director for Jon Moritsugu, a guerilla independent filmmaker. One of the things I was assigned to do was to create some false logos for two fake companies “Hayman Farms” and “The Meat Center”. Below are the logos I came up with.

I wanted to create something grassroots-like, but also vaguely sinister.

This one's more modern, based off of a Helvetica grid, and also more modern. I also enjoy the triangles.

Tales from an Internship II: The Reckonning

Vv — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:00:41 +0000

This was not “Cowboys and Aliens”, but it WAS called “Flying Monsters 3D“.

Flying Monsters 3D is a Documentary by Sir David Attenborough (Creator of the BBC series “Planet Earth”) about Pterodons: The Prehistoric Dino-birds. Of course the first question is: What was a BBC Documentary doing in Santa Fe? The answer to this is: I haven’t the faintest idea. I believe they needed to interview some dinosaur experts here and decided to get some other shots out of the way.

Day One of my internship I had one my most favorite credits to date: Butterfly and Dandelion wrangler. So for the first part of the day I wandered around a field near the Santa Fe Airport catching butterflies with a couple of coffee cups (and later a butterfly net some friendly grips put together). Then after a nice lunch of sandwich, I wandered around the same fields looking for dandelions, which proved difficult because it was a windy day and all of the good seed pods I could find would blow away before I could get them back to set.

Day Two I had a much more traditional role of PA and intern, for as opposed to Day One which was just B-roll day two was an interview between Sir Attenborough and one of the designers of an airplane based off of the Pterodon. I did some art direction work of arranging lab materials and printing out large photos of dinosaur bones; I was a stand-in for Sir David Attenborough; I stood guard during filming and made sure that everyone else was being quiet; and I took a tour of a mad scientists lab who is trying to make fuel out algae (He was a really great guy, and by the end of the day he was incredibly frazzled).

Flying Monsters 3D will be coming to IMAX movie theaters and I believe the BBC television network as well, so keep your eyes peeled. Also, here’s a picture of me on set, courtesy of Nani Rivera set photographer for that day:

Most of the other art direction pieces I made or helped with aren't visible here.

Once Upon a Time in Wisconsin

Vv — Mon, 17 May 2010 05:30:27 +0000

Remember the stream of consciousness piece I wrote entitled “Marty Cheese”? Well, I tightened it up a bit, and made this “animation” based off of it.

Just in case you’re wondering, those are, indeed, Kraft American Singles I’m animating on.

Into The Mainframe: The Movie

Vv — Sun, 09 May 2010 03:28:33 +0000

Well folks, this is it. My VHS computer hacker movie.

I hope you enjoy.

Tales from an Internship

Vv — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:20:33 +0000

As many of you may or may not know, I have been acting as an intern for the production offices of the upcoming Coen Brothers film True Grit. Incidentally, a cover set for True Grit is on campus in the soundstages at CSF, I’m about a ten yard walk away from them.

If you are excited about the internship for True Grit, keep in mind I was just working with the production offices as a clerk. In fact, here are some of the exciting things I did:

-Stuff new shooting schedules into envelopes.

- Filed dailies (which include slides of scenes shot for the day, production breakdowns, PO forms)

- Filed PO forms.

- Filed check balances.

- Swept a stairwell.

But, nevertheless, it was a neat opportunity, and I still (in a very indirect way) helped the Coen Brothers make a movie. And that is supercool. Sadly, due to legal issues with the Texas production offices, I was relieved of my interning duties a few weeks ago. But, during my time internning with them the Production Office staff was very nice and friendly, and I really enjoyed it.

As for what I can tell you about True Grit, not too much (I’m also not sure what all I’m allowed to reveal). But I can tell you this: There will be a man in a bear suit.

And what’s next on the Intern horizon for me? Well, hopefully the upcoming John Favreau (Iron Man) directed feature “Cowboys and Aliens”. It’s about Cowboys and Indians setting down their arms against each other in order to fight invading aliens, and is rumored to be starring Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig.

Into the Mainframe: The Screenplay

Vv — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:42:43 +0000

Hello everyone! So for my second project in my Production class I have decided to shoot a computer Hacker movie. I am well through pre-production, and I’m about to get much more intense with it, however if there are any massive errors (I’ve taken notes on grammatical errors, which I’ll fix before sending it to actors) let me know. Also, let me know what you think of it.

MAINFRAME – final draft

Clean Garage: The Movie

Vv — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 17:01:17 +0000

I know you were all expecting a firestarter script for my first production project at CSF, but sadly due to location issues and lack of planning that script fell through. So instead I made this one, Clean Garage. You may have read the original script when I posted it up here a few months or weeks ago, and it didn’t change too much.

Let me know what you think, why not?

Waiting for a Render

Vv — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:26:06 +0000

I made this while waiting for a very important video to render. This is not very important. I made it using PHOTOSHOP.

The rendered video will play soon. Very soon.

M is for Movies

Vv — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:24:13 +0000

So remember how I’m an actor as well? Well, here are some movies I’m in!

This first one is a project Andrew Gingerich and I shot last summer when we were trying to decide on a movie to watch, and instead decided to make this. Remember Skin Removal Cream? Well that was for this same project. Enjoy!

Next is a commercial for Drunk Button, the button that makes you instantaneously drunk! This is apparently for a multi-media play that’ll be showing in Santa Fe in the near future.

And finally… RRRR? That’s on the internet? Well okay, I guess this’ll work I guess. RRRR is from my Sophomore year of High School. It’s about Scrabble and the end of the world and… oranges maybe?

So there. And, no, I’m not a one-dimensional actor. Why would say that? I’M THE GREATEST IN ALL THE WORLD!