So I kinda like... won some stuff!

So one sunny day in early September my good friend Josh asked me if I wanted to enter a film festival here in Whistler... called the B-Grade Horror Fest. Like always when people ask me to do something I said yes. Having never entered a film festival before the idea appealed to me. But like most casual conversations go we didn't end up talking about it again until a week before the entry deadline. We decided to go ahead and shoot something and my thinking was, "well even though this thing is last minute without any preparation, something is better than nothing." As we started churning out ideas I have to admit that I had pretty low expectations for this film BUT I was stoked just to make something and when your unemployed anything to get you out of the house and giving you some direction in life is good. So we shot... and well... I devoted a whole week to making a 3 minute pop horror flick (gotta give cred to Jamie McLeod for that catchy phrase). Our idea was to sneak in and shoot in an abandoned burnt down house but it was under some heavy security and would be pretty hard to actually pull off (you can actually see the house in the second shot of the movie). So we ended up just running around Whistler with guns for an epic Killer vs Victim chase scene along with some scenic time laps shots. Pretty simple idea... I think it took the whole week to actually get all the shots. We shot the dialogue and night scene two different days. I was very please with the continuity of all the shots. We pulled of pretty similar lighting both nights. We used the most ghetto set up... one halogen light. I know riiiight?!?! I got to the editing before we had even finished shooting, which was probably a good idea because when I wasn't shooting with Josh I was cooped up in my room trying to lock down the edit. We made the entry deadline by a matter of hours... To my astonishment we had actually come up with something pretty cool. Three minutes of a thrilling chase scene, ending with a comedic shot to the face... pretty good riiight? So the big day comes and we show up to this crazy horror festival. I think there were 17 other entries in the fest and people had entered from as far away as Toronto and Japan. I told myself I would be please if we got in the top 5 (I gotta admit, I still had pretty low expectations but that was probably because I am my hardest critic). They showed the films in 3 different parts because they wanted to give pee breaks to all the wasted drunk people in the audience. Supposedly they were showing the films in no particular order but the general consensus was the later your film was played the better you did. So I eagerly sat in my seat waiting to see my film play on 4 big screens in front of 1000 crazy partying Whistlerites. As the last intermission ended I actually was getting nervous that they forgot to play our film. I thought there was no way we could have been one of the final films to play but to my surprise they ended up playing our film second last. As soon as the last film ended they started giving out the awards... and here comes the cool part... the part that I've been trying to build up to this whole time... We actually won some stuff!!! Best FX, Best Death, and Rookie of the Year to be exact. But you know what??? I shouldn't be so surprised that we won so much. I mean come on, I am pretty dang good at make cool videos. The film was pretty witty and clever and the cinematography was also pretty dang dope (I'm hecka good at pulling focus). And with that I will leave you with some photos of the night along with the final product called...
Andale Mono (please watch in HD and full screen)

















Thank you and have a good night,

Ben