Loose and Away + Summer Adventures

Whilst Alek was away at Hampshire College he worked on a number of films, one being Loose and Away, directed by Michael Lipton. Alek worked on cinematography, editing, lighting, pretty much a bit of everything, to create this short and sweet little film. Below are two screenshots, and to the left is the poster I created for the film's premiere at Hampshire. Once the film is uploaded by the director, I'll edit this post and link back to it here.

Alek also created a short for his film class that he attended this semester, entitled Alas, My Sovereignty!, which will hopefully be posted.

In other news, Alek and I will be traveling to Australia for two months, where we will be working on pre-production for My Sweet September and creating the director's cut of Hamlet. My Sweet September, as well as Bruised, are currently due to be shot this fall. We'd like to make a short out in Australia, but we'll just have to see how it all goes. We'll post some pictures. Until next time!

Our Domain + Cinematography Reel

In case you didn't notice, DancingBean Films has an official .com address now.
Yep, we're just like the cool kids.

I've also begun work on another class project, this one entitled "Intestinal Fortitude". It's about competitors in a food eating competition (directed by Dan Bosler), and stars an old teacher and friend of mine, Ren Shore.
You can see to the right the mock poster I've already created. I'm actually very pleased with how it's turning out, and I think it has some of my best work in it already.

You can see shots from the film in my reel.
Oh yeah, I have just finished my newest Cinematography reel and have posted it here to share with you all.

I'm really looking forward to these next two projects I'll be working on- one being a surreal love story?, which I am making with Dixon Narwhold and the rest of my group for Cinematography, and then Bruised, of course. I think they're going to turn out beautifully, and I'm incredibly excited to begin working on them.

Meanwhile, over in good ol' Massachusetts, Alek is working on a million different projects it seems, along with some of his own, and I'll hopefully be posting or linking to those on here as well in due time.

Little Hollywood Shootout & Hit Me

We did it! Just got back from the Little Hollywood Shootout Film Festival down in Kanab, Utah (which was a whopping 5 1/2 hour drive one way, nearly to Arizona. Whew!). We ended up winning third place (tying with Seaich Films' short Bloodshot Rots). Actually, the creator of Seaich Films, Jared Seaich, happens to be friends with Shawn Gordon, a well-known Utah make-up artist, who is in turn friends with OUR make-up artist friend Jonathan Aspittle. PLUS, he worked on a short film for the Utah High School Film Festival (If I recall?) called Clavis, which was pretty cool. He and his whole team were incredibly nice (besides talented!), and I hope that someday Seaich films and DancingBean films can collaborate on one big badass project of pure win!

More info about the festival: Little Hollywood Shootout is a 49 1/2 hour festival. Their theme this year was "out of this world", so we decided to go with a sci-fi western, with poorly done lasers, duct-tape+random junk weapons, spurs, and all! Our required line of dialogue was "Raising Kane". We had a TON of fun making this project, and we definitely plan on doing this festival again! Our team consisted of: Me (Anna), Robin, Katherine, Tyler, Ellie, Kyle, and Alek (from afar. He helped with the writing.)

I also just started work as DP on David Westphal's new film Hit Me, which he is planning to submit to the Your Film Festival that YouTube is hosting. We should be all done shooting that in the next few days. After that, the next project that I know that I'll be doing for sure will be in Bruised in May. Until then, we'll just have to see what comes up.


Here's our entry for Little Hollywood, as well as some photos. Til next time!

- Little Hollywood Shootout -

Getting Kyle all gussied up for his death scene in the Coral Pink Sand Dunes. We used lipstick for the blood.

Waiting to start shooting at Three Lakes Ranch. That is my happy dance.

Robin and Ellie, looking mean and fly in their sci-fi western get-ups.

Robing and her laser canon, which was made from a Spiderman arm control thing, a hair dryer attachment, a bunch of random cords, and duct tape.

Tyler with his laser pistol in downtown Kanab city.

Tyler being studly at Three Lakes.

Ellie with her Clockwork Orange reminiscent eye make-up in the parking lot to our hotel.

Tyler in the dunes, looking very Daniel Craig.

Tyler laser pistol, which was made from a glue gun, the barrel of a curling iron, duct tape, a random wire, and a piece of metal that looked sort of like a scope. His arm band was made out of duct-tape, a battery pack or some kind, wire, and glow sticks.

The old run-down Moctezuma's Treasure museum on the Three Lakes Property. It's pretty rad.

Robin and Ellie at the dunes.

Anna setting up the camera on the wonky tripod.

Robin and Ellie being... Robin and Ellie.

Kyle's bionic eye-piece thing, made out of a hair dryer attachment, random bits of metal, wires, duct-tape, and a piece of orange gel from our light kit.

Stunts! Oh boy!

Our third place trophy! Hooray!

- Hit Me -

Setting up some lighting as we shoot in the totally awesome Old Spaghetti Factory in Taylorsville.

Dylan getting buzzed on Dr. Pepper.

Lots of chandeliers. And Huston's bashed up face.

Tyler being a thoughtful manager.

Drinkin' it up! Apple juice and Coke never tasted so good!

Your Film Festival, Little Hollywood Shootout, and more!

March is going to be an incredibly busy month. I'll be shooting 3 projects, the first of which is coming up at the end of this week.

If you all haven't heard, YouTube is hosting the Your Film Festival festival. I'll not only be working with the incredible David Westphal on his short, Hit Me, but I'll also be working on my own film, working title Bruised. It's not a horror film. I know that my mock poster makes it look like such, but it's really not. Promise.

