Grackle & Armie is in pre-production

We are excited to share that our next short film project in pre-production is something unlike anything that SPI has brought to life so far!

Set in Austin, Texas, in a world where real people and animal puppets co-exist, Grackle & Armie is a family tale about a grackle and an armadillo joining forces to make their dreams come true. Gracie Grackle feels down on her luck; she’s been living with her sister for two years, can’t find a job she enjoys doing, and her dating life is in the toilet. When she meets an Armadillo, named Armie, who invites her to join his band, Gracie is enchanted by the art of live music performance, like so many Austinites before her!

Here is a sneak peek of the incredible puppets my friend, Chadwick, made for this project based off of my sketches.

It’s a dream come true to have these characters come to life! Check out our look book to learn more and stay tuned for updates as we prepare to launch production on this thing.

In search of: More Collaborators!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends! Tomorrow is “Small Business Saturday” and I wanted to take a moment in recognition of this day to promote my own small business and what I’ve been up to lately. 

This year, I’ve branched out a bit from solely working on my own film projects to doing some freelance video work. My hope in 2022 is to increase my business a bit in this realm. I’ve also been hoping to get back out there doing more acting gigs as well. 

I’ve been busy updating my website to include more information about these ambitions. You can now see my latest headshots and acting reel at the “acting” page. The new “freelance” page displays some of my latest contract projects.

I’m available to be booked for all kinds of contract work, including: editing, video production (marketing or otherwise), acting, directing, screenwriting, etc. If you have a need in mind that I could help with, let’s start a convo! Or if you know someone kickstarting a project that I might be a good fit for, don’t hesitate to pass along my website.

If you have any film needs, I hope I will come to mind for you so that we can collaborate soon.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

The Rink's Online Premiere!

Long time no talk! I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but the world shutdown last year because of a virus (speaking of, you vaccinated yet??) and a lot of our stuff got derailed. We’re happy to say we’re getting back on track, though, and that process truly begins with the release of our last horror short we were able to shoot before COVID times, The Rink, just in time for Halloween!

The Rink is a neon soaked horror story of a proposal that goes to hell set in a roller rink somewhere in Texas. Recipient of Other Worlds Film Festival’s Dan O’Bannon Filmmaking Grant and the City of Austin Cultural Grant, the short screened in festivals all across the country in 2020. These included Horrible Imaginings, Indy Shorts International presented by Heartland Film, Adirondack Film Festival, Indy Film Fest, Lone Star Film Festival, and a few others. Though the festivals weren’t in person, the response was great and the virtual Q&A’s were a blast.

Now, the film has one last public screening in Austin and will be online shortly after. The Rink screens as part of Lake Travis Film Festival’s outdoor Screams on the Screen on Thursday, October 28th at 8pm. To secure your tickets (including for the pre-party where you get to rub elbows with the filmmakers), visit this link:

Lake Travis Film Festival presents Screams on the Screen

After that screening when the bell strikes midnight, The Rink will be online for all to enjoy! It will be officially available at 12:00am on October 29th. You can find it either on YouTube or Vimeo here:

YouTube

Vimeo

The YouTube has an official countdown to the premiere and everything! And the Vimeo will be password protected until midnight on the 29th (nice try to click it early, cheaters! I know you did!).

We are so excited to finally share this spooky film with you all. We’re really proud of it and think you’re going to dig it.

We’ll have more film updates soon! Until then, have a Happy Halloween!!

ColdTowne Theater Presents Good Feels On Wheels Details

We’re just two and half days away from our film, Good Feels On Wheels, being available for a limited time for your viewing pleasures. For those who haven’t heard, to celebrate our founder’s 35th birthday and to give some pandemic support to one of our favorite comedy theaters in Austin, ColdTowne Theater, we’re giving you the opportunity to watch Good Feels for 24 hours. Plus, the theater will host a screening of the film on their Twitch along with an exclusive Q&A after. Details below!

At 12:00am CST on the night of May 1st/morning of May 2nd, a Vimeo link with the film will go live for 24 hrs here:

https://vimeo.com/spiprod/goodfeels

On May 2nd at 7:00pm CST, ColdTowne Theater will present the film on their Twitch stream along with a Q&A after featuring writer/director Ronald Short and star Stephanie Thoreson hosted by Adam Protextor. Link to ColdTowne’s Twitch here:

twitch.tv/coldtownetv

Along with the screening via ColdTowne, we’ll be live tweeting along with the film from our production company’s Twitter. If you’d like to tweet with us, please use hashtag #GoodFeelsAtHome! Our Twitter can be found here:

https://twitter.com/spiproductions

For additional info or to support ColdTowne in this time of need, please visit their website. We look forward to sharing this experience with you this weekend!

