Mike P. Nelson's Project Updates

Hey yall. One more update for the day. I recently finished shooting and editing a small spot for the local charter school LoveWorks Academy. Below is a link to their site. Stay tuned for stills and a link to the spot itself. I am currently working on a 15 minute documentary for the school which will be completed sometime in August '07.
LoveWorks Academy

A couple more stills from the film by Ryan Wetherall.

LoveWorks Commercial is up on the web! Check the LoveWorks site in the future for a better quality video! Otherwise the youtube link is right here>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xti7UDKC2IM

Check this out. I recently have been helping my girlfriend, Katie Maren from Super Puff Productions put together her stop motion piece, "The Adventures of Super Puff." Here are some production stills of the craziness! I was able to animate the big hunk of cheese appropriately named "Le Formage." http://superpuff.net
Katie animates Collie the flying cauliflower dog.

The cheese factory set. Characters included in the scene are Mr. Lardo, Le Formage, and Brocclina!

Mike animating Le Formage.

Yet another great shoot for Ryan Wetherall's film. Below are some stills from the shoot. I had a great time playing around with low lit situations.
Mong and Ryan make "the machine" work.

Matt Burns and I prepare for the first dolly shot.

Ty in character.

Creepy...

Mike, is there a synopsis for Ryan's film? Tell him to get on here and talk about it!

Also, I ain't french but I believe you meant to write Le Fromage.

Dig the shot of Ty in character. Very cool.

Reproductions or repercussions?

How long is it going to be?

Hellos, Ryan here...

The films is about a man who is the creator of machines which he sees as his family. The creations are distorted in there appearance as well as there purpose. The film is about the clash of his two families, the family of the machines and his biological family.

The film takes off when he is one day working and he gets a message from his daughter who one of his creations, "the dream simulator" put her in a unconscious vegetated state sometime ago and he leaves and deals with the repercussions of his actions, and to find out what really happened...

It touches on several fetches of mine, machines, sci-fi, electronic music and sound, anatomy, and film noir.

Hope that helps, its been a very insightful experience to make this thing.

Cheers people,
-Ryan

Repercussions, sorry haven't slept in a while.

Im guessing it will be around six minutes, not insanely long.

Welp, that's a wrap!
I just recently finished shooting Ryan Wetherall's 16mm Sci-Fi piece just this last Sunday. It was one of the more compex shoots to say the least. We shot in a hospital room and made some eeire transformations to it. One of those transformations was making a machine submersed in water connected to a pulsating liver and sputtering organic tubes. Deb Freytag made an appearance as the cometose daughter character. Many thanks to her as several of the other possible actresses were unable to commit. Also, we were graced with Steve Rhoden, make-up artists and director of Summer School to deal with some nice make-up touches. I will have new updates with actual stills from the film in the near future. Transfer and color correction will be happening sometime next week (3/19) Until then, here are some stills from the last shoot.
That's a wrap! From left to right; Justin Bullis, Chris Hedeen, Ty Richardson, Ryan Wetherall, Mike P. Nelson, Mong Vang, and Matthew T. Burns.

The room is alive...

Mike, DP

Handling the liver...slimey

Ryan, Matt, and Chris with The Machine.

Roll camera!!

Steve Rhoden and Deb Freytag, make-up grotesque.

Mike, you look so SEXY with the camera!!!

Hey folks. Here are some actual still shots from the film. I know they aren't much, but here's a little peak.

Welp, I just wrapped another shoot, this time with director Max Selim. We just shot the short film "Kismet and Cigarettes" this last weekend and it went great! Check out some of the production stills below!

The Jib!

Crew Shot!

Mike, Max and Troy

Max and Me

DP Troy hard at work.

Tight spaces

Even tighter spaces! Bathroom shot!

Nice composition!

Oh get ready for this one! Team "Cut! Do It Again!" consisting of Mike P. Nelson, Katie Maren, Max Selim, Troy McCall and Alex Gabriel, has made it into the final round for the 48 Hour FIlm Challenge for the Minneapolis competition. Our film "Midnight Motel" made it into the top twelve out of eighty films! FIlms will be screening this Thursday June 28th and the Riverview Theatre in Minneapolis. Roc the Poc! Hope to see you there! Check out some pics from the shoot!

Troy salute! The Maple Plain Motel. A seedy little joint.

Max Selim and Jennifer Prettyman strike a pose at 3 am.

Mike works his blood effects...with a chocolaty flavor!

Actor Edward Kukla with Max Selim, Troy McCall, and Mike P. Nelson.

