YARD

Some friends of ours recently purchased a house in Santa Barbara and it has a jungle for a yard. They asked me--their local, budding videographer--to help them enter the "America's Most Desperate Landscape" video contest currently being held by the DIY Network. Since I've been itching to start a new project (and to try out my recently acquired microphone), I immediately agreed to do it. We brainstormed for ideas over email and got together one night to choose one and shoot it.

We went with a LOST parody. Because this is one of my favorite shows, spoofing it was a bit of a dream project of mine. The downside was that we didn't have much time for preparation and had to pretty much make it up on the spot. A blank slate, a setting sun, and a one-man production crew can make for an intimidating combination. The trick was to keep it simple. It also helped to treat this like a reality show versus a full-blown art project, allowing for a fair amount of imperfection.

It came together extremely quickly in the editing too. I put in an hour or two each day for less than a week. Compare that to "Fake Empire", which took me months to edit on that schedule. Even my Bud Light Film Crew videos absorbed more time than this one.

The version of the video we submitted to the contest is slightly different than the one you see above. After we had shot it, we went back to the contest website and realized we were only supposed to include the front yard. I had to remove any verbal references specific to the back yard along with any shots that were obviously from there. The above version is my preferred cut with some of those references and cuts put back in.

The judging for the contest is based on creativity, originality, and the personality of the homeowners. I think we have all of those aspects covered... but the winners of the $20,000 worth of landscaping work are yet to be determined. Good luck to Mike and Aimee!