Good Feels in Quarantine for Ronald's B-day Hosted by ColdTowne Theater!

On May 1st, our fearless leader, Ronald Short, turns 35. To celebrate, we're giving you the chance to see our award winning feature, Good Feels On Wheels, from the comfort of your home while raising money for one of our favorite comedy theaters in Austin, ColdTowne Theater!

At midnight on May 1st, Good Feels On Wheels will be available via Vimeo for your viewing pleasure for 24 hours. We'll post a link on here (and other places) once it’s available. You'll be able to watch the film wherever you are (which should be your house, damn it!) however many times you want.

Then, on Saturday May 2nd, we're going to have a watch party where Ronald will live tweet along with the film at 7:00pm CST via our production company's Twitter, @SPIproductions (so, give us a follow!). After the movie, we'll be having an online Q&A hosted by ColdTowne with Short and the star of the film, Stephanie Thoreson.

For more info and to stay up to date, visit our event on Facebook here.

Can’t wait to share and hear what you all think of our stoner romantic comedy!

The Rink's World Premiere at Other Worlds!

Good news, everyone! That horror short film we shot earlier this year WORLD PREMIERES tomorrow at Other Worlds Film Festival here in Austin, Texas! The Rink will screen as part of the Under Worlds Shorts: Dark Nights & Dark Thoughts block on Friday, December 6th at 4:30pm and Saturday, the 7th at 7:05pm.

The entire festival takes place at the newly revamped Galaxy Highland in north Austin and badges are still available. For more information on the festival and to buy a badge, visit their site. If there are any seats left after all the badge holders get in, tickets will be available for the general public.

Various cast and crew will be in attendance! So, we hope to see you there. If you love horror, you’re going to love this flick.

Also, Ronald was on Lights Camera Austin with the incomparable Robert Sims to do an interview on The Rink. Why not give it a listen to get you ready for our screenings this weekend? It’s only 15 minutes!

For the interview, click here. Hope to see you there!

Good Feels at Reel East Texas!

This Friday, November 15th, Good Feels On Wheels will be screening in Texas once more. We’ll be playing at 8:30pm at the Texas Broadcast Museum in Kilgore as part of the Reel East Film Festival! We’ve heard such great things about this festival and can’t wait to get out there and check it out. We’re also nominated for some awards, including:

• Best actress

• Best supporting actor

• Best cinematography

• Best director

• Best comedy

• Best Texas film

Can’t wait to see you out there! To buy tickets and/or a badge, visit their site.

Good Feels On Wheels East Coast Premiere!

Hello again! It’s been a while since we’ve had a chance to update on all the happenings. We’ve been a little overwhelmed. We screened Good Feels up in Bay City, Michigan a couple weeks ago at the Hell’s Half Mile Film Festival. It was a fantastic festival ran by some wonderful people. I highly recommend you attend and submit if you can.

And good news, everyone! There’s another chance to check out Good Feels this upcoming weekend. We’ll be screening TWICE (that’s right, TWICE) as part of the Adirondack Film Festival in upstate New York this Friday and Saturday. This is our East Coast premiere and we’re very excited to get out there for it. I’ll be there along with my lovely producer/wife, Ami Kane.

For tickets and schedule, visit their site.

Beyond Feels, we have a couple other projects on the horizon, one of which we recently held a small read through for. It went over like gangbusters and we’re super pumped to move forward on this. More info when we can share.

We hope to see you at AFF2019 this upcoming weekend!

Cheers,

Ronald

Good Feels Hometown Premiere is TONIGHT!

If you’re in Austin, Texas, tonight is your first (but hopefully not last) chance to see our newest feature length film, Good Feels On Wheels, on the big screen! We’re playing at the Austin Revolution Film Festival as part of the “You Be Illin’” block at the Crowne Plaza in north Austin at 8pm. For tickets and more info, visit this link:

Good Feels at Austin Revolution

To celebrate us finally screening in the ATX, we’re releasing WTFN?, our short film that actually screened at Austin Revolution last year and also won the award for Best Texas Comedy Short at the festival (we also won best Hoosier Lens Short at the Indy Film Fest with this one). It’s NSFW, but you’re going to love it.

Watch WTFN?

We hope to see you out there!

Dog Gone Online Now!

