We did it.

    It's done.

    The Roomies is wrapped.


"Seek, and ye shall find."

    The embarrassingly long and grueling quest to secure a church for our last scene finally found its happy ending at the First Unitarian Church of Portland. All of the difficulty of course came out of my complete ignorance as to how to go about the whole thing. I'll refrain from detailing my churchly misadventures so as to avoid offending the innocent and humiliating myself even further, but suffice it to say that Unitarians are just the chillest. If we'd only hit them up first the whole bit would've just been a happy little stroll across Pleasant Lane to Gumdrop Valley. The folks at First Unitarian couldn't've been more kind and helpful. Bonus, the place actually had the more traditional look I'd imagined when I wrote the scene (unlike most of the churches I scouted that all had that auditorium pep-rally thing going on).

    (It's important to note that the church that Matt is attending in the film is actually meant to be a non-denominational Christian church. All the different branches of Christianity confused and frightened poor Matt so he just picked a church without any words in its name that he'd need to look up. So that's how he decided to join the nearest of the city's eight Christ Community Churches.)

    (And no, you're right, that's probably not going to come across at all in the film. But you and I will know and we will keep the secret alive in our hearts.)

    Tangents into preemptive exposition aside, the shoot itself went pretty well. Tracy Conklin, our film's pastor, devised a remarkably inspired sermon based off a couple bible passages we discussed that tied into Matt's story. It even impressed a woman who worked with the church and was cool enough to come help fill the pews. Due to scheduling conflicts we had to set our shooting date only a few days in advance so we didn't have a lot of time to rustle up extras. Thankfully just enough folks were able to make it, every one of them was rad and the whole night was a great way to wrap the movie.

    I'm hugely grateful to everybody who took part in this film for all their hard work and time. All the cast and crew and everybody who helped the production along the way, everybody's been too awesome for words. And although we are still working out the details for the wrap party so we can all get together and celebrate in style, I think we deserve to celebrate a little right here and now.

    And if there's anything more celebratory than animated gifs, I don't care to hear about it.


Matt finds himself.

Milo vs. bubbles

This link leads to Mona Reels music.
Listen to it while watching this gif and voilà, it's like you're backstage at your very own personal Mona Reels concert.
    Wow, that was fun. Maybe I should just release the entire movie in animated gif form.

    Every scene, reduced to three or four frames in a jerky loop forever.

    What a great idea. I am sure it will be loved by all.


Oh baby.
    Anyway.

    Still a ways to go. Stay tuned...