New Project

I'm excited to announce that preproduction has begun for The Wallflower's Opus, as short drama about bullying and its effect. The script is being finalized and the cast has been assembled. I still need to get some props, mostly costumes, and scout some additional locations. 

I've got one of the blood squirting rigs set up... Oh yes, there will be blood, and have big plans for the GoPro Hero 2 camera to get some cool POV shots. I'm pretty pumped about this endeavor because up until now, most of the productions I've been in charge of have been documentaries or promotional, this one will give access to some new genre aesthetics.
 

Re:Cycling

At long last, the documentary is completed. Check it out!

HEY!

Stay tuned for the release of Re:Cycling, a short documentary about bicycle restoration.

In the Field

The new audio setup worked great. I just shot and interview with James Roedl for the bike project. The cables on the lav mic and the headphones are pretty long so there was plenty of slack for me to move around and double check the recording. 

This weekend I'll be shooting the first chunks of deconstructing the bike. With luck, I'll be able to get some good shots of the tear down and cleaning (while tearing down and cleaning). As long as I don't become completely engrossed in the fix up, like usual, I'll be fine. It should be a pretty fun shoot.

Bike B-Roll

This Labor Day weekend was perfect for getting footage for the upcoming bicycle project. I go several shots of in the local area and broke in the new rigs from this summer. The Fig Rig worked well for getting shots while cycling. The camera slider also made for some really cool establishing shots of the bike pre-modding.

All in all it was pretty successful. Hopefully I can track down some good interviews this week.

Upcycle: Bike Light

I was looking for something cool to really set off this Zissou bike restoration. It needed to be old school and just plain awesome; so I searched eBay for some old bike lights, the old dynamo kits from the 1970's. Unfortunately most of these are pretty beat up, incomplete, and pricey. I decided to look for an alternative. I thought those cool old school flashlights, the silvery Art Deco style ones might be an option and I happened across this beauty. It's a Lightmaster Searchlight lantern from the 1930's. 

The pictures looked really good and it was only $20 (including shipping, those old batteries are hefty.) Last night I took the old battery cells out, dropped in a new 6 volt lantern battery, and hacked/modded a light bulb to run in it. I was able to completely update it without destroying any of the old parts. I used electrical tape instead of soldering wires so that way it can be reversed back to it's original state at any time.

 

It works great now! I can't wait to put it on the finished bike. One more part of the production finished up...

Bike Restoration

We'll be starting a new project composed of interviews and hands on demonstration of how to restore and recondition an old ten speed bicycle. The chosen bike is a Prince Racer model from the 1970's ten speed boom, this particular one was rescued from a dumpster. It's an ideal bike to restore because it was more dusty than rusty (which is rare). After doing some research, it was discovered that this model was sold around the midwest in higher end department stores, retailing around $100. It's got good components and will look really nice cleaned up.

I've ordered, new tires, tubes, cables, wrap, and picked out some new paint. The tentative plan is turn it into a Steve Zissou/Life Aquatic themed bike. Stay tuned for updates.