Documentaries VEtool and TOKAI (street cleaner)

Looking around youtube the other day I found that an old friend from my USC days, Vachan Sharma, had opened a youtube account and put up a couple of documentaries that he had directed. One of these I had seen several years ago, but the other is new to me. I've embedded both in their entirety because they are both fantastic and well worth your time. Both films run about twenty minutes.

Vachan made VEtool a few years back for a class at USC. It documents his friendship with Ehren Tool, a veteran of the first Gulf War who participated in the liberation of Kuwait. Vachan was born in Kuwait but at the time of the liberation was 13 and living in exile in India. After US forces expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait, Vachan was able to return home.

VEtool Pt. 1

VEtool Pt. 2

VEtool Pt. 3

I'm not sure when TOKAI (street cleaner) was made. Vachan worked on this one with two other directors, it documents the plight of Bangladeshi men who travel to oil-rich Kuwait seeking work, working menial jobs for minimal pay.

TOKAI (street cleaner) Pt. 1

TOKAI (street cleaner) Pt. 2

Legend of the Samura! Brothers trailer

My friend Andrew Miller wrote and directed this trailer, for an (as-of-yet) non-existent film about two brothers raised on samurai movies who make their way out into the world. And eventually have to battle each other to the death. I do believe that Andrew intends to expand this into an actual feature film, so stay tuned.

Until then, here's the trailer. Several friends worked on this; I did the sound design and sound mix. I'm very happy with how it came out.

Legends of the Samura! Brothers [TRAILER] from Andrew Alden Miller I on Vimeo.

Best Movies of the Decade

I don't think I saw ten movies that came out this year, much less ten great ones, but I can think of ten really great movies of the past decade. In alphabetical order:

Bus 174

Children Of Men

Inland Empire

In The Mood For Love

Into The Wild

Memento

The New World

Synecdoche, New York

Tarnation

Where The Wild Things Are

I know that I've missed a lot over the last ten years, so let me know in the comments if you think of anything essential that might replace something on the list.

Mojo Tango teaser

One of my favorite people in Austin, Mr. Jonny Stranger, has posted a trailer for his new feature Mojo Tango. Check it here. I got to watch the movie earlier this year and it's really good - funny with solid performances and a claymation threesome scene that I think was done with play doh. You can't go wrong. I'm not sure what Jonny has planned for the film but I'm sure you will be hearing more about it soon.

Jonny is also a ridiculously prolific youtuber. Check out some of his 118 (and counting) videos here.

The End of Corpus

After three years of hard work and telling anyone who would listen about my first feature film Corpus, I've decided to put it aside and focus on other projects. I'm immensely proud of the cut of the film I completed this past March, and never get tired of it no matter how many times I watch it, but it looks like in its current incarnation its prospects in terms of festivals and such are pretty limited.

I'm aware (and have been told by several people I trust) that some editing changes might squeeze some more life out of the movie, but right now I'm ready to take the lessons from Corpus and move on. I think at the end of the day Sean and I focused on making a movie that we would love, and we definitely accomplished that.

Before I put Corpus out to pasture, however, I definitely want to show off a couple of my favorite scenes. This first video is the first seven and a half minutes of the movie, which I think is pretty great:



The second video shows Sean disintegrating after his girlfriend Carrie leaves him:



This third video is three years old. This was something similar to what we put together for Tyler a couple of months ago - just planting a marker for the larger film that would follow. Watching this now makes me feel very very satisfied.

Moth Fight music video

This image is from a shoot we did a few weeks ago for a music video I'm directing for local band Moth Fight. Yesterday we shot some more and got some really great footage, I'm excited to put it all together.

The above photo was taken by Ben Powell. Pictured are Zoja Ulesoo and Peter Cooper.

Check out Moth Fight here.

Check out Ben here.

Check out Zoja here.

Check out Peter here.

First post - Tyler

Right now I'm very fortunate to be working on several cool film projects with people I like and respect. I'm starting this blog to keep track of all of them and keep people updated on what I'm working on.

I'm going to start by writing about my current dream project that's coming together very slowly but will hopefully be ready to shoot by the end of 2010. It's a feature-length film called Tyler (because it begins and ends in the city of Tyler, TX) and is about a father and 9-year-old son who write a story together. There's also ghosts and tornadoes.

The script is done(ish) and three of the key roles are cast. My good friend and main collaborator Sean Neely will be playing the father, Sean's sister Katy will play Sean's sister (I don't know if she knows this yet), and my buddy Robert Canada will be playing a social worker assigned to Sean's character.

The below video is something that I put together a couple months ago that is something like a sketch for the tone and feel of the film. I wrote the voice over (which isn't in the script) and Sean read it. The footage was shot by my girlfriend Candice as we were driving from Corpus Christi to Austin.



More to come........