Another year, our friends, and another list of our favorite films. Now, a little disclaimer here: these are the films that we most enjoyed watching — not what we believe were the films that will win the most awards, or the ones that will be bronzed in statues outside of Philadelphia Art Museums. Also, we weren’t able to see all that we would’ve liked to. Eric Johnson, for example, wasn’t able to get out and see some of the four-starrers (ala “Black Swan”) because of two new additions to his family, and Eric Machiela, while forehead deep in film production in Mexico, wasn’t able to get to the theater for a spell and unfortunately didn’t get a chance to ogle his man-crush, James Franco, in “127 Hours”, which he surely would’ve enjoyed.

Happy 2011 to all. I think it’s going to be a good one for Gorilla. Now, enjoy our terrible opinions.

Scott Brookens

1. The Social Network

2. 127 Hours

3. How to Train Your Dragon

4. Inception

5. Winter's Bone

6. Toy Story 3

7. Black Swan

8. True Grit

9. The Town

10. The Fighter

Aaron Smith, who included TV — and not necessarily from this year. (I don’t think he got the exercise.)

1. Exit Through The Gift Shop

2. The Town

3. Mad Men (Season 4)

4. The Social Network

5. Restrepo

6. Breaking Bad (Season 1, 2)

7. True Grit

8. Sick: The Life and Death of Supermasochist, Bob Flanagan

9. Winter's Bone

10. Arrested Development - Complete Series

Eric Johsnon

1. Winter's Bone

2. How to Train Your Dragon

3. Easy A

4. The Social Network

5. The King's Speech

6. Toy Story 3

7. The Town

8. The Ghost Writer

9. Animal Kingdom

10. True Grit

Eric Machiela

1. The Social Network

2. How to Train Your Dragon

3. Black Swan

4. Toy Story 3

5. The Fighter

6. The King's Speech

7. Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

8. Tangled

9. Winter's Bone

10. True Grit

As you may know, we’ve brought our film production from Grand Rapids, Michigan down to Saltillo to assist our friend and director, Joel Vallie, in producing a feature film, a microbudget experience with a hundred headaches but a thousand grins. So when he writes a scene that has 100 demons in make-up running down Mexican streets, I might be tempted to say, “Oh, Joel. That ain’t gonna work. How are we gonna feed them? Where are they going to make their water? No one is going to show up anyway…and if they do who is going to do the demon make-up?” And his response was always the same, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get on it.” So we didn’t worry, trusted his favor, and sure enough, he delivered by bringing Hawgfly Productions on to set last week.

This movie has some intense special effects make-up and we needed a team that was up for the challenge. Meredith Johns (co-owner) recently finished up working on “Spy Kids 4″, this year’s Coen Brother’s movie “True Grit”, and last year, she was the head make-up artist on Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete” (which by the way, if you haven’t seen, is a 2010 gem that was overlooked). So what is she doing on a film where we’re paying people in tacos? Cause she loves film and helping directors reach their vision…on any level.

So, she brought down three amazingly talented, patient, hard working make-up artists with her and they worked magic on a very small budget, utilizing freaky contact lens, patented Hawgfly blood, tattoos of veins, and dentures that would scare even your father. We would’ve loved to have spent $5,000 dollars on face molds and all that good stuff but unfortunately it’ll have to wait for the next time.

See a very brief picture show of the process here:

A relatively clean Ben Chamberlain

Applying some vein tattoos h'yeah!

He passes it to the man...

And BOOM goes the dynamite!

Pretty cool, huh? And we also had to make up our 27-year old production assistant as an old lady demon:

Ah, yes. It’s been good times down here. We’re on Day 19 of 20 today and everybody’s about to roll out of here tired and exhausted but, we think, rewarded. We have 5 days of film production for this movie scheduled in Michigan in April that we will need some help on (and by help, I do mean “free labor”). So who’s interested?!

More later.

PS. Somewhere on this trip, our little Gorilla van that can has developed a new rattling somewhere in the undercarriage, but she’s still running like Prefontaine. 2,800 miles and counting on this trip…

Well, we just about made it through week one before the press showed up. See the article here: VANGUARDIA NOTICIAS

Joel (our director) claimed that he wanted to shoot this film on the down low, not attracting any attention – especially that of the press. But my gutty parts tell me otherwise. Look at that “working pose” he strikes in the Vanguardia article. Something tells me he’s enjoying this. And here are some more photos from the week!!

Actors Ben Chamberlain and Kristen Barrett

Kaelin (actor) getting bloody ...

Gabe, Eric, Joel, and Mike involved in man talk

We didn't know how to film the scene where the car hits Ben without making it cheesy. So we just hit him.

We're filming with this stud, Ernesto D'Alessio. The senoritas love him.

Ernesto's adoring fans show up all the time and he delivers autographs like I deliver high fives. Quite freely.

More soon. Thanks for tuning in.

