Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue

Over the course of the past year and a half, I’ve been doing everything I can to make my latest film, which I first wrote in September of 2015. I wanted my friend and collaborator Mike Wesolowski, who played the lead role in my thesis film You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory, to not only star in the film, but also to help me re-write and refine the piece. Together, we embarked upon the creation of my sixth film, Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue.

Last summer, after going through dozens of drafts with Mike – meeting together in all corners of New York City to get the script right – I launched an IndieGoGo campaign and officially announced pre-production on the film, with the intention of shooting in October 2016. You can view our promo video below.

As hard as I’ve tried to stay in the ‘short film’ arena these last few years, I’ve reached a point where the themes I want to explore no longer fit within the confines of a twenty-minute-or-less story. Thus, Harvey’s Last Night On The Avenue is my largest scale project to date. A five-part web-series, the story takes place over the course of one long night, as we follow a sensitive young man named Harvey, who joins a group of his friends on a bar crawl the night before he moves from New York back to his hometown in Texas. The picture follows him and this ever-growing group as they hop from bar-to-bar in Brooklyn.

Harvey, an obsessive and socially awkward person, ruminates over many of his minor social faux pas that he perceives as huge errors. As the night goes on, he accrues more and more faults in his mind, and becomes increasingly unable to connect with the people around him. He even keeps a tape recorder in his backpack, and frequently retreats to the bathroom to confess his ill-advised behavior into the recorder.

But Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue isn’t only about the outcast – it’s about the dynamic of the entire group. Each character has his or her own unique set of goals — we have fun watching the whims and aspirations of a large number of twenty-somethings out on the town, struggling to function in their own way.

Stylistically, this film has the feel of hang-out movies such as Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993) and Everybody Wants Some!! (2016) – films that are built around a large number of vivid supporting characters, rely on a small number of varied settings, and take place over a short span of time (in this case, one night). Despite these influences, Harvey’s Last Night on the Avenue is unique in that it’s a story told from the perspective of someone on the outside of the fun. As the film goes on, we fall further away from connecting with the charismatic supporting characters. And as Harvey becomes increasingly removed from the situation, we gain more and more insight into the psychological factors behind his behavior.

In many ways, this series is a continuation and expansion of the character from my thesis film - someone who feels so bad about every single action he takes, he can only survive by confessing to another person (that film concerns a young man who compulsively confesses every detail of his anti-social behavior to his mother).

I think Mike and I both responded to the intense morality of the character he played in my last film. Naturally, we wanted to return to this character and explore him beyond the confines of a twenty-minute short film – and in particular explore why this person feels the necessity to confess his behavior. Where did this compulsion come from? What psychological factors are present when someone can’t get through an evening with friends without obsessing over their sometimes harmless and sometimes inappropriate social errors? Whereas my thesis film took place largely in an apartment with Charlie and his mother, Mike and I thought we should put our new character out in the wild for the entirety of this project. Let it all take place in social settings, where this character feels deeply anxious and trapped – which is why we ended up with a bar-crawl script.

So there's this tension the whole movie - between wanting to be part of the fun, and needing to reckon with the part of ourselves that questions each and every decision on a deeply moral, micro level.

And we felt strongly that a web-series was the right format for this idea. Because the screenplay moves from bar to bar throughout the course of one night, we realized that the story breaks up very nicely into individual episodes. And we weren't familiar with a web series in which each episode returns to the same, long painful night again and again. We felt this could be a very unique way of telling this particular story, especially as our lead character continues to return in his mind to events from the same ongoing night.

Originally, my producer, cinematographer and I estimated that the film would cost close to $30,000.00. We were planning to shoot over a period of two weeks in October, with ten shooting days and two rest days. But even though the shoot was planned in a relatively inexpensive way, it was clear I couldn’t quite raise enough money to make it happen. The IndieGoGo campaign brought in over $5000.00, but I was trying to raise as much as $15,000.00. Much of the budget came from the sheer length of the shoot – renting camera gear, grip/electric equipment, and production vehicles adds up significantly over the course of two weeks. And that doesn’t include food, which, for a crew of more than ten people and a cast of fifteen, is a significant expense. And then there were the locations – seven of our ten shooting days were at bars.

Despite our limited budget, I wanted this series to feel energetic and alive, and pulse with the intensity of the lead character's emotions. What we lack in resources, we will make up for in pure energy – that was my motto. Even as an October shoot date seemed foolhardy, I soldiered on – thinking that somehow we would be able to do it.

Before long, it became clear that we would be better served and prepared by shooting in the spring, and so I made the decision to move our dates. This would allow us a little more time to find the proper locations and to plan the logistics of the shoot – and, ideally, find more money.

During the winter, Mike and I scaled back the script to fit a more modest budget, and we were ultimately thrilled with the result. Through tightening the script to a leaner thirty pages, we found a way to shoot the series in five days rather than ten. Suddenly, the shoot seemed viable – we could make the series in a more cost-effective way that fit our budget.

But there were further complications ahead. In January, I lost most of my original crew to other jobs and circumstances beyond their control, which was a major setback. Luckily, I had a cast who was dedicated to the script and wasn't going anywhere, and so there was still a team behind this thing pushing it forward, by any means necessary. Along with Mike, we had some of the finest young actors in New York City – including Justin Danforth, Matthew K. Davis, Connor Delves, Aubrey Elenz, Allison Frasca, Taylor Marie Frey, Michael Galligan, Justine Magnusson, Max Pava and Jamie Wolfe. Many of them came directly from the Atlantic School of Acting at NYU, where Mike studied alongside them.

