My Films
All Time Films
HOSTAGE​
​
My first real short film was a film called Hostage. This film was the 2022 MACTV Monster Movie Competition winner. Receiving “Fan Favorite” as well as “Best Special Effects.” With early writing starting in March 2022. I began to think up a crime story. Over the span of the next few weeks, I came up with a snippet of a bigger story. One where a hostage is kidnapped for potentially stealing money from a mobster, and taken to an abandoned warehouse where they question and torture him. When all goes south, it ends in blood. Having finished the short script I decided to include storyboards with this project, something that I have never done before. Taking the next two months to thoroughly think out my vision shot by shot. Shooting started July 18th, 2022. A hot summer's day to be locked up in a 6-foot high ceiling upstairs. Shooting took three weeks at the same place at the same time every day. I had a blast filming with the actors and having to direct real Broadway actors was a new experience for me.
SHADOW
​
My next film was actually a huge learning curve for me. It really got me out of my comfort zone. At the beginning of my senior year of high school, my Digital Media teacher Pat Onstott told me that he wanted me to make a film with another kid in my class, Josh Wilson. I was kind of against this whole idea, I’ve never had to team up and give up some of my control over a project. Teamed up with somebody who loves run and gun shooting with little to no plan. While I need everything planned to the detail, this was going to be challenging. But I agreed. So in September of 2022, we started to brainstorm. Somebody in a mask running around with a knife killing people? Nope, seen that before. Ghosts in home turning on and off lights? Nuh uh, already done. We wanted to be creative and try to do something new. After writing in a small room for weeks, we came up with an idea of a character being followed by some kind of entity. A Shadow. Although Isaac can see him, nobody else can.
Terrified, the Shadow taunts Isaac and leads him down a dark path of medication and paranoia. After 17 days of shooting and 9 total weeks of production, we completed the very first “Jack & Josh Film” with a new production company we both created, “Stotthouse.” Onstott told us when we were finished that he loved watching us work together. Although difficult at times, and a lot of selfish disagreements. We created a great Psychological Thriller. The whole process made me learn a lot. It taught me some patience and how to work with a creative team. As well as to just be open to creative criticism, because let's face it, you may be good at what you do, but you’re no master. I am very thankful for the opportunity to work with Josh. I learned a lot and made a lot of memories throughout the process.
ROOM: 400
​
The next project that Onstott wanted us to work on was some form of Comedy. Who doesn’t love a good old laugh? He told us that he wanted us to work together again on this project. Comedy was all up Josh’s alley, having done comedy skits with his cousins who live in Indiana. Once again I was kind of outmatched, out of my comfort zone. But this time around I was all for it. We needed to first decide what kind of Comedy we were going to shoot. Slapstick? Drama? There was even a point where we were going to make a short key and peele esc short. It wasn’t until one of our friends who helped us behind the scenes mentioned doing something like The Office. Everybody started laughing and said that it would be hilarious. I had never seen any of The Office prior to this. So we sat in our room and just began to watch episodes and moments from the show. I immediately began to laugh so hard my stomach hurt. I noticed some of the creative style choices that they use in the show. Hand-held movement, zooms, and a lack of sounds and score. It was strange but unique. We immediately went with it and created our parody of the office but for our classroom. And we called it “ROOM: 400.” What was going to be a short miniseries began to be very popular among our school. Everybody in our class was involved, the guys who were behind the scenes the first time around were quick to star in it. The bright side was we were all playing ourselves, so we weren’t really even acting. We were just having fun, which made the episodes that much more authentic. I have to admit, my favorite part of all three episodes has to be all of the interviews. They were so much fun to film, and the guys made it so much more fun. ROOM: 400 was a great first comedy under my belt. Who knows, maybe it’ll lead to more.