Richard Alexander Hall

Archive for the ‘Film’ Category

A book drove a good point home to me: if there aren’t a lot of people who know you would bleed for them, you won’t have a lot of people bleeding for you (there were a lot of other useful and disturbing things in that book).

.. I’ve realized I need to volunteer on small independent crews on weekends. Folks working on small projects can be found all over the place. Some of them online at the Yahoo groups Utah Film and Theater and Utah Extras Community. If I’ve helped someone else they won’t mind lending direction or help in small ways.

I need to find a bluescreen stage for Applicant to Hell.

Outside of a bluescreen stage for now, I’ll do a very fun splice screen test of Neverending Story.

And.. the day before yesterday I realized my focus is too narrow. I’ve awakened an acting ambition, but that’s not the “whole mell dell”. I feel that I must write and direct. For the writing, at least, I can actually participate (not lurk) in critters.org.

Another strong point: don’t count on people who don’t have your interests at heart, or have wrong interests at heart against you. I’ve met them. The things they do are not pretty.

I landed my small role in Mobsters and Mormons because I got to know the director – John Moyer – and kept in occasional email correspondence with him, which led to the auditon and the part. I got to know the director in an acting class that he and Michelle Wright ran. I also took a screenwriting workshop from John.

I have five lines if they use the take that I think they will. Originally I had three lines and improvised two more stupid lines in response to the lead actor ad-libbing. He may have add-libbed because my character was a fool for his character to prod and malign. After this add-libbed take the cast and crew laughed: that’s why I think they’ll use the take. That my character possesed me during my closeup, and the lead actor also drew more of it out of me, and that it all illicited laughter – this was very, very gratifying.

When I went to see REVENGE OF THE SITH, there was a trailer before it that made me repeatedly gasp, tremble, and say “Oh MAN! oh MAN!” A person next to me kept turning and looking at me like I’m from another world. Well.. I spent some time in my youth in this world. Going back to it is very, very exciting, and it looks like they are actually doing a job worthy of the material.

I am SO excited about this.

This behind-the-scenes bit is also very interesting.

Also.. I prefer to expect every film to be awesome, because when I find a film that is awesome and I was expecting it to be, it’s ten times more awesome. For the rest of them, meanwhile, I’m more conscious of what dissapointed me, since I allowed my hopes to exist prior to dissapointment.

Here is a movie I made with a friend.

For discussion with your children: Did the Sinner in this movie cause the end of the world by telling a prophet to “Shut up”? Or was the world doomed to die anyway? Which came first, the chicken or the egg, the sinner or Armageddon? Do you think the world was going to end even though this Sinner said “Shut up”? Was God so upset with too many people saying “Shut up” all the time that He decided to blow up the world? Does God’s promise to Noah not to flood the world mean he is free to blow it up nonetheless? If God were going to blow up the world, do you think prophets would warn us first?

MAYBE SO, BUT WE’VE BEEN WARNED A LOT!! SO THE NEXT TIME A PROPHET RUNS UP TO YOU AND YELLS THE END IS NEAR, YOU’D BETTER BELIEVE THEM!! SHAME ON YOU!! SHAME ON YOU!! ALL SINNERS, SHAME ON YOU!! YOU HAVE 3 SECONDS TO REPENT!!

Someone pointed out that this is the Most Violent Film ever made. Film violence has been rated by the number of deaths in a film. By that standard, Star Wars is the Most Violent Film Ever: while several films have blown up populated planets, Star Wars edges them all out by blowing up Alderran and the Death Star. But if you rate by Violence Density (number of deaths divided by length of film), this is by far the Most Violent Film Ever!

Someone else pointed out that I coincidentally released this on the same day that the FLDS church moved down near Waco Texas for their prophecy of the end, 04-04-05. Um.. how sort of appropriate.

CREDITS

Script and Prophet – Richard Alexander Hall

Directed by Richard Alexander Hall and David A. Skousen.

Photography – David A. Skousen.

Hoodlum – Richard Skousen

Hoodlums – Paul Green, Izak Rock

Earth Image – NASA

Fireball – DetonationFilms.com