Years ago, I stumbled into a pretty sweet arrangement with Pickathon, an independent music festival just outside Portland, Oregon. They needed some help editing videos, and I wanted to see some live music. So, in exchange for a festival pass, I volunteered to put together a handful of short films for their My Pickathon YouTube series. Seemed like a pretty fair trade to me!
The videos were little snapshots of the festival and the characters who made it such an interesting place to be. Some were funny, some were a little offbeat, and one even featured Fred Armisen, who was there doing his Portlandia thing. Ha! That was a fun one.
I really enjoyed digging through the footage and seeing what kind of story I could pull out of it. Sometimes the best stuff was a throwaway comment, an awkward pause, or something happening in the background that nobody had planned. Finding those moments and giving them a little room to shine was half the fun.
And hey, I got to see some great bands, too. I'd call that a win.
As part of a small group of independent filmmakers, I helped bring a number of short films to life for the Slender Man-inspired YouTube series Caught Not Sleeping. With a core crew of roughly five creatives, we pitched, wrote, composed, acted, and directed our way through a series of suspenseful, creepy, and occasionally downright bizarre stories, all held together with little more than dental floss and chewing gum.
It was a fantastic creative outlet and an opportunity to experiment with storytelling, sharpen our skills, and see just how much we could accomplish with practically no budget.
Extreme Circumstances was an episode I directed, storyboarded, edited, and even appeared in. I got to wear a pretty cool costume, too.