Episode Fifty-One: The Bay the Series
A chat with the creator and stars of the new indie web soap The Bay premiering online Fall 2010. Tune in as we speak to creator/director Gregori Martin and cast members Jade Harlow, Kristos Andrews and Derrell Whitt.
The Bay’s Website
The Bay on Facebook
Following the life of socialite SARA GARRETT and the people around her, THE BAY is a new web series in the vein of Aaron Spelling’s 1980′s classic primetime soap opera, DYNASTY. Filled with sex, lies, scandal, and everything required to make a hot 1980′s soap opera, THE BAY stars several soap icons including Mary Beth Evans (Kayla DAYS), Tristan Rogers (Scorpio GH), Lilly Melgar (Lily GH), Martha Madison (Belle DAYS), Charles Shaughnessy (Shane DAYS), Nicolas Coster & Lane Davies (Lionel & Mason SB), Matthew Borlenghi (Ziggy B&B), Matt Ashford (Jack DAYS) and many others.
Episode Fifty: Icons Panel #4
The Icons event was held during Comic Con and showcased different types of pop culture including art, film, music and fashion. Film Method conducted a total of four panels at the event. Here is the recording from the fourth panel of the day with 10 year old film critic Perry Chen, Director Kevin Sean Michaels and the director of How to Train Your Dragon, Dean DeBlois.
Click to view the Icons Photo Gallery
Perry S. Chen- Film Critic/Animator
At 10 years old, Perry Chen is the most influential and award-winning child film and entertainment critic, speaker, TV personality, radio talk show host, reviewing movies and family-friendly entertainment with his unique, kids-friendly starfish rating system on a multi-media platform on TV, radio, print, and web. He is an entertainment critic for the San Diego Entertainer Magazine and was the first child film critic invited to present at the prestigious Annie Awards for animation, the youngest blogger on Animation World Network (AWN), the youngest member of Asian American Journalist Association (AAJA), and San Diego Press Club, and the youngest honoree of Cox Communications annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Perry has been a frequent star on the red carpet and credentialed journalist interviewing filmmakers and stars at major film festivals, movie premieres, and press junkets. He is a speaker at a TEDx conference.
Perry has become an authoritative spokesperson for his generation about movies with his insight and humor from a child’s perspective, combining entertainment and education for kids. Perry is also an award-winning artist, filmmaker and animator, partnering with Oscar-nominee Bill Plympton to create a new animation short, Beyond the Forest, about a young Jewish girl’s survival during the Holocaust. Perry became a national sensation on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and NPR with Liane Hansen. He has been extensively featured on regional, national and international media. Perry’s Previews webseries is slated to launch in the summer of 2010. Visit http://www.perryspreviews.com for details.
Kevin Sean Michaels- Director
Kevin Sean Michaels was born and raised in New York City. He started making films at age thirteen with a Super 8 home movie camera in the style of silent movies. Michaels was the Art Director for Troma Entertainment for three and a half years, working closely with filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman on Troma’s film Poultrygeist! Night of the Chicken Dead, as well as numerous DVD extras. He founded his own production company, Vamp Productions in 2005.
Michaels is known for his documentaries, Vampira: The Movie was his first documentary released on Alpha Video in 2008. Since then, he has produced The Wild World of Ted V.Mikels, about the grind-house filmmaker, due in stores March, 2010 also on Alpha Video. In 2008, Michaels met David Lynch and is producing a documentary, Beyond The Noise about a teenager’s journey learning Transcendental Meditation.
He is working on a project with horror legend Ingrid Pitt on an animated short on her experiences in the Holocaust with 10 year old art prodigy Perry Chen and two-time Oscar nominee Bill Plympton.
