Overview

FUTURE PROJECTS
"Mac & Chez" - 2024 - Short comedy. A section of "Chef on the Run". Producer/Assistant Director. Written/Directed by Joey Bauer.
Shoot dates set for June 2024.

"Chef on the Run" - 2024 - A series of vignettes. Communally directed. In development.

"Angler Man" - TBD - Feature drama. Written/Directed by Joey Bauer. In development.

"Skybox" - 2025 - Feature drama. Co-writer/Director. Co-written by Hannah Shuman. In development.

"Dick Pick" - TBD - Feature drama/comedy. Writer/Director. In research phase.

COMPLETED PROJECTS
"Necking" - 2024 - Short fantasy/romantic comedy. Writer/Director/Producer. In post-production.

"Post Mortem" - 2023 - Short gross-out thriller.  Producer/Assistant Director. Directed by Grace Dominguez. In post-production.

"Lorelai" - 2022 - Short food-gore drama. Writer/Director/Producer. In post-production.

"...and Blood!" - 2022 - Short zombie action/comedy. Writer/Director/Producer. Viewable on YouTube or Vimeo.

"Guts" - 2021 - Short surreal zombie drama. Writer/Director/Producer. Viewable here.

"Kin" - 2019 - Short narrative drama. Producer/Assistant Director. Directed by Mila Zuo.

"Don't Call Me Rebecca" - 2019 - Short coming-of-age fantasy/drama. Writer/Director/Producer. Viewable here.

"An Interview with Marty Flynn" - 2017 - Short political mockumentary. Writer/Director/Producer.

​"Depot" - 2016 - Short psychological thriller. Writer/Director/Producer. Viewable here. 

Production Journal

POST MORTEM
2023
Producer, 1st AD
Written and Directed by Grace Dominguez

Synopsis

Sarah finds herself at a loss when her husband unexpectedly passes away. Through unconventional methods, Sarah is able to reclaim a part of her that she lost.

Short Narrative Film

In post-production.

Director Grace Dominguez wanted POST MORTEM to feel like a '90s film shot on tape, accompanied by broken electronic music, all tinged with the feeling of faded analog technology. 20-year-old Grace pitched the short film to the CAFC crew in the Summer of 2022, and after a table read of the disturbing and wildly unique story (one involving necrophilia, maggots, and a lot of milk), it was immediately put on the schedule.

We shot on a modern camera (a Sony PXW-Z90V), but used a VHS transfer system to achieve the desired video quality. The VHS transfer involved a two-step digital to analog and subsequent analog to digital conversion process. The original HD footage was re-recorded directly from the HD camera onto a blank VHS tape utilizing a digital-to-analog a/v converter. That "degraded" VHS tape was then played back and "re-captured" digitally to a computer utilizing an analog-to-digital converter, enabling the crew to edit the film in the more familiar and modern digital editing environment.

LORELAI
2022
Writer, Director, Producer

Synopsis

When Margot is feeling down, she calls up her effervescent best friend Lorelai and they hit the town, gregariously eating as much food as possible, and then some. Although Lorelai believes this ritual is a cure for all ailments, Margot has lurking doubts and regrets which Lorelai is unable to comprehend.

Short Narrative Film

In post-production

In 2021 I was diagnosed with binge eating disorder (BED). As part of my treatment, my therapist suggested I give my disorder a personality and a name, a therapy technique called "parts". Almost immediately I realized that my eating disorder was similar in personality to Lorelai Gilmore, one of the main characters in the popular 2000s TV show "Gilmore Girls." Instead of writing her a letter, I wrote a short screenplay expressing my relationship with Lorelai and why it has been so hard to let her go. 

Easily the most difficult part of this production was securing locations. The script called for an apartment living room, kitchen, and bedroom; a frozen yogurt shop; a bakery; a burger joint; a Mexican restaurant; and a public park. We decided to use my apartment, but the rest would have to be found and negotiated.

There were two rules I had for myself going into location scouting: I wasn't going to steal shots (i.e. film without permission) and I wasn't going to compromise my color palette. The final film would be frenetic and chaotic in its editing; jumping from scene to scene without smooth transitions or establishing shots; therefore I needed each restaurant to look distinctive and the food to be unique to each location. This way the audience can easily and quickly know where the characters are as the timeline jumps from restaurant to restaurant. I only approached restaurants with strong color palettes, and as each restaurant was secured, I eliminated potential options with similar color palettes.

We ended up with a bright pink frozen yogurt shop, Yogurt Extreme (pictured above); a yellow and blue Mexican restaurant, El Palenque; and an orange and green diner, Wisecracks. Unable to secure a bakery that didn't share a color palette with the other locations, we used Darkside Cinema (with its crimson red walls) as our bakery, repurposing a vintage projector display case as a bakery case, and transforming an auditorium into a dining area.

