Our third short film “The Haunting at Danford Cabin” and the first stop-motion animation from Director Craig Anthony Perkins, is complete and released as an official selection of the Canadian Film Centre’s Shorts Nonstop Festival, presented by Telus. Our short film is also an official selection has also won Best Animation and Grand Prize Best Overall Film at the 2012 iPhone Film Festival.

This short horror film, which was shot entirely on the iPhone 4S, has a runtime of 3 minutes and 21 seconds and can be viewed here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM0Nii0nXH8

LOGLINE: When a woodsman hears the disembodied cries and whispers of his not-so-dearly but recently departed wife, his search for the source brings him to an unexpected and violent confrontation.

Scene from “The Haunting at Danford Cabin”

CREDITS:

Written & Directed by
Craig Anthony Perkins

Produced by
Craig Anthony Perkins / Debora Jo Myers

Cinematography, Editing, Music Score & Sound Design by
Craig Anthony Perkins

Production Design by
Debora Jo Myers

Set Design & Construction by
Maurice C. Baxter

Puppet Construction & Costumes by
Debora Jo Myers

Puppeteers
Craig Anthony Perkins / Debora Jo Myers

Animation & Colorist
Craig Anthony Perkins

Thank You to
Maurice C. Baxter, Herma Rae Baxter, Desdra Dawning

Special Thanks to
Aurélien Potier at Fingerlab for his support and assistance.

Very Special Thanks to
Debora Jo Myers for her inspiration, dedication and invaluable support of which the making of this film would not be possible.

Shot entirely on the  iPhone 4S using the iMotion HD and iMotion Remote apps.

© 2012 Genshi Media Group

Director Craig Anthony Perkins on the set of “The Haunting at Danford Cabin”

Isobel & The Witch Queen - Movie Poster

Genshi Media Group is proud to announce the completion and premier of our short film Isobel & The Witch Queen. This film will be premiering exclusively on January 27th, 2012 at the Macworld | iWorld event as part of the iPhone Filmmakers discussion panel.

Written and Directed by Genshi Media Group’s founder Craig Anthony Perkins, this 13 minute short film tells the story of Isobel, an 11 year old girl, dealing with the pain of her parent’s break up. She finds herself led into a magical dream realm, where its fantastic inhabitants mirror her earthly plight; pushing her forward on her quest to help her mother. After an encounter with the Witch Queen, Izzy returns eager to support her mother with the knowledge that her mother has had the power all along to start her new life…

The film was shot entirely on the iPhone 4S using the FiLMiC Pro and iSupr8 apps. Despite the fact that we received no funding or sponsorship for this short film, leaving us with a zero budget, we were still able to pull together and shoot a story as an example of what can be done with such limited resources.

Scene from "Isobel & The Witch Queen"

Craig would like to thank the cast and crew for all of their time and help in the making of this film, to Ruben Kazantsev and Renata Rinyu of the iPhone Film Festival for their continued support and encouragement, to Maurice C. Baxter and Herma Rae Baxter for their hospitality and patience while we filmed in their home, and a very special thank you to Producer, Actress and Costume Designer Debora Jo Myers, for her tremendous support, hard work and boundless energy which proved to be invaluable to the production of this film.

SYNOPSIS:
Isobel is an 11 year old girl, dealing with the pain of her parent’s break up. She finds herself led into a magical dream realm, where its fantastic inhabitants mirror her earthly plight; pushing her forward on her quest to help her mother. After an encounter with the Witch Queen, Izzy returns eager to support her mother with the knowledge that her mother has had the power all along to start her new life…

CREDITS:

Directed by
Craig Anthony Perkins

Written by
Craig Anthony Perkins

Cast (in alphabetical order)
Chad Anderson … Forest Guardian
Trevor Downing … Forest Goblin #1
Ethan Reed McKay … Feral Forest Boy
Amanda Myers … The Witch Queen
Debora Jo Myers … Mother
David Rolin … Forest Goblin #2
Roma Willow Zenk … Isobel

