Unfinished Projects

LADY, BE GOOD!: FOUR WEDDINGS AND A CARNIVAL (DOCUMENTARY)
Spring 1995

In Spring of 1995, I had made plans to do a second documentary, this one on East High's production of "Lady, Be Good!" The film was to have been done as a "community service" project with Corning Incorporated (It was my "punishment" for being caught skipping English over at EHS). I had gotten as far as taping a crew session (the 8mm video of which was kept at Corning Inc., and probably no longer exists) and taking photos (includes slides, all of which remain in my collection), as well as having performances (all but the Friday one), interviews, the cast party, and some backstage footage taped by my parents. Nonetheless, a lack of interest by both me and the people at Corning Inc. put an end to the project.

THE THREE LUSTS OF DASJR (COMEDY)
Spring 1997

This film, a proposed project for TV class, was to have been a collection of skits and segments (a la "In Living Color", "Saturday Night Live", "The State", "Monty Python", etc.) linked together to represent what I called the Three Great Lusts of society: Sex, Drugs, and Music. One of the filmed segments to have been used was an introductory scene by me and Heidi Hilligoss, in which a posh Brit (me) explains to his "daughter" (Heidi in pajamas) the concept of the film. This scene was filmed in the upstairs den (next to my room) of my family's house. The other segments were to have all been parodies (all written by me) of commercials or TV shows.
One of the commercials was to have been an "info-mercial" for a book called "Men are From Mars, Women Suck" (a parody of "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus"). One scene for the segment, starring Grant Blackburn as book author Doctor Peter Sukmydik, was taped during a particularly hellish session in the CCC TV studio, with Chrissy Beyer and Louis Binetti as camera persons. "On-the-street interview" appearances by Mike Tice, Jeff Spencer, Lou Binetti, and Melissa Dyer were also taped--within the halls of CCC--for the segment, which was near completion. Unfortunately, the last scenes I needed for it couldn't be filmed due to schedule conflicts with Grant.
Another ad to have been in the film was a Timex commercial in which a man with a Timex watch is placed between two horny lesbians to see how strong the watch is. In the end, the man is crushed to death, but the watch is intact. Unfortunately, I couldn't tape this ad at all, mainly because I couldn't get more than one woman (Heidi) to play a lesbian. A taping session was held in the CCC TV studio for the ad, but no female CCC student besides Heidi would be willing to play a gay role, so this ad was scrapped as well.
Not all of these ads went unrealized. Over the course of two days, six NBC-type public service announcements were taped, three on each day. The PSA's starred Larry Wilcox, Dion Clark, Adam Youngs, Laura Fusare, Jeff Spencer (a last-minute replacement for Shannon Molloy), and Heidi Hilligoss (a last-minute replacement for Michelle Moore). These PSA's were filmed in the CCC TV studio.
Another finished segment was a parody of "Cops" called "Gay Cops", which starred Lou Binetti and Jeff Spencer as the cops, and Lou Binetti Sr. and I as the bad guys. It was filmed at Lou and Lou Sr.'s house. A title segment for the parody was filmed at CCC, and featured Shannon Molloy, Dan Costello, Larry Wilcox, Dennis Aiken, Dion Clark, Jeff Spencer, and Michelle Moore as innocent bystanders, Grant Blackburn as a crook, and George Ira Bragg and I as cops.
With the last day of CCC classes drawing nearer, I realized that because the "Men are from Mars" seg,ment wasn't completed, I didn't have enough of a variety of finished segments to make "The Three Lusts of DASJr". Instead, I left the intro segment out, left the "Men are From Mars" footage out, kept five of the six PSA's (minus the Jeff Spencer one), and made the "Gay Cops" segment the featured segment--and title--of the movie.
And so, though I had failed to complete the ambitious and ribald "Three Lusts of DASJr" film, I had successfully made my first professionally-edited film "Gay Cops", which I handed in as my TV-class project. The rest of the "Three Lusts" footage remains in the DASJr archives, not to be seen by anyone else for a long time...if ever.

