Amateur Short Films

Here are some of the amatuer short films my friends and I created over the years.

Army of Fanex¹ (1994)

A parody of Army of Darkness. It's the first short I ever directed. We shot it mostly over one day, with a few pick-ups the following week. We all had a lot of fun.

Pulp Fanex (1995)

A parody of Pulp Fiction. We were all huge fans of Quentin Tarantino's movie, and decided to do a short for that year's Fanex. It was actually one of three shorts we filmed that year. Fanex 9 from Outer Space was another.

Fanex 9 from Outer Space (1995)

Based on the Tim Burton film Ed Wood about the supposed worst filmmaker of all time. We tried to capture all the elements we could: Johnny Depp's portrayal of the man himself, Bela Legosi, Vampira (with blond hair and a dark wig), and even Dudley Manlove with his ever-infamous dialog, "Your stupid minds, stupid, stupid!" By the way, this was almost completely ad-libbed.

Monster Planet (1996)

A trailer for a sci-fi parody. The complete film (about 30 minutes) is still in progress. It may be finished someday. This was actually the first complete short film I worked on (other than experimental stuff as a kid), but we didn't finish principal photography until 4 years after we started. Needless to say, the cast changed a lot in that time. One guy had to put a pillow under his coat because he had lost at least 40 pounds. And one actor was 12 when we started and went through puberty. You can see more about Monster planet at the official Web site.

Trespass (1999)

The only short film based on The Blair Witch Project (that I know of) that was filmed at the same house as the feature. My friends actually found the house, which was located in Howard County, Maryland (not in Burkettsville as many people think), and role-played the characters from the film. They later came to me and asked if I could make it into a short film. The rest is history. Another interesting tidbit: This was the first short film that Count Gore De Vol showed on his site.

And make sure you watch till the end. There's a funny outtake.

Austin Powers and the Man with the Golden Fangs (2000)

Another one of our favorites is the Austin Powers series. So, in 2000, when our film group put on Monster Rally instead of Fanex, and flew in Christopher Lee, we had to do something. Since Lee had played Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, and he also played Dracula, the Man with the Golden Fangs was born. Unfortunately, the first cut of the short didn't work, so it wasn't ready for the show. But at least we finished it.

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