I Love the 80′s POP Culture
I’ve been thinking a lot about the 80′s lately and just how much that decade, more than any other, shaped my attitude towards pop culture. I was probably at the most impressionable time of my life in the 80′s, ages five to fifteen, and everything from film, television, comedy, and music, some of the most important things in my adult life, were shaped by this decade. There have been a number of times recently that I’ve heard a song from the 80′s and it will take me right back to a specific time and place during my adolescence, when life was just beginning and every moment, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, was full of all the heightened emotion of the end of a John Hughes movie, complete with emo soundtrack. Everything was new and fresh and vivid and everything mattered. Here is a list of some of the most influential pop culture icons of my day with all its guts and glory:
POP- Video Games
Pitfall, Adventure & Journey Escape
Video games were a big part of my childhood and that’s probably why I was inspired to write this blog after watching Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World last weekend. About halfway through the movie I knew that the director of the film was my age, or at least within five years of my age. I happened to be right as Edgar Wright was born in ’74 and I came along in ’75. His use of crude video game visual and sound effects took me back to the living room of the first house I lived in where I played countless hours of Atari with my brother, Brian. Some of our favorites were Pitfall, Adventure, and E.T. I remember when Brian beat Pitfall as he completed all of the hundreds of screens (that pretty much looked exactly the same) only to be taken back to the very beginning. That was big. A friend of Brian’s was the first in the neighborhood to get Pitfall II when it was released and I remember that Brian and said friend were nice enough to let me go to his house one day to play it. There were many many more “adventures” in the new game that included the ability for the Pitfall dude to float up many different levels in the caves on a balloon! There was also more than one background! It was huge. I also remember playing Journey Escape, which was based on the band Journey. The soundtrack to that game was the song Don’t Stop Believing, which upon hearing always takes me back to the basement of my cousin’s house, which was the scene of muchas Journey Escape game playing. Atari 2600, you gave us such joy.
POP-Film
Star Wars: The Original Trilogy
In my humble opinion, Star Wars should be on the favorite list of every filmmaker who grew up in the 80′s. This trilogy is probably the main reason that I wanted to be a filmmaker. I was two years old when the first movie came out and probably didn’t see it until I was about six or seven when it played incessantly on HBO. The Empire Strikes Back was released in ’80 when I was five and Return of the Jedi in ’83 (you do the math). Brian and I collected many Star Wars action figures and toys. I had the Death Star (that’s right, a seven year old girl had a toy Death Star) and Brian had the Millennium Falcon and various other ships and things. But besides just having great toys, these films were important for a number of other reasons including, oh I don’t know, maybe its cinematic genius! A New Hope was the epic set-up to a groundbreaking trilogy. There are the obvious grand and brilliant elements such as the earth-shattering score by John Williams and the amazing special effects (yes, those were real explosions) done by ILM that made the film grandiose and larger than life. But underneath all those layers of score and effects was a story; the story of a young man who had suffered great loss and who found his purpose in leading the fight against an evil empire. This team of filmmakers brought us into their world of droids, wookies, and mystical planets and sold us on an oft told and classic tale of good vs. evil. These movies weren’t about special effects and people in strange costumes, but rather those things supplemented the strong story and powerful characters. They immediately pulled us into the magical realm that they masterfully created and compelled us to care about Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy, and yes, even Darth Vader. A New Hope proved that it doesn’t take an unlimited source of money to make great movies, but rather a team of people dedicated to excellence and a whole heap of creativity. P.S. Marcia Lucas, wherever you are, Hollywood really needs you back.
POP- Comedy
Saturday Night Live, Late Night with David Letterman, and Eddie Murphy
My comedy education started at a very young age. I believe I started watching SNL around ’83 or ’84 and Late Night in ’85 or 86. I heard my first Eddie Murphy album at the tender age of nine. I guess my dad thought he was buying us a tape of Eddie Murphy singing the hits, but no, that wasn’t the case. Don’t judge dad too harshly, though, they didn’t have those clever little “parent advisory” warning labels back then. The classic album included hits such as Buckwheat, Doo-doo, and Hit by a Car. Ah yes, those were the days. If it’s any consolation, those bits were much tamer than Eddie’s later material! Some of my earliest SNL memories include the sketch with Billy Crystal and Christopher Guest who play janitors that try to one-up each other with ideas of self-mutilation while completing each other’s sentences and Phil Hartman’s Anal Retentive Chef. Some of the best years in SNL history were from ’87-’89, which included cast members and comic geniuses Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn and Phil Hartman. Not surprisingly these are the first years that Conan O’Brien wrote for this legendary show as well. Around 1985 I began watching a revolutionary new late night show aptly called, Late Night with David Letterman. My family had been fans of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson so I guess Letterman was the next natural step. I found his sense of humor to be fresh (from what I knew of comedy at ten years old) and it definitely appealed to my odd and early-shaped comic sensibilities. Although Letterman’s crude interview style offended many, I found it to be honest and refreshing. Carson was the consummate professional and could mock you while making you feel that he was still on your side, but Letterman took brutal honesty to another level while still staying somewhat personable. I believe that Letterman was also the first to bring the concept of the “remote” to late night. He actually LEFT the studio to throw things off of buildings and to meet the employees at the neighboring businesses including the one hour photo mat and the Hello Deli sandwich shop.
POP- Music
Michael Jackson, et al
I have an uncanny knack for remembering which year certain songs from the 80′s were released. Invincible by Pat Benetar from the movie The Legend of Billie Jean: 1985, U2′s With or Without You: 1986, Don’t Dream it’s Over by Crowded House: 1987. Most of my memories of these songs have to do with where I was living at the time of their release. My family moved around a lot in the 80′s (six times and three states between ’84 and ’89) and music became a sort of bookmark in my mind depending on the bedroom, friends, or emotional growing pains I was experiencing at the time. After my family moved for the first time in my young life we had a hard time adjusting to our new town. Brian and I, who were already close, spent a lot of time together during that time as we were trying to cope with the new surroundings. There were a lot of pop culture elements that we bonded to such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller album. Last summer when Michael Jackson died, there were so many cars that drove down my street blasting songs from his discography (which was awesome and I kind of miss it). When Billie Jean or Human Nature would drive by it would always take me right back to 1984, complete with all the mix of emotions that came with growing through a tough situation at the age of nine. The cool thing about those memories is that they also include the unforgettable time I spent with Brian, who is one of the greatest and most important people in my life. I didn’t know at the time, but those would be some of the last true childhood moments we would share together.
POP- Television
Days of Our Lives
There were many great TV shows in the 80′s, but none more memorable to me than Days of Our Lives. Of all the shows I was taken with in the 80′s including Family Ties, Cheers, Moonlighting and The Wonder Years to name just a few, it’s a soap opera that takes the #1 TV spot of that decade. You may be saying to yourself, “A soap opera was your favorite TV show of the 80′s?” and to that I say, “yes, it was”. Now before you totally loose all faith in my artistic sensibilities, just hear me out. I really think it was a different time for soaps in the 80′s and that there was much more time and attention invested in fleshing out the character’s stories. Besides, this is a list of what was most influential to ME in the 80′s so I get to put whatever I want on it. : ) It was 1986 when I began watching Days of Our Lives religiously and it had to do solely with the super-couple of the millennium, Patch and Kayla. I was eleven years old at the time and had never watched soaps except apathetically with my grandma when she used to babysit Brian and me. The chemistry between Stephen Nichols and Mary Beth Evans was astounding, even for an eleven year old and I was captivated by their characters and their story. It was the bad boy meets good girl story that we’ve seen thousands of times, but it worked because the characters worked and these two actors brought something spectacular and unique to this genre. I recently went back and watched some old clips on You Tube and was impressed with the writing, directing, and of course the acting. I’ve read interviews with both Stephen and Mary Beth where they talked about how hard they worked in those days. You can tell that they completely threw themselves into these characters and that they weren’t just going through the motions because they were on a soap opera. Like a good Robert Redford movie, the story took its time, paid close attention to detail, and gave us as viewers time to get on board with this relationship instead of just throwing us in the deep end and expecting us to swim. One of my favorite things to do with a movie, a TV show, or a script is to break down why something does or doesn’t work. Looking at the old Days clips makes me realize that part of why I liked the show so much back then and why it worked is not very different from why I love Lost today. Both shows (Days then and Lost) invested in their characters to make them multi-dimensional. If it’s not about the characters, then I usually don’t care about the material and don’t get involved. I stopped watching Days around 1993/1994 when I started college and when both Stephen and Mary Beth had moved on to other projects. It seemed like a good time for me to get on with my life as well.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little walk down memory lane. I know I did. I always like an excuse to reminisce about all-things-80′s and any excuse to bring up Lost, which has nothing to do with the 80′s. Stay tuned for more great podcasts!
