Thursday, August 30, 2007

An Excellent Cinema Experience

Here's proof that a movie doesn't have to be high budget or high production values to tell a simple but good story. I'm speaking of Once which Mary and I went to see last night. It is not quite a musical as much as it is a movie with a plot advanced by music. It actually has the look of a documentary with scenes shot in public places and non-star actors pretty much playing characters not unlike themselves. The music is good and the characters generate genuine warmth within a very sweet story arc. When the movie got out there was a warm breeze at 11:00 pm which supplemented the high spirits that were generated within the theater. Can't get this film out of my head.

Today's project was creating a draft of a 15 second promo for the Grand Rapids Community Foundation who is underwriting a local presentation of Ken Burns new documentary, The War. I had some guidelines and needed to create something to start a conversation of where to go with the client. Here is my first draft of a 15-second solution.

Tomorrow I will take Marlee up to Pentwater and Abby up to Glen Arbor. Ill be back on Saturday.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

The End of My Suffering

Last week I had pretty much worked myself into a tizzy worrying about this video that I had due for the UICA. They needed a "video/music" invitation for a fancy schmancy party they are throwing for big-money donors next month. They were supposed to write a script for me but I also jotted down a few ideas that popped into my mind. When we got to the script meeting, they had nothing and they liked all my ideas... or possibly they needed a fall guy in case any idea turned out to be a stupid idea. Who wants that responsibility? That is what consultants are for.

They chose my riskier idea of doing sort of a Dr. Seuss rap set to a rhythm track. If it worked, it would be funny. If it didn't work, it could embarrass a wealthy patron. That is a bit of pressure!

The shoot seemed to go OK. I got to shoot in the Blodgett mansion on Plymouth Ave. At the last minute, I had Bill Hebert come along to help with lighting and crowd control. Bill is exceptionally good at interesting and funny small talk. The last thing I needed was the pressure of keeping the talent entertained. But when I got home and I looked at the footage alone, it came off more corny than funny. The music would need to telegraph the whimsical in order to view it in the correct light.

Stephen Duren's trio agreed to try and pull something together for me. I met at their rehearsal on Tuesday and showed them the raw footage. No one laughed. We set up to record their session with a cassette recorder but it became clear to me that this would not work. I could hear a hum and also I had no cassette player to transfer it back to video. I decided to just use Stephen's camcorder and place it near the instruments and settle for whatever I could get.

They played around to they came up with a riff that I liked. I timed the 4 verses and decided to have rhythm under the spoken word and add the bass riff under the in-between segments. I stood in the middle of the musicians and, using my watch, cued the bass player when to come in and out. I was reasonably happy with the final take.

UICA liked it and I guess that is what counts. It went out yesterday. What do you think? UICA Video Invitation.

Lots of rain these last few days. The grass is greener.

Monday, August 20, 2007

A Change in the Weather

Oh, for a nice warm day... and when will this infernal rain stop? Ok, that was just for effect but seriously, it is cold and wet out. I guess that this means I'll be mowing the lawn later this week.

This past weekend was spent up in Pentwater, Michigan. This picture was taken out the back door of the summer home of Marlee's grandmother, Margaret Dearth. What you can't see is the big, pristine beach on the other side of that dune grass-covered hill. Marlee, Mary, Abby, Casie and I hung out here Saturday to Sunday in hopes that the sun would come out and we could splay out in the sand and splash in the water. The girls mostly stayed indoors playing cards and games. Mary, Grandma Dearth and I got in one very nice walk before the rain started coming down in a serious fashion. We strolled along water's edge to the pier and then cut inland to a private boardwalk that straddled the wooded hill that was the setting for all the cottages and homes on the south side of the Pentwater inlet.

The end of that walk was the cue for the heavy rain that did not let up for the rest of the weekend and still has not let up. This meant reading our books and playing indoor games with a couple of car excursions into the village to explore their tourist fare. For those 13 years and under, this manifested in exploring the depths of a candy shop and sampling the various sweet and sour liquids, powders and gummy substances. We could tell from the faces of our charges that this rainy weather and indoor activities pretty much equaled a boring way to spend a weekend. We barbecued chicken, boiled fresh sweetcorn and played an extended round of that game (the name escapes me) where you mold clay, draw pictures and act out words on your way around a game board. That was our Saturday night.

Sunday morning was French toast and watching the birds at the feeder. For the girls it was "How soon can we go home?" We had lunch in the village at a House of Flavors. Crappy service, mediocre sandwiches and limp French fries but delicious ice cream treats. We were back in Grand Rapids by 5:30.

I should also mention that we had house guests. Skip and his girlfriend Marlene came by last Wednesday and just left today (Monday) at around 1:00. They are in the middle of a move from Maine to California making perhaps their last visit to Grand Rapids. They were excellent guests, very popular with Marlee, Abby and Buster. They watched our house and fed the pets while we were up in Pentwater. We're sad to see them go but know we have a place to stay in Santa Barbara, California. Marlene also will make the contact for Alice to have a host in Sydney when she decides it is time for a capital city visit.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Thunderstorms at Last

But where is the relief? Right now it is so muggy. I feel the need to go rinse off in the shower after the exertion it takes to stoop down and pick up a pair of socks from the laundry basket.

I had the luxury of a day to myself today. I woke up early (6:00am-ish) to sit on the porch and feel the thunder booming in my chest. It never came too close but it was nice all the same. After an IM chat with Alice, I peeked out the back door to see if I had closed the window of my car last night. The answer was no. It was wide open. My car seat was soaked.

