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So Long 2016

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holiday-2016

This year has been one of the most challenging I’ve had in a long time.  What is it about this year?  Almost everyone I talk to is happy to see the back of 2016 and are ready for a fresh start. I’m not sure about others but I know that for me it’s been an emotional rollercoaster and although it’s been a good ride I’m ready for things to calm down a bit.

Forget world events, natural disasters etc.  I’ve had one of those years where I’ve had work some months and then nothing, not at all unusual in the film business, but the intensity was what got me.  When I had work, I usually had several contracts all at once so I was working 20 hours a day for weeks on end and then nothing. Exhausting.  And then there were all the projects that we thought were going to happen and they fell through at the very last minute.

I make this year sounds like it was pure agony, but actually this year has been a really good one in many respects.

  1. I had more work than ever and several projects that I’ve been working on for three years or more now have finally made their way into the world. i.e. The Human Face of Big Data, CRAZYWISE and The Click Effect.  I even managed to fit in a few shorter films that I directed myself for PLU’s MediaLab and the PSESD.
  2. I’ve had more design projects than I’ve ever expected, especially considering I’m not a graphic designer.  Film proposals, websites (www.rockabillyrides.com), film promotional pieces (posters, invitations, infographics) and more in the works.
  3. I have a beautiful new niece that I can’t wait to see grow up – but not too quickly please!
  4. And the biggest drain on my emotions – I’ve decided to finally move to California (sometime in the Spring after several postponements) and fulfill my lifelong dream to become a surfer… well in actual fact it’s to find more consistent work and take on a new adventure.  The surfing will be a perk if I can ever stand up for more than 0.5 seconds.  Right now I’m really talented at sitting on my board.

And on that more upbeat note, I’m preparing to venture off to meet my family for the holidays.  It’s my favorite time of year because for a week or two, we are all together which is rare for us.  I guess we can’t expect much else when we all live in separate states and/or countries.

As I sign off for the rest of this year, I leave you with this wonderful little piece that makes me smile even if it does seem a little scary in places.  The world really is a big scary place but I can only hope that this next year brings more peace and joy than we’ve witnessed in the last 12 months.

Karni and Saul

Until next year…

New York, NY

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One whirlwind trip from Seattle to New York and The Human Face of Big Data has made it’s official debut into the world.  Well, it’s been making it’s way into the world for a while, but we now consider it officially premiered.  Woohoo!

I got to go to New York for three days for the event (my first time ever into the city – I know, hard to believe) and actually, I ended up with about two days to try see something of the city.  Even with battling traffic into Manhattan and out again and everything that I need to get done for work, I got to squeeze in a few things.

  1. Spectacular views from where I was lucky enough to stay:

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2.  Wonder through a few neighborhoods:

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And sort of see the Empire State Building – it’s pretty spectacular at night.

3. Eat fabulous food

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Just one of the delicious menus I got to sample – mussels and frites at Un, Deux, Trois.

4. Attend my first New York Premier

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The official poster blown up to a 7-foot display.

5. Finally see members of the crew that I haven’t seen in a couple of years and meet a few others in person that I’ve talked to on the phone for hours but never actually seen.

And now I’m back home and researching for a new project.  We’ve got all sorts of things in the works but  I can’t share what they are yet.  Hopefully, in the near future I can make a few exciting announcements.  Until next time, back to work.

More screenings of the film coming to cities across the U.S. as well as broadcasts of the film in over 35 countries in the next year.  I will announce as we get schedules finalized.  A full list can always be found at www.humanfaceofbigdatafilm.com.

Crafting at Sea

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What do you do with all the odd bits of plastic floating around the ocean?  Well, it seems that these sailors have found one use:

STUDIO SWINE

I’m in love with the editing of the this film – more the the point, the mesmerizing water shots.  It makes me miss the open water and living on a boat while reminding me of how little there is to do when you’re not actively  sailing, sleeping or doing chores.  There isn’t much to do during the few hours of down time.

