April 29, 2013

Funeral Detail Screening - May 4th, 7pm at the Post Theater

You may have remembered my previous post about shooting a film called "Outprocessing" back in November. Since then, the film has been cut, colored, mixed, re-cut, re-dramaed, re-comedied and re-built into its final form. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you..."Funeral Detail."


Since the last time I wrote about this film, Dustin has employed Taylor Glenn, a long-time collaborator of mine, as the editor and entrusted the film's score to Christopher Doucet. 

To see this sure-to-be masterpiece, come down to the Post Theater on the University of Utah campus this Saturday May 4th at 7pm. Tickets are free! They couldn't be freer!


Read my previous post about making this film to hear some insight of the production process and to hear a bit about what the film is about.

I will say now, however, that working with this particular group of people has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Dustin's dedication to this project was contagious and right after the first read-through we had all caught on to his vision. It's truly an honor to be allowed to share something so personal with another artist and help bring his vision to life.

Dustin graduates from the University of Utah's MFA filmmaking program the day before the screening. After that, he's spending the summer in Turkey and Taiwan to begin the next chapter of his life. Please join me in celebrating what's next for Dustin as he says goodbye to Utah.


April 28, 2013

"Tonight" - Cover by Kyle Khou and Kandyce Marie

Last week, I headed over to Audio West in Provo UT for an in-studio music video with local vocalists Kyle Khou and Kandyce Marie. Here is what we created...



This is my second video working with Kyle who is an amazing artist and just released his first music video. (Now if we can just get him to hire me for the next one!)

This song hasn't even hit top-40 yet, but I expect we'll see it way up on the charts soon. Kyle and Kandyce's version, however, is an improvement on the original!

Become a fan, follow on Twitter and get all the updates on Kyle and Kandyce's respective websites.

April 24, 2013

AMUSIUM - Favorite Game [Official Video] Released!

Russell Huiskamp, better known by his stage name AMUSIUM, and I collaborated on a new music video for his upcoming EP "Favorite Game." (Available 04/24)



I believe this song is perfect for people like me that grew up during the "PlayStation Generation." As children of the modern world, we've all dealt with the emotions, both good and bad, inspired by video games. Just as the generation before discovered with television, and the next generation has with social media, we have discovered the possibility of escapism within every new cartridge or disc. "Playing the pain away" is something that we've all done, be it amongst friends or alone.


Without a doubt, this was the easiest video project I've ever put together. Russell and I continually discussed the phenomenon of how the pieces seemed to fall together. Everything from the Laundromat location, to the rental of the dolly and track went so smoothly, we almost couldn't believe it.

Therefore, to say that anybody "made" this video seems like an overstatement. It's almost as if the pieces of the video were simply waiting to be guided into place, which is strange because both mine and Russell's respective concepts were quite nebulous at the start.

The way in which the video was made was quite a departure from any of my other projects. The Laundromat, Hair Stylist and Tollbooth locations were all filmed first. Russell and I then put together a rough sketch of the final video in Adobe Premiere during lunch. We used different colored solids to represent the different locations and used an additional colored solid to represent video game footage that we would capture later.

With this rough outline in mind, we captured footage from StarFox 64 by pointing the camera at Russell's parent's HDTV and using a Mac-based emulator to play it while upscaling it to fit the HDTV. The StarFox footage was then dropped into the timeline of our rough outline along with several pre-selected clips we wanted projected on the wall. This was then exported to be fed to the projector in our final location.

Using various dolly speeds, we then filmed several angles  of Russell singing the song and a few special insert shots as well. Therefore, the video you see, is really two videos. One being projected on the wall within the other.

I have so much more I could say about this song, the video, and the process of making it but I'll simply leave you with one closing remark.

It's often said that "the best things in life are free" and while I agree with that sentiment I must now also believe that the best things in life are easy. When something is meant to happen, it will.