This film packs a winning punch in just 90 seconds

BRIER

Mark Blasco’s goal was to conquer the University of Washington’s Seattle campus.

His method? A madcap musical comedy.

It worked.

A 90-second film he made outlining his surprising fictional coup — along the way he enslaved the university population — won the UW’s Pocketmedia Film Festival last week. The festival’s theme was “What do you do at the UW?” and was open to students, staff and alumni.

The 30-year-old Brier man works as a building services supervisor at the Husky Union Building on campus.

Blasco is no stranger to short film festivals, though.

In fact, he’s won a few.

Last year, Blasco won a film contest sponsored by Academy Award-nominated director Joss Whedon. Blasco’s entry was one of 10 included as an extra feature on the DVD of Whedon’s 2008 Internet film “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.”

Blasco’s secret might be his style, which he describes as evil mixed with incompetence.

“If you have something that is (pure) evil, that’s not really fun,” said Blasco, who writes, directs and acts in his films. “But if you have somebody who is evil who is just bumbling along? That is.”

While Blasco’s characters might be bumbling, his films have a laserlike focus.

He crammed a seven-step process into his 90-second film. Steps included advice to recruit minions, battle an arch-nemesis and “stop crying.”

Blasco’s video bark is much worse than his bite, said Rene Singleton, who starred as Blasco’s arch-nemesis. She says Blasco is mild-mannered but fun-­loving. In the movie, though, Blasco dances around and taunts Singleton until she slaps him down.

“I did not know what (my part) was going to be,” Singleton said. “I had blind faith.”

Blasco will keep producing short videos, he said.

He studied audio production at the Art Institute of Seattle, and owns a business called podcastthemes.com, where he writes and produces theme music for podcasts.

He also has side projects. The one he is currently preparing is about zombies. It will be funny, Blasco promised.

“If I can make some people laugh, and have a good time doing it, that’s the end goal,” he said.

Chris Fyall writes for the Herald of Everett.