FILMOGRAPHY
FILMOGRAPHY
#1 - 50 | #51 - 100 | #101 - 150 | #151 - 200 | #201 - 250
1998
51. The Scary Thing
3 minutes
Joe tried on some of my vampire makeup and before he washed if off, I got out
my camera, dimmed the lights and made a quick improvised horror flick about
an insane guy who is telling scary stories to himself when a zombie suddenly
sneaks into his house. It's kind of creepy and funny at the same time. A Cinemassacre
cult classic.
52. The Rotten Corpse of Snix
27 minutes (later cut to 15 minutes)
In this fourth chapter of the Snix series, the long dead body of Snix is resurrected
in a modern day 20th century in search of his eternal rival Xins. Once again,
this sequel shows tremendous improvement over the previous installment in the
series. Though, it's a bit overlong, it contains some amusing scenes, including
a chase with a tractor on a public roadway and a grand finale where I sword-fight
Snix and eventually cut off his head, throw the body out a second-story window,
and take the head to the railroad tracks where the train actually runs it over!
53. The Possessed Mask of Snix
27 minutes (later cut to 5 minutes)
The biggest problem in making the Snix series was the availability of the actors.
The Rotten Corpse of Snix was a very simple movie but it took 10 months to make.
Knowing I had two more chapters to go, I couldn't stand to take any longer,
so this time, I casted no actors other than myself, so there was nothing to
halt the production and it was over in two weeks. The plot picks up where Snix's
body has been destroyed, but his mask still exists and haunts me. This movie
provided me with great editing practice, and it's technically a better movie
than the last Snix flicks, but it's not one of my favorites. It feels very solitary
without any other actors to liven it up.
54. (The Banishing of) The Evil Spirit of Snix
22 minutes (later cut to 9 minutes)
I get possessed by the spirit of Snix and my only hope of driving the demon
out is my neighbor to come over and whack me over the head with a golf club.
Once defeated, the spirit appears inside the television set where he must confront
his rival Xins before departing this dimension. There's some interesting editing
and use of flashbacks. Each Snix movie is better than the one before it. As
I age from 12 to 17 throughout the series, I grow both physically and mentally
as an amatuer filmmaker who keeps improving. Also this is my first movie done
on my new editing vcr.
55. Senseless Slaughter
12 minutes
This is a documentary about my next door neighbors who used to beat each other
up after getting excited by watching wrestling on TV. For hours, I taped them
lift each other in the air, fall down stairs, throw each other onto couches,
and actually slam their heads against walls, leaving dents! Most of this is
as real as it looks, but nobody was seriously injured. When I edited all the
best moments to heavy metal music, it became a very entertaining video.
56. Droppings (Holy Shit)
4 minutes
This is sort of like a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", but
instead of pecking at people, the birds attack by crapping. The bird feces was
made from milk and flour which was dumped from a ladder onto the star, Joe's
head. It dried in his hair and took a long time to wash out. He was a great
sport about the whole thing.
57. The Green-Eyed Sisters (I was the production assistant and
editor)
13 minutes (with out-takes)
For a high school project, my sister's friends wrote a fairy tale script about
witches who try to poison a princess. When they made a video of it, they consulted
me for help. I had little to do with this production, but directed one scene
and edited the whole thing.
58. The Atmos-Fear-ic Garage of the Supernatural
18 minutes
Because of work and school consuming all my free time and college coming the
next year, I knew I had to call it quits for my annual haunted house tour. I
kept it a Halloween tradition from 1993 to 1998, but now I was becoming an adult
and I was too busy to put all my time into it. This is why I made a video tour
of the last one to preserve the memory.
1999
59.
Girl Fight
6 minutes (with out-takes)
Simple plot about two girls who play pranks on each other while they sleep.
Ends with a pillow fight. Strangely, a year or two later, a movie came out in
theaters with the same title.
