Brian Sutherland's new commerical

Quick update for Monday, April 4th. Our leading man, Brian Sutherland, stars in a new commercial for the Washington State Lottery, and it premiered today.

Great job, Brian!

Latest casting announcement

The search for our leading man led to the casting of another part. Bonus! We are excited to welcome Jordin Buttenob to the cast of Reunion. Jordin will play a supporting role as Travis.

Jordin Buttenob as Travis

After leaving the Air Force six months ago Jordin decided to pursue acting. He began taking classes and was told he had good instincts for it. 

We would agree -- his audition for Reunion was his second audition ever. From his nuanced performance we would never have guessed he just started developing his craft.

While Jordin is taking on one of the smaller roles in Reunion, I think it's safe to say he'll be bagging bigger parts soon enough. 

We are thrilled to welcome Jordin to our cast. Not only have we managed to assemble a great group of actors, we've managed to luck into the nicest actors you'd ever want to meet.

Welcome to Reunion, Jordin!

Be seeing you...

Meet Jason Lasby

We are thrilled to announce that Brian Sutherland has been cast as Reunion's leading man, Jason Lasby. 

Brian Sutherland as Jason Lasby

 Matt met Brian when Brian starred in a Washington State Lotto spot Matt was producing (on your TV soon!). Matt recommended Brian audition and on Saturday, March 12th, Brian read opposite our leading lady, Alison Monday, and immediately stood out among a very strong group of auditioning actors.

 Yesterday (Sunday, March 20th), Brian confirmed our initial impressions with a powerful callback performance. We had found our lead.

We are thrilled beyond belief to add Brian to our brilliant cast. Welcome to Reunion, Brian!

Here's more info on Brian, in his own words:

Brian Sutherland has been professionally acting for seven years in Seattle, Washington. He is the Co-Founder of the improv group Quiet Monkey Fight and has performed in various comedy festivals including New York, L.A, Toronto, Orlando and Vancouver. He recently became the voice of the Blue Beta for Microsoft, and can be seen in commercials for Guayaki Yerba Mate, The Deadliest Catch, WA Lottery and Taco Time. You can see him in the upcoming films "Nothing Against Life" by Julio Ramirez, "The Greenspan" by Phil Harvey and "Break" by Pete Anderson, along with performances in J.T. Tepnapa's "Judas Kiss", and Heather Gorgura "Passion's Shadow" and "The Last Vacation" written by Kris and Lindy Boustedt.

Brian would like to thank his beautiful family for their love and support, and is very excited about working with the great ensemble of actors in "Reunion".

Be seeing you...

Casting again

Last Saturday, March 12th, we held auditions for our male lead, Jason Lasby. We saw some great talent. 

For this round of auditions I wrote an original scene featuring our two leads, a scene that would basically be considered backstory for those characters. Alison Monda, our leading lady, graciously showed up and spent the better part of her Saturday afternoon reading opposite our auditioning male actors. Thank you, Alison!

Our wardrobe department head (the lovely Megan Lacki) also showed up and took measurements of Alison and Trin so she could get started putting a wardrobe together.

I just contacted those actors who we are inviting back for callbacks this Sunday (March 20th). After spending last Saturday showing how they would handle the domestic aspects of Jason's character, they'll spend Sunday flaunting their horror movie skills. Can't wait!

Be seeing you...

Update 2/25/11

In pre-production news...

I'm plugging away at a final rewrite. Basically this is a final pass to add a little character development and tighten the script overall. If I can shave ten pages I'll be thrilled.

We have tentatively scheduled a casting call for Saturday, March 12th (pending audition space availability). That casting session will be exclusively focused on finding our leading man. That character, JASON LASBY, will be married to Alison Monda Posner's character, RACHELLE. If you are an actor in the Seattle area looking for a chance at a leading role and would like to act opposite Alison (picture below), keep an eye on tpsonline.org for the casting announcement in the next few days. Or, if you're antsy, email me at reunionproducer@gmail.com for more information.

