Frontier Park, Graham, WA

Today was the "Grazing in Graham" event at Frontier Park, in Graham, Washington. Frontier is good size park, tucked back in the middle of nowhere. It is easily overlooked. Very little of it faces the main roads, so it is deceptively large. While the entire park can be wandered in about 20 minutes, it is still a nice walk.

Just it case it isn't obvious, I wandered the park today during the fair, picked up some good BBQ, and enjoyed the live music.

Understanding "Something Special"

The film has been out for a bit, so here is some explanation: The audio is the last three minutes of Miles' life. Jimmy keeps thinking about those last three minutes, when he watched his friend die, while he is exploring NZ to see why it meant so much to Jimmy that Miles' dying thoughts were NZ (aside from he was thinking about NZ when he got shot). The final scene? Miles asks a question (audio), and Jimmy answers it (visual). Jimmy has now reconnected with Miles, and processed his own trauma about Miles' death.

Here it is on Babelgum Online Film Festival. Please vote by clicking the little "thumbs-up" icon right under the video. There is cash and prestige involved in victory on this one, so vote, 'k? :-)

Online Film Fest - Vote!

The short film, "Something Special," is currently in the Babelgum Online Film Festival. You can vote for it once a day until Sunday, April 18 . Vote by clicking on the small thumbs up icon on the left side of the page at the following link:

"Something Special" takes over YouTube

"Something Special" is spreading on YouTube. While technically not a "take-over," it is doing pretty well :-) Here are the instances that I have found so far that you can jump in and read what intelligent people (and even the completely baffled) have to say :-)



Something Special 1

Something Special 2

Something Special 3

Flashback: October 2008 - Joe Biden in Tacoma

Here is an old short that Kristi put together in 2008. I am always blown away by her mad editing skilz as she turns a ton of raw footage (call it "noise") into something fun and easy to watch. As a side game, try to decide which footage was shot by me and which was shot by Kristi (Hint: I'm a foot taller than she is.) This is all footage shot by us, without any stock footage.

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-119054

The Winner Is...

Not Kristi. Bleah. There you go. I had *so* wanted to go to the Spirit Awards.

http://your-big-blog.com/2010/03/05/and-the-winner-is/

NZ finalist videos now online

The New Zealand Your Big Break film contest finalist videos are up! Check them out and decide which YOU think is the best and deserves to appear on American television! :-)

You can also see them on Facebook and share your positive thoughts there! Go with FB if you have the option, because it has hi-def versions and I am hearing reports that the contest website is running sluggishly, probably due to overload.

I have to admit - although I have a clear favorite for many reasons - I am really impressed by all five of the finalists. Directing a film is incredibly hard work and they each created something magical while maintaining unique and distinctive sytle.

1) write a script
2) fly to New Zealand
3) meet the casting director
4) make a shot list
5) location scouting
6) pick talent - in this case four actors - 1 on screen, 3 off
7) prop / art department scouting and meetings (vids on my FB page)
8) shoot the movie
9) edit the footage
10) sound
a) music
b) effects (foley)
c) record voice-overs
d) there was one more sound engineer, but I'm still sorting out which elements he was in charge of
11) final mixing of all the elements together
12) wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... until March 5!

I'll have to do a separate post where I give props to the other finalists, but for now I'll let you mull over the process above (and I'll have to check my notes to see if I missed anything.)