Then, I received some wonderful news in January that helped us immensely - I was one of four recipients of the Richie Jackson Artist Fellowship, which includes a mentorship from the very successful producer Richie Jackson and a $5000.00 stipend, which went straight to this web series. You can view my bio for the Fellowship here, and read more about the fellowship here. Suddenly, the shoot didn’t seem so crazy. My mom, Gretchen Kyser, made a huge contribution to total up the funds needed. I wrote my contributors and let them know we were a full go for our spring shoot! (In case I haven’t said it before, I cannot thank the contributors to my IndieGoGo campaign enough. They helped make the series possible.)

As soon as I could, I found a new team – the extraordinary producer Alex Fofonoff (director of the feature film Blood and Thunder, in which I starred) had already been helping me scout locations during the summer, and his stepping in and taking charge of the project really saved us. Then, the immensely talented cinematographer Kevin Dynia joined the crew, along with assistant director Matthew James Reilly, sound mixer Nick Chirumbolo, and script supervisor Lain Kienzle.

In the months leading up to the shoot, I storyboarded the entire film and met with Kevin consistently to shot list the film. Alex and I locked down locations, insurance and all other logistical challenges – and I rehearsed with our large, magnificent cast (Mike now lives in Chicago, and so we did a large cast rehearsal without him before he arrived, and then individual, smaller rehearsals once he was in town).

In the end, we had a terrific shoot - four different bar locations (Beauty Bar, The Starlight, Phoenix and Syndicated), an extraordinary night of exteriors, and an on-set energy unlike any I've ever seen. We scheduled and planned the film the right way, and the work paid off - it was as smooth a shoot as you could hope for, especially considering the scale and ambition of the series.

I am so deeply honored and humbled by the hard work of our cast and crew members. We had two actors, Mike and Taylor Frey, fly in from Chicago and Los Angeles specifically for the shoot, and we called upon the talents of many local actors and filmmakers to help tell this story. We had two amazing actors who were part of the beloved Austin High theatre department, Aubrey Elenz and Zach Gamble, and renowned filmmakers running the set at a remarkable pace.

I feel confident in saying that this will be the strongest work I've made to date, and I owe so much of it to the extraordinary ensemble of actors in this piece. Every one of them added such vitality to this project, and I find myself cracking up and genuinely moved while watching the dailies.

Mike and I first started working together on this script well over a year ago, and almost exactly a year ago, we embarked upon casting the project. I can’t thank those who stuck with us from the beginning enough. It wasn't an easy road - from postponing our original shoot dates in October, to reassembling much of the team earlier this year - but I wouldn't have changed a thing about the way we pulled off the shoot in the end.

I will start working on editing the picture as soon as possible, and I feel confident, given the effort put into the film, that we will have a fantastic final product. Expect many more updates to come.

In addition to all of this news about Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, I also want to share some news about my previous film, Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding. Last year, this short film was named an Official Selection of the 2016 Black Cat Picture Show in Augusta, GA, and the 2016 Hudson Valley International Film Festival in upstate New York. The movie screened at both festivals in August, and Lucas Loredo won Best Supporting Actor in a Short Film at the Hudson Valley International Film Festival!

In June, the film will screen at NewFilmmakers New York at Anthology Film Archives, which is always an amazing place to screen a movie (I screened my film Jake the Cinephile there three years ago on probably the largest screen on which I’ve seen my work).

In addition, a clip from Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding screened on WJBP NewsChannel 6 in Augusta, Georgia, as part of the promotion for the Black Cat Picture Show. You can see the clip (featuring my co-star and dear friend Lucas and me) here at 0:34!

Blood and Thunder, By Sidney Lumet and Upcoming Festivals

I recently had the great honor of starring in my good friend Alex Fofonoff's first feature film, titled Blood and Thunder, which is soon to be released. The production wrapped in May after five months of shooting, and I cannot thank the fine people involved enough for such a great shoot and for giving me the acting experience of a lifetime. I am truly going to miss working on this movie.

I was lucky enough to view a close-to-finished cut of the film last month and again this week, and boy, has Alex made a great movie! I'm incredibly proud to appear in all ninety minutes of this crazy picture.

We had our last full day of shooting Blood and Thunder on May 12th, with two big locations: Melody Lanes, a great bowling alley in Brooklyn, and a Brooklyn concert venue, followed by a final day of pick-up shots on May 14th. Leading up to the shoot at Melody Lanes, I had many character research nights at the bowling alley, including many fascinating discussions with Peter, the bartender who acts in the film. He was a terrific scene partner.

We started shooting the picture on the weekend of Friday, December 5th, when the cast and crew drove down to Virginia and stayed two nights at our friend Daniel Hasse's incredible ranch. Interestingly enough, we shot both the very beginning and ending of the picture during those two days. My costars included the great Bristol Pomeroy (as my character's father), Megan Hasse (as my character's sister), and one of the Hasse family's horses.