MOE'S MINI-MART (COMMERCIAL)
Fall 1997

Attempted as a Broadcasting class project, this was supposed to be a 30-second commercial (not a real one, though) for Moe's Mini-Mart (a local mini-market in Painted Post). In the planned ad, an oversized five year-old (played by me) begs his mom (portrayed by some girl named Kelly from my Broadcasting class) to take him to Moe's Mini-Mart. When she takes him there, he hops around like an idiot, and the mom insists to the store clerk that "He'll grow out of it." The ad ends with the tag-line, "Moe's--the store for...all kinds of people."
Assisting Kelly and I in the project were Kelly's boyfriend Jason, who did camera work. Taping began in my house, going from the kitchen (where I interrupt my mom during breakfast to whine about Moe's) to my bedroom (a scene where I wake "mom" up so she can take me to Moe's), and then just outside of the house for a shot of me--now happy that I'm going to Moe's--in her car.
Though it seemed we were off to a good start, the taping that day came to a halt when the clerk at Moe's wouldn't allow us to film inside of the Mini-Mart for the final scene. So, the session ended, and Kelly promised to help me tape the rest of the commercial at a later date.
As it turned out, she stopped coming to our Broadcasting class, and didn't bother to contact me over the phone. Because of her inexplicable disappearance, I couldn't finish what I though was going to be a simple project. In the end, I ended up handing in a storyboard presentation of the commercial instead.
At a time period where I desperately wanted to do another film project, the fact that I couldn't even finish a 30-second commercial was quite unsettling.

THE TRUTH
Spring 1998

I filmed a few major scenes for this short action film in Watkins Glen within one day in March 1998. Unfortunately, conflicting schedules and agendas left this film very unfinished. Click here for more info.

THE THING THAT SUCKED FROM BELOW
Summer 1998 - Summer 1999

Written within three days in late April 1998, I spent the next four months trying--in vain--to film even one scene for this B-movie horror film. One scene in which two people (Laura Marie Kahl and Steve French) get attacked by the monster while making out in a car. Unfortunately, the VHS camera's battery was charged improperly, so it ran out of power before I could finish the scene. In hidsight, that was kind of a good thing, since Laura and Steve (just friends) made the filmed make-out session look more like soft-core porn. At any rate, by the time I left Corning for SUNY Fredonia, I had no scenes filmed for this movie.
I did, however, write the lyrics to a song that I collaborated on with Adam Lindquist. With his girlfriend Amelia, we recorded "(The Theme from) The Thing that Sucked from Below", produced by Kevin Hurley, at a radio station, on my next-to-last night before leaving Corning to go to SUNY College at Fredonia.
Then, in Summer 1999, many scenes were shot for the film (including a re-shot make-out scene with new actors). However, due to a schedule-related misunderstanding with Kevin, I was unable to finish shooting crucial scenes before going back to Fredonia for a second year.
After that, all attempts to finish the movie (save for a scene shot in Fall 2000) went up in smoke, due to a lack of people willing or available to participate.
But there is hope for this troubled production yet, via a little rewriting and some newly-found participants.
For more info on this film, click here.

MY SHOW, various episodes
Spring 2000

These are the episodes of my SUNY Fredonia campus show that I was unable to complete due to A)equipment problems, B)lack of interest from others, C)time constraints, and D)lack of will power caused by reasons A through C. The episodes are:

* CARTOON CAMPUS - Two or three public domain cartoons, from circa 1940's, hosted by me and fellow students.
* WHAT'S UP, TELEMUNDO? - An episode of a Spanish-language soap opera, with redubbed English dialogue written by me.

I sincerely regret not being able to have completed these episodes before the end of WNYF's Spring 2000 broadcasting season (my last before graduating), because their completion would have continued to prove my talent as a performer/producer.