Pardon Me – Shy Mascot (Music Video)

There’s a long tradition of puppet music videos, from Gabriel Byrne’s cameo in the Rubber Bandits’ ‘Fellas’, to Ed Sheeran’s muppet of muppet. But as far as we know this is the first time someone’s remade ‘Smack My Bitch’ up with marionettes. Inspired by the tough guy lyrics of Shy Mascot’s new track ‘Pardon Me’, we imaged a puppet on an odyssey through Dublin, leaving a trail of mayhem and broken hearts behind him. An off the wall idea turned into six months of preproduction, as special effects guru Frances Galligan created uncanny wood and plaster replicas of Shy Mascot’s Jamel Franklin and Fia Gregg. We shot these diminutive rebels everywhere from sex shops to jewellery stores, Dublin buses to cat sanctuaries.

A tiny crew headed up by writer / director Gareth Stack and DOP Siobhan Madden combined storyboarded action sequences with improvised guerrilla shooting. Whenever a location lent itself to leprechaun scale hijinks we found a way to take advantage. Volunteer performers mixed with season pros to seduce and battle lil’ Jamel’s bad ass homunculus. Probably the most ambitious scene features a bloody dustup between Dublin based performance poet Raven (playing a cassocked street preacher) and Jamel’s balsa wood hard nut. We shot in the crumbling remains of O’Devaney gardens while dozens of local kids milled around and cars pulled donuts between abandoned tower blocks. We fought everything from tangled strings to reluctant sex shop proprietors to get this video made. Our action packed finale even had to be reshot when a memory cannibalised itself This happened after we’d snapped off one of lil’ Jamel’s feet and broken his back flinging him through the air first time around! Fortunately, after a short operation this little legend soldiered on.

Our favourite scene features a date between marionette Jamel and our moonlighting DOP Siobhan, shot in Dublin’s only barcade ‘Token’. To sex up this smokey seduction, we used the golden-age Hollywood technique of stretching cotton stockings over the lens for a poor mans glamour filter. All in all, the shoot took nine days, and the edit another three weeks. But the memories – bench pressing Ireland’s largest sex aid, laying half naked on the floor of the Glimmerman’s ladies while a marionette vomited, fighting allergies to give a puppet a chance to visit a cat sanctuary were absolutely worth it!

Half Mime (Short Film)

Made this wee short with some very talented people a few years back, and just got around to editing it now. Written / Directed by Greg Fitzpatrick, shot by George Hooker, starring Adam Tyrell and James M. O’Connor.

We made this in an afternoon as part of KinoD. The next kino event is next week, highly recommended to everyone with an interest in film!

The Art of Television

Download: The Art of Television

The A.R.T of Television is a historical comedy about censorship, set in the early years of Irish TV broadcasting. A time when government and church fought young broadcasters struggling to innovate on the nation’s fledgling television channel. American writer Claude Chabert lands a job on the early Irish soap opera ’Home Farm’. Claude finds himself trapped between the political pressures and rigid censorship of late 1960’s Ireland. Attempting to kill the show, he resorts to improbable storylines rooted in Irish mythology, creating an unexpected hit. Now Claude must balance the demands of crafty civil servants, a meddling church and an unruly cast.

The ART of Television – All new comedy drama, coming soon!

Download: ART Trailer

Dead Medium Productions Presents ‘The A.R.T of Television’!

It’s winter 1968, the long hangover after the Summer of Love. A.R.T is Ireland’s finest, and indeed only television station. But the nations flagship soap ‘Home Farm’ is failing as viewers frog march towards the satanic protestant seduction of the BBC. American ad man Claude Chabert is hired to turn the show around. With help from TV chaplain father Terry O’Mahony and feminist firebrand Maureen Masterson can Claude raise the ratings? Or will he fall prey to the machinations of sinister Controller of television Carvel Kiddler? Find out in The A.R.T of Television, a totally made up and completely fictional, not true at all, not even a little bit historical comedy about censorship, stupidity and Irish television. Coming to Phoenix FM and Soundcloud soon!

