Filmmaking
Brian Sheridan has been making films since he was fourteen years old. What started out as a way to get out of writing papers in high school has since become a passion and a dream. Working first with a VHS home video camera and two VCR's hooked together, Brian learned quickly the importance of knowing your film before you edit to keep the edits clean.
His first film was an adaptation of chapter 16 of Ray Bradbury's book "The Martian Chronicles," entitled "The Silent Towns." Brian also starred in the film as a woman for the comedic value inherent in cross-dressing. When he wasn't on camera, Brian shot the film himself and got his stepfather (who's camera it was he borrowed to shoot with) stepped in to shoot. Needless to say, Brian scored an A on the project.
During his sophomore year in high school he shot another adaptation, this time of William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." Brian branched out in his storytelling capabilities with this film, telling it from the perspective of two insane-asylum inmates who read the story to each other, then wake up imagining that they are the characters. This was also Brian's first major editing work as he spliced in scenes from popular films during Caesar's murder to add more comedic effect. It ended up working better than he thought, and another film (and another A grade) was in the can.
Brian's junior year in high school was plagued by an unimaginative English teacher and he was unable to come up with any new work then, but wasted no time shooting an adaptation of Beowulf at the start of his senior year. Incorporating the largest cast he'd ever assembled (four), performing his first location management work (by convincing the Everett Mall management to let him shoot there after hours) , and doing his first real fight choreography, he wowed his class with the story of police detective B. O. Wolf and his hunt for a serial killer. While this was his most serious work to date, it still ended up being rather comedic due to poor acting (although he did get quite a bit of acclaim for his fight choreography). Also during his senior year Brian was able to shoot and edit a short for his video-tech class which gave Brian not only his first work solely as a director, but also his first exposure to soundtrack planning, and his first exposure to real editing with the Videonics linear editing system.
In college Brian honed his editing skills by working in the multimedia lab utilizing the same videonics equipment he learned in high school. His freshman year gave him many opportunities to learn the art of editing as he worked on over a dozen films for classmates, editing them all into A-earning projects. He learned more about soundtrack planning, and shot a few scenes for himself, hoping to make a spoof of Mission Impossible entitled "Whitman Impossible," but sadly, the project never got past those first few scenes. Brian continued to work in the video-editing lab for two and a half more years, forever advancing his skills and editing and applying soundtracks to countless films for classmates and for his own classes (Brian is proud to report that every work he edited and/or worked on in college has earned an A).
His sophomore year was a breakthrough for Brian when fellow student Randy Walker incorporated the first annual Whitman Film Festival/Contest into the school year. After seeing Randy's completed work, Brian got right on the ball and completed his first original short film "The FAT MAN and little boy" in three days. Brian wrote, shot, acted, choreographed, edited, and selected the soundtrack for his film which earned an honorable mention and the respect of his hero Randy when he, impressed with Brian's work, handed the festival over to Brian after graduation.
Hoping to top himself, Brian wrote and made the sequel to his last film, this time calling it "Mad Max's Revenge." It was a more in-depth story with far better fight choreography and another great soundtrack, but Brian's inexperience on the new computerized nonlinear editing system caused for several generational problems with the film and the final product was NOT something he was pleased with (although it did earn awards for best fight choreography, best soundtrack, best actress, and third place overall).
His senior year Brian decided to shoot with sound, something he'd avoided in the past with the first two FAT MAN films being silent. Still afraid of color and lighting (two things he knew nothing about in film) he still edited it all into black and white, but now he had to write a far more in-depth script (in truth it was the first script he wrote at all) and worry about sound. While it didn't turn out perfectly, it was the longest and best work of his to date, shot on Hi-8 and edited using the Avid Express system his school had recently purchased, the picture was crystal clear and the editing was a dream compared to the old days of linear editing on the videonics setup. Unfortunately the film won no awards, but it was nominated for several.
After college Brian finally got the money together to purchase his own camera, a Sony digital Hi-8 and took it with him everywhere he went. After familiarizing himself with the camera he was invited by two musician friends of his to attend their first professional concert performance and record the event for posterity. Shooting the entire weekend, Brian got hours of footage which he used to teach himself Apple's iMovie software and the end result was "Taking Kommand: The True Story of AT Kommand."
He landed his first professional gig by working with Jeffrey Townsend on the Public Service Announcement CD-ROM for the YWCA called "Take Back the Night." Brian worked as a PA on the project and was able to learn a lot from Jeffrey, who's guidance and advice over the next couple of years would serve Brian quite well in his future of filmmaking.
Since his return from Japan, Brian has stayed busy editing two music videos for Crystal Armentrout and cutting the trailer to Praey, the film he co-starred in, choreographed, scored locations for, and whenever he wasn't on camera was holding lights and/or microphones. Brian is currently working with carSINogenic candy productions and Tiffany Sinclair on various projects, and has completed several short scripts which they intend to develop and shoot, as well as an in-progress script tentatively titled "Shaolin Zombie" - their own homage and tribute to the revival of the classic grindhouse/camp-horror style.
Recently he also had the pleasure of working in several respects with Kevin Collins and One-Shot Productions on their latest feature entitled Take-Away Spirit, as a fight choreographer, production assistant, assistant sound technician, and all-around "man on the set." He also worked with the extremely talented Mike Conway and Midnight Sun Productions on their latest film Exile, starring in the lead role as well as doing set-construction, sound work, light work, and again being a miscellaneous "pair of hands" wherever he was needed on set. Also, during the summer of 2007 carSINogenic candy productions made a film for One-Shot Productions entitled Apocalypse of the Flesh Eaters, wherein Brian again wore several hats and filled several roles in the production aspect of the film by casting, scouting/negotiating for locations, and also assistant-directing and fight-directing on top of his monumental fight-choreography duties, coordinating a "30-zombies versus four still-human heroes" fight for the climax of the film.
Currently, Brian is working on writing a new script which he plans to shoot in the fall of 2008 which will be his full-on directing debut. While this won't be his first time behind the lens, it will be his first time at the helm of a feature-length film and while nervous, he's very much excited to see his vision come to life.