My Latest Short Film

Please enjoy my latest short film, One Of Our Satellites. I co-wrote/directed this film with Desireé Moore.

A burned-out caricature artist seeks to find meaning outside of her Earthly, mundane existence.

Skeleton Crew - a New Podcast

Last year, I came up with the idea of hosting a podcast that features discussions with key crew members who would be present on most film sets. I wanted to focus on local filmmakers, so I decided to start in the Central Florida area where I currently live and work.

My good friend and fellow filmmaker Mark Farag came onboard to co-host. And Skeleton Crew was born.

All of the 1st Season filmmakers

Today, we launched the full first season. We did hour-long interviews with a director, a visual FX guy, a sound mixer, a producer, a director of photography and a gaffer. You can find all of these interviews on most podcast platforms as well as video versions on YouTube.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Watch on YouTube

Enjoy!

Restraint: The Power of Celluloid

I picked up a Canon Elan 7e (35mm film camera) last year and have been taking more photos lately. The film stock I have been shooting with is Kodak's Portra 400. It's a vastly different experience than shooting with a digital camera. You can't snap a burst of images each time. You can't take as many photos as you want and then just delete them later. Shooting on celluloid forces you to wait, to be focused and intentional and oftentimes to not take any photos at all.

But once they come back from the lab and you view that beautiful grain and the natural looking highlights and skin tones, it's all worth the wait. I got a few rolls processed a couple of weeks ago. Here is a small selection of those images:

Lydia, camping/breakfast in the Yorkshire Dales

Bug the Great Dane, yawning

Don't Tread on Me, feeding the squirrels and smoking in the park

Rowing toward the bridge in Durham, UK

Dad, lost in thought, wearing a picnic shirt

Film is not dead. Film is king.

Watch "A Storm Is Coming: Learning the Blues with Coney Island Pete"

I started shooting this film back in 2009. I found Pete, the subject of the film, to be such a unique person and simply wanted to create a short documentary about him and the music that he played.

As time dragged on, the project became bloated. The scope of the film was too wide and didn't have enough of a personal anchor. Other commitments arose and the project quickly fell to the wayside.

As I got older, I realized that the concepts that Pete spoke about were beyond theoretical. Life became harder and the film started to come to life.

After a couple of more jumpstarts in 2013 and in 2015, I finally finished this film in the Spring of 2017. It was the hardest edit I have ever done.

I always welcome your honest reactions and/or comments, positive or negative. Fullscreen it and enjoy!

When Finishing a Damn Book Takes Forever

 My duct-taped copy of Atlas Shrugged in my blue backpack

I have been carrying around the same blue Lowepro camera backpack since 2012. It has traveled with me to many different places - India, Greece, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, all over the USA, England, Japan, Korea, etc. It has been a solid backpack but it currently holds a sort of emblem of shame: a tattered copy of of Ayn Rand's classic, Atlas Shrugged.

Late last year, I had to go to a Dr.'s appointment and apparently I had brought along this book. A few weeks ago, I was there again for a follow-up visit and the Dr. mentioned that I was reading it the last time I was there. It reminded me that I have been trudging through this novel for quite some time. It is rather lengthy at nearly 1,100 pages with fairly fine print, but that's not really the point. There are a couple of issues that this situation highlights that are worth pointing out:

1. It takes a certain measure of restraint to pull ourselves away from screens, social media, etc., in order to engage in activities that take much more focus but also offer the potential for a deeper level of thought.

2. My focus (and most everyone else's) is very fragmented most of the time. I work a full-time job, am finishing up the edit of a short film, have several other edits backlogged, am trying to write somewhat consistently, am reading at least one other book, just started a company, etc. We don't live simple lives.

3. If we don't keep up with the important things, they fall to the wayside. This is true for so many things: relationships, websites, blogs, companies, and of course, books.

 Werner Herzog, in his earlier days

When asked what advice he would give to other filmmakers, one of my favorite directors, Werner Herzog said, "Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read." I have been an avid reader my whole life and this is a good reminder to make sure that I'm taking the time to do so.

