Nate Golan's "My Synthesized Life"

Some of you might remember my remember my earlier posts on Nate Golan, which dealt with his webseries "Workshop" and his short film "Briefcase."  Well, Nate sent me the trailer for his new webseries "My Synthesized Life."  It's a comedy about a young man whose voice naturally synthesizes after he gets electrocuted by his radio during a rap song.

"Jimmy Bales, a 25 year old average office worker, narrowly survives a near car crash, gets electrocuted, and blacks out. From that moment on, whenever he gets nervous, his voice naturally synthesizes. He life is thrown into turmoil, but through the help of his outgoing roommate Steve, and Steve's younger sister Liz, Jimmy discovers the benefits of his synthesized life."

Check out the trailer below:>

"Briefcase" has been licensed by Netflix

Remember a few weeks back when I featured the short film Briefcase by Nate Golon?  Well, Nate sent me an email last week with the news that Netflix has decided to license it for use online and in retail stores.  I'll let him take it from here:

Several weeks ago, after 'Briefcase' premiered on YouTube, a friend of mine contacted me, and told me that Netflix was looking for a cinematic looking short film to license. Netflix is now offering a VOD feature in many new TVs, and they wanted a film that could play in retail stores worldwide, as an "example" of the quality of films Netflix offers, without having to license a studio film. My friend connected them with 'Briefcase,' and Netflix wanted to exclusively license it. I agreed, on the conditions that I could still retain ownership, keep it online, submit it to film festivals, and develop it into a larger project in the future. 

 So 'Briefcase' is not going to be offered as a film to rent on Netflix. But in many ways, the film will actually have much more exposure with the licensing agreement we agreed to. Netflix may also use pieces of 'Briefcase' online, as further advertising as "examples" of what Netflix has to offer. The licensing agreement is a win win in my book, as it also gives 'Briefcase' much more notoriety. It also helps me for future projects, as I can now say my last two projects, "Workshop" and 'Briefcase,' have been licensed by Hulu and Netflix, respectively.

 So congrats to Nate, and it's a good lesson that you can never know what will come of a short film, so if you've got the means, why aren't you making one?

Short Film Showcase: Nate Golon's Briefcase

You might remember Nate Golon from my posts ages ago about the webseries Workshop.  Recently, Nate released a new short film called Briefcase.



I have to admit, I sometimes think I'm even more critical of short films than I am of scripts.  This probably owes to the fact that I've seen a lot of bad shorts and I'm always convinced that I would have avoided making such glaring mistakes.  Each of my own shorts made me a better filmmaker and so naturally, my gut reaction is to nitpick shorts that perhaps fall short of what I consider to be my ability.

That why I was surprised when Nate's film held my interest all the way through.  As I told him in an email, I can't claim to completely understand the ending, but the pacing, editing and overall execution was smooth enough to keep my attention until the end.  Nate avoids a trap so many short film directors fall into - over-directing.  Some guys are so determined to show off their "eye" that their composition and editing becomes a liability rather than an asset.  Nate gets some good angles, here, but he's practices restraint.

If you're so inclined, here's the Facebook page for Briefcase.