Delimerence and Future Feature Future Date

I recently went through a breakup that left me almost paralyzingly depressed. I was also coming off the heels of a long post production process with my short Godzilla Party. That one hadn’t done as well as I had hoped so I went into the pandemic feeling creatively bankrupt. I decided for my next movie I wanted to return to basics. I slowly started to craft a story in my head. It was understatement to say that the breakup was on my mind. It got me thinking about the other breakups I had gone through and the funny, but depressing stories that had come from it. I decided to mash them together to make a simple short that I could make within the confines of covid restrictions.I finally shot the movie on Halloween weekend of 2020 after months of rewrites and rehearsals. It was made with a crew of only two people running camera (Nate Elegino) and sound (Y.J. Gold) with me and Grace Su as actors. Liz Flores did the production design decorating my apartment with a understated but charming valentine decor. It was also my first time shooting with top of the line cinema lenses (Arri Master Primes!)Despite such a simple shoot I ran into a ton of problems. The outdoor scenes had a ton of noise because neighbors were having an outdoor party, sprinklers turned on just as we were ready to roll on a particular scene, and the camera stopped recording for a solid 2-3 hour chunk of one day. A majority of the movie is just me and Grace’s coverage at the table and we performed the whole thing as a single 10-15 minute take and only had enough time to do it twice each. I worked with an amazing editor (James Fitzpatrick), colorist (Taylor Mahoney), sound designer (Brielle Achterhof), and vfx person (Marco van den Bogaard) who added a ton of polish to the movie. It’s by far the best looking movie I’ve made.I’ve always been experimenting with genre and tone with my work. I wanted to explore the sadness that usually goes behind comedy. I think it got closest with this movie. I only had two public screenings of the movie. One where the crowd erupted in laughter and another where they were stunned in silence. I feel like I can't ask for anything more. It didn’t do very well in the festival circuit, but I’m extremely proud of this movie. I’m happy to release it online now for people to see. Feel free to check it out and share if you enjoyed it. Be also on the lookout for my new feature Future Date that I’ve been very busy with the last year or so. We’re also trying to do a crowdfunding campaign to help with post production if anyone is willing to help out on that. Will try to make updates as they come up.

 

"Backflip off of wall" Retrospective

 

Getting back to posting about some of my old videos again. This is the second video on my account. This was a random night being bored at the LSU dorms my freshman year. I don't know why, but while completely sober me and my friends decided to see if we could do a backflip off the wall. We did no research on how to do it properly. We just went outside and tried to see if we could do it. 

 

I think I was the only one who actually tried. My thinking was that I needed to try to run up the wall as much as possible and then spring off the wall to pull off the flip. This clearly did not work and I only found out later that what I did was almost the complete opposite of what you're supposed to do.

I didn't get hurt attempting any of these. I actually did it like 5-6 times, but this one was the funniest one. I cut before I get up and brush myself off, ready to go again. I remember my uncle saw the video and thought it was really stupid and asked me "Do you think that's what courage is?" I just looked at him plainly and said "Yes."

 

I never did try doing a backflip off the wall again. But I do think it took courage to just go outside and just try it for no reason. It's also very stupid too, but sometimes there's a bit of overlap.