Alison Monda Posner

We are still looking for our principal location. A realtor in Seattle is keeping an eye out for us and has already come back with one solid option. We are most likely looking at August shoot dates and we'll hopefully be announcing our specific shoot dates within a week or two.

As we move deeper into 2011 we'll begin to add people to our crew. If you are in the Seattle area and interested in helping shoot a bloody horror movie this August, email us at reunionproducer@gmail.com to let us know how you can help. With Jared temporarily relocated to Arizona, we could use local producer help. We will also be looking for help with makeup, visual fx, a great sound recordist, an art director, assistant director. If you, or anyone you know, would like to volunteer time to Reunion (we're so micro-budget it is highly unlikely we will be able to pay - unless an angel investor pops up!), please let us know. We'll owe you one!

That's all for now!

Be seeing you...

2011, Moving Right Along...

So what the hell? It's February already?

Reunion is moving along. Last week we met with our mask maker to look over his sketches, make final notes, and then we gave him the go ahead to start pricing materials. Once that is done we'll buy said materials and he'll get to work constructing a little bit of latex terror.

The main priority for us at the moment is finding our principal shooting location. We're looking for a two-story house, ideally gabled, hopefully white (a white tumor in a sea of green, as written in the script), that at least looks like it could be out in the middle of nowhere. Something similar to this would be great:

If we can settle on one location that can serve as our exteriors and also offers workable interiors, so much the better. We are prepared to shoot exteriors at one location and use a second location for our interiors if need be. The whole shoot is currently planned for 20-22 days in late July or August. Of those 2-3 would be exterior shoots at the house and 90% of the rest would be interiors at the house (the remaining shoot days would be for a couple of secondary locations that can be shot at separate times from the main shoot, if need be). If you, or anyone you know, has a house that you think might work (rental, vacation home, empty home sitting on the market, house in the process of being flipped) for late summer and is within reasonable driving distance of Seattle, please email us at : reunionproducer@gmail.com with "Location" in the subject heading. It could be a way for you to make some summer time vacation money and see your home in a sick horror flick!

Aside from our location search I am currently re-writing the script to tighten it up just a bit (it's currently a tad bloated and is retaining water). That should be done in a couple of weeks. Also within the next couple of weeks we'll begin another round of casting, this time looking for our male lead. If you know any potential leading men aged 25-35 give them a heads up.

Be seeing you...

Meet the bad guy... *(Updated)*

And finally a man joins the cast. Meet Reunion's Big Bad: Jesse Lee Keeter.

Jesse beat out some very tough competition to earn the role - and earn it he did. He auditioned for us three times and blew us away with his intensity and his ability to play off the actors he's working opposite. 

Jesse has a lot of experience onstage, as well as on camera. He, along with his two friends Ahren Buhmann and Gabe Congdon, is a part of ElGoodTimes Productions. Together Ahren, Gabe, and Jesse produce and star in the web series &@ (And At). Check out their Youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ElGoodTimes. And "Like" them on Facebook here: And At Facebook page. If you're feeling the post-holiday blues, be sure to check out their short, "Have A Wet Christmas". It will really rain on your parade.

*Update*: Jesse also starred as the handsomest orc in all the land in the web series JourneyQuest. JourneyQuest is the product of Zombie Orpheus and Dead Gentlemen Productions. 

You can learn all about JourneyQuest and enjoy episodes at http://www.journey-quest.com/. You should go do that. Now.

We are thrilled beyond belief to add Jesse's talents to Reunion. During his last audition he read opposite Alison Monda Posner and when I informed her that she had been cast she specifically asked if Jesse would be cast as well. Upon hearing that he would indeed be playing our bad guy she responded (via Facebook message): "This movie is going to @%*#ing rock". Indeed!

Welcome, Jesse. Now put that knife away...

Be seeing you...