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how to get copies of our movies
(and t-shirts, mugs and other fun stuff)
 
(2002-2005, now available on OCP DVD): Over three years in the making, this romantic philosophical character drama was a big step forward for us ... a very different kind of romantic film ... a film that takes a step back to think about exactly what it means to be in love. The film is full of great performances and I really hope you like it. I do.
The story. Bruce and Rhonda have been going out for two years, and their relationship is getting stale. Clifford, a struggling stand-up comedian, has been dumped by his girlfriend and is wallowing in his woes. Then into their lives comes Lily, a girl who sees the world in a childlike and different way. Her father thought she was crazy, and in some ways she is. He'd treated her like a child, but now, out on her own, she's becoming a woman. Bruce and Clifford both fall in love with her ... which has terrible consequences on Bruce's relationship with Rhonda. One day Bruce and Lily are arguing on the roof, and Bruce accidentally knocks her off the building. She falls fourteen stories. Yet she doesn't die. Some unexplainable event, a miracle, has saved her. Suddenly all the petty problems of love and life seem small by comparison. And none of their lives will ever be the same.
Excaliburger [or, the Spatula in the Stone] (2000): This goofy comedy set in a cheap and cheesy version of medieval times was a reunion movie for me. David Ashe actually paid for my plane fare to return to Connecticut and make a movie with him and the old gang. Now there's a great guy for ya. We had only three weeks to shoot this in summer 2000, a very short time, and it was more fun than I'd had in ages. I would love to reedit this someday, as I think it still holds up and is a funny film, and definitely worth seeing if you're a fan of the British comedies that inspired it. Probably the best of the old-school, pre-digital comedies, and a nice end to a good run. Starring Garrett Gilchrist as Spanky, Michelle Caruso as Arthur, David Ashe as Merlin. Best Supporting Actress nomination - Michelle Caruso - Rewind Awards 2002.
Dr. Fred's Episode III: The Phantom Movie (111 min., 1999): Though we'd made three sketch comedy movies before the "Phantom Movie," I consider this one our first real feature. We'd always loved the original Star Wars films, and to be able to tear the new one apart like this and create something entirely our own, well, it was a twisted dream come true. Dave Ashe and I wrote and shot this on a budget of 350 dollars in the summer of 1999, right after seeing "The Phantom Menace" (which is ripely parodied here), and right before I had to leave for California, and college. What it lacks in technical qualities, it makes up for with that Fred sense of humor.
 The Animal Game (155 minutes, 1999): Although shot the same summer as "The Phantom Movie," it would be hard to think of two more different movies. Proving that those funny Fred guys can act, too, we abandoned all concepts of traditional moviemaking, shooting without a tripod or a script. "The Animal Game," our first quasi-drama, wasalso a darkly comedic faux-documentary about a group of amateur filmmakers stranded in a horror movie shoot without budget, story, script or talent. A satiric commentary on bad filmmaking and the fear of becoming an adult, it was entirely adlibbed, and shot in a single night just before I had to leave for college. The result is one of the most fascinatingly unclassifiable no-budget motion pictures ever made, and at 2 1/2 hours it's good and long too. (The original uncut footage ran 5 hours.) This movie has aged a lot better than the rest of the old OCP movies, and still packs a punch I think. I'd also love to reedit this one of these days.
Dr. Fred's Amazing Exploding Cow Show (85 min, 1998): Man, we were young in '97! I don't show people the original feature-length cut of this one anymore, preferring to show "best-of" cable access compilations of this and its sequel. But this is the movie that started it all, a mix of people, puppets, animation, and a decidedly strange sense of humor. The Monty Python influence is visible here. Created in my house from 1996 to early 1998 on a budget of literally zero. And David Brown trying to eat a door is still funny today.
 Dr. Fred Strikes Back
(1999): The much more ambitious sequel to the first Fredshow was shot in spits and spats in late 1998 and early 1999. Hardware foulups and upgrades halfway through brought the budget up to just over a thousand dollars, and only the first half of the movie was ever actually edited and released, but it was worth it for the best little sketches in Fred history. This movie forms much of the basis for the Fred cable access show. Maybe I'll do a complete special edition of it someday.
 The Animal Effect (2000, not yet released): The unfinished(?) sequel to 1999's "The Animal Game" is rarely discussed, but it does exist, and definitely has its moments. After a hectic 3-week shoot for "Excaliburger," the cast was, for the first time ever, simply too tired to go on with a movie, and the energy level of the shoot was nonexistently low. But "Animal Game" fans should be glad to know that Larry, Mike, Jimmy, Sam (and yes, Griff, and Dick in a cameo) are still around there somewhere, causing trouble.
not quite features
1381 (49 min., 1999): Ben Sipprell and I shot this as a class project in high school, with only a long weekend to shoot it in, in early 1999. Much of the movie was made up on the spot. It has that feeling to it, and I think that's a good thing. This was the movie that introduced the world to Ben Sipprell. Wat Tyler, the hipster peasant revolt leader, is one of Ben's defining characters (and the prototype for T-Bird in The Phantom Movie). It's rarely seen these days and not really a feature, since it's short at 49 minutes (and if I reedited it today it would run only about 25 minutes). But I'll list it here along with all the other old-school Fred comedies.
