hello fellow dwellers of the intertubes!

I’ve just finished a new music video for Grand Vanity’s song “Got A Nerve.” the band is composed of Greg and Dani Jong, a husband and wife duo that I first met on the Procession’s “Major & Minor” video (watch it here.)

the video was a lot of fun to make, the Jong’s have a great attitude and since it was pretty low budget, I got to work with friends. that is, I had to convince people who like me to come work for free or cheap.

since we were going to be pushing the limits of our budget, I wanted to make sure the video was well planned. a month or so before the production, I went to Van Nuys with my Canon Powershot and shot some tests which I then cut into an animatic.

here are some clips from that test.

intro test

stop motion test

soon the week or the production was upon us…unfortunately the Jong’s came down with the flu. being a performance video it was kinda important that they were in good shape for filming, so we pushed the video. this is never a fun thing to do. once you change dates, the availability of crew and gear can change drastically. and the later we were going to shoot, the worse the weather would be.

yes, this is Southern California, but it does rain here. and the closer you get to the end of the year, the more likely it will rain. but this time, fortune smiled on us. between our initial shoot day and the day we shot it got cold. cold enough that the leaves changed.

leaves before

leaves on day of shoot

this isn’t something we could have planned, but it totally worked in our favor. the potential negative of delaying the shoot turned into a positive that enhanced the mise-en-scène of the video.

the shoot itself went smoothly. no one hassled us at all, which was great since we were shooting IN THE STREET without permits. this means that if anyone had a problem with us shooting they could report us to the police and the police would shut us down. thankfully, Saturday morning in Van Nuys is a pretty mellow place.

you can see a woman walking her dogs stopped to say “hi.”

this was my 2nd video with the director of photography Brett Pawlak he shot the “Come Around” video. it was good getting to work with him again. since we were shooting on a long lens, we were pretty far from the band and would often chat during the takes. listening to the audio tracks cracked me up. maybe someday I’ll cut together some choice lines. until then, you’ll have to be satisfied with a pic of our sweet kicks.

Tony Federico came on board to produce. this was also our 2nd project together, the 1st being the Rotten Apples video. many of these pics are ones he snapped on set. it’s pretty great working with someone who has an even more ridiculous mustache than me.

early morning Tony

the day consisted of much walking around Van Nuys, some stop motion shooting, a bit of green screen, and ended with a short narrative scene. this “house” was actually a small, detached guest room in the backyard that the Jong’s used as their recording studio. add a knocker and a coat rack and viola! another location. part of this scene we had to film after the sun went down. luckily the small lighting package we had did the trick.

to celebrate the shoot I treated a few of the guys to a pretty awesome meal at Umami Burger.

a big thanks to Ben Ceccerelli, Steve Romero, Andrew Drapkin and AJ Ullman for their help with the post production. these guys have all helped me with numerous projects and I couldn’t keep doing what I do without them.

enjoy the video! (quicktime here)

-Luke

p.s. the next day, Tony, Brett and I would be going on an adventure… we had the camera package for the entire weekend, so we decided to shoot a little short film. a couple posts on craigslist, many headshots, and a few phone calls later we had our talent…

more on that once it drops. until then, here’s a teaser pic from that shoot.

Howdy,

Happy 2010 y’all. for the last several years I’ve been doing a “Top 10″ list for the year…I don’t limit it to movies or events or projects. It’s an across the board collection of what was most memorable for me.

Here’s the list for 2009. enjoy.

10.) Chris’ “Grapevine Fires” video

My friend Chris, 1/2 of the directing team “Walter Robot” made an amazing video this year. I’m not sure if a music video has ever touched me so emotionally. And it was something that came out of our writer’s group. Pretty awesome to see the process work with such wonderful results.

Watch it here.

9.) Star Trek, District 9, Moon, The Road, and Avatar

What an amazing year for Sci-Fi. From low budget indy to INSANELY high budget blockbusters, each film brought its own unique take and technique to science fiction. And each one of these films I could watch multiple times.

8.) Movie Ink

One Star Wars reference…one Spinal Tap reference. Tattoos are fun.

7.) XBOX 360

It’s been a good 10 years since I played video games…and I gotta say they are pretty awesome. Many fun nights playing with my director friends Lex, Mark, Josh, and Rylan.

Hollar if you want to pwn n00bs on xbox live sometime.

