Archive for Other Film Makers

Earlier in November I got to live out a career-long dream:

Dylan vs John Soares

Fight with my professional hero, John Soares.

It required two 16 hour-long bus rides, and a lot of coffee, but it was definitely one of the most fulfilling experiences of said career so far. There’s a lot going into this story that I do want to share. But if you can’t get to the end, let me just say I am incredibly grateful to John for giving me this opportunity, to Cassie for being welcoming and fun to work with (and for her BAD ASS camera work!), and their friend John Wall who helped out on the set and kept us going with BTS videos and footage when it started to get cold.

Not to mention every other single person along the way these last ten years who helped make this possible. I hope I manage to mention you in this post. Because this marks something special: This is the final blog post for Strike a Pose!!! Films.com, and if you are so inclined, please feel free to read it.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a collaboration with Matthew Merback (the man who would be Dresden), some excellent film makers in the Colorado region, and with permission from Jim Butcher himself, I present you, our teaser for COLD DAYS – A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

Be sure to check it out on YouTube and read the description for all your cast and credit information! Links to the book and more can be found there.

In the meantime, some back story:

I’ve been reading The Dresden Files since my freshman year at college. The series of novels quickly grew into my favorite, with riveting characters and incredible adventures, all told from the film-noir styled first person perspective of Chicago’s craziest urban Wizard, Harry Dresden.

Since then, I’ve been dying to create something based on it in the film medium, and through my conversations and lots of pushing by my long-distance pal, Matthew Merback (Dresden), we managed to do a cross-country collab that, hopefully, will give us the opportunity to create more like this in the future!

With that in mind, creating this video was no easy task! Though it was shot on an iPhone 4S (not ideal) and edited in Sony Vegas, using a graphic imported from Maya (a program I’ve NEVER used, again, not ideal!), and co-directed by myself, from across the country, with only a prototype pre-viz to work off of (you can check that out exclusively here!) , it seemed doomed from the start.

But Matthew pushed me, we stuck through it, and well, I can’t say I’m unhappy with the final product. How could I be unhappy with it, when the author himself has had some positive things to say? I can’t be terribly specific, but I will use one word the author sent our way:

“Groovy” – Jim Butcher. 

That’s about all I needed to hear.

Cold Days Dresden Files

As of today, November 5th 2012, the strikeaposefilms.com website is officially 6 years old!

Not as much to show off as last year, what with the crazy Max Action meets Dylan video, STRIKE A POST, but heck, we’ve had a lot of stuff happening behind the curtains, mostly related to my acting and film career, but there have been a few other surprise things going on we can’t talk about just yet!

One thing we can talk about : Expect an update to this website in the next couple of months. I’ve been learning a lot about web development and CSS/Wordpress template building at my job at 270net Technologies, so hopefully I’ll be able to apply them to the site soon! (You might notice that the nav bar is err…not in the right place!).

Point is, expect a flood of updates – I’ve done lots of random client work, so you’ll see some packages and docs, a couple of short entertainment pieces, a post about the Lightsaber Choreography Contest entry I did with Apsis Motion pictures, and like I said, some updates on my stunt and acting career.

I will also probably be making a page on this site dedicated to my freelance video production work, including portfolio and contact information. Any tips on that is appreciated!

So with the updates rolling in (and yes, hopefully Bite the Hand coming soon…wow it’s been a year since I made THAT promise!) we will be creating a cleaner, more SEO driven site with re-uploaded video content. IE – I will probably re-export a lot of my old videos and upload them to YouTube to free up server space and, again increase SEO for the website (and our YouTube page, which is over 50,000 views without almost any internet marketing!).

Also:

We are still looking for a film critic to submit guest reviews to the website, as well as people looking to speak up on local (or global!) industry news.  And while Strike a Pose Films has been the home for the DC Stunt Coalition updates as of recently, soon we should have a new place to call home for that intel.

There’s a lot we can do with this website, as there’s already a lot of content on it, so there’s no reason not to continue with updates, new content, and better optimization.

If you’d like to help with the rising success of our work, and keep it relevant (like Gangnam style!) please be sure to share the Strike a Pose!!! Films Facebook page on your facebook, google, or whatever! Our fan level is rising, but we need more support!

Be sure to check back a week from now. I’m sure I’ll have something up by then!