60. Cryptozoology
approx. 10 minutes
For the English class term paper, most students were writing about whether or
not abortion should be legal, but I chose to do something interesting: Cryptozoology
which is the search for animals unknown to science. My argue was that there
exist creatures that have not yet been verified. For the visual presentation,
I made this documentary about Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster, assembling
photographs and film footage while narrating over it.
61. King Nothing: music video
6 minutes
There's already a music video for King Nothing, but I never saw it, so I decided
to make my own. I inserted some shots of Metallica concert footage, but most
of it consisted of a king (my next door neighbor's little sister) having a bad
temper and crashing through cardboard brick walls. This video was the most challenging
editing job I've yet done, at the time.
62. Trapped Under Ice: music video (edited from
film clips)
5 minutes
I was really bored, so I decided to make another music video for Metallica.
I used stock footage from films showing avalanches and people being buried in
ice. Includes "The Thing", "Cliffhanger", "The Beast
From 20,000 Fathoms" and "Godzilla Raids Again."
as "CINEMATICA
Productions"
63. The Head Incident
57 minutes (also alternate 30 minute version)
At the time, this was my masterpiece which I finished the summer after I graduated
high school. I put full effort into writing a script, drawing storyboards, and
devising special effects. The entire production length was 8 months. It's about
psychotherapists who examine an insane man who is haunted by delusions of a
possessed disembodied dummy head which floats on air and mysteriously kills
people. At first, his crazy story is ridiculed, but when more people start seeing
it, they start to doubt his neurotic condition. It's great b-movie fun. Chilling
at times, and funny. A bit overlong though.
64. Battle at the Blood-Bath unfinished
5 minutes
Two undercover detectives team up to trace the source of a radioactive chemical
that's been used by criminals to burn the faces of their victims. They eventually
find a swimming pool full of the deadly stuff owned by Master Merciless. Thus
begins a cheesy Kung Fu fight. After a series of disasters occurring such as
my sister breaking her toe, this film was dropped.
65. Teeth
4 minutes
An improvised spoof of "Jaws" shot in my swimming pool without any
continuity. It was cut like a trailer. The main joke was that it was a bad cheesy
version of what used to be one of the highest grossing films of all time. The
shark's fin was made of cardboard, though there are still some good qualities.
By placing the camera in a fish tank and carefully submerging it just below
the water line, without getting any water in the top of the tank, I was able
to get some beautiful underwater shots. An idea by Kirk and I, the two insane
brains that brought you the Head Incident.
66. Domestic Wildlife
15 minutes
There was a week left before my first year of college started, so I quit my
job and became extremely bored. I wanted to make one last movie before the summer
ended, but nobody was available to act, as usual, so I casted my dog and two
cats. I just lowered the camera level to the ground and documented their daily
activities and laid the classical tune "Blue Danube" over it all.
The results are relaxing to watch.
67. Night of the Roach
5 minutes
I was alone in my apartment, doing 2D Design homework, when I saw a giant cockroach.
Being the country boy I am and not having any experience in the city, I had
never seen a roach before. I grabbed my camera and attempted to tape it, but
it escaped and I never saw it again. I ended up making a suspense movie about
me looking for the roach. This was my first movie made while in college.
68. Zone Out
8 minutes
My neighbor in the dorms, Gina, was also interested in making films, so we decided
to collaborate on this improvised, experimental film. Illogic and random funny
things were what made it fun. I later edited the footage into a music video
for Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused.
69. The F-Word Analysis
12 minutes (shorter version: 6 minutes)
A hilarious documentary about the F-word and all of it's different usages. Different
cursing scenarios are staged to demonstrate how it is the most flexible and
most versatile word in the English language.
