CRASH MY FUNERAL is a surreal comedy about a scriptwriter's block. In an attempt to pull his movie back on track, a filmmaker (played by veteran actor yahn soon/John Balquist), employs drastic measures. He wanders around the neighborhood to scare up new characters and scenes, hopes for inspiration from every pretty girl that passes his way, even tries out dialog on a pizza delivery man,. In the end, he realizes that the creation of art, for him, isn't fictional at all, but merely a collage of real-life moments in which he finds meaning and delight.
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Co-writer/co-directors: Paul Baker, Morgan Schmidt-Feng, Mandeep Khera, Dave Nold, Michael Rogers, Meeka Schmalle, yahn soon, Michael Trzaskowski and Rick Schmidt. CAST: yahn soon, Willie Boy Walker, Jessica Heidt, Meeka Schmalle, Doreen Alexander Child, Mike Trzaslowski. DP: Morgan Schmidt-Feng. ©1999 Feature Workshops.
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Statement by Rick Schmidt, founder of Feature Workshops, about the making of CRASH MY FUNERAL, a collaborative Pro-DVCAM DIGITAL VIDEO FEATURE.
We quickly got in over our heads with CRASH MY FUNERAL production. because we stared shooting with what we imagined to be a workable story concept instead of just letting our movie grow out of the surroundings (Berkeley/Oakland, CA locations) and real-life stories of our actors. We begun by thinking that we were making a movie about a street person (played by yahn soon/John Balquist) who performed the fantastic “Magic Mushroom” story in LONELINESS IS SOUL). So, for a while, we had fallen into the typical “indie’ trap of actually trying to forge a story in the impossibly short period of six shooting days, and playing “catch-up.” On day-3 we rejected this notion, and searched for a fun concept that could add meaning to all the great stuff we had already shot. Morgan, yahn/John and I sat together over breakfast wondering if any one of us could possibly figure out a way to pull the movie into usable fashion. Thankfully, our great Director of Photography (and my son) Morgan Schmidt-Feng, came up with a concept that we make the lead character A SCRIPTWRITER... someone in search for inspiration, trying to create a movie in spite of his writer’s bloc. That meant that everything we had previously shot could now be incorporated into the cut.
Actor, co-writer, co-director Meeka Schmalle and Matt Calkins (drummer, Bellas Curve band).
Our AVID editor/co-writer/co-director Mike Rogers (who cut LONELINESS IS SOUL so beautifully) was happy to stop tearing out his hair and make scenes fit together. He could finally make it understandable that when a melodramatic scene was played, it was yahn soon––the filmmaker––searching for the truth of the scenes in his mind).
We learned once again that the best parameters for our 10-day, start-to-finish FEATURE WORKSHOPS productions, are when we follow trails and directions as yet unknown (as we did with other movies; BLUES FOR THE AVATAR, LONELINESS IS SOUL, MAISY’S GARDEN, etc.), was letting the story emerge from the truth of our journey.
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