Behind the Scenes

Ten years ago, a bunch of film-obsessed college students decided we weren’t going to wait around for permission to make movies. Our school, Augustana College, didn’t have a film program. There was no department, no resources, and no official path forward. What we did have were stories we wanted to tell and a deep need to create. So, we made our own path. This is the story of Bob Mazooka.

Originally posted in 2021. Updated in 2025. At the time, I was leaning toward a career pivot — I even entered a Master’s program thinking teaching might be the new path. But the creative bug never left.

Writing has always been my first creative love. Improv is a very close second, but writing is the one I come home to. I can do it anywhere and at anytime. When Heath asked if I’d write this thing, I said yes immediately. It felt good to be trusted with someone else's idea and to see it brought to life. We met at a bar after I completed the scripts and then Heath was happy and he put it into production with his crew.

My last completed project with Angotango Pictures — at least for the YouTube channel — was a short fake trailer that parodied The Neon Demon. We called it The Neon Unicorn. It was weird, artsy, lo-fi, and fun. It was also the final video on that platform featuring the now-married Ben Humphrey and Megan Elisabeth Kelly before we jumped into working on a feature-length film together.

Commercials are a way for actor's to pay the bills. At one point, I was getting offers direct to my inbox. For one commercial, they...

I did a commercial in 2016 — my very first as a lead — for Hewlett Packard. It was for the HP DeskJet 3755, but the story had nothing to do with tech. It was about a grandmother and grandson preserving memories from their bakery and coffee shop. It was a tearjerker. And it wasn’t just a commercial — it was a short film disguised as an ad.

You don’t always need a lead role to feel like you’ve made it. Sometimes all it takes is a green screen, a burrito, and your butt stealing the scene in a credit union commercial your parents actually watched. Here's the story of this Colorado Commercial.

Back in the early days of Angotango Pictures, I had the chance to host what would become our first — and only — Shack Sessions. My friends and insanely talented musicians JD Robinson and Cameron Blair came by Anthony’s small Colorado garage (Anthony was the founder of Angotango), and laid down five stripped-back songs for us.

What happens when two carolers won’t leave your porch and demand money? Holiday magic, obviously. Ty Sells, my brother Troy, and I...

I was a last-minute addition to a comedic short for Save The Storks. Megan Elisabeth Kelly played the lead, and I was cast as her boyfriend — a “douchey” one, to be clear. They handed me a beanie and a V-neck and said, “You’re the guy.” That’s how quick it was.

In 2018, we made a short film called Trumpocalypse: The Re-Election of Trump. It was satire. At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure Trump would get re-elected. The idea was that Trump, still in his first term, had already won again — and America was spiraling into some stylized dystopia. We shot it in black and white. It was bleak. The Road-level bleak. But honestly, I was making fun of apocalyptic films more than I was Trump.

( Stop, Wait a Minute ) A few years back, I had the chance to be in the music video for Shanin Blake’s song “Stop, Wait a Minute.”  I...

We made a fun little parody short inspired by the final sequence of The Rock . It’s dramatic, over-the-top, and built around the simple...

Sometimes your taste outpaces your talent — and that’s okay.I co-wrote, produced, and acted in a sketch called Our Pet Nicolas Cage. It had a fun premise and a talented cast. It also had bees, too many layers, and a clear lesson in learning when less is more. Here's what I took from that project — and why I'm still proud of it, warts and all.

5 Things I Wish I Learned Before Making a Short Film (That Was Never Released)

In 2017, a film I was part of called Army & Coop hit streaming. It was a low-budget, late-night, raunchy, testosterone-fueled comedy set in Boulder, Colorado. I played the bad guy — the kind of antagonist you'd boo at a midnight screening. Looking back, it was my first feature-length role, and I learned a lot, fast. Here are five lessons I took from playing a guitar-strumming, self-absorbed, pink-polo-wearing villain in a film that, for all its absurdity, taught me real th

Back in 2017, while working with Denver’s own Angotango Pictures, we decided to collaborate on a YouTube short film. What happened next...

Looking back at one of my earliest projects working with Denver film company Angotango Pictures