Two years ago I was working on the camera crew for "The Third", a short adaptation of the book Ender's Game. I was ACing for the DP, Devin Graham, and it's through him I met his friend/business partner Jacob Schwarz, the director of that project. After wrapping up that film, I got this little surprise in my Facebook message inbox.
And the rest was history! Haha just kidding :) I remember going over to Jake and Devin's apartment that first night and feeling so inadequate to produce a film but I thought it wouldn't hurt to sit down and talk about it. Jake gave me the script, something he'd been working on with the screenwriter, Katie Golden, and showed me some director's mood boards and I immediately fell in love with the project. I started meeting with Jake weekly and got to work on the film.
I still think that it was my favorite short film production experience to date, and not because I'd worked so hard on this film, but because I realized then that to make a good quality project you don't have to take three weeks to shoot a short and risk the crew getting burnt out, which often happens in many student productions. I learned that if you can just be lucky enough to assemble the right crew, people who are good natured, talented, and responsible, you can have efficient shooting days. The result for us was a beautiful ten minute short that was shot in a day and a half.
This film was produced completely independently using resources from the company Jake and Devin started, Mystery Box, on a budget of $1,500. Not bad, eh? :) If you have any questions you can reach me at kphillier@gmail.com
Enjoy the movie (in HD and full screen of course!) :)
Last night Devin (devinsupertramp) called me and said "Hey, wanna light some torches and make a youtube vid?" Of course I said yes. So for a couple hours we, along with Jacob Schwarz and Lindsey Stirling, met up at a castle and filmed for a couple hours. You'll just have to wait until the video comes out to see what it's all about but here's some pictures from the shoot. Devin shot with a Red Epic and I filmed some behind the scenes with a Canon 5D Mark II. The torches turned out awesome. And I only lit myself on fire once. Oops. :)
An Epic and an Elf
A Castle and a Flame
All in all it was a way fun quick little shoot. A welcome study break from midterms. Boo, midterms. Only one more semester to go! Today I got approved to graduate this coming April, hooray! :)
One of the bigger projects I worked on this summer was producing three YouTube spots for Orabrush and attending VidCon with them. VidCon is basically a convention for YouTubers. So much fun, I can't even begin to describe. :) However I do wish that I had my own clone: one to attend all the presentations and classes at VidCon (which I didn't really get to do) and one to take the time to produce the videos (which I actually did). From what I was exposed to at VidCon, I left all sorts of inspired to make my own YouTube channel! I know a handful of people that are doing very well because of it but I'm also very aware of just how much time these people put into their channels. I don't like to put things off to the unknown future, but realistically, maybe when I'll start one when I'm done with college (in April!)
The three spots for Orabrush are as follows:
First we did a spoof on Forrest Gump running across the country, where in this case Morgan the Tongue and the Orabrush Guy run from the Orabrush offices in Utah to Hollywood, and their hair/beards grow (or don't grow) according to the progress of their run. Here's a random fun fact (and coincidence): Kaitlin Snow, Orabrush's editor, went down to L.A. as well and she and I were in our very first film class together - a class that I now teach haha - where a final project was to make a sweded (Be Kind Rewind style) film of Forrest Gump. Apparently we have now come full circle. :)
The second was a video we shot was at Venice Beach and is of the Tongue and the Orabrush Guy at the having a conversation about what they like in women. Typical Morgan. Joel Ackerman (who also went to film school with Kaitlin and I and directed Cricketless) now lives in L.A. and met up with us to direct this spot.
The third spot was shot in Beverly Hills where Morgan goes to VidCon and thinks the whole convention was put on for him.
For these videos Kaitlin and I shot on a Canon 5D Mark II, a Canon T2i, and a Canon 60D. Tyler Stevens did sound (and jumped on camera for a few things) and Daniel and Jeffrey Harmon acted as our executive producers.
Running to to race for the cure for bad breath... and our 15 passenger van
Double Rainbow All the Way guy was at VidCon!
We had to transport 2 1/2 tongues almost all the time and the easiest way to carry it is to wear it.
Kaitlin setting up workflow in our hotel room. I think one was for copying footage, one was for compressing, the other was for editing.
Shooting in the Mohave dessert.
I thought people might like getting squish toy tongues on their vehicles instead of some random flyer.
So... It has been a while. I know. :) I've been busy movie making of course, that and enjoying summer and getting back into the swing of things with school. (Senior Year! Whoooo!) The first part of May was spent filming Weighted! I was the Director of Photography for this capstone and we shot on the RedOne primarily and a few shots were done with a Canon 5D Mark II for logistics' sake. This was my first time doing anything with green screen. Nick Dixon was our VFX genius and he took care of all the post work and did a good job. Jordan Petersen directed this as his last hurrah before heading to BU for grad school studying screenwriting - best of luck to him :) Here's some screen grabs from the film and some behind the scenes pictures from the shoot.
Here is the music video for Sean Ryan that I was 1st AC on a couple months ago. Jacob Schwarz was the director and Paul Meyers was the Director of Photography.
A couple more videos for Isaac Russell have premiered online that I AC'd on last fall. "Golden" was shot at the old Children's Museum in Salt Lake City. I remember going there as a kid and it is so different now, completely abandoned. It's a little sad but there's a new museum now and the old location makes for an excellent place to film things.
