Stuff I Made: The Last Day of Spring

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In honor of the last day of spring, here is my friend Hinkleberg's account of how this movie, The Last Day of Spring, came to be:
  
Evan and I suffered 26 hours to make this. Now it's your turn.

The Coolidge Corner theater in Brookline used to host open screenings and request that filmmakers make short films based on a monthly theme. Despite having over 30 days to prepare for "The Last Day of Spring," Evan and I waited until the Friday before and slapped this together following the premise, "Let's make something awful. And act like it's awesome." My recollection is that Evan mostly watched the World Cup while I sat in my bedroom editing and photoshopping furiously. But still, I think I put in about 26 hours total. And this is the result.

Imagine what 30 days could have yielded! (The same, only in widescreen.)

The Morning Scone: Celebrate the Last Day of Spring with Miss USA

Flashing the devil horns - very telling.

Congratulations this morning to Alyssa Campanella, the new Miss USA. Alyssa seems like a very peculiar beauty contestant - including as her passions: history and SPACE EXPLORATION. She also claims to be BEST FRIENDS with runner-up Miss Tennessee - totally normal, to be best friends with some lady from the other side of the country who you just met that week. Totally normal.

Congratulations also to the 27 viewers out there who finished watching Season One of The Killing. Last night, I almost put my fist through a wall (SPOILER ALERT) after the season ended WITHOUT divulging the killer. Instead, they threw a final wrinkle into the last scene where some guy mumbled something that my wife and I couldn't understand. The character who mumbled is a character who often mumbles, because apparently mumbling is a charming quality in a television character (see: Barbarino, Vinny).

I will be celebrating this last day of spring by watching The Bach tonight, but you should kick the day off by watching Hooray For Funn's, "Last Day of Spring", my favorite video that we ever made. Watch here.

You can still find 'em.

Great week of TV watching coming up: Wimbledon (all week), Ice Loves Coco (whenever I see that it's on), The NBA Draft (HOLY ISHT! Thursday) and True Blood aka a show that I think is so dumb / sort of entertaining and that my wife goes FRIGGIN BONKERS for! (Sundee)  

The Bachelorette Starts Mondee Night! - TVMWW Video Commercial

Barky and Bleuberry will be watching ... you should too.

The Opportunity of a Lifetime: ............ A TV My Wife Watches Commercial

Check out TV My Wife Watches' first ever commercial!

Stuff I Made: Carl's First Day

Carl's First Day was produced by David Strand and Strand Marketing as a trade show video for Strand's "Odd Duck" campaign in 2006. They wanted to make something a bit different to catch people's eye and hired us to make their video after seeing Bill Gets Fired and Melvin's Kitchen. It was later selected to the New Hampshire Film Festival. People in New Hampshire drink a lot.

Conan Skyrme and I wrote the sketch at a Perkin's Diner somewhere near Newburyport, MA in the middle of the night after meeting with Strand. We were driving along and Conan ad-libbed the opening monologue, so we decided to pull over for some pancakes. This remains the only time I have ever eaten at a Perkins.

I don't remember how we got the duck for the movie. I seem to remember David Stand handling that. The film was shot and edited by Afton Grant, who once promised to take me to a range to shoot guns, but backed out at the last minute. Still to this day, I have never shot a gun. Thanks, Afton.

Stuff I Made: Cooking and Stretching With Don McDick

The idea for Cooking and Stretching With Don McDick (Stretch Expert and Cookmaster) was conceived by Nate Laver and remains in my opinion the dumbest thing Hooray For Funn! has ever shot. However, it was selected to Boston's Best of Open Screen and is widely considered to be the most popular video we ever filmed.

When the "Grilled Cheese" video was shown at the Best of Open Screen, a man sitting behind me started laughing so hard that I thought he might be choking on his popcorn. Nate, feeling that we might be onto something, quickly wrote the script for the second Don McDick short, "Hot Chocs." We filmed that shortly after (once again in Nate's kitchen), but never did shoot Nate's third installment, "Steak in a Bag."

Watch for a breakout performance by Cheese McDickwich, his first and only appearance in a Hooray For Funn! production. 

Stuff I Made: Bill Gets Fired

This video was made by my sketch comedy group, Hooray For Funn! (the extra "n" is for extra fun) back in 2005. It was the first short we ever made and was selected for the New Hampshire Film Festival and Boston's Best of Open Screen.

I wrote the script while taking an absolutely worthless sketch-comedy writing class at the Cambridge Adult Education Center and we shot it at the office of a marketing firm that I worked at during that time. The office was owned by Keith Barnette, Boston College's all-time career touchdown leader who also had an amazing afro. Co-starring alongside me was a guy named Adam, who last I heard was dating a really hot Brazilian woman.