Mind-Friends

One of my favorite things about “Scott Pilgrim…” is the overload of jokes on-screen at a given time, so that it’s impossible to see/hear them all at once. The Onion News Network does that as well with the information along the bottom scroller. Both inspire/require multiple viewings.

I don’t know if I have a favorite Evil Ex, but I loved all of the fake movie references, posters, and clips from Lucas Lee’s acting career (Also, Chris Evans has quickly become a reason to see just about any movie for me). The idea for them is very similar to what Adam and I were going for in “Trailer: The Movie.” Granted, “Scott Pilgrim” doesn’t share much else in common with our movie, but the particular sensibility with which the filmmakers send-up Hollywood is strikingly similar. Check out a little poster comparison w/ “Action Doctor” and “Tourniquet 3: Cardiac Arrest.” (Pay special attention to the tagline in “Action Doctor.”)

I really love the blue background and grid-work in the Lucas Lee one. And the black section in ours looks sloppy-ish, yes, but! The tone is the same, and that’s something! (You can look at all of Lucas Lee’s acting work here.)

The soundtrack for the movie has been playing pretty much 24/7 since I got it, andhere’s a cool video from the movie version of the song, called “Black Sheep” -

Also, speaking of cool videos and a Scott Pilgrim-like use of special effects, here’s one for the road. Check out this short film, “Pixels,” from Vimeo. It’s creative and interesting and kindof nerdy. Perfect combination. If there’s one thing I do love about the internet it is the level of access to creativity. Be on the lookout for some stuff from me and Adam coming soon.

Why My Roommate is Awesome

This will be very quick, because I’ve got a few hours of editing to get in before heading out to play Ultimate Frisbee (it’s soooo LA).

This is what I’m talking about right here. Observe below. “Shark Attack II: 2-Shark Attack” kicked off a string of jokes my friends and I were making last Saturday after Movie Night. We were just spit-balling about bad straight-to-DVD (“direct-to-market” for the douchey) movies… which are most of them. Then Adam decided to make this little gem. That he doesn’t make a million dollars a year doing this is the kind of crime that perfectly fits the tenor of Adam’s sad existence.

*(Seriously though, check out his work HERE. He’s insanely talented.)

There is nothing better than a group of friends who can all contribute to a conversation like this. There are four of us, and we don’t miss a beat. It’s the best ending to my week every week. We tend toward the absurd and have a particular penchant for creating ridiculous fake movie titles, franchises, scenarios, et al. Hell, that’s basically how “Trailer: The Movie” ever came about.

I won’t say we never sound totally pretentious, or that we only mock because we love. No. We don’t. We love movies as an art-form sure, but these jokes play more into our fascination with the way the movie industry moves and operates, especially on the outskirts. And shark attacks. Always fascinated by shark attacks. No way around them.

Anyway, we thought it was funny as hell.

Another Shark Attack... And Other Shark Attacks!!!

And… why not:

Only on CBS

Poster Adam created for the Live Show for the popular podcast, “Battleship Pretension“

Let's Get Into it, Shall We?

Coffee and Creativity

Creativity's Best Friend

Last week for the first time in far too long, Adam and I went to IHOP, sat down with pancakes, coffee, and our open notebooks, and workshopped ideas for our joint projects. Take this as a truism – there is no setting so inherently conducive to creativity as a diner. It’s some mixture of dingy atmosphere and abundant menu, and really probably also proximity to cheap, refillable-coffee. Bathrooms are in the top five – perhaps cosmically-propelled to be so by Archimedes and his Displacement – but they lack the correct kind of overheard community.

Adam and I are putting together a press kit for “Trailer: The Movie.” It took us a while to get our minds away from gags like including fake cocaine from “Huff” and a hospital ID-wristlet with the Killer’s name from “COMA.” Instead, I think we’ve got a pretty sleek, interesting design idea. It’s kindof a classic example of how we work. The concept was created in tandem. From there, my job is to write all the prose for each section, while Adam realizes the design. We’ll give each other notes here and there, but for the most part we’ll work alone for a collective product.

God Gets a Little Too Excited For Bath-Time

Aside from that, we finalized the three separate storylines for our next short film, as well as a framing device that will add a great layer to it. The film will be about 3 couples, all at different places in their relationship, during one key moment. If it sounds too simple and straight-forward, that’s mostly the point. My personal writing mainframe these days defaults to the satiric and endlessly complex. Of the five finished films I’ve got and the one I’m rehearsing right now – which rehearsals are going extremely well – the emotional moments are few and far and all that, sortof like a dash of it sprinkled into a batter of nearly solely intellectual humor. I need to make sure I can drop all of that and just let two people talk to each other and express things and still be okay. And if I can’t, then that’s what I need to work on.

It’s worth mentioning that sometime around the 5th cup of coffee (also, LA, come on, Kansas City kicks your ass where all things IHOP are concerned), I came upon a final moment between two characters that is at once hopeful and basically unabashedly romantic and but also could, if done wrong or maybe even just viewed wrong, call any and all chance of happiness into question. Adam told me it was sabotage; that it was my Default’s way of asserting itself and ruining the project. I can’t be sure. We’ve run the idea across a few friends so far, and they’ve been almost totally on my side, which shocks me most of all. The last thing I want to engage in is emotional sabotage; as if I haven’t been accused of that enough.

Has This Man Emotionally Sabotaged You? Join Class-Action Lawsuit