Throwback Thursday presents “Treasure Island” – Our First Short Film

Every Thursday we will be showcasing a short video from our past.  This week’s short is “Treasure Island” it was created back in 2002 for a college art project.  The teacher told us that we could use whatever medium we wanted so I asked “Can I make a short video?” and he said “Yes!”  So I called my good friend Jared and told him what I needed to do. That night we grabbed a six pack and watched “Muppet’s Treasure Island” and wrote the script.  That upcoming weekend we gathered all my friends, collected old clothes from my Aunts and went out and shot this terribly awesome short.

Our first day of shooting we went down an old power line path in Dudley, MA and dug a hole for where the treasure was supposed to be.  One of the pirates had blood coming out of his mouth and all over his white shirt.  “Why you ask?”  Well… I think we were supposed to shoot him throwing a shovel at a bunny and then eating it or something ridiculous like that.  Well we never did shoot that so it never made the film.  Later during our shoot some guy from the neighborhood and his 2 small children around the age of 5 were riding their bicycles down the power line path.  We stopped filming when we saw them and he looked in our direction, he must of saw the pirate with blood dripping down the front of him and got scared.  Cause he then slowly grabbed his sons shoulder and had the children turn around and go back the way they came.  Thinking nothing of what just happened we finished shooting and went back to my friend’s house down the street.  As soon as we got out of the car a police cruiser drives by.  I said to everyone “I guarantee that guy called the cops on us!”  They all thought I was being paranoid and told me to shut up.  One week later I get a phone call from another buddy who lives in that neighborhood saying that, that guy did call the cops on us cause he saw a cult of people dressed in white shirts, sacrificing animals.  It’s funny what some things look like from a distance.

After all the shooting was finished we edited it, added music and we were all thrilled at the final outcome because this was the first short we made that had music and graphics, so to us it was an epic masterpiece.   All of our friends and family loved it but would anyone else?  That was my biggest concern.  I was so nervous with showing the class because these people didn’t know any of my friends.  I played it for the class and everyone was in hysterics, people actually asked me for copies of it to show their friends.  Because I had such a positive review from perfect strangers I never stopped making short films from that point on.  We have grown leaps and bounds since then but I still love watching this short.

OUTTAKES!

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