Film, Commercials and Theatre
Honoring Classic Cinema, Theatre and Commercials
Film, Commercials and Theatre
Honoring Classic Cinema, Theatre and Commercials
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We believe in creating meaningful experiences that inspire and connect. Let us help you bring your vision to life.
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We deliver exceptional results in everything we do, ensuring your satisfaction at every step.
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Our experienced team brings skill and passion to every project, no matter the size or budget. We beleive in high quality for at any budget size.
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About The Egg and I Productions
Our Vision
Our Process
Our Vision
At The Egg and I , we believe that films have the power to change the world. Our vision is to create films that inspire, educate, and entertain, while promoting positive social change. From commercials to narrative features and theatre, we strive to make a difference through the power of storytelling.
Our Team
Our Process
Our Vision
Our team is made up of passionate filmmakers, producers, and creatives who are committed to bringing your vision to life. With experience in all aspects of filmmaking, from writing and directing to cinematography and post-production, we have the skills and expertise to tackle any project.
Our Process
Our Process
Our Process
We believe in a collaborative, client-focused approach to filmmaking. We work closely with our clients to understand their goals and bring their vision to life. Our process is designed to be flexible and adaptable, ensuring that we can meet the unique needs of each project. In fact, we believe that we can make any budget work to make your project come alive.
Explore the World of The Egg and I Productions
Captain The Short Film
Captain The Short Film
Captain The Short Film
There are two things that jump out at you during the 13:22 minutes of CAPTAIN, a leading contender in the Short Film Competition at this year’s Dances with Films Film Festival. First, is the exquisite cinematography of Emily Topper and second, although only on screen a scant few seconds, the oh-toooo-cute and adorable CAPTAIN. Both are images and qualities that stay with you after the film’s end.
A frustrated writer, to make ends meet, Steve has been relegated to the job of a dog-walker. Staring at a blank computer screen for endless hours, he gives new meaning to the term “writer’s block.” Mentally tormenting himself over the fact that he is 36 years old and written nothing while F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The Great Gatsby” at age 29, you get the idea as to the extent of self-flagellation going on. Making matters worse, a few months earlier he was kicked out of a writing class because, as his instructor Carl put it, he wasn’t living up to his potential and was one of Carl’s greatest failures as a student. So imagine Steve’s surprise when he gets a call out of the blue from Carl and his wife, Trish, asking him to babysit their beloved little baby Chihuahua, CAPTAIN.
Trish is the epitome of the term “vacuous ditzy blonde.” Prattling on whenever she opens her mouth, she is beyond obsessive about CAPTAIN, not to mention insulting to Steve with little digs about his failures as a writer and as Carl’s student. With multiple medications, multiple food groupings and selected toys all lined up on the kitchen counter, plus a myriad of instructions (including singing a Tom Jones song to CAPTAIN), I was waiting to see Trish come down from the dancer’s pole ensconced in her living room to knit little garments for CAPTAIN. Carl, on the other hand, beyond bearing a strong resemblance to a bearded Jeff Daniels, is what one might imagine an old school frustrated actor turned writing teacher to be – semi-intoxicated with eyes half open, drink in one hand, dramatic speech patterns and grandiose arm movements flailing about with sloshing drink. Together, they make Steve more than appreciate his companionship and conversation with his dog-walking charges.
With the puppy-sitting deal in place and Steve confident in his upcoming duties, he heads home for the day. But later that night, a tearful, bedraggled looking Trish shows up at his house yelling, “You killed CAPTAIN.” Shocked and bewildered, Steve hadn’t even begun his puppy sitting as yet, how could he have killed CAPTAIN?
Nicole Stuart and Jack Sundmacher are triple threats, wearing hats of not only producers and writers, but also starring as Trish and Steve. Conceived as a short story by Sundmacher based on his own weekend of cat sitting for a teacher’s cat, it was Stuart’s idea to bring the story to life as a screenplay. Clearly incorporating her own life growing up in Las Vegas into the story (hence the dancer’s pole and Stuart’s exhibition of her pole mastery), Stuart’s ditziness, while engaging, gets annoying, but she fuels the lighter comedic element of the film which as a whole is a dark, yet entertaining comedy with a wickedly surprising edge. Sundmacher brings a palette of emotion to Steve exhibiting angst, frustration, flippancy, bewilderment, sorrow and mortification in the course of less than 15 minutes, much of which is only enhanced by some excellent camera work. Bjorn Johnson steps in as Carl. Former acting teacher and director to Stuart, their familiarity with each other off screen brings an ease and compatibility to their on screen relationship, with each complimenting the eccentric off-beat persona of the other.
But the real star of the film is CAPTAIN (aka Oro) – the most precious little pup to hit the big screen in a long time (in other words, move over Papi and Chloe, there’s a new top dog in Beverly Hills). Given the rumor that Sundmacher and Stuart are working on a feature length version of CAPTAIN which would undoubtedly include the very extended backstory given in the production notes of this film (but which I will not divulge to you now lest it spoil the feature), I can only hope that we see a lot more of CAPTAIN in the future. He just melts your heart.
