Panic Films

Check out this promo video I just finished editing of Zombies in the Basement, a local house/funk/reggae/dance band. Shot at Double Door along with photos from this earlier post about the shoot. Enjoy!

About a month ago I shot photos and video of my friend chef Michael Dean Reynolds’ popup dinner at Leopold, where he is executive chef. He brought in chef Erling Wu-Bower of Avec as the guest chef. The menu included octopus, pork belly, duck, as well as olive oil cakes for dessert.

Check out some of the photos below and stay tuned for the next one at the end of March.

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I recently had the pleasure of working with Nora Asani (Miss Earth Kosovo 2011). This is the first of 2 videos we produced and I’m proud to premiere it here. She was a dream to work with and she’s absolutely stunning. To see more of Nora, visit her website here.

Here’s the first of what I hope to be many monthly video diaries. I’m planning to shoot them all on my phone but that might not always be the case. This one is from December 2011 and showcases the mad skillz of the T-Mobile G2X video camera in all its full 1080p glory.

Hello! Hope everybody had a great Christmas. The time has come for change here on the site and new and exciting possibilities are upon us. All that’s missing is you. As we’re looking forward to the new year and new projects, we’d like to invite you to submit yourself, your work, or your project to the site! You can find more info about what we’re looking for here.

Darkroom held a Tom Waits night a couple of weeks ago in honor of Waits’ birthday and asked me to shoot video. Here is Michael Dean’s Wild Years performing “Hang On St. Christopher”.

So I’ve been a bad blogger lately. Sure, it’s summer and I’ve been busy and traveling for work and have I mentioned it’s summer? Also there’s a new love in my life called tumblr. It’s so simple, yet so brilliant. I described tumblr to a friend like this – Imagine if the internet is a magazine and you tear out pictures you like and tape them to your wall. Then everybody else can share and reblog each other’s posts. That’s tumblr. I also like posting things that are random that I can’t post here because there’s not much to say other than “hey check out this cool gif”. On here, I’d rather post content I’m inspired to write something about. I’m also posting NSFW content on tumblr. You’ve been warned. Here’s a couple of the things I’ve posted recently on there that I’ve come across in my travels around the internets. Go check it out to see more: Panic Films tumblr.

Welcome to Short Films Friday here on Panic Films. Earlier this week I found a couple of short films I made several years ago and I thought they would be fun to put on Youtube. “Numbers” was done on a couple thousand index cards and shot digitally into my laptop. It was improvised, which isn’t really typical for animation but I liked seeing where the first drawing would lead and what would happen as I drew more and more and how long a sequence would turn out.

“Postcard Address” was shot over 4 years on and off with no real intention to make something. When I saw the rolls of super 8 film together, I realized I could make something from it and started assembling it into what became a sort of documentary study of my home based around the different compass directions. It was shown at the Funtup Film Festival in Milwaukee at Turner Hall with a live band improvising behind the movie screen. I remember it being nerve wracking and exciting at the same time to sit with a ballroom full of strangers watching this personal little movie about my house. The soundtrack was also improvised live by my friends as they watched a tape of the movie. The glasses clinking in the backgrounded added such a great touch and I’m glad it all worked out so well. After all this time, it’s still one of my favorite shorts that I’ve made.

CAT from DJ Cat NYC on Vimeo.

Here it is! I’ve been editing this video for a while and working with DJ Cat NYC. I’m happy with the results and I’m excited to finally share it with the world.
Motion Graphics by Aaron Schmidt.
Video shot by DJ Cat, me, and various people around the world.

Here’s a video from Saturday’s PANIC! with Who’s This Mary? doing The Cure’s “Let’s Go To Bed”. My favorite part was how much the crowd was into it and the 90% female dance party going on right up front. They also did some pretty amazing versions of “The Lovecats”, “Fascination Street”, and “10:15 on a Saturday Night”. I can’t wait to see them again.