What a fascinating history of sailor’s hobbies and how we can simulate it today without having to kill sperm whales for materials…

Korean Kimchi

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Kimchi (Hangul: 김치; Korean pronunciation: [kimtɕʰi]; English pronunciation: /ˈkɪmtʃi/), also spelled kimchee or gimchi, is a traditional fermentedKorean side dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings. It is often described as spicy and sour. In traditional preparation, kimchi is often allowed to ferment underground in jars for months. There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi made from napa cabbage, radish, scallion, or cucumber as a main ingredient.

I had never had kimchi until I got to high school where a very large percentage of the student body was made up of Koreans.  To help make these international students feel more at home, every meal served up at school had the option of rice from the cafeteria line and kimchi from the salad bar.  This is where I first tried the delicious pickled “condiment”:

JONAH KESSEL

I’m a big fan of any kind of Asian food (although I tend to favor Japanese) and kimchi is somewhat of a staple in my kitchen.  Now after watching this film, I’m very curious to know if I have Chinese or Korean kimchi sitting in my fridge at home.  I’m pretty sure it’s Korean, but now I’m not sure…

I love the journalistic style of this film, it is after all, how I started out working in film.  All the various piles of ingredients add such a beautiful array of color and watching the women work just makes me want to run home and enjoy a bowl of rice and kimchi.  Perhaps that will be my dinner tonight…

Bringing Back the Light

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In the midst of a summer full of wildfires, residual smoke and horror stories of parched forests being consumed by hungry flames, it’s sometimes hard to believe that the fire season will eventually come to and end – or at least we are all hoping it will.  Beyond the terrors that these widespread flames bring to homeowners, the idea of losing our forests is what really scares me.

I’ve always taken old growth trees for granted, I mean living in an area where trees stand hundreds of feet tall and have witnessed more local history than we can even imagine, well if trees could talk… right?  What would happen though if the future generations didn’t have monster towers of wood shading them or recycling their carbon dioxide back into oxygen?

I don’ want to even speculate and hopefully logging and wildfires will slow enough and allow new growth to take root. Thanks to people like those in the video below, we may not have to face a treeless reality:

MARK WYATT

My favorite part of this film is the beautiful and sweeping views of the forests and the use of the autumn light.  Autumn is my favorite time of year to film outside – there is a soft and warm quality to it that you don’t get in summer (the sun is too high), winter (the sun is too low) and only sometimes get in Spring.  Usually in the PNW, it’s too cloudy in the Spring to know what kind of light is filtering through.

Although we still have several weeks of Summer left, I can only hope that the fires slow and that our old forests can continue to bare witness to future events – and bask in plenty more Autumn light.

I’ve been working on…

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There are several difficulties with keeping up with a blog:

  1. There is finding content and the time to post the content.
  2. The perfect timing to share what you’ve been working on yourself and
  3. Actually getting the nerve up to share your recent work, or at least in my case there’s a lot of getting up nerve.

I know, point number three seems completely ridiculous as the reason for all of this is to share my portfolio and to share what inspires me but somehow sharing other people’s work seems to so much safer.  I’ve always been someone that prefers to work behind the scenes, never wanting to draw attention to myself.  I rather like being a kind of ghost in the creative process – have some exciting role, but then when it’s time for recognition I get cold feet.

I’m trying to be better at putting my work out there – otherwise it’s rather useless actually producing it in the first place, right?

So this is what I’ve been up to:

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www.humanfaceofbigdatafilm.com

  • Yes, admittedly I’ve been working on The Human Face of Big Data for a while, but the new part is that after several weeks, there is now an official website with the trailer, official screening dates and bios of all the major contributors!  Check it out for details on upcoming screenings – yes, this film could finally be coming to a theater near you in the next few months… This is a  very long awaited release of the film and I hope to announce the official dates soon.
  • You may have also noticed that this site has a slightly different look and format in the last month or so.  I’ve finally had a chance to do the major overhaul that I’ve been wanting to do for a while now.

    What do you think?  Comments? Anything that you think could be better?  I’m all ears.

  • The film, Crazywise, is moving forward in post production!  I’m still doing the odd research, but mostly helping with keeping things running on the post production front and keeping their project manager sane.  There are so many moving parts that it definitely takes a team!  For more information on that film, be sure to check out their Facebook, Twitter and Blog for updates.  The Crazywise team is pretty amazing at keeping their followers up to date on the progress of the film so be sure to check them out – there are some amazing interviews on their blog already and they are always adding more!
  • And last of all, I’ve been working on pitches for several new projects and getting ready to start another promotional film for one of my clients.  However, for now I can’t share the details but I look forward to sharing updates as everything moves forward.

