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“Funerals aren’t always fun.”

What do a stripper, a pissed-off night manager, a death-obsessed grad student, and a ditched housewife have in common? They cry for strangers at funerals… and get paid for it.

A dark comedy about a motley group of part-time professional funeral mourners who are paid to cry for complete strangers by a dubious funeral director. However, when a familiar face is suffering, they fail miserably at what they should do best.

IMDB Page

Short
Dark Comedy
26 min

Written & Directed by Zack Wilson
Produced by Lee Sacks
Co-Produced by Chris Spinato

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An old man slips in and out of reality in a mental institution.

And “One For The Organizer” tells the story of a tortured old man that slips in and out of reality inside of a mental institution. The film was written, shot, and edited in 48 hours for the 48 Hour Film Project.

Principal Crew

• Directors: Adam R. Brown, Jason Dickerson
• DP: Jason Dickerson
• Screenplay: Joseph Frost
• Editors: Adam R. Brown, Jason Dickerson
• AD: Karen Hollaway Dickerson
• Composer: Harlan Muir
• Sound/Grip: Naaman Wood
• Sound Design: Dave Rife

Principal Actors

• Henry R. Brown Jr.
• Doug L VanSant Jr.
• Karen Hollaway Dickerson
• Joseph Frost
• Amber Wood

TRT: 6min 22sec

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Dolls have feelings too.

“Ken Love” follows one lonely doll as he travels around New York City trying to forget his new found love. As luck would have it, his dark secret is revealed after one passionate night.

PRINCIPAL CREW
Catherine Chao – Director/Producer/Editor/Co-Photographer
Lam Thuy Vo – Co-Photographer
Zack Wilson – Set Designer

2 minutes, 11 seconds.

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A stop motion portrayal of euphoric remembrance, first love, first loss, and the release of contained adoration into a life of isolation and regret.

I met her on Halloween
I was a skeleton
She was a rabbit

The thing about rabbits is
They’re hard to catch
Especially when riding a bicycle

That year, I got a bike for my birthday

We would ride
Soaring like lovebirds
And I still remember her hair on the wind

Always in the latest fashion

She would stand in front of the mirror
Naked
For hours
Weeping

I would stare at her body
She was beautiful
I tried drawing other figures
But she was the only doll for me

Her favorite thing was an old Barbie
“Kept it in an antique cedar chest,” she said

One night, I surprised her
And came over with a pendant
A lovebird
But she was gone

So I opened the chest
To put the medallion ‘round her doll

My love was inside
All curled up

She called me, “A gatecrasher.”
I called her, “My Pandora.”
She was an enigma

After that
I took the key to her chest
To her heart

That’s when she closed herself off
Shut herself in
Locked me out

She slowly disappeared
But never faded away

Legend says a true skeleton key
Can unlock anything

Except my bicycle bunny in the box
That will never open again

This skeleton key doesn’t work…

Principal Crew

• Written and Directed by Joe Kavitski

Principal Actors

• Voice Over by Dana Boyer

TRT: 2 min 46 sec

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“We stand feet apart, but we’re miles away”

World of Forms was shot in two days in a small room against one wall. Several crew members lost their minds during the shoot.

Principal Crew

Produced by Aligned Creative
Director: Ben Donnellon
Cinematographer: Cai Hall

Principal Actors

The Middle Eight
Kimberlee Walker
Kathrine Chant
Joe Kavitski

TRT: 3:53

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A hotwire suspense parody.

General Ripper of the U.S. Terror Force irrationally releases a deadly rabbit/nuclear bomb hybrid to stay a step ahead of the terrorists.

Here Group Captain Pancake discovers Ripper’s insanity, and attempts to stop him before it’s too late.

Principal Crew

Produced by Aligned Creative
Director: Ben Donnellon
Cinematographer: Ben Donnellon

Principal Actors

General Ripper:  Joe Kavitski
Group Captain Pancake:  Ben Donnellon

TRT: 3:54

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A demented ice cream man’s delusional love for a lactose intolerant woman obsessed with ice cream.

“Remember when I went to prick your eye with a hair pin and you started crying and I said to shut your socket or those tasty tears will soon crimson into droplets of blood as I scoop those baby blues out of your skull? Remember that?

“I must have gotten a dust particle in my eye today. The robots that scanned my pupils did not see innocence, only the burgundy coating of a dust particle hellbent on dilation. I blinked fervently and when one robot inquired as to if I was making a pass at it’s lubricated tube, I winked and said, “Not unless you scan it to be,” at which point the robot took it’s handclamp and systematically pried my eye open under the bright florescent light before scanning it with laser beams as red as the scarlet liquid which had tendency to congeal around your rosy cheeks under the smooth, pale skin. The robot said, “No, Human. Indeed I do not scan it so,” then dropped the clanking gruel cup of mushed memories forever frozen at my feet…and rolled away.

