Cut Rush Update January 2015
In 2014, we at cutrush.com focused on less movie projects and attempted to create a NYC block party with skateboarding, bitcoins, zetacoins, painting, and interactive booths. We were shut down and demoralized. Now we’re shifting focus back to movies this year.
Recent Projects
I finished cutting a music video, shot in Colorado. It has cops beating undeserving men like Barret, girls dancing, and time lapse of stars and plants growing. Check out Jim Herlihy’s Mass City Shuffle on Vimeo.
Thank you co-creators: Diggy Ruff, Hon Nguyen, Emily Engel, Samantha Hanus, Ken Hesse, Philip Hesse, River Akemann, Christian Noriega, Ivan Morey, Kembra Allen, David Lasker, Carl Hedberg, Marcos Carvalho, Barret Lione-Seaton, Louella Hopkins, and Jim Herlihy.
Upcoming Projects
Flying Thunder God Short Film
I’m appalled by the shit process that comes along with movie making. A short 10 minute film has a month or so of pre production, shooting days comprised of grueling life threatening dilemmas, and then a post production process dragging it’s feet towards perfection. Three month’s later, you finally know the outcome, and believe there might have been some creativity in there somewhere.
Fuck that.
I’m focusing on agile film making and testing out concepts on an upcoming short. The story’s from a Cut Rush feature idea “FLYING THUNDER GOD”. It’s the future where quantum physics works well, racism and capitalism are worse than today, and mixes together a coming of age and epic martial arts style movies. The short will revolve around Ellen the pharmacist, and Chopsticks her Asian adopted brother. Some trouble is in their remote town, and their childhood friend has returned who can help, but he only functions when he’s doped up on drugs.I think Ellen pseudo raped him when she was 18 and he was 15.
The short is purposefully 6 pages, 6 scenes, and we plan to shoot in ONE DAY. We usually do 2.5 pages in one day. We’ll have many planned prep days, and a specific flow to follow for art inspiration and driving us towards executing like the Jamaican Bob Sled practice runs.. We’ll be shooting and uploading proxy footage to dropbox in real time. As soon as we hit stop on the camera, the file will be available on the internet. Across the globe, editors will have access to the footage and can communicate with the team on set. The goals is to allow for more creativity on set, and finishing the movie faster. It takes extreme organization and execution like running a threatre play day after day. Once we master this, we will take this concept to shoot a feature in 7 days.
One Hour Movie shoots
I started a new meetup.com group. The goal is to get together and shoot for an hour. The work won’t be complex and the goal is to keep shooting and keep creating for fun.
Movies you should watch
Jake Gyllenhaalis bad ass. The movie has subtle themes converging to make one massive message and the story’s tension is phenominal. It is great storytelling. Synopsis: Los Angeles denizen Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) survives by scavenging and petty theft. He stumbles into a new career as a cameraman and — armed with a camcorder and police scanner — begins nocturnal forays across the city in search of shocking and grisly crimes. When he catches the eye of a shopworn news director (Rene Russo) who welcomes the chance to raise her station’s ratings, Louis goes to increasingly greater lengths to catch the “money shot.”
It’s funny and well made movie about a guy who used to be famous for Hollywood films. Now, he’s staring and directing a play for his artsy side. It’s surreal and Michael Keaton shows himself in a way I haven’t seen before. I left the movie theatre with a holy shit face. Synopsis: Former cinema superhero Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is mounting an ambitious Broadway production that he hopes will breathe new life into his stagnant career. It’s risky, but he hopes that his creative gamble will prove that he’s a real artist and not just a washed-up movie star. As opening night approaches, a castmate is injured, forcing Riggan to hire an actor (Edward Norton) who is guaranteed to shake things up. Meanwhile, Riggan must deal with his girlfriend, daughter and ex-wife.
The movie was shot over 12 real years for a coming of age story. They would shoot one week, every year, chronicling the boy’s life. Richard Linklater will make all jealous with his story telling style and writing. Synopsis: The joys and pitfalls of growing up are seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), his parents (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke) and his sister (Lorelei Linklater). Vignettes, filmed with the same cast over the course of 12 years, capture family meals, road trips, birthday parties, graduations and other important milestones. Songs from Coldplay, Arcade Fire and other artists capture the time period.
Inside Job – Documentary (2010)
It was an Oscar winner, and if you don’t know how banks or money works, then you should watch this. If you don’t care, you are sadly misinformed about the lying, scamming going on. It still happens today on a massive scale. You know how we look back at Egyptian periods and gasp at how slavs would work for generations to build a pyramid? In the future, people will look back at corporations and banking system the same way.
Movies back in the day are way more artiser and leave the viewer to be transplanted into the middle of someone’s life. We need more of that and less of the “I’m so artsy that I left the ending open ended”. Synopsis: When petty criminal Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn’t play by the rules of either the sadistic warden (Strother Martin) or the yard’s resident heavy, Dragline (George Kennedy), who ends up admiring the new guy’s unbreakable will. Luke’s bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison’s dreaded solitary confinement cell, “the box,” make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
