Jared:

This is the first movie we've done that found some degree of success, so of course it's not actually a Mongrel Pictures movie. This was a student production from my time at Palomar Community College and thanks to the awards we ended up winning it still plays from time-to-time on the Palomar station in random North County homes. Weirdest damn thing flipping through channels and suddenly seeing Quinn in a dress.

I wrote, edited and co-produced this movie and Quinn played nearly all the parts. A lot of details for the movie came from the video teacher Quinn and I had at Orange Glen High School, Mr. Rob Coppo. He'd been a script reader for a couple years at a major studio that should probably remain nameless. My favorite contribution of his was the frustration towards bad spelling and grammar.

Jay Rivett, Danielle Ruston, Donald Sinatra and Quinn did a good job pulling together all the locations and costumes the production required and getting it all shot on a tight schedule. I couldn't get out of work to be on the set for most of the shoot so when I got all the footage to edit at the end I was upset that some little details and coverage had been left out or done differently. I was fuming throughout the editing process, which I guess helped matters since it got done that night. I should get so upset all the time.

The movie won Best Comedy at San Diego BestFest and an Emmy for Outstanding Student Achievement. The whole group, pimped-out formal-style, attended the NATAS Pacific Southwest Emmy Night awards ceremony along with vaguely familiar local newscasters and bartenders who never bothered carding. Trust me, the more detail I leave out of the "our movie won an Emmy" story, the more impressive it sounds.

Quinn:

The Reader. Woo, where to begin? I was asked by Jared to come and audition for the lead role which I was happy about because it meant he thought I was good enough of an actor to pull it off. So I show up to the hooka lounge to meet the crew and audition against my former boss from Starbucks, which was an odd coincidence. The crew voted and liked me better so I landed my first official acting gig. I did a lot of preparing for this part and really gave it my all. I wasn't thrilled about doing the cross-dressing scenes but I could appreciate the comic value so I grinned and bared it. It was a lot of fun to play all the different roles; it was interesting to watch the dailies and see it coming together since I was always acting to another person in the shot. It was weird not having Jared there and I lent a helpful hand on the other side of the camera whenever I could but I tried my best to stay just an actor. I helped provide a lot of ideas and some locations (the father in the closet scene was shot in my dad's room) and I was looking forward to the final product. Being in the room with Jared while capturing the footage was kind of scary, he wasn't happy about a lot of it, but he managed to put it together nice enough to earn us a Regional Emmy award, which I have never even seen much less held. It was fun running into people who would say "Hey, I was flipping through the channels and I saw you on T.V. in a movie where you were all these people.". It was years before I caught it on T.V. myself and it was funny because I didn't even recognize it initially. When i realized what I was watching I called out for someone to come see but I was alone. Aww too bad. And by the way the coffee I'm drinking at the end is actually really cold coffee with Jaeger in it which was disgusting. Especially since I don't like coffee or Jaeger.