Thanks,
The Management

Over the last 3 months I have been working intensely with rising short film and web content producers Apsis Motion Pictures. In the past, we had done some pretty nifty stuff- from a hilarious fight scene in The Bridge 3, to a weirdly comic split personality monologue by me in Strike a Post. Recently, The Reclaimation of Louis Ledbetter hit the internet to much approval, but little did most people know we had another project up our sleeves, going through post and priming for release. So now, on this July 4th of 2012, we’d like to present you with our sci-fi western epic action short, “The Frontiersman”-  short film about liberty, self reliance, and killing bandits!

This was my first leading action hero role in a short film. Typically I play the villain or some creepy supporting guy. Those are always fun, but to put myself to the test (and in those boots!) was really a great step up for me personally. While technically I am an anti-hero and do have a very dark beat, it’s still a big first for me, and has been something I’ve been hoping to do since I started acting and training in martial arts and fights 3 years ago. Theodorus Collins was a great character to play around in, and I look forward to doing more with APSIS.

Vicki Parks in Frontiersman

Many thanks go out to the wonderful cast: Vicki Parks, Abigail from Ninjas Vs. Monsters, was great to share on-screen chemistry with and helped me prep my character. Her performance was fantastic and really brought something new into the mix of our typically masculine driven projects. Can’t wait to get her in front as an action star herself.

I also was responsible for the action and fight choreography, as well as stunt coordination. Thankfully I managed to wrangle the best cast I could ask for! HUGE thanks to the stunt team we assembled. As you can tell by Louis Ledbetter, we’ve been fortunate to keep many of these guys around- and we hope to present you with more action sequences (and heck– dramatic ones!) featuring the amazing talents of these guys:

Kurt Skarstedt (lead villain of Ninjas Vs. Vampires and Browncoats: Redemption)
Gary Van Peebles
Dan Carter (From the Assassins Creed Kinect Video)
Robert Novich
Stephon Reynolds (from Nuclear Cowboyz and Six Flags America)
Julio Palacios
Orion Dye
Samuel Slater
Bruce Dwayne (Duanne Barbour of Cloud Eagle)

Each of them provided something unique to the video, whether it was a dynamic look, an incredible stunt flip, a great presence during a fight sequence, or some unexpected acting chops that really added flavor to the scene. If it wasn’t for these guys, this movie wouldn’t have worked and I KNOW they made me look good! Wrapped in fantastic costume design by Denise Loukus of Apsis Motion Pictures Costuming, we had a full house of bandits that rivaled any of the best episodes of Firefly or the craziest action moments of the video game, Borderlands.

Speaking of great looks- the prop and weapon design by Tyr Rollins was unique and awesome! Custom guns for a fantastic group of characters thanks to our awesome producer!

And as always Joel Loukus, a brilliant director and VFX artist, created such a wonderful rhythm in post that you never feel bored! (I hope!)

Music featuring tracks:

“Kilkelly” Cover by Jason McCann, Song by Peter Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXTtbZ_v5q4
“Conquest” by Stephen M Lloyd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLvsS6o0hJY

So thanks for all the brilliant work from the cast and crew! Be sure to keep an eye out for our next video: A huuuuuge samurai swordfight set in the Star Wars universe!

This Wednesday, Apsis Motion Pictures participated in this year’s 48 hour film festival in Baltimore. Our film, The Reclaimation of Louis Ledbetter, premiered on the big screen to a rousing reception by the audience. The film is now available for view on the group’s YouTube Page, but I’ll put it up here for you to check out as well.

Each team is assigned a genre, along with three requirements that are announced on Friday evening, and the teams have until the following Sunday evening to turn in a 4-7 minute film. The required elements for this film were:

Character: Louis Ledbetter, Neighborhood Busybody (Played by the brilliant Paul R. Sieber of  Bite the Hand)
Prop: Dog collar
Line: “If you want me, you know where to find me.”

The Genre that we pulled out of a hat was “Dark Comedy”

Directed by Joel Loukus, Produced by Tyr Rollins, Stunt Coordination by Dylan Hintz, Costumes by Denise Loukus

The Reclaimation of Louis Ledbetter starring Paul R. Sieber

Starring:
Dylan Hintz, Paul Sieber, Jasmine Guillermo, Tyr Rollins, Samuel Slater, Dan Carter, Anthony D Paul, Robert Novich, Kristy Holnaider, Lexxiana Zolliafter

Be sure to find and like Apsis Motion Pictures on Facebook!