The next weekend, on December 13th and 14th, we drove up to beautiful Beacon, New York and shot at a variety of great locations, including an antique shop, a candy store, the Beacon train station, an abandoned house, a restaurant and a scenic view by the Hudson River. It didn't hit me until I heard our assistant director say we were shooting Scene 46 that this was one big movie.

We picked back up in January for a very cold and tightly scheduled four-day shoot, where we filmed many exterior scenes in Gowanus and other sections of Brooklyn. This included a night-time murder scene in a scrap yard along the Gowanus Canal, a chilly alleyway scene that nearly froze my co-star Desi Domo and me to death, several scenes inside a Brooklyn motel room, scenes in Sunset Park, several bridges in Brooklyn and exterior shots in Harlem and Grand Central Station. It's the coldest I've been in some time (my character wears the same, not quite warm-enough costume for the entire movie), but these scenes look amazing on camera.

In February, we shot for three more days for a critical party sequence at two different Brooklyn apartments, as well as John F. Kennedy International Airport and several Brooklyn subway stations. The weather was still freezing, but again, it really gives a life to the locations and overall feeling of the picture. By the time we finally shot on a sunny day (in March, our fourteenth day of shooting) in Washington Square Park, I was surprised to get a massive sunburn from being out in the park all day.

We finished shooting in April and May with the aforementioned bowling alley sequences at Melody Lanes (which overall involved three shooting days), as well as one massive sixteen hour-day of shooting in which two critical apartment scenes (from very different points in the movie) were filmed. In total, we filmed for nearly three weeks over the course of several months, and refined performances in rehearsals along the way.

I was so fortunate to get this opportunity from Alex, who wrote a terrific script with me in mind for the leading role, and I felt free to take a lot of chances under his direction (along with the support of so many great actors, including Desi, Bristol, Peter, Megan, Kristin Parker, Pat Dwyer, Ben Kahre, Taylor Myers and more.) The crew, including cinematographer Oliver Anderson, producer Charles Malin, sound mixers Adam Boese and Nick Chirumbolo, assistant director Raven Jensen, production designer Danny Porter and many others, were a delight to work with, as well.

If this picture in any way helps jumpstart an acting career for me, I'd be overjoyed - but even if it doesn't, I'm thrilled I got the chance to show what I can do in terms of performance and carrying a feature film. I think the movie is a better representation of my skills than many other things I've helped make, and I'm very excited for people to see it.

My movie You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory will have its official festival premiere at the 9th Athens International Short Film Festival Psarokokalo in Athens, Greece as the only short film from the United States in the International Competition. I'm thrilled for my film to be among the International Competition in Psarokokalo.

Additionally, I recently heard that the movie is an Official Selection of The Hudson Valley International Film Festival in upstate New York, which runs from August 14th - 16th, and an Official Selection of the Black Cat Picture Show in Augusta, Georgia, which runs from August 21st - 23rd at Le Chat Noir.

The Psarokokalo screening will also be in August, and per their website, "for the 9th year, the International Short Film Festival Psarokokalo gathers the best short films from the most important international film festivals (Cannes, Sundance, Rotterdam, Clermont Ferrant and others) which make their debut in Greece." Well, we weren't at any of those festivals, but I'm overjoyed the movie is in such great company!

Here is a link to the Psarokokalo website, and the official list of the International Competition (as well as our film's page on their website - we screen in the Competition 5 section on August 8th), and here is a link to the Black Cat Picture Show's line-up of their Official Selections.

I won't be going to the screening in Greece, but I'll definitely be heading upstate for the Hudson Valley screening, if anyone wants information about the screening date/ time and tickets. The screening schedule can be found here.

In April, You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory screened at NYU's First Run Festival at 8:30 PM in Room 200, the largest theater at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Film Center. It was fantastic to see my film on such a large screen at Cantor, where so many films were shown during my years at NYU. We had a great turnout for the screening (including lead actor Mike Wesolowski, cinematographer Benjamin Dewey and sound designer Bobb Barito, among many others.)

Check out the page for You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory on the First Run Film Festival website here.

I wasn't able to talk about this project for some time, but now that it's out in the open, I'm thrilled to announce that the film on which I've been working as Associate Producer and Assistant Editor, By Sidney Lumet, premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival in May. Sidney Lumet was one of the greatest of all filmmakers, and I'm overjoyed to be a part of Nancy Buirski's wonderful documentary about him.

After its premiere at Cannes, By Sidney Lumet got its first rave review from The Hollywood Reporter. This was soon followed by a great review and an in-depth interview with Buirski by IndieWire.

With an illustrious crew including editor Anthony Ripoli, special advisor Martin Scorsese and executive producer Brett Ratner, I was deeply honored to have four credits on this great film (in addition to Associate Producer and Assistant Editor, I was also a Researcher and Bookkeeper.) After spending many months in the editing room, it continues to be a joy to work on this movie, and I never get tired of watching it. That's a testament to the fascinating interview footage of Mr. Lumet in the film, and the great archival clips from so many of his masterful films, including Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), Prince of the City (1981), Serpico (1973), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), The Verdict (1982), 12 Angry Men (1957), Long Day's Journey Into Night (1964) and Daniel (1983).

By Sidney Lumet most recently screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival this month, and I'm sure as we continue working on the film, I will have much more to report in the coming months. This is a very special picture.