Oh baby...

Thats right! Cut! Do It Again! has made another mark! Vote for there film Death Favor at Filmracing.com!!!!! This is for the real competition. Don't worry about the Ourstage.com contest. Please click here and vote for Death Favor!
VOTE DEATH FAVOR!

Midnight Motel Stills
Just a few stills from team "Cut! Do It Again's" 48 hour film! Look further for production stills of the shoot!

Well, that's a wrap. The 48 Hour Film Project has finished in Minneapolis.. The Best of Minneapolis just screening on June 28th and featured team "Cut! Do It Again's!" film MIDNIGHT MOTEL. Not only was the screening of all the films a great success (700+ attendees) but Midnight Motel took 3! awards including Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Special Effects. Who would have thought that a bottle of chocolate syrup, some chunks of toilet paper and a air compressor could have taken the Special Effects award! Practical effects all the way! Check out some of the stills below from the ceremony and the after party!

A full house! Max Selim, Mike P. Nelson, Katie Maren, Alex Gabriel, Troy McCall, Nick, Jennifer Prettyman, and of course, Rico Ventura!

Mike P. Nelson Receives awards from Best Editing and Special Effects.

Troy McCall receives award for Best Cinematography.

Marquee!!!!

The afterparty. A round of JELLO shots!

Celebration!!

The poster for team Cut! Do It Again's award winning film "Midnight Motel"

The wins keep coming in! Team "Cut! Do It Again's" 12 Hour Film Race film DEATH FAVOR just took 8 awards in the competition. Among the awards are:

1st Place Best Minneapolis Film
1st Place Audience Choice (screening)
1st Place Audience Choice (online)
Best Direction
Best Leading Actor
Best Cinematography
Best Sound Design
Best Costume and Makeup

Thanks for all of your support for the online vote.
Go to filmracing.com/cities/minneapolis.htm for all the contest results! Check out the poster below designed by Troy McCall.

Watch the Heinz Ketchup commercial I shot for Ryan Wetherall entitled, Lunch Break.
Heinz Commercial

Check out version 3 of "Midnight Motel" team Cut! Do It Agains 48 Hour film on youtube.com!

Ok, so some of you may already know this but for the past couple months I have been a dialog editor for the Food Network show "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives" while working at Undertone Music in downtown Minneapolis. You know, making sure everything that the people say sounds frikin smokin with no "ips" or "epps". Last week not only did I work on the dialog aspect, but I was given music supervision duty. I was also given part of the sound design duty, designing backgrounds for the restaurants and kitchens in the show. Yeah it's not the most interesting work in the world, but it's got it's moments! Music supervision was definitely a highlight.

So I did a little shoot with the Intro to Film peeps at MCAD last week. Professor of film Tom DeBiaso had asked me to come up with a short little idea with a shot list and direct a small scene with the students, giving each of them a role; assistant director, sound, art director, grip, gaffer, DP, etc.
Here are a couple stills of the mayhem. I will post the little short later this month.

Chaism - Someone - Music Video Shoot. Directed by Ryan Wetherall, Shot by Mike P. Nelson, AC/Gaffer/Grip: Mong Vang, Assistant Director/Grip: Matt Burns.
This last weekend I shot a music video for the artist Chaism for the song "Someone," a sort of gothy techno song with a haunting sound. The video was concepted and directed by Ryan Wetherall. Ryan is aquainted with the artist so she asked him to make this video. Some of her music is featured in the game Vampire: The Masquerade. Below are some of the stills of the shoot. We had worked with a little girl who wanted us to only refer to her as Sammy. Ok, as long as she doesn't want the bowl of green M&M's, I'm ok with that.

GOOD EVENING,
I'M LOOKING FOR MY OLD FRIEND, JENNIFER PRETTYMAN. MY NAME IS PETER PLASCENCIA FROM LOS ANGELES, CA. I LOST CONTACT WITH HER 14 YEARS AGO. SHE MAY REMEMBER ME AS TIGER FROM THE GUARDIAN ANGELS. IF YOU CAN GET AHOLD OF HER CAN YOU HAVE HER E-MAIL ME AT PLASCENCIACORP(AT)SBCGLOBAL(DOT)NET. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND HELP.
REGARDS,
PETER PLASCENCIA AKA TIGER

Well yet another shoot and another film on the horizon. This time, it's a black and white americana pulp piece called "An American Classic." More images to come...

This past weekend I completed shoots 3 and 4 for the Chiasm music video shoot with director Ryan Wetherall.