The year I was too busy to blog

Hey all,  Thomas Boguszewski here.

This site has been awfully silent since last November.  I've been doing a lot of fun stuff and telling nobody about it.  That's all going to change, though.

In the coming weeks I'll be catching up on lost time, and sharing stories about the projects I've worked on and experiences I've had in 2014.

Among them:

4 puppet shows
a book trailer
3 operas
3 conventions
1 film festival
1 delayed animated film
1 cancelled commercial
1 aborted installation piece

300 pages of comedy

a collection of incredible summer adventures...

and more!
stay tuned while I not only revitalize the stream of news stories, but redesign this blog as well!
Here's looking forward to a future where I take more of what's going on in my world and share it with others.

The Dead Enders

My friend Sam Sandak and I have been working on Sam's latest project, called The Dead Enders.  It's a teen-film-turned-zombie-attack featuring a gaggle of miscreants from Sherman Oaks, CA.

After we spent a long time workshopping the story, Sam called on me for some production art.  I made him some t-shirt logos, storyboards, and most proudly, a set of fancy character sketches for the cast.

Read on to see them!

The Elixir

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An ugly man turns to the secrets of alchemy to make his inner self apparent on the outside —at any cost.

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Process Statement:

I created The Elixir as my final for Sight and Sound: Film in the Tisch School of the Arts way back in June 2010. It was shot on 16 mm film using an Arri S 16mm Camera from 1952.  The story of how this film came to be is long and colorful.  Technical and personal difficulties abounded in production.

Friday Friend Feature: Sam Freiberger

Sam Freiberger (sometimes known as Sam Sandak) is a filmmaker, writer, troublemaker and self-proclaimed Duke of Sherman Oaks, CA.  He studies film at NYU and minors in blowing minds.



Sam creates a very special presentation for his dorm's talent show in this short documentary.
Shot by me and edited by Daniel LaCosse,

The events of "I Want To Be, Anarchy" point out several of Sam's defining traits:
-Constant rebellion against rules that constrain artistic expression.
-A desire to cause a stir, stand out, and affect minds.
-Intense dedication and commitment to whatever task he has at hand.  Perfectionism.
-A love and deep respect for great works of art.  Film, drama, and *sometimes* even poetry.

"Silent Night" at the Opera

The Black Hat Collective was invited out to another show at the Minnesota Opera on Thursday.  Our mission is to view the opera, interpret it with cartoons, then blog about it.

This time the show was Silent Night — An adaptation into opera of the 2005 film Joyeux Noel, which is a beautiful story about the 1914 "Christmas Truce" of World War 1.

Read on to explore the history, music, art and drama behind Silent Night in this fully-illustrated article —with cartoons, videos and more!

Blood Splatter FX - Resources

My friend Sam has tasked me with helping to develop special effects for his upcoming film, Saint Mark's Hooker.  Today, we discussed techniques for shooting a full-on shotgun blast to the chest.

I didn't know anything about making bloody explosions before I did my research, but now I have a working knowledge of the techniques involved and the ideas have started to flow.  There are a lot of good resources on the web that I'm compiling here to make the search easier for anybody on a similar quest.

The first (and probably the cheapest) method of making a fake gunshot that I found is from IndieMogul.  In this video Keir MacDonald shows us how to put a condom full of fake blood under a target's shirt,  and use a washer attached to fishing line (if you're inside) or black thread (if you're outside) to snap the condom, making the blood burst out.

In Keir's method, you might need to cut the shot so it begins when the washer exits frame, or else it breaks the illusion.

Perpich Horror Movie (Spring-Summer 2009)

Well it took me 2 years to get around to it but I FINALLY put Secret Places: A School Divided up on the internet for all to see!

Created Spring-Summer 2009

In my senior year of high school at the Perpich Center for Arts education I applied for and was awarded a $100 grant to create a horror movie set at the Arts High School.