Remake, Remodel

Life & other stuff

The blog's been a little dead lately and I can completely attribute that to the fact that Julie and I are moving.  We found an amazing house in central Austin (the Brentwood area) and we're moving in at the end of the week.  Our apartment is boxes, bubble wrap and dust right now and, added to that, Julie's busy at work and I'm in the middle of a couple things myself, so it's really all I can do to get up in the morning.

Still, the house is amazing and we're just psyched to be getting out of this apartment.  We've got a painter in there right now, slapping up some color on the walls and I'm going to start running some of the more fragile stuff over there myself starting tomorrow.  The movers come on Friday morning and the hope is that Julie will leave for work in the morning, and come home to her new house, all moved in and everything...I really hope that's what happens.

I've been doing a lot of graphics work for my buddy Dan Korb in NY lately.  He's been directing some infomercials and I've been supplying him with some logo animations and text stuff.  Once they start airing, maybe I'll post some of it up.  Otherwise, I'm still working on the Food Narrative stuff and will start shooting the first one next month.  I'm also starting to shoot the additional interviews for the LOCAL feature next month as well as a new project that I'm not ready to talk about yet.  All in all, things are gonna get pretty busy right after this move.

LOCAL - My latest documentary

 

I couldn't be more proud of how this documentary came out.  I hope you enjoy it.

Interlude

I've put pretty much everything on hold lately (unless it's paying work) so that I can finish the last two films in the 12 Films Project.  November's film will be a documentary that expands on some of the ideas of my May film, Farm To Trailer, and moves the focus of the conversation from the restaurant owner to the farmer.  I'll be interviewing at least 3 farmers as well as some chefs, a bartender and hopefully a shop owner with a store that only carries Texas-made items.  The idea is to discuss how consumer interest in words like "local", "organic" and "sustainable" has allowed small, family-run farms (and local artisans) to become a viable business.  I'm calling it, "The New American Farm".

Compared to the other two docs I made this year, this will be the most ambitious with more interviews, a wider scope, a longer running time and a shorter post-production window.  In order to get all the interviews done, I'm not going to start editing until after the middle of the month.  Documentaries are basically "written" in the editing, therefore it's so much more important to get that right.

As for December, I really have no idea what I'm going to do yet.  I've had some ideas and I've been thinking about it being a narrative, but otherwise, nothing.  Kind of a little worried about it, to be honest.

As for my day job, I've done a couple jobs for Dell and I'm starting another one this week.  I'm also working on a couple jobs for MetLife and directing for Citi this week up in Dallas.  Been busy.

The September Film - Layover

Catching up

The past few weeks have been quite the whirlwind and it doesn't look like it's going to be stopping any time soon.  After coming off two big directing jobs (which I'll be able to talk about in a couple weeks once they go public) I ended up getting tapped for some cool motion graphics work here in Austin which has been keeping me busy for a while.  I also hooked up with a producer out in L.A. who wants me to come out to direct a project for a very cool client.  We're still waiting to hear back about the bid, so I'm not going to say much about it...but it could be a really fun job that would end up taking me back out to Los Angeles for 4-5 days...the perfect amount of time.

The Twelve Films Project is starting to wind down.  I still have 4 months left, but they've all pretty much been planned out by now, so it's just a matter of making them.  The September film is going to be a narrative which should be a lot of fun to shoot.  I'm going to be holding auditions for it in the next couple weeks and I'm hoping to shoot mid-month.  A lot of it will depend on how my work schedule shakes out over the next few weeks, so we'll see.

Otherwise, things are good.  Bought a new laptop on Saturday, got the 15-inch MacBook Pro, Quad-2.2GHz with the upgraded video card and maxed out the RAM at 8GB.  It's one bad-ass machine, and I'm psyched to have something else to work on now.  All of the graphics work that I'm doing ties up my PowerMac tower and I'm usually just sitting around, waiting for it to finish.  Now, I can work while I'm rendering, which will be nice since I"m just getting busier and busier.

Charcuterie - My July Film

Here is the July film from my Twelve Films Project.  It's a short documentary about Charcuterie featuring two rising stars in that world, Lawrence and Lee Ann Kocurek of Kocurek Family Charcuterie here in Austin, TX.

New Directing Work

About a month ago, I shot & directed a reel for Bryce Gilmore and his Barley Swine restaurant here in Austin.  I've been editing it for a while, integrating some television appearances and other footage from a day spent at his restaurant.  Here is the result:

If you live in Austin and haven't had a chance to visit Barley Swine, do yourself a favor.  Your mouth will thank you.

Sketch

The festival run for Sketch is still going on, but with the re-launch of my website coming up and some other cool things that are going to be happening next week, I've decided to put the full version of Sketch up online.

My new website will be up and running by the end of next week and I'll be sure to post it up on here when it's live.  It's a pretty radical departure from what I've done in the past...some of that might be because I'm having someone else to it.  His name is Kendall Witherspoon and his company is ThinkSpoon out of Austin.  He's a great designer and a very cool guy.  Check him out.

Goings on

There are going to be some exciting updates coming in the next couple weeks, so I'm doing a lot of work to update my website and finally add a director's reel.  I had posted before about wanting to make an interesting reel for my directing work that wasn't just a collection of shots and wasn't just a lot of long scenes.  

I've been editing for the past day and a half and I think I've come up with something that works for what I want.  It's a way of combining the two that works for me...yes there are the best looking shots from my directing work edited together and yes, there are some scenes from my films, but I've been cutting them together in a way that feels a little more fluid, at least to me.  I'm sure this technique has been done before, so I'm in no way claiming that it's new, it's just what works for me.  And after watching a lot of director's reels on Vimeo, I feel like it's a more interesting way of doing things.

I'm also in the process of interviewing web designers/programmers for my updated website.  Up to now, I've always designed my own sites and I feel like I've done a pretty decent job, but there are some things that I want to do that I don't know how to do, so I'm going to take the leap and hire someone to do it for me.  In the end, I think it'll take a lot of the stress out of making and maintaining my website.

I'm also on the home stretch for a project that I directed about a month ago for Bryce Gilmore and his Barley Swine restaurant here in Austin.  It's a reel of sorts that his P.R. company will use to promote him to networks for appearances.  The goal is to show how engaging and interesting he is through an interview and b-roll while also cutting in clips of his previous TV appearances.  So if you see Bryce on the Today Show or the Food Network, it's all because of my amazing work he's a bad-ass chef.

48-Hour Wrap Up

A more detailed look at my 48-Hour Film Project, you can visit the 12 Films Project blog, but I just wanted to give a quick update and say that, though I am tired (both physically and mentally), it was an amazing weekend filled with some hilarious highs and brutal lows.  I had always wanted to participate in one of these 48-hour projects and I have.  I'll probably never do it again.

It's not the sleep deprivation or the constant worry that, in the rush of everything, you're forgetting something...I'm just not the type of filmmaker who likes to blast through the process.  I like to take my time, work things until they're right and end up proud of the final product.  I'll post up the film later today or tomorrow and I think you'll see that it's nowhere near as good as other things I've done.  Granted, it was made in 48-hours, and I think it's great based on that, but I know it could have been better and that's what kills me.

Here are some picks from the day: