December Update

Finally! I cracked the code! (turns out that it's as simple as reading the user's manual.)

November Update

With a rough (rough, rough) edit my left pocket, my (paid) job heating up, and a window of opportunity looming, Daniel and I together focused on getting some ADR done in Chicago.

My yearly academic convention was scheduled for late November, and both Levi and Anna live and work in Chicago. So the two of us glutted ourselves on self-taught crash courses in ADR & looping. Books, websites, calls in to experts. Daniel finally settled on using Logic and a software add-on that would simplify the process.

I took the bus from Canton to Chicago -- Daniel drove over from Michigan and we transformed our hotel room into a sound-damped-down space with a huge recording set piece in the middle of the room. I taped sound panels at head level at intervals around the entire room, we duct taped sheets and bedspreads in front of doorways, entrances and one entire wall. We pulled the curtains absolutely closed.





We got two of Levi's lines done (finally!) after many malfunctions when Anna showed up. We had finished her lines when the system went down again (!). Anna and Levi and I went around the corner to Buddy Guy's and had some great conversation over some great jambalaya while Daniel stayed on the phone with tech support.

At the end of the day we were disappointed to have to give up on looping Levi, but had at least enjoyed being together again with these creative spirits who we enjoy so much.

October Update

This month was even more of a struggle than September, in terms of keeping those Thursdays free of interruptions: Advising filled a (thurs)day, shooting a short film with Andrew Gates filled a (thurs)day, and littler other accretions filled the equivalent of another day (grading, designing a new course).

So that's the bad news.

But the good news that I'm this close to having a rough (very rough!) cut of MLR (which I've taken to calling it in my myriad of todo lists).

I'm utterly baffled by the process of compositing. I don't know why I hoped that it would be more natural and intuitive. If you think about it, it's one of the most unnatural things in the world -- right up there with apparating, beaming & haunting.

While I like the rhythm of my cutting right now, I don't trust myself or my criticism of myself. I just feel too close to the project. I'm the sort of social processor who wants to put this rough cut up on the web for everyone to look at it -- but I know that wouldn't be such a great idea...

September Update

I spent this month sifting through the footage of Multilevel Relationship and uploading the best clips to the computer. Because we shot Multilevel partly in the house on Cedar Street, the scenes are strewn all across the seven tapes we used. Unlike the compact (locationally and time-wise) Stick In The Mud, which we wrapped in two days and in one location, we only filled three tapes worth of footage.

Andrew Gates who just happens to still work in my academic department, did a ton of the grunt work in cleaning up our logs and organizing the footage.

I was able to keep most of my Thursday's sacred for the footage. I have one other movie/art project that I had said yes to before we even started pre-production that I also have to fit into my Thursday-break-from-professor-like work. The good news is that it only managed to steal half a Thursday this month.

August Update

For both Daniel and I, August has been the time to catch up with all the things that we put on hold in order to make the movie happen.

For me that's meant getting ready for starting school and starting classes. For Daniel, it's included the overwhelming tasks of selling a house, selling most of his belongings, navigating a divorce and moving -- all while trying to father two-year-old twin boys.

We have divided the projects between us. Daniel will be editing STICK IN THE MUD.

I'll be editing MULTILEVEL RELATIONSHIP.

I'm eager for school to start so hopefully film editing will fit more neatly into the space that I've carved out for it (Thursday mornings --- and occasionally ALL DAY Thursday).

That's a Wrap!

After five days of early mornings, late nights, freezing waves, sandy bathing suits, amazing food, endless rooms constantly transforming from rent-a-center-bed-dorms-into-sets, ice cream, dailies, diabetic shocks, a hundred hilarious stories and one magical twilight hike -- we've wrapped primary footage for two short films.

The whole experience was as exhausting and exhilerating -- as fulfilling and rewarding as we could have hoped. I know that I can speak for the whole production team when I say thanks to an amazingly talented cast & a tremendously skilled and hard-working crew.

This kind of work -- creative, intense and chaotic -- can only be this enjoyable when you work with amazing people. It was a good four days...

Thanks to everyone who inhabited and pitched in at Cedar Street --

Danielle, Emily, Daniel, Andrew, Michelle, Johnny, Anna, Levi, Katie, Tim & Chad.

Great News About Our Cast

I'll post at great length about their various attributes later, but I'm happy to announce our cast...



Tim Carmany will play the role of STEVEN in Stick in the Mud



Katie Rose will play the role of JENN in Stick in the Mud



Johnny Russell will play the role of TERRY in Stick in the Mud and KENNY in Multilevel Relationship



Anna Carini will play the role of ERIN in Stick in the Mud and Becca in Multilevel Relationship



Leve Petree will play the role of AARON in Stick in the Mud

I can't tell you how excited I am about these casts. I'm actually (literally) dreaming them in their roles..

