Sean Mannion

Tag: meme

  • Wotan Lager Commercials

    Wotan Lager Commercials

    Jeff H. Davis as Wotan

    Meme has a couple of videos or films that are intercut with the main narrative. There is the film-within-a-film Beneath the Black Moon. There is also the Meme videotape, which the film is named after. Then, there are the beer commercials for our fake brand: Wotan Brewing. Unlike the first two these weren’t conceived with the rest of the story, but rather came out of making props for the film.

    Throughout the film our main character, Jennifer, drinks quite a bit. For production reasons it was easiest to make this a bottled beer and it seemed advisable to do it with a fake brand. So, I invented Wotan Brewing Co. If you’ve watched any of my projects since 2012, you may recognize the ouroboros encircling the tree of life design, which I have slipped into a lot of projects along with references to Norse mythology.

    After creating the beer bottles for the shoot it occurred to me it would be interesting to shoot a couple of commercials for the beer to intersperse throughout the film or put on TVs people are watching. The ideas for what the commercials would be like developed over the course of shooting Meme and finally in October 2015, following the end of principal photography for Meme, we shot the commercials at a bar in Brooklyn.

    Among the cast for the project are fellow filmmaker Lars Fuchs whose film Honk! I recently edited, Myles Tyrer-Vassell the director of photography for Maybe Sunshine, and the very funny Jeff H. Davis as the brand’s mascot Wotan. I also slipped in Ginny Leise, the heroine of Beneath the Black Moon, just as a fun little connection between the two videos and to help cement a larger world beyond the story in Meme. It’s just a little thing, but something that makes me happy, even if no one else ever notices it.

    We shot what amounts to six commercials for the beer. Two basic commercials: one involving a man at a bar being encouraged to try the superior Wotan brand and the second being essentially a “beer will make you a fun party person” commercial. For each of these two commercials we shot three versions: one in English, one in German, and one in Spanish. I won’t go into the exact reasons why we did three versions but I will say that it was a fun experiment.

    Over much of the last month we’ve been teasing clips of the first of these commercials on the Meme Facebook Page. Last Friday we shared the first full commercial. We start teasing the second commercial this Friday. Like Meme on Facebook to keep up with that and other news and fun things from our project.

  • Meme Year-End Update

    Meme Year-End Update

    Meme-Updates

    It has been a bit of journey getting this film to where it is right now. At this point in 2013 I was looking at our unsuccessful Kickstarter for the film and thinking about how or even if we’d be getting the project off the ground. A lot of things changed. I simplified the script. I made some new connections that made shooting possible. With the help of a lot of generous people we shot the film through the end of 2014 and most of 2015. Now, we’re in post-production.

    So far the post-production process has been interesting. I’ve never made anything this long so it’s a bit overwhelming to even look at the film’s timeline. Post started back in December 2014, really. I put together all of the office scenes we shot in November 2014 for a clip to share privately with cast and crew. Then as we progressed I assembled early cuts of scenes. By early August 2015 I had a linear assembly of everything we’d shot up until the final scenes we needed to get. By the end of September I had a slightly refined version of that assembly with still plenty of work to do. It was good to have it then because it wasn’t long before we realized the film needed to be shaken up a little.

    With the amount of time it took to shoot it gave us the opportunity to have a parallel extended time to get a look at the film as a whole. It works. The characters and story progress, but the flow of the edit needed something more. So, because we already were able to look at everything and see how it fit together over time and come out of our final days of shooting with an assembly in just a few weeks, we were able to see that we could make it better by shaking it up a little and taking the form of the film in a slightly different direction. What direction remains to be seen. We’re still working with it, but I’m very happy that we can work with it. I’m also excited at the possibilities.

    While we’re working on all this post-production we’re also heavily involved in building a following for the film. We’ve been active on social media since the first day of shooting and established dedicated accounts for the project across multiple social media services early in 2015. We’re currently building on those services and sharing some fun things. We’ve got big plans for them later in 2016, but before we get there there’s still plenty of fun stuff to share. So, if you use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, please follow us on any or all of those services for regular updates. If you’re not into social media but don’t mind getting an e-mail on a monthly basis, join us on my e-mail newsletter, where I’ll be updating regularly on the progress of Meme.

