Campaign Video #2: Our FX Guru and Producer Adrian Marcato transforms 'Ride' director Waylon Bacon into the 'Al Monster'.  

      

     

Campaign Video #3: An Interview with composer and Lumerians co-founder Jason Miller! 

    

    'The Ride' radio spot, voiced by casting director Amy McDonald, and now LIVE on          Skidrow Studios! 

      

Campaign Video #4: The true story behind 'The Ride'! 

      

Campaign Video #5: Perks! 

     

Campaign Video #6: Outtakes!

      

Hi! My name is Waylon Bacon. In my early twenties, I missed my bus to work, and rather than risk being late again, I accepted a ride from a stranger.

He was a short man, with a full set of braces and the clothing of an office worker.

"What do you do for a living?" I asked him.

"I'm a traveling espresso machine salesman" he answered.

As we approached the dirty white cargo van that he drove, I started to have second thoughts. And once I got into the van, and discovered a distinct lack of Espresso paraphernalia, I realized I'd made a huge mistake.

Luckily for me, he wasn't a serial killer. Ten very tense minutes later I was in front of my job, on time and not dead. But the experience stuck with me.

Which brings me to the project at hand. 

                                  

'The Ride' takes this true tale from the pages of my life, and transforms it into a surreal and darkly comic short film.  Greg is a young man much like myself at that age who works at a job that he hates, and to which he is perpetually tardy. Terrified of being fired and having to move back in with his parents, he understandably freaks out when he misses his bus to work one morning.  

Encountering Al, a braces wearing Espresso machine salesman, and author of the 'Six Point Plan For Success, Happiness, And Spiritual Enlightenment', he finds a solution when a ride to work is offered. 

But all is not as it seems, and Greg begins to believe that his life is in danger, which he visualizes in a series of paranoid, horrifying flights of fancy which reveal as much about what the audience expects to happen in a hitchhiking scenario as it does about Greg himself. 

 

The Ride ends up as many things; a monster movie, a situation comedy, a twisted buddy picture, and a darkly comic meditation on first impressions. 

          

I'm a self taught cartoonist and filmmaker from the Bay Area. Since dropping out of City College San Francisco in the early 2000's, I've been shooting strange, humorous and frightening short films. Much to my surprise, many of them have gone on to play at film festivals, win awards, and even get reviews on blogs such as Fangoria.com, The Underground Film Journal, and Redefine Magazine! 

Incredibly, almost all of these films have been funded through a dizzying array of day jobs; my resume includes Hat Salesman, Deli Worker, Bicycle Delivery Man, Liquor Store Clerk, and more! 

                      

However, there's a limit to how much you can do with the money left over after rent and bills; my new project The Ride is an attempt to move my work forward a step by putting together enough financing to work with better equipment, run a smoother set and most importantly, pay my cast and crew!

All of my films have been very low-budget affairs, where creative ingenuity has often had to take the place of money. 

                              

But most of all, my films have been made by volunteers, friends and strangers who have come together to help make these crazy films a reality; usually working long hours for little more than food, beer and my eternal gratitude. 

With 'The Ride', I'd like to change that.  

Artists can have it pretty tough - the chances of making a living with their craft are slim, and most likely they'll have to do it in between  'day jobs'. As Alan Moore put it in 'Watchmen': "we do it because we are compelled."

                                     

I would like to be able to help my fellow travelers get something back for their skills and their time; a return which is far more rare than you would like to know! This will allow me to not only pay returning cast and crew members for the first time in the six years that I've been doing this, but to also open the doors for new collaborators whose input will be an exciting addition to my team! 

       

              

As I mentioned earlier, I've had to use some occasionally rudimentary methods to create the special effects in my films. But special effects, especially character make ups have always been one of my great loves in life, going back to childhood when I would dress up as old Universal Movie Monsters and terrorize my family.

                        

 Seven year old me as 'Quasimodo'. Eyes and Teeth made with cheese wax!

We're very lucky to have Adrian Marcato on board for this film as our effects artist. His disturbing creations have been haunting the Indie Film world for the last six years, and he recently won 'Best Make Up Artist' at L.A's 'Shockfest Festival' for his work on 'The Horror Show'.

                                             

On 'The Ride', we'd both like to work with Silicone to create effects that will look like nothing less than reality. Silicone is a somewhat new material on the special effects market, and is more flexible and stronger than Foam Latex. It also looks and feels just like human skin! 

The Ride contains a number of fantastic effects pieces including the transformation of Al into a increasingly horrifying Mr. Hyde-esque monster, a comedic multiple stabbing sequence, and a head exploding. These elements help give the film it's edge, and we want the effects to be as realistic and startling as possible. 

        

One of the hardest parts of running a low budget film set is the wearing of multiple hats. 

As a director, I've also worked as the caterer, makeup artist, director of photography, and set dresser.

My casting director Amy McDonald has also worked as an actress, producer, costume seamstress, and transportation.

And Assistant Director Michael Edwards has also done camera dolly, sound design, and stunts.

Although I still expect a certain amount of musical chairs to happen on The Ride's shoot, we can scale it back with the budget in hand to hire a larger crew and more firmly delegate tasks which can help our shoot run more smoothly and efficiently. This will also result in a stronger, more focused finished product! 

                            

Above: Amy McDonald doubles as a cleaning woman in 'Help Wanted'. 

                           

                                                      

Jason Miller is a founding member of Lumerians -  Oakland's own mad cap, psychedelic trailblazers with a bevy of adoring fans all across the U.S. and Europe. I'm lucky enough to have had him on hand to score all of my film projects up to this point, and for The Ride he will be attempting something completely unlike the work he's done for either myself or Lumerians.

In 'The Ride', Al insists on playing Greg the same old Russian March from his tape deck over and over again. This will actually be an original piece of music by Jason Miller. 

To do this, we need to rent a space which will accommodate a small orchestra, as well as to pay these musicians so that Jason can create what we hope will sound like a spooky, lost Strauss march. 

     

The music video for The Lumerians song 'Life Without Skin', directed by me.  

                

                

Any contribution can help us reach our goal! It's a bit like voting, only we don't have an electoral college.  If everyone who visited this sight only had $5.00 to throw in, we could easily make our goal and be shooting by January!