Tonight at 10:30pm EST a new TV show called Cake premieres on FXX after It’s Always Sunny. It’s a weird mix of live action and animation and I mention this because my friends Teddy Blanks and Alex Karpovsky aka The Spielbergs (I shot their press photo) directed a bunch of short episodes of a show called “Oh Jerome, No” that is one of the live action elements of Cake. It’s based on their short film of the same name and it stars Mamoudou Athie as Jerome. If you haven’t seen Patti Cake$ you should probably watch it. He is great in it.

Each episode is a different look into Jerome’s dating life starring a completely different cast (outside of Mamoudou) and each episode is then broken up into pieces inside of the larger Cake episode. I have no idea how it’s going to work, but I am excited to see it. I also know that the Jerome episodes will be also available to watch online as stand alone episodes. 

Jerome filmed mostly in a studio in LA but since it’s supposed to be set in NYC all of the exteriors (and a few interiors) were filmed here so I spent a couple days following the crew around shooting some behind the scenes photos. I only was there for a few hours each day but I think I got some nice shots that you could check out. I honestly really enjoyed doing it and it’s something I would like to do a lot more of in the future. If anyone wants to hire me to hang out on the set of their short film or music video shoot or something let me know. 

Because they were shooting exteriors from several episodes I am not sure what I shot exactly, but I do know the scene with Natasha Lyonne is in the first episode that airs tonight. I got to see it a couple months ago and I really enjoyed it. I am actually in it, but I have a feeling you won’t be able to spot me considering Teddy didn’t even notice until I pointed out my blur in the back of a movie theater. The photos do feature one spoiler from the first episode, but it’s also in the Cake trailer so I don’t think I am giving anything away by posting it. That being said, if you are interested in seeing the show you might want to watch tonight’s episode before looking at these photos or watching the trailer.

Lastly, and completely unrelated to this post Boing Boing finally published my last article from the 2019 Gathering of the Juggalos and I am a huge Boing Boing fan so I figured I would share that with you.

Anyway, go look at these photos and watch Cake tonight at 10:30pm on FXX! See if you can spot me!

Click here to see all my behind the scenes photos from Oh, Jerome No and Cake.

My friends at BBQ Films are back with another amazing interactive film screening. I met them years ago when I shot their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles screening for the Village Voice. I had such an amazing time that I actually started showing up at their brainstorming sessions and helped them work on a number of screenings over the years. The entire time I’ve known them I have been trying to get them to do Wayne’s World and they finally did it! (Although I haven’t been to any of their meetings in a long time so I don’t think I had anything to do with it.)

I have a BFA in “Photography and Filmmaking” and while I focused primarily on the photography part of that, I took a ton of film classes. Pretty much every elective I took was a film history class. I loved that shit. I was a huge film nerd and when I was still living in Virginia I was taking a couple of trips a month to NYC just to watch films. One of the main reasons I moved to NYC in the first place was to watch more movies (ironically when I moved to NYC I didn’t have the time or money to keep up my cinephile ways). Essentially, I have spent most of my life as a pretentious asshole when it comes to film. I mean just look how many times I called it “film” in this paragraph. What a dick!

The point of that totally needless paragraph was to explain that despite my art house cinema pretension, my favorite movie of all time is Wayne’s World. I have loved it since I saw it in the 5th grade and I have seen it probably 100 times since. It’s the movie I have seen the most (by far) and I can quote half the movie which happens to be really annoying when watching it with me at my apartment, but really fun when you are in a music venue surrounded by a couple hundred people who are quoting every line along with you.

BBQ Films threw their Wayne’s World party, AKA Garthapalooza, at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, AKA Gasworks, in Brooklyn. They picked a musical venue because they wanted to incorporate the musical aspects of the movie into an interactive experience. They had several female fronted bands play the show before the screening and part of the profits from the event went to Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls to help inspire a new generation of female musicians. Hit Like a Girl opened the show and were followed by Early Riser.

The interactive experience really kicked off after that with “Wayne and Garth” introducing “Crucial Taunt” aka Young Thieves who covered the Tia Carrere cover of Sweet’s Ballroom Bliz.  The Young Thieves front woman dressed like Carrere’s character Cassandra and it was amazing. They did some of their own songs as well before Wayne and Garth came back out to announce that sadly the headliner “The Shitty Beatles” had canceled. Fortunately they had a back up plan and Calico Cooper of Beasto Blanco was introduced. Calico happens to be Alice Cooper’s daughter and she performed Alice’s song from the movie Feed My Frankenstein. (Hey Stoopid by Alice Cooper was absolutely the album of the summer between 5th and 6th grade.) She didn’t have her band with her, but no matter, a mix of people from BBQ Films and Young Thieves backed her up and it was really amazing. 

After the Calico Cooper performance the movie began, but a few minutes into the movie the lights came up and the BBQ Films actors playing Wayne, Garth and their crew were sitting on the steps of the stage almost as if they were seated in a car. Young Thieves returned to the stage and the entire crowd sang along to the infamous Bohemian Rhapsody scene. The movie came back on when the Mirth Mobile stopped to pick up their drunk friend Phil (played by my buddy Mike) who if he was going to spew, had to spew into this. They all got back into their fictional car and the band picked up right in time with the movie and we finished the singalong. I actually woke up this morning with a sore neck from all the head banging I did during the climax of the Queen classic.  After that the movie played as usual with everyone in the crowd yelling along to all the classic lines. The whole BBQ Films team came on stage as the credits rolled and the night was pretty much over.

On top of all that amazingness BBQ pulled out all the stops as usual. They had a photo booth set up that looked like the Wayne’s World set and a hockey net set up with a couple of my friends playing throughout the show, occasionally yelling CAR and GAME ON as they played. They had a bunch of extra sticks so people could take shots on goal all night. There was a “roadie training” set up and VIP Passes made to look like the Alice Cooper backstage passes from the movie. They had “Glen” from Stan Mikita’s passing out donuts and you could buy Red Vines for a dollar. They even had Wane’s famous Wayne’s World hat for sale (I managed to escape wth one myself) and of course they had the whole BBQ Films crew dressed up as characters from the movie which was slightly confusing given that half the crowd came dressed up as character from the movie as well. It was all really fantastic.

I am probably forgetting some stuff but this is nearly 1000 words already and nobody has time for that. Just go look at the photos and get on the BBQ Films mailing list so you don’t miss their next interactive movie. I hear it’s going to be spooky…

Click here to see all the photos from the BBQ Films Garthapalooza screening of Wayne’s World!

I had plans right now but she’s apparently hung over and moving slowly so it looks like I have time to get up some more SXSW photos.

Thursday I didn’t have any actual work to do so I took it pretty easy. I started my day by seeing a movie. The SXSW Film Festival is pretty wonderful and I have covered it several times in the past, but this year I only got to see one movie but it was a good one. The Big Sick is a new film by Michael Showalter of the State & Stella. His movie Hello, My Name Is Doris was at SXSW a few years ago and I loved it but not nearly as much as the Big Sick. The movie was written by Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon about a real life incident where she got really sick and ended up in a coma. Kumail plays himself and it is so god damn funny and sad and amazing and I spent 80% of the movie either laughing or crying or both. I met Kumail about a week after he moved from Chicago to NYC after seeing him to stand up. He did one of the funniest sets I had ever seen and he was just in the audience of the show. One of the comedians was running late so the host Seth Herzog put him on and he killed it so hard. After that I saw him probably a dozen times before he moved to LA. For a time my two favorite comedians in NYC were him and Pete Holmes and Pete now has an amazing show on HBO and Kumail is in one of the best movies I have seen this year. Amazingly both of those projects came from a SXSW live podcast taping with Judd Appatow who produced both projects and told the story about that meetin in the Q&A.

Speaking of the Q&A one of the people to ask a question was fellow Chicago comedian Hannibal Buress. I didn’t even realize he was in town so I hit him up and he told me to come by the MTV Woodie Awards because he was giving out an award. I took forever to get there and I got there just in time to see him give the award. I got to see Rick Ross play too which was not awful. I went with Hannibal’s crew to Mohawk for the House of Vans party and saw a handful of rappers that were all from Chicago (to continue on the theme). I got to see the Cool Kids for the first time since probably 2008 and finally French Montana played.

So yeah we finally get to the point of this meandering name dropping post. French Montana (who is not at all from Chicago) headlined the Vans party. I was sort of near the stage so when he stared playing I took a few photos. Then A$AP Ferg showed up which was kinda funny because the day before I shot Playboi Carti and A$SAP Rocky showed up. Seemed like A$AP Mob was following me. Then the next song Rocky showed up again. After they left I shot one more French Montana song before calling it a night.

