12 Films. 12 Weeks. There are worse ways to spend a summer.

The Queen Bee of Mushroomtown

Our first film under the Giant Bull Pants banner was “The Queen Bee of Mushroomtown,” created in 24 hours for the New York Film Race, a filmmaking contest involving over 60 teams in the New York City area. The challenge was to write, shoot, edit and score a short film of 4 minutes or less in 24 hours using the provided theme (“breaking the rule(s)”) and a required action (“clinking glasses”). After receiving the prompts at 10pm on a Friday night, we shot all night in a cold, steady drizzle and spent most of the daytime editing and scoring. The film was shot with a Nikon D90 and a variety of older Nikon AF lenses.

The film premiered on April 4, 2009 at New York University’s Cantor Film Center, where we were lucky enough to win the audience award in our screening block. In May 2009, Queen Bee was awarded 5 jury prizes, including Best Film:

:: NYC Film Race 2009 ::

• Best Film

• Best Direction

• Best Leading Actor

• Best Acting Ensemble

• Best Cinematography

• Audience Award (Online)

• Audience Award (Screening)

If you want to read our interview with the fine folks at FilmRacing, go for it! And after you’ve watched the film, be sure to relive all the hilarity by checking out these outtakes, which include every single take of the infamous James & James make out scene! Two actors going at it for their craft.  Now that’s what we call dedication.

CREDITS:A Giant Bull Pants production. Written and Directed by Keith Boynton, Director of Photography: Robb Stey, Location Sound Mixer: Brian Testa, Original Music by James & Chris Bruffee, Production Assistant: Arthur Chan, Titles: Billy Greenfield. Starring: Mike Lavoie, James Creque, Angela Perri, James Fauvell.

The Orchid Man

This is a short film Keith and Robb made while hanging around the condo one night in Park City, UT during the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. It was almost completely improvised, based entirely around the idea of a silly outfit and a sillier character. The film stars Keith, as well as his sister Darcy Boynton and her boyfriend Graham Stone. We played extensively with the in-camera exposure controls of the Nikon D90, before deciding to push the grain and film in black & white. The last scene was shot on an extremely muddy shoulder of a very busy road, with cars whizzing by much closer and faster than we allowed ourselves to think about. But we got the shot!

CREDITS:A Fancy Dance Pants production. Directed and Edited by Keith Boynton, Produced and Shot by Robb Stey. Starring: Keith Boynton, Darcy Boynton, Graham Stone. Music by Graham Stone, Props and Transportation provided by Leila Ledsinger, Infinite Patience from Ashleigh Boynton and Devin McEwan. Special Thanks to Sandra Boynton and Jamie McEwan.