As this is a short film, the “backstory” is minimal with everything occurring in the here and now, yet the script is well crafted so as to provide enough information necessary to understand the film completely – and leaves you wanting more.
Director Max Brady came on board just two days before shooting started. Clearly, he got up to speed in record time given the quality of the final product. Interesting camera work, superb cinematography that is crisp, clean and vivid complete the package.
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! The prize you seek should be won (with apologies to Walt Whitman). CAPTAIN, a “Must See Festival Film” at not only Dances With Films but every other festival in which it appears, is top dog.
Trish – Nicole Stuart
Steve – Jack Sundmacher
Carl – Bjorn Johnson
Directed by Max Brady. Written by Jack Sundmacher and Nicole Stuart.
Modigliani
Captain The Short Film
Captain The Short Film
MODIGLIANI
RECOMMENDED
A bravura lead performance by Matt Marquez as early 20th Century artist Amedeo Modigiliani and electric support by Nicole Stuart as his partner in art and sex are the two best reasons to catch Open Fist Theatre and Amedeo Production’s revival of Dennis McIntyre’s Modigliani.
Marquez stars as Italian painter-sculptor Amedeo Clemente Modigliani, whom McIntyre presents to us over a period of three days in 1916 Paris—only a few years before the artist’s death at age thirty-five from a combination of TB, poverty, overwork, and alcohol and drug addiction. Though today you might pay $30,000,000 for a Modigliani, during his short lifetime the painter was lucky if he got a hundred Francs for one of them. Clearly, “Modi” Modigliani fits smack dab into the box reserved for tormented, unappreciated geniuses, making him an ideal subject for a biodrama. Andy Garcia played Modigliani on the silver screen back in 2004. McIntyre’s play precedes that film by three decades.
It’s easy to see why actors crave playing characters like Modi and his English mistress, poet Beatrice Hastings. The couple’s scenes together crackle with a sexual and emotional intensity that requires an actor to travel unashamedly to his or her darkest, deepest places and to express a physical and emotional intimacy that most of us would prefer reserving for a more private venue than a 99-seat theater stage where audience members sit almost close enough to reach out and touch.
In fact, this Bjørn Johnson-directed production came about as the result of a scene performed by Marquez and Stuart in Johnson’s acting class that proved so impressive that a fully staged production seemed the next logical step.
Whenever Marquez and Stuart are on stage together, Modigliani takes flight. Still, the overall impression left at the final curtain is of a production of jarringly uneven tones, a mood set from the play’s opening minutes.
We first glimpse Modigliani being thrown through the window of an expensive Right Bank restaurant, threatening voices heard from within as Modi stumbles to his feet, a scene so sudden and brief as to provoke reactions of “What just happened?” before the lights go back up on a pair of drunken, quarreling painters in a scene that plays right out of a Marx Brothers movie.
Artists Maurice Utrillo aka “Maumau” (Daniel Escobar) and Chaim Soutine (Nasser Khan) are about as blotto as two men can be without passing out, an acting challenge which Escobar manages more successfully than Khan, but in both cases, the slurring and lurching and voice raising and exchange of insults is played so over the top that what might work in a Jim Carrey flick fares considerably less successfully when intended to be taken seriously. Though Escobar’s performance later attains real poignancy, for much of the play, Utrillo and Soutine, two apparently talented artists, seem to have wandered in from Drunk And Drunker, a disconnect from the reality Marquez and Stuart bring to their roles that continues throughout Modigliani whenever the two alcoholics are onstage.
Peter Lewis and Jon Collin Barclay fare better in their roles as art dealers Leopold Zborowski and Guillaume Cheron, the former a staunch supporter of Modi’s work, the latter less convinced that the painter’s canvases are worth anything but a pittance. Both actors have the great good fortune of playing their scenes opposite Marquez, and though Barclay seems a tad young to be playing a dealer of apparently considerable repute, both of them give grounded, reality-based performances. Ruben Gomes appears briefly as a waiter.
Still, if ever a production could be said to “belong” to two actors, Modigliani is that production. Marquez won a Scenie for his star turn as Hal in last year’s Proof, a performance about which I wrote, “There is an immediacy in Marquez’s work that makes it absolutely real, a spontaneity that can be honed in an acting class but is ultimately the gift of a truly natural talent.” The same holds true for his fiery work as Modigliani, a role he brings to life with a raw intensity and oodles of charisma and sex appeal.
Stuart, whose role as Catherine’s take-charge sister in Proof scarcely skimmed the surface of her talents, is a revelation here as a woman whose feline ferocity belies any notion of British reserve, and when Stuart and Marquez are going at it hot and heavy, don’t be surprised if the theater’s smoke alarm sounds in response.
