Private Project

Toast

“Toast” is an exercise in shutting down the frontal lobe during the writing process in hopes of catching lighting in a bottle, both in the written word and corresponding imagery. A five minute waterfall of automatic cadence about how we, as humans, argue and negotiate with ourselves every morning over the simple task of getting out of bed...and what massive consequences that seemingly small decision has over our lives.

Featuring voice-over performance by Annie Award winner Ella Purnell (Amazon's "Fallout", Netflix's "Arcane", Showtime's "Yellowjackets") and animation by Emmy winner Jason Carpenter (He Named Me Malala).

Starring Elisha & Renee Herbert

Executive Produced by Indie Spirit Award Winner Liz Cardenas

This visual poem is inspired by the shared ethos of Jack Kerouac and Jackson Pollack, as an attempt to tap into an unbridled source of flow state creativity.

https://www.steakandrose.com

Finished in 4K resolution.

*Updated 5.1 Surround Sound Mix*

  • Douglas Young Riggs
    Director
    Burros (dir. Jefferson Stein), I Was There Too (dir. Joey Izzo)
  • Douglas Young Riggs
    Writer
  • Carlos Mason
    Producer
  • Liz Cardenas
    Producer
    A Ghost Story, Never Goin' Back, 7 Days
  • Elisha Herbert
    Key Cast
  • Renee Herbert
    Key Cast
  • Ella Purnell
    Key Cast
    Arcane, Yellowjackets
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Short
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 10 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 9, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    30,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Douglas Young Riggs

Hailing from San Francisco, producer Douglas Riggs attended the prestigious film school at Chapman University in Orange County. Over the last decade living and working in the heart of Hollywood, Douglas has produced nearly 100 stand-alone pieces of branded content (Major Lazer, Seventeen, Vogue), surpassing 1 billion views online, as well as nationally televised commercials (Brewers Association “Seek the Seal”, ServPro). He has won international awards in the interactive AR/VR space for client RedBull and delved into the fine-art world, producing globally recognized works of photographic art hand in hand with artists (David Yarrow Photography).

Burros premiered at Tribeca as the 9th narrative short film from Douglas (I Was There Too dir. Joey Izzo, Short of the Week), that tallied 11 festival wins catapulting it to qualification for the 95th Oscars. With three more short films due out later this year, including the narrative film debut of directing duo Cliqua, Douglas is developing multiple feature scripts for 2024.

Douglas currently sits at the lead Executive Producer of the visual effects house HYPHENATE located in downtown Los Angeles.
https://hyphenate.tv

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

As an independent commercial and advertising producer in Los Angeles, I have fostered personal and professional relationships with many skilled entrepreneurs in the media space. "Toast" was a way to galvanize my friends in all the different departments I regularly use for branded work toward a purely artistic goal. All my collaborators found it very refreshing to create something with stylistic latitude that was absent from the agency or client pecking order. It was my desire, that I imparted to my team, that we continued in the same essence as the inception of this idea: listen to the feeling, not the mind.

I believe in, and have been chasing, those clear moments of inspiration that surprise oneself. Upon waking one morning, a rush of words came to me and with luck my pen on paper was able to keep up. Rare moments where the brain is seemingly removed and then looking down, after my hand had stopped scribbling, knowing that whatever it was, was natural, unadulterated expression without second guessing or toil.

During this time, I was personally dealing with multi-pronged issues of hardship and loss, unable to rally my usual self to take on the day, and resigning myself to any excuse to remain under the covers. I believe that this poetic inspiration was the catalyst to reversing that trend during a trying time and gave me something meaningful to pursue.

Living with these words for months, I had a greater understanding of what I was attempting to tell myself. And with the evolution of my understanding, I would have flashes of images of how I could impart these words. Sometimes in front of my open refrigerator staring blankly into it, sometimes zoning out in my car at a traffic light.

For a short film that is merely more than 5 minutes, there has been an immense personal journey, that has incorporated so many colleagues that I have built a life with, to arrive at this final piece of work.

In seeking a way to define this effort creatively, I found the writings and biography of French poet André Breton who wrote the "Manifesto of Surrealism", which aligns with the process of "Toast":

‘Pure psychic automatism ... the dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason and outside all moral or aesthetic concerns’.

Breton and others produced the earliest examples of automatism in their automatic writings, aiming to write as rapidly as possible without intervening consciously to guide the hand.