Thanks Vol 3

Thank You New Kickstarter Backers

Seriously, thank you all so much.  

Unicorn Brew Vol 1 DVD

Contributers of $20 or more will receive the Unicorn Brew Vol 1 DVD.  This DVD features four films from the 2009 Unicorn Brew Short Film Festival.

The films are,

Childlike-- written, starring and directed by Lesley Frances MacDonald.

Me and Mobius--A beautiful short film by Daniel Trudeau of Pregnant.

Billy River's Last Summer--A crowd favorite of the festival.  By Nick Savino.

Hiccy--A dark and gritty film by Stan Okumura.

DVD's will be sent to contributers as soon as the Kickstarter fundraiser is over.  

Click here to view Childlike by Lesley MacDonald.

Thank You Kickstarter Backers

Some of the Epic Dust Cast

Emily Neumann is a very talented actress and singer.  She been in many local plays and independent films including Billy River's Last Summer, Mystery My Country and It Happened One Day in a Montana Motel.  Doesn't she look a lot like the Queen of Cinema, Anna Karina?

Nick Savino was the writer, director of Billy River's Last Summer.  He also played the part of the Crow King.

Jorden Mingle will be playing the role of Joaquin Murrieta, his first featured role in a film.  He plays drums for Dark River and is an all-around Hangtown Sage.

Joseph Beatty is a very talented singer-songwriter.  His many bands and alias's include Dark River, Solomon Fox, Gus the Fish, and Robot the Boy.  This Cowboy Poet has dabbled in acting, playing the lead role in Billy River's Last Summer.  

Lesley Frances MacDonald

Lesley got her B.A. degree from the University of Santa Cruz in Theatre Arts.  She was a member of the famous Shakespeare Santa Cruz troupe in 2009.  Not only an actor, she wrote and directed "Childlike," one of the most popular films from the 2009 Unicorn Brew Short Film Festival.

An Epic Dust Dictionary

Above Snakes--  Alive.
Accord--  Harmony.
Accordion--  An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.
Acknowledge the corn--  Admit the truth.
Actually--  Perhaps, possibly.
Adam's Ale--  Water.
Air--  A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
Alien--  An American sovereign in his probationary state.
Art--  This word has no definition.
At Sea--  Lost, don't understand.
Bar Dog--  Bartender.
Beauty--  The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
Beef--  To kill.
Birth--  The first and direst of all disasters.
Born days--  Lifetime.
Confidence--Something you feel before you fully comprehend the situation.
Dance--To leap about to the sound of tittering music preferably with arms about your neighbors wife or daughter.
Diary--  A daily record of that part of one's life which she can relate to herself without blushing.
Epitaph--  An inscription on a tomb, showing that virtues acquired by death have a retroactive effect.
Faith--  Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
Flag--  A colored rag.
Gallows--  A stage for the performance of miracle plays which the leading actor is translated into heaven.
In'ards--The stomach, heart, soul and other bowels.
Lunarian--  An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits.
Manicheism--  The Ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant warfare between good and evil, when good gave up the fight the Persians joined the victorious opposition.
Misfortune--  The kind of fortune that never misses.
Noise--  A stench in the ear.
November--  The eleventh twelfth of weariness.
Opiate--  An unlocked door to the prison of identity.
Peace--  In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
Plagiarize--  To take the thought or style of another writer whom one has never, never read.
Reality--  The dream of a mad philosopher.
Redskin--  A North American Indian, whose skin is not red-at least not on the outside.
Sage Hen--  Woman
Sparkle Up--  To hasten.
Twice--  Once too often.

Definitions mostly from Ambrose Bierce, that strange Westerner who vanished into thin Mexican air.

Some Information about this film

Epic Dust:  An Extravaganza of Infamy in the West started over two years ago when I had a vision in the desert.  I was the passenger in a packed van headed to the Grand Canyon.  It was the first time I'd heard Godspeed You Black Emporer's album F# A# Infinity and we drove through a lightning storm.  The combination of the music, the desert and the lightning was like a witch's caldron to me.  From that experience I wrote a western entitled Riderless in which a Confederate soldier rides a burro across the country to die in the Western Lands.  He is being followed by lightning.  I probably did five drafts of that script with help from Jamie Van Camp.  Unfortunately, it was never made.

I guess I just can't move on without making some kind of western.  So I came up with Epic Dust.  Inspired by Billy the Kid, Twin Peaks and Borges.  Twin Peaks influenced me to make Epic Dust in Episodes, while Borges inspired a circular conception for the whole.  Think of a film as a hurricane or whirlwind or circus.  There is a chorus of dancers around the barker and you are trying to make out his words.  The meaning, the soul is in the exact middle.  Not hidden but obscured.  Occluded, as Philip K. Dick would say.  Have you ever dreamt you were standing in the center of a doorless room?  Epic Dust is conceived in this way.

There will be seven episodes to Epic Dust.  The first three are written.  Episode one is entitled "Moon Trouble," and features the young Billy the Kid.  Episode two is entitled "And Ed Saw that it was Good," and features a retelling of the Jewish Golem myth.  The third episode is called "I Remember me," featuring Jamie Van Camp as the murderer Grovenor Layton.  The last four episodes are somewhat planned out.  I know there will be an episode featuring Joaquin Murrieta entitled "Not So Darn Dead."  I hope to have guest writers and directors for episodes 4, 5 and 6.  My beautiful wife Heather has informed me she is going to start writing an episode tonight!

I envision this film being completely free and involving documentary, melodrama, musical performance, nature sequences, pantomime and any other form of expression.  There is a controversy right now in New Mexico as to whether Billy the Kid should be pardoned posthumously or not.  I hope to incorporate that question into the film and am making a trip to Arizona and New Mexico soon.  If you wish to contribute to this film and live in these states please contact me and we'll try to put you in the film.

Contributions to the Kickstarter campaign will help with costumes, props, sets, set design, gas, food and some musical equipment.  We once made a feature-length film for about $100, so we try and make films as cheaply as possible.  It is disturbing how much money and waste go into Hollywood films.  I find it very hard to seek funding for creative endeavors and am grateful to Kickstarter for making it easier for modest productions like ours.

I don't know what else to say.  I will blog more in the future.  Look forward to me blogging about amateur film, film and dream, cinema Caldera, Jocelyn Jade Noir, the Epic Dust cast and for progress on the film.  Thanks.

Also, ask me a question and I'll answer it.

2 Films by Darin Coelho Spring

This is an outreach film I wrote and directed for The New Morning Youth Shelter.  I work part-time at this shelter and also play the part of Will.  My brother Sinjin Savage plays the skateboarder.



This is a preview for a feature-length film we made a few years ago.  It starred Jocelyn Noir, Jamie Van Camp, Evan Johnson, Jacob Mingle and Mikie Beatty.  DVD's of this film are available for $10.