2003: Eviction Notice

Date of Creation: 2003

Via Dan.

Synopsis: Eric and Bill are roommates.  As Bill becomes worse and worse in that relationship, Eric decides to do what he must; Get rid of Bill.

A Brief History: Film 1 is the time in a young man's life when he gets the chance to do what he's always wanted, but then remembers he doesn't have words, sound, or even image quality to get a story across.  Harlan Ellison would cringe at the following statement, but this, at it's core, is a Merry Melody.  A cartoon.  My film professor at the time commented "I do not think this is a very believable story".

Featuring stellar performances by both Eric Enger and Bill Parmentier, a quick amazing performance by our friend Jamahl and his dog, i still really like this once it gets going.  Some of the gags don't work or have the right payoff, but i still think the ending is one of my favorites.

At the time of the making of this film, I was not even living with roommates, so not only is this not autobiographical, it has no basis in reality.  It should be noted that well after this was made, Bill did actually become my roommate...

..Luckily, he never found that box labeled "Property U.S. Government"

2002: The Impresario

Date of Creation: 2002

Via Dan.

Synopsis: A filmmaker struggles to create the Greatest Movie Ever Made, but with no ideas, he turns to his friends, then his muse.

A Brief History: By senior year in High School, we had begun attending film festivals and seeing other work out there.  The impresario was an attempt to make fun of some of the pretentious nonsense we were seeing.  It became, rather, an excuse to give homage to some of our favorite movies and filmmakers at the time, ranging from the obvious; Welles to musicals, Gene Kelly, war movies, etc.

Funny thing about it was that I really didn't have any ideas for a project, and so it exists as this parallel to actually not knowing what to do, and making a film about that.  It also serves as an excellent retrospective of almost all of our friends at the time and features pyrotechnics, an action scene specifically directed by Nick, cameo by Mr. Mike Wall, and much much more.

Missing from this cut is an ending scene where The Impresario, struck with his lack of good ideas, stumbles upon a burning script in a trash can.  That script; "The Impresario".  Crazy, right?  So not pretentious...

2003: Return of the Rival Guns of Fortune

Date of Creation: 2003

Synopsis: When the discovery of a hidden family secret results in the abduction of a daughter, two rival duos compete to find her before it's too late. And before the other team gets there. And they'll kill each other, apparently. Because they're that serious about winning.

A Brief History: So this was our first involvement with the National Film Challenge, which is essentially the 48 hour film challenge, except national and you have 72 hours to write, shoot, edit and submit your film.

You are assigned a genre, so we, of course were assigned the hardest one: western. We took it in stride though, and found every cowboy-related piece of costuming and paraphernalia we could and slapped it together.

We shot for almost 24 hours straight after spending the first 6 hours of the night writing. I don't remember much else, except that there's a 40 minute documentary on the DVD that everyone who worked on it should've received, so if you really want to know literally everything that went into this thing, that's your best bet.

We did win "best cars" and best in central time zone, as well as finishing in the top ten nationally.

Looking back at this again, after a long time, I have come to the conclusion that Dale is exceptionally gross in this film.