filmmaking

Chris Knight's avatar

I have reposted stuff on this blog twice in the past, on rare occasions. But never three times. This deserves it though (and no doubt will be posted again in years to come).

It’s been two years since the last time I shared this YouTube video. And since this is the week of Thanksgiving (yes I’ve already begun preparing to deep-fry a bunch of turkey) and there are perhaps still a lot of people who’ve never enjoyed this before, I thought it was well worth posting again 🙂

It’s the short film Thanksgiving With The Kranzes. Produced a few years ago by aviation students, it’s a dead-on hilarious parody of Ron Howard’s movie Apollo 13.

It is Thanksgiving 1970. This year it’s Gene Kranz’s turn to host the traditional dinner for his NASA colleagues. The heroic crew of the Apollo 13 mission has been given the command of ...

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Anti-drug ads have sure come a long way from an egg dropped into a frying pan…

Darren Aronofsky, the filmmaker behind Pi and Requiem for a Dream, has produced four public service announcements for the Meth Project, warning against meth abuse.

Here’s one of them…

And that’s not even the most disturbing example of Aronofsky’s latest work.

GeekTyrant has collected all four of them for your convenience. But be mindful: these are all pretty harsh. One of them is intensely disgusting. Consider yourself duly warned....

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Yes, it really is! I even went out late yesterday evening along with good friend/fellow blogger and Eagle Scout Steven Glaspie to be at the local GameStop for the midnight release, just to behold it with our own eyes.

But that wound up not being good enough. I had to have some tactile sensation of it as well, so I bought a copy of the standard edition.

And though I hadn’t planned on it, I wound up shooting and then editing together a lil’ film to document the event for posterity. This is the first time that I’ve ever put together a movie with an iOS device. May this be the first of many more to come 🙂

Anyhoo, here is… Vaporware Nevermore!

...

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As of this evening I haven’t seen Super 8, but some of the coolest cats that I have the honor of personally knowing seem to be completely losing their minds about how incredible it must be. I’m gonna be catching it Sunday afternoon with friends and am really looking forward to it 🙂

But in the meantime, thought I’d turn y’all’s attention to 8mm Vintage Camera, a sa-weeet lil’ app from Nexvio for Apple iOS devices that are camera equipped (doesn’t matter if it’s an iPhone, iPod touch or the newest iPad). 8mm Vintage Camera turns your newfangled Apple contraption into an old-school 8mm movie camera with all the fixins. Select from different lenses, various types of film stock, and you can even give it a classic camera frame jitter effect. I’ve had this app for a few weeks now and it has definitely become one of ...

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…well, parts of it anyway 🙂

The People vs. George Lucas, Alexandre Philippe’s documentary that has won beaucoups of awards at film festivals all over the world, has just announced a whole bunch of new showings. And one of them is right next door in Winston-Salem! Beginning May 9th it’ll be playing at Cine Club on 311 West Fourth Street.

So why am I especially stoked about getting to see this rave-reviewed film? Here’s the second trailer for it…

And here’s the first teaser for The People vs. George Lucas…

That’s none other than Melody Hallman Daniel and Chad Austin from Forcery, the first film that I ever made. I’ve heard that quite a lot of clips from it wound up in The People vs. George Lucas. So I’m not only looking forward to seeing Philippe’s work, but also my own blown-up extra-huge on a ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

…we begin shooting the craziest film project that I’ve yet embarked upon!

How crazy? Looks like I’m gonna have to be notifying the local law enforcement agencies about it so that we won’t be getting arrested during filming. Considering that we’ve a special guest star who’s come all the way from western Europe, the last thing we want happening is our lil’ movie creating an international diplomatic crisis.

Expect some production photos soon....

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The muse of cinematography must have an ear inclined toward KWerky Productions lately because on Friday night I casually put the word out to my Facebook friends, asking if anyone had a samurai sword that could be borrowed.

As of yesterday evening I now have two such swords! Either in my actual possession or waiting to be used when time to film this bad boy comes (which Lord willing will be next month).

There is one major-ish piece of prop to secure. That will hopefully happen in the next few days, as we begin work on the costume for the main character this week.

Meanwhile, more people have joined the cast! Including one friend who’s a Baptist minister and, well let’s just say in a roundabout way he came up with the name of his character on his own… and I’d love to be able to pull off what he ...

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Theatre Guild of Rockingham County‘s production of The King and I came to a successful conclusion this past Sunday afternoon. We played three shows to a nearly sold-out house each time!

And as much as ‘twould be nice to have some respite after the past several weeks of work that went into that, there’s always something new afoot for The Knight Shift’s eclectic proprietor.

Been busy the past few days with… work, on… stuff. Along with… new ummm, “equipment” that will soon be employed toward, errr… “projects”. Got to do some field testing with it this week and so far I’m more than a little pleased with the investment 🙂

Might be worth noting here that my blogging may be sparse during the next few weeks as I and others are engaged in numerous endeavors. When I am here though, I’ll do my best to make it worth your ...

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When friend and fellow filmmaker Marco van Bergen sent me the teaser poster for his upcoming film Shadowlands, I immediately e-mailed him back something to the effect of “Marco, get some therapy dude!”

But seriously: it is a rather neat image, although rather bloody. But I like how it compels the eye to dart around it, picking out grisly detail and the film’s tagline…

...

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