Produced by
Debora Jo Myers

Original Music by
Craig Anthony Perkins

Cinematography by
Craig Anthony Perkins

Film Editing by
Craig Anthony Perkins

Costume Design by
Herma Rae Baxter (assistant costume designer)
Amanda Myers (co-costume designer)
Debora Jo Myers (original costumes)

Sound Department
Chad Anderson …. sound recordist/boom operator

Other crew
Kelly Vosberg …. production assistant

Scene from "Isobel & The Witch Queen"

Scene from "Isobel & The Witch Queen"

Scene from "Isobel & The Witch Queen"

Isobel And The Witch Queen

Genshi Media Group Founder and Director, Craig Anthony Perkins, has been asked to be part of a panel discussion of iPhone Filmmakers at the upcoming 2012 Macworld. They will be showing the past winning films from the iPhone Film Festival followed by a question and answer period. In addition, Craig has also been asked to shoot a new short film to World Premier exclusively at Macworld. 600 media outlets will be in attendance along with 25,000 attendees.

The story for this approximately 12 minute fantasy/fairy tale short film, entitled Isobel And The Witch Queen, has been written and we’ve recently acquired four of the main actresses as well as an art director and costume designer for the film. We will be casting shortly for additional supporting actors, performance artists and puppeteers (to play the various forest creatures and fairy folk.) We will be shooting this up in Portland Oregon, primarily at the Witch’s Castle in Forest Park and at a couple of other secret locations.

This will take some small funding and sponsorship so we are looking for Executive Producers who would be willing to invest in this project. We will also be needing a Visual Effects Artist/Supervisor (L.A. or Portland) a Sound Mixer/Boom Operator (Portland) and Gaffer/Lighting Technician (Portland). Craig will of course be Writing, Directing and Editing this, but may be looking for a composer as well.

Macworld will be announcing this in October. This will be an amazing opportunity for all involved as this will be getting more exposure than most film festivals. Any Investor/Executive Producer invloved with this project should see the huge potential in having their name attached to something that will be getting this much media coverage (with the extra benefit of not having to compete with thousands of other entries like at a typical film festival.) There are also a couple of other surprises regarding all of this which can’t be mentioned quite yet, but needless to say, this is a huge opportunity for anyone associated with this project.

More details coming soon… for additional inquiries or to contribute or become a sponsor, please contact: production@genshi.com

Pixels: The Art Of iPhone Photography

Photographer and Filmmaker Craig Anthony Perkins, founder of Genshi Media Group, will have several of his photographs along with four of his experimental videos shown at the exhibition entitled Pixels: The Art of iPhone Photography showing at the Orange County Center For Contemporary Art.

This group exhibition will showcase the best iPhoneographers from around the world and will run from March 31st through April 30th 2011. The exhibition will then move to the Arty Gallery in downtown Los Angeles during the months of May and June 2011 and then to the Giorgi Gallery in Berkeley, CA., September 22nd through October 30, 2011.

The curator of the exhibition is Knox Bronson who runs the leading iPhoneography gallery site Pixels At An Exhibition and is also co-curated by Jeff T. Alu, Daniel Berman and Maia Panos. The entire iPhoneography community owes them a great deal of thanks for supporting and promoting this emerging form of photography. Thank you!

Caltech recently contacted us regarding the purchase of photos that Genshi Media Group founder and photographer Craig Anthony Perkins took of the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech. The media department at Caltech wanted to use the photos for publicity purposes and for Caltech’s “New Year President’s Message” from Dr. Jean-Lou Chameau… and we happily obliged them.

Cahill Center 01

Originally, Craig had taken the photos because he was intrigued by the building and, after searching online, was disappointed that no one had captured an image that did justice to the extravagant architecture of Cahill Center. It seems Caltech felt the same way; as they were searching online for photos of their own building and stumbled upon Craig’s photos.

Future collaboration between Craig and Caltech have been discussed and results of this collaboration will be posted here when available.

Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech in Pasadena California was designed by Thom Mayne, founder of the architectural firm Morphosis.

We are currently working on our first book of photography based on lo-fi Holga images taken in and around the city of Pasadena. The book is tentatively titled “Pasadena Squared” (squared because of the 6×6, square format of the medium format film that the Holga uses.)

