Santa-Size Me Trailer

Here is Turnstyle Films' entry in the Doug Benson Santa-Size Me Trailer contest. The prompt was: "While examining the influence of the Christmas Cookie industry, Morgan Spurlock personally explores the consequences on his health of a diet of solely milk and 7,000,000,000 Christmas cookies for one magical night". I think we executed with flying colors. Fingers crossed. If we win we get to be guests on Doug Benson's podcast Doug Loves Movies.



CAST:
Morgan Spurlock: Billy Palmer
Doctor: Kevin Tasker
Mrs. Spurlock: Jamie Overstreet

CREW:
Jon Nix: Director/Editor
Ralph Miller: Assistant Director/Camera Operator
Yoshi Andrego: Director of Photography
Jamie Overstreet: Producer
Anthony Snitzer: Camera Operator
Kayla Muller: Camera Operator
Brad Burke: Camera Operator

Original Score by Jim Curtis & Billy Palmer

www.SantaSizeMe.com

-Jon Nix

Through the Turnstyle - Wilderness of Manitoba

Here it is! The first installment of Through the Turnstyle. An ongoing series of interviews and exclusive live performances by every band we can get. The Wilderness of Manitoba were nice enough to take the dive and be our first band. They were incredibly friendly and patient for how cold it was that night. Also thanks to Prosperity Social Club for letting us shoot in and around their classy pub.

Through the Turnstyle - The Wilderness of Manitoba


The Wilderness of Manitoba - O Come O Come Emmanuel (Song Only)


Be sure to check out their holiday tracks on itunes!

The Wilderness of Manitoba is:
Stefan Banjevic
Will Whitwham
Melissa Dalton
Scott Bouwmeester
Sean Lancaric
www.thewildernessofmanitoba.com

Director: Kayla Muller
Camera Operators: Kayla Muller, Anthony Snitzer, Yoshi Andrego & Ralph Miller
Audio Technicians: Anthony Snitzer & Ralph Miller
Boom Operator: Jamie Overstreet
Editor: Jon Nix

Thanks to everyone for watching.
-Jon Nix

NEW SHORT: Wild Cat Chase

The new improv short shot by Turnstyle Films. We got the itch to shoot a short a couple of weeks ago but when we showed up the only knew that the short was going to be about a guy looking for his lost cat. Everything came about organically and to me ended up pretty well rounded.

Might be NSFW due to language.

CAST:
Owner: Billy Palmer
Catsputin: Pteradactyl
Milk Guy: Jim Curtis
Girl: Kayla Muller

CREW:
Director: Jon Nix
Assistant Director: Ralph Miller
Producer: Jamie Overstreet
Director of Photography: Yoshi Andrego
Camera Operator: Kayla Muller
Editor: Jon Nix

Original Score by Jim Curtis

Thanksgiving Update

I'm thankful for all my friends, and great movies, and the great movies I'm going to make with my friends.

Below is a drawing I did of Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood. Feels like one of those days.



-Jon Nix

Things to come:

Sorry for the lack of posts. There's a lot in the works right now and we will have a couple videos out in the next few weeks. Until then, here's a preview:



-Jon Nix

KVML Blog Post

The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library asked Jim Curtis an I to write a short blog for their site. They posted it this afternoon. Check it out!



I urge everyone to head to their site. Make a donation. Buy some swag. Just show some support in any way you can.

-Jon Nix

.....................................................................................................................................

As two extremely dedicated Kurt Vonnegut Fans Jon Nix[animator] and Jim Curtis [composer] decided that they wanted to use their personal talents/professions to create an audio visual experience in Kurt’s memory.

For the animation, the library gave me a blank canvas. I’ve always been a fan of minimalist animations but didn’t want to leave it feeling flat. So for a background used multiple paper textures and stains to give the piece and textured feel but left all of the graphics over top somewhat clean. Each screen is a pivotal event or aspect of his life that I thought best described his character. I wanted the animation as a whole to feel like a worn book found in the rubble at Dresden.

After seeing the animation I was ready to start working on the score. For me the animation set the tone and I needed to create a piece that would fit my own experience of Vonnegut’s work. Simply breaking his style down into two categories, serious and humor. I used these tones to split my piece on one guitar. I chose to make half of the guitar parts in a major key (Indicating the humor in his writing) and the other half in a minor key (serious). The introduction of the marching presents a rhythm that gives the piece an odd but fitting unbalance.

We are very proud to have collaborated to create such an impacting piece for Kurt. It’s a small contribution to his memory but we hope that everyone who views it will appreciate and understand his incredible impact on our lives.

Jon Nix & Jim Curtis

Smoke Screen Blogroll

Over the past week we've been getting picked up left and right by music blogs. Here's a list of them.

deathbydecapitation.blogspot.com


inaudiowetrust.com


theonemic.com


thecoventrykids.com


vintagemediagroup.com


hashtaghiphop.com


therhythmreport.blogspot.com


hiphopruckus.com


Thanks to all the blogs posting our video. It's getting us a lot of attention.

-Jon Nix

A/V Experiment 2

Hey everyone!

Real quick here is the new A/V Experiment that I did with Billy Palmer. It's quick. It's light. It's colorful.



-Jon Nix

Smoke Screen - Melodies of a Silhouette

This is coming a little late, but here is the new video we did Smoke Screen. A Coventry based hip-hop group. I'm very proud of this project. I think it's one of the best pieces TurnStyle has put out so far. And that makes all those hours of rotoscoping worth it. Also a big thank you to Smoke Screen for pushing the video so hard for us. As I'm writing this blog we are rapidly approaching 700 views on vimeo.



A second big thank you to the whole crew who worked on it and made the shoot go so smooth.

A third big thank you to all the blogs that have picked up the video gotten us more exposure. Among them:


Headnodz.fm


GetLiveMag.com


More stuff on it's way soon!
-Jon Nix

Thank You Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library

Just sharing a screenshot of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library's facebook page from when they posted my video. I just want to give them a big thanks for letting me work on the project and for their continued support. I'm starting work on a blog for their site explaining my interest/love of Kurt Vonnegut's work. So, be on the outlook for that in the coming week.



So it goes.
-Jon Nix