Good Things Coming Together

Our cast is coming together -- we should have more of an announcement about them soon -- but we're continuing to find great people to work on our team.

We're still looking for an audio technician if anybody knows one...

I do have to say a big THANK YOU to the folks at the Michigan Film Office! They've been very helpful -- even though our production isn't making the wheels of industry in Michigan spin (yet!), they've still been prompt, geneous & resourceful in the way they've responded to us...

Still Casting

We're receiving headshots and resumes from actors these days, and we're excited to see our talent pool growing. We feel increasingly excited about the group of actors that we're assembling. Have you sent your headshot in, yet? Your acting resume?

Hurry! We want you!

I just dug up an old headshot of Johnny Russell our lead for Multilevel Relationship. He's gonna make a great Kenny.

Technological Choices

Some of you know about some of the technical choices that we're aiming for in this film -- that will make things more interesting than the average Digital Cinema shoot.

Daniel and I just spent a weekend together and one of the choices we're wrestling with has to do with a compositing technique that we're using for a section of Multilevel Relationship.

The super cool hipster-rific choice is to use the ancient Hitchcock-old-school Rear Projection technology...the definitely more manipulable, but also way more synthetic technique of Greenscreening. Old School vs. New School.

No decision yet, just round one of the debates....

Why Short Films Are Worth Your While

We’re very interested in telling good stories that focus on everyday worlds. As shifts in technology enable more filmmakers to make films and larger and more diverse audiences to watch those films, we want to work in genres that are both familiar and strange to these new audiences. The scale of small films and non-traditional distribution demands that these stories offer a kind of unique honesty to their viewers; honesty that builds on popular film, but moves in a more subtle direction. Like the Duplass brothers, Andrew Bujalski and many of Richard Linklater’s films we want to create cinema that surprises the viewer, but not in a way that makes them obscure or difficult to penetrate.

While the film industries, internet experts and distribution specialists struggle to find viable distribution and production models for short and alternative films, we want to keep making the films. We believe that the art should not just follow the technology, but that technologies should also be responsive to emerging story-telling.

In order to make these films in the meantime, though, we need the support of volunteers, communities and groups. We’re investing our own time, equipment and capital in this project, but shooting a film is dependent upon the partnership of community institutions, too.

How Community Members Can Be Involved

We need locations, food donations, permits and the support of the local film community in order to make these particular films a reality.

While both of our films have distinctly Michigan and Midwestern roots, Stick in the Mud will be an especially poignant visual display of the beauty and sprawl of Muskegon’s Lake Michigan beaches. Multilevel Relationship includes three restaurant locations, and we are committed to filming in locally owned eateries.

Since our $0 budget production can only offer deferred payment plans to any of the cast and crew, we’re confident that the best compensation we can offer to local businesses, organizations and groups is to include them in a “Special Thanks” section in the credits of the film. For particularly generous donations, we will single out the sponsor for a particularly generous “Thank You” in the credits. We’ll also mention your organization on our blog and website.

Contact Information

You can email us at One Story Pictures (all one word, though, no spaces) at Gmail dot Com.

(nothing like tricking the spambots!)

We want to hear from you.

(of course comments always work, too...

Shooting Two Short Films This Summer

We'll be shooting two short films in Muskegon, Michigan from July 15th to the 21st. You can read a little more about the films STICK IN THE MUD and MULTILEVEL RELATIONSHIP in other blog posts.

If you're REALLY interested (and prove yourself to also be really worthy...), maybe we'd even let you check out the scripts.

Andrew and Daniel Rudd developed the stories together; they've always been interested in making films together, but were particularly catalyzed by the success of the Duplass Brothers and by identifying ideas they could both believe in (after discarding hundreds of other ideas).

We'll be using a SONY FX1 (with some modified lenses) to shoot and have some pretty ambitious technical feats that we're hoping to employ in the service of what we think are two great little stories.

We have several capable folks already on board in production roles, but we're looking for more help on the crew and in some key production roles.

We'll be sending the film to festivals in January and March and eventually trying to secure a distribution deal with one of the (few) emerging short film distribution companies / enterprises.

If you'd like to be involved, please let us know!

Open Casting Call

We're making two short films this summer (see other entries for more info...) and we're looking for talented, experienced, generous actors to cast in 5-6 roles (we're in talks with one actor right now...). You must also be extremely good looking.

TALENTED - means that you've practiced the craft of acting, you've had at least a bit of training. It means that you've gotten massive amounts of positive feedback from audiences about how TRUE your performances are (not including your mom). It means that you are not afraid of taking risks. You're comfortable in your body. You love to do deep character work. But you also love being in the moment.

