“MAINLAND” – A few sweet pictures…

We all just got back into town from the MAINLAND shoot, late Saturday night (except for the local-hire Camden, Maine members of our awesome crew, of course).  And…I cant even begin to express how unbelievable and profoundly memorable my experience on this film has been.

I’m so thankful to be a part of this film.  It’s going to look so beautiful…even better than this original video (thank you Film & Weather gods!), but even more importantly, it’s rooted in such a well-written narrative that centers around one of the most well-rounded characters I’ve ever gotten to play on film.  I really lucked out, guys.

If you’ve seen my Facebook Fanpage anytime these past two weeks, I know you’ve seen just a few of the 14872478926751897 pictures taken throughout the shoot (and those are just the few that I or others took via my Instagram feed).  And now, as the all of these awesome pictures begin to pour in from my friends in the crew via Facebook, I just wanted to share a couple of those pics with you now.  So here!  Take a peak!

Click on one and scroll through them all!

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

©2013 Mark Edward Dawson

Found these still saran wrapped at a local general store. Just what Jake was looking for!

Aaaand that’s just a little bit of us after shooting was done for the day on one of the longer days. #SorryImNotSorry

“MAINLAND” – My new LEAD in a Super 16mm

Hey Guys!  So, last week I was heavy into two Columbia MFA films (PEEPING TOMMY, which I wrote about last time, and another film called STAY, that I became a part of while on the set of PEEPING TOMMY).  They were both amazing experiences.  They were each a really talented group of young filmmakers.  I really can’t wait to see the final cuts of each.  And I’ll definitely share each of them here, with you, if I can (or at least short clips from it). But now, I’m in something that is beyond one of the most exciting film acting jobs I’ve been a part of in years!!

I’m playing the lead role in a new film called MAINLAND, shooting right now, here in Camden, Maine.  And it’s being shot on Super 16mm (the same film used to capture this past year’s BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD and BLACK SWAN), which I personally find so, so cool!!!   The locations are awesome, the footage has been looking incredible, and the script is really something else.

I’ve actually been here since this past Sunday (January 20th), and we just wrapped on (another very long, yet insanely fun…and COLD…) Day 4 of filming.

I’ve already taken quite a few on-set pictures that I’ll share soon, but we also have two on-set photographers.  So someday, I’m so excited that I’ll also have access to SO MANY neat photos that will document this incredibly memorable experience.  Hellz yeah!

But anyway, instead of having me tell you a little about the film, let me just show you the MAINLAND teaser/featurette, where my director and production team will give you a little taste of what’s to come. I hope you guys enjoy it!!

CHRISTMAS, NEW YEAR, & FILM FILM FILM

Wow, for someone who knows and preaches so much about Social Media, the blogosphere, and its ability to be an awesome way to stay in touch with everyone, I sure sucked at taking action on that knowledge throughout the holiday season. Haha.

So much has happened since the last blog post. SO MUCH! So many awesome, cool events and opportunities that I’m so excited I got the chance to be a part of. So many auditions, callbacks, holiday celebrations, play readings, audition tapes, special screenings, and a little bit of time back home for Christmas and New Years…way too much to catch anyone up on within a single blog post.

I’ll start doing some “backlog blogging” as soon as I get the chance.

But for now, I just wanted to say “hello” from on the set of my latest film endeavor. I’m playing one of the leading roles as a funny, perhaps-too-curious kid named Tommy in one of Columbia University’s MFA winter film shorts, PEEPING TOMMY.

It’s a great little story, and there’s actually an entertaining little story on how I already knew the director from years ago, even though we both didn’t realize that we previously knew each other until after that first audition. (Thankfully, it was an audition that went really well. Haha.)

Anyway, I gotta go for now, but I have a lot of exciting, new things that I can’t wait to share with you soon! Thank you so much for following me along my journey, and I’ll catch ya again in a little bit.

~Bryan

BACKSTAGE MAGAZINE changes things up…

So as you guys may know, one of my other major passions besides acting would be graphic design.  I have my own company called FANBOY DESIGN where I couldn’t be more excited to work on marketing/branding consultation and promotional design for actors, singers, filmmakers, theater groups, and others within our entertainment industry (so check me out sometime!).

Whenever these two passions of mine overlap, I get very excited about it!

And just a few minutes ago, I stumbled upon the most recent development of this kind when checking through my email…

BACKSTAGE MAGAZINE….ring a bell to anyone?

One of our industry’s major, weekly publications – where actors of all ages can find advice columns, casting calls, and spotlight features on everything from “Moving to the Big Apple” to “A Career in Voice-Overs” to everything having to do with “Getting Your Headshots” taken…

As of today, BACKSTAGE MAGAZINE  (Note: online only, so far – as evident on their website & “Espresso” e-mail newsletter – and not yet within their print edition) is now among the list of recent editorial publications to undertake an overhaul of their old…

1.)  Logo Design

2.)  Layout Design

Which looked like this…

…for their new logo & layout design, which looks like this.