In April, I had the honor of directing a video for the Dallas Spiders Club sketch comedy group, titled Broken Glass. Look for it online soon! The video stars my good friend Mike Wesolowski (who starred in You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory), along with Taylor Frey, Justin Danforth and Shelby Leshine, who are some of the funniest and most talented people I know.

So many of my favorite filmmakers are releasing, or have already released, new movies in cinemas this year. Any time Cameron Crowe puts out a new film, it's a cause for celebration. If you feel at home during his movies (as I do), you'll love his latest one, Aloha, which stars Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Bill Murray, Rachel McAdams and Alec Baldwin. I wish more people had seen this wonderful film, which is full of more heart than most other pictures this year. Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry wrote an excellent article about Aloha and the unwarranted criticism of Crowe's recent films, in which he correctly wrote, "I suppose it’s indicative of our rotten, cynical culture, in which the greatest appreciation of things is purely ironic, that Aloha is apparently doomed to play to empty theaters while Vin Diesel movies about flying cars not only make money but also earn the respect and admiration of people who purport to care about cinema."

Critics and audiences did themselves a disservice by shunning this movie, but I'm happy to champion the picture and its wonderful soundtrack (one of many wonderful music moments in Aloha comes courtesy of Fleetwood Mac's I Know I'm Not Wrong.) You can watch my full video review of Aloha in my previous blog post, along with video reviews of Love & Mercy, Inside Out and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Early this year, two of my favorite directors - Clint Eastwood and Michael Mann - both released great films, one of which was widely seen, while the other didn't get the audience it deserved. Mann's Blackhat is another work of art from the master filmmaker, with shootouts as thrilling as those in Heat (1995) and Public Enemies (2009). It was the first official great film of 2015. Eastwood's American Sniper was deservedly a huge hit (it was technically a 2014 release, and just barely missed my top ten list of the year), and the legendary director's best film since Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). Bradley Cooper is astonishing in the movie, and it's doubly impressive considering Eastwood also gave us Jersey Boys last year. American Sniper is a complex picture that was over-simplified by some critics who were mystified by its success. As The Dissolve beautifully wrote, "It's been heartening to follow the quieter, more rigorous conversation about [American Sniper] among those whose job it is to treat it as a film, not a political talking point. Films mean something, and they deserve better than snap judgments and pre-determined, agenda-serving conclusions."

Manglehorn is a beautiful end to David Gordon Green's Texas trilogy, with an incredible performance from Al Pacino. Green's recent films - Manglehorn, Joe (2014) and Prince Avalanche (2013) - have more personality and rich local flavor to them than anything else out there.

Of the upcoming releases from directors whose work I love, I am most excited for David O. Russell's Joy, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Isabella Rosselini and Diane Ladd, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy in Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant. I will also be first in line for Woody Allen's Irrational Man, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, coming out this summer, and Steven Spielberg's Bridges of Spies, starring Tom Hanks and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, coming out in the fall.

Meanwhile, as Noah Baumbach's While We're Young remains one of my favorite movies of the year so far (and possibly my favorite Baumbach film), he already has another film, Mistress America, coming out in August. Two Baumbach movies in the same year means he's likely taking up two of the spots on my end-of-year top ten list.

I could not be more excited for these films - I mean, who cares about the next superhero trailer when you get releases like these from our greatest directors?

Meanwhile, there's The Program, from director Stephen Frears, starring Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong, and Dustin Hoffman. And De Niro, my hero, is also starring in the new comedy from Nancy Meyers, The Intern.

On Saturday, June 27th, I had a nice conversation with Patrick Brice, director of the new film The Overnight, before he introduced a screening of the film at Austin's Regal Arbor Cinema (where I spend most of my time when visiting Austin, along with the Alamo Drafthouse.) It's a very funny film and worth seeing.

I'll write more about many other good films I've seen this year in my next post.

Earlier in July, my dear friend Lucas Loredo and I ventured to see my favorite movie of all time, Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, on the big screen at Film Forum for its 25th Anniversary in a new restoration. The movie has never looked so glorious - every time I see it, I am astounded by its power and its ability to thrill me.

There have been a number of good articles written on the film for its anniversary, including Richard Brody's article Scorsese's Achievement with Goodfellas from The New Yorker, Filmmaker Magazine's Of Tarantino and TV: The Legacy of Goodfellas, along with a Goodfellas supercut from IndieWire and 24 (or 25) Things You Didn't Know about Goodfellas.

Over the past six months, we've lost a number of wonderful and influential people in the film industry. The great film critic Richard Corliss passed away - Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and many others had wonderful things to say about Corliss, and one of his final pieces was a terrific tribute to Robert Redford for Film Society of Lincoln Center. Here are 25 Great Movie Reviews by Richard Corliss worth reading.

Albert Maysles, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, died earlier this year, as well. His film Gimme Shelter is one of the finest documentaries ever made, and I had the honor of seeing him at a post-screening reception for Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq last year.

We also lost two of the greatest producers of all time, Robert Chartoff (Raging Bull, The Right Stuff, Point Blank, Rocky) and Jerry Weintraub (Nashville, Cruising, Ocean's Eleven); The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, whose name appears every time I'm about to watch twenty-two minutes of joyous fun; the filmmaker Francesco Rosi; actor Edward Herrmann (so good in The Aviator, Intolerable Cruelty, The Purple Rose of Cairo and Overboard); David Carr, an amazing journalist and the hero of Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011); legendary actor Christopher Lee; Errol Brown, lead singer of Hot Chocolate (whose music Noah Baumbach uses so winningly in Frances Ha and in the trailer for Mistress America); and actor and playwright Ira Lewis.

