Today is day 67, that means that Project 100 Days has successfully passed its two-thirds mark– a big slice of the chronological pie. Strike a Pose!!! Films is shooting a documentary on the training exercise, and it’s been an exciting honor to see these students make so much progress.
Here’s a brief clip from the doc, of teacher Fundi Weeks and student Robert Ramirez (remember him?) performing their two-man staff set routine, part of the training for 100 Days.
What is Project 100 Days, you might ask? Project 100 Days is the multimedia documentation of this time period, as captured by me, Dylan Hintz, and the students participating in the training system.
For those of you still uninformed, 100 Days is a training program put in place by Self Mastery System’s head instructor, Fundi John Weeks, that honors the monastic tradition. What does this
Essentially, 7 students of Self Mastery Systems, the Rockville-based Tai Chi/Shaolin Kung Fu/Yoga school, take part in a 100 day long training exercise in which they must complete a number of requirements on an every day basis. These include, but are not limited to:
Practicing everything they know every day
Increasing the total number of repetitions in certain exercises every week
Reinforcing their flexibility through numerous stretching exercises
Maintaining complete sobriety
and, possibly hardest restriction of all for the group of 18-28 year-olds?
Complete, 100% celibacy.
They are two thirds of the way in. How many students are still going? What challenges have they faced? You’d have to read the blog at Selfmasterysystems.org or see the upcoming documentary to find out. It’s been a hard road, but the path has been enlightening for those taking it, and STRIKE A POSE!!! Films has been there to document it since the first steps of the journey.
Students of SMS gathered together for their most recent Sash and Proficiency test.
As of yesterday I was officially wrapped for the Ocean City Webseries shoot with Valdean on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It was a wild 10-12 days (see- I can’t even keep track of the time!) but it was good solid, professional production work. I met a lot of really cool people who are already pros in the industry, and got to work hard with some of my colleagues from SU!
A longer blog post will be coming up soon, but for now, here’s a picture of myself, Travis Carr, Daniel Ulf, Matt Solomon, and the great Al Thompson on set for the untitled webseries we shot, from the creators of Johnny B. Homeless!
I figured since I haven’t posted anything in a few weeks I’d just shoot up a quick video I found infinitely amusing and see what happens.
Anyone who reads this site should know two of my biggest inspirations in film making are Aliens and Predator. It is my goal in the film industry to one day make a sci-fi movie just as good as either of those. I think we made a pretty decent start with our System Shock 2 Fan Film (IE– the mega-low-budget-one-tenth-as-long-version-of-PANDORUM, minus Dennis Quaid). Hopefully we’ll get another shot at something similar this year.
Well, here’s what happens when a mediocre video game comes out. Props go out to Escapistmagazine.com ‘s Zero Punctuation.
PS- JASPER CONROY is probably coming out next week. OOOOOOOOOOh.
Now that we’ve released a couple of really cool flicks, Strike a Pose!!! Films is getting more traffic than ever! Please keep up the fan support by posting a link to one of your favorite movies on Facebook! We already provided the button to do so for you!
On the other side of the plate, here’s a couple of quick personal updates about my life in the field:
Personal Work:
I’ve been putting a bit of effort into filming this little documentary for my martial arts school, Self Mastery Systems. Already over 10 hours of footage have been filmed and logged, including interviews, training, and various conversations. The project is super exciting and hopefully will come to fruition by the end of Summer 2010!
I’ve also been interning at the awesome Foreign Language video company, Peanutbutter. I’ve been working with another local filmmaker from Towson, who’s great music videos you can check out here. As for myself, I’ve been learning a lot of green screening and animation. Here’s a couple of video links to let you see some of the demo work the company has done:
Video Temporarily Down
Finally, this month’s slated film is going to be the FINAL version of Jasper Conroy: Salisbury Bounty Hunter, with fully-featured FX, thanks to John Ianuzzi (System Shock 2 SFX) and new music. Be sure to see the final cut here sometime by the end of this month!
Hopefully we have a couple of new scripts coming our way thanks to the uber-talented Tom Murphy. You can see some of his work on Youtube here. We’re looking to cast some new talent in these new projects, and speaking of which…
Contacts and Adventures:
So let’s say I’ve been scouting. A lot. Lot’s of new talent has been added to our contacts list, and if you’re reading this chances are you’re one of them. The game show I was on,Silver Screen Test, has provided me with a lot of great contacts in Montgomery Public Television, not to mention the other really cool two contestants I met (and matched considerable wits with!).
