Here are a few of the movies I made in high school. Although I managed to stick my fingers into many others, these three are some of the ones of which I can be credited for writing, directing, and editing. Like most of my stuff so far, they rely on technical gimmicks to keep your attention. The first two ("The Maltese Conundrum" and "Blackout") feature sinister, animated stick men who have been super-imposed onto live action footage with Flash. "The Red Hair Scare" was an excuse to see what I could do with the blue foam-board wall I built in my basement.
These were the good old days of "MC squared," a pseudo production company I formed with my friends Mark Mullaney, Billy Mullaney, and Jim Christenson to compile and sell all of our short films we'd made within the past few years. Financially, it was a successful little business venture. We held a screening in the school auditorium one evening and managed to sell all the dvds we brought. A modest profit was turned, and it was one of the first times when I got the feeling that I could actually make a living at this stuff.
First Came "The Maltese Conundrum," a relatively one-man production I did when I was a freshman. My sister's ibook was the only editing machine available to me at the time, so I ended up making this with IMovie and a 30 day trial version of Flash.
Sophmore year saw a little boost of editing potential with a new computer, so I decided to have another go at the green folk to see if I could polish up some of the technical no-no's of the last one. The result, "Blackout," is a story about a sinister candle that lays eggs. Thankfully, a new version of Flash was released about a week or so before I was about to start filming, so I was able to get my hands on another 30 day trial. The editing program I used at the time, Adobe Premiere, was also a 30-day trial. Sort of sets a deadline to keep you on track. I've divided the movie into two parts to cooperate with youtube.
"The Red Hair Scare" came along during junior year, a time when I was particularly seduced by the lure of Visual effects. Seeing as how I'd received some decent feedback from The Maltese Conundrum and Blackout, I decided I'd have to step up my game technically to get the same kind of effect. Basically, I had this bluescreen in my basement, and I wanted to use it. Everything else was built around the effects shots. George Lucas would be proud. Although it may not look like it, waaaaay more time and energy went into making this movie than the other two combined, most of it being spent keeping poorly lit bits of the blue wall from popping up during an effects shot. I had three strikes against me when it came to the bluescreen: the blue paint itself was not completely blue, my only light source was one fluorescent ceiling fixture, and I was shooting with a digital 8 format handycam. For all the trouble, I think I would have been better off putting the same amount of time into more epic stickman battles.
For some bizarre reason, I made no movies senior year. Odd...
