Once Again, Where Have I Been?

So I did it again, fell off of the face of the Earth, but once again I had some very good reasons. Not only was I on set for a role in the feature film, Valley of the Rats, but (and this is what's really been taking up my time) I've been directing my first short film! (which I also wrote and star in) The title of this brief horror flick is Ready to Burst and things are going quite well so far. We're in post production which is much speedier than I'd expected and everything is looking way more awesome than I could have ever hoped it would.

A bit more about the film, it's horror of course with a bit of a sci-fi element and is a co-production between Bad Cookie Pictures and Off World Pictures. It follows Kate as she and her boyfriend Dylyn try to bring a new life into this world, although it might take more than Kate bargained for. I usually describe it as Rosemary's Baby meets Alien with a dose of body horror thrown in for good measure. We've got some awesome creatures FX by Carolyn Williams and our director of photography/editor is Jordan Barnes-Crouse. The awesome producers who kept me from going crazy so far are Christopher Graham (also our production designer) and Cecilia Yus Cornejo (queen of logistics and paperwork). I also was able to cast amazing actors - Lee Shorten (of The Man in the High Castle fame), Malcolm Stead and Gigi Saul Guerrero (of Luchagore Productions).

These two photos were taken by Sam Stringer.

As for my first experience of being the leader on set, it was surprisingly great. Seeing my vision come to life in some of the shots almost brought me to tears. We actually managed to stay almost entirely on schedule for the whole shoot which was amazing since some of the days we only had our location for a limited amount of time. We also had our share of problem solving on set the biggest of which was losing a location the day before we were supposed to shoot there and having to find a new location while we were on set. It's moments like that in which you are thankful for awesome producers. We managed to find another location and I think the film is better for it.

This and the next 4 shots were all taken by Bren MacDonald.

The cast and crew on Day 4 before we wrapped.

I'll do my best to keep the blog updated as the film gets completed, but I'm also moving so I might fall off the face of the Earth again while that's all going on.