I’m stoked I got to work for Fort Ripper as Production Coordinator on this video. Well done to everyone who put their energy into this!
Category Archives: News
There is an alternative.
There is an alternative. An alternative to the boy-crazy, money-mongering, bitch-slapping, beauty-driven women girls see on daytime TV. I’ve been volunteering for for Girls Inc., an organization dedicated to empowering girls and young women to be smart, strong, and bold, for the past two weeks. I joined specifically as a media partner within their media literacy curriculum. My role is to help the girls make a media project with that in mind: There is an alternative.
This is so much harder than it sounds. I want them to have ideas, to be in control, to imagine and implement–but to do this within a total of 4.5 hours spread over 3 weeks, and to do it battling against the creeping desire of the girls to emulate what has entertained them in the past…
These six girls, all about 10 years old, ARE boy-crazy, they care about shopping, they’re uncomfortable in their own skin, but they’ll tell you they don’t care what anyone else thinks. Easier said than done. They have no idea you can see right through them. So do you let them make a movie about the things they care about, or do you insist there are better things–stronger, smarter, bolder–things they should be making movies about? Did I mention they’re stubborn? There’s a compromise in there somewhere.
And just when you’re about to have a moral crisis, one girl just impresses the hell out of you. She’s shy, and worried the other girls won’t like her idea, but she’s willing to tell you about it while the others reenact some daytime talk show (getting in each others faces about some dude). Turns out it’s a great idea, it touches on stereotypes, on self-responsibility, and empathy. I mean come on, I teach them the word “empathy” one week, and the next I’m being given a dramatization on the topic-without asking mind you! After some reluctance she casts the whole thing herself (apologizing that I won’t be in it) and giving up the opportunity to star in her own film so she can focus on directing. And here, this is what blows me away, and it won’t completely touch you the way it did me if you haven’t been the director/producer/AD on a set before, but it was a brilliant:
This 10 year old girl suggested to me that while she is directing one scene, she’ll have me or one of the instructors setting up and preparing the set for the next scene so she won’t lose momentum. That kind of thinking is a real commitment to your idea, it’s also smart!
This girl went from shrugging off her idea because she thought the other girls were too tied up in the talk show to give it the time of day, to wrangling a cast and crew, and by the end of the day all the other girls were saying what a good idea she had.
We’ll be shooting that next week.
Dog Pile
One more of Little Volcano, a still I took during the shoot of their Stranger Danger music video under direction of Cassie Cohn.
Little Volcano
The badass babes of Little Volcano. Just wrapped on shooting a music video for their song Stranger Danger with director Cassie Cohn, and snapped this still on location.
Marathon
I woke up this morning grateful. Grateful for my creativity, for good company, for the man who wakes me in the morning. Grateful for the good weather.
Rather quickly, I mean when you think about it, the information showers in. It’s subtle, and sort of cryptic at first: “Stay safe,” “If you’re trying to get in touch with Boston friends, use text, cell towers are overwhelmed,” “Marathon updates.” Suddenly social media seems useful. Blogs give you a minute by minute update that reflects the confusion of the scene. There are first hand photos and video, plumes of smoke and blood spatters.
On the morning of September 11, 2001 I don’t remember how I woke. Another day of high school I suppose. I remember glimpsing the TV before I left for school. I didn’t realize quite what was happening, not even the simple fact that a plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers, let alone an attack. The morning was spent in World History watching the news (we were three hours behind on the west coast). I never cried over it. I suppose because when I thought of friends and family in New York, I never thought of them in the city or near the World Trade Center buildings.
Today though, I couldn’t mention the news. I couldn’t at all, I interrupted myself with gutteral sobs before I could say someone blew up the finish line. I covered my mouth like they do in bad films when unspeakable things happen. I guess this one was closer to home.
The only questions I want answered the news networks can’t report on. One, namely, that will never be satisfied.
Tonight I am grateful for the safety of friends and family that we left in Boston. My condolences for the killed and injured.
Laura Dances
I almost forgot about this, that is until I watched PINA 3d and remembered that I have also directed dancers. Not to suggest that the below is anything like PINA 3d, it was more a happy set of circumstance drummed together during a workshop with Daniel Conrad.
After a kind of tedious set of days trying to get filmmakers and dancers who had never dabbled much with the other to work in stride and make dance films, Laura Cleveland lightly galloped into the studio and quietly announced to me that she had been working on a dance upstairs… if I wanted to film it. I did.
Sam Naiman and John Petrina, the sort of tech support for the workshop, also welcomed the distraction and we fled upstairs to make something. We really only had about an hour at most and in that time Sam and John set up a make-shift dolly rig while I directed Laura and her choreography into a story I could tell and mapped the terrain.
I took my metaphorical director’s chair, Sam the reins at the camera, and John made magic of a hand truck turned dolly. And this is what came of it:
Oh the the music I just added on the fly for your pleasure [Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass], it is neither original nor what Laura was actually dancing to.
Day 14: I’m With Cupid
For me, the joy of the Whiteman Brothers exceeds their relentless humor and permeates into an even better place. A place where I remember that this–making movies and art, etc.–is just as much about having fun as it is for any other reason I could conjure.
In all their prolific glory, and as part of their series on a movie a day for 29 days (first brought to you in 2008, and back again for the latest leap year), Sean a Christof brought me one step closer to my dreams of becoming Portland’s premier split-screen actress.
Here it is, the Valentine’s Day special of a lifetime:
Party Gurl.
While tweaking RACHEL, RYAN, JAMIE & KATIE the other day, I got a little side tracked. Intending to participate in some office spirit, I made an entry for the Film Center’s MAKE IT SHORT contest. There’s basically one rule, it has to be 40 seconds or less (in honor of the Film Center’s 40th anniversary season).
So, using some already acquired footage, I give you Katie… or PARTY GURL.
Movie Marathon!
I very (VERY) quickly whipped together this silly animation for the Northwest Film Center’s 12-hour Movie Marathon. It a fun fundraising event for those in love film, and there’s more to it than watching movies at the Bagdad–trivia, raffles, surprise guests and performers!
Movers & Makers
I gave you a sneak peak at the TWOMP screening last month (also a kind of sneak peak in itself for that film), but coming to you again–and this time not on a sheet!–I give you RACHEL, RYAN, JAMIE & KATIE.
Join me and some other incredible makers at the Northwest Film Center on January 26th, 7 PM. It’s part of the Movers & Makers screening of shorts, and if we’re buddies I can probably make it free!
Now all I need to do is finish some sound work on it this weekend!
