The Official Blog of Charles Frisby

Film-Making Feedback Rocks

2011-07-21T23:16:00.009-04:00

This is the best kind of feedback a Film-Maker can get. A big thanks goes out to all of my friends for supporting us over the years. Kristin, Jordan and Taos really delivered and deserve just as much credit. Damn, I love making movies.

Dear Charles Frisby:

I am a screener for the ████████ Film Festival. I screened the film "So Long" over the weekend.

I have to tell you that it was the one of the most cathartic experiences I have had since my wife died 3 and one half years ago. I cried so hard that it hurt, but felt so relieved when it passed. I feel so cleansed as if my burden was partially lifted knowing that someone could express it for me.

Of all the films that I have seen so far, this one will always have a special place in my heart. I don't know who you lost in your life that inspired you, but that 3.5 minutes of film encapsulated everything I have gone through to start over in the last 3.5 years.

I don't know if I can be impartial regarding this film because the topic is so personal to me, but I cannot express how touching "So Long" is and how much I want to share it with the world. It deserves an award all its own. I don't know you, but I truly love your art. I hope you continue to make film that touches people like "So Long" touches me. It is truly a gem.

Everyone, every hospice, every grieving counselor needs to have a copy of this film.

I don't know if the rest of the screeners will agree with me regarding this film, but to me, it is priceless.

Just having seen this film has made this volunteer experience worth it.

Thank you for creating such a treasure for me to discover.

Most Sincerely,

████████████

"So Long" Screening at Filmslam, May 15th

2011-05-13T15:51:00.005-04:00

This weekend, Kristin, Jordan and I will be showing our latest short film "So Long (A Super 8 Short)" at the Enzian Theater for Filmslam in Maitland, FL. From their website:

"Originally a project of University of Central Florida's Downtown Media Arts Center, Enzian became the home of FilmSlam when DMAC closed in 2006. Now in its fifth year at Enzian, FilmSlam continues to be a popular outlet for indie and student filmmakers throughout the State of Florida."

More after the break

Kristin and I made it down to the Enzian Theater a month ago when they held the "New Frontiers in Distribution" forum during the Florida Film Festival. The place is NICE. It is a dinner theater with a nice big screen. We did not see anything projected, but given the quality they put into the theater, I can only assume the presentation will be taken just as seriously.

An image from the Enzian Theater

"So Long" is set to play at around 1:30pm and after the show, there will be a Filmmaker Q&A with fellow Filmmakers babbling endlessly (as we are all too well known for). This should be a good time. Cover is $5 per person and the curtains open at 1pm.

If you cannot make it down to Filmslam to see "So Long" on the big screen, please enjoy it in all of it's web splendor below.

Watch Mobile Version

Filming at the Ritz

2011-03-27T21:58:00.000-04:00

Work, work, work.

Ok, I don't "work" work that often outside of websites and graphics, but when the opportunity arises, I try to do a good job. I got another freelance gig from Knowlera to film at the Ritz Carlton. They had just opened their newly constructed ~~Death Star~~ Royal Suite and wanted to get some video footage. As you will see in the video below, this place was MASSIVE. Kristin and I filmed all over the place and I still feel we missed some good shots here and there.

When we asked how much the room goes for a night, the answer was, "It starts at a little over $10,000 per night." Here I am bringing in my Slurpee cups back to 7-11 for refills to save 50 cents and people stay the night in places like this. Perspective granted.

Now.... off to do something else. Enjoy the video and don't miss the bonus video after the jump.

View on ExposureRoom

The History of Charles Frisby - Part 1: High School

2011-03-05T18:01:00.000-05:00

Before I start blogging about my current film-making exploits, I figure I should start at the beginning of my Film-Making/Storytelling career. Granted, I had no idea that I would want to do this sort of thing for a living, but few 16 year olds can think outside of music, movies, the opposite sex and video games. Well, thats how it was for me anyway.

Enter Junior Year, Fall 2000.

I grew my hair out as a protest against dating girls.

At this point I played bass in a band, worked a job slinging fried chicken and drove a very conspicuous church van. I had run into some bad luck with the ladies and decided to go on what would be a year-long girl-free existence. This was the perfect set-up for falling in love with story telling as I had nothing else to fall in love with. At this point I had taken a HTML class that was laughable, but had a lot of fun messing with code. When I needed to take another computer course, I followed the advice of my friend Steve and took Multimedia with Mr. Steve Bossart. I signed up for it with the same vigor as any other class, mild enthusiasm.

Walking into the class for the first time, the far corner of the room looked just like this.

It was the year 2000 and I was already a computer nerd in the making. I had an email address for years already and had been surfing the net on my dad's friend's computer since 1994. I had a trashed second hand Commador 64 to mess with in my younger years, but never an honest to goodness computer at home. The first day in Bossart's class, he took a pile of computer parts and showed us how to build a computer. Never in my days would I have imagined it, but computers could be built. It was not a magic box of wonder, but very much like the parts in my shitty 1977 GMC Vandura.

The Shitty Vandura in Question.