    In 2016 we’re looking to complete post-production by about mid-year and pursue screenings at festivals. We have a plan set forth for that but as with anything it will evolve as needed because it’s more important that the final product is good and what we want it to be than to meet any particular deadline. As I said we have plans in the works for our social media. Some behind-the-scenes photos and clips to share and some videos like our Wotan beer commercials that we’ll be sharing. Maybe more. You’ll have to keep an eye on us to keep up to date. So, please do keep an eye out by following us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, or signing up for the e-mail newsletter.

  • Meme Principal Photography Wrapped

    Meme Principal Photography Wrapped

    Meme-Updates

    In 2013 I decided it was time to make my first feature. I’d put together many shorts over the last few years and it was time to step up to something bigger. I came up with a concept that played on some of the themes I’d been toying with and started writing a script. That film was eventually called Meme. Near the end of that year I tried and failed to crowdfund for Meme. I took a break from the project and dug into a few more shorts. Mostly they were quickly put together projects shot with what was on hand on weekends whenever people were around. Then, I did Time Signature in 2014 and I again felt like I could pull off Meme, but I decided I should just try and make it as I’d made so many of my shorts, with the change in my pocket and favors from talented people. Our first day of shooting was November 23, 2014 in Brooklyn. We shot a whole subplot of the film that weekend that takes place entirely in a conference room. It was very satisfying to get such a big chunk of the project complete in the first 2 days. Due to holidays and how difficult it can be to schedule during the end of the year, we weren’t back at shooting Meme until January of 2015. We shot Meme on weekends whenever we could get the people and equipment together. On August 22, 2015 we wrapped on principal photography 9 months after our first day of shooting. We shot for a total of 17 days.

    We also had a three day shoot in the middle of all that for Beneath the Black Moon, a horror parody, which will premiere online this fall and which will also appear in a limited form in Meme. I’ll write an update on that soon.

    There’s still a little more to do but for the most part Meme is complete. It’s on to post-production, much of which has already been started (having everything spaced out so much allowed for me to put together an assembly as we got things done). Post-production will take up most of the next six months as there is a lot that needs to happen from editing it together, to some relatively minor effects work. Then there is sound editing, music, and color correction that all needs to happen. Our goal is to start submitting to festivals before the middle of 2016 and to make the film available to the public one way or another before the middle of 2017. You can follow the progress of the project on our Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Trust me, you’re going to want to follow us. We’ve got more than a few fun things planned for the next year that tie-in to the movie and build on what we’re doing. Come and be a part of it.

    Before I wrap this up I just want to thank a few (dozen) people without whom this project just would not have come together: Jessica Mannion, Carolyn Maher, Peter Westervelt, Sarah Schoofs, Kitty Ostapowicz, Nicole Solomon, Erin Clayton, Diana Molina, Cheryl Hampton, OneGlassVideo, Stephanie Testa, Shivantha Wijesinha, Lauren A. Kennedy, Rory Lipede, Chaz Cleveland, Alley Scott, Kima Baffour, Warren May, Matt Gershowitz, Ryan Kramer, Christina Raia, Liam Billingham, Jeanette Sears, Jessica Cele, June Dare, Alex Bone, Philip Andry, Tara Cioletti, Matt Addison, Lauren Shaw, Jeremy Mingaro, Heinz Liu, People Lounge, Corinne Fisher, Krystyna Hutchinson, Nurah Stanley, Valerie Opielski, Singularity & Co., The Creek and the Cave, Ian Bibby, Karen Fleisch, David Jackson, Josh Johnson, Katie Carman-Lehach, Julian Barbosa, Lisa Hammer, Levi Wilson, Ginny Leise, Zac Kish, Alia Janine, Annie Such, Sarah Albonesi, Lizzy Andretta, Jason Keith Davis, and everyone else who was part of the film or helped or even offered to help in the two years since I first started working on this film.

    Here are a couple of photos from our final day of principal photography: