Playing the undead in American Zombie

American Zombie - Trailer: http://youtu.be/tdhXeqrjtmw

In summer of 2006 I took the long trek to Valencia to play a Zombie in Grace Lee's zombie mocumentary American Zombie. The film is about a group of zombies trying to live a normal life in LA. The climax involves a once a year Burning Man-esque festival where the zombies head to the desert to get away. This is where a 100 extras and myself come into play. The crew covered us in make up and tattered clothes and we preceded to dance and chase people around all night. The pay was little and the food was awful but it sure was fun. The funny thing is I still have never seen the movie, maybe I should put it on my Netflix que.

Moving on up working as a Production Designer

I recently finished my first job as a production designer. For those of you not aware of what a production designer is, he or she is the individual who designs the look of the project. I don't want to get too into the project but I figured I would post some pictures of a few things that my assistant Damon and I built for the project.
We built the Ice Cream Cart below, I think it turned out pretty awesome!

 Below is me with the body part grinder that we built. It's made out of an old wood chipper and some MDF. This was the highlight of the project for me.

Acting can be so Much Fun!!

So I recently played two parts in a short film. The film takes place in a post apocalyptic future where roving gangs rule the streets and death is around every corner. The first roll I played was that of an old man who gets the crap beaten out of him. This was super fun, the make up lady did an amazing job giving me a great beat up look. The end of my scene had me turn to the camera and spit out a bunch of blood, awesome!! Then a few days later I shaved my beard and played a killer clown who hosts a tv show. The tv show involves clowns breaking into houses and murdering the inhabitants. So two very different roles and quite a good time. I love the film business.

The Contest

Last year I decided to film and enter a spec commercial for the website Poptent. If that last sentence confused the heck out of you let me explain. A spec; is a commercial that is filmed with out the companies knowledge and out of your own pocket, with the hope that you impress someone. Poptent runs contests for spec commercials that end with the companies purchasing said commercials. This contest was for SIM Mobile, a pay as you go cell phone company. Their big thing is you can remove your sim card and put it any phone (I'm not sure who owns a phone that still uses sim cards). SIM Mobile wanted a gritty urban feeling while using the tag line "More for the People". For some reason the future set battle scenes from Terminator kept popping into my head. The shooting went pretty well, I even used a few actors from the Cat Power video "Cherokee" I worked on. I called in allot of favors on this one including my old pal Moses Martinez who shot 2nd Unit. My major problem with this project were the post issues. Mainly the music and sound, I had a friend who promised three days in a row to come over and help. Six hours before the deadline to upload the video my buddy Anthony Ceglia and I created the music and sfx using Final Cut. Not everything came out the way I wanted but I was still really happy with how everything came out and I love all the acting. Enjoy!

Welcome to Level 7 Part 2 a terrifying descent into low pay, long hours and bad craft service.

So I show up to Linda Vista hospital on two and a half hours of sleep at 4 am. Life sucked at that moment and it was only going to get worse. So the first thing I noticed when I arrived at Linda Vista was how dark it was. Turns out the generators we rented were to power this place! I don't do well in dark places, I am very terrified of the dark. It's a fear that never went away. So here I am in the basement of a reportedly haunted 1940's hospital. Welcome to art department Jason Parker! Within an hour though and before the real sun was up Linda Vista was bright and alive. For the laymen art department are usually first on set and last to leave; with AD or producer being the exception. After that I was driving the cube truck to east Hollywood to pick up silver with diamond star laminate. This was going to be laid down on the floor of an elevator. When I got back it was already lunch. Driving any where in Los Angeles always takes forever. If you have a job where you drive in LA you are going to get a screaming call once a week asking "where are you!!!!" from your boss. It helps too have thick skin. Well lunch was crap, the only plus was a cute pixieish lawyer with a vintage bob stopped by the shoot to see me. My boss wasn't actually too happy about that but hey no harm no foul, lol. After lunch I helped a friend of mine do props in the laboratory scene. The usual day on a shoot is 12 hours, due to some problems this day went 17 hours!!! Yeah 17 hours sucks but I can deal with that, I grew up in Alaska, if you didn't work you didn't make it. The problem was the craft service was awful. Cheap generic cola, one kind of chips, no tub of red licorice(every craft service table has a tub of red licorice) couple apple & oranges that only looked good from one side. This was a day that tested everything I was made of. The guys I really felt bad for were the aliens. They were in full costume for at least 8 hours straight; I don't know how they did it. Well day 1 of 3 ended. I also found out later that I was only getting paid a 100 dollars a day, HAHA well that's the film biz!



Now imagine this at night, creepy!



Can you find this creepy looking place in the movie? I spent 12 hours in this room. Longest day on set for me.

[WELCOME TO] LEVEL 7, the beginning of my troubles

Welcome to Level 7 was the first job I worked on where I was doing art department. For those of you not aware of what art department is I'll explain. First there is a production designer, he designs the look of the project, he then has art department and set decorators make his vision. This story starts a week before the shoot, I got hired as art coordinator. My job was to call different rental houses, give CC info, rent trucks and even pick up some stuff. I had just picked up a giant fog machine when my power steering went out about 15 miles from home during rush hour the night before the first day of shooting. Well some how I limped back to Eagle Rock and my awesome mechanic stayed 45 minutes late and fixed it, thanks Budtho!! Well the next day the shoot started and I became the low man on the totem pole, art PA(production assistant). Our day started at 4am, oh by the way we were filming at Linda Vista hospital, a reportadly haunted hospital. Stay tuned tomorrow for the 2nd half of this story.

Welcome to Level 7, a terrifying descent into low pay, long hours and bad craft service.




Linda Vista, my favorite haunted hospital in Los Angeles