short films

In 2004 I got a postcard in the mail from Addidas and the Northwest Filmmaker Forum for a short film contest. I put it to the side, not really giving it any notice. But the $10,000 prize kept tugging at my greedy side. I couldn't think of any ideas for it, but two images kept coming to mind... a guy finding a pair of shoes floating up on the beach and then the shoes breaking and the guy desperately trying to put them back together. A day of emails with a creative friend of mine lead to a workable story-line.

The contest deadline was about three weeks away. I couldn't think of anybody for the lead and didn't have the time to search, so I played the part. Jim, my DP for eRATicate, and I ended up shooting 90 min of footage for this short that had to be three min. or less. Editing it was quite the experience, having that time limit made it a challenge, but I think it turned out for the better, as I really trimmed it down to its necessities. My friend Brandon put together the score in less than a week. It was great to see the whole thing come together so quickly.

Starring: Emma Jones, Starr Samuelson & Ross Williams

Written, Directed & Edited by: Ross Williams

Director of Photography: Jim Walters

Music Composed by: Brandon Payne

Produced by: Kristan Kelly

Hi, this is Kristan - Ross’ wife. I was inspired by Ross to make a short film. As a still photographer I love imagery and film, capturing the moments to be remembered. This reminded me of a time when a good friend, Mian had her birthday and our friend Jimmy and I took her all over Seattle to different places to celebrate. We ended up in West Seattle where we met a little girl who had a pet rat with her on the beach. Some kids were making fun of her and it really hit me how sad that was. A few months later I was talking to Jim about making a short film about a little girl getting made fun of because of her pet rat. He helped me develop the story for 25¢. Then we ask our friend Mian to get involved and that turned into including some of her personal life in the story, through her character. This made the project very special to all of us. We spent about 2 months developing the project, writing and re-writing, until we finally shot it in July 2003.  I don't plan on directing again, but it really was a wonderful experience with a wonderful cast and crew I couldn't have done it without them. 

Starring: Mian Carvin, Elena Scanagatta, Taylor Kemp, Christopher & Juliana Marasco

Directed by: Kristan Kelly

Written by: Kristan Kelly & Jim Walters

Director of Photography: Jim Walters

Edited by: Andrew McCallister

Music Composed by: Brandon Payne

Produced by: Ross Williams

This is only a trailer for now, the film itself is still in production. 

I met Randy Granstrom through his Killer Valley Film Festival, when my film eRATicate played and won “Best Film” in 2008. In the past few years he’s produced & directed some very sick and funny videos.  (Check out: Gogbar! & Gogjuice!)  We share a similar sense of humor, so I immediately wanted to work with him.  My chance came about when he told me about his production of First Men on Planet 9, his homage to cheesy 50’s sci-fi; bad models strings and all, hokey monsters and bad over-dubbing.  Should be fun! 

Edited & Post Production by: Ross Williams

Produced & Directed by: Randy Granstrom

More Information: Killer Valley Films

I’m not totally sure how to categorize this project, it’s a long-form music video that was made for the Southern Oregon punk band Virus 9.  A friend of mine John Foote produced and directed it for his company Mental Films.  He’d had a cut done that was mostly a music video, but he wanted it expanded.  I went about cutting it like a short film, trying to build the story and suspense before it bursts into song at the end.  I also did all the sound mixing, color-correction and few visual effects.

This was the sort of project that I’d love to work on continuously.

Editing & Post Production by: Ross Williams

Produced & Directed by: John Foote

More Information: Mental Films

This was something fun I wanted to put together for our family.  My 5 year old son, went snowboarding for the first time and we wanted something to remember it by.  I experimented a bit with the editing, trying to make it fun and exciting.  I didn’t spend too long on it, but this is an example of what can be put together from fairly ordinary home video footage, if a little bit of time and care is put into the post production.  I think it turned out to be really fun.

Shot by: Kristan Kelly Williams

Editing & Post Production by: Ross Williams