70. A (New) Night of Total Terror
2 minutes
This was my first experience with using 16mm film instead of video. Visual arts
majors at my school are forced to go through a "foundation" program
where you are stuck drawing, sculpting, painting and doing everything. I had
one film class for an elective and no emphasis was placed on narrative structure
or editing. The only assignment was to shoot off a 3 minute roll of film on
a simple action and explore the different ways to depict it, places to move
the camera and lighting setups. I was the only student in the class who did
an elaborate narrative and at first everybody thought I was crazy, but I pulled
it off. Everybody in the class wore monster masks and had lots of fun.
71. More Human Than Human: music video
5 minutes
I wanted to get a fake band together for a White Zombie music video, but we
didn't have any instruments available, so the guitarist had to rock out on an
acoustic guitar and the drummer just sat on a bed and slapped two dummy monster
heads. It was real funny. The song on the CD played into my vcr which was connected
to my camera, so the videotape recorded us on the video signal and the music
simultaneously on the audio signal. The TV was turned on, blasting the music
from its speaker, so we could perform to it and I could lip sync the vocals
in my black top hat and long hair wig. After copying the best take onto another
videotape, I inserted stock footage of old horror movies of mine to complete
it.
72. Foreign Spies Online
2 minutes
My mom got me a video title maker for Christmas, so I could add credits and
titles in my movies. My first movie to use this device was this experimental
video with my sister and her friend speaking a foreign language and I translated
it with subtitles.
73. Satan's Greatest Hits
2 minutes
This is a parody commercial advertising an album of 13 devil worshipping songs.
A devil speaks and says "To order, call 1-800-666-HELL." Footage of
various metal bands is used while the credit crawl lists all the songs including
"AntiChrist Superstar" by Marilyn Manson, "Hell's Bells"
by AC/DC, "Burn in Hell" by Judas Priest", "Number of the
Beast" by Iron Maiden", "Selling my Soul" by Black Sabbath",
"Unholy" by Kiss, and many more! This is first in a trilogy that has
not yet been made. The next two are "Suicide's greatest hits" and
"Junkie's greatest hits." Drugs, devil-worshipping, suicide... the
stuff that makes rock n' roll great! (This is an example of my dark humor.)
2000
74. Welcome to This World: Primus music video
5 minutes
One day, I was bored out of my mind, so I decided to make this surreal music
video using hand puppets subjected to blacklights, animated cut out characters
and plastic glow-in-the-dark skeletons moving by strings. My intention was to
drown the viewer with bizarre imagery and make them feel like they've entered
a dream world.
75. The Making of The Head Incident
approx. 1 hour
I take you through the entire process of the Head Incident from writing to editing.
Very extensive. I think I took it a bit too far. I tell you everything inside
and out and I get sick of hearing myself talk.
76. Death Puppy
20 minutes
My friend had this overly playful dog which would always jump all over guests,
so I decided to star her in a really bad horror movie. The idea with this film
was to purposely make it bad. The continuity goes out of control. A character's
hand is bitten off, but somehow grows back. The dog keeps changing breeds. Articles
of clothing change. The relationships of the characters change. One of them
turns from an unwelcome guest to a close friend, while another turns from a
friend to a stranger. You can hear me behind the camera whispering to the actors
when they forget their lines. When the dog starts to attack, the main character
calls 911, says "My puppy's trying to kill me", then hangs up the
phone immediately. Right away, two people barge through the door wearing t-shirts
that say "911." I have a personal fondness for this one. It's so bad
and so funny.
77. Kill for Thrill
15 minutes
There were hardly any long takes in my movies, because I was always cutting.
While it controls the pace and keeps the excitement level up, editing can also
lend to some falsity. When two shots are cut together, everybody knows that
the two incidents did not actually occur at the same time. Long takes can seem
more realistic, because the action is continuous. Everybody knew I was a good
editor, so I wanted to try something different, a movie without any editing.
This is like a remake of Alfred Hitchock's Rope and Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale
Heart, both combined. Unlike Rope, rather than shooting it mostly from a theatrical
viewpoint, I moved the camera around constantly. The plot involved two colleagues
who murder someone in their apartment and have to hide his body when unexpected
guests arrive. Throughout the film, they grow increasingly nervous as guilt
overwhelms them.
