Rumblings...

I don't why I thought that compacting ten weeks of work into six weeks was going to somehow be easier cause, turns out it isn't.  At all.  But it is helping me take more action with projects and homework and other things. So that's good.  

Anyway, amongst the storm of my school work and the rising temperatures of the summer season, I am also developing a new short film that I am directing and editing.

Its about the trials and tribulations of being a police officer in this day and age and the consequences that arise when faced with the difficult choices that must be made in times of danger.

Oh, and mimes.

Cops and mimes.

Should be fun!

Details to follow.

Light Is Calling

A short film we viewed during out "Death of Cinema" portion of my Intro to Film Studies course. A very beautiful film and thought provoking as well.

Looks pretty impressive doughn't it?

As promised, here is my latest directorial effort: The Doughopticon.


The Doughopticon from Nick Nielsen on Vimeo.

This is definitley one of my favorites that I have worked on. We had a really good cast and crew as well as an excellent producer which really helped during the rough patches.  While it was fun, it also had its challenges.  About half-way through filming I had to go to my friends wedding in Philly for a weekend so I had my good friend and fellow filmmaker Gabe Conroy guest directed the entire end sequence with the montage and the reveal.  I unsure how it would turn out in the end but I made sure to go over my storyboards with him so he would get the "feel" that I was going for.  When I finally saw the footage my worries were put to rest, to say the least  The cinematographer was my other good filmmaking buddy Sean Leonard who also the camera operator on Bluebook Odyssey who never ceases to impress me with the work that he puts out.

If I have gotten anything from the experience of directing this sketch I would say that is has rekindled my passion for filmmaking. In all the hubbub of doing very rudimentary work for KVIK I had really forgotten why I was doing this to begin with and how excited I would get to just film in general.  It also got me really excited for my short film that I am working on this summer (which I need to start writing!)

Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

(If you do leave a comment!)

Better late than never.

Remember how I said I was going to post a little pictorial of my trip to Washington DC about a month and a half ago and I never did?  Well, here it is!  


I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

More after the jump...

Sprinting to the Updates!

I now have only three weeks of spring quarter left and I still have so much that still needs to get done.  Amidst all of the writing of papers and studying for tests, there is a sketch I am directing for You Would titled "The Doughopticon".  It has been a fun little project and I have really been satisfied with the results up to this point, heres a little taste:

I am really excited to see how this one turns out. It is the first project I have directed that was not written or edited by myself, so I am interested to see how it all comes together in the end. I'll make sure to post it once its all completed.

In addition to my KVIK related projects I have finally decided on a story for my next short film and I have begun doing a rough draft of the script.  It is a very irreverent story but I think it will be a ton of fun to make and I am really looking forward to getting all my old KVIK friends back up here to help out. It will be a nice reunion of sorts. Developments will follow shortly....

Along with all of these projects I also made a quick little trip down to Philidephia for my friend Dave's wedding. It was a really great event, and I couldn't be more happy for him and his wife Helen.  While I was there I met up with some old friends from high school who were also attending the wedding. We got onto the subject of a little project that we all worked on a couple years ago entitled "Life with Lombardo".  We were all really proud of the work that we put into the many different iterations that we had created and wished we would've done more with it.  Then we got into a serious discussion about actually proposing the show to a network, more specifically, Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. So now I am in the process of researching how we should go about that.  We're not even sure if it will really go anywhere, but it doesn't hurt to try!  I mean, who knows, maybe it'll get accepted and then I'll be involved with the production of a show on Adult Swim! Or maybe none of that will happen.  Either way, its all sort of exciting happenings!

Been a long time..

So I have decided, after much thought on the subject, that this week will be one of the most stressful/exciting/crazy weeks I will have in a long, long while. 

Luckily tonight I am seeing Ghostbusters tonight in 35mm at my local movie theater. That is where the exciting comes in.  The midterm I need to study for afterwards is where the stressful comes in.
The insane weekend traveling to Philidelphia from Friday through Sunday is where the crazy comes in.

Oh yeah, I'm ready for it.

Wish me luck.

35 Millimeters of pure amazement

A local movie theater is doing weekly screenings of movie classics (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Goonies, Ghostbusters, to name a few) and I decided to take a trip down to check out the latest showing of Raiders. I had heard about it in my Film Studies class and I asked my professor whether he knew they were going to be screened in 35mm or not. He said they would all be prints, but I was skeptical.

I had been in situations where I was expecting a screening of a print but was sad to see that it was nothing more than a copy of the film on DVD. Having this happen to me several times I was a bit cynical to the whole deal. They wouldn't really take the time to order prints of these films, would they? I still bought my ticket hoping for the best.

The night of the showing finally came and my level of excitement really hadn't peaked quite yet. The unsureness of the method of screening probably more than any other reason prevented me from attaining that level.

As I sat there in my cushy seats the spaces around me slowly began to fill up more and more. In addition to myself two of my friends Ian and Thomas joined me to see this classic film. Finally the dreaded "Inside Look" concluded and the house lights came up. I wasn't too surprised by this, I figured there would be some sort of prize giveaway or trivia question to be asked by the most expert Indiana Jones fans in attendance, and this situation was no exception.  The prizes were given out and before the manager turned out the light once more he mentioned something about how the PRINT of the last film, "The Goonies", was a little rough but that this one should be in better shape.

WAT.