(Reposted from Katie Trupiano’s blog)
I’m relatively new to the film scene happening here in Pittsburgh. Things I do know about it 1. It’s busy 2. It’s thriving and 3. It’s a whole lotta fun. Working on Mason introduced me to a lot of skilled, awesome people who know a lot more about filmmaking than I do (which is convenient to a newbie film actor, like me). While working on the set of Mason, I met Paul Nandzik who was working as our stunt coordinator (and revolutionary drunk as seen in Episode 2). He’s working on a new project now with Oh Penny Pictures, and, full disclosure: it sounded a little crazy at first. But now that I’ve seen the trailer, I’m way into it and looking forward to seeing more. Hence the blog post.
Forever Young, Paul’s current project, is about:
“Victoria D’Abord (Ruthy Stapleton) is an ancient and powerful vampire who rules the Earth from the shadows, and who has even conquered Luna, Mars and Venus…to say nothing of her mastery of the dark arts. She languishes in exhausted boredom until she watches Stuffy the Slayer, a puppet parody and homage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and realizes that, of all her accomplishments, she has yet to defeat high school! And so, with the help of her Ghoul Servant (David Ogrodowski), she enrolls in Neil Young High School.”
Are you hooked? Great. You can support the project by donating HERE.
Not buying it? Another full disclosure: I’m not into vampires (or any other kind of undead)…but then the trailer happened:
I’m in! I mean, who doesn’t want to see a vampire go through high school? In a real, anything-but-Twilight kind of way, amiright? I asked Paul (who admits to enjoying absurdity and soap operas) what sparked the idea for Forever Young, and he told me the following:
“What bothered me most about [The Vampire Diaries] was that these centuries old vampires with massive power and wealth decide on a whim to enroll in high school, and this really got me. It was very distracting to the story….I gave it some thought and contemplated what would reasonably compel ancient vampires to enroll in high school. The only good answer I could come up with was boredom.”
If anyone can be trusted to write, produce and direct a series about a vampire queen going back to high school because of boredom, it’s Paul. His experiences include working on mainstream union films, indies (go Mason!) and student films, both in front of and behind the camera. For a full list of credits, check out Paul’s IMDB page. He’s also got a killer (no pun intended) crew surrounding him.
Fun fact: if you’ve never worked on a film before, a lot goes wrong while you’re on set. It’s so interdependent on everyone doing their job, and everything going right with all the moving parts and the location and other resources, that if one piece falls out, things might fall apart. This is enough to make my type-A self cringe. Paul? Nope. He says it’s his favorite part of filmmaking.
“…whatever the problem is…you have to figure out what you have available to you and what you can do to get around that problem. You learn to make the most of what you have. And sometimes you have to break the rules. And it’s a challenge on an individual as much as it is to the group as a whole.”
Yay creative problem solving!!!
Forever Young filmed last November and is now in post-production. Once the episode is complete, Oh Penny Pictures is hoping to distribute the episode to our favorite streaming services. So if you like what you saw in the trailer, keep your fingers crossed!
And of course, if you like what you saw, Forever Young needs money to keep producing. Funny thing, that money. They have all kinds of benefits for donating and more fun things on their Indiegogo site that you can find here. Choose to donate and support local artists and local film and make a difference!
