Rome

back from naples

call to arms

2 from Sept - Omar Carrum and Zoya Pepel

Elena

My friend Elena Ramirez passed away last evening from a sudden illness.

When I started as a free-lance grip at the PBS station, she was a producer I'd get sent out with for local stories. She drove me absolutely crazy with what I perceived as her being so slow with her questions during interviews... sometime going 3 hours with a guest for a 6 min segment. I wanted to pull my hair out. Her's too.

Now, having known her for over 5 years, I know that what she was doing was being very careful, very methodical, very professional and very good. She wanted to get it right, and there is nothing wrong with that, no matter how long things take.

Elena's heart was in the right place... looking out for the less fortunate. The underdogs. And she pushed me to do stories I wouldn't have otherwise.

Thanks for pushing me to do the right thing every once-in-a-while, Elena.
I'll miss you very much.

Incurable soundtrack countdown

I'm in the studio working out the order of compositions and mastering the soundtrack which should be finished and ready in September.
Trying to blend Michael Culpepper, Chrysta Bell, Kaitlyn ni Donovan, Pat Mastelotto and myself into some sort of alternate-reality, melancholy dream.

Man oh man oh man.
There have been a few hints and examples of work which should eventually make it obvious to everyone that the film industry based around unions and large production crews is just going to die.
I'd say this is one.

Youtube figures out music rights

Don't know if this is new news, but it's new to me.

Instead of continuing to take down videos which contain music owned by third parties, UMG has (at least in this case) added an iTunes link to purchase their song I've used on Youtube without forewarning me of their taking this action... which I think is a pretty simple, elegant solution.

KAI is Ballet Austin set to The New Radicals.

This particular vid has been up for a while under an account for a show I produced for the PBS station in Austin, KLRU. The use of this music falls under PBS's umbrella agreement with ASCP/BMI regarding broadcast, but the net has been a dark-grey area.
The video has been live on YTube for over a year and they've just added the iTunes link this past week.

It's easy to see the possibilities regarding concerts, live tapings on NPR, etc... make one-off music videos, post on Youtube and attach the link to your iTunes account after having uploaded the audio content (or eventually the music video itself), and maybe actually make some money. A REALLY amazing opportunity for unsigned bands if nothing else. If you (the band, radio station, etc) own the rights to the underlying performance and recording... you have just cut out every middle-man-delivery-obstacle(except perhaps the Chinese government) between artist and consumer without any up-front cost required from either party interested in the actual product. Neat.

I'm going to experiment with a few other next-steps. Let me know if you're interested in how they go.

Onward

2 different worlds

2 images from projects I'm working on from 2 opposite sides of the planet, both geographically and economically.

Hale County Alabama June 2009 (Snakebit)



Catherine Lee's 'Ice' in Koln Germany (raison tv)

David Garza on ACL Stage Left

Like all great artists, David is getting better as the years go by.
I'm really looking forward to editing last night's show.

Holly Miranda

Say it with me. Holly Miranda. Start with WAVES.

I'm finishing a segment on The Blanton's "Birth of the Cool."
New In Context airs next Thursday. A bunch of good stuff from Portland.

A Brass Band In African Chimes

It's impossible to say how much I love this Instrumental from Simple Minds. We listened to it at least 6 million times in highschool.


Note: it sounds better when you wear too much eyeliner.

venetian devil

I'm finishing up the last episode for broadcast until April. It's a behind-the-scenes of the opera, Daveed's video I made with photographer Todd Wolfson and a profile on architect Steve Badanes of Jersey Devil edited by my buddy Sam Douglas.

March will see me shooting too many different projects to list.
A good thing.

Here is a segment from 07. My wife and I ended up buying 2 just because we liked him so much. He seems like the sweetest guy in the world, but the story about how he moved to Venice in the 70's to be with his lover in a theatre troupe couldn't be aired on PBS.

Worth taking chances

It's been a year since I shot this in Berlin. We had such a great time and were fortunate to meet with friends from the U.S. and make new friends while there.
I miss the cold. The food. The public transportation. The beer. The museums. Getting up to go to the corner grocery to buy fresh bread. Poppyseed marzipan yogurt.
Did I mention the food?

For whatever reason, I really like this piece. Something about the artist not speaking in his 1st (or second) language makes him choose every word and mean it? The art itself? It's got a melancholy thing I really respond to.

Fat Lady now silent.

Well... the Opera was finished on time and was a success. A giant experiment financially and production-wise that worked out well for the station. It looked great on KLRU-HD and was the first Opera the station has ever produced. Those with engineer's eyes were I'm sure fairly crazed by the lack of 100% compliance between all 5 cameras... but, I can live with it for what we spent.

Other stations have started asking to show it, so it looks like it's going to be a good outreach tool for ALO and the city.
Robert Faires at the Chronicle gave it a nice write-up.

My favorite thing that happened was that the woman who hired me to work at KLRU who has since retired, called me to say she was flipping channels and saw that we were running the local Opera and wanted to know "who produced it? It looked really good?" Ha!

Next up, Ballet Austin's complete Hamlet. We shoot that next week and it will run sometime in May I think.

Also two new episodes of iNCONTEXT.TV for broadcast in Feb. The 19th and 26th. The 19th will be a celebration of Black History Month and will include a long-form discussion with the extraordinary photographer Eli Reed and local-should-be-international favorite Pam Hart doing at least 2 songs. I'm having trouble choosing just one.

we ended as lovers

And opera editing continues... 1hr, 45min rough-finished.
This is the dvd menu poster for the press screener I've made.

Also... I played bass in a former life. Nothing nearly as good as this.
Check out her solo at 1:16. Watching this makes me want to practice.

The Prince. Re-mixed time.

Deep into editing Cinderella. I have to finish 5 min of broadcast ready HD a day between now and Jan 27th. Here is The Prince hiding from the stepsisters.




and here is another dance from Mazatlan's Delfos that choreographer Omar Carrum was kind enough to let me "re-mix." If Johnny's movement at 6:13 doesn't make you want to immediately start stretching and doing leg lifts... you may have a problem.

Cinderella web rez test

Here is a first test of ALO's Cinderella.
It's a giant two and a half hour puzzle filled with exceptionally talented pieces.
On the actual youtube page, you can watch it in HD.