Don’t worry this post is almost over. I didn’t shoot a ton of photos yesterday but here are a handful of photos of French Montana and friends. The end.

Click here to see the photos of French Montana, A$AP Ferg & A$AP Rocky at Mohawk. 

Last night the first of several BBQ Films screening of the original 1984 Ghostbusters went down in Williamsburg at Villain NYC. I have hyped BBQ events over and over and over again but I gotta do it again. They just keep killing it.

When people came into Villain they had to walk past actual Ecto – 1 from the new Ghostbusters film and then up to a receptionist who was the spitting image of the original Ghostbuster’s receptionist. She gave you all the information you needed to hunt ghosts and start training to become a Ghostbuster.

Throughout the massive warehouse there was one thing after another for a wanna be Ghostbuster to do. Characters from the film walked around the space harassing guests and posing for photos. There was a Ghostbusters Hall of Fame and and a photo booth where you could relive the scene where Dana is attacked by her own couch. Even Lord Vigo was there and he wasn’t even in the first film!

BBQ set up a series of spooky lectures from an actual nuclear physicist and a interactive slime station. Upstairs there was a training center where you could throw a ghost trap, try on a proton pack and play every Ghostbusters video game including the brand new one that debuted at the event last night. There was even an ESP testing center where you actually got shocked if you guessed wrong.

I realize this write up is totally disjointed and rambling but there was seriously so much going on and that was just for the pre-party. Before the movie was even shown they also had a Q&A with the creators of a documentary about Ghostbusters fans called Ghost Heads that featured pro-wrestler Zack Ryder who is apparently an insane Ghostbusters nerd. The Q&A is going to be different at every screening I believe so you never know who is going to show up if you go to any of the others.

Oh, there was also Ecto Cooler and Ecto Cooler booze which is really important.

Okay, I am sure I am missing a ton of stuff but it was a great time. Also, they showed the actual movie which almost seemed anti-climatic after all the other interactive madness. There was an interactive element to the movie as well but I will let that be a surprise for anyone going to the other screenings this weekend.

Now click here to see all the pictures from my trip to Ghostbusters HQ!

Yesterday my friends at BBQ Films started promotion on their newest interactive film event: the original Ghostbusters! They will be screening the film over the course of three days in early June (8th, 9th and 10th) at Villain NYC and it will undoubtably be amazing.

I have been involved with BBQ Films since I had a chance to check out their screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and since then I have been to three more of their events and they have all been completely over the top and insane even if I don’t care about the movie (sorry Blade). At the Empire Records screening I had my head shaved by Empire Records star Ethan Embry… you can’t get much more interactive than that.

Anyway, enough promoting. Let’s talk about yesterday…

BBQ Films needed help filming a trailer for the upcoming event so they put some sort of Ghost signal out to chapters of Ghostbusters from around the country. Ghostbusters from NYC, Jersey and PA came out to help film the trailer. I came out to photograph some of behind the scenes fun and party with ghosts.

We started out at the bar The Levee in Brooklyn and then made our way over to Villain NYC where the event is going to take place. We had a bunch of insane Ghostbusters vehicles with us and several Slimers. It was a good look. We ended back at the Levee once it got too dark to film. All and all a fun time with some serious Ghostbuster nerds (and I mean that in the best possible way).

So check out these photos and get your ticket to BBQ’s Ghostbusters screening. You will not regret it.

Click here to see our Ghostbustin’ adventures with BBQ Films in Brooklyn.

Last night BBQ Films threw another amazing immersive film experience. In the most simplistic way BBQ turns venues into scenes from movies and then they show the film in that environment. Their events are always way more than that and every one of them I have attended has been incredible. Their screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got me hooked and I got a chance to help plan their Back To The Future event and I got my head shaved by a teen icon at their Empire Record party.

As I mentioned yesterday NY Comic Con is happening and their event last night was an after party for the convention. They screened Blade which I believe was the first commercially successful Marvel film. I think vampires are stupid so I couldn’t care less about the movie (pretty sure I last saw it in theaters) but the party was awesome. The only scene from the movie I really remembered was the big vampire rave which was ideal since BBQ threw their party around that scene.

This was the first BBQ screening where the movie wasn’t the centerpiece. They screened it from front to back on the roof but on the main stage at the massive Terminal 5 they only showed a few clips from the movie around their reenactments and performances. They had some dance crews and some sort of bizarre sword performance but the event was mostly a dance party.

