It was two years ago that I started filming and producing Time Shower with my good friend John Espey. The absurd concept was a mad scientist builds a time machine out of his shower (which later morphs into a shower staff for some ill-defined reason). Sort of a Dr. Who (which I had not seen until recently) meets HG Wells. It was meant to be both an outlet for creativity and a means to promote a project I was working on at the time called minutaur.com.
After attending a CLAW meeting recently, I was encouraged by fez wearing colleagues to make more Time Shower episodes. Though I finished editing the 4th episode two years ago, I still have footage we shot for a couple more. This weekend I decided to jump back into the footage and see if an episode really could still emerge. It’s fun for me to look back at those filming memories of what we put together and try to reconnect the dots of how we planned out the shoot to flow into the editing room. I’m pleased to be able to present another episode in the Time Shower series. While the chances of further episodes are low (minutaur is fledgling if at that and John and I no longer live in the same state), there’s still a smile on my face when editing this one and thinking of the future.
A bit about minutaur:
Rodney Flores spent over 35 years in the restaurant business and is now combining his passions for nutritious food, Crossfit and cooking into a project called The Primal Effect. The focus of this project is a video cooking show called Primally Plated which I will be filming and editing hopefully twice a month. I just finished producing our first episode which can be seen below.
Rodney is an incredibly passionate guy with a lot of exciting ideas. I look forward to seeing how this project materializes.
I’ve been selected for the second year in a row as the Official Videographer of Seattle SketchFest – the longest running SketchFest festival in country. Organized by Clayton Weller and crew, Seattle SketchFest brings together some of the finest sketch comedy groups in North America to the Theater off Jackson including the likes of Ubiquitous They, Charles Comedy and Dk & Morgan. This year, I was please to be able to catch and film the work of Peter & Chris, Charles Comedy, Comedian Barbara Holm, the Don’t We Boys and more. Congrats to the Seattle SketchFest team for putting on another amazing show.
Last year at the Fest, in addition to helping to film SketchFest’s project called MashUp, I put together a documentary about Ubiquitous They and the creative process. Below you’ll find a Ubiquitous They clip from last year’s SketchFest.
Ahoy matties! As you may be aware, I’ve been slowly chipping away at a documentary tentatively titled The Shape of Things to Come (STC) which is about examining humanities future based on different perspectives and encapsulate human progress. In a sense, the hope of this documentary is to present some vision(s) of our future.
Well I’m pleased to report that I have completed another interview, this one with political writer and cartoonist Ted Rall about his book The Anti-American Manifesto in which he predicts the collapse of the United States and calls for a revolution.
I first learned of Ted when CLAW’s RR Anderson interviewed him about his expedition to and stay in Afghanistan. I then learned he was speaking at Elliott Bay Book Company near where I lived so I made sure to see him. I was very intrigued by what Ted brought up at his presentation and new he would be a perfect fit for the project.
After digesting his book and finding the right time to meet with him, we arranged an interview and I fly down to San Francisco. With the help of videographer and artist John Espey, I was pleased to be able to sit down with Ted and record a fantastic discussion.
So there you are. I’m still chipping away at this project and will continue to do so. More updates when the next interview is set.
In December of 2010, I was asked by my friends at Ubiquitous They sketch comedy to shoot their performance and a behind the scenes documentary about their experience. The resulting 22 minute documentary features interviews with much of the UT squad as well as some of their performance.
Ubiquitous They began as a sketch comedy/improv troupe at my alma mater the University of Puget Sound. I helped write and produce two shows my senior year and acted in the second one. In graduating, many old members have formed a sketch focused group based in Seattle that started a few years back. They’ve become a major player (lolz) in the Seattle comedy scene and continue to make laughs happen.
It’s hard to imagine that CLAW has been around for two whole years now and my how we’ve grown. From the original four, CLAW now has 15 members. 15! That’s amazing!
Each year, we cap off all of our achievements with an end of the year ceremony, also known as “The Great Yearly Ceremony.” This is a time for us to swear in new members, allow for the replacement of old council members with new, honor our friends and watch a 30 minute slideshow while bellowing in pain. We’re lucky enough to be able to do all of this in Tacoma’s beautiful Pythian Temple. Take a look at the video below for the full event (minus the slideshow). It’s pretty awesome!
Seattle is the mecca for the sport of Ultimate. But when the top players on in off-season they play a variation disc sport called Goaltimate. Organized by Skip Sewel, Seattle had it’s first Goaltimate league this November. I was asked to come shoot some footage during the playoffs on December 4th. Here’s some lightly edited footage from the day. (Note: My team ended up winning the league championship.)
Thanks to my friend Martin, over at The Piano Studio, I had the privilege of shooting with Grammy Nominated Musician Henta. (Word of the wise, don’t do a google search for Henta…)
Henta blew me away with her talent and unique, emotionally charged sound. In early October had the opportunity to shoot an in-studio recording of her song Rain, which we followed up with a short interview. Check out the music video and interview below and be sure to check out Henta @ www.hentamusic.com.
Music Video
Interview
I recently completed a short promotional video about the Greenbank Farm Training Center over at Whidbey Island, WA. I took the ferry over to the Island to do interview with Sebastian Aguilar, the Director, and various students.
This pioneering project on Whidbey Island trains new farmers in small-scale organic agriculture through classroom education, field trips, and the hands-on operation of the 50-member Greenbank CSA.
Here’s what I ended up with.
A fellow CLAW cartoonist, I was pleased to put together this feature on Mark Brill for The Sweet Spot. Mark is a talented illustrator and cartoonist. You can see his full feature, including a gallery of his work, here: http://thesweetspotgallery.com/2010/09/mark-brill/
As part of my work with the Puget Sound Food Network, I was commissioned to put together a mini-documentary on one of our projects: The Skagit WholeSale Market. The market is a wholesale focused farmers market conveniently located to act as a drop point and a good meeting place for local buyers and sellers. Take a look at the documentary to find out more.
Jeremy's book "What Other Choice" is currently available in select locations in Seattle and Tacoma
In October, I was asked my friend Professor Bill Kupinse to interview a the winner of Exquisite Disarray‘s First Book Poetry Contest. Exquisite Disarray is a publishing company founding in Tacoma a couple years ago of which Bill is the president. In asking me to interview the winner, Jeremy Halinen, Bill sent over Jeremy’s manuscript to aid me in developing interview questions. Often when I peruse the poetry books over at Elliott Bay Bookstore, I am bored by the third poem, but in looking at Jeremy’s manuscript, to my surprise, I was pulled through the entire document.
In addition to filming an interview I was please to be able to work with Jeremy to put together a short performance piece of his poem “A Brief History of Disbelief” which I have shared below. Enjoy.