I say that having this copy of Atlas Shrugged in my bag is shameful not because of its content. The novel is well written and contains valid and timely ideas that are worth engaging with. But the shame comes in because I haven't taken the time to finish the book as quickly as I would have liked and at least one other person has noticed. Now, I keep the book in plain view on purpose. It drives me toward a goal that will be satisfying to achieve.

Time to go finish that damn book.

Film Screening - New Orleans, Louisiana

“A Storm Is Coming”

@Zeitgeist Multidisciplinary Arts Center
1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., New Orleans, LA 70113

Friday, 12/22 - 7:00pm

w/ Live Musical Performance by Coney Island Pete Collins after the film

$10

New Teaser Trailer

Film Screening - Davenport, Iowa

“A Storm Is Coming”

@Alternating Currents

Sat, 8/26 - 3:30pm

Bucktown - Davenport, IA

FREE

This is Filmmaking

The first light

My dad always says that my mom is "driven." This generality applies to myself as well. Perhaps I got it from her.

It relates to how I view my usage of time. If I have something to show for myself after a certain period of time, then I view that period of time as having been successful. Lately though, I have seen that there is a fundamental flaw in that point of view.

Mark and I in front of our homemade light 'Megatron'

About 6 months ago, my good friend Mark Farag (who is a filmmaker as well) quit his job and moved into my dining room. We had grand designs of getting several films made, including older projects that may have gone stale and new and exciting projects that were just developing. And, while we did work on some of those projects here and there, the time was overwhelmingly spent playing Call of Duty on PS3, eating Hunan Chicken from Great Wall Chinese, and carving pathways through our apartment while ranting about any number of topics.

Needless to say, neither of us finished a film project.

We scored some 1K Babies

And a couple of weeks ago, Mark moved out. But, as I look back, I realize that this time was filmmaking itself. It is similar to any other artistic medium, in that the experiences that we have are what we draw on to do our work. So, as we were playing video games into the wee hours of the morning, we were discussing ideas and experiencing images and simply living life. Zooming out further, I see that we both had an incredible amount of experiences during this time. I spent a couple of weeks in Europe. I met a lovely British woman that I'm currently seeing. Mark met me in Europe and then continued to travel there for almost 2 months. He laid an old project to rest that had no life left in it (RIP 'Dead Smoke'). I wrote a screenplay for a short film. He wrote treatments for 2 or 3 short projects. We went clubbing in downtown Orlando. Mark drove down a horse path while location scouting and got his car stuck for several hours until Miguel pulled it out in pitch black with his tow truck. We played tennis. We found some old Mole Richardson lights for sale in a warehouse and bought 2 1K babies each. We built some 4x4 diffusion frames that we nicknamed Minions. We built Megatron, a halogen light that is supposed to output the equivalent of a 5K while only drawing the power of a 1K. I could go on and on. And I wouldn't take back how we spent that time.

One of our homemade 4x4 diffusion frames at work

The raw materials that became 'Megatron'

Hinges

The point is, even though I haven't completed a personal film in over a year, I am gaining experiences that are ever pushing me toward my next film.

The time has not been wasted. This is filmmaking.

Fresh Business Cards

The Front

I am not a Taoist. I do not believe that there must be a balance of dark and light in the world. But, I do believe that many things have dual natures, including myself.

Some have said that this image is scary. Rather, I hope that it is honest. The reverse is the inverse (similar to the header of this site). It reflects a saying that I hold tightly to. It is a Latin phrase coined by Martin Luther: Simul Justus et Peccator. Look it up if you're interested.

My brother and I in Korea, June 2015

My brother Patrick drew this original image of me when we were playing Scrabble last Christmas. He has always had a unique drawing style and I am thankful to be able to utilize it here. Thanks Bro.

What do you think? Does it capture my essence? Is it too vague?

A Shitty Year

Just a bit over one year ago, I wrote about my general goal for 2014, to "Get Shit Done." I did get shit done, though it wasn't the shit that I was hoping to get done.

