Exquisite Corpse Full Movie

The full film of the Exquisite Corpse movie I took part in is on youtube now. Five people worked on it all together, and the first one isn't included due to technical issues, I guess. My part of it starts around the 8 minute mark.



My segment is still up for download in better quality, too, and I might post a slightly extended version on youtube at some point as well, which will totally not be an excuse to ask people to watch it again. I was supposed to turn in something that was 2-3 minutes, and my original cut came out at about 6 minutes. It's now 4, and I think it's a much better movie this way, but there are still a couple shots I'd like to last a second longer, and one line of dialogue I want to put back in.

TRIVIA: Without even being aware of it, I somehow managed to make 4 whole minutes of movie without anyone using the word "fuck". This is pretty unheard of for me.

Exquisite Corpse

I made a new movie. Sort of! It's actually a segment from a larger movie of which I still haven't seen the rest of. My friend Walt, who also did the Tetricide show earlier this year, has put together an Exquisite Corpse show in L.A. Exquisite Corpse is this thing where someone draws on a section of paper, and then covers up all but a sliver of it, and then another person continues the drawing based only on the sliver they can see, and so on until the page has been filled by multiple people. It can also be done with stories. Like someone writes a paragraph, and the next person only gets to read the last sentence of that paragraph, and then they write a paragraph based on that. You can read more about it here. I have no idea why it's called Exquisite Corpse, though I suppose I could likely find out by actually reading the page I just linked to. Anyway, part of Walt's show includes movie versions of this, and I was given the ending to one. Which was amazing for me because one of my dream jobs is to rewrite endings. It wasn't quite the same without being able to see more than 30 seconds of the movie I was ending, but I still had fun with it. My initial idea for it was to have someone waking up from a dream, but then Doug made fun of me for being too obvious. I still ended up sticking with that idea, but I went much farther with it, so I think it makes up for itself.

This is a photo from the set to entice you:


If you're in L.A., you can go see it IN PERSON. The show is called Picture Con Secuencia, and it's at Echo Curio. It ends on the 29th, though. Check it out if you can. I wasn't able to this time, because even though I'm officially a Los Angeles video artist, I don't actually live there yet.

Rooftop Access and Desmond

October has been a busy month, and is about to get busier, so I haven't been posting. Part of that busy-ness involves trying to watch a horror movie every day, which I failed at last night when I fell asleep during Astro-Zombies. What I saw of it was boring, but I'll give it another chance. There's been enough days where I watched 2 or 3 movies to make up for any failures, though. So, get ready for a whole slew of horror reviews around February or so. I'm also working on a new Horror Top 100 list, so hopefully I can get that up before Halloween.

Anyway, here are a couple things you've already seen if we're friends on Facebook, but I've been meaning to post here.

This is a movie my friend Anthony Boruch made. I held the camera and edited it, and gave myself a producer credit just for the hell of it. I guess my job as "Producer" was to encourage him to make a movie.



He wants to make a whole series of nihilistic, violent shorts that all connect together somehow. This one will eventually be extended, and you'll actually get to see what he's shooting at (me and Doug).

ALSO, I'm obsessed with this cat Desmond who lives with my friend Angela (the obese fatty from No Fatties).




Here's a video I cut together. The music is from Nekromantik.



I want to make an entire feature film where Desmond plays a detective and has to go undercover in various ridiculous outfits.

Tetris: The Movie

Back in early 2002, I made something called Tetris: The Movie. I made it before movies based on video games were popular (my inspirations were mainly Super Mario Bros. and Mortal Kombat), and before Youtube existed. So now, if you search Youtube for "Tetris: The Movie" there are like 100 results. Honestly, the majority of them are probably better than mine, but as far as I know, I was the first, for whatever that's worth (nothing).

It's barely even a movie, it's mostly just games of Tetris. I made it by plugging the Nintendo into a VCR and then editing it with a second VCR. There's some experimental editing, some noise music, and a segment where I narrate over a game and use the words "Tetris Master" about 500 times. It was originally 70 minutes long because I wanted it to be a feature, but now it is only 43 minutes, which is still quite a bit longer than I expect anyone to actually sit watching it on the internet.

For years, it only existed on VHS, but I digitized it a couple months ago so it could be included in an awesome video game themed art show called Tetricide at Pehrspace in L.A., curated by the lovely Walt Gorecki. The show is still going through August 7, if you're in L.A. and want to check it out.

