The auditions are on Saturday, Feb. 25, 10:30am to 2pm in the Marist TV studio (flyer/directions and campus map).

The story is about a mob-hired arsonist who comes out of retirement, and on his last job, seeks vicarious revenge on his abusive father. It’s a gritty drama that echoes tones from a David Fincher movie.

Here’s a character list with all the roles.

For those who wish to familiarize themselves with the script in advance, I’ve made the current version available for download.

Please feel free to contact me about any inquiries regarding the auditions, or if you would like to audition but are unable to during that time/day. We can work with you. I can also be reached at ryan[at]ryanrivard.com

Also important, since this is a student film, we are working with no budget, therefore are financially unable to compensate actors/actresses. However, they will walk away with a great addition to their reel.

Note: Two other films will also be casting during the time session. One director has provided a character list for the film Eye Kno U.

Living The Falcon documentary

We screened the current version of the documentary to owner Tony Falco and most of the staff. We received great feedback and helpful critiques from everybody. In the next week, we’ll be fine-tuning and polishing for the final product, and move on to planning a premiere.

Last Tuesday, I shot additional footage per Tony’s request. I interviewed Falcon favorite Alexis P. Sueter, who is a kind, warm, free-spirited person who had great things to say and contribute to the project. I’m grateful we had the opportunity to include such a talented artist who honestly calls The Falcon home, and has been an important piece of the venue’s history.

Other Falcon related videos

Since we accumulated so much material during the documentary’s principal production, I’ve been looking for ways to use footage that won’t make the final cut. I plan on putting together short videos for their website to promote the venue and different shows. The first of which will promote guitarist Jim Campilongo’s last Thursday of the month residency through 2012.

Psycho essay

This week, I’ll publish my essay that I will be present at the Sigma Tau Delta Convention in New Orleans at the end of February/early March.

Broken Flowers’ album

Last month, I announced that the next Broken Flowers album was currently in the works. One month later, I bring you the unfortunate news that the album will be put on hold. Both Joe and I are tied up with too many projects right now to focus on collaborating for the next album.

The next film: The Arsonist’s Affair

Last, but not least, the next film I’m working on is a narrative short that will be produced under the wings of my Digital Filmmaking class. I wrote the screenplay, based on a short story written by Marist alum Nick Sweeney (Class of ’11), currently titled The Arsonist’s Affair.

The film is about a former mob-hired arsonist who comes out of retirement for one last job, where he seeks vicarious revenge on his abusive father. I wrote the script, and our team, consisting of Jon O’Sullivan (Director of Photography), Christina O’Sullivan (Assistant Director) and Zach Dexter (Sound Recordist) have been workshopping the script for the past month and half. As a group, we’re very pleased at the progress. The project is ambitious challenge that mirrors a gritty tones seen in a David Fincher film.

On Saturday, February 25, we will be hosting casting auditions at the college. More details will be released on the site soon.

A Super Bowl victory would not only be the perfect capstone to a season dedicated to the late Myra Kraft (MHK), who passed away from cancer last summer, and but also the chance at redemption for the one giant loss five years ago. (The Helmet Catch will forever be my personal most devastating moment in sports history.)

Here’s to hoping that Patriots finish the season the right way this time. Happy Super Bowl everyone.

I seldom watch reality television. But I think there’s a time and place for this kind of mindless entertainment. During these situations, I turn to the best trashy television show on air, Jerry Springer’s most current venture: Baggage.

Baggage is a dating game show that airs on GSN, and is described on their website as such:

On each half-hour episode of Baggage, Jerry Springer guides the fun as one dater chooses among three contestants who reveal the intimate secrets and hidden flaws that are typically kept under wraps to impress a first date. Each contestant enters with three suitcases-small, medium and large containing the quirky, annoying and sometimes truly shocking ‘baggage’ that may or may not eliminate the contestants from competition…

What makes Baggage great?

Characters. Viewers are attracted to these shows because they find the contestants interesting. We want to know their flaws and intimate quirks. The show intelligently handles the delivery of information too. We are captivated into the show as each new piece of baggage is revealed round by round. We don’t change the channel because we want to know what the contestants are hiding. The truth is, aspiring screenwriters can learn a thing or two by watching Baggage.

