Tagarchief: YouTube

A JK Classic Re-Release: Brains For Breakfast (2000)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

On my YouTube channel, Jeppy’s Video Circus, I usually post short videos in three categories.

The first is pop culture features, like Schwarzenegger’s 100 Greatest Kills and Ranking the Top 100 Beatles Songs.

The second is experimental shorts, such as Passenger and Light Parade.

The third category is amateur movies I made during my childhood, including A Bad Trip and Nicky and Mugs.

I’ve just released another one called Brains For Breakfast and this one might be my favorite.

The Amateur
The unfinished video was shot in 2000, about halfway through my five-year stretch as an amateur filmmaker.

That period began in 1998, when my buddy Jean-Marc and I took a two-week videomaking course in Charme, France, taught by the Amsterdam-based Open Studio. They taught us the basics of filmmaking: camera work, directing, editing, screenwriting – the whole package.

The following year, I shot a number of shorts with my friends in Heiloo, including Nicky and Mugs and A Bad Trip. Many unfinished projects from that time still live in the dusty archives of my desktop.

In an upcoming short called Dreaming of HeilooWeed, I plan to edit those fragments into a medley of our unfinished amateur films.

In 2000, we created what I consider the highlight of that era: Brains For Breakfast, which is now available on YouTube.

That same year, I also traveled through India and Nepal, where I shot a two-hour travel movie.

In 2001, my friends and I spent three months in Thailand, where I filmed another travel documentary – though calling it a ‘travel movie’ doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s part Jackass, part comic meditation on backpacking. I plan to edit it into a half-hour YouTube version next year, titled 2001: A Thailand Odyssey.

By 2002, my movie career had started to fade, and I moved on to other things. I made a few videos that year, but nothing particularly noteworthy.

That is, until 2020 – when I picked up filmmaking again as a hobby.

About Brains For Breakfast
Brains For Breakfast can best be described as a horror-comedy, heavily inspired by Peter Jackson (Bad Taste) and Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead).

The story follows weed dealer Jimmie Lombardo, who suddenly finds himself in the middle of an alien invasion, one with the sole purpose of stealing Dutch weed.

What I love most about it is the humor. There are some genuinely funny moments, along with a few surprisingly effective scenes, like the one where an alien shoots a guy on a bicycle from a balcony.

I also have a soft spot for all the amateurish mistakes: jumping the axis, catching the cameraman’s shadow, or scenes that shift from early evening to near-dark in the blink of an eye. All of it adds to the charm and hilarity.

Since the film was never finished, I decided to create an ending by adding a short ‘making-of’ segment, showing us trying to pull off one of our great ‘special effects’.

I’m happy with how it turned out, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too. Check out Brains For Breakfast below on YouTube!

How to Write a Television Series

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Originally published on FilmDungeon.com on 24-12-2007

As a lifelong devotee of the moving image, I developed the idea of writing screenplays. What better way is there to get your break into movies when you’re a non-professional that wants to be a filmmaker? I had already written a movie screenplay. A low-budget horror-comedy comparable with Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste. The problem with actually filming it was that a considerable budget was required. I am from the Netherlands where even renowned filmmakers struggle to get another project done. So who was going to invest in a cult film with a microscopic target group and an inexperienced director?

It was time for a strategy change. TV-series are the next best thing. And being the creator of a TV-series is what many would call a dream job. So would I. You get to write and produce a mini-movie every week, and when successful, you can continue it for as long as a decade. So I decided to start the creation of my very own TV-series. I already knew my subject. Or concept if you will. Now I needed some ideas on how to craft my screenplay.

To get this done I bought a book: The Sopranos – Selected Scripts From Three Seasons. This is an extremely useful book for aspiring TV-writers. But knowing the show is probably a prerequisite. It describes the process of writing a series. The creator of the show, David Chase, explains how he came up with the overall theme of every season. Then, together with his writing team, he started working on the individual episodes. Every episode has three or four storylines. One major storyline called A. Then there are smaller ones called B, C and sometimes D.

Once the storylines were decided, the actual scenes were described. The five example screenplays in the book are in between 35 and 80 scenes long, and approximately 60 pages (1 hour of TV). When the scenes for every story were decided they are sequenced in a logical order. Then the episodes were divided among the writers. They had approximately two weeks to come up with the first draft. Then the show’s creator read it and gave the writer feedback on what he liked and didn’t like about it. Then the second draft was written and this process continued till the final draft was ready for production.

A great benefit of this book is that it contains five example TV-plays. If you need direction on the format of a TV-screenplay, all you have to do is check out one of these. After finishing the book I was ready to start the creation process of my very own TV-series. First a lot of research had to be done. I collected newspaper articles and started reading books on my subject. I started shaping my fictional world by describing the characters, their life stories and their personality traits.

The research and preparation took me a whole year. Of course I did it all in my spare time. I also had a day job to keep going. After this year I was ready to write an actual episode; the pilot. I wanted to do this in one go, because I thought it would make the writing process easier. So during a holiday in Crete I wrote the pilot script. It was certainly fun to do. But finishing the script was a weird sensation. I was proud that I had not given up, and had now completed it. But I was also wondering if what I wrote was actually any good…

Update 2021
No, that pilot tv-script I wrote is not very good. However, I haven’t lost my passion for this writing business. I recently decided to give it another go. That Bad Taste like script I mentioned earlier, I have decided to rewrite it. And it will be in English, so it is fit for international audiences.

Will it ever be a movie? Small chance. No one will want to produce it, that’s for sure. It’s too weird and has no commercial appeal I think. But if I ever get my hands on some money that has no immediate purpose, I might produce it myself. It has the potential to become a fantastic amateur cult movie.

And I would put it straight on YouTube when it would be done. It would be a lot of fun to make for the voluntary or underpaid cast and crew, that’s for sure. So I take another advice from David Chase, don’t stop believing!

JK launches YouTube-channel with three shorts

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

“As far as back as I could remember, I always wanted to be a filmmaker.”

After a break of nearly 20 years I am back in the film business. And this time in the online age. Through my new channel – Jeppy’s Video Circus – I plan to release short videos regularly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am starting off with three shorts that went live this week:

Enforcer Nr. 1
He is introduced as a legendary character in the first Godfather, but then he is quickly killed off. What is the background story of Don Corleone’s hitman Luca Brasi?

Modern Conquest
After the second world war came another war, this time for the contents of our wallets. The country that did best for a while was the one with the most cultural impact. You guessed it, the US and A.

Sharpshit Troopers
This short focuses on a single line from the original Star Wars. Were stormtroopers originally meant to be perceived as dangerous? That is something that good old George Lucas did not make explicitly clear in his original vision as you will see.

There’s more to come in 2021!