When you're short on cash, but you have a machette and a gas mask handy, there's only one thing to do... rob a gas station. Just make sure you're not expected.

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Starring: Chris Miller, Chris Haskins, Autumn Miller

Running Time: 2:04

Format: 8mm B+W Film

Director: Matthew Goltz

Notes from: Matthew

This represents the very first time I ever shot anything on film and Chris' first appearance on film. I had four days to write, shoot and edit a one-reel (three minutes or less) super 8 film for credit in "Film 1" class. Our friend, Chris Haskins, had the location. He'd just started working at the service station that weekend. We had the equipment, the weapons and the energy.

Not the lighting talent, though -- you can't see her very well, but that's Chris' sister Autumn underneath him at the end of the film, suggesting that there had been several "attempted robberies" that night. Since you can't see her so well, you may not get the "attempted joke," which might be why the film seems to have no point. Ah, the magic of hindsight...

We storyboarded it in about 20 minutes and shot the film in around two hours at about 3:00am on a Saturday night and Sunday morning. My favorite memory was having to be able to break eveything down and hide everytime someone pulled up for gas fearing it might be Haskins' boss checking in, or worse -- the Police. (Gas masks, machetes and gas stations don't mix.)

Notes from: Chris

i apologize for my acting, i hate silent film. still it was fun to make even though we pretty much forced chris haskins into jeapordizing his job just because he had the location. as matt mentioned the biggest problem, besides my 'acting', was the lighting. and it has been a plague on every film shoot because we have always been forced to use shitty cameras and older film stock. hopefully we will be able to shoot on film again in the future and prove that we can do better with the proper resources at our disposal.