Dennis Spielman

The real and imaginative adventures of Dennis Spielman

FINAL CHECK-IN

The mock trailer for the action-spy movie with a library theme, FINAL CHECK-IN, is ready to be checked-out! Watch it above or here on YouTube.

Even though it was a short movie, we have the following blooper reel:



Tonight we held the watch party for the movie and it’s bloopers. Lessa and I were still doing some last minute editing when people started to arrive at six, forcing guests to make conversations with each other. We were only behind about an hour so everyone took turns talking about their day/week in a dramatic story-telling fashion while enjoying pizza. Yum. We also watched some of the raw footage that didn’t make the final cut and afterwards went out for gelato. More yum.

From all of us involved in making this movie, we hope you enjoy it!

Final Check-In: Update #4


Yesterday, Lessa and I edited the librarian-action-spy-style mock movie trailer, Final Check-In. Editing went extremely well. There’s one particular moment I want to share: About half way through, Lessa wanted to watch the whole video to get a feel for it. Before doing that, I quickly tossed in some background music for ambience. The song synced up beautifully. We ended up editing the rest of the video to the song, syncing up scenes with its beats and changes. There are lots of cool moments in the movie and overall it’s very smooth. We didn’t use all of the footage, but that happens. Better to have too much than not enough.

We’re going to do one last touch-up edit next week immediately followed by the watch party with the YouTube video, including blooper reel, being posted on Monday.

Lights, Camera, Eyemart!

I created this one-man-production-team comedy video for an eyeglass shop for a contest. The final date for entires was on August 31, so I’m free to share it now. The winners should be announced soon. The top ten winners get $500 and a two-day trip to Dallas, Texas to be in a commercial. I feel pretty good about my chances. I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback and laughs. I just hope I make it to the top ten.

Brand New Game: All the Inheritance

In the games section, there’s a new party game called, All the Inheritance. All the Inheritance is a murdering mystery party game where anyone can be the killer as each heir hopes to kill the decedent – while avoid being killed themselves – to collect the most money. Use luck, memory, backstabbing, and clever deductions to win all the inheritance you can and uncover who is really your friend.

If you play the game, I would love to see pictures of you playing it and your feedback. Like my other party game, it’s free to play so check it out.

My thought process in creating this game was how can I have a murder mystery game, such as my The Movie Murder Mystery Party, be faster and have randomization. All the Inheritance went through some heavy play testing to work out all of the bugs. Lots of people died. It’s a fun game to play and I hope you enjoy it.

Library Trailer – Day 2


Yesterday was Day 2 of filming for the library action movie trailer. Well, technically Day 3 since the writer/producer, Lessa, solo shot a quick scene of herself falling from ropes in the style of Mission Impossible on Saturday, but I’ll count that as a B-Team day, so there. Day 2!


Today’s shooting involved the Foes of the Library and the CIRC team fighting, chasing, and killing each other. Of course, one of the villains was British and they were all dressed in black. Filming went from 3 to 7 p.m. at various locations done guerrilla style. Several of the shots we were like, “Hey, since we’re here, we should do this cool shot.”


One of the actors commented that was his one of the better shoots he’s been on and I have to agree. We were prepared (I got props for having a spare battery), collaborative, and fun. I realized (although I might’ve known this, but got it reinforced) that collaboration on a movie works best if there is a person in charge and they present a solid idea first and there is such a thing as too much collaboration. For example, instead of saying, “Here’s an elevator…?” say “I have this idea to incorporate the elevator where we do this.” The shooting process goes by faster too.


I’m going to edit all of the footage together this week and present a rough cut Sunday. From there, we’ll decide if we need any more footage, but everyone thinks we have enough. Lessa still needs to decide on a title for the movie. After it’s done, we’ll have a watch party and publish it online for everyone to watch.


From Lessa Keller-Kenton yesterday: “Huge thanks to everyone who donated their time, equipment and acting ability today for the trailer shoot today! You all ROCK!”

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