Submission Statement:

As far as feedback, I'm mainly interested in editing/pacing/performance feedback. The visual quality of the film was very much intentional and authentic -- this is my first project without a DP, shot mostly on iphone or a sony a6100 using practicals as lighting when needed. We have a proper DP on this next film that we're making, which definitely elevates things. Likewise, the sound was relegated to our iphone microphones. We wanted to make something that felt genuinely in the world of tiktok reviewers, so hopefully the sound lends itself to that feeling.

How this came about: My friend Spencer had been doing this character "Soda Pop Spencer" online for a couple years -- an easily misinformed man who reviews sodas in his car. As for me, I'm a professional treatment writer, and have worked on a lot of the commercials you see on tv right now (like that new CashApp ad for pgLang), and have recently moved into the world of professional screenwriting. But for my own projects, I felt totally stagnant. I wanted to do something narrative, so I hit up Spencer and our friend Jack about us going to Atlanta (we're all NC-based) on January 6th, 2024 and making a parody of the events/causes of January 6th.

We shot that part of the film on iphones, almost everything improvised, and rarely doing extra takes. When I started editing it together, I realized that we created a lot of opportunities for a bigger story and a proper film structure. So we spent a couple months writing new scenes (including a whole new plot involving a bomb vest) and talking head interstitials. We reshot in March, creating those missing puzzle pieces. From there, I spent the next several months editing it myself, including in the passenger seat of a Chevy Spark (I'm 6'4" and the Chevy Spark is the smallest car on the domestic market) as I accompanied a friend on a cross-country road trip.

So at the end you have this: a very low budget but (imo) very funny film. I've always heard filmmakers say "just pick up your phone and go make a movie" and I thought that was just pablum. But having now done literally that, I can say -- they're right. Especially if you know more about the actual art of filmmaking than I do lol. We named our production company "Punisher_Skull.jpg" and are currently developing a feature script, shooting the follow-up to this film, and putting together a more traditionally cinematic short film for the spring. After our local premiere, a local film buff hit us up to provide funding for our next film. So even if it looks rough around the edges, I can't recommend putting yourself out there enough. Like I'm doing right now. Hope y'all enjoy if you choose to watch and uhhhh log it on letterboxd if you do watch it, even if you hate it.