78. Acme Vs. Shoprite
5 minutes
For a highschool project, my friend had to make a television commercial. He
decided to do a commercial for Acme and consulted me to help him make it. We
ended up turning it into an action thriller where an Acme employee is fighting
against a ShopRite employee. It turns into a car chase and climaxes with the
Acme dude running over the Shoprite guy and crushing his head, which is actually
a stuffed dummy with a watermelon head. Then he gets out of his car, faces the
camera and says "Acme always crushes this competition." I heard that
the class loved it, but the teacher said it was too violent.
79. The Mind that Makes the Matter
27 minutes
This is a psychological journey through the tormented mind of an art student
who is summoned to the top of a gothic temple known as the Dreaded Drake Tower.
An evil wizard who lives inside the top dome casts a spell on him, which gives
him the power to involuntarily manifest horrible things. Whatever he imagines
becomes a reality and his own creativeness becomes a doomsday dream which terminates
the entire human race. The Drake Tower in Philadelphia is a sinister looking
building that looks like the temple of Zuul in Ghostbusters. With special permission,
I got to shoot on the top of it. This is a remake of my old film "Deadly
Dreams" from 1993, but this one is much better. It's highly experimental,
with lots of metaphoric imagery, and shot loosely around school. It shows my
filmmaking abililtes maturing past horror b-movies.
80. The Search for a Plot (editor)
4 minutes
In my dorm around midnight some friends were hanging out. One of them wanted
to make an experimental movie, so we decided that he'd shoot it and I'd edit
it. He went out to the streets with his camera and came back at 3AM with some
crazy footage of people hanging off street lamps and jumping into piles of garbage
cans. I edited it and added music.
81. Art Project
4 minutes
I had a "time & motion" class which dealt with creating patterns
and sequences in various mediums. One of the assignments we had involved shooting
a video of a sequence of shots of somebody doing an action. I got carried away
and made a movie about an art student who attempts to carry his heavy project,
a giant mouse trap, from the classroom, back to his apartment. Along the way,
he has to squeeze into an elevator. When crossing the street, pieces of the
project keep dropping and he has to pick them up. People who have taken the
three-dimensional design course know exactly what I'm talking about, because
that's what they have to endure. What I like so much about this video is that
it's a true story and George, the actor, appeared to be very natural.
82. Jim Carrey Kaufman Vs. The Hyper-Active Shit
Monkies (animated)
approx. 3 minutes
I had an animation elective course where we I made this cut-out action epic.
The characters came from magazines which I cut the limbs off of and reassembled
with strings behind them to make their arms and legs movable. The star is Jim
Carrey in his role as Andy Kaufman in "Man on The Moon" cut from a
newspaper ad. Throughout this insane cartoon, he engages in mortal combat with
all kinds of other crazy characters.
83. Zone Out II: Getting in Tune
approx. 8 minutes
At the end of the last semester of Freshmen year, my friend Gina and I decided
to make a sequel to our improvised Zone Out which was made at the beginning
of the first semester. Again, there's no logic or plot to this surreal work
of art, but it subconsciously shows what we went through during the year and
how we've changed since the first Zone Out. See also 65. ZONE OUT.
84. IXOV
42 minutes
Very intense documentary about the rebellion in the dorm rooms, which I did
not participate in, but since I documented it, I was suspended from college
for a year. How ironic that I'd get in trouble for my own art, filmmaking which
is what I was going to the school for.
as "THE CINEMASSACRE
Productions"
85. Deadly Duels at the Pool
15 minutes
I wanted to make an entertaining action movie, so I casted two friends who knew
some martial arts (American Goju and Tai Kwan Do). The movie begins like a gangster
film, but turns into a martial arts film halfway through. A villain hires a
hit man to kill his rival. It begins with them playing a game of pool and ends
with a battle at a swimming pool. For a one day shoot, it came out really good.
86. Black Sabbath: music video
6 minutes
There's no band like Black Sabbath. Their cartoonishly dark music feeds me with
vivid mental images which would make great music videos. I would make a video
for every Sabbath song, if I had the time, but for a starter, I made one for
the first song, the self-titled one on the first album. There is a loose narrative
function to it, but it's mostly just a montage of supernatural images of horror.
It resembles my older horror montage "The Feeling of Terror" (filmography
97) except that one used clips from existing films, while "Black Sabbath"
uses only my own footage. I shot footage of a life-sized dummy burning in a
fire, a close-up of a tarantula, a burning clay skull dripping red wax, and
a grim reaper chasing somebody through a cemetery which is actually the same
cemetery in Philadelphia which appeared in the movie "The Sixth Sense."
This video contains some of the strongest imagery which I've ever produced and
the editing is so tight, that you wouldn't believe I did it using two VCRs and
no computers.
2001
87.
Kung Fu Werewolf From Outer Space
27 minutes
This farcical b-movie mixes three nostalgic film genres together: Horror, Science
fiction and Martial arts. It also has a comical underlying message that "everything
happens for a reason". An alien fugitive flees from his attackers to planet
Earth where he befriends an eccentric kung fu teacher who has been hoping for
a new student to train. Strangely, the alien develops the skills on his own
while chasing a human guinea pig that the sensei wants him to fight. During
his adventure, he is bitten by a werewolf; therefore, he is destined to become
a werewolf during the next full moon. Upon returning to his teacher, his beastly
transformation causes him to attack which results in a climatic battle. It's
the greatest fight choreography that I've ever filmed. The actors Rob and Kevin
gave an A+ performance. The only martial arts fight scene I ever shot before
this was in "Deadly Duels at the Pool" which I learned a lot from.
The action in Kung Fu Werewolf is a lot better in terms of match cutting and
camera decisions. You'd never believe I edited it using two VCRs. There was
a major time contstraint around work, so we only had two days to finish this
movie.
88. Jackie Chan: God of All Action Heroes (edited
from film clips)
48 minutes
This is a salute to my favorite actor, Jackie Chan, who puts his life on the
line just for the sake of entertainment. I narrated and edited this documentary
using clips from his films.
89. The Great Undoing (Cinematographer and editor)
10 minutes
In this comedy, God becomes bored and tries to put an end to the world, unless
two kids can beat him at a race on kiddie scooters. This was done for a video
production class where all the students were put into groups. Since I wasn't
the director, this was a new experience for me. They were less experienced than
I and I tried to explain at one point that we needed more "coverage",
like different camera angles, but they didn't listen, and even got mad at me,
so I had to let a lot of things go. After we all watched the final product,
the director gave me a hand shake saying "sorry, you were right. I see
what you meant now."
90. Stoney
55 minutes (short version = 20 minutes) and yet a
shorter 10 minute version
This is my first movie shot on my new digital camcorder. For years, I've planned
to make a spoof of "Rocky" but never fully developed the idea until
I saw the satire, "This is Spinal Tap" a comical fake documentary
made to look convincing. I thought this would be a perfect angle for my Rocky
parody. He's a stoner who wants to become a boxer like Rocky, but is too burned
out to think straight. I shot it just like a documentary and portrayed myself
as an eccentric film maker who doesn't care about anything, except getting good
footage. The underlying theme is that everybody is eccentric in their own way.
Stoney's opponent is outrageously cocky, his over-enthusiastic trainer thinks
he's an old man, and Stoney is remarkably dumb. I took three days in a row off
work to film this movie. We improvised most of it and I selected the best moments
in the editing. The end result is one of funniest and most popular films. The
best laugh comes when he tries to run across the street to the art museum steps,
but has to stop and wait for traffic to pass.
