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Thursday, June 11, 2009
Getting in the Shot
By Rosalie Rayburn
Journal Staff Writer
An expanding array of technology that promises outlets for short small screen dramas has one Corrales couple film-struck.
Writer and writing teacher Maureen Cooke and her filmmaker husband Jonathan Harnisch pooled their skills and dreams last year to launch the film production company Fat Man Media.
Harnisch studied at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. His filmmaking background includes winning the Audience Award for best short film at the 1999 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
Cooke taught writing at several locations, including New Mexico State University's campus in Grants and at Central New Mexico Community College. She also wrote for journals and magazines and worked as an online editor.
Their team effort has already garnered recognition with “On the Bus,” a short film which stars Mark Schrier as a mentally disturbed man and his influences on fellow bus passengers.
The 14-minute psychological thriller landed five awards from the Indie Distribution Festival based in La Jolla, Calif. It also won awards from the online international Accolade film competition.
Based on what she's hearing from her peers at festivals for independent film producers, making movies for viewing online or via handheld devices is a burgeoning area of development, Cooke said.
Cooke and her husband are moving ahead with new projects: a documentary about facing personal challenges in life and a short film that uses the zombie genre as a vehicle for social commentary.
Other members of the family are part of Fat Man Media as well. Cooke's daughter Kimberley Liphardt's short film “The Sitter” was recently recognized as the best horror/sci-fi film in the 2009 NM Filmmakers Showcase event held at the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque.”
Cooke took several film classes at the University of New Mexico, but she is still honing her craft. She gleaned valuable experience about the relationship between the practical demands of a script and production costs through the filming of “On the Bus,” which required the production crew and equipment to be crammed into the tight space of an Albuquerque bus.
“It was really difficult technically,” Cooke said.
Although she and her husband are looking at short films as a stepping stone to completing a full length movie, she sees huge potential in crafting short films for new and developing technological outlets.
“The predictions are that in three to five years, there will be more quality things online. There may be new ways to get short films out and sell them. Right now things are in flux,” she said.
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