A writer should think about what kind of baggage their characters are carrying in life. Everyone has their own secrets. Most of us have things we rarely share with others, and a person’s baggage is usually more than a secret. It can influence how someone acts with family, friends, strangers, acquaintances. The contestants usually have an explanation behind their baggage, which reveals details about their past, giving them a sense of history. By giving your characters baggage, you are giving them depth, and most importantly, are creating characters that are human and genuine.

Beyond nice characters

As a film student, one thing I’ve noticed is that most people’s characters are too nice. I think that’s partially responsible for the type of people that attend college. The majority of students are generally nice people. They had a decent upbringing and childhood, most are from the middle to upper class and are now benefiting from higher education. We are nervous about creating characters with glaring flaws, because on a subconscious level, we believe our characters are reflections of ourselves. But most audiences want interesting characters. They want something more than nice/

The next time you’re surfing channels for something trashy, make sure it’s Baggage. You may get inspiration for you next great character, full of interesting secrets and complexities.

To get a taste of Baggage, watch Season 1: Episode 1 below.

I meant to share this news earlier, but the year is already moving quickly. With great excitement, I’d like to announce that I will be presenting a film essay on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho at the 2012 Sigma Tau Delta – International English Honor’s Society Convention in New Orleans next February.

According to the acceptance email, Sigma Tau Delta received 1,200 submissions this year, and one of those essays is “Psychotic Window: An extreme close-up on Marion Crane and Marie Samuels.” Written for my Art of Film Class sophomore year at Marist, the work analyzes the the film’s use of close-ups to show Marion Crane’s transformation to her own evil alter-ego: Marie Samuels.

I not only enjoyed writing this essay, but also the class I wrote it for. Art of Film was my first film theory class and it taught me how much depth films. I grew to appreciate more classic films after having discussions about their themes, techniques, and deeper meanings. This essay was the final assignment for the class, and I watched Psycho more times than I ever want to remember. Even as a film major, I used to be one of those watch a movie once and done type of people, but the class showed me the value in multiple viewings. Even though we were only watching and talking about movies, I grew significantly as a filmmaker and a fan of cinema.

I’m excited for the opportunity to share my essay with a larger audience next month. And of all places to go, New Orleans has been on my list of places to visit for awhile. I’m just as excited to explore the city as I am to talk about Psycho, close-ups and Hitchcock.

For those who will not be attending the conference and would like to read the essay, I’m currently designing a magazine-styled document for digital publication – since no one wants to read a six page PDF of plain text – that I will be releasing soon.

The process pushed us to not only create something new every week, but also force us to release it. I’m proud of what we accomplished, and I’m excited to announce the next step in Broken Flowers.

Joe and I have started working on new material, but this time, in yet another experimental move, we are taking a more traditional route. Instead of writing, recording, releasing a song on a weekly basis, we’ll take an extended period of time to write and record the songs, and then more time to mix/master, followed by a proper release. We’re looking at something more along the lines of EP, about four or five songs.

On New Year’s Eve, we wrote, recorded and released a song just before midnight. The appropriately working title – “Dick Clark” – is a taste of what’s to come.

Jon and I shared duties as lighting designers, camera operators, and production assistants. The whole experience was very pleasant and all the staff at Adams were kind and gracious. If you get the opportunity to help on a production that involves food or cooking, do yourself a favor and take the job, even if the pay isn’t outstanding. You will more than likely earn your work in complimentary food.

Below are two videos – one on preparing fall off the bone ribs and the other on local cheeses. We were eating ribs and cheese for a weeks. Watch all the videos at the Adams Fairacre Farms website.

Local Cheese

Fall Off the Bone Ribs

Tony Falco in the short documentary Living The Falcon.

It seems like yesterday that Jon O’Sullivan and I were seeking out documentary subjects for our thesis film project. It was actually September. After our first option failed to pan out (documenting a startup restaurant in Poughkeepsie, NY), we were scrambling for ideas.

