RiverBend Films: Other Projects: Short Films

Them Funky Earthlings Music Video
In 2008, shortly after the release of The Receipt, RiverBend Films collaborated with composer Jeff Dixon and the band Alchemy to produce an exciting four-minute music video for the funk/pop song Them Funky Earthlings from Alchemy's 2006 album Cosmic Joke that is a spectacular high-definition visual assault on the senses. Far more than just a typical music video depicting a band performing on a stage, the break-dancers took their performance to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, in order to interact with real-life people and capture those interactions in true cinema-verite fashion. The resulting video combines visual effects, staged performances, and the raw reactions of an un-suspecting audience in a unique and original fashion. Them Funky Earthlings is as of yet the only music video to have been produced by RiverBend Films.

Them Funky Earthlings was composed by Jeff Stewart Dixon and performed by Alchemy, featuring Jeff Dixon (lead vocals and guitar), Mike Dixon (banjo), Seth Kibel (saxophone), Alex Mitchel (violin), Donnesse Monique (backup vocals), and Mark Prince (drums), with break-dancing choreographed by Matt Steffanina and performed by Matt Steffanina, Eric Dobmeier, Mike Leighton, and Zach Strauss. Click here to watch the music video in high-definition.

Them Funky Earthlings Music Video

The Making of The Receipt
During the course of the principal photography and post-production of RiverBend Films' The Receipt, the filmmakers, including cinematographer Kevin Collins, sound editor Michael Benonis, composer Kyle Ringgenberg, writer Rachel Bernstein, and others, took time to document the making-of the film for posterity. The documenting efforts included taking over 200 production still photographs, a four-hour interview session with the principal cast and crew, handicam captures of behind-the-scenes footage, and specially-scripted narrative sessions explaining the process of making the film. The result of these combined efforts were three distinct 'making-of' featurettes that appear as special features on the DVD and Blu-Ray of The Receipt.

What's Writing a Few Numbers on a Receipt? You Have No Idea!
This 22 minute featurette serves as the primary making-of documentary for The Receipt and consists of a combination of production stills, cast and crew interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage.

A Disaster of a Double Date
A particularly difficult day of production (which required the application of digital effects in post-production) inspired this 10-minute vignette detailing the filming of the double-date scene.

Sequence Two: Tale of a Scene in Post-Production
This 20-minute featurette follows the second scene of The Receipt through the lengthy post-production process, featuring commentary from the post-production team explaining each part of the process both artistically and technically. The film is effectively a crash-course on film post-production for the uninitiated.

Sequence Two: Tale of a Scene in Post-Production

In RiverBend Films' five minute silent film Running Out of Time, a bystander witnesses a charlatan student steal a term paper from a hard-working student in his class intent on turning it in as his own and must decide whether to intervene. Running Out of Time, written-by and starring Brooke Larson as the hard-working student, also stars Douglas Shaprio as the bystander and Ryan McElveen as the cheater, was shot in 24p digital on the campus of the University of Virginia in Spring 2006 during a hiatus in the production of 2007's Below the Beltway.

Running Out of Time

RiverBend Films' A Day in the Life of a Cat trilogy is a progressive series of artistic silent short films. The first film in the trilogy was shot in Digital-8 in September 2003 and was the very first short film to be produced by RiverBend Films. The second film in the series was shot about two years later in November 2005 on a Sony 720i semi-high definition camera. The final installment, A Day in the Life of a Cat 3, commpleted in July 2007, was the first film from RiverBend Films to be shot in true high definition (1080i). The films in the Day in the Life of a Cat trilogy all exhibit highly artistic cinematography, and more significantly, served as experimental platforms for many of the technical and artistic elements that were used in the major feature releases Below the Beltway and The Receipt.

A Day in the Life of a Cat

The Making of The Artist
Three different short documentary films capture the making of RiverBend Films's The Artist. The first is a very brief montage of impromptu behind-the-scenes moments with the cast and crew during the early phases of principal photography, edited together with final music from the film. Animator and composer Kyle Ringgenberg produced, edited, and directed the second featurette, which details the creation of the digital effects required for the film's climactic action sequence. The final mini featurette is a fourteen minute slide show of production still photographs, combined with B-roll footage, some behind-the-scenes footage, and stills from the completed film. All three short documentaries are featured on the special edition DVD of The Artist.

Shooting The Artist

Making The Artist Digital Effects