Monster Factory
“We were looking to get involved in a personal project, as advertising often has our personal lives take a backseat. I desperately wanted to film something that had no client or purpose other than entertainment and storytelling. We raised some money and got all the proper lenses and equipment to tell the story we wanted.”
“This project took forever. Mainly because we began filming with a different story in mind, but as we began to edit the themes shifted and we found a stronger narrative. This meant we basically had to start from scratch and head back down to the facility in order to complete the story. Once that took place we moved a bit quicker, though I think our greatest challenge was working with everyone’s schedules. As this is a passion project with no money, we had to work nights and weekends to make it work.”
“We loved the feel of Darren Aranofsky’s “The Wrestler” as it was gritty, but heartfelt and we had a lot of the same themes filming this in the wrestling circuit of New Jersey. We also kept bringing up Bad New Bears as this ideal world of camaraderie and friendship amongst a group of folks who come from all different backgrounds. I think our biggest goal was to tell a human story, in a sports background.”
“We pushed ourselves to use no slow motion before the climax of the film, to give it a more personal, intimate feel. I think the most unusual technique was our use of multiple editors. We had a shuttle drive and worked the edit back and forth between Scott Perry (fader magazine) and Rhys Stover to dual team the edit. I think this gave us really unique, thought out perspectives to tell the story the way the story was meant to be told. We kept each other motivated and in line with the ultimate goal of being true to the monster factory.”
"I desperately wanted to film something that had no client"
“We shot this on Alexa Mini with Kowa Anamorphic lenses. For the final scene we were unable to rent the Kowas and used Hawk V-Lites instead. Most of the shots were either EZ rig or Handheld.”
Rhys Stover and Scott Perry handled most of the edit, with me building a few rough scenes for them to put together. It was sort of all hands on deck, but they brought the edits home, and pieced together everything so nicely. We were fortunate enough to have Mikey Rossiter from the Mill color this, which BELIEVE ME, our raw footage and final footage are so so so amazingly different. He brought the world to life. We also had an incredible composer, Zak Engel on board. He worked with really impact minimal piano throughout to again, stay true to eat story, while enhancing those emotional moments.”
“I directed the project, with a ton of help from my producer William Crouse. I did indeed enjoy the project, we’re currently developing a series based on the story, so stay tuned!”
