About Chris Hanel

I am an artist, writer, filmmaker, performer, and somewhat competent poker player who currently resides in the midwest with my lovely wife Kori while working as a game designer for a promising video game developer.

Here’s a catalog of things that I’ve done over the past few years that can be found on the internet:

Hitler Makes a YouTube Video: Because I can’t create anything without it being meta or derivative, I made a film lampooning the many parodies of a particular scene from the Hitler biopic “Downfall” while simultaneously doing exactly that. I am prouder of this short than I should be. Update: A year after making this, it went viral and was published all over the net for about 48 hours, and is now (sadly?) one of the most viewed things I’ve ever put on the net.

The Pink Five Trilogy: I served as co-writer and Visual Effects Supervisor on the third chapter of the popular “Pink Five” fanfilm series. I also served as an effects artist and on-set “smoke bitch” for chapter two.  The films are still online at Atomfilms, though Trey Stokes has collected and embedded all of them on the Pink Five website, along with commentary tracks, behind the scenes documentary footage, and other extras for your geeky enjoyment. I also played three different roles in the film (Darth Vader, Han Solo, and a Death Star officer), hoping to become the fanfilm equivalent of Walt Flanagan.

The Trey Stokes Library: While working on Pink Five, Trey Stokes directed a number of other projects for which I was pleased to be a member of the cast and crew stable, serving in just about any and every capacity possible. Most of these films can still be found online, including Double Shot, Woody Burns: A Life, and the Upcoming webseries “Ark”.

American Scary: A documentary about horror hosts and the people who grew up watching them. I served as a Unit Director and got to be a part of interviewing Curtis Armstrong, Vampira, and other personalities.

The Formula: The first film I ever made, The Formula is a fanfilm about four Star Wars geeks attempting to make a fanfilm of their own. Co-written and co-directed with L. P. Stephen Phelan, The Formula was conceived as a result of my decision to make a film after losing my job. We made it for a budget of $2,500 dollars (and could have been a lot less had we tried harder), and its popularity online and at comic book conventions got me into visual effects school. You can find the original page on Theforce.net here, or go directly to the film where it’s hosted on Google Video.

Roleplayed: A short film by Chad Peter which I starred in. One of the few items that I’ve been a part of that actually made the front page of Digg. One of the few pieces I hesitated to show my parents. Chad has now taken the idea and is in the process of making a full fledged series.

CulturePulp: Movie critic, columnist and cartoonist M. E. Russell creates a weekly snippet of life in Portland with his strip/mural/art piece known as CulturePulp. I’ve served a few times as his colorist, and the pieces can be found at his website.