91. Devil's Child
5 minutes
I have a little evil black cat named Moody who hates people. If you try to pet
her, she'll claw and bite without mercy. I videotaped her whenever I had the
chance and eventually I compiled the best footage into a music video of the
Judas Priest song "Devil's Child." When she stares at you in the dark
with those glowing eyes, you will believe that she is from hell.
92. Cinemaphobia
16 minutes (20 with outtakes) New version: 12 minutes
An overworked film actor is tormented by the horror movies that he commits himself
to. When he is home and alone, he can't shake off the feeling of being filmed
and in the climax, is chased by a hallucination of a movie camera walking around
on its tripod legs. This is not a straight-forward narrative. Its style is rather
vague, striving for stunning surreal visuals to subject you to the main characters
distorted mind. Also, there is a bold display of special effects for an ultra
low budget film including pretending to set my living room on fire. This is
probably my best movie yet, based on both content and production value. It's
my first movie edited on a COMPUTER! Finally!
WATCH IT ON STUDENTFILMS.COM
93. Poltergeist in an Alleyway
3 minutes
This is a compilation of some of the 16mm film experiments I did in my first
semester Sophomore film class.
94. It Came From Beyond the Toilet
2 minutes
This was my final project in my Sophomore Film class. The assignment was to
make a trailer for a non-existent movie. Since I'm so familiar with monster
movie trailers, I decided to make one of my own. Set in the 1950's, It Came
From Beyond the Toilet is a parody of such monster movie titles as It Came From
Beneath the Sea and It Came From Outer Space, but the monster in my movie is
a giant carnivorous turd! The concoction of flour, water, chunky peanut butter,
and chocolate syrup was spilled all over the star and spattered all over his
bathroom which I spent 9 hours cleaning after the shoot was over. This is the
messiest movie I've ever made, but a real fun one too.
95. The Chiller Channel (a.k.a. The Supernatural Thriller Network)
1 minute
Rating: 7
In my "History of Television" class, I had to invent a TV commercial
and give some kind of visual presentation for it. Of course, mine was a horror
movie channel and I made a commerical for it. The best part is an insane fan
watching the channel with a knife stuck in his head. His wife is heard screaming
in the background. "Are you watching that channel again?! Do you want another
knife in your head?!"
96. Wawa Clerks
6 minutes
Just a little homage to Kevin Smith's Clerks done at a convenience store where
I worked. It's an in-joke for all the funny people who worked there or frequented
the store.
2002
97.
The Night Prowler
3 minutes
When walking around in a strange section of Philadelphia alone late at night,
I came up with an idea for The Night Prowler, a movie about a man garbed in
black wandering alleyways. There is not much of a plot. I only wanted to capture
the lonely creepy feeling of the city during night owl hours. This project
was done for school. The assignment was to film something happening in one
fluent shot, but instead I cheated and used very swift pans of the camera
to disguise the cuts. I made it all look like one shot which was really interesting
because you see the main character appearing all over the alleyways. The instructor
liked the way I broke the rule.
98. Once Upon a Time on a Farm
1 minute
For my Clay & Puppet Animation class, I collaborated with an animation
major and made a movie (shot on color film) about a drunken farmer on a tractor
who runs over some pigs and cows. Then, his wife turns into a monster and
beats him up. It took approximately 40 hours to animate this one minute of
film. Since you can't really interrupt the animating process, we had to do
two 20 hour days, working all through the night until dawn. This reminded
me why I didn't become an animation major. Film majors like to sleep sometimes.
99. Ticking Away
approx. 4 minutes
This was a video done for my science class about the way the mind percieves
time. I did a narration, then the song "time" by Pink Floyd starts
and it becomes a trippy music video. The class loved it.
100. A Musical Tribute to Edward D. Wood Jr
3 minutes
I wrote a song about my favorite director Ed Wood. The lyrics are based off
of "Johnny B Goode", but instead it's "Edward D Wood".
My friend Kyle recorded it, did vocals and played all instruments. I decided
to make this music video for it using clips from Ed Wood movies.
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