Holy cow, it has been a while! Apologies all around, we got wrapped up in the Kickstarter for The Rink and things are starting to calm down a bit. We hit our goal, by the way! That’s so exciting! Big thanks to everyone who supported us. More news on that one soon.

Today, we’re here to talk about Dog Gone. This is a short we shot in 2013, but life got in the way and this project got pushed to the wayside for a few years. Since we hit our goal, we figured why not share something to celebrate? Here’s a post that explains further what was behind the delay in the finishing of the film.

Facebook Post

And here’s the film itself!

Dog Gone

The film is a dark comedy starring Kelli Bland. It’s about a woman named Iris who comes to house and dog sit for her brother in Austin for a weekend. Unfortunately, it doesn't go as planned when she discovers the dog, Werner, is dead.

If you enjoy the film, please share with your friends! More updates on Good Feels, The Rink, and more soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

Good Feels Wins Best Actress, Screening in Indy, and The Rink Kickstarter Updates

Huge news everyone! Good Feels On Wheels screened at the Hill Country Film Festival this past weekend and our lead actress, the wonderful Stephanie Thoreson, took home the award for “Best Actress!” We were thrilled. Huge thanks to Hill Country for the honor and for a fun time in Fredericksburg!

Once we were back from HCFF, we screened the rough cut of The Rink for a small group of producers. There was no sound mix, music, or color tweaks, but everyone was still excited by the outcome. We’ve also just crossed the $1,000 mark on our Kickstarter campaign to finish said film. Have you checked our teaser trailer out yet? Please do and share across the interwebs!

Check it out, yo!

Finally, this weekend Good Feels On Wheels will be premiering in our hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana as part of the Indy Film Fest! We’ll be screening this Friday, May 3rd at 5pm along with Wednesday, May 8th at 7pm both at Newfields (previously known as the IMA). For more info and to get tickets, visit their site.

We hope to see you out there!

The Rink Teaser Trailer and Hill Country Film Festival

Yesterday, after many struggles with our video upload, we finally shared the first look at our newest film, the horror short titled THE RINK. With the teaser, we also launched a Kickstarter to help us with our finishing efforts on the film. Check out the trailer and the campaign here:

bit.ly/TheRinkShort

Our team is like a small group of MacGyvers, figuring out the best way to make a movie with as little resources as possible. However, we can’t realistically do everything ourselves. Please consider a contribution and sharing our teaser with your friends and family.

Along with our campaign launch, we’re also going to be screening Good Feels On Wheels at the Hill Country Film Festival in Fredericksburg on Friday. Our screening is at 3:15pm at the Fritztown Cinema. Come on out and get day drunk with us as we share some Feels with the hill country!

For badges, visit the Hill Country Film Festival official site. Or tickets can be bought in person on site.

We hope to see you out there!

The Rink First Look Coming Next Week!

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we shot a horror movie in February and the damn thing is almost edited. It’s called The Rink and it’s a bloody story about love and rollerskating. We’re posting to prepare you for your first official look at the film, which will be in the form of a teaser trailer, that’s coming next week! Keep your eyes peeled.

In the meantime, we wanted to share this cool promotional art our pal and designer Nathan Bayless whipped together. You’ll have a chance to get your hands on this poster, too. More info soon!

To check out the poster, visit our official Twitter page.

The Rink Wraps, Good Feels Crew Heading to Denver, and MORE!

Good news everyone! We wrapped production on our new horror short film, The Rink, and we’ve already got a rough cut together. This film has turned out pretty radical and we’re very excited to share. Look for your first peek of the film very soon!

And Good Feels On Wheels scored some more film festival laurels! We’ll be screening out in the beautiful Texas Hill Country of Fredericksburg later this month as part of the Hill Country Film Festival. We love the Hill Country and we can’t wait to spend a weekend out there with fellow film minded people.

We’ll be screening on Friday, April 26th at 3:15pm at the Fritztown Cinema. For more info, click here.

Happening a little sooner than that, we’ll also be a part of the Colorado International Cannabis and Hemp Film Festival next weekend. The festival happens on Sunday, April 14th and Ronald will be there in person to check it out. Here’s where you can get more info about this festival.

We’ve also got some more news on the film festival front for Feels that we can’t share just yet, but it’s all very exciting. Keep your eyes on SPI for more info!

Good Feels at San Francisco Indiefest!

