We just got word last night that our Short fantasy film "The Tooth Hurts" will be shown at the Best of Portland 48 Hour Film Project showing on Monday August 25th at the Hollywood Theater. We have yet to know if we have won any awards for the short film, but will hopefully know on Monday night. Thanks to everyone who took the time to watch the film and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Update: 09/18/2008
After the screening of The Tooth Hurts at the hollywood theatre, they announced that we won "Best Graphics" for the 2008 48 Hour Film Project Portland.  Thanks to everyone who worked on this, it was a ton of fun!!

A tragic event occurred yesterday in our backyard pool. Although it is not deep enough for a human to drown in, it certainly was for this poor little bird, I thought the girls would be sad to see such thing but instead Kaitlyn thought it was a really cool thing to see and yelled for her sister to come out and see the dead bird. Lexis was just baffled on how the bird could have drown and didn't care much more about it so went back inside. Kaitlyn and I did what was best for the little bird which was to put it in a ziploc bag and throw it in the trash.

Let us all have a moment of silence for the family of this bird... Peace be with you bird in your journey to the dump.

We finished the 48 Hour Film Project this weekend with a couple hours to spare and I have to say that I had a lot of fun making this film. Like I mentioned in the previous blog entry, I wasn't sure how I would do with not being the producer, but I actually enjoyed not having the additional stress of producing. The producer (Jonathan Wiggins) was really easy to work with and gave me a lot of creative freedom, which was wonderful. I was able to really focus on shooting the film and sound as much as possible. I expect to work with him again in the near future and we have already been in discussion about a "next" project. The one role I was not planning on performing was the directing of the film. Originally, Jonathan was going to direct, but as the movie went on, I ended up falling into that role which was fine with me since I have done it in the past.

The Highs and Lows.
Highs for the weekend include shooting at Dr. Dale Marcum's office where we just had a great time laughing at the easter bunny cracking joke after joke. We did not include a lot of the content we got from that location, but there was some good stuff.  Another high point for me was watching Lexis act. She really was professional about being a part of this film, and I can tell already that she is ready for another role, so my next short I will try to write her into it. And finally, just watching Matt in a fairy outfit walking down a sidewalk with a bunny was just plain funny.They even got whistled at by a few locals

Lows would include the normal lack of sleeping a lot and a little saturday morning tiredness where no one was ready to work yet. We also had some costume issues just trying to find the right stuff for the characters. The Tu-Tu you see the fairy wearing in was hand-made by Erik.

You can click here or on The Tooth Hurts logo image to watch the film.

This weekend for the first time, I will be doing the 48 Hour Film project not as the producer or director, but as the Director of Photography and editing for another team called "Meaty Films" from Salem Oregon.  This will be a big change for me as I am normally used to being the one in charge, so it should be a good weekend. Originally, we were going to have our own team (Filmworkz) enter, but due to some last minute schedule changes, we would have not been able to get a whole team together. So instead of dropping it completely, Erik Dake and myself joined a team of tech's/geeks from Salem. 

Wish us luck this weekend, and stay tuned for the film to be posted on the website. Also, this film will be shown at the Hollywood theater on August 13th.

Well, many of you who know us well, know that my Grandfather Dale Ross passed away this last week at the age of 82.  Right now it is 5:45am, and we are heading down to Florence, OR to go to his memorial service.  I just finished his Slideshow last night, and it is short and sweet, but should be good for the service.  Today, I will be shooting the memorial service for those family members who could not make it and will post it online later.

Click on the picture to the right to watch the slideshow.

Being a huge Guillermo Del Toro fan I went to this movie tonight trying to be objective with regards to his past movies. If you don't know who Guillermo is, then it's likely that you have not seen Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del fauno), which is one of my top 10, maybe even top 5 favorite movies of all time.  There is an amazing beauty to the style of characters, the sets, and music chosen for his films that gives it a unique look and feel.

Before you go to see Hellboy II with any high expectations, I must warn you right off the bat that this movie is cheesy and rightly so because it is based on a comic book. It does an amazing job of combining Fantasy, comedy, sci-fi, drama, adventure and tons of action which will definitely not work for everyone's taste. You can almost say that this style of movie is almost an acquired taste. :) The action in the film is un-explainable because of its bigger than life fights mixed with the martial arts speed and accuracy of masters like Bruce or Jet Lee.

For anyone in the market for a visually stunning masterpiece that is utterly off the wall, with a self-aware character, you must watch this movie. Although it is rated PG-13, I would say for most families, it is more in the PG rating because of the violence in the film. 

Recommended: Absolutely Yes
Rating: 8.5/10

Along with a few other goals this year, we (viri and I) have decided that its time to get caught up on watching our extensive movie collection. So, Viri and I have started watching movies 1-9, then A-Z of our "to be watched" movie list. Today we start with a movie called "2:37", which was an interesting film but unfortunately flawed on so many levels.  This movie essentially copied the wonderfully done movie "Elephant" by Gus Van Sant (a local portland director) and butchered it into a suicidal, teen drama which portrayed a very sick modern youth. Not to say that our youth isn't sick.

The saddest part about this movie is the reality that these kids exist in today's schools. This movie is about a suicide that takes place near the beginning of the movie and they take us back to the beginning of the day to see how everything unfolds. You get to see that sadly any of the eight or so students could have easily been suicidal. The homosexual, the bulimic girl, the raped sister, the jock, and the kid who wet's his pants due to having dual urethra's make this somewhat intriguing to find out the result.  Unfortunately it's painfully slow, and you had better have a red-bull with you to stay awake through it's entirety. The nice thing about this movie is the shock of who did end up being the one, and that this movie is a dedication to that person who died at 2:37pm.  Overall, I would recommend just skipping this movie and watching something a little less depressing.

Recommended: No (See Elephant instead)
Rating: 5/10