6.) Parents’ Architecture Visit

My Mom and Dad visited in the Spring and we took a multiday tour of Los Angeles architecture, including a impromptu and private tour of the Ennis House and the Eames House, pictured below.

5.) Sing It Loud Music Video

Getting to make a video with a budget was pretty awesome. There were production trucks there, MY production trucks…and I didn’t have to unload them. Having a full crew allowed me to focus on JUST directing…I’ve tasted blood. And I want more.

Read about the production here and watch the video here.

4.) Grindin’

Like many people, this year had its slow periods…but I filled those by writing and working on my own projects. I wrote 2 shorts, 1 feature, and numerous blogs about the filmmaking and creative process. I finished the 3rd season of ‘The Real Luke’ which included a fashion shoot. I directed a Coca-Cola commercial featuring The Real Luke, finished a short I started in college, and made a Super 8 travelogue for my trip to Chile. In December I directed an experimental short…expect that in early 2009.

Additionally I ran the LA chapter of SFSU Alumni and supervised development for a production company, going through over 170 scripts.

This was all done outside of the music videos I directed AND while working 40+ hours a week as an editor. Grindin’.

3.) Working With Teal

Earlier in the year I took stock of what I found most helpful in having an assistant. A big part of it was simply having someone who knew everything I was working on and would check in, encourage, and if need be harass me about the projects.

The person who understands me the best…and knows how to push my buttons the best is definitely my sister. Luckily she was willing to take the job.

2.) Thanksgiving & Christmas Dinners

This year I was fortunate enough to travel back to the Northwest for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. For each holiday, Teal and I did the cooking. It’s a real joy to work in the kitchen with Teal. Her creativity and skill in the culinary arts is something to behold. And feeding my family with delicious food? It doesn’t get much better than that.

1.) Chile Trip aka Chingón Aguilas: 2009

I turned 30 in 2009 and when thinking about my approaching birthday I knew I wanted to do something special. And for me, the best thing I could think of was to go snowboarding..and with a birthday in the middle of summer my options were slightly limited. In the Northern Hemisphere at least. So my friend Will and I traveled to the Andes for a snowboarding and travel adventure. The trip and snowboarding were both amazing. But one thing that really stands out was becoming closer friends with Will. A good trip can do wonders for a friendship and this was no exception.

And now, a special treat – the Super 8 travelogue from the trip. Premiering for the first time right here. Enjoy!

-Luke

So a while back I got an email from an account executive at dbdchile.com. Someone at their Japanese office had sent them the street mag that my Real Luke pics were in (check them out here). They wanted to chat with me about making a vintage inspired Coke ad. I was into the idea, and even better the job was going to shoot in Winter… i.e. July.

A chance to escape the SoCal heat, go snowboarding, and film a Real Luke ad in July??? Yes please!!!

On the flight to Santiago I ended up sitting next to a wild haired, tattooed German guy. His name was Wilhelm Von Schmakënbrau. We talked a lot about art, music, and incidentally snowboarding. Wilhelm is quite the artist. He has exhibited or performed all over the world, from Berlin to Johannesburg, from Mumbai to Tokyo. It’s hard to classify his work, the best I can come up with is Metal Infused Post Deconstructionist Performance Art. But it’s not to hard to describe it, basically he “blows shit up with sound.” It’s pretty badass. He’s pretty vigilant about keeping it strictly PERFORMANCE based and spends hours everyday searching youtube to eliminate any clips of his work that may have popped up. If you could say anything about the Germans, it’s that they are thorough.

After 14 hours in the air and 3 hours going through customs, we’d become pretty good friends. I needed a camera person, so I asked if he’d like to help me with the production. He was a little resistant, it being “commercial” and all, but when I explained the character of The Real Luke – a Post Industrialist Waldenian on a Vision Quest – and that we would be shooting on Super 8, he was hooked.

The shoot went smoothly, and the client notes were surprisingly simple. The only problem was getting a dang copy of the piece. My best guess is that Alessandro, my account rep, left the agency. He’d been mumbling something about a kayak trip in Patagonia. I’ve been scouring the web looking for the video and it finally popped up online. Some dude (well, it’s the internet, so who really knows) posted a bunch of weird beverage ads from South America… and mine is in the mix!