Here's how my movie was displayed. It's the one on the left. The image onscreen is from a trailer for a short I had made called Habitual Paraplegia, which I may or may not put online some day. It's not very good.


Here's me standing by it, on Opening Night.


Here I am playing Tetris at the show. I had no idea people were watching me. This is because, as I say in the movie, "It's about, like, Zen... and stuff." The girl looking at the camera is my sister.


This girl kept pressing buttons, trying to figure out how to play it. She finally turned to me and asked, "Do you know how to start this?" I told her it was a video, and she said "Oh," immediately removed the headphones, and walked away.


Here's a bunch more pictures from the whole show. Seriously, everything there was amazing.

Oh, and here's the movie.

Cut Her Open

About six years ago, I had an idea to make a pornographic gay war epic. Like a lot of my ideas back then, and even some of my ideas now, this was way too ambitious given my limited resources and budget. I thought I could convince friends and co-workers not only to have actual gay sex with each other even if they weren't gay, but to improvise most of their lines at the same time. The sprawling, aimless screenplay also included multiple subplots, one of which was about a woman killing children. And I actually shot one of these scenes with my little sister, who was 9 at the time. I was unhappy with the footage, and the project naturally fell apart, so the tape was tucked away. My sister would occasionally ask about it over the years, and say she wanted to see it, even if it was just the raw footage, but I didn't even know where it was since I never label anything.

I always kind of wondered if there were enough decent takes to edit it together, and just have a random scene of a kid being killed out of context, and call that a movie. So that's essentially what I finally did. I found the footage and decided to put it together and give it to my sister (now 15) as a Christmas present. I did give it some context by filming new stuff of myself as her concerned father, so hopefully the movie still works without all this backstory. The present was a hit! My sister really loved it, and I hope you do, too. It's called Cut Her Open.

STAR TREK The Motion Picture Film

I finally finished editing and fucking around with music/sound on my latest short film, STAR TREK The Motion Picture Film. It's far from my favorite of my movies, but I think it's got some good stuff. It's basically a remake of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek from earlier this year. It's got a lot of references to the Original Series and The Next Generation, but will hopefully still be funny even if you don't get those. Randolph Dible from Facebook.com raves, "If I had to watch it again, I would!"



Starring Sylvia Pines, Anthony Boruch, Omar Rodriguez, Austin Wolf-Sothern, and Sean Sanford.
Written, directed, and edited by Austin Wolf-Sothern.

Here's some test footage I made for the time travel sequence.

Star Trek Premiere

My new movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture Film is premiering this Friday, August 28th, at Artists' Television Access. It's part of an Album Release Show for The Yellow Dress. The movie is not technically finished yet, but it's perfectly show-able, and I also may show Christmas Movie or No Fatties, I don't know yet. Here's the link.

And here are a couple of stills:

Vomit Trilogy DVD Cover

I designed a DVD cover for the Vomit Trilogy. Please let me know what you think! Anything that could be improved? Re-worded? If you didn't know me, and you saw this DVD in a video store, would it appeal to you? Is there an easy way I can make room for ridiculous youtube reviews? Or is it better off without the reviews? Thanks!

Pumpkin and Me

No Fatties star Doug Freedman put up his pumpkin movie on youtube. He finally gave it a title (Pumpkin and Me), and it's got a brand new ending (he always hated the epilogue, so I suggested he just cut the entire last minute, and now it ends abruptly, which works much better).

Christmas Movie

I filmed this for Popcorn Dangerous Episode 1, which includes out-takes at the end, but now I've made it easier by uploading the movie on it's own.



Starring Randy Yip, Austin Wolf-Sothern, Devin Ruppenstein, and Daisy.
Written, directed, and edited by Austin Wolf-Sothern.

Popcorn Dangerous Commercial

Girlmar and I are gonna start doing a video podcast about movies. We've been talking about it for a long time, but I always wanted to do an audio one because I think it's boring to watch when it's just people talking, and I prefer it when I can listen instead while driving or doing other things. But anyway, recording video is weirdly easier than recording strictly audio, and I've been feeling anxious to record some shit, anyway, so it's gonna be video, and then maybe I'll rip the audio off it, and you could consume it in either version. What's also exciting about it is that every show is gonna have a theme, and I want to do like a 1 minute movie at the beginning of every show that fits that theme. I've written scripts for a James Bond movie and a Christmas movie, and they are dumb and don't make any sense. But funny! And with obscure references to extraterrestrial pornography. Anyway, it's called Popcorn Dangerous, and here's a commercial we made starring some high school kids.

