During their fourth year in the MFA School of Film program, Mike Gray and Matt Brunson decided to showcase their talents using a different method than that of their peers.
Gray and Brunson, who graduated in 2012, had already built a strong connection together. The music video “Silly Bears” produced for the band Akron/Family and various Cel Wolf commercials have kept the duo collaborating even after graduation.
About a year ago, the two filmmakers decided to take their projects to a different level by creating LJ’s Trip, a six-part online mini-series about time traveling that served as their thesis project.
“We wanted to basically make something that was the audio-visual equivalent of a train-of-thought crash,” Brunson said. “Something overloaded with information that moves super fast and kind of goes everywhere.”
Four episodes of the show have been released, all of which are available for free on the website ljstrip.com. The filmmakers said they want to release the final parts between October and November.
The filmmakers shot the self-financed series in a two-week period during winter break. Brunson said that during production he pulled inspiration from Pee-wee Herman, Monty Python and Mr. Wizard, while Gray said he was motivated by Italian film director Dario Argento.
“We hope people not only find it fun, but we hope people have no idea what to expect from it, so they tune in out of sheer morbid curiosity to see where we’re going with it,” Brunson said.
LJ’s Trip stars Joel Stigliano, an OU graduate, in a title role written specifically for him. It focuses on LJ and his camera robot CAMBOT as they travel through time visiting important moments in history.
“I have said time and again that I would do anything for those guys,” Stigliano said. “Both Matt and Mike were very generous with rehearsal, making sure we took the time to get the story right, and then once the outline was set they were generous enough to let me get a bit tangential just to see what would happen.”
However, the making of the show did endure a few post-production hiccups. After filming, Brunson was diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease, a relatively unknown and infectious lung disease. The illness, which Brunson said almost turned fatal, delayed the editing of the show for a short period of time.
Though both Gray and Brunson edit the show, Gray said Brunson is the primary editor of the project. Even with a delay in the release of the final episodes, they said they are excited for people to tune in.
wa054010@ohiou.edu
