I’ve heard many questions regarding Croquet The Musical lately. Questions like “Hey Mike, when do I get to see Croquet?” and “Are you going to put Croquet online?” and “Would you stop talking about Croquet already?”
Well, here’s your chance to see it streaming right to your browser. But before you click, think about how great it would be if Mike Russo and I were to win top honors in an online short film contest… Got that mental image in your head? Good, now follow the link below to experience our absurd little film.
Watch Croquet The Musical at Bigstar.TV
Then sign in with Facebook Connect (using the login link at the top of the Bigstar page) and vote with all your heart. A vote for Croquet is a vote for ART!
Thanks for your support! Remember, I cried real tears for this film.
The last two years, I’ve taken part in the Rochester Movie Makers Summer Shorts Challenge. Two summers ago, I helped with a film called X-Girlfriend, and last year worked on The Wingman and Virgin Fang.
This year will be my first time directing a summer short, one called “The Interrogation” written by yours truly. In the writing phase, I decided to keep my characters and locations to a minimum to make it easier — especially since one of my characters is ANIMATED.
I’ve been wanting to try a live action / animation combo project for a while now. The process will be similar to how films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit or The Phantom Menace were shot. I’ll have an actor on set playing the cartoon character, and we’ll shoot his scenes two ways. One version with the actor, one without. That way I’ll have a performance to mimic in the animation phase, but I’ll also have a clean shot to use when I want to composite the character in. (No, I won’t be doing motion capture. That’s overkill for what I have in mind.)
It was a fun script to read to an audience, which is what went down at the March meeting of Rochester Movie Makers. We read 15 (!) screenplays that night. When everyone voted and the dust cleared, it turned out I was the winner of our script competition. It doesn’t mean the movie itself will be the best, but it’s nice to be loved.
Soon I’ll be finalizing the cast, crew, and picking some dates to shoot this thing. At the same time, I’m working on designing props and the cartoon character known as Mad Monster.
Behold!
And what’s a movie without a website, right?
Click below to experience the agony and the ecstasy:
http://maddogmovies.com/croquet
CROQUET THE MUSICAL will be screening as part of a night of 72 Hour Films at the Little Theatre on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010.
The RMM 72 Hour Mind 2 Movie Exhibition and Awards Ceremony
The Little Theatre, 240 East Avenue Rochester, NY.
Social hour in the cafe: 6pm.
Showtime: 7pm.
Awards: 8pm.
Tickets are available now at the Little Box Office to see all 10 films for $5.00.
If you’ve been following my Facebook feed ( http://facebook.com/mikeboas ) you’ve probably seen some cryptic messages about croquet in the last week.
It all came about because writer Mike Russo and myself headed up a team for the Rochester Movie Makers 72 Hour Mind 2 Movie Challenge. As you can imagine, this involved writing, rehearsing, shooting, and editing a complete short film in 72 hours. At the start of this event, our team (dubbed TEAM AWESOME) was assigned a line of dialogue, a character, and a prop.
The line: “We are not the doctors. We are the disease.”
The character: Uncle Billy from Utica — a secret drinker.
The prop: A CROQUET MALLET.
Naturally, this suggested the title, “Croquet The Musical.” How could we go wrong?
I’ll be posting a trailer soon. In the meantime, enjoy the following absurd pictures.
Rochester filmmakers Mike Russo and Derrick Petrush have posted the trailer for the slasher parody, “One Kill.” It’s a hysterical horror comedy short produced as part of last year’s Rochester Movie Makers summer challenge. I was not involved in the production, but this gives me an excuse to post the poster image I made for their DVD screeners (see below).
My friend Mars did the score for the final piece, although the trailer uses old timey organ instead.
Watch for it this Monday, April 27th at Emerging Filmmakers!
