MicroCinema Scene

Digital Filmmaking Revolution

Science Fiction

Terrarium

By Jason Santo • Aug 25th, 2003

Las Vegas multi-hyphenate (writer-director-composer-editor-set designer-cinematographer-producer-actor) Mike Conway redefines do-it-yourself moviemaking with his ambitious science-fiction movie Terrarium. Made for $27,000, it may sound like a lot of money to people doing no-budget video work, but Conway, working on 16mm with a fairly large cast and some pretty impressive sets, manages to fashion some minor miracles in this rather original tale about 12 astronauts who crash land on an alien planet after 15 years in space and discover they’re not alone.

Read more


Breakfast With the Colonel

By Jason Santo • Jan 26th, 2003

From Northern California moviemakers John Harden and Glen Kinion comes this very funny sci-fi flick that ties in elements of George Orwell’s 1984 with Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, all the while never straying too far from a light mood.  Considering the bleakness of the future imagined by its predecessors, Breakfast With the Colonel never gets overly bogged down in social desperation and hopelessness, perhaps because it’s a no-budget movie shot on Hi-8 video and edited on a 1986-model Powermac.  Or it could just be that Kinion and Harden were more interested in taking a satirical look at the trends of today by imagining a squeaky-clean, overly politically correct future for Marin County, California, renamed in the future as Pacifica.

Read more


Newer Entries »