ElizabethKerin.com

Fusion Film Festival + Being Patient (The movie!)

2010-03-07T15:30:00.001-08:00

This past week, "Mimi and Me" took best feature screenplay at NYU's Fusion Film Festival! As an alum, this was the final year I was eligible for the awards so I was very happy to be included in their programming. Stay tuned for more updates about "Mimi" as we move closer to a production date!

Also, there is to be a screening night and fundraising event for "Being Patient" on March 20th in New York City. If you're in the area, we do hope you stop in! I will be directing the film adaptation of Kelly Samara's one-woman show, and we're still trying to secure the rest of our funding! The event will be held at Katra Lounge in the East Village, from 7pm-10pm and will feature screenings from yours truly and my colleagues Audra Arnaudon and Alyssa Kurtzman. Comedian Jillian Avery will be hosting the evening, and our star Kelly will be doing some performance art and dancing (space permitting!) :)

That's about all for now! Happy springtime everyone!

New happenings...

2009-12-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

I'm very pleased to announce that last week, two spankin' new projects of mine were completed and are now available to view online. I'm embedding them below!

The first is Obelisk Road, Episode 5. We all worked very hard on this particular installment, with a post production period that lasted a little longer than usual! Next up will be the epic-long-cut: 45 minutes of Obelisk Road, our industry spec. Lots to look forward to!

The second video is the trailer for "Mimi and Me", which is slated to be my first feature. "Mimi and Me" is the story of a 1o-year-old girl who becomes fixated on putting on the opera "La Boheme" in her backyard as a means to cope with her mother's psychiatric hospitalization. The script has been in workshops for two years and I'm hoping to begin shooting this in fall 2010, provided everything falls into place!

Enjoy the videos!

Obelisk Road - Episode 5 from Obelisk Road on Vimeo.

Mimi and Me - Trailer from Passage Pictures/Elizabeth Kerin on Vimeo.

"Being Patient" promo video!

2009-10-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Shot on Sunday, live on Tuesday. This is the promo for my dear friend Kelly Samara's one-woman show,

"Being Patient." Directed and edited by yours truly. Enjoy the dancey video and do come see the show!

I do a very shoddy job of chronicling things...

2009-10-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

...and I do apologize! I haven't updated here for quite some time!

Things that are new and exciting: We wrapped our final Obelisk Road production on October 4th, and are pleased to announce that the episode we shot all the way back in July will finally be ready for viewing in the coming weeks! Stay tuned for links to all new stuff relating to the project. The final shoot, though a very tiring 5 days, was extremely rewarding in the long haul and the performances and footage were top notch. Congratulations to this powerhouse team for getting through eight months of production (and for those who had less than eight months...well, shame on you but you can still sit with the cool kids at lunch)! Projects like these only come around very early on in one's career - and it's the kind of long-term project that in the end causes you to say "Whoa, damn I'll never do anything like THAT again!" and "Wow, I've never felt so good being this tired!" all in one breath. So...exhausting in every sense of the word? You bet. Fully worth it? Yep, absolutely.

But with eight months straight of one project comes the inevitable post-partum sensation of, "Oh hey. Now what?!" Kind of like the fish in plastic bags bobbing in the water at the end of Finding Nemo. However, I'm happy to report that I'm writing a new feature, working as an assistant producer on a great new doc project due out next year, chasing some new leads, and (here's a kicker) helping produce an EP for an old friend. So my brain is busy and my time is being well spent.

I'm planning on re-vamping this here site soon, and posting some more recent work. Some of the media on here is horribly old and needs to be updated badly!

But in the meantime, please direct your attention to the video below...The Best of Whitney, mine and Alex Goode's tribute to...ourselves. And Whitney. Please enjoy the perfect cheesiness of what has somehow become our unofficial Obelisk Road trailer.

Obelisk Road Episode 5 Preview

2009-08-08T12:10:00.000-07:00

Little sneak peak of episode 5 for your Saturday afternoon. Enjoy!

Obelisk Road & Passage Pictures now fiscally sponsored!

2009-06-08T11:14:00.001-07:00

So what does this mean? Well, it's simple really! We are attempting to expand our budget and production value, so we are currently accepting tax-deductible donations for the project through Fractured Atlas. It's easy to do online, just click the button below! As a small web-based production, we still rely on additional support from our community to meet production costs and publicity expenses. Thanks in advance for your generosity, we cannot do this without you!