How the project started

I had read about The Falcon, a music venue in Marlboro, NY, about a year ago during my junior year at Marist. Initially, I saw the place mentioned in Hudson Valley Magazine; their brief description of the venue hooked my interest: “Not to mention that, rather than charging for admission, they accept donations — and all proceeds are given to the performers.”

I later found the New York Times article and finally The Falcon website. I never attended a Falcon show that year, but to discover a place like this exists was finding a glimmer of light in the midst of a bleak music industry – especially for musicians that are not mainstream, household names, yet remarkably talented. There are few music venues out there that share much in common with The Falcon. On top of its rare qualities, I also found the venue’s story intriguing with the potential to make a great documentary subject.

A music venue nestled in the Hudson Valley, run by Tony Falco, an environmental scientist who used to host concerts in his backyard; a man driven solely by the arts and music draws some of the best musicians in the world to play for a donation box. It’s an amazing story. When we were stuck, I suggested that we take a chance and contact Falco to see if he was interested in becoming a documentary subject.

We briefly met Falco near the end of September, and before committing to the project, he wanted to see samples of our previous work. The request was entirely understandable, so we emailed links to some samples, but we didn’t hear from him throughout the week. As the time passed, we grew worrisome that this Falcon documentary wouldn’t become a reality. We were nearly ready to abandon the idea of doing a documentary all together and opt to make a narrative short film instead. Our last resort was to approach Falco after a show for a decision. Hardly optimistic, we spoke to him one fall Friday night. He surprised me and Jon when he said, “Let’s do this documentary.” After those words, the project took flight.

Production

Over the course of the two-month production process, the documentary evolved into something larger than we originally conceived. Back at the start, we envisioned a film with a running time of about 10 to 15 minutes. After weeks of shooting, the story of The Falcon started to unravel. Falco and the rest of the staff became more comfortable with the camera’s presence, and in turn, the footage we captured had a genuine honesty that wasn’t apparent in the early stages of the project.

Guitarist Jim Campilongo performs at The Falcon on December 3, 2011. Photo by Jim Rice

We finished shooting in early December and accumulated over 20 hours of footage, which caused an overwhelming problem when it was time to whittle that into a 10 to 15 minute film. From the start of the project, we wanted to represent The Falcon in the best way possible, and be true to its story and vision without sacrificing any attributes that make the place so special. And in order to do that, we had to increase the running time beyond our original 15-minute cap.

Post-Production

We dove into post-production unsure exactly how long the film would be. Prior to editing, we constructed an outlined a list of main topics we wanted to include in the film. Because we made the stylistic decision to avoid using a voice-over, it was important to shape a narrative structure that flowed in an organic, logical fashion. After hours of deliberation and discussion, we started plugging along, and the process went smoothly because of the extra time we took to plan beforehand. It undoubtedly saved us precious time in the long run. Of course that outline ended up being more clay than stone, as it was reshaped and reconfigured during the editing process. After about two solid weeks of devoting absurd hours (more often than not 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) in the editing suite, we created a lean, swiftly paced 40-minute documentary.

Current status

As we stand right now, the film is 99% complete. Both Jon and I are on a one-month winter break from school, which provides us with an opportunity to put space between us and the film to see how it resonates after some time passes. The plan is to revisit the project in mid-January – most likely making a few alterations and adjustments before planning a formal premiere and submitting the work to film festivals.

The experience working on this documentary has been highly rewarding. This project is truly a culmination music and film, two of my biggest passions. Talking to the musicians, Falcon-goers, and other people making this place happen has been, in way, like creating my own rockumentary. And for someone who enjoys watching VH1′s Behind the Music and great music documentaries, this project has honestly been a dream come true. It’s a story that I hope inspires people to appreciate the arts, support living artists, and maybe even encourage others to create their own music performance space modeled after The Falcon.

Living The Falcon is a story that shows us what’s possible when you have an ambitious vision, passion and a strong will to make that vision a reality. Over the next couple weeks, I hope to do more reflecting on the creative process.

