Guatemala Shoot

Last week I returned from a shoot in Guatemala. We were shooting pieces for several documentary shorts as part of the upcoming Global Conversation which will be published by Christianity Today.
We spent 2 days in a Guatemala prison interviewing incarcerated gang members, we captured the story of a former gang member now doing ministry in the prisons and we travelled out to the country side to document how Mayan Indians were beginning to use their heart language in church worship. Pretty interesting stuff.

Here is a teaser from the material with the gang members.

The Moon

Last night I ran out to the grocery store to get some late night groceries. When I returned home, I noticed a low layer of clouds breezing by the moon. It was like watching a time lapse video. So after putting everything away, I grabbed my Canon and shot a little video. Fortunately it was rather warm outside. By no means is this award winning – just a nice twenty minutes standing outside in Wisconsin on a February evening. (Don’t worry, the video’s not 20 minutes.)

Hog Wild – A Glimpse

The opening graphic sequence for Hog Wild, a documentary short I am finishing up. It’s about an event in rural Wisconsin where teams of three people attempt to wrestle a pig into a barrel.

Created in After Effects

Watch it embedded below or go to Vimeo to watch it in HD for a much more pleasurable viewing experience.

Fourth Line on NC Public Television

I meant to post this awhile ago…

A group of friends in North Carolina have started an organization called Africa Rising (to learn about what Africa Rising is, check out the linked video). They were being profiled on NC public television so they asked if they could use some footage I had for the project. In the end, other than the interviews, my footage ended up being pretty much the entire piece, including actual edits from something I had done for Lenovo (which you can see here).

You can see the piece here at UNC-TV

Updating My Reel

The end of the year is a good time to update my reel (plus someone asked me for it.) This year I decided to focus on documentary film making, or perhaps more generally, non-fiction production. While I enjoy doing motion graphics, I see that as the icing on the cake that I can offer clients. This past year has been more about developing as a story teller. I have honed my story telling skills through projects as long as two years with over 150 hours of footage and with projects as short as 5 hours for shoot and edit. But this post is not about reflecting on this past year, I will perhaps do that later.
Here is the reel (which includes previously unseen footage of hog wrassling.)

FedEx Has Two Years of My Life

Two years ago at Urbana, Andy Crouch and I began talking about an idea that would eventually turn into Round Trip. Through many bumps and turns we have seen that initial idea become something we are excited to see finally released on January 15th.

It’s kind of an anticlimatic experience.  When doing work for conferences or other audiences you see all your hard work culminate in an actual visual experience that people have.  With this, the last 2 years culminate in an indifferent interaction with a guy from FedEx Kinkos.  Maybe I’ll have a viewing party when it’s released on Jan 15th.

Wrestling For Jesus

I finally decided to post this.  It is basically a pitch video for the Wrestling for Jesus project for which we are looking for funding.  I may begin posting little vignettes from our current footage and turn it into a “choose your own scene” documentary.

Round Trip Missions Channel

As I have worked on this Round Trip Missions project I have come across a lot of questionable videos made by short term mission teams.

There are many varieties of said videos

The slide show set to sappy music video

The “Look mom, I’m in another country” video

The “Let’s save all the helpless children” video

The “We’re going to change the world” video

Watching these videos is frustrating because they give a glimpse into where we are as the church in the US and maybe where we need to go.  Instead of dwelling on these frustrations which only lead to cynicism (which is already my mistress) I thought it would be cool to honor those videos that, at least in my opinion, seem to “get it.”  So I started this channel on Vimeo (my new favorite site.)  The idea is to add videos to the channel that capture and connect to the values of Round Trip.  Hopefully this channel will grow as short term teams create content that does a little more than show grannie that indeed I was knee deep in mud in Guatemala.

Round Trip Opening

In just a few short months, the Round Trip Missions project will be released. This means a lot of stuff is getting finalized here at Fourth Line Films. Here is a taste of what is to come. This is the opening sequence for the first session.
All work was done in After Effects. Thanks to Gary Nauman for the design help.

Carolina HopeFest

My work on the Round Trip project connected me with a group of people in North Carolina who started this great annual benefit concert called HopeFest.  The idea was to raise a mess of money to send to Kenya to help Beacon of Hope.  Since I had shot some footage last year of the 2007 HopeFest, the offer went out to shoot some more this past Augustand put together a little piece to help them tell the HopeFest story.  Since Lenovo has been such a big supporter of HopeFest the angle we chose for this piece was how HopeFest is aligned with Lenovo’s values, particularly in corporate philanthropy.

Enjoy

(watch here or click on the title to go to Vimeo and watch it in HD)