Also scouted some locations. I ended up wandering around in DC, trying to get home one night after an awesome performance witnessed by myself and Rob Moroney. The performer?Christopher Titus, a personal hero of mine, supplying not only his new standup, NEVERLUTION, but also his now-classic Love is Evol. It was tubular. I got in trouble with him cause I was in the first row and started speaking lines from the show before he could…oops. Here’s an embarrassing picture!
It was a great meeting and Titus was a cool dude. Hopefully someday we can get cast in one of our flicks. Who knows?!?! (/shameless shoutout).
I have also been INCREDIBLY fortunate to get on board a project for ValDean entertainment, the brilliant minds between Johnny B. Homeless and Lennox Ave., starring Al Thompson. Here’s a link about these conquistadors of the internet medium! They’re shooting a new series in Ocean City in late April, and I’ll be down there to help out as an “Assistant Producer”. Excitement, hooooo!
Finally, here’s a list of movies I’ve recently watched, and some quick words:
IN THEATERS:
Book of Eli– Excellent Post Apocalyptic Sci Fi actioneer with an ANTI ORGANIZED STUPIDITY story. Definitely check it out. Thoughts?
Shutter Island– Best thriller I’ve seen in ages. Even though you know the ending that is coming, it still wallops you with its dramatic reveal and realization that maybe, sometimes the truth is so bad you don’t want to know it after all.
How to Train Your Dragon (3D)– A charming kids movie that ends like Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Do NOT waste money on seeing this in 3D. This is purely a great 2D spectacle with a few charming moments and video game like ending.
ON DVD:
Frost/Nixon– I kinda put this one aside during last years Oscar’s, and I really wish the Academy hadn’t. This is the kind of movie that would have gone up well against The Hurt Locker this year.
SO much going on! It’s hard to keep up with it all. If there is anything you think I missed, lemme know, and I’ll put it up in the next post!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I now present to you, Line of Sight: A Peregrine Saga Tale.
CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE THE FULL VIDEO!
Here are some behind the scenes insights, sorta a reflection if you will:
Nearly three years ago, I ordered a new camera off BHPhotovideo, my dependable and incredibly versatile PVGS500. Needing to test out its capabilities my friends Sam Anderson, Robert Ramirez, Robert Novich, and Damien McCoy set out to make a couple of movies. We came up with some quick scripts, one of which was the almost entirely improvised Clarity, and the other was LINE OF SIGHT, a prototype chapter in the epic Peregrine Saga that STRIKE A POSE!!! Films has planned for a future independent feature release. The first demo of which was the third movie I ever made, Locked Blades (parts 1 and 2), also starring Robert Ramirez.
Line of Sight is a culmination of many genres, and in that sense sort of hits a “kitchen sink” niche, a-la Japanese action movies, American Westerns, kung fu flicks, and to an extent the post-apocalyptic sci fi fantasy genre. I’d say my biggest influences are Sergio Leone, Ryuhei Kitamura, Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Gordon Liu, and Luc Besson.
Regardless of what genre the series fits into, The Peregrine Saga contains the themes of morality tales and finding a place in a world where many must start from scratch to succeed. In this sense, it’s almost a post-post-apocalyptic tale, wherein the world has started over, and its people have forgotten its past.
A lot of other firsts happened with this movie. We found a brand new beautiful location in Montgomery County to shoot. Robert Novich had his first starring role, while Sam Anderson had his first supporting after a long track of the vice-versa. Robert Ramirez performed his first choreography for the group, and in the three years since has sharpened his skills studying Kung Fu and Tai Chi with Self Mastery Systems.
What the shoot culminated in was something the complete opposite of Clarity- a sparsely dialogued action pursuit film with three short choreographed fights and a fantasy-styled intro prologue. For the most part, we think it worked.
In any case, here it is, after three long years, premiering on the internet for the first time for the whole world to potentially see. We hope you enjoy it, and thank you for supporting the actors and crew. They took a lot of hits to the head to provide you with these 8 and a half minutes of entertainment.