After a couple weeks of burdensome/rewarding pre-production, we start filming today (in less than an hour from this posting). The remainder of the crew arrived safe and relatively sound last night, just in time for the fun. At this point, I think we’re all too dumb to be worried about all the mishaps that I’m sure are lining up at our doors, but if we thought too much about the sanity of this venture, we wouldn’t be down here even attempting it. Our fearless leader and director, Joel Vallie, sets the tone. The motto for this production: “Don’t worry.” Ha, tell that to my innards.

Posted below are a few pictures from our location scouting, courtesy of Chad and his now trendy Hipstomatic-ical iPhone app. Hope you enjoy.

Exactly what you'd expect Mexico to look like, verdad?

Kaelin Stockwell, our lead actor.

Derek Street and Eric Machiela, perplexed at a location.

Hey look! A happy Derek found the fuse box!

Joel Vallie (on left) scouting with crew.

You boys like Meexxico?!?

After 27 hours, 160 gallons of fuel, eight pounds of fast food, and a jumbo bucket of David’s sunflower seeds, Eric Machiela got the Gorilla van to the Tex/Mex border …

– and met up with Mexican superstar Joel Vallie who guided him over the Rio Grande. We drove a nice three + hours through the mountains, across untouched terrain, on down to Saltillo, Coahuila. (Click below for the lowest quality video of all time.)

Drive to Saltillo — In Video Form!

Why embark on such an adventure? Well, for the next 6 weeks, Gorilla — in partnership with Joel Vallie … and basically the whole town of Saltillo — is going to be heading up perhaps the most all intensive film production that we have ever undertaken. We love the work that we’ve been blessed with over the past few years (and we will continue to partner with clients in our life long goal of world domination), but as filmmakers, we’ve always wanted to produce and be a part of feature films, that is, long-form narrative storytelling.

As life goes, a few years back, we met a missionary/speaker/drug rehab leader/filmmaker, Joel Vallie, living in Mexico who had already directed a feature film, Corazon de Campeon. It was (how to be nice here…?) a quality effort but was limited by low production value in what it could do. In where it could go. Joel told Gorilla about another script he was developing and we jumped at the chance to partner with him, to make this film come alive.

Eric Machiela is first to arrive, laying the tracks for the other guys when they arrive. The other guys being Eric Johnson, Chad Terpstra, Derek Street, Gabe Berghuis, Ben Chamberlain, and Michael Amman. Everyone who is a part of this production is giving so much time and effort, working for tacos, and sacrificing a lot so let’s give them a digital round of applause!

More photos and info will be showing up here on this blog as the production goes along. And just cause she’s adorable, a picture of our makeup lady:

This fall, Spectrum Health has launched a smart phone application for their patients. To promote the app, Gorilla Pictures was hired to produce a 30-second commercial spot. It was a fun process involving vehicle rigs, a lot of green-screen replacement, and some interesting Chinese food.

You can view the spot here.

Our ESPN Fantasy Focus Animation is finally complete! (If you scroll down to the Sept 3 blog entry, you can learn all the specifics about the video, why it was created, and why we’re nerds.) The animation that we completed is based on several inside jokes and guffaws from the 2-time award winning Podcast so I can’t assure that you’ll understand all the content per se, but if nothing else, I hope you can marvel at the ridiculousness of it. Special thanks to Nate Vanderplas for the animation skills and Randy Stewart for the drawings.

Here is the link to the animation: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=5703583&categoryid=2815873

Hope you enjoy!

After a year of toiling, waiting, and then waiting some more, the music video we created for OK Sweetheart (formerly Erin Austin) is finally online. Big thanks to all our friends who gave their time and talent to make this happen. Thanks for being so patient.

Without further ado…

Here it is on myspace.com OK Sweetheart – All We Have

And now for something completely different…

As sad as it is to see summer go, at least the sweet glory of the football season is upon us. And much to the chagrin of some here at Gorilla Pictures (ahem, Aaron Smith), Eric Johnson and Eric Machiela have a huge hankerin’ for Fantasy Football. They do their research, they study the players, they talk about who they like and dislike, and perhaps most nerdily, they listen to an ESPN podcast called Fantasy Focus Football, co-hosted by Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz and produced by Jason Soderberg.

Each year, the Fantasy Focus Football team hosts something which is known as the Man’s League, a 16-team league designed for only the most manly of Fantasy Football junkies. (Side note: This year it is called the Caveman’s League because it is being sponsored by Geico and so (Cheap plug!) go to www.geico.com and see about saving up to 15% on car insurance!) Getting into the league is competitive and nearly impossible. But this year they were determined.

So using company resources, they decided to use their skills and create a music video for the Fantasy Focus Football show based on their theme song (written and performed by international recording superstar Eric Hutchinson) which plays at the start of each show. They designed storyboards, had them drafted up, and sent them to the team at ESPN, who surprisingly decided that this would be a good idea! Nerds rejoice!

They invited Gorilla onto the two-time award winning podcast yesterday morning and we thought we would share it with you. No idea how many of you out there play Fantasy Football but for us (ashamedly) this is a big deal! See the link to the podcast below. They start interviewing us at approximately 22 mins into the podcast. And check back on the blog soon for the official Fantasy Focus Football music video!

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/player?rd=1#/podcenter/?id=5523103&autoplay=1&callsign=ESPNRADIO