Movie's done!

Good grief. Nine months ago I bought a camera, made a couple of figurines and a couple of sets and began a long odyssey that has ended today with the posting of my film "The Moon and The Gargoyle" on Vimeo and here on my site.

I spent about two months making the sets, and another two months, off and on, capturing the raw sequences using an SLR camera and a program called 'iStopMotion'. Once it was time to pull together the audio, I was lucky enough to have the help of a friend, Todd Melby, who's an independent audio journalist. And after stumbling over who might be willing to provide the narration, I again lucked out - the fine Minneapolis actor and playwrite Ben Kreilkamp was happy to come to my rescue. Finally, budding engineer Charlie Garetz helped create the caliope sounds for the ending music and recorded most of the film's live music.

People have asked many times where the story for the film came from. All I can say is that the faces of the figurines themselves suggested a direction, and my quirky mind did the rest. People have also asked, upon seeing the film, how tall the 'actors' are. For reference, I'll tell you that the larger one is the body of a WWF action figure, selected because of all the dolls and action figures out there, they have the most positionable joints in the most places.

A feel like I've lived with this project for a long time - longer, I think, than I've ever lived with a project I've undertaken. But there's something about filmmaking, at least the way I've chosen to pursue it, that strikes the right chord for me. Over the course of the past nine months, I've needed to sew, carve, construct, find objects, configure sets, light them, photograph them, draw and cut paper, write a script, write music, perform it, edit video, edit audio, and play with my friends. I've squeezed a lifetime worth of pursuits into these past months, and now I finally have a final product.

And - an idea for my next film.