They had several DJs including Pictureplane but the evening was all about the Crystal Method and the blood shower that capped off the evening. Halfway into the Crystal Method’s set the DJs stopped and a fantastic Blade cosplayer came out and got beat up by the BBQ Films crew. He eventually kicked some ass before getting dragged off as an army of people came out and sprayed the crowd with fake blood. The whole thing was pretty incredible and I still have some blood on me from last night.

If you ever get a chance to go to a BBQ Films screening do it even if you don’t care about the movie. I mean it probably helps if you have at least some idea of the film so you get the performances and inside jokes but whatever the case you are going to have a blast.

Now click here to see the fucking insane photos from BBQ Films Blood Rave at Terminal 5.

I am home after two weeks away so let’s do a second straight contentless post featuring another video that I had nothing to do with. Really I just wanna update you on some stuff and try and hit you up for some cash cause that’s how I manage to pay my rent which is coincidentally due today. Let’s go.

So yeah, I am back which means I gotta deal with an unreasonable amount of shit I ignored for the last two weeks. That includes a few hundred unread emails and some real fun stuff like trying to fix/ buy a new air conditioner. Party forever. Long story short is that I probably will spend the next three days in front of my computer screen in a slightly too hot living room/ office. Once again, party forever.

So while all this really fun stuff is happening I wanted to hit you guys with some photos from my trip. I have a full exclusive set of Raven Rockette that I uploaded to Girls of Driven By Boredom. Raven is one of my favorite models and so fucking hot. I shot her on top of the Superchief LA roof once and we also shot one of my favorite sets of all time at an abandoned waterpark. When I was in LA we were supposed to shoot on the last night I was in town but we had to deal with an insanely drunk girl neither of us had ever met before and by the time we started shooting it was 2am and Raven was super tired and fairly stoned. So instead of taking good photos Raven just showed me her apartment and we spent about 15 minutes shooting photos of her hanging out on her bed naked. The photos aren’t very good, but they are really fucking hot and amateurish looking which is extra hot. So instead of posting them on my site I decided to post them all on the Girls of DBB

Now that that’s settled DBB Etsy. I shot The Extra Ones I Shot Before I Left… while I was in LA and it costs about $300 to develop and scan them all so go buy some stuff cause I don’t really make any money off my analog work so if you like all the film stuff I put on DBB Tumblr you should go buy a zine or something.

Also in my Etsy store I now have a cheap option as far as buying Instant film for me. For $20 you can now get a random nude Polaroid from me. Actually, you could get a non nude one too, but come on. We know why you are here… Anyway, I have a ton of Fuji Instax laying around and if you order one I will sign that shit on the back and send it out to you ASAP. Everyone wins or something.

Lastly let’s promote some shit I have nothing to do with. The first feature length movie Benjamin Moses Smith edited is Two Step On iTunes. It’s called Two Step and it’s an insane thriller that I really think is going to go down as a classic cult film. It’s honestly fucking amazing and I am only being slightly biased. If you like really fucked up movies, you need to watch Two Step. It’s also way better than the trailer.

Okay, back to work. See you guys soon.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tr6zQ_5PwA[/youtube]

It’s pretty hard to try and get back to work after yesterday but life goes on for the rest of us and Wednesday I photographed a really fun and unique event, the type of party that Jess would have loved, and I really need to show you some pictures.

Once again my friends at BBQ Films put on a fucking amazing event. Ever since I went to their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles screening I have been working with them to help them in whatever way I can to keep creating these amazing film experiences. I got to work with them on the planning of their Back The Future event and I helped brainstorm their Weekend At Bernie’s party but this is the first film they have done since TMNT that I wasn’t at all involved) and that made the surprises that much better.

In 1995 Empire Records hit theaters. I saw it at the time and then never watched it again. I was a huge grunge fan in the years before Empire but when Kurt Cobain died I completely abandoned “Alternative” for punk rock. I remember liking Empire Records but I certainly didn’t have any love or nostalgia for it. When BBQ announced they were doing Empire I didn’t really get it.