Dead Medium Productions history

Dead Medium Productions, founded in 2009, is an independent producer of drama and documentary. We have released numerous radio and podcast series. We have produced programmes for Newstalk, RTE Lyric FM, Radiomade, Dublin City FM, and Near FM. Our previous series include ‘Choices’ a surreal comedy about mental health, ‘Any Other Dublin’ a satirical look at the death of the Celtic Tiger, dark cold war drama ‘The Wall in the Mind’, and ‘Mad Scientists of Music’, an award winning documentary about experimental Irish music.

Writer / Director

Gareth Stack is a writer who develops work for radio, theatre and screen. Gareth Stack is a writer, director and pioneering Irish podcaster. In 2005, while senior producer at Trinity FM, he co-created the first Irish internet TV show ‘Technolotics’. Since then he has developed numerous radio documentaries, dramas and podcasts for channels like Newstalk, RTE Lyric FM as well as local and regional radio. Including the award winning series ‘Mad Scientists of Music’, which explored the Irish experimental audio scene. He has worked as arts correspondent for programmes like Culture File & the Dave Fanning show, developed programmes for digital channels like Radiomade, and served as communications officer for the Association of Independent Radio Producers Ireland (AIRPI). Gareth currently teaches courses in Podcasting & ‘Storytelling Through Sound’. Recently he has begun creating work for stage. His last play ‘Mic Drop’, received great reviews at the Scene & Heard festival.

Starring legendary radio actor / producer Roger Gregg!

Roger Gregg is an award winning playwright, composer, audio-producer and actor. Over the past 25 years he has written for Crazy Dog Theatre, Dublin Youth Theatre, TEAM, The American National Audio Theatre Festival, Graffiti Theatre, The Razor Edge, Oberon Theatre and The Gaiety School of Acting. His plays have also been produced by New York University, the University of Missouri, the Theaterpedagogisches Zentrum in Nuremberg, Germany. His Crazy Dog productions have won many international awards including; 3 American Mark Time Science Fiction Awards, 2 Ogle Fantasy Awards and 2 AUDIOFILE Golden Earphone Awards. In 2006 in a special feature reviewing his work, BBC Radio 4 hailed him as ‘one of a handful of truly great radio dramatists’.

Cast

Roger Gregg as Claude Chabert.
Sebastian Connellan = Carvel Kiddler
Seamus Stackpoole = Brendan O’Riordan / Miley O’Cumman
Gareth Stack = Eamon Chabert, Felix (in Sales), A.R.T News Anchor
Tara Cush = Shiela O’Riordan / Maraoid O’Common, Selkie
Niall Bruton = Alan O’Riordan / Ciaran O’Dowd
Thommas Kane Byrne = Fr Terry O’Mahony, Fiacra, Irate Reader
Pamela Flanagan = Maureen Masterson / Lug
Roisin Rankin = Laura O’Mahony, Banshee, BBC Presenter
Aislinn O’Byrne = Saoirse Chabert, Bridget Minerva, Irate Reader

With sound design / recording by Hearsay award winning producer Brendan Rehill (An Klondike, the Wedding Tree).

Thanks, hope you tune in!

Little Black Lies – The Webseries

How can an undead villain search for love in the age of tinder? What if you were socially awkward and a monster? Join one sexy vampire, OK maybe not that sexy, as he tries to find the love of his life, again. This anachronistic horror comedy takes its cues from the eighties feel of recent work like ‘It follows’ and ‘San Junipero’, and springs from the lively Irish comedy scene. The writer and director preciously collaborated on absurd comic shorts like ‘Lads’ and ‘Spaghetti D*ck’, and the series co-stars rising Irish talent like Nicole O’Connor (‘FACTS’), Joe O’Neill (Little Shadow Theatre Company), as well as legendary Irish actor Roger Gregg (‘About Adam’, ‘Space Truckers’).

Aping Tiffin

Aping Tiffin is a parody of the classic television series ‘Playing Shakespeare’, created as part of my masters degree in broadcast production.

Tickled By Freaks at the Edinburgh Fringe

Performed last week for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, with my improv group Tickled by Freaks. It was a lightning tour of just four packed out shows at the City Cafe and the White Horse, Edinburgh’s Oldest Pub. Thanks to total freak Gary Lynch, who let us have the spots in the last two days of his Edinburgh run