"Goodbye, Mr. Feingold" ~ Watch it NOW!

Short Synopsis: Three individuals have one plan: the untraceable murder of Mr. Feingold. We follow the stories of Maria, Jon, and Ian as they talk about how they would kill Mr. Feingold if given the opportunity. As this fast paced dark comedy unfolds, we learn their motives for murder and Feingold's fate.

Behind the Scenes: How Feingold Came to be.
Shot in Portland, Oregon in the early months of 2002, this is the first short digital film of Roll:20 Productions.

The basic idea for "Goodbye, Mr. Feingold" was originally the concept of James Sparks, Kristen Henderson, and Mark Hemingway. We then pitched the idea to JL Watkins, who put his own spin on it and wrote us the working script.

With script in hand, it was now time to cast and crew this independant film. James and I both knew a lot of professionals working in the Broadcast field already, so we called a few and asked them for their help on Feingold. We turned to Tim Jankowski and Sarah Scott for their unique talents. Tim Jankowski has been working locally in Portland as a Jib and Crane Operator and Owner. He has many jobs that range from Independent films to Commercial shoots. Sarah Scott is a Steady Cam Operator and Owner. She runs a company entitled "Steady Shots". They both are friends and both were willing to tackle something fun and creative. Cameron Teisher was brought on as our editor. He just recently graduated from The Arts School of San Francisco. He has talents in editing and graphic design that are cutting-edge and just amazing to watch.

With an amazing crew on board we now needed some meat to put in front of the camera. Jon Bebe met Mark Hemingway on a commercial shoot for KPTV in 1999 during the ad Campaign, "Expect More", for the 10 o'clock news. Jon has appeared in many print ads as well as commercial spots and television shows. Jon can be seen in the up coming film "The Hunted" with Tommy Lee Jones. Cherilyn Mesloh we met through a friend of James Sparks. She was living up in Seattle and acting in a comedy troop when we came knocking at the door. She has a lot of experience both on stage and in film. Like Jon, she also has been involved with films and television shows, like "The Fugitive" TV series (2000). Cameron Teisher and Phil Merrifield are both personal acquaintances of James Sparks and Mark Hemingway. This project is a "film acting debut" for both Cameron and Phil.

We shot Feingold over the course of two separate weekends in two separate months. We started our shooting in December of 2001. We waited til the first weekend in January to finish the shoot. The hardest part of a production is lining everyone's schedules together. Believe it or not, your crew and your actors all have a life outside of "your" project! So getting everyone on the same page is hard. You must make sacrifices. One example: shooting a film in two separate months. It happens, folks. It might prolong your shoot, but at least you get to finish your film.

So then that takes us now to post-production, or the editing of the film. Its not just "slap it together and call it good overnight." Nope. You have to log all of your scenes and then take all that footage that you shot and put it into a computer so that you can just begin to edit. We tossed all this responsibility to Cameron Teisher. Cameron took all the footage and the script and put together a rough edit of the film. From that we made change after change on what we liked and didn't like. Once we were happy with the late out of shots, Cameron then worked on the audio and special effects. After a 17 hour computer render of effects we had our final cut... with a few changes still to come, cuz no one is never 100% satisfied.

As the picture stands right now, (April 7th 2002) It is complete. The music was completed on time by Erhan Ergenekan, who spent the last 3 to 4 weeks working on putting music to the pictures and giving the film a tempo. Not an easy task to do. He has done an amazing job with only a short time to do it. Being as that we rushed him. But you would never know.

We have been showing the short film around to people at our work to get a reaction. Being as that we are really close to the project, we are not sure what works and what doesn't. Basically we used our co-workers as our test audience. So far we have been getting large smiles and some good feedback. They have been hearing alot about it and now they have seen it and most are very surprised at what they see... We had alot of fun making this short and you can tell by the result. I now look forward to the screening of this at the Gore-a-rama Film Festival at Dante's on April 27th. And also to watch as it hits the festival circut. We will keep you posted on where it is playing and how it is doing. We also plan on posting it on Ifilm.com. So check back in for all the latest news of "Goodbye, Mr. Feingold" and our future projects.

Thanks for listening,
Roll Twenty Digital Productions: