A highlight of my college days at Full Sail University in 2004, this short was made by friend Jason Hubsch as an assignment for his video editing course. I helped with some of the camerawork, acting (portraying "The Insensitive Driver", "The Mugger" and doing narration) and, at least one would hope, partial behind-the-scenes encouragement. Jason, then a student of Full Sail's digital media program, did a great job with this little thing.
During our Full Sail days Jason and I could often be found hanging at his apartment, playing FFXI, listening to ICP and, eager to pack more abbreviations into our repertoires, watching WWE. A mutual favorite World Wrestling Entertainment superstar of ours was Shane Helms, or, as he was better known on Vince McMahon's side of the pro-wrestling world, The Hurricane. This character was a purposefully goofy superhero prone to pratfall and his underdog status (fictional and factual) elicited great adulation and appreciation from the two of us.
I had written, partially directed and edited Thursday the 12th based on a colleague's story - of an '80s-style slasher fallen on comically hard times - in my digital dinematography course a month or so prior when this assignment came up. Jason had a similar idea to that of Thursday's - to give The Hurricane somewhat of an origin story, painting him as a downtrodden do-gooder who just wasn't getting a break before discovering the WWE. Jason did more legwork than he probably needed to, recruiting on-screen talent from the neighborhood (including my then-roommate whose face is never seen in his role as "The Psychiatrist") and even securing our frequent watering hole - the local Hooters - for a key scene.
As Jason mentions on his website, the video was an academic success and went on to be used as the demonstrative example for future classes. It can be viewed by clicking over to Jason's online home base as linked above and following the "Digital Video" tab, or in a slightly more direct fashion by clicking here to visit an older (but very similar and very functional) version of the site.