Passage Pictures is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Passage Pictures may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

It's been a while! Sorry!

2009-05-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

It's been an awfully busy month or so, my apologies for not updating!

As usual, I'm hard at work on "Obelisk Road", for which we have a shoot this coming weekend! We will be shooting Episode #4, in which we'll (at long last, and much to my excitement!) be employing some fun little special fx. Because, after all, what is a show about magic without...magic?! We will also be welcoming a few new team members, including new director of photography Kristopher Rey-Talley and our special fx director Sam Maliszewki. The usual suspects (i.e. the cast) will all be back, and some highly anticipated revelations will be made! No spoilers here though, not to worry! :) I'm really getting excited to direct this particular installment of the story not only because I'm looking forward to collaborating with my new team members and de-mystifying the world of visual FX, but also because of the intense character development that takes place in this episode. Christina Brosman and I have been writing with these characters for several months now and I am really looking forward to just throwing them headfirst into the fire. Except, not a fire. At all. As I said. Absolutely no spoilers here!

Episode #3 is also currently online and you should check it out: www.Beneflix.com/Movies/3

Sorry there was no post-mortem blogging for Episode 3. It was a bit of a whirlwind in many respects!

I think right now the goal is to mentally optimize as best I can, to keep myself fresh creatively as I now embark on my 6th month on this project. Aside from tedious months of editing films and screenplays in school, this has been the longest I've been working on a single project, a single project that has been getting 100% of my creative attention. It's really important, I'm realizing, to stay, as I said "mentally optimized"! Watching films and reading books that aren't necessarily source material from time to time is vital! But the source material in this genre is not only endless, it's also endlessly entertaining and it's made it easier to keep the idea generator well-fueled. Having an amazing writing partner doesn't hurt either. :) I should take this opportunity to really give Christina Brosman an ENORMOUS kudos for always being able to pick up EXACTLY what I'm throwin' down and vice versa. I'm really grateful for her insight and her ridiculously wonderful humor.

Anyway, will post soon with some detailed updates and photos from Episode 4's shoot. This time, I promise I'll do it! :)

Till then, you stay classy.

Stand Up Films to partner with Passage Pictures for "Obelisk Road"!

2009-03-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that Passage Pictures will now be joining forces with Stand Up Films for the duration of Season One of "Obelisk Road". We are very excited about this collaboration! Leo Redgate of Stand Up Films will be acting as an executive producer, with co-EP's Michael Mitri, Jayson Whalstrom, and Steve Schwartz. Stand Up Films is an East Coast based film production and distribution company which operates chiefly out of Fairfield, CT. I grew up in this area and am thrilled with the local support! With their help, we hope to see "Obelisk Road" expand and reach a wider audience as the months progress!

I personally am really excited to see Passage Pictures growing and branching out. I do believe its infancy has now passed and we are now entering the craziness of adolescence with this fledgling production company! Just like parents with unpredictable kids, we're all constantly learning!

ORep2 is coming...PREPARE THYSELF!

2009-03-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Episode 2 of Obelisk Road finally shoots next week! Get ready. It's gonna be bigger and badass-er than ever. Or at least, than Episode 1. :)

We had our official public launch of the project at Tribeca Cinemas last week, and it was lovely! James Malley, the CEO of Beneflix, gave us a really fantastic intro and, of course, a wonderful reason to celebrate all weekend long! The party was great, and the first episode was screened while we drank free cocktails that more than slightly resembled something out of an early-90s Ninja Turtles film. :)

Again, we're all SO grateful for all the support and viewership thus far! We're also so pleased to see so many people voting and making donations to Seeds of Peace! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK, EVERYBODY!

Sooo...hold tight kiddies! Episode 2 is on its way! :)

Beneflix.com and Obelisk Road launch!

2009-03-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

Lovely news ladies and gents! Beneflix.com launched yesterday, and Passage Pictures' web series "Obelisk Road" was the first up on the main page! We're also proud to announce that all proceeds from the voting on "Obelisk Road" will go to Seeds of Peace, an organization dedicated to empowering the youth of regions in conflict and inspiring them to become strong leaders. We are so touched by all the support thus far, for both Beneflix and our show, and are so excited to see where the future takes us!

Because Beneflix exclusively airs the newest episode of Obelisk Road each month, I can't post the pilot on the site here until April. So if you want to check it out, here's how!

1) Go to Beneflix.com and sign up for an account with a valid email address. It takes maybe half a minute, and it's free! :)

2) Obelisk Road is featured on the main page of the site, right when you login, so just click on our icon. Or you can search for it in the box in the top right-hand corner of the page.

3) Watch the pilot. Fall in love.

4) Vote for an outcome! While this is the only part that costs money, and it is optional, this is how Beneflix is able to do what it does, which is raising money for charities through filmmaking. If you vote for the outcome of Episode 2, you will be prompted to purchase 'cNotes' which are 25 cents each and are the currency of Beneflix. The process is really simple and is all done through Paypal so it's very safe and user-friendly!

That's it! So go forth and watch our show and help us support Seeds of Peace! :)

Also, above we've got some stills from our pilot episode shoot. Photos were taken by our wonderful stills photog, Peter Lemons. :)

Obelisk Road Pilot + Many other exciting things!

2009-02-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

It's been a pretty nutty few weeks, kids. With a little less than a month to pull pre-production for the pilot together, there were quite a few sleepless nights. But I am so very happy to report that we shot the first episode of "Obelisk Road" on February 7th, and post-production is almost complete already. The shoot was very enjoyable and the working dynamic was just wonderful - a great way to kick off such an exciting project. :) As my co-producer Miss Lipica Shah put it, there was consistently "some seriously good ju-ju in the room."

The Rabbit Hole, the name of the clandestine meeting place where the characters practice pagan magic, looked outstanding when fully lit, though the presence of about 35-40 glowing candles caused only a very small percentage of the cast and crew to actually see the room! To crowd the room would have pretty much spelled Enormous Flippin' Fire Hazard, and we weren't sure how solid everyone was on their "stop, drop, and roll". Luckily, the episode will be premiering very soon on Beneflix.com, so everyone who could not see it on set will have the chance to see the Rabbit Hole in all it's glory!

Our cast, I should note, is just amazing. A great ensemble. Ruthie Bornstein and Chris Grant play Daphne and Hunter, two kids who stumble into this dangerous, supernatural world and cannot easily escape it. Both arrived ready to dive headfirst into the roles we are creating for them. Alex Goode plays Whitney, the founder of the Rabbit Hole and their instructor of questionable motives. The members of the Rabbit Hole include Myko Olivier, Jessie Barr, Erin Darke, Victoria Negri, and Scott Key. Everyone is so very well suited to their roles, and we're all so excited to be writing these roles for them!

Stay tuned for a link where you can view the first episode on Beneflix.com, as well as stills from the pilot shoot!

Obelisk Road

2009-01-22T11:17:00.000-08:00

As of last week, I have been in a sea of pre-production and casting prep for a very exciting new project, "Obelisk Road", a new web series. The show will air on Beneflix.com in early March, and will be updated with installments monthly. What makes the project so special, however, is the fact that it also functions as a charity. Viewers have the chance to vote on what they'd like to see happen in the next webisode, and each time they do, a donation is made to the charity of our show's choice. We're still narrowing down our choices as to which charity we will be representing, but the whole Passage Pictures team is extremely excited and thrilled to be one of the first five shows featured on the website.

The series is a supernatural saga, conceptualized by myself and fellow NYU grad Lipica Shah. More official information, press releases, photos, trailers, and more will follow soon! The project is pretty all-consuming at the moment, as we need to have material ready for the site's official launch in early March. We will be employing the fantastic talents of many of our NYU alum colleagues as well as the New York community at large. So far we've already got an amazing group signed on to do some work on the first few episodes, and we're simply tickled at the response and the interest! Thanks to all who are lending a helping hand!

If you're interested in helping out with "Obelisk Road", by either joining our team or making a monetary donation towards production, please email ObeliskRoad@gmail.com. Spread the word, spread the love!

Will be updating soon with official press materials and what not...till then! :)

January doldrums...

2009-01-14T09:45:00.000-08:00

January is one of those months that kind of just seems to plod along, not unlike the dog days of Summer, except it's freezing and you can't escape to the swimming pool if you need to. But, I'm happy to say, I've kept myself plenty busy.

