Victor

“Victor is my first proper short film, and Yeah Haus’ first live action production. We shot it over a couple summer days and did all of the post, FX, music, sound, & color over the following year. It’s hard to express how blissful and lucky I felt shooting this —I’m not totally sure why it was such a big deal, but life gets busy and somewhere along the line I hadn’t done anything in awhile for purely artistic purposes. In some ways my role in making the film paralleled the underlying themes of Victor. In my mind, Victor had a whole life before this day and finally chose to follow his instinctual need to create because it made him and others happy. I myself am prone to needing a really good reason to put so much energy into something.
Of course with most things that don’t have a clear reason, things become clearer throughout the process. I just had no idea it would be as gratifying to go thru each step with friends and family. From keeping the tradition of casting my brother Keith (as Mr Anrgy) in our absurd Thompson-Bros videos that date back to the mid-90s, to gathering new cohorts like funny-man PJ Jacokes (as Victor) and a bunch of talented friends from the past & present.
There are many stories – Don’t have a dolly? Well how about an electric golf cart with a makeshift pedestal on the back. The neighbor of the lakehouse we shot at offered his pontoon boat to shoot the tugboat scenes on. 30 friends just showed up on short notice for our dinner scene with their costumes already on. An old high school marching band friend dug into one of the back storage rooms of our high school to find some 1970s era band hats and uniforms. My wife, brother and I figured out how to make props out of styrofoam and wood. Our locations even – we found the lakehouse via Airbnb, and then the homeowner Tim (who was cast as the Gnome) mentioned he also owned a Home & Garden business, so we went over there and found so many great locations that jived with the script!
I could go on and on about these seemingly small serendipitous things that ended up meaning so much to us. I know it was a no-budget independent labor of love, but I was unprepared and humbled by just how generous every cast and crew member was with their time and effort that it kinda makes me think it was meant to be. I guess like Mr Angry, you can’t always see how many people love and support you until it’s right in front of you .”