Adorably awkward IT guy finally gets a shot with the girl of his dreams - shortly after a zombie apocalypse.
This latest short on our VFF Online Series, BAD TIMING, can be watched in episodes, if you don't have the full 20 minutes to watch it in one sitting. Just head on over to Andy's YouTube Channel, Goldentusk.
Andy Goldenberg is an actor and writer, and if you peruse his imdb page, you will see he does a little bit of everything (producing, directing, editing). Not to mention he has a youtube channel with over 54,000 subscribers! So head on over there and stay awhile...wait, first finish reading this post...then you can click over.
Ready to learn some more about Andy? Here you go: Andy Goldenberg grew up in FL and graduated from the University of Miami with a BFA in Theater, but considers himself an Angeleno. With several commercials and tv roles under his belt, his big break came as Adam Sandler’s Acting Double and Scene Partner in Jack and Jill (2011): when Adam played Jack, Andy played Jill. His Goldentusk YouTube Channel has more than 53,000 subscribers and 50 million views, with Time Out New York film critic Keith Uhlich nicknaming him “The Theme Song Sondheim”. He was a coverboy of the Nice Jewish Guys Calendar and recently published a children’s book called Peter, the Paranoid Pumpkin. He regularly performs with the record-breaking improv team, Freedom Snatch. He wouldn’t last very long after the apocalypse, but please save him anyway.
How long have you been writing? I’ve been writing my whole life, but I took a short break around middle school to draw in cursive. My father had one of the first consumer camcorders, so I was making home movies since I was about 8 years old. I wrote for a sketch comedy group called Rebels Without Applause in high school and for National Lampoon after moving out to LA. I started filming videos for the internet back in 2004, so I’ve been playing close attention to short attention spans for a while. My sister, though, is a superior writer and we collaborated on BAD TIMING to really make it sing. While my first drafts of the script were essentially monologues, she really fleshed out the dialogue and characters to open up the story.
How many films have you written? I’ve written several short films for online consumption through my YouTube Channel. I have two finished pilots and first drafts for two feature films. Aside from that, I have hundreds of scribbles over countless scratch pieces of paper that, one day, will turn into something more.
What is your top advice for first-time writers? I love, LOVE, writing dialogue. I’m a huge fan of Kevin Smith’s wordiness (especially Clerks) and grew up in the theater performing extended monologues. Film, however, is a very visual medium and people want to see action. So, you can keep writing lots of dialogue, but audiences tend to get ahead of your speeches faster and faster. It’s better if you can say what you need to say with less words. Jokes also work better, for the most part, when they’re shorter. Be brief. Always let the audience in on the joke. Don’t keep it from them at the top. They want to know what’s going on in a scene immediately or they’ll switch away. We don’t have time for long exposition anymore. All that being said, there are no hard and fast rules, and you should break every single one of them and make people copy your style.
Bad Timing
An adorably awkward IT guy finally gets a shot with the girl of his dreams - shortly after a zombie apocalypse.
What drew you to wanting to tell this story? The initial idea for BAD TIMING stemmed from a conversation I was having with friends. “Who would you want to be stuck with on a deserted island?” A common answer for my guy friends was always the current hottest supermodel, but I always thought that the models wouldn’t want to be there with THEM. Thus, Andy and Eve together at the end of the world: He’s infatuated she doesn’t know he exists. I also wanted a project where I had written the role I played so that I was overwhelmingly proud of showcasing my talent.
What kind of camera was BAD TIMING shot on? Canon 5d Mark 3. My director’s camera and my DP’s lenses.
What were some of the challenges in getting this film made and how did you overcome them? Money, go figure. We raised donations with crowdfunding and then I took money I needed to live and funded the rest. It was the first project I had ever produced where I wanted to pay people to work on it, because I wanted it to be a professional film. We also overcame desert heat, flying bugs, and scorpions by praying at night that none of us would die.