ultimately, i see music all over this thing, but this perspective allowed for the greatest interpretation. peace. 
Monday, January 28, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
to the wall
i'm finally about to get back to painting the wall. i figured i'd show you where i left off.
in other news, i've begun developing my photography portfolio and hope i'll at least have something on flickr shortly. stay tuned.Tuesday, January 22, 2008
the christmas show
saturday night i was lucky enough to bare witness to a most amazing piece of theatre called the christmas show, ie. hamlet. it was an invitation only, free event gifted from the cast to their friends+family, and gifted to me by my friend+family. the invitation prompted an intimate audience who, while enjoying the complimentary hot chocolate, were asked to physically follow the action as it happened - starting @ a quaint holiday party and ending with a rather bloody new year's eve. we, the guests, moved with the play around the space (the clarkstreet playhouse) from lobby to warehouse to outside and back again; we even crammed into the men's bathroom. we followed, we watched (sometimes in the most voyeuristic sense of the word) and we became a part of the play as the action literally unfolded around us. the beauty in the show was in it's simplicity.... a well placed beam of light from a flashlight or cracked door in an otherwise pitch black scene, or a piece of chalk used to draw us to the next scene. listening in on terrifying conversation from behind closed doors, or being forced a little too close to the guy with the knife by the crowd behind me; the scenes grew organically allowing each audience member to decide their own involvement. some scenes i found myself right up front, others i let the audience become a part of the scene and watched from a distance. it was so beautiful that wish i could come back and photograph the show, though i'm pretty sure i saw the last performance. furthermore, someday in the future i'm gonna produce a piece of theatre like this one. something interactive but not invasive, small and intimate and makes full use of a space in it's natural form. i felt privileged to see the christmas show and loved every minute of it... minus the two audience members who couldn't get their high school giggling under wraps. this post doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the show... thank you to everyone responsible for my seeing it.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
pom: pop-up creativity
while wandering the net one day about a month ago i got bombarded with the typically annoying pop-up ad challenging me to create a 90second television spot for pomtea; a pomegranate-tea blended beverage brought to the refrigerated section of your grocery by the people at pomwonderful. having had the tea before i almost immediately had a concept and took it directly to my talent, braintrust and bestfriend; a sweet trini whose proven brilliance has recently been seen rockin' the dc stage in wsc's production of the house of yes. i presented her with the storyboards below which we later further developed into a stronger, more simplistic idea.
the concept was simple: use stop-motion animation to tell the journey of a glass of pomtea (typically marketed toward women for its antioxidants and low calories) from purchase to resting place in an empty cabinet via sweet trini's hand. she'd be seen pulling the tea from the shelf in the grocery, buying the tea, drinking the tea, and finally putting the empty glass away. the journey would repeat a number of times through the ad, each time showing the cabinet with more saved glasses. once full, the next glass would instead go to the recycling bin and thus drive the tag line 'renew (yourself). reuse (the glass). recycle.'
the wrench came when i began looking for a grocery that would allow me to shoot in
their store... none would. most had a screening process that could take a week that i couldn't afford to lose, so with some serious brainstorming the trini and i refined the concept. the grocery was abandoned and the cycle became: open it, drink it, store it in the clean empty cabinet which we realised pretty quick wasn't going to be clean+empty. the cabinet to be filled with pomtea was going to already contain
some items because the cabinet's dimensions were larger than expected and i didn't have 500dollars
to spend on tea. it also occurred to us that starting empty would beckon the question 'why is there an empty cabinet in this woman's house?' ... and so we staged the cabinet with a gathering of random kitchenesque items, added the tea glasses we already owned and then estimated the amount of pomtea glasses
required to fill the remainder. 19.
i ran to the 'ghetto giant' and the 'not so safeway' to purchase enough tea to shoot the ad and upon placing them in the 'frigerator found that the fridge light really brought out the colors of the beverages. that night the brains of a football peong and a dc bassist were poked and prodded for further input over a nice chilled glass of pomtea while i pitched them the storyboards to the right. the bassist, an amazing musician, agreed to provide the music for the ad and the peong made me a believer that the fridge shots should definitely join the cycle (they did).
we sorted through sweet trini's infinitely colorful wardrobe, picked some outfits and spent the next 3days shooting all of the photographs needed for the ad. we shot about 2200, used about 150. on a side note, sweet trini photographs incredibly well regardless of what she might say or think.
the editing process began with me sorting through all of the photos and selecting the best 450 or so. i built the first draft. then a second. then a third before taking it to the bassist to add the score.
i got trini's company at the editing suite for the next 3nights, each taking us well into the wee hours. it was worth it. the ad, later titled she drinks pom tea for youtube's sake, came together; video+audio complimenting each other beautifully. it is colorful and fun and artistic and still seems to successfully push the product.
my frustrations and failures with the piece begin at the end. the original plotline was to fill the cabinet so much that the woman has no other choice but to recycle the glass. but the last four frames fail to read, leaving the concept lacking. maybe the cabinet needed more glasses, maybe the video needed more frames - or specifically cabinet frames. i haven't figured that part out, but i do know that if the recycle concept fails it's only because my other gripe is that the reuse concept doesn't read as i had hoped either. again, more glasses might've helped, but ideally i think i should have listened to advice to fill more of the glasses with greater variety than the existing glass of straws+glass of chopsticks. the now considered good advice was left behind because i wanted to believe that the viewer could see an empty glass and know without being shown that one can put things in it. i see now that had i listened to those smarter voices, the reuse concept would've hit harder and the ad would've been stronger. removing the flower in the glass seen in the storyboard, however, was a good decision, allowing for a tighter, cleaner shot of the cabinet.