Before I take off, here's a link to my Intermediate Narrative film The Wheels, which is now available to watch for free on Vimeo. It was awarded the Best Student Film prize at the 2012 Metropolitan Film Festival of New York, and was an Official Selection of The 2012 Coney Island Film Festival.

The Wheels - A Film By Jack Kyser from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding - and More Adventures from 2014

In August, my friend Lucas Loredo and I went into production on a new short film we wrote together titled Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding. We worked on the screenplay together for several months before embarking on our summer shoot, and the film, which is now in post-production, stars Lucas and me playing versions of ourselves. In June, we launched an IndieGoGo campaign for the film -  check out our promo video below to find out more about the movie.

Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding - The Promo Video from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

The movie concerns two young men who travel to the Midwest to attend their high school friend’s wedding. Confined in a hotel room together, they’re consumed by their own insecurities, as one of them tries to write the perfect wedding speech while the other grapples with his romantic devastation. As the wedding approaches, the question arises: can they get to a place where they understand each other?

The screenplay comes from a very real place for both of us, and we believe it will resonate with anyone who has trembled a bit when their high school friends have started getting married. Though it's specific to our anxieties and fears (both as characters and as people), I think the final movie will hit home for those who have been in this situation (as well as those who currently find themselves attending a good number of weddings).

Lucas and I have been hoping to collaborate on a creative project for many years. At Austin High School, we performed together in six plays, including Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Round and Round the Garden, and …And the Rain Came to Mayfield. Although we experimented with a few awful short movies in high school, this was our first collaboration on a real short.

We were thrilled to work with a very experienced, professional crew of close friends, including Benjamin Dewey, who has collaborated with me as cinematographer on all of my past short films. Dear friends and amazingly talented filmmakers Ani Tomasic, Mike Cheslik, Eliza McNitt, Adam Boese, Spencer Jezewski, Paige Wollensak, Jared Rosenthal and Christian Carvajal made up the fantastic crew on the film.

We shot for three days – Friday, August 15th, Saturday, August 16th and Sunday August 17th – with a miraculous crew and a tremendous amount of help from Marabigo Creative Studio. This was my first time directing since my senior thesis film You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory, and the first time since Jake the Cinephile that I directed and acted in the same picture. As always, the key was meeting often with Ben and storyboarding and shot-listing the film very carefully. We specifically looked at the films of Alexander Payne for inspiration for Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding. My decision to shoot the film in black-and-white was largely inspired by Payne’s Nebraska and Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha, both of which seemed to use black-and-white as a way of exploring the landscape of the human face. They’re both comedies, in a sense, and yet the absence of color gives the films an inherent sadness and mournful quality to them.

By draining all color away from the face, I felt we were left only with our very basic features and expressions, without any color to distract us from the emotion at the core of each character. Ben and I also looked at Payne’s Sideways (2004) and The Descendants (2011), Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002), and of course, a little bit of Scorsese, with The Departed (2006), The Color of Money (1986) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) informing our camera movement and editing style.

Though the scale of this project was smaller than the last picture, I think our coverage of scenes keeps getting better and better with each new film. For this picture, we had the limitation of only shooting inside one room, and I’m enormously proud that the movie, in my estimation, does not feel boxed-in or constrained. If nothing else, I think we were as creative as possible with using the space in an inventive way, both in camera placement and movement and especially blocking, which becomes essential in a movie like this. There was an emphasis placed on two-shots and movement within the frame, rather than necessarily always moving the camera.

Lucas and I were diligent about rehearsing these scenes constantly and refining the dialogue as we went along. Working together with Lucas, who was my scene partner in so many plays in high school, was a joy. The collaboration was every bit as fruitful as I’d hoped, with both of us feeling free to give each other honest feedback about our scenes.

We started location scouting as early as May, looking for a hotel room in New Jersey (before ultimately finding the perfect location in the heart of Manhattan, of all places).

The IndieGoGo campaign was a terrific success – we raised $3000.00 (exceeding our $2500.00 goal), and so much of the financing came from supporters of Lucas’s and my work at Austin High School. We reached our goal from a group of such diverse friends and family coming together to make it all possible.

Earlier this month, we released the first trailer for the film, featuring great cinematography and titles by Benjamin Dewey and a fantastic sound design by Bobb Barito. Thank you to our wonderful friends at Marabigo and the crew for helping spread the word about the trailer, which you can watch below.

Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding Trailer from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

In August, just before the film shoot, I celebrated my 24th birthday by gathering friends together at my apartment and viewing the greatest motion picture of all time, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990). I didn’t realize until recently that I share a birthday with Goodfellas cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, who also shot Scorsese’s The Departed, Gangs of New York (2002), The Age of Innocence (1993), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Color of Money and After Hours (1985).

Lucas and I joke in our promo video that Jack and Lucas Go To A Wedding is based on the wedding of our friend (and fellow Austin High School theatre collaborator) Austin Kingsbery. I don’t believe I’ve written yet about Austin’s wonderful wedding, which Lucas and I attended in August of last year with our fellow high school compadre Cora Walters.

We flew to Milwaukee, Wisconsin – where Austin and his lovely wife, Grace, live – and the three of us stayed in a hotel room together during the wedding. The structure of the movie is undoubtedly based on our trip to Milwaukee, though the events in the movie are not based on anything that actually happened. More than anything, I think the movie represents how Lucas and I feel about certain things, and perhaps certain emotions that were stirred up by seeing a close friend from high school get married. But the wedding, for the most part, simply provides a backdrop for a story about two guys who can’t really get their lives together.

In August, I learned from my friend Alexander Fofonoff that he wanted me to star in his first feature film, titled Blood and Thunder. In fact, he said he wrote the lead role specifically for me – and I could not have asked for a better acting opportunity than this. Without describing too much about the project, I’m playing a character I feel I was born to play.

Alex and I have been rehearsing often in the months since. He has revised the script again and again, and each time we go through it, I am struck even more by what a special project he has here. It’s the first feature film made by one of my close friends, and I know Alex has the vision to knock this out of the park. We’ve already spent several days going to thrift stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn picking out my character’s wardrobe.

In early November, we had an amazing morning of callbacks at the Players Theatre in the West Village for the other major characters in the movie. I read with some extraordinary actors, and the final cast is an amazing group of people – I am so excited to be a part. Our first shooting weekend is on December 5th in Virginia, and then the following weekend we will shoot in Beacon, New York. The remainder and bulk of the shoot will be in January and February.

Needless to say, this is my first leading role in a feature film, and the first time in a long while that I’ve had a role of this size (at least where I’m not directing myself). I am overwhelmingly excited for this opportunity to play my own version of Travis Bickle. In preparation for the role, Alex has had me watch John Boorman's Point Blank (1967) and Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) and Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).

Although it won’t be long until I post my top ten films of the year, I want to give a brief rundown of some of the extraordinary films released in the past month.

Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, is a masterpiece. Lucas and I saw the film on opening night at the AMC Lincoln Square, and it may very well be my favorite movie of the year. Here are the spectacular first and second trailers. Also of interest is a great Rolling Stone interview with Alejandro Gonzalez Inárritu, as well as pictures from the Birdman set by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezski.

On Halloween weekend, my friend Anne and I experienced a bit of the New York City Halloween parade (which I had not really seen firsthand before) and then saw Birdman at midnight at the Angelika. The next evening, my friend Mike and I caught Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D at the IFC Center (which has a very inventive use of 3D) and later a deliriously odd movie called Bone on TCM. I also finally saw The Book of Mormon on Broadway earlier this fall, which was as hilarious and excellent as expected.

On Friday, September 26th, I was lucky enough to nab a last-minute ticket to the World Premiere of David Fincher’s new American masterpiece Gone Girl at the New York Film Festival. I haven't seen a movie that plays so well on our fears of the media ripping us to shreds. It's a horrifying movie, and Fincher scorches us again. Here’s a great article on Fincher that really gets at the brilliance of Zodiac, one of my favorite films and Fincher’s best movie, in my opinion (though The Social Network and Gone Girl are both close), as well as an excellent video essay about Fincher’s framing and camera movement.

On Sunday, September 28th, I saw Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s incredible new documentary The 50 Year Argument, which aired on HBO the following evening, at the New York Film Festival. The film is a fascinating, urgent documentary about the fifty-year history of the New York Review of Books. After the screening, Scorsese, Tedeschi, New York Review of Books editor Bob Silvers, publisher Rea Hederman and producer Margaret Bodde participated in a Q&A, which you can view here.

On Saturday, October 11th, I saw Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher at Alice Tully Hall at the New York Film Festival. As Channing Tatum said in the Q&A after the picture, this film is a masterpiece. Miller, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller and Anthony Michael Hall were there in person to introduce the film, with Tatum joining them for the Q&A afterward.

Carell, Ruffalo and Tatum give the most extraordinary performances of the year in this movie. I’ve seen this movie twice since, and it’s an astonishing piece of work. You can see the trailer here.

On Sunday, October 12th, I saw an early screening of one of my most-anticipated films of the year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, at the New York Film Festival. One thing is for sure – there’s no single viewing of Inherent Vice. This is one, like The Master (2012), where you go back and discover more. I’m thrilled there are still movies that will demand that of you. Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin and Martin Short are genius in this film, and it’s not like any film you’ve seen. Check out the wonderfully insane trailer here (easily one of the best trailers in some time, followed by a groovy second one), as well as the New York Film Festival trailer that featured the first footage from the movie. The New York Times also wrote a great article on Inherent Vice and Paul Thomas Anderson in September.



Still, there’s been a lack of awards buzz for several excellent movies released this fall, including Michael Cuesta’s Kill the Messenger, featuring a great performance from Jeremy Renner. Then there’s David Dobkin’s The Judge, which admirably emulates adult dramas of the 1980s (read this great piece from The New York Times on Robert Duvall, who is unsurprisingly magnificent in The Judge). Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight is another great Allen film, with Colin Firth and Emma Stone as lovable as they've ever been.

Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler is fantastic. Jake Gyllenhaal deserves a Best Actor nomination for his performance in this one (particularly after being overlooked for Prisoners last year). His recent work – from this year’s Enemy to 2012’s End of Watch – has been amazing. I love, among so many other things, that we only see the crime scenes in Nightcrawler through the lens of Gyllenhaal's camera. It removes him completely from the wreckage and desensitizes us to what we're seeing.

Earlier this month, I saw Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious and emotionally resonant movie, Interstellar, in 35mm film. We should consider ourselves lucky to get a movie as ambitious, exhilarating and huge as Interstellar these days. The surprise performance from one of the best working actors in Interstellar is one of so many things to love about the film. Nolan must receive a Best Director nomination for this film. It's not impossible - it's necessary.


Here’s an in-depth article about Nolan and Interstellar (with Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson talking about the film), along with an article that nicely discusses the internet's obsession with 'taking down' a movie by people who I can only assume don't really like movies. Seriously, when people use the word "flawed" to describe a movie, I think they must mean it goes for broke and it's a truly interesting piece of work. Interstellar is one of the best movies of the year, and not coincidentally, one of the most ambitious ones.

Earlier this summer, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, the best actor of his generation, gave one of his greatest performances in Anton Corbjin’s A Most Wanted Man, one of the best movies of the year. Like Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Capote (2005), A Most Wanted Man illustrates that he should have as many lead roles as he does amazing supporting parts. Here’s master novelist John le Carré on Hoffman's genius performance in A Most Wanted Man. Hoffman also just gave another great turn in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part One, which, along with Part Two, will stand as his final performance.

Ira Sachs's Love is Strange is one of the best and most powerful movies of the year (if you've seen it, read this). Lenny Abrahamson's Frank is an unexpectedly moving film, with an amazing performance from Michael Fassbender. And John Michael McDonagh's Calvary might be the best movie made by a McDonagh brother yet - it's certainly every bit as masterful as In Bruges (2008).

As the year comes to a close, it’s exciting to already hear about upcoming projects coming together that will undoubtedly represent some of the best films in the coming years.

According to the internet, at least, Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is still happening - with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Bobby Cannavale all on board. Matt Damon is set to star in Alexander Payne's new film Downsizing, as well as Kenneth Lonergan’s new film Manchester-by-the-Sea. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is set to star in Oliver Stone's next film about Edward Snowden. Megan Ellison continues to save the day, making the new films from David O. Russell, Richard Linklater and Todd Solondz possible. 
And in December and January, we can expect new films from two of my favorite filmmakers, the masterful Clint Eastwood (with American Sniper) and Michael Mann (with Blackhat), who hasn't directed a film in five years.


134 documentary features were submitted for this year's Oscar Race, including Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq, the great film on which I worked as a production assistant and researcher.

Even though November has not yet ended, awards season is already in full swing. 
Boyhood and Birdman, in my mind the two best movies of the year, led the Gotham Award nominations as well as the Indie Spirit Award nominations (along with Nightcrawler and Selma). Upon seeing Boyhood for a second time earlier this fall, I felt even more certain the film will win Best Picture. Three songs from Boyhood have already entered the Oscar race.

Last month, I screened my film You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory for Professor Laszlo Santha’s Advanced Production class on Halloween. It is always an honor to screen in Laszlo’s classes – I screened The Wheels in his Sight and Sound: Film class earlier this summer and With Love, Marty for his class last fall, and Laszlo welcomes and engages his guests with such good questions that make you feel like a real filmmaker. He has always been so supportive of all of my work (not to mention helpful with his great notes on my first feature screenplay), and I cannot thank him enough.

A very belated happy birthday to the world's best mom, Gretchen Kyser, and my great father, John Kyser, who would have turned 61 this August. It's been twelve years since he passed away, and recently I've been transferring footage of our family trips from old High 8 videotapes to digital files. Here's a video from 1996 in which my dad and I give a tour of Kennebunkport, Maine.

John and Jack in Maine - 1996 from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

As 2014 comes to a close, I am astonished by the number of my heroes who have passed away this year. I still haven’t fully processed that Robin Williams is no longer alive. I don’t think there’s anyone my age whose childhood wasn’t deeply affected by his work, from his Genie in Aladdin (1992) to the title character in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).

For my sixth birthday party, my parents rented out an Austin movie theater for the release of Jack (1996). In the following years, I’d also see Father’s Day (1997), Flubber (1997), Patch Adams (1998) and Bicentennial Man (1999), among others, in cinemas with my parents.

Discovering his dramatic work when I was a bit older – particularly in Good Will Hunting (1997), Good Morning Vietnam (1987), The Fisher King (1991) and Awakenings (1990) – made me love him even more. I remember watching the 1998 Oscars live and being overjoyed that he won an Academy Award (it would be a few more years before I would see Good Will Hunting, of course). In 2002, the formidable year during which I saw nearly everything released in cinemas, Williams gave two terrifyingly complex performances as darker characters in Insomnia and One Hour Photo (not to mention Death to Smoochy, which I did not like at the time it was released, but can't help wondering if I would love now). His work was mesmerizing.

I had the opportunity to see Williams twice in person - first, at the 2010 Tisch Gala, where he brought the house down (as per usual) while honoring Billy Crystal, and secondly, at a performance of the brilliant 2011 Broadway play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, where he excelled in his performance as the tiger. After that performance, the Dean's Scholars were treated to a brief talk with Mr. Williams. His  enormous warmth and genuine kindness were evident even in the brief time we were able to spend with him.

On November 19th, we lost one of the greatest directors of all time, Mike Nichols. Who else could make two of the greatest films, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Graduate (1967), as their first two movies?

It’s hard to describe the effect The Graduate had on me when I first saw it. I was eleven years old, and it was one of those movies, like The Godfather (which I first viewed around the same time) that created such a lasting impact and a feeling within me. With that haunting soundtrack and unmistakable atmosphere, it opened up another world for me. It was such an instrumental and affecting movie that it didn’t even occur to me until years later to list it as one of my favorites movies, when of course it was – it resonated with me deeply and made me feel and understand, at least emotionally, a certain kind of sadness at a very young age.

It wouldn’t be until high school and college that I became infatuated with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, both the play and especially the film, and Angels in America (2003) and Closer (2004). All three films remain among the greatest film adaptations of plays.

I was honored to see two of Mr. Nichols's plays on Broadway, Death of a Salesman (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman) and last year's Betrayal, starring Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz. His Death of a Salesman is unquestionably the best piece of live theatre I’ve ever seen, and to this day haunts me as much as any of his films.

We watched and discussed both Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate quite a bit in Yemane Demissie’s Advanced Production class my senior year of college. In high school, my junior year English and film teacher Michael Blankenburg screened and discussed both films, as well.

His Working Girl (1989) and The Birdcage (1996) were also films I saw and loved at a young age. These films are representative of a kind of director that really doesn’t exist anymore - the kind of director whose films defined my childhood, whose films seemed to me wonderful, sophisticated adult pictures that I wanted to understand.

Nichols was the kind of immaculate craftsman who made studio films with real budgets aimed at adults, and they weren't made only with the intention of winning Oscars. The attitude now, even with great adult films, is to go big or go home, as if audiences won’t come if the film is modest in scale or not one of the pre-ordained "prestige" movies. This division between “art-house” and “commercial” movies has killed a sense of wonder at the movies, and each year I long for a more diverse slate of films. When something like The Judge comes along, all anyone can talk about is how "earnest" or "over-stuffed" it feels, without acknowledging that the film is trying to bring back a kind of movie that's practically extinct nowadays. That's far more than most other films attempt. I enjoy many of the Marvel movies, but I could get along just fine without any of them if it meant getting more films from directors like Nichols.

We have our dark auteurs and beloved indie filmmakers, but where are our Lawrence Kasdans, Sydney Pollacks, Sidney Lumets and Philip Kaufmans? Nichols’s death is a reminder that the world of movies I was born into and continue to cherish is seemingly coming to a close. In the last year, two of Nichols's best collaborators – Mr. Williams, who is so brilliant in The Birdcage, and Mr. Hoffman, astounding in both Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) and Death of a Salesman - have passed on. It was only a year ago I saw Mr. Nichols outside of Tisch, and thought about how extraordinary it would be to work with the great man one day.


There are so many other wonderful talents who have departed the past few months, including another great filmmaker and actor, Richard Attenborough. It is terribly sad to lose Joan Rivers. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work was one of the best documentaries of 2010, and a wonderful tribute to her talent. The wonderful actor James Garner, the amazing editor Tom Rolf (Taxi Driver, New York, New York, The Right Stuff, Heat) and songwriter Bob Crewe are among the many others.

In late August, I filmed a slightly bizarre video for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. It was a bit late in the game for the challenge, and I'm fairly certain the three people I nominated - Lucas, Bobb and my good friend Bolton Eckert - did not complete the challenge, but that's okay.

‪ The Ice Bucket Challenge from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

This fall, I've also had the great pleasure of seeing Roberto Rossellini's Rome: Open City (1945), introduced by Isabella Rossellini, as well as Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1956), at Film Forum - both magnificent films. I also saw one of the greatest movies ever made, The Blues Brothers (1980), for the first time in a cinema at Lincoln Center. The Blues Brothers was my favorite movie for a long, long time, before I found out about Die Hard (1988).

Martin Scorsese is planning a television series based on his film Shutter Island. Here's Scorsese on the great news of Kodak keeping film alive, as well as his wise, fascinating thirty-two minute commencement speech at Tisch Salute this year. The world's greatest film editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, was honored at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year, receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. As Variety notes, it's the first time the Golden Lion has been awarded to an editor.

Two new films starring Al Pacino premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, one from Barry Levinson and the other from David Gordon Green. I haven't seen either yet, but I absolutely cannot wait. Read this article from The New Yorker, titled Al Pacino's Driving Force, by John Lahr, and watch this excellent video accompaniment to the article.

In other random news, I still can't get over that President Obama used a line from The Departed to express his frustration with the Republican Party. Matthew McConaughey performed his chant from The Wolf of Wall Street to the Texas Longhorns football team earlier this fall. And as usual, Fran Lebowitz is correct about everything - particularly about movie theater etiquette.

For now, I'll leave you with a short movie for a rainy day, made earlier this year as a short exercise for the great professor Yemane Demissie, who continues to encourage our Advanced Production class to make movies.

Another Saturday Night from Jack Kyser on Vimeo.

And remember, if you go to the movies this holiday season… Shhhhh! Or else fear the wrath of Jake the Cinephile (although, as critic James Berardinelli laments here, you're more likely to incur the wrath of entitled loudmouths who assume they own the cinema, should you dare to ask someone to be quiet during the movie). Let's make the holiday season a pleasant by shutting up, or else just not going to movies.