At the end of October last year, I attended my daughter's piano class recital in the living room of a beautiful house nestled in a rather exclusive neighborhood on the outskirts of inner SE Portland. Naturally I brought a video camera. To be more specific for all you videography enthusiasts out there, I brought my Canon DSLR to shoot the video because I knew I could get a decent run-and-gun shoot of her recital using a relatively small kit. As the kids ate sweets and played after the program, adults socialized over beer and wine. One dad started a conversation in the kitchen, asking about my setup and we started to talk video tech. As the conversation wound down, we exchanged names and job titles. Wait? What's your name again?Mike Vogel.
You're Mike Vogel?
Now I had a rare smile on my face, because I had been had. I was talking filmmaking tech with an accomplished local filmmaker.
I know you! I follow you on Twitter, you're @FrontAve. It's good to meet you! And now it was my turn to get this guy... because I'm not that well know on social media by my real name.
I'm @drnormal.
I think Mike broke out in a smile too, mentioned something about a podcast and as we packed up our kids to leave we agreed to follow-up and meet over beers sometime soon. Which we still must do, by the way...
But I don't think he kissed anyone that night and he certainly didn't kiss me, but he must of at least kissed a few people Tuesday night at the Bagdad Theater where he premeired his latest independent work, "Did You Kiss Anyone?" a comedy about marriage, sex, and shi**ing with the door open. When I saw his tweet about the screening and saw that my calendar was open, I had to go check it out. Luckily I didn't end up going alone and was able to convince a friend of mine earlier in the day over lunch to come with me.
It was a very Portland night. The screen played submissions to the website of "anonymous anti-Valentine's messages". My friend clued me in on these and I was sad I hadn't sent mine in... :) Then Mike introduced 2 bloggers who spoke about their awkward romantic interludes. Heather of Mile73 and wife of Dave Knows Portland spoke about meeting Mr. Knows Portland online and IRL, which was a story arc of stalker bloggers, romantic bliss, marriage, moving from Portland to Astoria, unemployment and pregnant with twins. It was a very entertaining story, worthy of Back Fence PDX. Mike got back up onstage, thanked everyone for coming (it was great to see it well attended) and then it was on with the show!
We were first treated to a special promotional short, "Did You Cast Anyone?" a humorous piece where the actors take out their frustrations about the casting, followed up by the feature. Now I'm not a film reviewer and I won't attempt it here for the fear of creating something that sounds like a school book report. I will say that I enjoyed "Did You Kiss Anyone" for it's humor, performances, camera work and editing. Essentially, Mike takes us on a journey where a bad idea unfolds into a very, very bad idea- at least when you end up in Estacada in the middle of the night, you know something has terribly gone wrong. Based on the audience reaction, I think the night came off well.
For more on "Did You Kiss Anyone" and Mike Vogel's filmmaking and commentary on marketing nano-budget films, check out the links below:
http://frontave.com/didyoukissanyone/
http://mikevogel.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SsR2Ek8nSaU