So Bruised will be the first project, then after that I'll be heading a team of about ten for the Little Hollywood Shootout down in Kanab. Yikes!
I feel pretty excited. I think we're all going to make magic together. I'm really going to try and make these the most visually stunning projects I've ever done.

Bruised is a short film about a young woman escaping her abusive home life by running away with her boyfriend to live in the woods.

Waiting In A Dark Hotel Room

Here is my edit of the No Country For Old Men scene that my group and I did for my Intermediate Film Production class. The shots of the door that are lesser quality and a different color are shots from the movie- they'll be replaced once we shoot those shots in the studio, to achieve the cool splintering door effect. Sound is from the original scene. I'll re upload when it's %100.

VOTE FOR US!

Please vote for my film "One Step At A Time: Our True Love Story With Epilepsy" in the Neuro Film Festival!

You'll need to create an account with the American Academy of Neurology. To do that, just click on the "vote now" button once you follow the link below, then click on the blue highlighted words "register here". Follow their steps and you're golden!

Voting is really easy- It's alphabetized, so just scroll down the list unt il you see the O's, and then click:
ONE STEP AT A TIME: OUR TRUE LOVE STORY WITH EPILEPSY

(The voting deadline is March 8th- please vote asap! It only takes a few minutes.) 

----------->>>>>>  VOTE NOW!   <<<<<<-----------

One Step At A Time: Our True Love Story With Epilepsy

As promised, here is my entry for the Neuro Film Festival. Now all that's left to do is anxiously await April's arrival to see if we win or not! Hooray!
A super huge thanks to Robin Noble and Tyler Bowers. They did such a phenomenal job!

Neuro Film Festival

As of a few days ago, Alek and I will be working separately for the next three months. We're still hoping to be able to post any projects that we come up with on our own, the first of those being my entry for the Neuro Film Festival, which I'm hoping to shoot this coming weekend.

The reason for our separation is because we are now attending separate schools: Alek has stayed at Hampshire for the meantime, and I have moved back to Utah to attend Salt Lake Community College.

Later in these months we should be seeing a thrilling and surreal short film project from Alek based on the 1 act play called... I forget what. I'll update later with more specifics.

Final Hamlet Trailer

Here is the fifth and final Hamlet trailer before the premiere! Below it are the other four trailers, the last two of which were made by our peers.

#4 edited by Brandon Arnold in parody of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trailer.

#3 edited by Dakota Nelson

#2 edited by Alek and I

 #1 edited by Alek and I

My Sweet September Concept Trailer

Here is the concept trailer that we made with no footage... but a lot of painting.

Felony FIGHTS!

Yeah. That's right. We had lots o' fun.

We are FUNDED!

We're funded. Here's some test footage. And a few photos.

Our Kickstarter for My Sweet September is up and running!

Please tell everyone you know! We have a VERY short time frame to reach our goal- literally, ever second counts!  You can get to our Kickstarter by following this link, or you can click on the item in the side bar.

My Sweet September

That's right - new project! Our wonderful friend and colleague Travis Wilker will be flying out here on the 20th to start filming, and in the mean time we will be putting up a kickstarter to raise money! (Will post that link when everything's finished)

Olrik, a mysterious man with a western touch, returns home to New England to investigate the death of his beloved sister, Autumn. But things are not as they seem in this sleepy town in the Berkshires. Olrik's questions soon begin to generate unrest, and whispers of 'sacrifice' and 'the cult' seem to follow him around every turn.

Space Monkey (dorm showers)

We got involved with this group called Shatterkind here on the Hampshire campus, which decided to tackle this 60 second 5 college film festival thing. This is my (Anna Lensch + Group Awesome) entry.

The one we submit will not have the DancingBean stuff or the added subtitle of dorm showers. It will say group awesome instead.

I was the Cinematographer, as usual... and editor... also as usual. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Hamlet is almost finished!

Today is the day we finish up the editing for Hamlet. There are a few scenes we have to re-edit from the ground up, and we still have to combine everything and ensure that it flows, and record all of our original score, by the end of today... But I have confidence that we will finish. We have to. Especially since we're leaving for Hampshire College on the day after tomorrow. Crunch time!

Hamlet "To Be or Not To Be" Scene

Here's a delicious little preview from Hamlet: The to be or not to be scene. Hamlet should be premiering in September. Alek & I won't be able to attend the screening, what with College just starting and all, but we will be there via Skype.
NOTE: The audio is too quiet (we forgot to turn up the levels for exporting), so here is the narration, provided below:

To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep no more, and to sleep to say we end the heart ache and the thousand nature shocks this flesh is heir to. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die... to sleep... perchance to dream. Aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come? When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, is has give us pause. The dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose born of no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have then fly others we know not of... thus consciences make cowards of us all.

SLC 48 Film Fest: UPSTAGED

For the big official 48 hour film festival, Alek and I decided to team up with the incredible David Westphal and Kody Riekena (Projection Pictures) to create Upstaged. Our Genre was "Family Film", which was an incredible challenge in and of itself, what with 4 violence loving, gangster happy filmmakers. But we did it! The line was: "What were you thinking?", the prop was toilet paper (I wish it would have been something more interesting), and then our character had to be "Miles or Meg Madigan", and they had to be a magician. So... Here it is!

Upstaged

Mad Manbear

This is a clip we did to start the 2011 Telos show. Was it half-assed? Yeah... but it got the job done in time for Telos, didn't it?

Hamlet Goes West: Tarantino Edition

We're going to try and make a Quentin Tarantino version of Hamlet. This is the first scene (created from a pretty awesome outtake and some music from Inglorious Basterds.)