Who lives, who dies, who funds your short film?
The first missive from the front.
from the desk of the unknown penguin
Welcome to the first edition of the Unknown Penguin Substack. A bi-weekly (at least) update on what’s going on, what’s coming up, and what’s running down at Unknown Penguin HQ.
I just wrapped a 14-day shoot for WILL Interactive directing their latest Common Ground training video about workplace harassment and violence. The shoot included 5 days on location in beautiful Greenwood, Delaware (if you lived there, you’d be home by now). It was a wonderful shoot with great co-workers & friends and included more than one interesting challenge. I’ll have a highlight reel up once post-production is complete so you can see all the familiar Unknown Penguin faces that made the journey with me!
Just before I fled to Greenwood, Kari Ginsburg directed a reading of my first-ever musical: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Frog! presented in association with the College Park Arts Exchange at the Old Parish House in College Park, Maryland. It was a lot of fun and the kids in attendance loved it, and I learned a lot about the text and score. Hopefully, we’ll have a home for its first production soon!
- Patrick, 8/14/24 (dictated but not read)
pre-production
The Ferberizing of Coral
My 10-minute play that won the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival in 2018 and was a “Best of 10-minute Plays” at DC Source in 2017 is going to be a 10-minute film in 2025 starring Mitzi Akaha and Federico Rodriguez! Maureen Monterubio (director of the original production of Giant Box of Pr0n) is producing and Dave Wardrick (so many of our 48 Hour Films) is the DP. We’re finalizing the budget now and will begin fundraising soon for our shoot in late October. Watch this space for updates!
Ken Ludwig’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas at Adventure Theatre MTC
I’m directing Adventure Theatre MTC’s Christmas show this year, so mark your calendars and get your tickets. We’re in the midst of casting and pre-production now but I’ll have a plethora of updates for you as we get into rehearsals this November.
production
Visual Literacy - 2nd Edition
Kendall-Hunt has green-lit a 2nd edition of the text book I co-wrote with Kylos Brannon - Visual Literacy: A Practical Text on the Analysis, History, and Creation of Visual Media. We’re very excited to have a chance to update this book and give our students a new and fresh text on the ever-changing world of visual literacy.
post-production
Shakespeare’s Histories Podcast
Since the summer of 2021, I have been producing a 24-episode dramatic podcast series of William Shakespeare’s Henriads for BraveSprits Theatre. Under the direction of Charlene V. Smith, we have recorded 8 history plays: Richard II, Henry IV: Parts 1-2, Henry V, Henry VI: Parts 1-3, and Richard III. And after pick-up recordings, music sessions, sound effects editing, and mixing, we are on our last round of notes and almost ready to bring you this epic series. Release information coming soon!
live on stage
Upcoming productions of Tinker Bell available through the Dramatic Publishing Company:
from the vault
What better item to pull from the vault for my first Substack than my first real short film. Dog Eat Dog was conceived of by Gene Dzielak and myself in 1999 after another short film we tried to make fell apart. In 2001, I turned the idea into a script and submitted it as an independent study in my final semester at CUA. It was rejected (why has never been clear to me) so I decided to take my Hi-8 video camera and shoot the thing myself over nights and weekends from January-March 2002. It went on to win “Best Mockumentary” and the 2nd Georgetown Independent Film Festival and got me on the IMDb (back when that was hard to do).