Hopefully I’ll have a pretty quicktime online soon, but until then – click here for the youtube video or watch below!

This was our “off day.” A day to relax and rest up. We’d been riding pretty hard, at high altitudes, in the middle of summer and were pretty sore. We didn’t really sleep in, since breakfast was at the same time…but we did get to laze around.

moonset

After breakfast and a few cups of coffee I grabbed the Super 8 camera and set out to record some B-roll. I wanted to get out before the light was to bright and high in the sky. I took with me a roll of ASA 50 and one of ASA 250. As I walked around the sleepy mountain village I shot houses, dogs, hitch hikers and vistas. It was still a bit of a mystery how the footage would turn out, but I felt like I was exposing it better.

Back at Lomas we hung out by the fire. Surfed the intertubes, stretched, etc. Laura and Paulo showed up with a bunch of groceries and more wood for the fire. After unloading the food, Clara walked over to the fireplace and threw ALL the plastic bags into the fire…right in front of us.

The pollution in Santiago was making a bit more sense. In fact, the air in the Farellones was often thick with pollution…I remember a Toyota Yaris driving by and its exhaust being so brutal that it took the air out of my lungs. This is a car that in the US is super clean and super efficient. But here in Chile…things were different.

One of the dogs that “didn’t” belong to Clara…this one she called “Negras.”

For lunch we went to a Pizza shop / Bar that we’d tried to visit a few nights before. The food was good and the people were friendly. We noticed that BELOW the restaurant was another lift of El Colorado – plus a snowboard park and boardercross course. We debated going there for an afternoon session, but after looking at it for a while realized that the park wasn’t actually open. So it wasn’t really worth it.

After lunch we tried in vein to find some souvenirs. It didn’t seem like anywhere had a “Ski Farellones” t-shirt or a “La Parva” headband. The very idea of such seemed strange to them when we asked. It was odd especially since I saw stickers on cars from US ski resorts and people wearing hats from places like “Alpine Meadows.” I guess they didn’t do “logo” apparel here.

The “cloudy” area in the distance is really the smog covering Santiago.

Another napping dog…he had the right idea. We went back to the lodge and crashed out.

We got up just as the light was getting really good. I put on my Real Luke clothes and grabbed the Super 8 and the black and white film I brought. Will filmed me acting out a little spot…I’m going to keep WHAT exactly I was filming a surprise. But rest assured, you’ll see it soon.

Dinner was nice and hearty. We had a cheesy, eggy, meaty souffle sort of thing. And a meringue pudding desert.

We went back to the bar, Las Montañas…this time it was open – but oh, so empty. I think the only other people there were dudes our age. *sigh* I had another Pisco Sour – this one was made completely different. It was a blended version of the drink I had before. It wasn’t bad, but I think I prefer my whiskey sours.

Tomorrow we’d be going pack to La Parva and maybe doing an interconnection to Valle Nevado…

Hello fellow riders of a series of connected tubes!

My most recent directing project has just been released. It’s a music video for Sing It Loud’s song “Come Around.” It was my first time working with Bucks Boys Productions. And let me tell you, it was great to have a production company. For the first time I was able to just focus on directing. I didn’t have to worry about how to get the gear there, or what we were going to have for lunch, or how much each costume was going to cost to rent. I just showed up and the trucks and crew magically appeared. It was awesome.

Heh, ok, what I did was a little more complicated, but it was great to be able to focus on creating.

Here’s a little bit of behind-the-scenes production goodness…

5:30am is early, especially on a Monday. And in January it’s cold…I mean not “Mid-west” cold…but cold.

The facility guy was late. But at least he showed up…unlike the day before. By 6:00am we were in and checking out the location. We’d planned on shooting at dawn on the roof. Nail the performance. Shoot the rooftop scenes, then work our way into the streets and film until there was no light.

The instruments were coming from Studio Instrument Rentals. A pretty big and supposedly reputable rental agency. Everything was supposed to be there at 6:00am so we could load up to the roof for a 7am shot.

7am
They hadn’t even left. Uhh….wtf. How do you leave over an hour after you were supposed to arrive? Well no worries, we could just shoot the rooftop scenes. We just needed the band, a couple props, and the girl…

The girl…uhhhhh.

This is why I’m never allowing casting to be done with Craigslist again.

The girl got “hives.” The morning of the shoot.