Enough about me today and back to my usual posts later this week.  Happy Tuesday!

Time Speeding By…

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Growing up, I was warned that time would speed up as I got older.  Now that I’ve been out of school for a while and making my way in the world this warning is all too true.  I wish it weren’t the case.  For instance, it’s already the end of June and I have no set plans for the July 4th holiday – mostly because I thought I still had plenty of time to figure out my weekend.  I can’t quite figure out how it snuck up on me so stealthily.

Thinking about this the other day made me think back to my days when I was able to travel frequently for pleasure and the days seemed to stretch on forever.  You might say that the long days had something to do with me sitting on a bus for 19 hours to get to my next destination but I don’t think that was the only thing.

Then I came across this little beauty:

Kenny Laubbacher

Could Jed’s theory be exactly the reason for the time warp that I’m sure I’m stuck in?!

Raincoats still available!

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I can hardly believe that Sonja Silver’s raincoat Kickstarter is complete!  If you remember, I made the campaign video and we’ve been fundraising ever since the completion.  This has been the least stressful campaign that I’ve ever worked on – woo hoo for people with an online following and a great campaign team!

In case you were hoping to order a coat or any other items but didn’t get your order in in time, you can still get your name in before they run out.  There are 94 coats still available and Sonja is willing to take fill orders over the phone.  Please contact me if you’re interested.

And in case you haven’t heard about this fabulous coat that I’ve been involved with, check out the video below:

Thank you for everyone’s support and for all of those who have contributed!

A Raincoat for the PNW Woman

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Today, I can finally share something that I’ve been working on since the beginning of March!

I’ve been collaborating with Sonja Silver Designs and Chandler O’Leary on their creation of a new raincoat, exclusively designed for fashion conscious women on the go.  My role had little to do with the design of the coat – instead I’ve been working on the Kickstarter video:

EMFIRNO

A contemporary raincoat with a constellation print lining illustrated by Chandler O’Leary. Useful + Beautiful. Made in the USA.

Sonja and Chandler’s Kickstarter campaign runs May 17-June15. Fore more details on this amazing product, please check out the details at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1284565607/a-raincoat-by-sonja-silver-with-chandler-oleary

The Breach is on Tour!

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I’m beyond excited to announce that The Breach is officially on tour!  Now I know that I’ve posted dates already, but here is the full list, as well as links to tickets etc.  And in case you need a small reminder of what The Breach is, here’s the trailer:

New York, NY – 04.25 6pm – The Rubin Museum of Art – GET TICKETS  Panel to Include: Chef Tom Douglas!  All the way from Seattle…

Boston, MA – 04.26 – 2pm–  Theatre 1- GET TICKETS

Washington D.C. – 04.28 – 7pm – Goethe-Institut – GET TICKETS

Raleigh, NC –04.29 6pm  The Rialto Theatre – GET TICKETS

Miami, FL – 04.30 – 630pm –  O Cinema – GET TICKETS

Chicago, IL – 05.03  12:30 pm – Gene Siskel Film Center – GET TICKETS

Minneapolis, MN – 05.06 7pm  Showplace Icon Theatre — GET TICKETS

Denver, CO – 05.07 630pm  Landmark Mayan Theatre -— GET TICKETS

Boulder, CO – 05.08 – E Town Hall – GET TICKETS

San Francisco CA – 05.12  530pm – The Bay Aquarium – GET TICKETS

Berkeley – 5.13 630pm – Brower Center/Goldman Theater – GET TICKETS

Seattle – 05.15 630pm  – Seattle Art Museum (SAM)  – GET TICKETS

Portland – 05.18 6pm – McMenamin’s Kennedy School – GET TICKETS

Salt Lake City – ****Special Additional Screening**** 05.19 – Utah Film Center Tickets forthcoming from Utah Film Center

Santa Monica, CA –05.20 7pm – Cross Campus – GET TICKETS