I got divorced. So, that was the main shit that got done. Not that my marriage was shit, but the whole situation in general was.

The rest of the year was a blur. It was quick and painful. Like I was beheaded but never died. I keep blinking. And screaming in the windows. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. This is to myself. I don't hate my ex-wife. Actually, I hope the best for her. And I love her. I will always love her. She was my best friend. Now, there is no one.

The student.

Except God. Though it may seem that He has stepped out. A comfort has been C.S. Lewis's incredibly candid work, A Grief Observed. Though he was writing about the death of his wife, it still involves the loss of a spouse and so, many of his ideas and feelings brush against mine:

"Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be-or so it feels-welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and the sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And the seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?"

The sage.

Lewis wasn't afraid to ask the difficult questions. Many times, Christians are. And they come across as plastic and disconnected. People who are entrenched in their own naive world that is bright and cheery, colorful. But, that isn't what life is like. And that isn't what real Christianity is like. Jesus wasn't a weak white hippy that said that everyone should simply get along and be good. He was a severe Middle Eastern radical who hung out with the shittiest people in society. He realized that the world was a dark place. And it needed His light. And so did Lewis. And so do I.

And along with Lewis, I find that in the end, God is there. Even when it doesn't seem to be so, God is there. God is there. God is there.

Get Shit Done

A new year has somehow found me.  The old one slipped quietly out the back door.  I didn't have the chance to curse it for its woes or thank it for its blessings.  But they were there.  Rather than write copious amounts of words about each of them, I will compile a short list here:

1. Celebrated 5 years of marriage (Blessing)
2. Racked up unwanted debt (Woe)
3. Wrote/directed short film, The Eyes of God (Blessing)
4. Worked in an Autism Spectrum Disorder classroom at an elementary school (Blessing)
5. One-on-one assistant to a student with Autism (Blessing)
6. Road trip to New Orleans to rebirth a stagnant documentary about a Blues musician (Blessing)
7. The wife and I got jobs at a non-profit that we're passionate about (Blessing)
8. Celebrated my wife getting her AA degree (Blessing)
9. Moved to Orlando, FL (Blessing)
10. Enjoyed visits from my parents and my brother and sister (Blessing) 
11. Met other filmmakers with similar goals/passions (Blessing)
12. Helped to shoot an edit a colleague's short film, Diary of a Terrorist (Blessing)
13. Lived with Abigail's great grandmother for a couple of months (Blessing)
14. Met new friends (Blessing)
15. Visited old friends (Blessing)
16. Grilled my first steak (Blessing)
17. Watched my sister go through two brain surgeries (Woe)
18. Watched my wife fulfill a dream of advocating for less fortunate women through Noonday Collection ( Blessing)

There are plenty more that I could list, but I think that's enough.  Needless to say, there are many more blessings than there are woes, and if I am honest with myself, the woes are just cloaked blessings.  The struggles that we face generally help us to grow more than the times of ease and pleasure.  Struggle in life is important.

#3 and #6 mentioned specific personal film projects, of which I'll make mention here:

The Eyes of God is a short film (~13:00) that I wrote/directed back in June, along with the help of many other talented individuals.  A rough cut was completed then, but I'm doing some revisions and I hope to drop the final version in the upcoming weeks.

At the end of December, I took my friends Mark and Darcy and we set out on the road to catch up with Peter Collins in New Orleans.  I started shooting a short documentary about him around 5 years ago, but my vision was shaky at best, and so I decided to go back and reinvigorate the project with some new footage and a stronger sense of direction.  Pete is a musician from New York who has seen a hard stretch of road in his life.  But it has become clear through his music and his lease on life that once again, the struggle is important.  This seems to be a recurring theme in my life lately.  I'm hoping to wrap this project up in the next 3 months.

New Year's with Friends (Blessing)

On New Years Eve, my wife Abigail had a wonderful idea.  We were celebrating with a few friends and she decided to bring over some white balloons and markers and we wrote some of our goals on them and released them into the night sky.  I have several goals, but one that I hope will sum up this year at the close is this:  Get Shit Done.