So….plan A was to shoot the performance. Plan B was to shoot the girl. Plan C was….well I wasn’t really sure what Plan C was going to be.

Meanwhile my producers were calling the other actresses we liked, trying to find a last minute replacement. At about 8am the instruments arrived. 2 hours late.

So back to Plan A…only THEY DIDN’T INCLUDE ALL OF THE DRUM KIT.

8:30
Ok, Back to Plan C, which by this time I’d figured out was to “shoot the gags first.” Unfortunately Plan A had the props being prepped during the 2 hours of performance. So nothing was ready. A quick chat w/ my Production Designer, Bradd and we decided what would be the quickest prop to prep. We’d shoot that first, then roll onto the next, shooting scenes once the pieces were prepared. And hopefully by the time we got finished with the guys’ scenes we’d have a girl to film.

We started with the glue, then the net, then…we had an actress.

11:30am
I was pretty stoked, because the girl we got was actually my first choice.

But…she had to go to an audition in Santa Monica…at 3pm.

Let’s do the math here.

Changing out of costume 15 min + Downtown to Santa Monica, 30 min. + Audition, 30 min. + Drive back 45 min = 2 hr.

That meant from 2:15 to 4:15pm she was gone.

Sunset was at 5:15pm.

This was what I was working out in my head…best case scenario was that we’d have 1 hour to shoot her rooftop scene SOMEWHERE in between shooting the band’s performance….which meant we’d lose additional setup time.

But…somehow, someway, she was back by like 3:40pm. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. That extra time saved us. We’d shot everything else at that point and were able to move seamlessly to the final rooftop scenes. (Oh, and by this time the drum kit had arrived and was assembled.)

4pm
We’d been working fast all day and the final two scenes were the biggest push. We shot until we had no more light. After each take I was sure we were done, but Brett kept tweaking it and we kept shooting.

At the very end we were filming Chris, the drummer. Let’s just say, they don’t call him “Sick Boy” for nothing…he puked mid take. Hurling right over they edge of the building. Apparently it happens all the time, go figure.

6pm
The very last thing to shoot was the insert of “what’s in the briefcase.” I wasn’t really sure what I wanted it to be…my original idea had to get tossed due to our actress going to Santa Monica. I wanted to have a “Looney Toons” style explosion happen, but that would have required getting her in/out of special effects makeup, plus an extra shot or two of the guys on the roof. We didn’t have any extra time with her at all. So I decided that we’d have something clever in the briefcase that would be disappointing for the girl. We’d shoot her reaction, then have the rest of the day to figure out WHAT was in the case.

We scoured the crew, the band, and the set for anything interesting to be in the case. Here’s a couple examples of what didn’t make the video

———–

At the end of the shoot, my AD told me that in the morning he thought “we’d blown our day.” In other words, for all intensive purposes we were totally hosed. But if I do one thing well, it’s thinking on my feet and staying calm. I don’t really think about it, I just do it. I don’t want there to be problems, but if there are I know I’ll be able to figure out a solution. Filmmaking is a collaborative art form, so even if I can find a solution, I need to have a crew that can rise to the task.

We lost a bunch of time due to SIR and Actress #1, but thanks to the hustle of the crew, especially Vinny our AD, Brett our DP and Jonathan our producer we got it done. There were a few shots I’d liked to have had, but I got what I needed for the video.

Thanks to Matt @ Epitaph, Doug @ Feisty Management for all their help. A big thank you to AJ Ullman, Mike Jacks, Andrew Drapkin, and Juan Behrens, for the post production help and finishing work. I thought about writing about the post workflow, but it’s pretty technical and a bit dry. If anyone wants to know about how we finished using FCP, RED, .dpx, and the Nucoda Color Corrector…let me know and I’ll do a blog on that.

Part of the edit was done at Mammoth Mountain, part was done at my folks house in Bremerton, WA. Here’s my view from Bremerton.

And finally, links to the finished video

Regular sized .mov
Extra Large .mov

thanks for watching!

love to hear your thoughts or questions…

-Luke

Hello there fellow intertubians!

Some of you may be wondering why I’ve released a Christmas themed “The Real Luke” season at the beginning of summer. Well, I don’t have a very good reason other than that
1.) It was done.
2.) I didn’t want to wait.
3.) It just wouldn’t be right to deprive you, my loyal audience, of The Real Luke for any longer. It’d be like keeping a lollipop away from a child, or a string away from a kitteh, or a bottle of Canadian Mist away from a hobo…

But I digress, let me tell you a little about this project.

