I recently booked the lead role in two short film productions that I look forward to perform in. The two characters I will be playing have one thing in common: they are both “bad guys”!

In the first film, “The Final Shutter”, written and directed by Hyunsook Oh and produced by Jason Mildwurm of Midgard Productions, I will portray a talented and renowned photographer, who becomes obsessed with capturing true emotions on film. His quest for perfection is unfortunately not always compatible with the well being of people around him…

In the second film, “Dinner Guest”, written and directed by Hassan Moore, I will play a French man at a dinner party who is seemingly charming and pleasant but has a secret and dark agenda.

 

Check out my new acting demo reel, which I compiled using films made in 2011 and before. Any feedback is more than welcome, as I am constantly adding new material and re-editing this reel.

More details about the reel here: http://www.philippedebaty.com/videos/demo-reel/.

Merry Christmas to all of you and best wishes for 2012! For the new year, I decided to start sharing my experiences and learnings from making my own film (The Life Of Eric Richards) on my production company’s blog: www.dreammethodproductions.com.

I just published the first post of the series, and it is about writing your script. I invite you to check it out and contribute your own experience and tips so that we can all learn from each other and make better films. I look forward to watching the great films you will hopefully make in 2012!

I was cast in the lead role in an intense short drama written and directed by Navjyot Bandiwadekar. Navjyot is a film student at the SFSDF, which is where I took my very first acting class years ago. I am looking forward to work again with Heather Ryan, the leading lady in the film, who was my co-star in Un-disguise and was a key contributor and actress in my recent production “The Life of Eric Richards“. The film tells the story of a breakup that is not as it seems.

After over a year of post-production work, Patient Zero, a short drama based on the universe of Resident Evil was released online and is now available in HD on YouTube, or Direct download in 10 languages.

I star in it in the lead role of Albert Wesker, a cold, calculating, manipulative scientist. It is a fan film written and directed by Jerome Chagnon, a dedicated fan of the Capcom franchise of Resident Evil. It is full of references to the game that only fans will get, but remains entertaining for everyone else.

One week after the release it reached a total 10,000 views/downloads. Congrats Jerome and the rest of the cast and crew!

Since I haven’t posted in a while, here are the highlights of my film related activities of the past few weeks:

Last weekend, was the film premiere of “Nobody’s Laughing“, an award winning comedy in which I played a disgruntled French office worker. Thanks to Dave Moutray, Miguel Toro, Marcus Sams, and Aliza Rupert for organizing this great event. The turn out was excellent and it was fun reconnecting with everyone.

Also last weekend, I played a supporting role in a film noir written, produced by, and starring Jacintha Charles and directed by Miikka Skaffari. The production ran very efficiently and it was a pleasure working with the crew and talented lead actor Ben Johnson and Jacintha.

Earlier, I gave voice-over performances for two unrelated projects, almost back to back, and both in French. The first project, which I booked thanks to Stars Agency, was for a commercial for which I signed a non-disclosure agreement, so I will say no more about it! The second project was for the narration to an independent short film written by Robbie Ikegami.

Finally, in parallel to all this, we completed principal photography and are now working on editing my film production, “The Life Of Eric Richards”. Editor Kee Heywood is making great progress and we should have a first draft ready by the end of October. The film will likely not be ready for Scary Cow‘s film festival in November as originally planned and will have to wait till next round. But I am very excited by what we have so far and grateful to everyone involved. Production stills taken by Gary Rocchio during the last days of shoot are available at The Life of Eric Richards – Album 2

It’s been a while since my last post, but luckily, it is not not for lack of news. Rather, it is for lack of time to write about them! We are still shooting my film production ‘The Life of Eric Richards‘, which is taking most of my free time and energy. Only one more shoot day to go before principal photography is complete. In parallel, I have been cast on two film projects: ‘League X’, written and directed by Elijah Collins, and a yet to be titled Film Noir, written by Jacintha Charles and directed by Miikka Skaffari.

On other news, a short drama called ‘Hanna’s Question’, produced by the San Francisco Art & Film Workshop, in which I play a young father dealing with his daughter, was premiered at the Dolby screening room and is now available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVwAy9f_N6g, or at http://www.filmworkshopsf.org/films/2011/Hannah.html. Many thanks to Ronald Chase, Ruby Drake, Miranda Henrich, Jesse Filipko and Max Sokoloff, who were all a real pleasure to work with.

For the very first time, I am producing a short film (under the SAG new media contract) that I wrote. It is a comedy called ‘The Life Of Eric Richards’ and after weeks of preparation, we started shooting last weekend. I had a total blast and the results so far are well beyond my expectations.

Many thanks to the prestigious Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school, where I have been studying for over a year, for providing a cast of talented and well-trained actors (Victoria Ma, Dan Bernstein, Kristine Gerolaga, Zavier Alexander, Steven Cloyles, and many more, see full list here). Robert Zimmerman, our acting teacher himself, offered to help direct the film and did an incredible job at running a tight ship, getting the most out of the actors, and handling smoothly all the unexpected situations we encountered. I also want to thank the non-BHP actors on the cast, which included the talented female lead Holly Covell (full list available here), for giving terrific performances.

Kudos to Scary Cow, the indie film co-op that I joined and provided me with an awesome crew, including award winner cinematographer Samir Sinha, gaffer extraordinaire Bill Spafford, sound recorders Alisha McCutcheon and Jeff Boron, and many more (full list available here). Kee Heywood, a director I worked with in the past (see this post), was the 1st assistant director on this project and will now begin the gargantuan task of editing.

Production stills are available here: The Life Of Eric Richards – Production Stills – Album 1

We still have one more weekend of shooting, and the goal is to finish post-production by the end of October so that we can screen the film at the Scary Cow film festival in November. But the primary target of this film is to be distributed online on YouTube. I will be sure to keep everyone posted and let you guys know when it is done and available for your enjoyment.