I get it now. For the 20th anniversary of the film BBQ turned the record store and venue, Rough Trade NYC, into Empire Records. It was a fully interactive space with scenes from the movie recreated all over the store. There was a booth where you could get your head shaved like Deb did in the movie. There were quarters glued to the floor like AJ did in the film. They had a button making booth and a photo booth that recreated the fictional Rex Manning video for Say No Mor Mon Amour. The whole BBQ staff cosplayed characters from the film with pretty impressive detail. It was an amazing feat.

The screening itself was pretty tame until my friend and BBQ team member Leah Taylor started passing out brownies in the middle of the film. If you recall there is a scene in which Ethan Embry’s character Mark eats hallucinogenic brownies while watching a Gwar video and gets sucked into the video and gets eaten by the World Maggot.  During that scene the movie started skipping and Gwar showed up!

Gwar (minus Dave Brockie RIP) came out to thunderous applause and one of the audience members (who had earlier won the “Mark Experience”) got to play Mark and was fed to the World Maggot live! If that weren’t enough suddenly the World Maggot started vomiting back up Mark and suddenly Ethan Embry was actually on stage! He got the crowd going crazy and then brought out Johnny Whitworth who played AJ in the movie. The two of them rocked out with Gwar and pulled two more raffle prizes for the “Warren Experience” and the “Gina Experience”. After the intermission the movie started playing but I had to miss the rest of it. I had work to do.

BBQ Films had asked me to make a sacrifice for the cause and after thinking it over for about thirty seconds I agreed. I would let Ethan Embry shave my head for a press photo op. They took me up to the head shaving station and Ethan began shaving my head for the benefit of about 20 members of the press and a handful of people who decided that watching me get my head shaved was a better idea than finishing the movie. It was a sensual experience for both of us and gave me a reason to use Periscope for the first time (I’m @drivenbyboredom on there). I also ended up on Vanity Fair’s Instagram which was mildly hilarious.

By the time my haircut was finished so was the movie but the party wasn’t over yet. The band ARMS, who had opened the party, did a set made up of the Empire Records soundtrack and everyone who had stuck around was loving it. The “Gina Experience” ended up being the opportunity to come on stage and sing Sugar High with the band. Meanwhile the “Warren Experience” was happening in the main room and involved getting to chase one of the BBQ Films team who had “shoplifted” around the store. I was expecting it but it was a great moment for people who had no idea what as going on until this scene from the movie was playing out in front of them.

The whole party was amazing and I actually went home and finished watching the 30 minutes of the movie I had missed. I didn’t give a shit about it at the time, but I now have a new love for Empire Records. Happy Rex Manning Day.

Damn the man, save the Empire and click here to see all my photos of Rex Manning Day at Rough Trade NYC.

One of my favorite galleries every year is my SXSW Film portraits. It’s a chance to put a lot of photo related skills to use and shoot some stuff that’s not naked people or some crazy party or something. I spend the first few days of SXSW running around shooting very quick portraits with actors and directors that have movies in the festival and then the Village Voice and LA Weekly (and a bunch of other Voice Media papers) run a slideshow of all my photos.

It’s really fun to see what you can get in sometimes just seconds with an actor. Last year I promised a publicist that I could shoot three people by themselves and then all together in under 90 seconds if she let me take them out onto the balcony where it was slightly raining. I was done in 60. It doesn’t always work out for the best, like when I have to shoot seven different people in the same location, or when there are a dozen people there distracting the actors while I am trying to bang shots out, but over all I am pretty happy with a lot of this work.

Highlights:

• Adrien Brody was excited about the shoot because his mom, Sylvia Plachy, used to shoot for the Voice.
• Everyone in the cast of the Final Girls was really fun to shoot with even if the location wasn’t ideal.
• Speaking of the Final Girls…  I want to take Alia Shawkat’s photo every day forever.
• I shot Jason Schwartzman for 7 Chinese Brothers and The Overnight. Decidedly not a dick.
• Always shooting Robert Duvall. That’s three Duvall related posts in a row.
• Getting the Duplass Brothers to take a nap.
• Shooting the Babysitter cast/crew on a lake. Fun kids, nice location.
• Putting my brother in the gallery. The film he edited, A Wonderful Cloud, was fantastic.
• Running into the homie Heems. He was in Creative Control and it was good to see that dude.
• Shooting Ava’s Possessions, Excess Flesh and Lamb one at a time in the same room in under 10 min.
• Fresno. Love Aubrey Plaza, Judy Greer and Natasha Lyonne so much even if the photos are mediocre.

Now click here to see all of my 2015 SXSW Film Portraits!