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