Directed by Omar Rodriguez.

No Fatties

No Fatties
Part 3 of The Vomit Trilogy. 2007. 10 minutes.
A young girl is worried about being overweight, so she becomes bulimic in order to avoid being constantly insulted by her family and peers, and to attract the boy she has a crush on. But will it work? ...Probably!

Written/Directed/Edited by Austin Wolf-Sothern (as Placenta Ovaries).



Cast

Angela Newsham as Fatty


Omar Rodriguez as Girlmar


Doug Freedman as Monique


Austin Wolf-Sothern as Countess Vaughn


Adam Levy as Adam

REVIEWS
"The only other one of his videos I've seen, I had the strong urge to walk out during practically the entire movie. But his new bulimia comedy No Fatties, though of course completely offensive and wrong, is comparatively quite watchable. I only found myself wondering if I was starting to taste my own bile at one point during the video."
- Hell On Frisco Bay

"I used to watch this video almost daily for a few weeks... amazing..."
- flungbungdung

"This is a masterpiece, I've seen it 10 times."
- Chaco Salvaje

"Easily the best short film ever made."
- kemosabe33

"David Lynch and John Waters double-teamed Sophia Coppola for an all night fuckfest and 9 months later the demon-director spawn of Placenta Ovaries was born. Keep up the good fucking work."
- Cassettica

"best youtube ever"
- cardan

"i repeat; BEST YOUTUBE EVER"
- cardan

"that sucked cardan."
- 42Orange

"its like lower budget troma, and somehow even worse"
- beneboi

"i didn't like the fact that it looked like she was really sticking her fingers down her throat. it made it kinda fresh but gross at the same time."
- YEK

"there were quite a number of funny parts for being a youtube video, but jesus she's just throwing up all the time. fucking stupid."
- cloud color

"bad video."
- jefferoo

"stupid fucking video. WASTE OF BANDWIDTH"
- abracadabra

"Really Austin, cant you make a film without someone puking their brains out?"
- crackercookies

"I watched it for two minutes and nothing interestin happened."
- Sandy

Girlmar in SF Weekly

SF Weekly is doing an article on the San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival, and I was contacted about submitting a photo from No Fatties for it. One other person with a film in the festival was also contacted, so I don't know yet if No Fatties will be the featured picture or not. I sure hope so. But anyway, I made a few screencaps to submit.

Girlmar:



Monique:



Angela:


I couldn't get any of her actually vomiting, because due to the motion, it looks all blurry and shitty.

Angela with Girlmar:

Edit: This is the one they ended up choosing, with this mention in the article: "And then there's No Fatties which appears to be about vomiting. OK!"

No Fatties Screening at The 2007 San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival

I don't know how I've continually forgotten to post about this, but No Fatties was accepted into the Midnight Mass San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival. It's gonna be on September 1, and starts at midnight (obviously). Those of you who don't live here should probably start booking your flights pretty soon.

Here's the trailer for the festival. There are two shots of Angela vomiting, and it ends with a line from Girlmar.



No Fatties is not actually technically "finished" just yet, and likely won't be finished by September 1, either. But the two scenes that are missing aren't actually pivotal, and the film can easily stand alone without them.

It's also worth mentioning that if you ever wanna see James Brown vs. Michael Jackson, and you know Daryn Cash, then you can watch it on his iPhone. The idea of JBvMJ being on someone's fucking iPhone is pretty thrilling for me.

And also, Doug Freedman's Ghost: The Movie was not accepted into the festival, but you can (and should) still watch it right here.

No Fatties Teaser Trailer

Acclaim

Apparently, someone who was at the screening of James Brown vs. Michael Jackson a couple weeks ago was unable to have sex for days afterwards. I don't know exactly how long (at least 4 days), maybe they still can't. I don't really comprehend how that is even possible, but it is definitely the best movie review I think I could ever possibly get.

