My friends are in an excellent band called Chicago Winter. They have a new album coming out this September called Numen Inest and they asked me to make a series of promotional teaser videos for them.
What I’ve Been Up To Lately
Severson
I wanted to test my Canon T2i in a hand-holding, shooting off the cuff situation. I shot this at my second favorite nature preserve and scored it with my brother Erick’s amazing improvised music. I’m happy with how the footage came out. It’s leaps and bounds above anything I ever shot on my older video camera I use Final Cut Pro 7 for editing, and the SmoothCam filter is a life-saver.
User beware: too much SmoothCam can be a bad thing. Some shots are just too shaky to save.
Mini Reviews 14 (and counting)
These have been piling up. Time to unleash them on the internet public!
Broadcast News
1987. Directed by James L. Brooks
Broadcast News plays out like a modern day Jane Austen novel in its social perceptiveness and its wit. Writer/producer/director James L. Brooks has his finger on the pulse of his times, and he delivers a funny and biting yet dramatic and sympathetic look at the television news business of the late 1980’s. The film focuses on the relationship of three mature yet flawed individuals working together at a Washington news station: the producer, played by Holly Hunter, the writer, played by Albert Brooks, and the announcer, played by William Hurt. These three rely deeply on one other, developing friendships, clashing emotionally, and engaging in a constant debate over the ethics of television: what is and is not news, what can and cannot be manipulated, if and how announcer star power hurts the industry. All three actors are brilliant, but Hunter especially shines as an overachieving, emotionally stressed out miniature dynamo of a woman. Her life is her work and she struggles to differentiate the two. She’s so stressed out that she bawls her eyes out for twenty seconds every morning. She has two men in her life, Brooks, the selfish, self-deprecating best friend and Hurt, the kind and charming yet power hungry new hire. How these two men relate to her and how she reacts to them is the heart of the film, and through all the muddy power politics of television a terribly realistic, bittersweet story of love, hurt and forgiveness unfolds. It’s really quite a breathtaking film to watch and by far the meatiest bit of screenwriting I’ve seen in a long time. It made me re-think the power of the cinematic drama. They rarely make ‘em like this these days.
Dearest Ray
Ray Bradbury died today at the age of 91. I left this rocket with some yellow carnations that looked like dandelions in downtown Waukegan tonight, near a mural depicting his smiling face. I grew up in Waukegan IL, playing in the same ravines that Ray did as a child. I always dreamed of meeting him and talking about life with him and having him read my poetry and give me his honest opinion about it. He revolutionized my whole outlook on life and art. His prose powerfully displayed the intense poetry of God’s creation. I read him so much that it seemed he was in my head. Sometimes he felt like the closest friend I ever had. I’m going to miss him a lot.
“Dearest Ray
You will be greatly missed
I wish I could have met you
I pray you are in everlasting Rocket Summer Country”
Some Dusty Mini Reviews
It’s been a while. I’ve seen plenty of films lately, but I just haven’t had the desire to write about any of them. Until I do, here are some mini reviews that have been sitting on my hard drive collecting dust.
Paper Heart
2009. Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec
Charlyne Yi is a performance artists of sorts. A geeky, gawky Asian twenty-something, she plays extremely loud on her electric guitar and sings passionately about silly things. You wouldn’t expect her to do this, and that, coupled with her awkward persona makes for a Kaufman-esque experience that leaves her audiences both laughing and confused. Enter Michael Cera, a young actor who has capitalized on an equally awkward persona. Together the two embark on a quest across the states to discover the true meaning of love. They interview all manner of couples about love, they hang out, they write and perform some silly songs, and something develops between them. What starts out as a real-life documentary becomes an obviously staged, faux-documudrama about awkward, twenty-something love. Charlyne Yi’s abrupt, incoherent exclamations of her feelings get really annoying really fast, and Cera, though enjoyable to watch, is a bit too cloying here. That said, Paper Heart is an interesting film with an unique approach to storytelling. It doesn’t really say much about love past worn-out truisms, but it delivers these truisms in a novel way, which makes for a fun, if unenlightening viewing.
Hobo, a 16mm project in the works
These guys have an interesting project in the works, and they want to shoot it on 16mm. I’ve talked to Everett, the director of the project, and as his group’s video attests, he’s a humble, sincere guy. I admire his attempt to preserve the medium of film by actually using the stuff, and I hope he and his team are successful.
You can support them by clicking here.
Reel 2012
My video work reel for 2012.
DSLR Video: Set
I love my grandparents’ farm, especially in the sunset. I got my Canon T2i back from the shop and gave it a spin. It feels so good to be shooting with a DSLR again.
Rite of March
Ran around with a wide angle lens at my Grandparents’ farm. Wasn’t sure what to do with the footage until I thought of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Inspired heavily by Malick’s cinematography in The Tree of Life.
Bridge
I met Mike at college in 2006. We share a lot of interests and became fast friends. I noticed when visiting his home that he had a small bridge in his backyard. I had just acquired a Bell and Howell Filmo 70, a few rolls of 16 mm black and white reversal film and was dying, after months of dull practice shooting for classes, to shoot a narrative. A few weeks later, and more than a year before we formed Probably Okay, we had shot Bridge.
Crossing
Crossing
A lid of flawed white hides the purple river,
Raging slowly under its clouded cornea.
The blackness below the purple,
Sunlessness, seeps through the dilating cracks.
Ice is a ground window
Down, observatory to the grave.
Winter brings sterility in cold,
Grey numbness in negative space.
Its hoariness or fresh wild lace
May crust this river bank
Or pass across its cracks pale barefoot.
I am told by winter’s soldier that there is no Spring
Across this treacherous trapdoor Jordan,
Beauty tips and is lost in its annihilating depths.
But I have smelled life mingled in the ice-fumed air,
And the purity of it calls me to cross
To meet my master there.
february
Here’s the project, finally finished, that I mentioned in this post a few weeks ago. Shooting every day of a month was an incredibly taxing but rewarding experience. It’s exciting, if a bit strange, to see my a month of my life distilled down to a few minutes of video. It was a lot of fun and I just might do it again.
Photo Reel 2012
Finally finished: my photo reel for 2012.
What I’ve been up to lately
Top Five Favorite Films of 2011(and some not so)
It’s that time of year. the holidays are over, the new year is upon us, and the blogosphere is noxious with top ten lists. I don’t see half as many films as I should in theaters, so, like last year, here are my top five favorite films instead. (And some bonus material.)
1. The Tree of Life
V for Very Poor History Grades
V For Vendetta
2005. Directed by James McTeigue
V For Vendetta is a film loosely based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore. I’ve never read Moore’s book so I can only comment on this film. I say loosely based because I do know that Moore took his name off the film because he felt co-writers Andy and Lana Wachowski strayed too far from his original intent. I can only surmise then that this film represents the beliefs of the Watchowski brothers more than anyone else.
Mini Reviews 12: Catching Up
Here are some miniature reviews I just pounded out based on films I’ve seen over the past five months. I was meaning to review them all when I saw them, but I just got behind. Here I am now, catching up.
Heat
1995. Directed by Michael Mann