I hope you continue to read more Living The Falcon updates in the near future. This is only the beginning of the adventure.

Photo by meddygarnet’s Flickr

The year 2012 sounds like an intangible future; a place stricken by widespread infertility, menacing Terminator machines ruling the world, and some unspecified disease wiping out the human population. Thankfully our 2012 is less dystopian than most post-apocalyptic films. At the very least, we have that to be thankful for. But what’s a new year without optimistic resolutions and goals?

I have never been a religious resolution-maker, but this year, I put them in writing. A year from now, I will look back to gauge the progress, or maybe I should say lack of progress. I encourage you to put your resolutions in writing too, so we all have a record of how ambitious we were in January. Here are a few goals that I will pursue 2012.

Be a better blogger. I’ve attempted to consistently maintain a blog for a few years now, and I cannot pinpoint one particular reason why, but I always end up restarting. Whether it’s perfectionism creeping up on me or a fear that I am not suited to be an interesting blogger. Whatever the case may be, I could never successfully lunge over those early hurdles. This year, there are no excuses.

On this blog, I intend to stick to the goal of documenting my climb into the film industry, sharing stories, advice, and projects in hopes of connecting with other young and aspiring filmmakers on similar journeys.

Screen Living The Falcon. Living The Falcon is a documentary I made with Jon O’Sullivan last fall as part of our thesis film project. This goal is fairly attainable since the film is nearly complete. At the very least we’ll have some form of screening at the actual music venue the film is centered on: The Falcon.

The true challenge is a screening at a film festival. We are proud of work and certainly want more people exposed to the story. Only time will tell if we make some festival noise.

Direct a short film. Yet another goal that will be met since one of my classes next semester solely involves making a short film. This will also be my first short where I have more than 24-hours to create it. After competing in Sleepless in Lake Placid, I can truly appreciate that luxury.

Write a film score. If all goes well, I will be involved with the sound design and score work in the short we shoot in the spring. Music has been a major part of my life since I was a teenager, and I always pay special attention to sounds in films. I believe that music is often more important than images when it comes to conveying a particular tone or emotion to the audience. I used one of my songs for the final scene and end credits of Maybe Tomorrow, and seeing and hearing the pairing of sounds and images gave me a taste of how exciting film score work could be. I hope to dive into more this year.

Write a feature-length screenplay. I started working on a script that was very personal to me last semester in my Screenwriting class. I’ve written a treatment, step-outline, and currently at the point where I am ready to dive in to the actual writing process. By the end of the year, I hope to have this script completed as a personal achievement and as a start to my screenwriting portfolio.

Make the most out of the last semester. When May comes, life gets reel. I apologize for pun, but I couldn’t resist. It’s frightening, exciting, and nerve-racking time, but I will make the most out of the little time I have left as an undergraduate student.

Graduate and start film career. I’ve already been asked about post-graduation plans more times than I can count. And based on conversations that I’ve had with friends that are also graduating, most people don’t know what they’re doing. To me, that’s okay. It’s exciting not knowing what comes next. It’s hard to predict where I’ll be after graduation, especially since there’s no clear defined path to making it in the film industry. Whatever opportunities arise, I just hope it’s a stepping stone towards becoming a better filmmaker.

Become a vegetarian. This resolution is entirely unrelated to the others, but nonetheless worth mentioning. Starting this year, I will be a vegetarian. In the past, I’ve joked with friends by calling myself a non-practicing vegetarian, which in all seriousness, isn’t far from the truth. I think it’s a wise decision that has a great deal of benefits like living a healthier lifestyle, being more environmentally-conscious and more animal friendly. However, I have never put forth an honest effort towards embracing this dietary lifestyle. After watching a few food documentaries and doing a few trial runs of my own, I decided that I would adopt a vegetarian lifestyle in 2012. Do not be alarmed to see an occasional post about my transition into vegetarianism when I’m looking to venture into off-topic territory.

And lastly, I hope 2012 brings you wonderful opportunities, important life-lessons, and new experiences that make this year better than the last. Thank you for reading, and Happy New Year.