Selected Sketches from Fat Kid Rules the World

Fat Kid Rules the World is a feature film that was shot in Seattle in 2011. It is based on a book of the same name by New York author, K.L.Going. I was a featured extra and became the unofficial artist on set through the 5 weeks of filming.

The first thing I learned about being on camera is that there is a lot of time spent waiting: The lights need to placed and the details tweaked, the corner of that poster needs to be taped back up and can we have someone to cross right in front of the camera? In the times between shooting, staying carefully out of the way in the heart of the action, I brought out my book and started sketching. I sketched the gaffers and camera guys, the producers and the props mistress. I captured the director, Matthew Lillard (of Hackers, SLC Punk, and Scoobie Doo) in the few moments he stood still, the lovely Lili Simmons (Isabel) and the intense punk rock idol Matt O'Leary (Marcus, of Spy Kids 2, Live Free or Die Hard, Natural Selection) and, of course, I sketched our fat kid hero, Jacob Wysocki (Troy, of tv show, Huge, and movie, Terri)

I think everyone dreams of being in a movie. In these dreams, they get to do things in the safety of the set that they can't do in regular life, things that reality doesn't offer them. In my dreams, that I carried from upstate New York to Seattle, I was in a Punk Rock counter-culture. A place where ideas and accomplishments mattered more then anything else. I dreamed a world of individuality and music, inspired by Hackers and Blade. That is exactly what this movie and the experience of making this movie was. It was my dream of a film.

As a featured extra, my unnamed character has a friendship with Isabel, Marcus, and, by the end, Troy. They travel in the same circles. I was there for their successes and their failures, I saw a little bit of their hopes and dreams, and, ultimately, for their glory. I did not see it as the camera captured it, but as a participant, as a friend, and as the extra artist onset. I was very inspired by Toulouse-Latrec and Degas, sketching the behind the scenes moments that caught my attention in content and aesthetic.