And I hope to do just that.

Her Eye is Full of Light

There are many different approaches to making movies.  Most filmmakers enjoy one or several aspects more than others.  Some enjoy being able to sit back and focus completely on the performance aspects of a shoot while their crew mans the camera, pushes the dolly around, mics the scene, and brings them coffee.  Some are much more lax than others in terms of cinematography and lighting.  Others enjoy running around maniacally, painting props and weathering costumes right up 'til the last available moment.

I'm somewhere in the middle, but edging more towards the fanatic.  In the beginning this was born out of necessity (and mostly still exists for the same reason), but it has always given me time to think and an outlet for my nervous energy.  I remember one particular shoot about 10 years ago where we loaded a shopping cart full of costumes and props and dragged it down into some woods behind Buchanan Elementary School in Davenport, Iowa.  I was crashing through those woods, helping people get their costumes on, dumping syrupy blood on others, and using excessive amounts of duct tape.  And I loved it.

In any case, one of the aspects that I continually focus on (and struggle with) is cinematography.  It is so wrapped up in the fabric of a film that I can't tear a large part of my focus from it.  I like to be on the camera.  I like to be the one shooting the scene.  I like to push record as I call action.  And I hope that in some way, this focus has given me a decent sense of composition.

Half a decade later, after I tore through those blood streaked woods, I took my then-girlfriend Abigail to a hill behind Buchanan and proposed.  This isn't the space for details, but it was a beautiful and blessed time.

My wife enjoys taking photographs and I was looking through some old ones that I found on my computer today (I was supposed to be reading, technology be damned!).  I realize that I often haven't appreciated her talent for taking photographs and her artistic abilities in general as much as I should.  She has a good eye and has made some beautiful images over the years.  Here, I will share only a few that I found gathered in one simple folder on my hard drive.  She has hundreds of other delightful photos as well.  Her eye is indeed full of light.

The lovely lady herself.

Inspiring and beautiful literature for the pilgrimage

Valentine's Day 2011

An uncommon snow in Gimhae, South Korea

 

Loving the day off together

She loves flowers and I love cake

Descending Circles

Also an artist

Her fruit

Pride comes before a Fall

Currently, I'm researching and seeding a new screenplay.  It is tentatively titled, Chronic Vision, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changes.  More on that later.

Looking Back to Look Forward

The other day I was rooting around through some old photos and I found this picture of some storyboards I drew while I was making A PLEA FOR EVERYMAN.  It's not high tech and the drawings are quite crude, but it got the job done.  I also enjoyed looking back at some behind the scenes photos.  As always, the actors were incredible on that film.  I always find it exciting and inspiring to look back.  And then to look forward...

Crude Storyboards

Before the violence

After the violence

Chokin' Out

A good old hangin', Super 8 style

Farmer's tan, City boy

Big knives take lives

*All photos by Bryan Bogatz

Writer's Block

Writing is difficult.  When I was younger, I always dreaded the process, and I still do to some extent.  The possibilities in story are almost endless.  But that chasm of potential often leads to questions about my creativity or lack thereof.  With so many options, why aren't I thinking of something incredible?  Am I truly a storyteller and an artist or just a technician?  I walked up and down my sidewalk the other day, retreading the same path for a good twenty minutes or half hour, probably looking like a loon.  But, it was helpful to struggle through some of these thoughts.

Besides making films, I think it's helpful to extend my creative faculties in other disciplines.  One of my favorite over the years has been poetry.  I would love to publish at least one poem someday.  I've never really shared them anywhere, but I shall here now.

I am walking

Because my mind is barren

It is easier than

The stationary weight of thoughtless mourning

I will continue

To tread this path

'Til I wear a trench in the Earth

Descension into that pit

Before descension into the Pit

A burial of sorts

That is necessary to breathe in my brain

Suffocating that celebration of self

That resides in our souls

Preparing then to scrabble out

And stride on

Toward the next thoughtless morning

And the hope of a spark

Or a forest fire

I also found this short experimental film called Droplets on Vimeo.  It is by filmmaker Simon Fiedler.  It's an incredibly well done film with a message that I can certainly relate to at this time in life.  Enjoy.