Our 2019 is starting off so fresh and so clean clean! We’re excited to announce our first Good Feels on Wheels screening of 2019 will be at San Francisco Indiefest on February 10th! Director Ronald Short, star Stephanie Thoreson, producer Ami Kane, and director of photography Travis Ward will all be present for a Q&A after it screens.

Live in the Bay Area and want to attend? Follow this link to buy tickets:

Good Feels at SF Indiefest!

This will be our first time screening something out in Cali and we are very pumped and appreciative to have the opportunity! We’ll see y’all out there on the 10th!

SPI Casting Horror Short "The Rink" in Austin

We’re making a new thing! At the end of February/beginning of March, we’ll be shooting a new short titled The Rink. It’s horror, it’s got lots of blood, and it takes place in a roller rink! Are you an actor in Austin, Texas who might be into that sort of thing? Then, keep reading.

We are in need of several key characters, including the two female leads. For more info, character descriptions, and where to submit, click the link below to see our official posting on the Austin School of FIlm’s site!

The Rink Casting Call

We’ll be holding auditions at the School of Film on January 26th and 27th. Hope to see you there!

Good Feels Wins 'Best Texas Film' at Lone Star!

This past week, the SPI team attended the Lone Star Film Festival in Fort Worth for the world premiere of our new feature, Good Feels on Wheels. It was five straight days of awesome people, delicious food, beautiful sights, and some wonderful movies.

On Saturday, Good Feels premiered to a crowded AMC theater (with the reclining chairs and everything!) and received an overwhelmingly positive response from the people in attendance. On top of that, our film won big! Later that evening, we were awarded “Best Texas Film” by the film festival. It was an incredible and totally unexpected moment. It really made us feel like our hard work had paid off.

We cannot thank Lone Star enough for their support and hospitality. If you ever have the chance, you have to make it out to their festival. It’s one of the best we’ve been to! And if you’re ever in Fort Worth, we highly recommend Salsa Limón. We can’t stop thinking about their tacos.

Stay tuned for further film festival updates as we push forward into 2019!

Good Feels Premiere Week

Our newest feature film, Good Feels on Wheels, premieres this week at the Lone Star Film Festival in Fort Worth, Texas. We are so, so very excited to get out there and see all of the spectacular flicks they’ve programmed this year.

To celebrate, we’re giving you a little something special. Matt Puckett did an excellent job with his film score and soundtrack contributions for Good Feels and he has been nice enough to allow us to share one of these songs with you, along with a download of said song, FOR FREE.

The song is called Spark and it’s beautiful and catchy and just plain great. It plays during a pivotal scene in the film and we feel it really captures the feel of Good Feels. We have been incredibly lucky with the soundtrack on this one and we can’t wait for you to see these songs really bring the world we’re building to life.

Here’s a link to listen and download: https://soundcloud.com/mattpuckett/spark

Our WORLD PREMIERE will be on Saturday, November 10th at 12:15pm at the AMC Palace 9 in Fort Worth. For tickets, click HERE.

Hope to see you there!

Happy Halloween Week!

We don’t know about you, but here at SPI, Halloween is our favorite time of year. You can wear sweaters, eat a ton of pumpkin crap, and use it as an opportunity to take a deep dive into the world of cinematic horror. Why not take a chance with one of our spooky offerings?

First, we have Breaking and Entering, a short we produced in 2013. Two burglars break into a suburban home hoping to find a big payday, but what they found instead is far more sinister.

Breaking and Entering

Next, an extra spooky episode of our web series, Weekend Plans. In this Halloween special, Jon is ripped from his slumber by a strange noise and decides to investigate.

Weekend Plans - “It Came From Downstairs”

Finally, we co-produced a short with Living Pictures Film for the ABC’s of Death competition from a few years back. An office worker gets pushed over the edge by his obnoxious boss.

T is for Tuesday

We have big plans to make more horrific content in 2019! So, stay tuned.

From all of us at Short Picture Independent, we hope you all have a safe and scary Halloween!

Good Feels on Wheels World Premiering at Lone Star Film Fest!

We are so excited to announce that our new feature length comedy will be having it’s WORLD PREMIERE in November! Good Feels on Wheels will be premiering at the Lone Star Film Festival in Fort Worth, Texas on the afternoon of Saturday, November 10th. Also, many of the cast and crew will be in attendance for a Q&A after the screening! For more info and to reserve your tickets, visit this link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/good-feels-on-wheels-tickets-50981506057

We are pumped to be a part of the amazing line-up they have. To learn more, visit the Lone Star Film Festival’s official site:

www.lonestarfilmfestival.com

We hope we’ll see you out there!