This is a film school senior thesis project for Andrew Gingerich, a senior at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, formerly of Fort Collins.  I’ve worked with him on three films and find him to be intelligent, organized, and professional beyond his years, so I highly encourage you all to audition, even though there will be no pay.

Auditions consisting of cold readings and political banter will be held Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, June 8-10

Evening auditions will be held each day from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. at the Poudre River Arts Center, 406 North College Ave., Fort Collins, CO (Northeast corner of Willow & N. College).  Use the east side exterior stairs and come up to the second level.

Daytime auditions will held Wednesday only at Bas Bleu Theatre, 401 Pine Street – Fort Collins, CO from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m.

Appointments are preferred but not necessary.  To make an appointment, call Gale McGaha Miller at 970-402-9140 or email her.

Working title: Political Justice

Projected runtime: 120 minutes

Synopsis: Gas station attendant Dale Roper is a political junkie and part-time speechwriter for a man he hates: Wyoming state senator Wilt Sturgeon (“Like the fish!” say all his campaign signs). When events conspire to launch Sturgeon as a candidate for Wyoming’s only Congressional seat, Dale winds up working both for and against Sturgeon in an attempt to save the nation from Wilt the Fish’s influence. As the election draws near and Dale is faced with cynicism and corruption on both sides, he is forced to decide which side he’s on—with potentially dire consequences.

Schedule:
May-June: Script revisions, casting, location scouting, rehearsals
July 5-6: Crew orientation, equipment check
July 7: Start of principal photography
August 5: Principal photography wraps

Featured cast breakdown is as follows.  Many roles are gender neutral and could go either way. Continue reading →

Yes, it’s the end of the semester and another crop of amazing animations is coming due. Here are two of my favorites:

Disfigurement Man: The Fear Wake by Vvinni Gagnepain. [via The Great and Powerful Henceblog]

Honestly, how could I not mention Disfigurement Man? It’s based on something I co-co-co-co-wrote at a Ministry of Playwriting meeting in (January?), and it was amazing then, but it’s even more amazing now. It reminds me a lot of the Dumbland series by David Lynch (and besides that, it’s got a vomiting dog!)

The Owl and the Squirrel by Nick Bachman. [via nickbachman.com]

If you have ever wished to see a neurotic owl in its natural habitat, this is the animation for you. I really, really wish this owl had its own Saturday morning TV show. Over the course of a season it could gradually waste away, give up hunting in favor of all-night coffee-and-nicotine binges and ultimately fall into the bottomless abyss of needle drugs.

I wanted to link to a couple wonderful animations by Owen Dennis, but they aren’t online. *sad*

Finally, notice the fancy new dynamic header image! Appreciate me! Love me! Accept me!

So I’ve started doing some preliminary revisions to the script. Not a full draft yet, just some quick fixes. Going through my current draft and reading the notes, I found this notation in the margin of page 86:

…so I’m working on that.

On a somewhat related topic, I will be back in Fort Collins TOMORROW! I will be making phone calls and hope to be receiving them as well because that is the point of what phones do: sometimes you dial them, and sometimes they just ring on their own. It’s sort of poetic, in a not-so-poetic sort of way.

We Love You So is a new blog by director Spike Jonze and some other people, presumably from the production office of the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are (October! Mark your calendars!) What appeals to me so much about it is that it isn’t a hey-everyone-look-at-our-production-stills sort of blog. In fact, most of the posts are only peripherally related to the actual film, but rather are just about people and things they think are cool, and the occasional glimpse into Jonze’s shoebox of photos and music videos.

Take, for instance, this music video for Mike Watt’s “Big Train,” published by Jonze under the heading “Videos that didn’t make it,” along with a note that the video was only aired once before Union Pacific threatened a lawsuit. Just watch to see why:

If you haven’t seen the trailer to Where the Wild Things Are, do yourself a favor and watch it right now.

[via /film]

Dear friends,

It is late at night, or early in the morning. I am editing on two computers at the same time. My current render will be finished in two minutes. The broccoli is restless.

That is all.

You see that, folks? That is 130 pages of script—the first complete draft of a project sparked by Greg a year and a half ago, inspired by an earlier fizzled collaborative project to write and produce a love story with teeth (this project being later and unintentionally fulfilled by 16 Heads and Counting), after which I hijacked it for my own nefarious purposes, to wit: getting class credit for the first 40 pages of a draft. Continue reading →

I just found this cute little photograph of my refrigerator from back when I was shooting Out the Window—one of the few, happy times in my life when I had more film than food:

Now that I’ve used up all that negative I keep a bag of potatoes on that bottom shelf, and I’m always a little disappointed when I see them. You’re a good food, potatoes, but you just can’t compete with Kodak.