Scenic designer Zachary B. Guiler has so skillfully modified his set for the concurrently running Early And Often that you’d think the combination artist’s studio/Parisian bar was created specifically for Modigliani. Sammy Ross’s lighting design is equally effective as is Jeff Polunas’s sound design. Anthony Tran’s costumes have a just-right, weathered period look. Kudos go also to prop master Tamara Becker for assorted bar and studio paraphernalia.
Modigliani is produced by Thrill Ride Productions. Caitlin R. Campbell is producer, Andrew Law master electrician, and Julianne Figueroa stage manager.
With its convenient Tuesday through Thursday performance schedule, Modigliani offers a break from most plays’ Friday and Saturdays at 8:00, Sundays at 2:00 schedules. Though neither play nor production attain the heights reached by the two star players, Marquez and Stuart’s work makes Modigliani worth checking out, particularly for those in the mood for a weeknight theater fix.
Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.
www.openfist.org
–Steven Stanley
May 9, 2012
Photos: Ehrin Marlow
Modigliani
Captain The Short Film
Modigliani
LA Review: 'Modigliani'
BY TRAVIS MICHAEL HOLDER | LAST UPDATED: AUGUST 15, 2012
Photo Source: Ehrin MarlowThere's something unsettling about the late Dennis McIntyre's 1980 minor classic "Modigliani," something that overpowers the potential allure of this skewed, downwardly spiraling biography of the tortured painter and the now sacrosanct bohemian Impressionist art scene in early 20th-century Paris. Although McIntyre's dialogue is lush and often movingly lyrical, his consistently stumbling and violently drunken characters are so blatantly without redeeming qualities that after two acts of listening to them wailing about their lot in life it all becomes a bit wearisome.
What lifts this fine revival and manages to turn McIntyre's dreary treatise into something to behold, however, is the burly, intensely frenetic staging of director Bjorn Johnson, himself a master of physical theater. Johnson's earthy, intensely sweaty, and often brazenly erotic vision falls somewhere between vaudeville and the theater of the absurd, as though it was originally meant to be filmed by Jean Renoir but ended up as a Warhol biopic crafted by Paul Morrissey.
Johnson has assembled the quintessential cast to fully embrace his concept. As the title character, Matt Marquez contributes a lithe but creepy, almost ratlike quality to the doomed painter, strikingly offset by the voluptuously graceful yet ballsy performance of Nicole Stuart as Modigliani's long-suffering mistress Beatice. Daniel Escobar and Nasser Khan are wildly over the top as his perpetually pickled drinking buddies Maurice Utrillo and Chaim Soutine, while Jon Collin Barclay brings an appropriately smug authority to blue-blooded art dealer Guillaume Cheron.
Considering the size and depth of the Open Fist Theatre Company stage, it might have been wiser to simplify the frequent scene changes by creating new areas with lighting instead of moving furniture, eliminating the opportunity for actors to bump into one another in blue light.
Samuel Beckett was a happy man when audience members ducked out of one of his plays in boredom or frustration, even going so far as to sit by the door in the last row of the theater to thank them personally for leaving. Here, despite this crackerjack team of creative artists, as the dirt-poor future master painter waits for his Godot in the person of Cheron, who may or may not represent him, McIntyre's repetitiveness becomes simply, well, repetitious.
Presented by the Open Fist Theatre Company and Amedeo Productions at the Open Fist Theatre Company, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., L.A. May 1Ð24. Tue.ÐThu., 8 p.m. (323) 882-6912 or www.openfist.org.00:00/00:00
PROOF
Modigliani
About The Egg and I Productions
About The Egg and I Productions
Learn more about our company and our team of experienced professionals. We are dedicated to providing the highest level of service and quality to our clients, and we look forward to working with you on your next project. Caitlin Renee Campbell and Nicole Stuart met in acting class 18 years ago. Nicole knew Caitlin was also a producer and asked her if she might be interested in being producing the play After The Fall, by Arthur Miller in 2007. That’s when their partnership and friendship began. They soon realized they make a great team. Since their first successful play, After The Fall, the duo went on to produce two other plays together, Proof and Modigliani. Then the short film Captain (2013) and 40ish (2021)…Caitlin Renée Campbell and Nicole Stuart met in acting class 18 years ago. Nicole knew Caitlin was also a producer and asked her if she might be interested in being producing the play After The Fall, by Arthur Miller in 2007. That’s when their partnership and friendship began. They soon realized they make a great team. Since their first successful play, After The Fall, the duo went on to produce two other plays together, Proof and Modigliani. Then the short film Captain (2013) and 40ish (2021)…Caitlin Renée Campbell and Nicole Stuart met in acting class 18 years ago. Nicole knew Caitlin was also a producer and asked her if she might be interested in being producing the play After The Fall, by Arthur Miller in 2007. That’s when their partnership and friendship began. They soon realized they make a great team. Since their first successful play, After The Fall, the duo went on to produce two other plays together, Proof and Modigliani. Then the short film Captain (2013) and 40ish (2021)…
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About The Egg and I Productions
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