But that was only the beginning of the class. We learned how to work with MS word, then Power Point, Photoshop, Illustrator, Director (Macromedia's Shockwave creator), Adobe Premiere and other programs over the course of two semesters. Bossart taught us things in passing that my latter college courses would not even teach us in an entire semester. Over the course of two semesters, I fell in love with animating movies and ended up finishing all of our work assignments months before the class was over. I found out then Bossart had plans for me.

The first official Grunge Inc Logo

My first animation short was a presentation really. It was called Grunge Light All Stars and I made with with the help of two other students (though they would agree I did most of the work). Basically you would click on the Chuck Taylor shoe logo and lights would pop out of the front of the shoes. The project itselft was a recreation of a Power Point I had made earlier. At the end of the video, I added the moniker Grunge Inc. for the first time. After this project, I was no longer allowed to be in a group as I was doing all of the work. The next assignment was to make a "Ball Movie." The Ball Movie assignment was to tell a story with little balls as the characters. The requirements of the assignment were that it had to have motion and it had to have a story. My story had a Bad Ball push a Girl Ball off a building only to be saved by Super Ball in a scene very similar to Superman: The Movie. While I had a significant amount graphical work put into it, I still finished before any of the groups in the class. I was happy with my work, but found out when you are fast at something, you end up helping everyone else who isn't so fast.

Zip Disks. Proof that something could suck and rock all at once.

So with my free time, Bossart decided to keep me busy. He gave me the next assignments and also taught me to network computers so I could help him on the side. This was very valuable for me in the long run as I would be networking A LOT in the future. What was also great about Bossart's class was that you spent one semester on a Mac and then the other on a PC. You would get so used to one machine, that you hate the other. Then... you had to flip sides. At the end of it all, I liked the OS8 Mac more than the Windows 98SE PC, but could work on both just the same. Oh... and we had to keep our work on Zip disks too. To make them work on Mac and Windows, you had to format them JUST RIGHT. It was HELL if you fucked up formating earlier in the year.

This GI Joe was the first reoccurring Grunge Inc. Character.

After all of the animation fun was over, we learned to capture VHS tapes and make our very own video montages. Again, I learned more about editing in this class than I did in college (not talking smack on my college courses, but more praising Bossart's teaching ability). While my DBZ montage set to Nirvana's "Tourettes (Live)" was not impressive to many, I loved it! Again, ahead of schedule... I was done for the semester and had a month with nothing to do. Mr Bossart took me and fellow classmate Stephen Witkowicz to the "Super Computer" in the back of the class that no students were allowed to work at. He told us that he wanted us to do a special project and that we were not allowed to talk with other students about it. He told us the project is for a district wide multimedia contest and he expected us to win. Having Witkowicz as a writer was a smart move, as he was WAY funnier than I could ever be.

Photo of me from my first High School play bill.

Our project, "The Perfect Girl" was a fun mix of animation and video. Basically I filmed (for the first time in my life) and edited the video and put it into segments. We took pics of about 20 girls and I did some fun Photoshop stuff. The project was a great time and we went on to win first prize in the First Annual DISD Digital Arts Extravaganza. We won the school a really nice computer, which was of no help to me. I was also given a digital camera that I just gave to Bossart since I had not use for it. While it was fun, for some reason I dropped the film-making ball for a long time. I wanted to tell more stories, but I guess I just did not have the attention span. I got into doing plays instead which really paid off in the end. I got to work with actors in a personal way and that would help me down the road as a director. Later in the year of 2001, I had an opportunity to film another project with my acting friends, and it was epic! Well... to us anyway.

This project was filmed for a math project in class. Note that there isn't any math in it. We still passed.

So now what? What to do with my life? As it turns out, I was a football player and my entire life I was told that my goal was to play college ball and eventually pro ball. While this was laughable (I was a decent football player but not extraordinary), I ended up taking a scholarship to an unknown college in the Oklahoma Panhandle. While it was cool to be able to say I was going to college to play football, I didn't really care to go. I wanted to do something with my life, but not football.

While saving up for college, I bought my own computer for $1500. It was a Compaq rocking the first version of Windows XP. I had scored a DVD with of all of the programs we used in class (by less than honest means) and had my PC up and running in no time. I knocked out TONS of little animations about my friends and our misadventures during, and after High School had wrapped up. While I dabbled in storytelling and film-making in High School, it would not be until after I dropped out of College that I discovered my true calling. But that is another rediclously long blog post to be read in the near future.

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Charles Frisby gets Blogged.

2011-03-05T03:12:00.000-05:00

Hello interwebs! I decided to start blogging my film-making antics for my own records as well as to inform anyone interested in my doings as a film-maker. While I do not have much to say right now, I will be rambling and ranting very soon about me, my wife and our adventure into film-making.

Since I feel like this post should have some of my content, I will drop my March 2010 Demo Reel for your enjoyment. More info on my Demo Reel after the break.

Watch Mobile Version!

VIDEO INFO
All shots in this demo were shot, edited, directed and animated by myself.

Music used in this video is not property of Charles Frisby and is used for Demonstrative purposes only.

This is my demo reel as of March of 2010. You can get caught up in updating your Demo every time you finish a project, so I am calling this one solid as of today.

Until the next demo reel.

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