Voicebox

Please take the time to watch my latest short film Voicebox on Vimeo! It was a huge project with a lot of talented people involved. Any and all feedback is welcome and please everyone share this video, it would mean the world to all the great people involved in this project.

Voicebox

Thanks for all the support!
Daniel Hess

Media Arts Festival '12

Well I just got back from the 2012 Towson University Media Arts Festival with a pair of Second Place videos! Both Love is Undead and Hello! by Kane Mayfield got Second place in their respective categories (music video and shorts). Not only is this a nice step up from getting Third place last year with Spiritus it is also an accomplishment to submit two separate works and then have them both become finalists...then have them both place second. I feel strong about these videos and I am glad to see them get the recognition they deserve. I have to give an even bigger shout out to the two videos that beat me out this year I Tell 'Em Towson University in the music video category was a well put together video that they somehow got a ton of people to be in which is amazing (I know how hard that can be to pull off). Also to Do Not Duplicate in the shorts category was great too, a pretty sweet opening credit sequence and also some cool shots added in the mix as well.

Overall this year was much better than last and I hope to keep submitting as many years in the future as I can especially if some friends of mine end up going there next year...I can just have them submit works for me lol. Great night...lots of fun...can't wait for more festivals.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Love is Undead

Well last night we officially finished up filming of Voicebox which I think is going to be my best work yet, but I finally managed to finish up Love is Undead just in time to show it off to all you guys. I hope that everyone likes it and gets something out of it...I consider this film to be "fun," but you can feel free to let me know what you think after watching it.




Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Film Festival Time

So today when I woke up I was really checking out film festivals again for submitting Love is Undead which I am still just about done and for some reason I really wanted to submit some of my work to a festival. After a little while of debating I decided to send off my music video for Hello! by Kane Mayfield, just because I don't want to regret not doing it. I still regret not sending out Gas Guzzlers to any festivals to this day and I didn't want to do it again. I figured even if I don't get accepted at least I tried, no harm no foul. That was my morning.

After that I worked all day and tried to figure out more details for my short film but didn't accomplish much beyond that. Hoping tomorrow goes better in the afternoon but I fear thanks to this crappy work schedule I won't get back on track until Monday which sucks.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Love and Sherlock Holmes

So yesterday I spent the majority of the day hanging out with a good friend of mine Joe just running around going to a few places. I got to shoot my first handgun which I sucked at from the start and then after that owned. We went to the Science Center which was awesome when I was a kid but kinda sucked now that I am older (should of expected that). Finally we saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows which I felt was better than the original in some regards and in others not so much.

This new film goes much further into the psyche of Holmes and decides to point out more of his quirky methods at time to the extreme for instance when he is drinking embalming fluid but other hits it right on the nose when he hates riding on the horse. I felt like the use of slow motion like in the first to show his thought process was again a very smart trick but when it was used on things such as a gun about to fire a huge explosive device it became a bit overused. The scene in the woods of them running away from the Germans was amazing and this by far was the best use of the slow motion effect in the whole film. The introduction of Moriarty was not overdone at all (as it can be in the Holmes universe) and his character was written in very well to fit the way the books had described him (he is a man who never gets his hands dirty). The ending is nothing short of a very Hollywood style but it still fits within all the workings of a Conan Doyle story. I would recommend a watch either in theaters or at home when it is on DVD. Not worth a rush to the theater really but it is still an enjoyable Sherlock Holmes film.

The other film I watched yesterday was entitled Love which is a very intensely slow drama piece about a man up in space who slowly learns he is going to be up there for a while. It can be assumed that back on Earth man is slowly killing themselves through war. At the same time there are flashbacks to a civil war soldier who is on the quest for a mysterious ship that is near the Mississippi river. Throughout the film we watch this lone mans decent into madness as he has no human interaction aboard the space station. There is no real villain in this film or not secret he really finds. It is just a slow paced strange film which is not terrible but a bit too philosophical for its own good at parts. Sometimes shots get repeated but from different angles which is excusable but the fact that these shots are shown in slow motion several times make it very apparent that we have seen them before. It comes to an end in a less than satisfactory ending and the only real way to have it make sense is if you use the excuse that he must have died. I really love the concept and the majority of the execution considering how indie this film is. I'd say if you can get past the slow pacing and the almost cheesy soundtrack from Angels and Airwaves at times it makes for a very good film. If not though stay away it is not going to pick up the pace at any point really.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

And That's a Wrap

Well today it was the last day of filming for Love is Undead which started around 10:30 am and by 12pm we were all done. It was a short two scenes we had to do and it was the most relaxed time filming yet...so overall a fun time. I am sort of sad that it is all done, but at the same time it is nice to be finished with everything, especially since it was a process of four days from August to November. Looking back at the filming it sucked that I couldn't get it done sooner but I learned a lot from it which was pretty sweet so I wouldn't have had it any other way. From here I am on to editing which will prove to be a lot of fun (not lol).

Thanks for the love,
Daniel Hess

Internship?

So I have an internship all lined up for this Thursday at 2:30pm with Black and Decker. For the internship I am basically going to be creating web content, editing, and just helping out with the video portion of Black and Decker. It is a pretty independent internship which focuses on mostly in house corporate style video production. It is a paid internship through Black and Decker which offers a lot for me to learn as far as video production/corporate communication. I am very excited and hope that the interview goes well even though I am extremely nervous.

I am also going to be finishing up my film Love is Undead this Sunday November 13th in the morning which should be a lot of fun and going back onto the set of The Cat on the 12th to help them again with sound and whatever else they need. So another packed week and another week of brushing school off, it is going to catch up to me but between the future and the now, it is pretty obvious what I am trying to invest in.

Thanks for the support/love,
Daniel Hess