Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Official Rejection

I just received this email.

"Mr. Gargiulo,

Thank you for submitting your list for Christmas 2013. Unfortunately, we are unable to bring you any presents. This is not an indication of you being good or bad, but we received more submissions than usual this year. Please note that your non-refundable list application fee will go to making a great great Christmas for alot of other people. We encourage you to take part in Christmas again next year. Ho Ho Ho.

Sincerely, Santa Claus."

Saturday, November 23, 2013

An Example In Unprofessional Behavior As An Actress

I should be out filming right now. Today was scheduled to be the first day of the "Hooker Historian" segment of my "Fantastic" movie but unfortunately, I received the following text at 1:30a this morning from the lead actress: "Hey I dont think I can make it tomorrow. Have been trying to sleep all night, but have a really Nasty cough, so don't think I'll fall asleep in time to make it to shoot tomorrow. So sorry about inconvenience."

Maybe she got a better gig? Maybe she realized the role isn't right for her? I would respect these excuses but I'm sleepy and have a cough?? There's not even dialogue in this movie!!! Her flakiness has ended today's shoot and has cost me hundreds in the process. I had to rent locations, equipment, costumes, rental cars, and even a horse and it's all for naught because of this "actress" and her cough. Fellow actors, is this acceptable? She even was getting paid decently for this role. At least, I hadn't given her anything ahead of time. Anyway, she's out for good.

I blame myself partially for sticking with her as it was a struggle to get a confirmation of her availability. She went back & forth on days she was free. However, she did just enough to make me think it was going to work out. I had even just talked to her a few days before confirming everything was on. She sounded ok then? The film will go on and it shall be grand, but as for now I need to rest & decompress as I feel extremely depleted. I suspect on Monday I'll start the casting search again.




Sunday, October 6, 2013

Check-In Appt.

Have a seat. So what's been going on? Well, Dr. Audience, I've been kinda off the grid as of late. Keeping busy somedays and being what some would call a pathetic loser other days. The reality is I am at a turning point and the future is unclear. What is clear is that I need to keep progressing with my "art." I've accepted that this is just what I do. Deal.

For the last three years up until being laid off last June, I had a full-time salary office job. Now I just make films for a living. And when I say "living", I mean "not dead." I haven't been getting a slew of video production gigs but I have been keeping busy working on my own stuff. I can afford to do so for a little bit. In fact, I don't know if I've ever been this productive before. Since June, I released quite a few new music related videos purely for the YouTube audience. They haven't gone viral. It was wishful thinking that a rap video about fish oil would. I've been appearing in more videos. Mostly to give a face to this mysterious Vincent Gargiulo Productions.

I had a 16 song concept album come out - "Roger (Or Journey to Mars from the Styx of Kansas in an REO Speedwagon Starship)." I've only received 2 sales so far but I'm sure it's been illegally downloaded millions of times. To support the album, I did my first live concert in years at local SF club, Martunis. Backed by the Tom Shaw Trio & an array of costumes, I performed mostly original material for a solid 90 minute rock concert. I also had guest stars like Toasters 'N' Moose, Anthony Rollins-Mullens, Shannon Wolfe, & Alisa Damaso come to sing signature tunes. It was a great night that just so happened to also be my 31st birthday. It was pure coincidence but I think it helped guilt trip people to come. I've been invited back to do another show. I'm writing it now. Think "A Chorus Line" but with pets.

I have some money saved up for my "big project" - my parody of "Fantasia" called (get this) "Vincent Gargiulo's Fantastic." I really just like the idea of when you look at my filmography it will say "Duluth is Horrible" followed by "Vincent Gargiulo's Fantastic." How much ego is that!? Two segments are more or less done and based on those segments, the film appears to be the most insane thing I've done yet. There is alot left to do and in my need for high production value, I've enlisted the great Ben Brussell to arrange my music for real strings. Hopefully we'll be recording that this month.

"Duluth is Horrible" will be making an appearance at the Twin Cities Film Festival Monday Oct. 21 back in Minnesota dontcha know. I can't make it this time around but I have star, Nadia Norimi, to spread the horrible.

Eventually, I will need to figure out what's next. Is it the cliched filmmaker route of moving to LA? Is it trying to offend some other midsize city in the Midwest? I keep hearing I'd do better internationally and that my pessimism would do wonders for me in France. I just need to create something that I can coast on the rest of my life. The $20 a month from Google Adwords for "David's Pizza Commercial" is nice but hard to live off on. I keep hearing something about grants? Do those things exist and if so, are they only for documentaries of starving kids in Malaysia? CAN ANYBODY GIVE ME GUIDANCE!!? HAS ANYBODY TRIED THE COCONUT CHIPS FROM TRADER JOES'S?? They're sensational.

Doctor's Analysis: Drink water. Exercise daily. Try to stay away from fatty foods and get out more. That'll be $2000.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Dancing With The Chords

I put out a new music video today.


The track is an oldie and coincides with the release of my old band's greatest "hits" album, "The Best of Ghost Peeps." The video is made entirely out of free cheesy stock footage that I found off a website called Videoblocks. It's all part of my effort to put out good content that doesn't cost me anything. Well, I think it's good, a bit like one of those terrible karaoke videos.

In other news, I've made arrangements to shoot in Los Angeles a parody rap video later this month. I want to wear a jersey and you need to see my muscles, so I've been trying to gain as much weight as possible. I probably won't have much time to really bulk up, but maybe I can get fat. I'm still sporting my patchy facial hair of last week's video shoot for reasons that are unclear. In other words, I look & feel kinda gross. This is art?

I've been averaging a viral video a year so either the rap video or "These Are The People That I Know" will be this year's. If none of the above do it, they are opening a Target near my house.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Those Were The People I Knew

Today we filmed a video entitled "These Are The People That I Know" where I play a man who goes around singing about all the people he knows in his life. The song is only about a minute long and it's soon revealed he doesn't really know anybody. And the people he does know can't stand him. Somehow I've ended up looking a bit like 1980s "Weird Al" Yankovic. Though a great inspiration, it was not intentional.

Ironically, out of the 22 people "I know" only 7 I had actually knew before today. Everyone else was a unknown extra from SFCasting or a friend of a friend. I even had a kid cancel a few hours before shooting. Phone calls were made. A child was obtained.  

Everything was shot (sans some photos with my "ex-wife" this weekend). I'm mulling over the footage now. It looks ok. Alot of the shots were outside and today was one of those rare sunny San Francisco days, so shadows are prominent. Playing with color correction helps. "Duluth Is Horrible" looked really good. Perhaps too good. It actually had a budget though. I realized today that I'm no longer satisfied with so-so production values. I guess what I'm trying to say is expect alot more Kickstarter campaigns. I'm bitching over a few shots but overall things look solid. I'm sure it will be a pleasant minute's entertainment and the song is perhaps the catchiest thing I ever written. We're talking pizza level here.

Today I was Lead Actor, Producer, Director, Production Assistant, Craft Services, Camera Assistant, and Driver. Tomorrow I'll be asleep.

Monday, July 22, 2013

A Flash of Roger

Since December, I've been recording a full length 16 song album, an ode to 70s concept records, entitled "Roger (Or Journey to Mars from the Styx of Kansas in an REO Speedwagon Starship)". I'm pleased to announce the album is done and just waiting to get the final cover art before releasing it into the wide wide world. This should happen in the next two weeks. Until then, enjoy this first single, "Why Does Life Entail (Me Feeling So Down Low)?"


This song on the album comes out of our hero, Roger, who gets fed up with his life on Earth. By putting this video out, I realized it appears I'm the one expressing Roger's teenage (he's 42) angst which led to people asking if I'm ok and to "never give up." Outside of some teeth problems, I'm fine.

I didn't intend for this to be the lead song but I came up with this one-man video & thought the tune would work well with it. Last Thursday, I went out to Ocean Beach, armed only with a speaker, an audio player, and my IPhone to make this. I did three takes. This video is the 2nd. The 3rd one was solid up until the end where I literally was exhausted and found myself falling out of sync. Running is not something I do alot of (unless I'm stealing stuff again). I had no idea my IPhone would distort my face so much as I ran so I was pretty happy with that effect*.

I'm working on a series of musical internet shorts: A bigger budget video for the album which will have some custom-made alien puppets & two non-album tracks which I'm keeping hush-hush at the moment. But look out LA, because I'm coming to town in 3 weeks to take your blonde women for some hot rap action.

Over the weekend, I set up http://vincentgargiulo.bandcamp.com/. An almost one-stop shop for all your VG musical needs. My Ghost Peeps & Toasters 'N' Moose stuff have their own respective pages but this has everything else I've publicly done. "Why Does Life Entail" is currently a free download and you can even pre-order the Roger album now. I hope I don't really look like this:


* I'm up all night to get lucky.




Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Coming Attractions

Art is Worthless Shit. This is the tagline to my next film. Whether I keep it or not, it is the mission statement that will keep me on course during the production. I have one more 20 min. short film in me before tackling a feature, stage musical, web series or d) all of the above. That short is a non-animated parody of Walt Disney's Fantasia. It will feature original "classical" pieces by myself that I have given away to faux-composers. A host will introduce 4 short segments with a bathroom break in the middle. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will also be on hand to perform his first new song in 222 years, "Take Your Head And Shove It To The Ground." Amongst the four segments:
  • Balloon Man: A noir inspired battle between co-workers, one of whom is a balloon.
  • I Found Myself Stuck In An Experimental Film: A woman tries to go about her everyday life as she travels through parodies of films 90% of the population have never heard of.
  • A Man's Life As Told Through Stuff: A survey of things we use from birth to death.
  • Hooker Historian: An unrequited love story about a frustrated history teacher and the prostitute he loves after finding out she knows something about the Third Crusade.
Some of the film has already been shot. The "Experimental Film" segment was shot back in Duluth two weeks ago. The "bathroom break" was filmed last Saturday where I got the pleasure of laying under a sheet of plastic while an actor playing an orchestra musician threw up beef stew on me. I simply said "Thank you" afterwards. The other segments are written and will be put into production over the course of 3-5 months. The finished film should be out this December. Individual segments will make their way to the internet eventually too. It should be a grand culmination of everything I've done to this point; a glossy presentation combining the absurd with the poignant. And something that takes the crap out of "high art." Even if I don't quite reach the heights of Fantasia proper, I feel confident I can achieve the quiet charm of "Make Mine Music."

Inspired by my big hit, "David's Pizza Commercial", I'll be making some more musical commercials. If you're a business that wants an attention grabbing catchy memorable ad, please contact me!

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!! Since December, I've been recording a 16 song concept album which should make it's way to your ears the end of next month. Get ready for "Journey to Mars from the Styx of Kansas in an REO Speedwagon Starship", also called "Roger". I'm also writing a feature length script about Robin Hood and mulling over ideas for something about a superhero with a bad back. Of course, you can find all my previous work over at www.vincentgargiulo.com
 
I predict big things in 2013. It has been an exciting time so far. Please won't you be my neighbor?