Last night (Saturday) after working on Come On Over all day, I rode home with Rocky Slaski who does audio for the show. He's a reserved but interesting guy. He was a guitar player in my favorite college band, the Infections. We decided to stop for a couple of IPAs at Founders. We talked about the Infections era of the early 80's which I found fascinating. We knew many of the same people but we did not know each other back then.

Two beers and a half a bowl of peanuts later it was time to go home. It was all the calories I needed apparently because I was not hungry and fairly buzzed. I was greeted by a big box on the porch containing the parts I ordered to fix the meat/cheese drawer of the refrigerator. I decided I could not wait another minute and I cleared out the left half of the fridge and installed all the parts. To quote Abby, it's SWEET!

That did it for me. I brushed my teeth and crashed. That took me to the second paragraph (above).

Tonight I picked up Abby at 6:00 and we had spaghetti and Mary and Marlee came home at 8:00. Time for a rinse off in the shower and then early to bed again. I have 3 more days of Come On Over. I'll pick up Rocky at 7:45am.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Little Jobs are Trickling In

I just got called to do a little piece for UICA. I'm meeting on it on Monday. Degage Ministries is also ready to commit to a campaign video. I'm warming to the idea.

Check out my new Rapid Growth video on the Children's Museum.

It has been a couple of very long days working on Come On Over. Tomorrow we work on a couple of music videos for the show. Should be a nice break from the exposition stuff but the quality of the writing remains high, We have a hot property, I'm convinced.

Tonight, MAry and I met with cast and crew at the Cottage. The show bought the food (Cottage Burgers, yum) so we only had to pay for beer. We snuck out at 5 minutes to 9 to run to UICA to see the movie Paprika. Unfortunately, the projector broke and they cancelled the show. We took a walk downtown instead. Another hot, muggy night.

One of the guys on the crew is a breakdancer/Hope student named Michael Kafka (not sure about the spelling). He knows Mike Winslow.

Gotta go to bed!

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Wedding Video

A short post to show you the wacky wedding Party Video put together by Stephen.

Friday, August 3, 2007

Would Someone Turn Off the Faucet, Please?

Metaphorically speaking. I'm so busy right now with the feast part of "feast or famine" except the feast is lacking in serious calories (or dollars).

First let me get you up to speed with some cliffhangers from previous posts:
  • The garage fixer guy measured but now has not returned a call in 2 weeks.
  • The window replacement epoch turned into much drama about very little. Since I had all-day gigs with Come On Over last week, I asked Jon Burr to go and get a hatch from a junkyard. Turns out it was the wrong hatch and thank goodness Jon recognized it as such and declined. Mary called our insurance agent and it turns out that particular kind of damage is indeed covered, in total, by our policy.
  • The Cucumber plant is looking sickly but the pepper plants look great. There are 4 peppers growing on the sturdiest plant.
Just finished a week of doing "Come On Over". We had a new Director, Koyalee Chanda (pronounced Kway-lee). She was terrific! She was particularly good at all the people skills. She knew everyone by name and with great facility in almost no time at all. We did an episode about shyness called "Express Yourself". It was a good episode and introduced a new character named "Joy". She may be temporarily replacing Brandi who is... pregnant with twins and beginning to show. My only complaint about the script was an occasional inaccuracy about what it feels like to be shy. (I don't thing the writers really know about this.) I feel like a bit of an expert, myself. For instance, a shy person does not run and hide when being introduced to a new person. A shy person wants to be invisible and running would draw too much attention. I was thrilled to be asked to shoot footage for one of the music videos. It was scheduled at the end of a day that turned into our longest day of shooting and by the time we got to the location, we had only an hour of daylight (that was really setting sun), to try and get about 30 shots. It was "run & gun" and so there was no careful composition or exposure. I'm a bit worried that it will not meet minimum quality standards. We'll see.

On another project, Girbe and I are taping interviews of retired cops. Yesterday we interviewed an 82-year old, African American detective. He was a very interesting guy with good stories. After the interview he was looking at a photo album full of B&W posed photos of cops. Sort of a mug shot book of the "good guys". He made little comments about nearly everyone as he remembered them. "This guy helped me with a promotion" or "This guy got really fat" or "I did not get along with this guy". My favorite comment was one of the last photos. "This guy was..." and he gestured, rocking his pinky and thumb up and down in the universal sign for "probably gay". I asked him if he was gay and he said. "Oh, he was married but he swung both ways." And then he added, "We rode together once and he said he would sleep with a man if he was clean. That was OK as long as he didn't want to sleep with me."

The down side of that shoot was that we had an hour for set up and I really need about an hour and 15 minutes for set up due to a technical problem I encountered. One of our 2 tape decks did not record the video signal.

I've also been working on a project for the Children's Museum... two projects actually. I've been working on a piece for an upcoming fund raising event involving interviews with the founders of the organization. They've been around for 10 years now. The second project is a story for Rapid Growth that I will edit this weekend for publishing next week Thursday. I've got some really nice footage.

maybe my cup is too full already. So why do i find myself writing this book in my sleep?

Finally, I had lunch with the CMC's grant writer on Thursday. She gave me an idea that I am strangely geeked about. She said that she had the guidelines from the people who publish those "_____ for the Complete Idiot" guidebook series. They pay $15,000 plus royalties on sales. I looked up their publishing list and although they seem to have a book for every dumb possibility, they have nothing like "Filmmaking for the Complete Idiot". I think I understand the complete idiot quite well and I would enjoy writing a guide book for him. First step: Come up with an outline.