EXPERIENCED - means that we'll probably choose actors who have had experience with film over those who have not. One of our films is extremely demanding technically so we really need folks who can be as professional as possible during that shoot. Because of the nature of STICK IN THE MUD (there's a VERY long take involved), alot of stage experience could really make up for inexperience in film.

GENEROUS - means that you live your life out of a sense of abundance. You don't think about your relationships in competitive ways. You believe that there is something really good inside of the people that you are working with even when its hard to find. You don't bring a great deal of personal and off-set drama into the mix.

EXTREMELY GOOD LOOKING - seriously. You have to be so devestatingly good looking that you enjoy looking at yourself in the mirror or in pictures. (In other words, if you believe that you're beautiful, we will too. That means a lot in film.)

All the roles are for folks in their twenties. There are more good roles for men than for women. And yes, we're disturbed that we're reinforcing those filmic stereotypes, too.

Our first look at you will probably have to be through the internet or some other long distance medium, so if you're interested, point us to a YouTube (et.al.) for us to check out...OR....send us an email and we'll send you a snailmail or a script and you can send us a reel or at least interpret some lines from our scripts and send us a YouTube link.

We can't pay you (unless we make money later) (which we probably won't), but we'll pay your mileage (for driving), put you up in some relatively sweet digs and feed you some lovin' home-cooked food.

Hurry! We're casting ASAP!

[update: we obviously are no longer casting. For a look at our amazing cast (who met all the requirements!) look here.]

What is One Story Pictures?

One Story Pictures started as two brothers who’ve been leaning toward mixing some of their unique creative inclinations into a cinematic cocktail for many years.

As a production company they’re finally committed to two short films which they’ll be shooting later this summer. By now of course, the films include a bunch of great people, but we’re still looking to cast some key parts and fill some key crew roles.

Interested in being involved? Check out our BLOG ENTRIES….

Know somebody else who might be interested? Please let them know about this site.

Wanna help in a really simple way? ADD US AS A FRIEND! (What an easy way to support the arts…!)

Want to find out more about the films? Check out the BLOG ENTRIES… You can also find out who else is already getting involved over in the BLOG ENTRIES... Thanks for your support!

MULTILEVEL RELATIONSHIP

Kenny's determined to make good with his new business opportunity. He wants to get his friend Becca involved. He wants to get his parent's neighbors involved. He wants to get his old locker partner from high school involved. He probably even wants to get you involved.

If you've got a good thing going on -- why would you want to squander it?

STICK IN THE MUD

Five Twenty-somethings.

Sand Dunes.

A Beach.

A Kite.

A Really Big Stick.

What's the biggest thing you could imagine?

(a pitch for the second movie)

Who's On Board

Andrew Rudd is a professor at a little private college in Canton, Ohio. He's almost done editing a short film that has been struck by more plagues than the Egypt before Passover. He teaches a screenwriting course and more courses about the media. He writes screenplays and loves to produce creative work with good people. He's writing these little blurbs which is why his blurb includes no lists of his weaknesses (like, say, his brother Daniel's blurb does). That's what comments are for. Go crazy.

Daniel Rudd is an entrepeneur and artist who developed and runs STOCK20.com. He is Andrew's little brother and therefore not as sweet as Andrew, but still relatively sweet nonetheless. He writes music, produces documentary promotional videos for non-profits, performs music, builds websites, makes deals, concocts radical new ways to do things, makes a ton of friends everywhere he goes, and usually manages to offend and alienate a small contingent of any population.

Johnny Russell is a talented actor who's been working in Chicago, Pittsburgh and the East. He's been featured in many stage productions; worked in film, too. Johnny was selected for the prestigious and selective Steppenwolf internships and more recently has been admitted to the (also) prestigious MFA program at Penn State. We're thrilled to have Johnny playing the lead role in MULTILEVEL RELATIONSHIP and are excited that he'll most likely be doing something pretty cool in STICK IN THE MUD, too.

Emily Hisey is working as a producer on both of these films. Emily has racked up an impressive resume of working in key production roles in several college theatres in norhteastern, Ohio, but she's also been key in producing a number of short films for filmmakers in the region. Emily studied film in Los Angeles in 2006 where she also worked at Nickelodeon and produced and directed several short films.

Danielle Case just returned to the states from Florence, Italy where she completed the final semester of her education. Danielle, who is passionate about art, theatre and film, leverages her impressive managerial skills toward production with our films. She was offered an internship opportunity with the National Endowment for the Arts, but instead interned with the National Museum for Women Artists in Washington D.C.. She will spend a part of her summer this summer in New York City on a fellowship that she won to network with media producers there. She's currently also working at the Akron Museum of Art, named one of the most architecturally important museums in the U.S..

What about you? Why isn't your name on this list yet? Email us.

Can we be Myspace Friends?

Help us spread the word to actors and potential crew members...

Add us as "friends" in myspace.

www.myspace.com/onestorypictures