Ryan Moulton is a super-genius. As such, I knew it be awesome to work with him on something, so I ended up “Producing” his idea for a live-action adaptation of his high school web comic.

According to Ryan…

Hawaii Girl is a series of videos that I shot around May. We shot five episodes. It’s technically an adaptation of a web comic I did back in High School that may or may not still be online somewhere.

HAWAII GIRL: Wake-up Time from Rymo on Vimeo

Wake-up Time, the one posted here, was the last one we shot, took the least amount of time to shoot, and was the quickest edit. If we had had another five minutes in the location, we could have gotten it perfect.

I’m telling myself that I’ll post a new episode every week until all five are posted, and I hope I’ll be able to stick to it.

Producing is a bit of an ephemeral thing when it comes to no-budget filmmaking, but I guess I did my part enough to warrant taking some credit for the project. I gave script notes, gave deadlines, and arranged most of the actors, crew, props, and equipment. I also got permission to shoot at (most of) the locations, and dealt with it when we didn’t.

Hopefully, overall, I hope I made Ryan’s job painless enough so he could concentrate on actually making the videos (which is the essence of producing). Towards the end of last year, I really appreciated that there was a genuine push to towards that style of producing in Student Upstart Films from the old model it started with, and I’m glad to see that continuing this year. It’s this type of work that makes projects actually happen– like the music video that Jovone Brown proposed for his fraternity.

Great job Upstart! Superior work Ryan!

(more Hawaii Girl)

HAWAII GIRL: Trapped from Rymo on Vimeo.