“I want you to know I would have never popped your sight balloons. I would not have been able to handle the air that escaped those peepers, but I would have inhaled, breathed it in. I will not deny that.

“I was quite satisfied with the way you looked for the most part, and I would not wish to gaze upon a melted vanilla scoop with strawberry syrup drizzling down your creamy complexion. Back then, Beauty was ice cream.

“But Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, and today, Beauty is a dust particle. Lashes to ashes…lust to dust…”

Principal Crew

• Written and Directed by Joe Kavitski

Principal Actors

• Christina Smith- The Lactose Intolerant
• Joe Kavitski- The Ice Creame Man

TRT: 4 min 20 sec

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Saaremaa Valss is an experimental short film about a man that reminisces about the past in a tanning salon.

Principal Crew

• Editor/Co-Director: Adam R. Brown
• Shooter/Co-Director: Alina Smirnova
• Shooter/Co-Director: Jason Dickerson
• Shooter/Co-Director: Spencer Gillis
• Sound Design/Co-Director: Dave Rife
• Original Music: Harlan Muir

Principal Actors

• Henry R. Brown Jr.
• Eva Brown
• Alina Smirnova

TRT: 3min 29sec

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An animated gothic tragedy saturated in passion and romance, love and lies, but above all, betrayal, and the consequences thereof.

Lost lore of a lass a seldom soul knows
Most melancholy misery mixed with more woe
Thou countenance considers, curiosity flows
Mystique and intrigue so steadily grows
For message and moral thy tale whilst show
Why winds whistle and blow, bellowing, “Scarlet Rose!”

She, pale as marrow in beauty, yet blessed
Flaxen hair, skin fair, ne’er sun caressed
Vanity vacant, detached and depressed
O’er agony asunder, aghast, Oh! Obsessed
Pricking edges of thorns ‘gainst ivory flesh
Whilst ruby blossoms bash thy bare breast

Now, lost in the night, or so it doth seem
Orb bound in flight, illumining beams
Sleeping in spite of disheartening dreams
She screamed at thy sight; crimson on cream!
Betwixt of thy blight, red on white, still she screams
“Oh! What a sight! And still it doth stream!”

Lying in life, feeling foolish, a kern
Choking and coughing, her stomach doth churn
As hands clasp her throat; clocks tock and turn
Time fleeting and bleeding, she yelps and she yearns
The memories resurface, resound, and return
Reminiscing doth she, her heart starts to burn

Twas in the mid of summer’s day
Her lover beside her, in fields they lay
Glorious rapture, both blissful and gay
When suddenly something somewhere would stray
He’d flee; She’d be bleeding and broken, betrayed
As sun turns to tempest, her light fades away

Yet before his depart be dismal and dour
He turns to sweet Scarlet in this; their last hour
For inside of a moment, the present is power
And future, though fleeting, he fixed with a flower
Said he, “I’ll return to thee Ivory Tower.”
Then left her alone amongst icy cold showers

Now, lonely and lost within mental abyss
Nebulous nothings that cease to exist
Mourning and moaning of memories missed
In agony and anger hands clenched in a fist
Screams pierced the air; thorns pierced thy wrist
Forgetting the future of fate with a twist

As sanguine Scarlet closes her eyes
Tears sting her soul, which ne’er can dry
Flooded with fantasy, lost within lies
Lamenting illusions, grieving goodbyes
In this early evening, she withers and dies
And Scarlet rose to the Heavens while the scarlet rose cries…

Principal Crew:

• Written and Animated by Joe Kavitski
• Voice Over by Dana Boyer

Principal Actors:

• Shannon Phypers- Scarlet
• Nick Northrup- Scarlet’s Lover

TRT: 4 min 21 sec

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A visual poem of a young girl’s personal apocalypse.

Travel dead roads
Clear our minds of civilization
The future is silent
And the night needs heroes
In desolation destiny is manifest
And it speaks in smoke
The past doesn’t disappear
The shavings are real
A tracing of time cannot brush this off
The memories aren’t what they used to be
The nightmares of what I’ve kept bottled inside are returning
And sleep, if it comes at all, is something I’ve begun to dread
I used to hide there, in my dreams, from hysteria, casting out the doubts, a little princess with a magic wand that could change reality into something I could tolerate
But now the echoes of forsaken loss chill me to the core
I know not where the waking is beyond this fragile dance
We will never be that innocent again
I can see right through you now that the Truth has come to Light
While the feelings finally fade
And fade away it does
Everything becomes erased
It fades from history
It fades from memory
And it fades
So slowly…

Principal Crew:

• Joe Kavitski- Writer/Director
• Katherine Chant- Voice Over

Principal Actors:

• Dana Kavitski- Spirit of Survival

TRT: 2 min 59 sec