Radio silence

I've been distracted lately. During the last month or so my mind has not strayed far from the video project I'm putting together. The blessing and the curse of the project is that it's not your typical scheduled film shoot. Most of it requires little preparation -- which, don't get me wrong, is nice -- but having so much creative freedom makes everything and anything a possibility for capture. The act of narrowing it down is a big part of the challenge.

The other part of the challenge is making it look cool. There's a trick to avoiding cheesiness in video production, and I haven't fully learned it yet. Above all, the results of this project need to be visually appealing. I'm taking a photography-centric approach, shooting in broad strokes, and trying to follow my gut on the editing rather than getting too wrapped up in perfectionism. It's kind of like the opposite of the eighteen Bud Light videos I made; those didn't have to look like much, but I edited the heck out of them, stressing over every cut. This time I don't have the luxury of editing frame by frame because the final product is going to simply be too long (and my free time too short). If this all gets done (and I'm going try my hardest), I should have about 40 - 50 minutes of finished video. I still have a ways to go, so don't expect a lot of blogging for the next month.

I'm enjoying myself. In some ways I feel like I'm returning my roots, as this is most similar to the kind of meandering, moods-focused, music-inspired work I attempted to do way back in my early days with my dad's camera and two VCRs. (Hopefully my current work is an improvement, but we'll see.)

My deadline is near the end of September. After that I will have some stills to share with you. Eventually I'd like to rework some of the footage into a shorter, web-friendlier product, but that's pretty far off right now.

I'm not sure if all of the secrecy is needed, but I'm going to keep it up just in case. Plus, building anticipation is fun, even if I'm just setting everybody's expectations too high (and by everybody, I mean the three people who read this blog). Maybe it's too late to come up with a code name, but I'll give you one anyway. For now, I'm calling it The Sweater Project.

Marblehead

We flew to the other side of the country last weekend to attend the wedding celebration of S&Q, whom we became good friends with during our time in Delaware. When you move away from friends you sometimes wonder if it's worth the effort to keep in touch. With S&Q, it is. They are a fun couple who appreciate art and adventure in a way similar to us. It was great seeing them, along with some other old friends and some new ones too.

Our red-eye landed in Boston at 8:30 Friday morning and then we drove north to the little coastal town of Marblehead, Massachusetts for an eventful weekend. The ceremony itself was exclusive to immediate family and the wedding party, but there was no shortage of activities to keep us occupied. We took a ride on a lobster boat, participated in a scavenger hunt (we won!), competed in a newlywed game (we won again!), lounged by a pool, ate some good meals, danced to live Irish music, and even had the chance to explore some neighboring towns (e.g. Salem and Gloucester). It was well-planned and well-executed weekend thanks to Q and my lovely R.

Here are a couple other notable occurrences from the trip:

1) We ran into a girl who lived on R's floor during their freshmen year of college. I knew her too. She just happens to be married to one of the groom's best friends from high school. So let's get this straight... We went to school with this girl in Minnesota. She now lives in San Francisco, CA, but she was attending a Massachusetts wedding for a couple her husband knows from Delaware. Not sure if you followed all that... the bottom line is that we couldn't believe it was her. This was definitely a situation that called for the overused "small world" statement.

2) Maya Rudolph (from SNL and Away We Go) showed up poolside at the bed & breakfast we stayed at. R and I were the only ones out there when she and some guy -- possibly her director husband, Paul Thomas Anderson, who was disguised in shades and a hat -- walked out to take a photo of the courtyard. Maybe he was scouting locations or something. According to the IMDB, Maya is in Marblehead shooting a new Adam Sandler movie. Anyway R said to her something along the lines of "Do you want me to get out of the way [of the photo]?" And Maya, standing right over R's shoulder, replied by saying she was trying to get out of the way too. It's funny how our brushes with celebrity typically happen when we're away from southern California.

I didn't go crazy taking photos during this trip, but you can see what I have here.