We had originally planned on using one of several publishers that we have access to but instead, we think this would be a great opportunity to publish the book ourselves! It’s something we have always wanted to do and since we are pretty much a DIY shop with all of our other projects (e.g., our music label, our toy label) we thought we’d give it a go and create a book publishing label as well.

Details about the book: though he has recently taken on a part time teaching position at a local community college where he teaches Digital Photography, Craig Anthony Perkins has had a recent love affair with shooting film again, especially with the Holga camera. The images in this forthcoming book were all shot with the Holga using Ilford Delta Pro film and then professionally scanned directly from the processed film with no Photoshopping involved (though there was minor level/ exposure editing performed in Apple’s Aperture software.)

Stay tuned for further updates on the progress of this, our first self-published book. In the mean time, you can view a small sample of images in our gallery below which will be featured in the book.

Craig Anthony Perkins recently had his photo, Abandoned Train Car, published in issue 10 of Light Leaks Magazine. 

Light Leaks is a magazine dedicated to those who use low-fi cameras such as the Holga.

Abandoned Train Car

This particular photo was selected by Aline Smithson, the guest photo editor for issue #10. She was a photo editor for Vogue Patterns in New York and has worked as a photo editor and fashion stylist for some of the top photographers in the industry. Now she shows her own photographic work in galleries across the country.

Some details about this photo: Craig used a Holga 120S loaded with expired Ilford Delta 3200 Pro film (which is a grainy medium format or 120 film.) Yes, this is film not digital and no Photoshopping was involved other than to save the photo as a jpg from the scanned negative.

I had the pleasure to be invited to the first-ever Photographers’ Rights Rally in Los Angeles, Ca. The event, known as National Photographers’ Rights Day, or NPRD, was organized by “Discarted” and a flickr group was created to explain the motivation behind the rally and to share information and photos from the event.

We met at the Hollywood and Highland Metro Station and after a couple of hours getting to know each other, camera gear discussions and taking photos, we took the Redline down to Union Station.

I met some great people, took a few cool pictures and wished that this was a monthly event (at least) as it was just too important to be a once a year thing and it was a great experience as well; to get out on the streets and capture the many characters of Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles.

National Photographers’ Rights Day

This particular photo was taken at Union Station of video-blogger Naomi Mercer interviewing Discarted about the Photographers’ Rights Rally. To see more photos from my perspective, you can view my flickr set created for the event.

Continuing the series of photo sessions of the Fashion Design and Manufacturing house near the City of Commerce, this series, “The Factory and Warehouse” shows the workers of this massive production house in their daily routine. But this is no sweatshop (luckily.) These young men and women were very hard working, but they were happy, healthy and very personable.

A Day In The Life Of A Design House - Part Two

As I mentioned previously in part one of this series, the shoot gave me real insight to the day to day workings of such a huge company and their process. From the executive meetings in the showroom, to the art director’s brainstorming sessions, to the designers and their fleet of iMacs as they mockup patterns using CAD programs, to the pattern factory where they take the CAD files and create prototypes of the designs as well as the warehouse workers that pack and ship tens of thousands of products each day; their warehouse overwhelming.

The shoot itself was quite fun and more importantly, gave me a chance to tell their story Reportage style as I tried to capture the “moments” of the employees in their day to day business.

I recently finished a series of photo sessions for a Fashion Design and Manufacturing house near the City of Commerce. Though they are not very well known by name, they are actually a huge company that designs and manufactures everything from cosmetic bags, travel bags and men’s grooming kits, to baby bath products, pet carriers and luggage. The clients they design for are the big chain stores, everyone from Target to Sears.

A Day In The Life Of A Design House

The shoot gave me real insight to the day to day workings of such a huge company and their process. From the executive meetings in the showroom, to the art director’s brainstorming sessions, to the designers and their fleet of iMacs as they mockup patterns using CAD programs, to the pattern factory where they take the CAD files and create prototypes of the designs.

I also had the chance to spend time with the warehouse workers that pack and ship tens of thousands of products each day. Their warehouse was overwhelming.

The shoot itself was quite fun and more importantly, gave me a chance to tell their story Reportage style as I tried to capture the “moments” of the designers and factory personnel in their day to day business.