Jon Merchen DOT com

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Employment

May '10 – Hayneedle your Home with Eduardo Xol link
Executive Producers: Andy McEntee and Michael Anthony Clements

I was the picture and sound editor for episodes 1 and 2 of this web series due to appear on Hayneedle.com this summer. I was responsible for compression and delivery of both episodes as well. Additionally, I was the production audio recorder and boom pole operator.

April '10 – B4
Director: Matt Steadman
Producers: April Wade, Phillip Daniels and Jacqueline Nicole

I worked as the DIT for this independent feature film shot on using the RED camera. My responsibilities included backing up the RED drives to two hard drives and quality checking the footage.

February '10 – “My World” by Bascom Hill
Gaffer: Ace Underhill

I was on the G&E crew for this music video. I was hired as an extra hand by Ace Underhill of Brilliant Screen Studios.

December '09 – In the Darkness link
Director: Andrew Robinson
Producers: Jenna Edwards and Jeremy McGovern

As key grip I got the pleasure of hauling HMI lights up and down a mountain every day of this 7 day independent feature shoot. I was one of a sometimes four person G&E department. I worked under gaffer Ace Underhill.

September '09 – Blue Genes
Director: Steven Jay Porus
Producer: Jody Cosgrove-Kao

I was the fill in sound mixer and boom pole operator for a short scene that, as I understand it, was supposed to be a companion piece for the original short film.

April '09 – The Executioner
Director: Christopher Hardie
Producers: Christopher Hardie and Rebecca Russell

I worked as camera support for Director of Photography Nick Oberlander on this short film. I did some focus pulling, helped rig up the glide cam rig, changed lenses and backed up the footage. I also boomed for part of the day.

May '08 – April Showers starring Tom Arnold and Ileana Douglas link
Director: Andrew Robinson
Producers: April Wade and Jenna Edwards

I was the key data downloader for this independent feature film. This was the first 4k feature shot on the Dalsa Origin using S.Two's hardware. We faced a lot challenges because of this which led to my “working” twenty-for hours a day on the month long shoot. My other responsibilities included capturing and syncing dailies for the director and cinematographer Aaron Platt.

Programs

Post Production - Avid Media Composer, Avid Express Pro, Pro Tools, Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere, Soundtrack Pro, Cubase LE, DVD Studio Pro

Other - Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Illustrator, Maya, Blender, Lightwave, Celtx, Final Draft, MS Office, OpenOffice

Education

Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with an Emphasis in Film and New Media
University of Nebraska at Lincoln Spring 2008
Instructors include: Sharon Teo, Sandy Veneziano and Rick Endacott

thirtysevenrobots shorts link

March '10 – Fart Shoes link

The sound for this short was particularly difficult because I had a limited number of farts to work with and all of them were terribly funny to listen to.

March '10 – Imaginary Friend link

I only appeared as talent in this one. Nick and I came up with the idea and shot it all the same day. Since the majority of the shots were going to be special effects shots and it was so short Nick just did the edit. It was easier for both of us and he's a very capable editor.

April '09 – Even thirtysevenrobots lat err link

This was shot when our friend Sean was visiting for the Fangoria horror convention. It was perfect timing. We were itching to shoot another movie after Confessions: Recession and we always talk about doing sequels to our stuff especially for thirtysevenrobots later.

March '09 – Confessions: Recession link

We shot this during Jonathon's spring break trip. Since we had the old band together we wanted to do something. We hadn't shot anything since we moved to LA.

October '08 – Jon & Jason link

This is one of my favorite movies we've ever made. This was for a Halloween film festival contest hosted by Cinema 16. We won first place.

September '08 – Capgun link

This short was something that Jonathon and I came up with and executed pretty much by ourselves. I have never been able to figure out why it came out of Avid so dark.

September '08 – F-Stop link

This was for a 72 Hour Film Contest hosted by Cinema 16. I love the credits Nick made for this so much.

August '08 – Confessions: Security Office link

I love this short. We went down to Omaha and shot this with some actor friends of mine at their actual work place. I laugh ever time when Vince takes off his glasses and then decides to leave instead of saying anything.

February '08 – thirtysevenrobots later link

This was our entry to spring semester 72 Hour Festival. It started the same night as Jonathon's 21 birthday, so we went out and all got pretty drunk then wrote the script for this movie. I love this thing so much. It's so weird and terrific. I was very surprised when we won first place for this. It seemed like the audience was extremely quiet during it, but I guess they all liked it.

February '08 – Confessions: Lunchtime link

We made this during our actual lunch break before going to Sam's thesis shoot. We locked off the camera and made due with available light and it is my favorite video we have ever made.

October '07 – Juice... link

This was a blast to make. It was so fun. We entered this in the Halloween festival along with Spectral Terror.

October '07 – Spectral Terror link

I'm not even sure how this idea came about exactly. I think it was in my digital animation class when our instructor showed us a website that you can download pre-made models. What I remember most about this was brainstorming the title, and most people don't even realize the joke.

