Dumbworld: A Sacramento Based Blog on Entertainment, Media and Art

I first met Mike Carroll about a year into my own attempt at becoming a filmmaker.  He came out and did a story for KCRA 3 on a feature film that I was camera operator on.  I never saw the story but I remember my mom calling and leaving a frantic message on my voicemail that she had seen me on the news.  You have to love moms.  Without my mom, I don’t think I would have any fans.  But I digress.

After the feature wrapped, I came across Mike’s first “one man” film, Year.  I was blown away.  Here was an excellent film, shot on the same camera that I owned (a DVX-100B), on a very small budget, by one person.  I emailed Mike, and he was very cool and down to earth. He was very forthcoming and helpful with advice.  We stayed in touch, he sent me the script for his second feature, Nightbeats before he started shooting it, and he even had me out to shoot some behind the scenes for Nightbeats (part of the making of Nightbeats is here). Both Year and Nightbeats are available on Amazon.

Mike recently released a book on his “one man” filmmaking process called Naked Filmmaking: How To Make A Feature-Length Film – Without A Crew – For $10,000 Or Less.  I haven’t got a chance to check the book out yet, but it is available on Amazon.com.  See the video below for an interview with Mike about the book on KCRA Channel 3.

embedded by Embedded Video

Also, Mike is leading a Sacramento Filmmaker- Cameraman Meetup on Sunday, June 27th on the west steps of the capitol, with the goal of people bringing their cameras or interest in cameras and sharing information.  Go to his website nakedfilmmaking.com for more information.

SNR’s annual “Best of Sacramento” edition is out in print today.  I can’t see Andy Nguyen’s as Readers’ Choice Winner for best vegetarian restaurant without thinking that I liked it better when it used to cater to meat eaters like me (am I alone?)– what I would do right now for a rice noodle salad bowl with satay chicken.  Congratulations to Andy Nguyen’s just the same.

Of course the first category I looked at was the readers’ choice award for best Filmmaker.  Here were the results:

1. Jourdan McClure
2. Ryan Todd
3. Mike Carroll and Sarah Kreutz (tie)

Ryan and Mike are both fantastic filmmakers, but I wasn’t as familiar with Jourdan or Sarah (although I knew Jourdan won an award for the Sac Music Seen portion of the Sac Film and Music Festival this year). 

Thank you Internet.

An interview with Jourdan for Fringe magazine and one with Sarah at Indie Fest USA where she was publicizing her movie Elsa Letterseed.  Congrats to all the winners.

Dumbworld- Entertainment- Media- Art