 

TWO NOTABLE CHANGES:

1.)  The Logotype font.  In the past many years, we’ve seen a common trend in logo redesign to take the “all-caps” logotype and make it all lowercase lettering. The font is also changed to a sans-serif font – adding soft curves to it’s “aesthetic”. Many of these companies are departing from the days where capitalized, serif lettering was HOT, in favor of the more streamlined, casual, modern look of sans-serif popularity.

It’s not always in this order, of course.  Another one of our own industry-related publications, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (which I once wrote about before), did the opposite of this.  Their original logo of the early 1990s contained all lowercase lettering and has long since, capitalized the “E”.

And not all companies that do switch are met with open arms from the public.  Does anyone remember the backlash from the GAP and the JC Penny attempts at logo redesign?  Oh well.

2.)  Does anyone else notice the strange resemblance to the age-old MACY’S logo (and their branding aesthetic)??  The color red, the star, and the lowercase lettering??

Not that I’m complaining or anything. I like their new look…I think. I just think it’s funny how much they remind me of each other.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

 

Yesterday, I was finally getting a chance to take a break from packing and doing some last minute work preparing for my 2-week long SpringboardNYC trip and decided that I’d just kick back and catch up on some reading.  So…..naturally I choose a magazine over important literature.

But no worries!  It’s my FAVORITE magazine, so…I mean, it was important to me, you know?

And yes, that magazine would be Entertainment Weekly.

Getting to the point, however, I was reading through the past few issues yesterday and realized that….oh man, the covers?!  Yeah, the covers of the past few issues of EW have have managed to market themselves perfectly to the inner Fanboy, summer-blockbuster-lover that I am!

I mean, if you could put the content of all EW magazines of this past month and a half together, it’d pretty much be the Entertainment Weekly “Holy Crap!” edition.  Right?!?

Loving My Room Back Home in G-boro

I love my UNC home (and miss it more than ever now, after being an alum for a total of 5 days now), but nothing feels better than the early afternoon, low-lite glow that fills my room back home in Greensboro…designed for the perfect summertime, nap-raging experience. And yeah, it’s a little messy right now. So what?! I just moved back in from college until i move to NYC in the fall. So my stuff is EVERYWHERE……whatever. Stuff everywhere only encourages the idea of going and taking that nap. Hmmmmmm. Yeah, uh…..I think I heard my pillow just try to say something to me. I, uh,…I think I’m just gonna go see what it was trying to say….I’ll be back later.

Well that didn’t quite work…

Hey Guys!

Man, oh man….phew! I just got back to school (UNC Chapel Hill) after having an absolutely AMAZING spring break in Las Vegas.  The trip was mostly for work (working with the rAVe Now part of rAVe Publications as we went to cover the DSE – Digital Signage Expo – trade show during the week), but with a small group of us (6 of us, including Gary Kayye, the head of rAVe and also my teacher in the J-School), we got the chance to also have a lot of really great times when “off duty” (grabbing nice meals, seeing a Cirque show, enjoying the Strip, and the occasional casino floor throw down…..meaning I threw down my money and never saw it again. haha).

First night on the Strip, back on March 5th, after arriving on a plane a couple hours earlier. W/ Sara Abroms and Michael Moore.

Setting up our rAVe Pubs work station on the DSE 2012 trade show floor!

However, I’ll tell you a little more about that later on.

Back to the why I titled this post the way that I did.  Well….the reason’s quite simple.  Especially if you read my first (and only other) blog post on here so far.

I totally dropped the ball in keeping up with that super simple blogging goal I made back in June of last year.

And saying “dropped the ball” is being modest. Haha.  It became one of those things that I kept “meaning to get to” and kept “falling behind on.”  Therefore, I just never made the true, true effort to get back into it.  But today, I swear on all I have that that’s about to change.

For the rest of this final semester of mine here at UNC (at the very least), I am going to keep this blog active and make a habit of posting each week.  Sometimes I might have a lot to say.  Sometimes I might have only a picture, a caption for it, and a small comment on it.

But either way, I’m promising myself and all of you – who I hope will come to enjoy following this blog of mine – that I will be producing content.  Content that’s relevant.  Content that means something to me. Content that should hopefully be fun to follow. And will hopefully allow you to get to know me better, post by post.

Anyway, off to class!  It’s called The Branding of Me and it’s the one that’s tought by the dude I mentioned earlier, Gary Kayye (also head of rAVe Pubs)…Vegas trip? Remember?! Ah, yes, full circle…

…Awesome.