October '07 – Flashback Loop link

This was our tribute to the laugh-a-minute summer comedy Dragon Wars: D-War. That movie impressed us with a flashback inside a flashback and we just riffed on that until we came up with Flashback Loop.

September '07 – Dinorama link

The only reason this exists is because we are braggarts. We scoffed at need 72 hours to complete only one movie. We ended up drawing twice and for this one drew: toy dinosaur as our prop, the genre monster movie, the line "God bless America!" and the character name Fabrizio. We completed this in just 6 hours.

September '07 – Que A.L. Ferait-il? link

This was for the first Cinema 16 "72 Hours Later" competition which gave each registered team a randomly drew list of elements that had to be in the movie they would complete in the allotted time. Ours requirements were: Genre: French New Wave Character Name: Murdock Prop: Underpants Line of dialogue: "What would Abe Lincoln do?" Team thirtysevenrobots took first at the competition. This was a lot of fun to make.

September '07 – Pissing and Moaning link

I think this is a good visual joke and I'm apparently the only one. I like this because it's a joke that is best delivered in this medium.

September '07 – Confessions link

This was shot the same day as Republic of Texas, and became the basis for a bunch of other videos. This is just so silly, and was a bit before we really honed in our awkward brand of comedy.

September '07 – Republic of Texas link

This was our very first video. Nick, Karl and I got together to test out my newly purchased HVX200 and we riffed on ideas until we came up with this. Karl was the master mind behind carrying the bikes. Republic of Texas even got mentioned on a blog making it our highest viewed video to date.

School Work

December '08 – No Orange link
Director: John Albrecht (thesis film)

I did data management for this as well as acting. This was only the second film to have a set built in our studio theatre, and it was a lot bigger more impressive set.

September '08 – Vindication
Director: Nick Oberlander (thesis film)

I did data management for this movie. It is one of the best things I've seen come out of our school as well.

September '08 – Melodramas part 1 part 2 part 3
Director: Josie Azzam (thesis film)

I was co-gaffer on this project, although I couldn't make it for the first, of three, parts.

April '08 – Test Taking in the Free World

This short was my thesis film that won my school's Best Sound award at the end of the year banquet. I wrote, directed and edited the four minute comedy.

March '08 – In the Distance
Director: Chris Jonak (thesis film)

This film was shot over most of the semester. I recorded sound for this for some of it.

March '08 – Michael is in the Room link
Director and Producer: Karl Spurzem (thesis film)

This was my favorite, and tightest, thing I edited during college. It continues to be my main example of dramatic editing.

March '08 – A/D Director: Trace Vardsveen (thesis film)

I was the sound mixer and boom operator for this interesting piece. It used video and film to contrast the experiences of the characters in it.

January '08 – Kissing Kate link Director: Gavin Felix (thesis film)

This rom-com was a lot of fun to work on. It was about a young man who was obsessed with Star Trek, but don't worry he finally gets the girl. I was Director of Photography for this. It was fun to try and do a shot for shot of the classic Spock versus Kirk fight.

April '07 – Henchman Director: Allison Eckert

I wrote this script for our Film Production II final video project. Honestly if I could go back and do it again. I would've said no to the class when they picked it. It was just too big for our budget and time frame.

March '07 – M.O.N.S.T.E.R.S. link
Director: Robby DeFrain (thesis film)

March '07 – Temper Espresso
Director: John Albrecht

I was best boy for this film. It was my Film Production II final film project. This was a really good learning experience. This ended up being shown at the Omaha Film Festival that year.

March '07 – Dungeons & Dragons link
Director: Jonathan Irons

This was our scene project for Film Production II class. We got the highest grade out of the class for this.

February '07 – Iron Questor
Director: Aaron Nix

This was our Film Production II documentary project. It was fun to dabble in that kind of filmmaking, but it's not something I really want to do again.

November '06 – Randall Wry link
Director: Josie Azzam

This was my final film project for Film Production I. We won an award for best sync film for this at the end of year banquet.

October '06 – Mirror Mirror

This was my first Cinema 16 Halloween festival entry. It's not too bad for my the first thing I made in college.

October '06 – Cat Car Bike Bat
Director: Lindsay Kerns

I edited this project from our Film Production I class. It was a challenge because our film was ruined and we had to re-shoot it all on video. Since the class was a non-sync class I couldn't use any of the in camera audio, so that was fun.

September '06 – Stride
Director: Jon Merchen

This is the first thing I ever made at school. It was our first class project in Film Production I. I was the director of this experimental movie.

November '05 – Scatterbrain
Director: Jesse Mason (thesis film)

This was the first thesis set I worked on. I griped for this. Actually mostly spent my time sitting outside watching the HMI lights.

Awards

Nebby Award Best Sound 2008 Test Taking in the Free World