Four Eyed Monsters

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Four Eyed Monsters

‎
Directed by Susan Buice
Arin Crumley
Written by Susan Buice
Arin Crumley
Starring Susan Buice
Arin Crumley
Music by Andrew A. Peterson
Editing by Susan Buice
Arin Crumley
Distributed by self-distributed
Release date(s) December 1, 2006 (NYC)
Running time 70 minutes
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Gross revenue $3,135 (Estimate)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Four Eyed Monsters is a 2005 film by Susan Buice and Arin Crumley. It roughly follows Buice and Crumley's real life relationship; the couple initially communicated only through artistic means because Arin was too shy to introduce himself to Susan.

The film was shot on MiniDV using the Panasonic AG-DVX100 in Brooklyn and Manhattan, New York, Framingham, Massachusetts and Johnson, Vermont. It was edited on Apple's Final Cut Pro editing software. It debuted on the festival circuit in January 2005 at the Slamdance Film Festival. After attending dozens of festivals, they started to have people request the film to screen in their area. They used a custom designed Google map which showed the zip codes with the largest number of people requesting the film. And in September 2006, they screened the film in six cities every week during the month. (footage of some of these September screenings can be seen in the rolling credits of the film) Due to all the success on the September screenings, they premiered theatrically on December 1, 2006 in New York City at the Cinema Village in Greenwich Village.

On June 8, 2007 the entire film was initially released on YouTube for one week, but this was extended until August 15. Buice and Crumley introduced the film, explaining that they were still in credit card debt from making Four Eyed Monsters. They gave a link to the website [1] because the site had promised to give them one dollar for every new sign up, up to a 100,000 dollar total, through the link to help with this debt. As of 2007 they collected more than 48,000 dollars.

Contents

[edit] Plot

A shy videographer (Arin) and an uninspired artist working as a waitress (Susan) meet on the Internet and spark a relationship. Fed up with the usual dating game, the two decide to not communicate verbally, only through artistic means to see if they can make it work.

[edit] Video podcast

Throughout the creation of the feature film, the filmmakers were constantly documenting how making the film was affecting their relationship and eventually how the issue of crediting their friends who helped them with the film blew up.

At first they just sat on all of this footage for a while. Then, after the film premiered at Slamdance 2005, they went to SXSW where they were inspired by all of the talk about filmmakers using blogs to try making a daily video blog about being at the festival. It caught on fast, and the filmmakers had gotten their feet wet learning the power of web video.

Then they went to more film festivals, continuing to film everything and on October 12, 2005, the day Apple announced the video capable iPod, Four Eyed Monsters posted Episode 0, an introductory episode teasing what their planned series would reveal.

Attention from the blogosphere and enthusiasm from a growing audience put the pressure on the filmmakers to deliver, and they then edited Episode 1. It basically revealed the evolution of the filmmakers' real lives into the creation of their feature film and ended letting the audience know the film got a phone call from Slamdance. The remaining episodes went on to show how getting approval from a festival changed everything in their lives and goes on to show how people who had helped with their film then started to want to receive directing credits.

The video podcast helped Four Eyed Monsters to get help from major promotional websites like MySpace. MySpace featured episodes 1, 2 and 3 on their homepage. This was before there was a filmmaker section on MySpace and before MySpace allowed users to upload videos. The iTunes podcast directory would also regularly feature the video podcast when new episodes would post.

The filmmakers have also been active in encouraging other filmmakers to post their material to the web. During 2006 and 2007, they attended many film festivals and conferences including Sundance, Digimart, IFP, and Berlinale Talent Campus, spreading the word about how the exposure they received from their video podcast enabled them to self-distribute their movie.

As they self distributed to theaters, the filmmakers would make video messages, announcements and invitations they'd post to their video podcast feed to encourage participation in their film's distribution.

With all the work of getting the film released and available on DVD finally complete, episodes 9-12 of the video podcast will be released, continuing where the end of episode 8 left off.

[edit] Awards

[edit] External links

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