Written by
Matt Doman & N. T. Bullock
Directed by
N. T. Bullock
Assist.
Director
Matt Doman
Chief
Editor
N. T. Bullock
Assist.
Editors
Matt Doman & Scott Bullock
Sound
Design
N. T. Bullock
Cinematographer
N. T. Bullock
Assist.
Cinematographer
Matt Doman
|
Starring
Matt Doman & N. T. Bullock
Mr. Huffle Puffle Pants the Cat
“Todd Ball” as himself
Music
“Tumbleweed,” Afroman
“Wilson’s Theme,” Cast Away
Soundtrack |
This
project differs from our others in that it is longer
and not a trailer/commercial. It can most easily be
compared to The Art Of Courtship because of its length
and nature. Courtship wasn't planned, though. It was
a three manned "guerilla team" of individuals
capturing spontaneity. "Typecast Away" HAD
to be planned. We had to shoot the entire end sequence
first while Matt had a beard and the apartment was
completely trashed. We then had to clean the apartment
and Matt had to shave to shoot the rest of it. There
were also elements that were needed in both sequences,
but due to the shooting schedule posed a problem such
as the "Todd Ball" - he's already been "born"
in our first shoot and not "born" in our
second (we had to buy two soccer balls to make it
work). What we had working for us on this one is that
it took place almost entirely in our own apartment.
The only other shots were exterior shots at the "beach"
where I lost a pint of blood to mosquitos.
We spent 2 or 3 days in pre-production, about three
days non-stop of principle photography, and over a
week in post.
This piece also posed a problem for the sound design
in that there are considerable lengths of time where
there is no music or dialogue. Working with low-end
sound equipment definitely is noticed when you can't
easily cover it up with music and sound effects. I
spent more time balancing and tweaking the camera
and room noises than anything else.
The pacing, at first draft was much slower - it weighed
in at nine minutes. We had wanted it to have a more
cinematic pace to it, but it didn't hold out and so
I went back in with extreme prejudice to edit it more
like our previous efforts. It worked much better.
I learn a good deal with each project and this one
was no different. Every time we start one like this,
I know what I bring to the table and what we've accomplished
thus far, but there are always unseen problems and
figging those out is half the journey.
N
T Bullock
We have our radio interview (on the FAQ page) and
my Mom to thank for the inspiration to do a "Cast
Away" parody. Once we had the premise, the rest
of the elements just seemed to fall into place. Pre-production
took three days as we fine-tuned the script and set
up a shot list. Principal photography consisted of
two grueling days of shooting and two days of pickup
shots and foley. Because of the drastic change in
appearance of both the main character and the apartment
after the time-lapse, we had to shoot this one in
reverse. On Saturday, we started shooting at 9 am,
finished all of the “Bearded Matt” shots,
and had the apartment clean by ten o’clock that
night. Filming resumed on Sunday at 10:30 am and wrapped
shortly after midnight. Over the course of the week,
we began editing the existing footage, adding pickup
shots as we got them, and recording extra audio as
needed. But we had “Todd Ball” to keep
us company on the set; never a dull moment when he’s
around. He really pulled together for us in some tight
spots in front of the camera as well, adlibbing his
way through some tense moments and almost losing me
a couple of times. The reason it’s called “Typecast
Away” is because this is what would actually
happen if I was left alone for any length of time.
My general survival skills have yet to be honed to
a razor sharp edge, and my understanding of multiple
remotes was virtually non-existent before moving in
with Todd.
I was very pleased with the creative process on this
project. It remained a collaborative effort until
the very end, and we’ve all taken great care
to insure that every joke has reached it’s fullest
potential. If, for some reason, you fail to laugh
at any of them, the fault is probably yours. Any positive
comments or gratifying questions likely to feed our
ego (“Why is SEQUENTIAL Pictures so good at
what it does?” etc.) should be posted to the
guestbook or forum. Any complaints or negative comments
for this particular project will be forwarded to the
"Todd Ball".
Matt
Doman