RED STROKE Screening and Review

My latest film RED STROKE is screening this Friday, July 27th at 7:00 PM at the District Theatre in Rock Island, IL.  Tickets are $10.

Also, the film was reviewed by Mike Schulz at the River Cities Reader.  Read the review here (under 'The Dark Knight Rises' review) >> https://www.rcreader.com/movies/scraped-crusader-dark-knight-rises-and-red-stroke

Alleyways

Busan Haps, a magazine focusing on events based in Busan, South Korea, just ran an article about RED STROKE.  Read it here >>  Alleyways: My Two Years Making a Film in Korea (and Iowa)

Thoughts on THE GREY and THE SEVENTH SEAL

I've noticeably been absent from posting here for the last several months.  I am endeavoring to be more consistent in many areas of life and writing on here will be one of them.  So, bear with me if you will.

Last night, I saw Liam Neeson's new film, THE GREY, directed by Joe Carnahan.  The movie follows a group of oil drillers who survive a plane crash and are hunted by a savage pack of wolves.  I didn't love it.  I didn't hate it.  I don't consider myself a great critic, or even a good one, so I won't give a topical analysis of the movie, but I will share some things that were particularly interesting to me.

From the start of the movie, you see a bright blazing blue cross contrasted by dark surroundings (physically and metaphorically).  Right there in the beginning, religion in general, and Christianity in particular is introduced, no matter in how small a way.  Surely crosses are ever abounding in our society, from necklaces to tattoos to artwork, and oftentimes with no seemingly significant meaning.  But, this blue cross is loaded.  As the movie progresses and the men encounter the death of their friends and must confront their own fear of dying, they raise common questions concerning the existence of God and the meaning of life.  This seems to be the major issue in the movie:  Does God exist and does He care about the lives of these condemned men?

This evening, I laid down and watched Ingmar Bergman's 1957 classic, THE SEVENTH SEAL.  I was enjoying the film, but I was so tired that I fell asleep after about 15 or 20 minutes.  When I awoke a couple of hours later, I was excited to finish and the film did not disappoint.  It begins with a Crusader resting on the shore of a great sea.  He encounters Death himself and challenges him to a game of chess in order to determine his fate.  Unsurprisingly so, throughout the entire film, similar questions to the ones posed in THE GREY are raised.  Does God exist?  What comes after life?  Are we all there is?

Whereas Bergman's film seems to be a bit more ambiguous about its understanding of God and man, with two of the main characters in the end being philosophically at odds with each other, Carnahan's is much more pointed.  Throughout the movie, there are several hints that not only does God not care about the plight of the characters, but that God doesn't even exist.  One of the most blatant expressions of this comes as Liam Neeson is on the banks of a ranging river at perhaps his lowest point in the film.  He cries out to a blank sky for a sign or deliverance of any kind, vowing that if it comes, he will believe in God for all his life.  As he waits and finally receives no response, he resolves to do what is necessary himself.  He then goes on to build a sort of altar out of the wallets (now representing the men themselves) of the fallen, and finally wraps his hands in a curiously prayer-like way around the final wallet.  This conveys what he voiced earlier.  If God couldn't or wouldn't answer man's prayer to Him, then man would have to find his answers and deliverance in "prayers" to mankind itself.  Also, in the end it hints to the fact that man finally kills the Alpha male.  Previously, the group had killed the Omega of the pack.  Certainly these are terms that are meaningful simply in reference to a pack of wolves, but in such a religiously charged atmosphere, one has to wonder if this isn't a reference to the demise of The Alpha and the Omega, a moniker for the Christian God found in the Biblical book of Revelation.

In any case, both of these films raise important questions and I appreciate them for that.  It is quite telling that films that were made over 50 years apart from each other both contain almost identical questions about the nature of man and God and I'm certain that the same questions will continue to be asked for the rest of time.

These movies both remind me of a quote by the great Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo:

"What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself."