At long last, The Importance of Tolerance is available online for your viewing pleasure. I wrote a release announcement at the Bombdotcom Productions blog for it. But if you just want to get to the meat of things, here's the video:
I've just finished putting the last touches on what we're calling the first final edit of The Importance of Tolerance. It's been a long time in post-production, but I'm feeling really good about where it is right now. WiL Whitlark has composed a beautiful soundtrack for the film and I'm eager to show it off to you.
But first, if all goes according to plan, we'll be premiering it at this Wednesday's Open Mic Night (February 20th) at the Salt Lake Film Society's Tower Theatre, playing alongside an assortment of other local filmmakers' shorts. Admission to the screening is a dollar per person and so totally worth it.
If you miss it, I expect to have the film posted online within a week. However, this may be your only chance to witness it on the silver screen.
What: World premier of new short film The Importance of Tolerance When: February 20, 2008, 9:00 PM Where: Tower Theatre, 876 East 900 South, Salt Lake City, UT Why: To grow your faith and support your filmmaking community. How: By any means necessary.
If you attend, please feel free to seek me out, say hello, and exchange a few words.
I've begun work on a few essays and reviews that I can't quite seem to finish. Yet I still feel like making a blog entry. So here we go.
I finally got bored (enough) with the limited menagerie of background images I've been cycling through on the site here for the past year or two. So, for the proverbial shits and giggles, I drew something new for the background. It's a pretty generic young woman holding a parasol accompanied by the most half-assed of all backdrops (90 seconds, maximum), but such is the state of things. I've been spending more time drawing lately and that's a trend I'd like to continue.
Notably, good friend and brilliant musician WiL Whitlark and I have recommitted ourselves to an animated series we've been developing for nearly four years now. The new target date to begin premiering episodes is October 2008.
Speaking of long dormant projects, that seems to be the trend with us at Bombdotcom. The upcoming The Interconnection of Mr. Daily was written nearly three years ago. We've resurrected a Halloween project that we wrote while shooting Hopscotch Hotshots in September 2004. And, not least of all, there's The Importance of Tolerance. While we're at it, have another production still!
Seriously. Watch out, folks. This movie's gonna inspire the pants right off of you. Wear suspenders. With any luck, both this and the aforementioned Halloween project will be finished by the end of October (as well as Mr. Daily). If all goes according to schedule, I'm going to submit this to the 2008 LDS Film Festvial, the 2005 instance of which was actually where the seeds of this project began.
Just you watch. 2007 will have been a productive year for Bombdotcom Productions yet.
The tagline for Sarah Polley's directorial debut, Away from Her read, "It's never too late to become what you might have been." While I liked the film a great deal (one of the better films of 2007, surely), that is, of course, not true (its relevance to its film is dubious, too). Sometimes people get cancer or lose limbs or get shot or something. However, sometimes you actually do get to take care of something you suspected you'd never get another crack at.
Two years ago, I was set to direct a short film that was postponed indefinitely when the majority of my cast dropped out last minute. "Indefinitely" frequently means forever, but here it turned out to be two years. Over the weekend, my crew and I shot a little film called The Importance of Tolerance. It turns out that this may indeed be one of those oft-mentioned "blessings in disguise," because the change in cast (the first time I've collaborated with high school friend William Stewart in six years) and our overall advancement in technical and artistic abilities have given this film a kick that we just wouldn't have had in 2005. It feels good to resurrect and complete a project long thought dead.
Currently, I'm entrenched in editing this project and coordinating an edit with editor Patrick Svensson on The Interconnection of Mr. Daily (disturbingly similar titles for back-to-back projects). Post-productions rocks!
The Importance of Tolerance is something of a formal send-up of videos produced for and by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (those rascally Mormons). There's a peculiar aesthetic flavor to these Church-sponsored productions and we've done our best to ape it, as evidenced by the first official production still below, included by popular (i.e. cast member and collaborator Joseph Schlegel's) demand.
While preparing to shoot this, I tried to dig up as many of the videos I was once subjected to in numerous Sunday school and seminary classes. Alas, the Internet would seem to prefer people lip-syncing and clumsily gyrating to Justin Timberlake songs over ham-fisted, modern morality fables devoid of irony. I've culled what I can from YouTube for reference:
Pride: Something kind of bold for seminary videos: science fiction!
Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration: Apparently, since I've stopped paying attention, the Church has gone more Christian rock. However, this highlights the visual flair of Church productions wonderfully.
What Mormon Theology Is Really All About: Okay, this cartoon is a far cry from something the Mormons would produce (surprisingly, I don't think they'll ever attempt to debunk themselves), but it's a riot. Check out that sleazy God-strut.
If you stumble across any other fantastic bits of Mormon video (I'm looking for one in particular, which I believe is called The Joy of Missionary Work) on our favorite series of tubes, please let me know in the comments!
For a couple of years now, I've been fumbling around in Flash, trying to convince myself I was something of an animator. Well, very soon I may be able to lay claim to that very title: my first animated short is nearly complete and should be premiering within the next week.
It's entitled "The Frog Prince," loosely based on a popular mutilation of the ill-understood story collected by those rascally Grimm Brothers. I started work on it something like eighteen months ago, producing most of the animation and a rough draft of the script. Then, as happens all too frequently, it just kind of got put away, stuffed thoughtlessly in the back flap of my wallet of projects, lost among a wadded mess of ticket stubs, postage stamps, and the souls of my enemies.
But, with the encouragement of a few friends to whom I read the screenplay, I decided to finish it. Frequent collaborator Enoch Allred came in and recorded one voice while I provided the other. In the last week, I've learned much about what I can do, what Flash can do, and what we just can't do together. Now, though, I'm putting the finishing touches on it in preparation for what should hopefully be its premiere at the Tower Theatre's Open Mic Night on Wednesday the 15th.
It's going to be a special kind of nerve-racking to watch my drawings projected onto a silver screen in front of hundreds of strangers. It'll likely be as anxiety-inducing as when I premiered The Mustache there last December. Still, I can't wait.
Also, just an update: The Interconnection of Mr. Daily wrapped production last month. It's currently in post-production, editing duties in the hands of the illustrious Patrick Svensson. We're hoping to have a a final cut within about a month. Meanwhile, there's a weekend shoot scheduled for the end of the month for a very short film I'll be directing.
It looks like we just might finally be getting off our lazy asses here at Bombdotcom.
