“Under the Boardwalk” is also now on Twitter (@monopolydoc) with shooting and travel updates.

In 2008, I worked as an Associate Producer for Imageworks for such projects as police training videos and a video to help insurance adjusters do a better job with claims management. The adjuster video was screened on Blu-ray at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank and looked awesome!

Through Tostie Productions, I worked camera at the Jeff & Jer Thank You Party, shot a naturalization ceremony on the USS Midway for a documentary, was a “Helicopter Ground Crew” in a Russian film that also filmed on the USS Midway, worked as a gaffer for an episode of “Game Trailers TV”, shot footage for a documentary on Teen Court, worked on crew of “The Jumpitz”, camera operated for a fitness video, and covered a dog disc show.

With the Monopoly documentary that I’ve been producing I traveled to Vancouver, played games of Monopoly with the defending US Champion, filmed with the very 1st Monopoly world champion, shot an interview with actress Masiela Lusha, and learned way more about security law than I ever thought I’d need to.

Hopefully 2009 will be filled with lots of exciting opportunities.

Also, since I’ve been running several other sites, this blog really hasn’t been given its fair share of attention over the last couple years. So as of right now, this site is going on hold until further notice.

If you’re looking for more info about me and my work, I suggest you check out my business’ website, TostieProductions.com and the sites for my movies, “Under the Boardwalk” – A Monopoly Documentary and Yellow Lights.

Thanks for visiting.

~~Kevin

Check it out at SnagFilms.com

For your viewing convenience, I’ve snagged Super Size Me from the site. Watch it right now for free!

[tags] demo reel, Tostie Productions, Reel Exchange [/tags]

Let me breakdown the recipe:

Start with 1/3 shot of Kahlua, then on top of that add 1/3 shot of Bailey’s, and then 1/3 shot of Wild Turkey (the namesake of the drink). Then add a small floater of Bacardi 151 to the top and light it on fire. Once the drink is flaming, sprinkle cinnamon over the top for a few seconds, enjoy the fireworks, blow out the flame and then consume! Simple enough and quite tasty.

Relatives of mine who tried Turkey Squirts this Thanksgiving described it as “an aftertaste like eggnog”, “holy crap”, “that was hot”, and “can I have another?”

[tags] Alcohol, Thanksgiving, Tostado, Turkey Squirts, flames [/tags]

I just returned from the awards ceremony at Indie Fest, and I am pleased to announce that Yellow Lights won two awards – Best Cinematography, and Best Feature Film!!! The awards were given by the Academy of Independent Cinema Arts and Artists. This makes Yellow Lights an Academy Award-winning film! Okay, maybe not quite. In any event, we were just hoping to win a student film award, so to win the Best Feature Film (overall) was a great honor! Thank you again to everyone involved in making the movie!

Indie Fest was a fun week of networking with other filmmakers, seeing their work, and talking with them about true independent film. We will soon post links to the sites for some of the other filmmakers that we met this week. Most importantly, for all of those who are wondering – we will soon be updating our website to include the graphics of the olive branches surrounding the two awards! Apparently, that’s how you know your movie is real.

[tags] Yellow Lights, indie, Indie Fest USA, movie, award, AICAA [/tags]

Originally posted on YellowLightsMovie.com:

Well, the screening for Indie Fest USA is over. We didn’t get the turnout we were hoping for due to a lack of publicity by the festival’s organizers, but it was great to have our movie play on the big screen at an AMC theater. Those that did come seemed to enjoy the screening and had some nice comments afterwards.

One of the attendees at the screening is a Film columnist for OCWeekly.com. In his blog post about the first day of the festival, he had a nice write-up of Yellow Lights, the relevant sections of which are reposted below. The full article can be found here.
From OCWeekly.com: “Two features came next. The first, YELLOW LIGHTS, was a truly pleasant surprise. A college movie made by college students on their weekends off for approximately $500, it belongs in a class with Tom Huang’s 1999 feature FRESHMEN (full disclosure – I did the DVD commentary for that movie with Tom, but only because I was a fan of the film and asked if I could; I accepted no payment).

Hollywood has an incredibly distorted view of colleges when compared to the truth. Dorm parties generally aren’t that exciting, but merely crowded room were one can maybe get drunk if the keg doesn’t run out too soon. Nerds don’t manage to steal the football quarterback’s girlfriend. Students are dirty and untidy, and their rooms are minuscule. YELLOW LIGHTS, directed by Kevin Tostado, gets it right, though the campus seems so empty at times that it’s almost Kafka-esque; only one character decorates her room with any flair.

The movie opens with an answering machine message (clunky exposition device, yes, but makes sense in context) to our mopey protagonist Brian (Bennett Chabot) from his girlfriend back home, telling him it’s over and never to call her again. But hey, it isn’t long before he meets Alex (Aja Munsell), a total babe who’s totally into him. In an atypical gender-role-reversal, the only problem here is that Brian wants to jump back into an ironclad commitment immediately, and Alex isn’t sure she’s done sleeping around. Also, Brian gets obsessed with his friend Chris’ love life way too much, determined to make sure he keeps his commitments.

Tostado ultimately seems to come down on the side of commitments being detrimental, or at least obsessions about them – I’m not sure I agree, and even though Alex is a babe, the idea of winning her heart while she’s still determined to maybe sleep with other guys doesn’t seem quite like the prize one would want. But Brian’s not me, and as an audience member I’m rooting for what he wants. The sex scenes may be of the extremely truncated “fade-to-black” PG variety, but they turned me on and I’m not ashamed to admit it, dammit.

A better sound mix is needed – early on, it’s clear that Chabot and Andrew Tsang, who plays Chris, recorded their ADR at different times, even though they’re in the same scene. It’s distracting at first, but eventually I stopped noticing. And Tsang needs to bring it more – in scenes where he’s supposed to be mad, I’m not feeling it like I should. Still, I can’t hold these things against the movie because it rings true in ways that teen movies generally don’t.” –Luke Y. Thompson

[tags] Yellow Lights, movies, indie, Hollywood, review, film [/tags]

I have just gotten word that Yellow Light’s screening date for the Indie Fest USA 2007 festival will be on Monday, October 29th at 7:00 PM in Theater 9 at the AMC Downtown Disney 12 in Anaheim, Caliifornia. If you or any of your friends are in the area, we’d love to have you at our festival premiere.

It looks like tickets will run $8.50 each (based on other information on the festival’s web site) and there will be audience choice and best of fest awards given so we could definitely use all the support we can get!

Hoping to see you all in Anaheim in a month!
[tags] Yellow Lights, Indie, Film Festival, Anaheim, AMC, movie [/tags]