11 min.

"This Thing"

Oh, how we learn and improve during the course of our lives.  At least that is the idea.  I've learned a great deal since making my first film.  It was actually my first student film, as well.  I decided to put it up here on my web site for fun and so that my friends, with whom I made this little gem, could check it out and reminisce all the way back to 1997. Ahhh.. the college years.  

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"This Thing" is an adaptation of a piece written by humorist and author Dave Barry. I believed it first appeared in a column he wrote for the Miami Herald.  I found the written work and contacted Mr. Barry's office in Miami to ask if he would mind if I turned this into a student short film. Through his assistant, Mr. Barry agreed, giving me permission to make a film based on his original piece.  A few minor adjustments to fit what we were doing, but nothing major.  

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"This Thing" taught me a lot and we had a ton of fun making it. Begging for or stealing just about everything we could, we made this film for about $4000 which covered a camera rental, 16mm film and processing. Oh, and food during the shoot. You have to keep the crew fed.  We did our driving scenes using a U-Haul car two trailer and camera mounts from a local grip house.  It was done down and dirty.  

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I also learned one of the biggest skills needed in filmmaking... compromise.  Usually, one always has to make some compromise to get the story to screen.  Rarely does everything work out perfectly.  For example, this film was originally supposed to have cartoon animation of an tiny any crawling on a truck tire, but I could never get that part produced. Luckily, we shot plenty of talking head material to cover the entire script.  Some things you have to let go.  

My first student film

narrative