Episode Forty-Nine: Icons Panel #3
The Icons event was held on Saturday, July 24th during Comic Con. Film Method conducted a total of four panels at the event. Here is the recording from the third panel of the day with Casting Director Bonnie Gillespie and filmmakers Scott Baker, Philip Stimmell, and Irving Martinez.
Click to view the Icons Photo Gallery
Bonnie Gillespie- Casting Director/Producer
Bonnie Gillespie began her casting career in 2003 with three shows for the Fox Broadcasting Company. After four months in television, Bonnie cast a $25,000 budget SAG feature film and her specialty was born: Helping visionary filmmakers tell amazing stories at a low-budget level with the finest actors working today. Through a casting philosophy that includes choosing excellent material, working with outstanding people, and pursuing storytellers who aren’t in it for the money, Bonnie has developed a reputation for attracting award-winning actors to bring festival-bound indies to life. Bonnie has been named one of Hollywood’s top casting directors in Back Stage West’s “The Best of Los Angeles” issue four times. She has been interviewed on BBC Breakfast, on UTV-Ireland’s Gerry Kelly Goes to Hollywood, on CBC Radio One’s show Q, and for the E! gossip column and podcast The Answer B!tch. She has also hosted Inside Casting and The Reel Deal for Virtual Channel Network, a website run by Breakdown Services and The Hollywood Reporter. She is co-founder of Your Actor MBA and exec producer for interview series Casting Qs on www.somebodysbasement.com. For more information about Bonnie Gillespie, visit www.cricketfeet.com.
Scott Baker- Writer/Director
Scott Baker, a native of Northern California, received a degree in History from Sonoma State University and served in the United States Peace Corps from 2000-2001 in Turkmenistan. He co-founded Vegan Cannibals Productions with Philip Stimmell in 2002. Their first film, Brunch of the Dead was a feature-length zombie-comedy. Since re-locating to Riverside they have done several award-winning short films, including Rationed which screened at this year’s Cannes Short Film Corner and 2 episodes for their new series Findings (think Ghosthunters meets Reno911!). You can find out more at www.VeganCannibals.com
Scott’s film Rationed was 2nd runner-up in the world finals of 48 Hour Film Project, aka, Filmapalooza as part of the NAB Show in Las Vegas. The film was also selected for a showcase at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival (Short Film Corner Marche du Film).
Philip Stimmell- Special Effects Make-Up Artist/Actor
Philip Stimmell is a award winning makeup artist who works for VeganCannibals since 2002. Philip graduated from Joe Blasco school of makeup in 2008 and has been seeking out the most challenging effects and makeup to conquer since. Phil did most his growing up in Sonoma County Ca with his friend and director of VeganCannibals ‘Scott Baker”. They have been working on films together since. Phil aims to gross out audiences with his wicked style and gore he brings to the table.
Irving Martinez- Director/Writer
Irving M is an alternate world variation of the 25th Century Human Artist of the same name. Meet Earthbound M, specializing in Cinema, Graphic Design & Illustration. Primarily a director, congruently a writer, involvement in the storytelling process including art direction, story boarding and sometimes acting. Strongly motivated by mixing genres as a storytelling signature; early work is best known for harmonizing the comedy and sci-fi realms as exemplified by the 2011 web series Hysteria, California, and earlier works such as: The Return of the El Diablo (with Blast Radius Productions), and (Devil’s) Day Job (with comedy sketch troupe The Insanities).
Visit www.imbeta.net for a collection of works presented in chronological order as conception begets regeneration.
Episode Forty-Eight: Icons Panel #2- Universal Dead
The Icons event was held on Saturday, July 24th during Comic Con. Film Method conducted a total of four panels at the event. Here is the recording from the second panel of the day with Vernon Mortenson, Kelly Parks, Valerie Perez, and Gary Graham of Universal Dead. We will be releasing the recordings from these panels throughout the month of August.
Click to view the Icons Photo Gallery
Universal Dead Website
Director Vernon Mortensen has led an amazing life. The son of Christian Missionaries, he was born in Bangkok, Thailand and by the age of twelve, had traveled all over the world. After finishing high school in the USA, he went on to serve as a US Navy SWCC (pronounced “swick”) commando in the Navy’s elite Special Boat Teams where much of what he did remains classified to this day. His life has always been very eclectic and although always considering himself to be a filmmaker and businessman, he has also worked as an engineer, a photographer, a bodyguard, an emergency medical technician, a private investigator, a librarian, and as a substitute teacher for the inner-city schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Vernon is a master storyteller and filmmaker who applies his wealth of knowledge and experience to fuel his creativity. As a writer, he has written screenplays, short stories, plays, novels, and essays in a variety of genres and subjects. As a filmmaker, Vernon’s movies have been sold to markets all over the world and have been featured at many prestigious international film festivals.
Vernon is currently studying for his Doctor of Business Administration at Alliant International University’s Marshal Goldsmith School of Management. He has a Master’s Degree in Professional Writing (Screenwriting) from the University of Southern California’s prestigious Professional Writing Program where he received an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Fellowship. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film from the world renowned Art Center College of Design, as well as Bachelor of Science from New York State’s Excelsior College. In 1999, Vernon was selected for a highly coveted Director’s Internship at the Los Angeles classical repertory theater, A Noise Within, where he studied under celebrated stage and theater director, Sabin Epstein. Shortly after graduating from USC in 2003, Vernon was recalled from the Naval Reserve to serve on active duty in the Special Boat Teams one last time. After completing his term of service, Vernon permanently retired from the United States Navy in 2008 and returned to filmmaking.
Writer Kelly Parks is the world’s only ex-CIA, Rocket Scientist, Stand-up Comic, Screenwriter! Kelly grew up in Wisconsin (mmmm… cheese) and spent his youth watching sci-fi and horror movies as well as gazing up at the heavens, wishing he could live among the stars. After high school, Kelly moved to Arizona to study Engineering Physics and one fateful day he met a recruiter from the CIA. Soon after, Kelly was recruited as an analyst into the CIA’s Space Systems Division (he highly recommends getting a Top Secret Clearance if you ever have the opportunity) where he and a few other hand picked scientists kept track of what the Russians were doing in space. Realizing that The Agency was never going to fulfill his dream of space travel, Kelly left public service and took a job in the private sector as an aerospace engineer specializing in Orbital Mechanics. These days Kelly writes screenplays and recently won 1st prize at the International Horror & Science Fiction Screenplay Competition. Kelly’s greatest writing honor came in 2007 when he was a semi-finalist for the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship, a feat rarely accomplished by a screenplay in the sci-fi/horror genre. In 2008, he became a partner in Unconventional Films and finished writing and directing the awesome comedy web series, The Crusader, and is now producing Universal Dead, a new horror/sci-fi web series that he also wrote.
Actor Valerie Perez – Besides appearing alongside D.B. Sweeney and Doug Jones in Universal Dead, Valerie currently stars in the online hit Paula Peril and the upcoming series Slice of Hollywood Life. She has also made appearances on G4, Entourage, and The Military Channel. You might have seen her photo work in Femme Fatale magazine and Geek Monthly or her likeness on comic book covers of popular Marvel and DC titles. Last year she returned to the stage with the Road Theatre company under the direction of Lost’s Sam Anderson. She has a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and still does not know what she wants to do when she grows up.
Actor Gary Graham has had many TV and movie roles, including Vulcan Ambassador Soval in Star Trek: Enterprise and Detective Sikes in the TV series Alien Nation. He was also the star of the sci-fi classic Robot Jox. He is currently starring as Dr. David Macavoy in the new horror/sci-fi web series Universal Dead.
