Trent Harris

Beaver Trilogy

Our story begins in 1979, with a chance meeting in a Salt Lake City parking lot where filmmaker Trent Harris is approached by an earnest small-town dreamer from Beaver, Utah. Harris jumps at the chance when the young man invites him to come to the small town to film a talent show. At the show, the man dons a blond wig and performs in drag as Olivia Newton John. Harris captures it all on tape: A portrait of a true outsider. Harris shot a dramatic piece, "Beaver Kid 2" based on the documentary; This interpretation of the story, made in 1981 on a home video camera with a budget of $100, features a young Sean Penn as "the Beaver Kid". Still possessed, Harris then rewrote the script, cast up-and-comer Crispin Glover in the lead, and created the final segment, "The Orkly Kid", with funding from the American Film Institute. The trilogy unveils the inner world of a fantastic character in three incarnations.

Echo People

A spin-off of "Rubin and Ed" with a new cast of misfits who are once again lost in the desert.

Twister

An oddball family on a Kansas farm are trapped in their farmhouse by an impending storm. The patriarch of the clan is a retired soda pop tycoon. He is currently dating a children's TV evangelist. Also living at the farm is his layabout daughter and her precocious 8 year old daughter, his would-be artist son, the son's fiancée, and the black maid. Also thrown into the mix is the daughter's ex-husband, a ne-er-do-well who is seeking to get back in his ex-wife's good graces.

Luna Mesa

Luna, a young beauty has a fling with and older man then she finds him dead in a hotel room in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She also discovers his notebook filled with cryptic messages. The book leads her to Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Mexico, and beyond as she tries to discover why is he dead. Finally Luna finds a run down café five miles from nowhere called Luna Mesa owned by a mystical goat farmer. He sets Luna on a new journey, one that will connect her heart with the divine.

Burning Man

Short documentary filmed at the 1995 Burning Man festival

Subway

Shot on 42nd street and the subways in New York, "Subway" is an experimental short feature made with a Bolex and a step printer, accompanied by industrial background sounds which were created by processing dogs barking and a squeaky swing set with tape loops and an early synthesizer.

The Orkly Kid

Larry (Crispin Glover) organizes a talent show in an attempt to get on TV but the small town of Orkly, Idaho, isn't ready for his Olivia Newton-John impersonation.

Rubin & Ed

Reclusive Rubin Farr teams up with vocal but unsuccessful multi-level salesman Ed Tuttle on a quest to bury Rubin's dead cat in the "perfect spot." Their trip takes them across Utah's desert where they have run-ins with Ed's ex-wife Rula and an elusive Andy Warhol critic.