(An honorable mention here goes to Ghostbusted 2, from 2002. 51 minutes long, it is nearly a feature but not quite, and is listed on the short films page. Pirates of Film, from 2003, is 42 minutes long and listed on the same page.)
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features we've worked on for other directors
Blanc Screen Cinema Presents Indulgence (Directed by Jay Bauman, 70 min., 2003): (Garrett Gilchrist stars as "Melf" in the film, also serving as cinematographer and writing additional material.) I've learned from experience not to play the leading man in my own films. Nevertheless, Jay Bauman (who was then one of my favorite writer-directors) flew me up to Milwaukee for three weeks to play the leading man in Indulgence. I hope you like the performance - it's a better performance than I've given in any of my own movies, certainly. I also served as cinematographer, trying to make the lighting pretty, so I hope you think it's a pretty and well-shot movie as well. I also contributed some additional scenes and writing to Jay's script for the film, so I hope you think it's funny as well. The movie has comedy and drama, warmth, sweetness, romance, wit and shocking scenes ... like Jay's other movies, it crosses genres and boundaries in entertaining ways. You also get to see me drunk (for real) onscreen and eating paint. Jay and I disagreed over a lot of things on the film and no longer speak. Our working relationship on this film ended very badly, and the film sort of got caught up in that. Although it's a good film, it's not a great film and a lot of that is due to Jay and I disagreeing about what the movie should be. Jay cut out a lot of the film in post, about half of the film in fact, and so it is what it is. I'm proud of it in many ways.
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GMP Pictures presents Gorilla Interrupted (Directed by Mike Stoklasa, 70 min., 2002.): (Garrett Gilchrist plays a supporting role as "Jacob Spaulding" in the film, also providing the voice of Satan, and doing stuntwork as various aliens who get shot. David Ashe rewrote Mike Stoklasa's screenplay, adding gags to it, and also has a cameo as "Tall Man Named Julie." Garrett also did camerawork for the film, and some special effects artwork.)
Dim-witted aliens. Punk rock. A laser gun battle pack. A guy who turns into a gorilla. A safari man. Jesus. Satan. Unrequited love. This movie has a little bit of everything. A collaboration between Chicago's GMP Pictures, Milwaukee's Blanc Screen Cinema, and of course Orange Cow, this was fun yet painful to shoot. Mike Stoklasa flew me to Chicago and we shot this entire movie in a week. It shows. The script was slapped together in a matter of hours, and rewritten in a matter of hours. It shows. We became horribly sick and injured during the shoot, and the director and I lost our voices and still had to act. It shows. It was shot on a horrible cheap camera, the director was uninterested in the film while he was shooting it, and put off editing it for over a year. It shows. Regardless, the film is sometimes insanely funny, including ten billion different styles of comedy in it. It has moments of utter brilliance and there are some people who think it's the funniest movie any of us have ever been involved with. Jason Santo of Mindscape Pictures, who normally knows what he's talking about, called it the greatest amateur movie he had ever seen. What the hell?
Blanc Screen Cinema presents Pervert Goes Home (Directed by Jay Bauman, 70 min., 2002.): (Garrett Gilchrist plays a small supporting role as "Porno Jesus" in the film, and wrote the main scene he appears in. Garrett and other Orange Cow related people, including Mariana McConnell, David Ashe, and Cori Haisler have cameos in the movie. Garrett also drew the poster art for the film and designed a website, arlosuckscock.com, seen in the film.) Jay Bauman asked me to send him some footage of myself so that I could cameo in his movie. I did. And when I finally saw the movie I had sort of cameoed in, I thought it was one of the greatest amateur movies I'd seen. This was definitely Jay's best work to date, and is possibly still his best film. Jay plays the lead role of Arlo Jenkins, a college dropout and writer with an immature attitude toward women who returns home in a futile attempt to recapture the fond memories of his high school years. The film has some very shocking and offensive humor, and is quite funny, but it also has heart, and an autobiographical quality that gives the movie unexpected drama ... a combination worthy of a young, roadkill-obsessed Woody Allen. Jay and I worked together for real after this, on Gorilla Interrupted, Clowns and Suicide, and Indulgence, among many others.
Blanc Screen Cinema presents Clowns and Suicide (Directed by Jay Bauman, 70 min., 2003.): (Garrett Gilchrist created two very extensive animation sequences for this film, the "Squiffy the Derelict Cat" cartoons. The most complicated animation he had done to date. He voices Squiffy, The Mayor, and The Bum. Garrett also has a cameo in the film - he's supposed to be Larry Charvet, his character from The Animal Game. Dave Ashe voices Frank Gifford in the Squiffy cartoon, and also has a cameo, with John Brugmann. Michelle Caruso has a cameo as well.) Another good Jay Bauman movie. Shot in black and white, the movie tackles the dark topic of teen suicide, and manages to be funny and sweet. The main Orange Cow contribution is the Squiffy the Derelict Cat cartoons, which I animated and sent in to Jay, and which I'm proud of. I often put the cartoons, alone, on my short films tapes. There are also some Orange Cow cameos in a montage of people remembering the dead boy, Brian. "Clowns" swept the Rewind awards in 2003, and is well worth watching.
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