The Tragic Self-Improvement of Ross Lawson
2009
"He changed his profile… and changed his life." Upon discovering that anything he types into his online social profile becomes reality, high school reject Ross Lawson begins to transform his life into the one he's always wanted… but with a price.
Genre: Drama, Sci-fi
Shooting Format: S16mm
Running Time: 18 minutes
Key Cast:
Michael Kaiser, Jessica McGoldrick, Miriam Korn, Cory Lewis Pearman, Sam Gipson
Key Crew:
Director: Jolie Hales
Writer: Chris Wiltz
Producer: Gretl Kruse
Cinematographer: Benjamin Kantor
Editor: Elizabeth Galbraith
Sound Designer: Bettina Zachariah
Production Designer: Ora Yashar
UPM/Line Producer: Dianne Ward
1st AD: Tom Flynn
Synopsis: For social reject Ross Lawson, the good life always seemed out of reach, so on the day he discovers that anything he types into his online i-Space profile actually turns into reality, Ross begins to transform himself in hopes of winning over Kelly, the most popular girl in high school. Willing to give up his good friends for this new popular lifestyle, Ross’ life is looking up... or so it would seem. But little by little, his choices begin to backfire, finally risking not only the new identity he thought he always wanted, but the old identity he always had.
Upcoming Screenings:
March, 2010, date & time tba - International Family Film Festival - Los Angeles, CA - iffilmfest.org
Awards:
Young Director's Award - Independents' Film Festival, 2009 - independentsfilmfest.com
Honorable Mention - LDS Film Festival, 2010 - ldsfilmfestival.org
Official Selection - International Family Film Festival, 2010 - iffilmfest.org
Official Selection - High Desert Shorts International Film Festival, 2009 - highdesertshortsiff.com
Official Selection - Muskegon Film Festival, 2009 - muskegonfilmfestival.com
Official Selection - East Carolina Film Festival, 2009 - eastcarolinafilmfestival.com
Official Selection - Hollywood Film Festival, 2009 - hollywoodawards.com
Official Selection - Rehoboth Beach Film Festival, 2009 - rehobothfilm.com/Festival.html
Stories from Set:
While Ross Lawson went as smoothly as film can go moving through production, never before have I seen all forces combined against a film in post as I did… do… with this one.
After countless months of waiting for vfx that were never delivered and finally deciding to have someone else start them over from scratch, the vfx shots were finally complete and rendering out when the hard drive crashed. When the backup drive was also not functioning for whatever reason, it was determined that the vfx had to be completely redone yet again, using the original footage. Unfortunately, when the original footage was pulled up on yet another drive, much of the individual files were somehow corrupted and unusable. So, we paid a hard drive recovery company, they recovered as much as possible, but coincidentally the same scenes that were unreadable in the original footage, were also destroyed on the recovered drive, and the original vfx artist had erased his HD archives a week prior. So… all we had then were the original rolls of film with no affordable way to rescan them, and a standard definition rough cut screener DVD, which we ended up having to rip a few scenes from in order to fill in the scenes we had lost completely. Then, working on the vfx once more, the new hard drive just decided to stop operating completely, and while some of that data was recovered, other vfx had to be recreated for the fourth time.
In summary, the day someone is able to watch this film is the day I start singing and never stop.
March, 2010, date & time tba - International Family Film Festival - Los Angeles, CA - iffilmfest.org
Awards:
Young Director's Award - Independents' Film Festival, 2009 - independentsfilmfest.com
Honorable Mention - LDS Film Festival, 2010 - ldsfilmfestival.org
Official Selection - International Family Film Festival, 2010 - iffilmfest.org
Official Selection - High Desert Shorts International Film Festival, 2009 - highdesertshortsiff.com
Official Selection - Muskegon Film Festival, 2009 - muskegonfilmfestival.com
Official Selection - East Carolina Film Festival, 2009 - eastcarolinafilmfestival.com
Official Selection - Hollywood Film Festival, 2009 - hollywoodawards.com
Official Selection - Rehoboth Beach Film Festival, 2009 - rehobothfilm.com/Festival.html
Stories from Set:
While Ross Lawson went as smoothly as film can go moving through production, never before have I seen all forces combined against a film in post as I did… do… with this one.
After countless months of waiting for vfx that were never delivered and finally deciding to have someone else start them over from scratch, the vfx shots were finally complete and rendering out when the hard drive crashed. When the backup drive was also not functioning for whatever reason, it was determined that the vfx had to be completely redone yet again, using the original footage. Unfortunately, when the original footage was pulled up on yet another drive, much of the individual files were somehow corrupted and unusable. So, we paid a hard drive recovery company, they recovered as much as possible, but coincidentally the same scenes that were unreadable in the original footage, were also destroyed on the recovered drive, and the original vfx artist had erased his HD archives a week prior. So… all we had then were the original rolls of film with no affordable way to rescan them, and a standard definition rough cut screener DVD, which we ended up having to rip a few scenes from in order to fill in the scenes we had lost completely. Then, working on the vfx once more, the new hard drive just decided to stop operating completely, and while some of that data was recovered, other vfx had to be recreated for the fourth time.
In summary, the day someone is able to watch this film is the day I start singing and never stop.