Mountainside on Tubi

A friend of mine, Mikiech Nichols, directed a feature film called Mountainside that’s now available to stream on Tubi and rent on VOD. A relationship comedy shot in the Seattle area, I had the pleasure of cutting an early trailer for the film and delivering what is most (definitely) probably one of the best background performances of all time.

Mountainside (2023) poster.

Mikiech directed Mountainside, a labor of love, on weekends over the course of years. A crucial sequence takes place in a movie theater; the scenes were shot in the Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle’s U District. Mountainside provides a poignant snapshot of a rapidly changing Seattle. Its use of the Grand Illusion is no exception as that location has since closed (the theater hopes to relocate). When the scenes were shot, I was able to stop in and briefly appear in the background. At the time, I had a box of anaglyph-style 3D glasses from an unrelated project I was working on and asked Nichols if I could wear a pair during the scene. He enthusiastically replied that he had imagined someone wearing 3D glasses in the background. It was fate. The glasses made the final cut of the film.

Christopher Lee Patton as “3D glasses guy.”

When Mountainside was nearing its preliminary festival release, I was approached to review an early cut of the trailer for the film. Being an enthusiast of movie trailers, having made many myself both real and fake, I had a host of ideas for how to present Mountainside to prospective audiences. I had so many ideas, in fact, that it seemed easier to show them. I used a screener of Mountainside to cut my own trailer from scratch. Although one or two changes were made, my cut was adopted as the primary trailer for Mountainside.