At the end of this month, we'll finally wrap production on "Mr. Cellophane", a collaboration between Passage Pictures and Two Tones Pictures, directed by Tony Cox. I've been acting as a producer on the project. Also, "The Boy with the Bike" is in its final stages of post audio, but when I say "final stages" I mean the final stages of post audio that take the longest! I'm hoping for a completion date of mid-April, but as there are no real pressing deadlines, we can afford the luxury of taking extra time if need be. I will say that I'm very impressed with the hard work everyone's been putting into post, and I'm definitely starting to get that satisfied, giddy feeling you get when you finally see the marriage of image, sound, and music that you originally envisioned. It starts to feel like a more cohesive, complete piece at this point in the game, and seeing the finished sequences on the screen for the first time is always such a treat. A very special thanks to Eric Branting, by the way, who is single-handedly mixing the sound, recording the ADR and foley, AND helping me arrange the score I've composed. He is really something. :)

In other news, I've been taking lots of time to begin writing two new pieces, though both are in mediums that I haven't visited in quite some time! I'm currently working on a theater piece and a novel, simultaneously, switching between one or the other depending on my mood that day. I feel like it keeps me sharp mentally to be able to switch mediums, to use the one which best serves the story you're trying to tell. Writing for the stage has its major, obvious differences from film, but it has not been that long since I've worked on a play as I was always involved in theater in some aspect while still at Tisch. The novel, however, is another story! I'm looking to create a sort of other-worldly polemic, a strong moral question beneath layers of fantastical characters, places, and scenarios. I think sometimes that the farther removed from real life these kinds of stories are, the better. That way we do not wrap ourselves up in comparisons, we are one step removed from the world we're being presented with and we are better able to identify the issues being addressed. I very rarely explore the genres of science fiction or fantasy, but, again, you choose the medium (and in this case, genre), that best gets your point across.

So, busy writing, busy producing, busy in post production! The post-holiday sluggishness isn't getting to me *quite* yet. :)

Christmas!

2008-12-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

A very happy holidays to everyone! To anyone and everyone who's been kind enough to visit and read up on my happenings from time to time, all those who I've worked alongside this year, new friends, old friends, family...and dogs. :)

For a lot of people, this may have begun to look like a lackluster holiday season, what with the plummeting economy to so perfectly compliment the soaring unemployment rate. However, while it might have been a "leaner" Christmas this year for various reasons, it was, at least for me, padded with a lot of genuine happiness and laughs. Emphasis on the laughs, which result when your family whips out old videos from the 80s, one of which features you as a two year old giving dad a bright yellow sweatshirt with a picture of a horse on it for Christmas. Followed by him asking whatever happened to that sweatshirt because he rather liked it. :)

It's been a noticeably leaner year for charities as well, again for obvious reasons. Something small, though very nice I think, that one can do though is to use GoodSearch.com as their search engine, as they make small donations to the charity of your choice each time you search. There's also GoodShop.com, which is like what Amazon would be if 30% of what you paid for n item went to charity. Just a really easy, good way to spread the love.

Again, enjoy the holiday season with your friends and families...allow yourselves to be distracted from the current issues and unearth some old home movies or something of the sort!

Till 2009!

New Projects on the Horizon + Happy Holidays!

2008-12-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is December 14th and I don't have a Christmas tree yet! In fact, I believe it was only yesterday when I realized that I have roughly 10 days till Christmas and I haven't so much as even strolled past Rockefellar Center to glimpse at the tree or considered the hopeless task of waiting in line for 3 hours to ice skate below it (as I do pretty much every year! Not the skating part, but the consideration of waiting in line to skate!). In any case, happy holidays to those who, unlike me, have realized that they're fast approaching!

This past week I've kept busy helping out in the art department for Givenchy's Ange ou Demon fragrance TV commercial. This was kind of a treat for me because a) I very rarely work in the art department and it was interesting to get a feel for that (very detailed and intricate!) side of production, and b) I got to know some very talented designers, set dressers, wardrobe supervisors, etc etc. Uma Thurman is the face of the campaign, and the commercial was directed by Mira Nair, with whom I have interned and assisted for the past year. I was working under production designer Stephanie Carroll, who has worked on films like The War Within, Definitely Maybe, and the new Amelia Earhart biopic starring Hilary Swank (also directed by Mira Nair). Needless to say, I felt very privileged to be working among this group and felt I learned a great deal just watching them get it all done.

Next week, I'll be on set for Two Tones Pictures production of "Mr. Cellophone", for which I am representing Passage Pictures as a co-producer. Tony Cox and Anthony Pizzuto, the talented and fantastic team of web designers in charge of this here site, are directing and acting, respectively! Our good friend, actress Lipica Shah, is also playing a role in the film. Should be a fun weekend!

Stay tuned for a possibly large update ... waiting to make some final decisions, but the skies look clear to fly for a big project in February! As I said, stay tuned!