Monique and Countess Vaughn

I started shooting a new movie yesterday. It's a more ambitious work than I've dealt with since I guess Remember That Time I Gave You AIDS? There's scripted dialogue, and multiple characters, and I have to actually like "direct" shit. I got to use some actual lighting equipment, though, for the first time, which was kind of exciting. It won't disguise the fact that one of the scenes is gonna suddenly cut from nighttime to daytime and back again, but whatever, at least you can see people. And so anyway, it's called No Fatties and it's gonna be the final installment in The Vomit Trilogy. It's about bulimia, which means it'll be the first time someone is vomiting in one of my movies for an actual reason (Robert Page was actually "trying to give birth that way" in RTTIGYA?, but nobody ever notices that line). I initially hated the script I threw together, but it's kinda grown on me, and I've got some really good actors, so I think it'll end up working, and come out funny. The cast is very devoted, and never complain about all the line rehearsals, and multiple takes, and having to wear skimpy clothes in the freezing cold (it's about junior high school students), and um, having to throw up over and over again while being made fun of.

Today my camera broke, and was unable to record for longer than about 4 seconds, and is also unable to play the previously recorded footage, so in order to gain access to everything and put it on my computer to edit, I'll have to borrow someone else's camera, which I also have to do to shoot the rest of the movie, which means I might not be able to use "vomit-cam" (a shot of someone vomiting directly on the camera lens) because it's done as safely as possible but is still kind of a risky thing to ask someone to let me do to their camera. It's kinda depressing. I could tell the camera was on it's way out, but I was hoping I could finish one last movie with it. And with no access to the footage, I'm unable to post a screencap of the character "Girlmar", which I was hoping to do, so just imagine a Mexican in a blonde wig and glasses and a really tight, really short t-shirt that says "VAGINA" on it making a disgusted face like a 7th grader.

James Brown vs. Michael Jackson

James Brown vs. Michael Jackson
Part 2 of The Vomit Trilogy. 2006. 10 minutes.
Two men get into a heated argument over who is the better musician, James Brown or Michael Jackson. They realize there is only one way to settle it; with a battle of jokes and fluids. Featuring smoking hot jams from Blues Traveler.

Writing and Directing: Austin Wolf-Sothern and Corey R.
Editing: Austin Wolf-Sothern
Music: Blues Traveler

Review
"My boyfriend wouldn't have sex with me after he saw your movie." - Julia Leonard

The password to watch is mj.


Deleted Scenes (password is jb)

Becoming Kirk Cameron

A pumpkin turns into Kirk Cameron.
Edited/Directed by Austin Wolf-Sothern (as Placenta Ovaries).
Made in 2004.



Reviews

iconoclastic17: "you know this can cause a fuckin brainwash"

rayg320: "the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life. Absolute crap idea."

hillbillyvampyre: "Very low-brow."

harmous: "you are a fucking idiot. you are even gayer than kirk cameron--and that says a lot..."
-- jamieluvzyabaybi: "for one thing. kirk cameron isn't gay..you're seriously jealous.
but i agree with you that this man is a fucking creep."

HendrixTshirt: "sure he's gay. That's why guys likie him become super religious. They want to prove to everyone they're not."

bigd216: "kirk is the man! he is one of my heros"

jester420: "gay!"

stpaulphillip: "Disgusting."

osiris9508: "who did this coz i seriously want to kill u!!! u can tell bye the video that u r gay or that u hate kirk so bad that u do this piece of crap???? wtf were u thinking?"

Remember That Time I Gave You AIDS?

Remember That Time I Gave You AIDS?
Part 1 of The Vomit Trilogy. 2003. 11 minutes, 33 seconds.
A member of a rock group gets pregnant while killing the other member of the rock group, then shares a dirty needle with her junkie roommate; giving her baby AIDS by shooting up into her stomach.



Cast:

Alexandra Mechanic as Robert Page


Austin Wolf-Sothern as Jimmy Plant


Andrew Edem as Roommate/AIDS Carrier


Mel Roska as Dr. Wong, 0505 as Dr. Wong's Girlfriend


Alejandro Flores as 5-year-old/Robert Smith

Writing, Directing, Editing: Austin Wolf-Sothern (as Placenta Ovaries)
Makeup: Alexandra Mechanic
Wardrobe: Alexandra Mechanic, Austin Wolf-Sothern
Lighting: 0505, Alejandro Flores, Andrew Edem, Austin Wolf-Sothern
Special Effects: 0505, Austin Wolf-Sothern
Music: The Led Zeppelins
Cinematography: Austin Wolf-Sothern, 0505, Alejandro Flores
Vagina (cut scene): Chris Hatfield