The park was a tricky location to secure. The park scene was the most difficult in performance, and was the longest scene in the film with the most setups, and it was set at night. Thus, we knew we needed to film overnight and we needed about eight hours. All of the public parks in Corvallis, OR close at 10pm and no matter how hard I begged they wouldn't make an exception for us. Instead, we borrowed a picnic table from a local school and shot in the backyard of an enthusiastic supporter of the arts (incidentally, this was the same backyard in which we had filmed "...and Blood!" only months before).

With locations locked the rest was, surprisingly, smooth sailing. I chose to work again with actress Elyssa Smith as the titular "Lorelai", who had been the surprise hit in our last film as the hilariously over-the-top useless society wife. We cast Taylor Abbay via Backstage to play "Margot." After a small, but stress-inducing shift in Director of Photography only two weeks before production, we landed a wonderful professional-level camera and G&E crew from Portland who managed to integrate gracefully into our scrappy, DIY production style.

We were the most prepared we've ever been and after a fun, catastrophe-free five-day shoot, we've made a film that is personal, pointed, and real. I'm exceptionally proud of how far we've come and I feel we are truly ready to take on anything.

...AND BLOOD!
2022
Writer, Director, Producer

Synopsis

​In an ode to Night of the Living Dead, an unlikely group of women in the 1960s barricade a farm house against invading zombies.

Watch on YouTube or Vimeo.

Production

After we filmed the Proof of Concept, Covid restrictions tightened again in Oregon and we had to put our next project on hold. As we waited, we developed a plan for a "Film Within a Film" (FWF) to be used within the feature film GUTS. In the feature, our protagonist spends an evening watching an old zombie movie. We thought it would be much more fun (and good practice) to make said zombie movie ourselves, rather than using something in the public domain. Although the feature film is no longer on our agenda, we remain very proud of this strange slice of a fictional zombie movie.

While still in lockdown, we were able to shoot some covid-safe inserts for the film. The crew got together in our best 60s attire, spread out around various fields, and walked like zombies with our backs to the camera so we could remain masked. We also began collecting free wood. Using mainly Craigslist and Facebook, we mined our local community for cast-off lumber, collecting it under tarps to be used for set building. We collected wood for over a year and were able to buy virtually no new lumber for our set build. 

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Once covid case numbers started falling again, we set a date for the shoot, made a covid safety plan, and began our build. We built a three-walled living room set in a backyard. We covered the set with clear plastic sheeting to protect it from Oregon Spring weather and to allow us to use natural light. Set building and decoration took about a week and was made of 95% repurposed wood. 

Over the course of 2 days, we shot 30+ setups in 20 hours, with a cast and crew of 25 people. Central cast and zombie extras were tested for covid upon arrival at set, everyone had to provide proof of vaccination, and the crew remained masked throughout the shoot. 

The special effects were all designed by the crew, including a severed head, a severed arm, a hammer-to-the-face, and two shot-gun blasts. We also made sugar glass windows, a process involving many months of practicing, two full days of cooking, and a borrowed chest freezer. We ended up with a goofy, referential zombie flick and we had a blast making it. 

GUTS
​2021
Writer, Director, Producer

​Synopsis

Lou, an imaginative 13-year-old, spends her time pretend-fighting zombies and preparing for the apocalypse. When her mother, Charlee, tells her that the apocalypse is real and they have to run, Lou is torn between the fantasies of her youth and the logic of her burgeoning womanhood.

Watch on YouTube or Vimeo.

Production

A crew of ten people joined together in 2019 to talk about restructuring a film set to meet the needs of a more diverse group of people. We had parents of young children, disabled individuals, people with full-time jobs, and those with social anxiety.

Meeting once per month, our goal was to establish practices which could strike a balance between accommodation and efficiency, uplifting the on-set methods which make film magical and rethinking those which gatekeep and limit. Our biggest takeaway was the power of pre-production: the more we can all get done in advance within our own schedules, the more available we would all be to come together for a short time on set.

After six months of meeting and planning, we were ready to put our new methods to the test. This was March 2020, and the world shut down. But we kept meeting, every month without fail via Zoom.

Finally, restrictions were lifted in Oregon and we set a date to shoot in the Summer of 2021. We hired a professional makeup artist, cast a lead from the local High School, and invited our friends and families to play zombies. We shot for one day on a farm in Philomath, Oregon.

The shoot went incredibly smoothly and everyone was able to participate comfortably, with their limits respected. We are so excited to take the inclusive framework we've created and apply it to all our future projects. ​​

KIN
​2019
Producer, Assistant Director, Casting Director

Synopsis

​Two guys and a girl live in a small Oregon town. They're in love, seduced by hate, and longing for a foregone America. 

"Kin" has screened at the Portland International Film Festival, the Brooklyn Film Festival, the HollyShorts Film Festival, and the Local Sightings Film Festival. 

Production

In Spring of 2019 I was approached by Mila Zuo, a film professor at Oregon State University. She was looking for an associate producer for and ambitious short film. Mila, who had only lived in Corvallis a short while, wanted an authentic Oregon feel for her film and was excited about my local knowledge. ​

As pre-production progressed, our main producer dropped out and Mila's vision expanded - suddenly I was the sole producer, first AD, and casting director managing a cast and crew of over 30 people with a budget of $16,000. We flew in professional actors (Frank Mosley and Sophie Traub) from out of state, hired experienced crew from Portland, and scheduled an ambitious seven day shoot. 

It was a baptism by fire. I learned more in seven days than I did in six months of film school. It was grueling and emotionally exhausting and prompted me to rethink what being on set should look and feel like. At the wrap party the production designer, sound engineer, a grip, and myself got together to talk about projects moving forward and we decided to meet regularly to rethink how films should be made in our community. 

Don't Call Me Rebecca
2018/2019
​Writer, Director, Producer

Synopsis

As a medieval knight searches for a captured princess, a young boy struggles to come out to his mother. 

"Don't Call Me Rebecca" won the screenplay competition at the Destiny City Film Festival and the Oregon Short Film Festival (drama category), and screened at the Golden Door International Film Festival.

Watch on YouTube.

At the end of 2017 I wrote my most ambitious short to date: a half modern, half fantasy trans coming of age story. Having so far worked with small sets and only one actor at a time, this was a huge step up. I needed two leads, one of which was a child, and three strong supporting actors, plus an ensemble of child actors and a group of sword fighting bandits. 

As the modern story and medieval story had completely different casts, we decided to film them as two separate films and then put them together in the edit. We cast our modern lead (Georgie, 13) from a local middle school church group and had her gather a group of friends for the school ensemble scene. Her mother was played by a local waitress (Jessica). We borrowed equipment from Corvallis Access Media, a local TV station and equipment lending library. 

After wrapping the modern half, we began casting the medieval half. Using Craigslist, Facebook, and paper flyers we cast a trans construction worker (Dean) as our medieval knight and an artisan baker (Rose) as our princess. Easily the most challenging aspect of the film was choreographing a three-sided sword fight. 

We rehearsed the fight scene with plastic swords, then swapped in real (dull) swords for the scene itself. We sourced a hodge podge of medieval props, including all the swords, from various Corvallis residents (the power of Facebook). 

The production as a whole took us almost a year to complete, as we filmed in the crevices between everyone's day job (for a few months I drove down to Eugene on odd days with a knight costume in my trunk to film wilderness scenes with Dean on his days off). 

I am incredibly proud of this film. For all its rough edges, it convinced me that I can teach myself to make films and make them my way in Corvallis. This marked the end of my "Film School Trilogy" and I finally felt like I could handle something bigger. 

An Interview with Marty Flynn
2017
Writer, Director, Producer

Synopsis

In this post-apocalyptic political mockumentary, ex-screenwriter Marty Flynn recounts his experience making a government propaganda film following the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Production

In Fall of 2016, during a cross-country road trip, my partner and I wrote a short screenplay in an attempt to express our frustrations with the 2016 presidential race. Tapping into our historical fiction brains, we imagined the worst possible outcome of a Trump presidency and put it through the lens of the film industry. 

We shot in one day in a friend's living room in Portland with a crew of five and just one actor. The film is not what I wanted it to be. I did learn valuable lessons during this shoot; in many ways more than I learned during my successful films, but my political emotions created an unpolished screenplay and my insecurities as a filmmaker led me to make bad casting choices. 

Depot
2016
Writer, Director, Producer

Synopsis

In this short suspense film, as Casey attempts to clear out her old storage unit, the facility and its eccentric owner have as hard a time letting go of Casey's things as she does.

"Depot" can be viewed here

Production

"Depot" was my first short film and marks the beginning of what I now call my "Film School Trilogy." I am a completely self taught filmmaker and used these three shorts to learn. After I "graduated" from those three, I felt prepared to make professional level films. I wrote this first film in 2016 and we filmed over several months that Summer. 

My vision for the film was driven by rhythm and I wanted every action to fit into a consistent metronome beat. Each shot in each scene was a specific number of beats in length, and in each successive scene the shots would become one beat shorter, until finally in the climax each shot was only one beat long. I was teaching myself how to build tension using systems and organization, two things I love almost as much as film. 

We cast a math major to play our lead. Not only was she a wonderful performer, but she was able to count in her head while performing, making sure her actions would match the final rhythm of the film. We shot on my dad's old Sony Handicap (circa 2006), and jacked a cheap shotgun mic into an iPhone 5. We snuck into a local storage facility in the middle of the night whenever we were all free, and miraculously never got caught. 

I'm very proud of the finished film. It definitely feels like a first short film, but it contains an essence that I've carried through all my films, and considering I had no idea what I was doing, I'm proud of our ambition and atmosphere.