somewhere along the way we found ourselves playing around with the pomtea lids at sweet trini's request and were suddenly shooting hundreds more images of pomtea lids (each flavor a different color) moving about a stunning green wood table. creativity spilled onto the table; the peong even got involved, creating the fucking brilliant flower in the middle of the spot. i snapped one photo for each frame which made editing the piece together simple enough and we were lucky enough to raid the bassist's music for another original score. the second ad, titled pom pop-tops, presents a completely different marketing scheme than the first commerical but still carries an artistic appeal which i know everyone involved appreciates.
we find out tomorrow if either ad becomes a top 10finalist. if they do, the voting process begins and i'll be asking everyone to go and vote. if you're interested, here are both ads. enjoy.
the concept was simple: use stop-motion animation to tell the journey of a glass of pomtea (typically marketed toward women for its antioxidants and low calories) from purchase to resting place in an empty cabinet via sweet trini's hand. she'd be seen pulling the tea from the shelf in the grocery, buying the tea, drinking the tea, and finally putting the empty glass away. the journey would repeat a number of times through the ad, each time showing the cabinet with more saved glasses. once full, the next glass would instead go to the recycling bin and thus drive the tag line 'renew (yourself). reuse (the glass). recycle.'
the wrench came when i began looking for a grocery that would allow me to shoot in
their store... none would. most had a screening process that could take a week that i couldn't afford to lose, so with some serious brainstorming the trini and i refined the concept. the grocery was abandoned and the cycle became: open it, drink it, store it in the clean empty cabinet which we realised pretty quick wasn't going to be clean+empty. the cabinet to be filled with pomtea was going to already contain
some items because the cabinet's dimensions were larger than expected and i didn't have 500dollars
to spend on tea. it also occurred to us that starting empty would beckon the question 'why is there an empty cabinet in this woman's house?' ... and so we staged the cabinet with a gathering of random kitchenesque items, added the tea glasses we already owned and then estimated the amount of pomtea glasses
required to fill the remainder. 19.i ran to the 'ghetto giant' and the 'not so safeway' to purchase enough tea to shoot the ad and upon placing them in the 'frigerator found that the fridge light really brought out the colors of the beverages. that night the brains of a football peong and a dc bassist were poked and prodded for further input over a nice chilled glass of pomtea while i pitched them the storyboards to the right. the bassist, an amazing musician, agreed to provide the music for the ad and the peong made me a believer that the fridge shots should definitely join the cycle (they did).
we sorted through sweet trini's infinitely colorful wardrobe, picked some outfits and spent the next 3days shooting all of the photographs needed for the ad. we shot about 2200, used about 150. on a side note, sweet trini photographs incredibly well regardless of what she might say or think.
the editing process began with me sorting through all of the photos and selecting the best 450 or so. i built the first draft. then a second. then a third before taking it to the bassist to add the score.
i got trini's company at the editing suite for the next 3nights, each taking us well into the wee hours. it was worth it. the ad, later titled she drinks pom tea for youtube's sake, came together; video+audio complimenting each other beautifully. it is colorful and fun and artistic and still seems to successfully push the product.
my frustrations and failures with the piece begin at the end. the original plotline was to fill the cabinet so much that the woman has no other choice but to recycle the glass. but the last four frames fail to read, leaving the concept lacking. maybe the cabinet needed more glasses, maybe the video needed more frames - or specifically cabinet frames. i haven't figured that part out, but i do know that if the recycle concept fails it's only because my other gripe is that the reuse concept doesn't read as i had hoped either. again, more glasses might've helped, but ideally i think i should have listened to advice to fill more of the glasses with greater variety than the existing glass of straws+glass of chopsticks. the now considered good advice was left behind because i wanted to believe that the viewer could see an empty glass and know without being shown that one can put things in it. i see now that had i listened to those smarter voices, the reuse concept would've hit harder and the ad would've been stronger. removing the flower in the glass seen in the storyboard, however, was a good decision, allowing for a tighter, cleaner shot of the cabinet.
somewhere along the way we found ourselves playing around with the pomtea lids at sweet trini's request and were suddenly shooting hundreds more images of pomtea lids (each flavor a different color) moving about a stunning green wood table. creativity spilled onto the table; the peong even got involved, creating the fucking brilliant flower in the middle of the spot. i snapped one photo for each frame which made editing the piece together simple enough and we were lucky enough to raid the bassist's music for another original score. the second ad, titled pom pop-tops, presents a completely different marketing scheme than the first commerical but still carries an artistic appeal which i know everyone involved appreciates.
we find out tomorrow if either ad becomes a top 10finalist. if they do, the voting process begins and i'll be asking everyone to go and vote. if you're interested, here are both ads. enjoy.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
i'm on setanta sports
whether you're a football fan or not, if you haven't already caught jose mourinho @ his new job then you hafta check these video clips out. one football peong has already done the footwork so follow this link to his links and watch jose. he is fantastic. he is amazing. i think maybe he is incredible...
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