S E P T E M B E R   1 4 ,   2 0 1 0

SUMMER WRAP-UP
How was your summer? Mine was productive. Most recently, I participated in the Los Angeles version of The 48 Hour Film Project, where teams of filmmakers conceive, write, cast, shoot, and edit a short over the course of one weekend. You may remember that I did this in 2009 as a director. That film, Double Feature, won the Audience Award. This year I was the screenwriter (the short was directed by my own Party Pooper star Dom Zook). Once again, we won the Audience Award. It's a good team! The film is called Chick Flick. It's a comedy about, well, two women in chicken suits. Erika Godwin, who's appeared in several of my recent shorts, stars along with Brianne René and Dian Bachar, a cult actor whom you may have seen in the live action features made by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I probably won't put this short up on this site, since I just wrote it, but you can find it on YouTube.

In other news, I recently did some writing work on the Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy The Other Guys. No, I wasn't a screenwriter on the project, but the film's end credits, which have received a surprising amount of media attention, center around a series of infographics about Wall Street chicanery. I researched and wrote most of those statistics. My first big-screen Hollywood movie! I didn't get a credit, but the fine folks at Picture Mill, who designed and animated those infographics, made sure to mention me in interviews. There's a really good article about the credits (including a video) here. Enjoy! I worked again with Picture Mill on the opening credits of an upcoming studio comedy. I'll talk about that after it's been released. Meanwhile, I'm still doing what I can to get a new feature going, and slowly moving forward with plans for a new short.

M A Y   8 ,   2 0 1 0

WIN SOME, LOSE SOME
I'm pleased to announce that I won the DateCheck $1,000 Dream Date video contest! I have to thank everybody who watched my little one-minute video and voted for it. I only won this contest because of the massive support from friends, and friends of friends. Unfortunately, I did not win the "Balsamic Blowout" video contest, as the sponsors' judges preferred a clever, high-quality rap video instead. So I didn't score that trip to Italy, but it was still fun to make my little cartoon, and the winning video was a worthy competitor. In the end, I'd say that any one of about four videos could have won this contest. None of us was better or worse than the other three, only different; like a director choosing between talented actors during the casting process, the judges simply had to decide which approach to go with, and hip hop beat animation.

Speaking of actors and European holidays, you might wonder by looking at this photo if I went globetrotting with Claustrophobia star Mary Lynn Rajskub, but in fact I randomly bumped into her at the Los Angeles airport when my wife Miki and I were embarking on our vacation to Spain, a day after my birthday. A crazy coincidence! Mary Lynn was on her way to New York to promote the finale of her popular TV show 24. I must say, though she now has considerably more fame and fortune than she had when we worked together way back in 2002 (could it really be eight years now?), she hasn't forgotten her old director, and was very warm and friendly. It's good to know that Hollywood success doesn't change everybody.

A P R I L   1 5 ,   2 0 1 0

ANOTHER CONTEST, ANOTHER ANIMATED SHORT
Even as I wait to hear the results of that DateCheck video contest (see previous update), I have entered another contest. This one's sponsored by a gourmet food distributor called Zingerman's. The rules of the contest: Make a short video about balsamic vinegar. The prize: A trip for two to Italy! I had a lot of fun making my DateCheck cartoon, so I returned to Photoshop and After Effects for some more animated shenanigans, starring a couple of bottles of vinegar. [2011 UPDATE: I used to have a link to the video on YouTube here, but have since taken the video down. If you're dying to see it, let me know.]

On the legitimate film front, I just got some good news: Little Lotto, the short I wrote last November, was just accepted into the International Film Festival Ireland. As I was just the lowly screenwriter, I do not believe I will be asked to go to Ireland to represent. But it's a great honor, and I hope it will lead to even more festivals for this lovely little film.

M A R C H   1 7 ,   2 0 1 0

A NEW ANIMATED SHORT
In something of a flashback to the 2006 Getty Images short film competition I entered (and won!), I recently found out about a video contest called DateCheck Dream Date. It's sponsored by a dating service, but that's okay - I liked the idea, which was to make a 60-second video describing what I would do if I could spend a thousand dollars on a date. If I win, I get that thousand dollars! The sponsors were encouraging entrants to simply upload webcam videos of themselves talking about their dream date, but I took it a few steps further and actually created an animated film, with my own voiceover and cartoon likeness. This is the first animated short I've made since college, and I'm proud of it. [2011 UPDATE: The original link for this video has been removed, as the contest is over. However, the sponsors still have a copy of it up on YouTube, and you can watch it here.]

I'll update you all in a couple of weeks when the contest is over and I'll tell you how I did. Another video contest is looming on the horizon, and I plan to make an animated short for that as well. More on that later.

F E B R U A R Y   2 2 ,   2 0 1 0

RON AND NANCY HAVE ARRIVED!
Last week I finally finished editing my new short comedy Ron and Nancy, after many, many hours of After Effects and Final Cut work. I'm proud of the results and I hope you will find it entertaining. After several lengthy attempts at uploading the HD video to various sites, I've decided that good old YouTube is the venue with the best video quality. So I will direct you there now. Click here to watch Ron and Nancy! If you enjoy it, I'd appreciate a Thumbs-Up from you on YouTube. And I'd really appreciate it if you could share the link with your friends. I'm trying to get a lot of people to see this film. Why? Well, duh. But I do think it's very funny, and actors Erika Godwin and Tyler Rhoades have put in wonderful work that deserves to be seen.

Meanwhile, Little Lotto, the 35-minute film that I wrote last November, has now been completed. I have yet to see the final version but I'm told that it is good. As I mentioned last month, if the film plays at any festivals, I will report it here. What's most important about the film's completion is that the people who made the film happen are really, really happy with it, and keen to talk about moving forward with a feature-length motion picture. It's way too early to know what my involvement with this feature might be, if anything, but naturally I'll keep you updated.

J A N U A R Y   1 8 ,   2 0 1 0

WHERE ARE RON AND NANCY?
Happy 2010 to you. It already seems like a year of sadness and trouble in the world, but you can rest assured that at least I am still here and still making movies. Though I must apologize for not finishing my new short comedy Ron and Nancy by the end of 2009, as I had promised. In November and December I got a ton of freelance work, which took me away from the project for a while. There were the usual design gigs, but I was also hired to write a screenplay. It is for a "featurette" - for I can't really call a 35-to-40-minute film a "short" - tentatively titled Little Lotto. It's a family drama about a blind priest who habitually buys one lottery ticket each week. When he loses a ticket one Saturday afternoon, he shrugs it off - until he later discovers that it's worth $58.5 million. Unbeknownst to him, however, the ticket is found by a young member of his congregation who doesn't know who bought the ticket. It's a story about ethical decisions, and I think it turned out rather well. It was produced and directed by my good friend Brian McLaughlin, who shot it in the Chicago area last month. Brian had originally asked me to direct it, but I didn't want to be in Chicago in the winter, especially when I had so many other projects that I was working on at home. But I'm happy to say that I was actually paid for my script, something I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to say again. The film is now in post production and I have high hopes for it. If it plays in any venue where you can see it, I will let you know.

Now my time has freed up and I am working on some of Ron and Nancy's surprisingly complicated special effects shots before I dive into the actual editing. The shots, goofy as they may be, are turning out well, but with just me and After Effects on my rickety old computer, it's a slow journey. It is certainly my intention, though, that when I check in here again, it will be after the film is finished and ready for your viewing pleasure.

Copyright © Mark Tapio Kines 2012