Last December, I was home in Washington State at the same time when a series of major winter storms aka SNOWPOCALYPSE hit the Puget Sound area. It was the biggest snow fall since 1997. Back then I was just a senior in high school…but I had a 4×4 truck. It was pretty awesome. I rallied all around town. Nothing could stop me.

This time there was no 4×4 in the household, so we were basically stuck at home. Some might even say we were “snow bound”…literally. But that gave us (by “us” I mean my sister Teal and myself) more time to cook, eat, and think up these episodes….

er I mean, for me to…to go and do what I do naturally, in the woods. Yeah….that’s it.

It was a lot of fun getting to work with Teal on the writing and shooting. She’s been a big part of The Real Luke since the beginning and this time she took a bigger role in the creation of the story. Plus since we’ve made a few of these, she knows more of what to look for behind the camera both in terms of framing and my performance.

Everything went pretty smoothly, except for my camera deciding it was going to eat about 10 minutes of footage. There’s definitely a moment of panic in the editing room when you are playing back a tape and it DOESN’T PLAY BACK. But I just left it rolling and eventually it started to play the footage correctly. Luckily we shot some intro & b-roll first. The meat of the story was later on the tape and thankfully, that part was undamaged. Since there was enough to cut all 3 episodes that meant I shot about 10 minutes too much footage.

The camera I’m using I’ve had since 1999. The amount of use I’ve got from it is really astounding. I’ve probably shot over 100 days with it. I’ve used it to edit 50+ projects. It’s been dropped a countless numbers of times. It’s been to more ski areas than most snowboarders. And it’s helped inspire a love of all things Canon.

Sadly though, I’m thinking it’s about time to put it out to pasture… Though the “old” video look has become part of The Real Luke aesthetic, I think the next season just might be…in…HD.

You heard it here first folks.

Anyhoo, I had lots of other help on this season also. My Mom and Teal performed the song on the Holiday Special.
Ben Ceccarelli did the VFX. Nic Routzen took the photos. They both do amazing work and I can’t recommend them highly enough. Steve Romero did a bang up job on the sound design as well.

See all of Season 3 plus the Holiday Greeting in glorious quicktime here!

And as a special treat for my blog readers & twitter followers, here are some exclusive photos from the fashion shoot…enjoy.

Oh, I’m also interested in collaborating with anyone who has an idea for The Real Luke…part of the fun of having an established character is seeing other people’s take on it.

Got somewhere you want him to go?

A mythical creature for him to best in a test of cunning and strength?

Something hallucinatory for him to eat?

Let’s make it happen!

-Luke

p.s. here are the embedded videos if you can’t play the quicktimes.

The Real Luke – “Making a Holiday Wreath”

The Real Luke – Boughs, Cones, & Berries, Oh My

The Real Luke – T’Was The Night Before…

Now here’s a project that’s been a long time coming. I must have shot it in 2000 or 2001. Back then I was going to SFSU and working in the Design and Industry Department office. Contrary to its portrayal in the short, it was actually a really great job. I enjoyed working with the students, it was on the 1st floor of the same building as most of my classes, I could do homework in my downtime and I liked the people that I worked with. Plus we were the best, most helpful department office on campus. IN YOUR FACE CINEMA DEPARTMENT!!! haha. But that’s another story.

One day, I decided to bring my camera to school and film something while at work. The last year I had made “Splicer 14,” a short about the Edit Cage – in which I also worked. So perhaps this was my follow up? Or maybe I was just feeling creative that day…(to see another project inspired by my time there, click here). With the help of my coworker, Arturo I shot this little short that revolved around my favorite tool in that office – the giant stapler. For some reason I really got a kick out of all the things you could staple with it.

We shot it and then I forgot about it. Around 2004 I found the tape, digitized it, did a rough cut, and then stopped working on the project. Then last summer, 2008, after having a series of projects fall through, I started searching through my old sketch pads for ideas and unfinished projects. I came across a note that said “Luke & Arturo Short.” I embarked on a massive search through my miniDV tape collection, but I couldn’t find the footage! Shit. No tape. No quicktimes on my hard drives. Then I remembered that I used to move things from my external drives to DATA DVDs. I started going through these old backup disks. And lo and behold there is was, not only the footage but the version that I had cut back in ‘04.

For the most part I was pretty happy with that cut, it just needed a couple little tweaks. First off, I needed a higher quality Atomic Blast for the end. Luckily, I knew were to find it. I used the site archive.org that had served me so well for the Rotten Apples video. With a “new,” higher quality, shot cut in, the next step was sound design. Now, I could have done this myself. I have sound effects. I’ve done sound design before. But I’m trying to move out of the “does everything oneself” mode of filmmaking. It’s not really a sustainable mode of operation, especially if I want to continue working as a director. Projects are going to become more and more complicated and I’m going to need higher quality work than I can provide for every department.

So I set out to find a sound designer. The work shouldn’t be that hard, it’s just a basic office environment and the short is only 59 seconds long. I estimated that it would take me 3 hours. And I’m not a sound designer, so it should be even quicker for someone who was.

Here’s a quick run down of how that plan worked out.

Sound Designer #1: Never started. Was asked multiple times. Said he’d get to it, but never did.

so I pulled it and sent it to

Sound Designer #2: Super excited about the project. Took a couple weeks to send me 1st mix. Honestly, it was a pretty awful mix. Missing foley, errant sounds left in, notes ignored. Supposedly had 2nd mix done. Couldn’t figure out how to upload to FTP. Wouldn’t answer my troubleshooting questions. Wouldn’t burn a disc or put it on a flash drive. Then his equipment broke. Then he flaked on a supervised session. Then he never responded to emails/texts about when he would finish.

so I pulled the job AGAIN and sent it to

Sound Designer #3: Now I was paying a small amount. Before it was just dinner and my gratitude. Sent him the video and notes. In a couple weeks he sent me the 1st version. Some notes were ignored, other things needed tweaking. Not a bad 1st mix though. Emailed, called, emailed again. No response for a month. So I fired him. It must really suck to get fired from a micro-budget job. And with that sort of work ethic and commitment, I’m sure it won’t be the only time he gets canned.

The job was put back on ice. A couple of weeks ago my friend Angel Vasquez came into town. We ended up hanging with a mutual friend from SF, Patrick Bowsher who had worked with Angel on several projects, recording, mixing, and composing.

Sound Designer #4: I doubled the cash and sent him an email. He was down. It took him about two weeks to take the project from start to finish. And this included 3 versions of the mix. He was quick, efficient, creative, and responded well to notes. What more could a director want? I finally had a version of the sound I was happy with.

Ironically, in the end, I spent more time managing and emailing Sound Designers #1-3 than I would have just DOING the sound design myself. But that would be missing the point of looking for a Sound Designer in the first place. I’m on a mission to find the best people I can to collaborate with. And although it was a long and frustrating process, in the end I found someone great to work with.

See what all the fuss was about right here.

quicktime.

-Luke

The Crew @ SFSU’s DAI Dept.

howdy hi,

just got tickets for my trip to Chile this summer. it’s gonna be an epic summer…er WINTER snowboarding trip in South America. In July. Planning on taking a bunch of Super8 film to document it. Need to run some tests w/ my camera to make sure the exposure and focusing is accurate. You just never know w/ thrift store cameras.

there is a place in Burbank that will transfer to HD…is that overkill for Super8. Maaaaaybe. But the pict-o-phile in me is totally salivating over it.

take a look at this. a little green for my taste…but I could fix that in color correction pretty quick.

Sample Super 8 Film Pro8-01 from Phil Vigeant on Vimeo.

-Luke

Back in October I shot a little project for a group called dublab. dublab is a non-profit music and arts organization in Los Angeles. One of their projects is an ongoing series called “Vision Versions.” The basic idea is “a live set in an interesting Los Angeles location.” It’s a way of showing some of the hidden gems our city has to offer, while at the same time giving people a raw and intimate look at a band.

Several of my friends had shot these projects and I wanted in. My buddy Chris connected me with dublab’s producer, Frosty. I sent him a link to my site and it wasn’t more than a couple of days later he messaged me back asking if I wanted to shoot Herman Dune on the following Monday.

This was on Friday.

So I had a weekend to find 2 cameras, a crew, and a location…and I had $0.00 to spend. dublab had a few locations that were potentials..but none of these were actually cleared. I had some scouting to do. My first stop was Griffith Park. Actually there was a few potential locations there…using the satellite map feature on my iPhone, I was able to find the Old LA Zoo. It was a pretty interesting space, but not for this project.

The next stop was one of the 3 mini trains in the park. It seems pretty amazing, but there are three different places you can ride a miniature train in the park. This one last about 7 minutes and was probably a bit too noisy for a live set.

Train Town was the final stop. As I walked around I couldn’t help but think I’d seen this place before. It looked like a classic train station from Europe…or from the movies. It’d be really great to shoot something there sometime…get some big lights, pump out some steam and BAM! Movieville.

Of course, none of these places was cleared…and I didn’t have cameras…or a crew…but hey, I still had a day right?

I did however, have the afternoon off from work. So I had that going for me.

—

By Sunday evening we had one locked location, The Bigfoot Lodge, and one potential location Train Town. My vote was for the locked location. Plus the record label was RIGHT across the street…and they had a small light package that we could use. My friends Josh and Rylan were both available to help with the shoot.

Now all I needed were cameras.

Luckily, I have some friends with cameras. My first thought was to shoot on the RED…but I could only find one of those. My second thought was to shoot on the HVX…which I found two of. But sadly, only one of the people had the equipment to record on HD. *sigh* well, at least the cameras would match.

—-

I got to the location early, so I wandered into the nearest grocery story – India Sweets and Spices. I headed straight for the drink section and picked out the weirdest looking soda I could.

With my cold drink in hand I wandered towards the LA River. Sections of the river are being restored. Sitting in the shade I relaxed and wind in the trees and the birds in the water. Really. It was surprisingly refreshing. I was reminded of when I studied at Columbia in Northern California. It was the first time I’d lived away from home and away from the water. In the mornings before class I’d walk down and sit by the lake and watch the ducks. It was so relaxing, and seeing the water, the reflections, and the birds reminded me just enough of home. I miss out on those little bits of nature often now…but as I was “forced” to wait, I now had the opportunity to enjoy this little bit of green.

The shoot went well. Herman and Nelson (?) were great sports. Josh, Rylan, and I set up the lights and moved things around quickly. It just over an hour we recorded 4 songs. As a ‘thank you’ for helping out I took them to a local sushi place that was still having “happy hour”…the food was great and the day was a success.

Here are some pics from the shoot.

You can watch all three songs here.

-Luke

Greetings and Salutations my interweb friends!!



In the midst of laying off an hour of black. seriously.

The last two weeks I’ve gotten to see a bunch of music, here’s a quick rundown for you.



Ratatat w/ e*rock & panther



E*rock was decent, maybe a little too dancy to start of the night with. Panther was really unbelievably bad. The signing was off key, there were no real lyrics just the same thing repeated over and over, and the music was simple and repetitive. Maybe it’s an inside joke that I wasn’t getting…or maybe whoever booked the show didn’t listen to the band first. 



The Union Line and The Local Natives with Venus Infers. This was my first time seeing Venus Infers. I really liked their music. Good, hard straight up rock. Kind of in the Brit-pop vein but without getting overly melodic. But seriously, 4 guys playing rock with the name “Venus?” It makes me think of a sad emo band w/ a chick drummer. The Union Line and The Local Natives were stellar again. I highly recommend checking them out.



Last night I saw Les and The Now at King King in Hollywood. Les has got some pretty amazing moves. Like James Brown amazing movies. I’m looking forward to seeing them play again.



I’ll leave you with a couple of amazing commercials.













A couple years ago I worked for one of the robbers editing his short film.



“Leo” Movie – Director -Joseph Reitman – video powered by Metacafe


Actually I think I got fired from that film. I cut the film, they needed to do reshoots and were going to call me after they shot. But they never called. Or responded to my emails.



Oh! I just found the film on IMDB. Watch it here. It was originally supposed to be a pilot…and they cut it down to 12 minutes. The film suffers for it. The script was made to be 22 minutes long. Making it 12 hurts the character arc and turns scenes into mere vignettes. A lot of the humor and subtlety is lost as it has to speed from one scene to another. It’s so quick that you never really get to know the personality of Leo – which I thought was the best and most charming part of the show. 

Oh well, the makeup still looks fantastic.



-Luke