So everyone get their holiday cheer on, to make up for the fact that I have forgotten to do so! Will be updating soon, thanks for stopping by!

Brief Update!

2008-11-16T16:59:00.001-08:00

Hello all!

I am hard at work in post production for not one, but three different projects, so I've definitely been keeping myself busy! I'm also in the process of polishing an old script for a few interested parties. It's essentially "hunker down in the office and write through the night" time right now!

I have also just signed on to produce the short film "Dressless", written and directed by our good friend Gabe Traylor. Shooting begins mid-January, so stay tuned for updates on that project and others!

Happy almost-Thanksgiving!

"The Boy with the Bike" shoot!

2008-10-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

This Friday we began filming "The Boy with the Bike", and wrapped for the week on Sunday afternoon. Next Saturday, we will be shooting one final sequence (the fight scene between Baxter and Roxanne's sleazy boyfriend Ricky), and then that will be a wrap.

Thus far I'm very pleased with the dailies and am looking forward to editing the piece. But more than the final product, I'd say I'm the most pleased with how enjoyable the process has been. The cast and crew have worked very hard and we've all had an absolute blast along the way. I sometimes wonder if filming a comedy has something to do with the higher likelihood of positive attitudes on set! I don't have much to compare this to, seeing as I don't write or direct many comedies (the reason being that I'm not entirely sure I'm very funny!). But this really felt like the right combination of creative brainpower, and so the comedy just came naturally both onscreen and off. Performances were dead-on, and Josh deserves lots of praise for riding that bike so naturally with an additional ten pounds of camera mounted to the front (that, and for developing such an outstanding, memorable character)! All in all, this was really everything I could have asked for and more, thus reminding me why I'm doing this in the first place.

Also, it should be noted that Anthony Pizzuto, who is one of the fantastic web designers who worked on this site, jumped in at the last minute to give a rousing performance as Louie, the angry florist. Many thanks to Tony for coming in and giving us such great footage to work with!

Thanks to all who came to help this past weekend. It was truly a pleasure to work with every single one of you and I can't wait to shoot our final scene and start editing so you can all see it as soon as possible!

Hello and welcome and what not!

2008-10-10T17:10:00.001-07:00

Well, the site's finally complete and I'm very happy with the results! Thanks a million to the two Tonys at StarvingTalent.com/Frenzy for their site design!

So welcome one and all to my filmmaking website, on which you can watch videos of recent projects, see on-set photos and festival pics, see what I'm working on next, and catch up with Passage Pictures and all we've been up to!

A word on Passage Pictures: Passage Pictures began as a student-run film and video production company at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and is now a growing creative collective among recent NYU grads, current students, and New York as a whole. My hope is to involve as many talented filmmakers, writers, cinematographers, actors, designers (you name it!) as we continue to produce for both the process AND the product. The young, up-and-coming generation of entertainers has so much to gain from consistent collaboration, which is why I like to refer to Passage Pictures as a 'creative collective' first and foremost, before calling it a 'production company'. I sincerely hope you'll get in touch with us at PassagePictures@gmail.com and jump on board for our next project!

Next week, I'll be diving headfirst into production for Passage Pictures' newest short, "The Boy with the Bike", which I wrote and will also be directing. We will be shooting in the Morningside Heights area this coming weekend; we'll be the ones in the newsboy caps and pin-up girl curls (it's a 1940s period piece). "The Boy with the Bike" is the story of a flower delivery boy named Baxter who is madly in love with Roxanne, a girl he passes on his delivery route every day but can't find the nerve to have a conversation with. His alter ego/imaginary friend, a disembodied voice named Barnaby, cheers him on and tries his best to give the awkward young man some advice about women. When Baxter finds out Roxanne is moving, he thinks it's all over...until a lucky run-in changes everything (I love my lame puns). To get the full jist of what I mean...I guess you'll just have to wait till the video hits the web! :) The film will star Josh Luria as Baxter and Dianne de la Veaux as Roxanne, as well as Montgomery Sutton as Roxanne's womanizing boyfriend Ricky and Derek Calibre as the temperamental florist Baxter works for. Behind the camera with me I'll have the wonderful Ye-Jee Kim as director of photography and a crew of insanely talented NYU grads and current students. Looking forward to the suspender-sportin' action. :)

Will update when production wraps with a play-by-play of the shoot and some pictures! Stay tuned, and thanks so much for visiting my new site!