Happenings… February/ March

February started out with an MMA event by FightKing. This event was a lot of fun as I got to work with Brad Olsen, Zachary Marsh, Matheus Oliviera & Miriam Rolim. Together we caught the whole 3+ hour event on 4 cameras & I got to stretch out my production sound skills and capture the whole event in 5.1 Surround Sound. The event was really well put together and I’m looking forward to doing some more events for FightKing.  

The next Friday, my friend Matheus asked if I’d like to do a 30 second commercial for Jones Soda‘s ‘WhoopAss’ Energy Drink. I headed over to Matheus’ house and we came up with the storyboard and later that evening, secured the location & brought some of the pro MMA fighters, featuring Jason South, Koffi Adzitso, John Ramirez from the FightKing event & Kevin ’Bricksandwich’ Campbell, to be our talent. We setup at 8pm on Saturday and began filming at 9pm until about 1am. On Sunday evening (and within 20 hours of shooting the commercial), we had it edited, scored, sound design, colorized & sfx finished and ready to submit. That was a fun challenge. You can view the WhoopAss Energy Drink commercial here:  WhoopAss Energy Drink Commercial

Since then I have been very fortunate to have been busy editing, sound designing, fixing bad audio and just keeping busy with my audio services. The thing I have the most fun doing is creating 5.1 surround mixes… but one thing I have noticed is that SOOOOOOooooooo many filmmakers here in Utah are oblivious to the fact that a film’s soundscape is just as important as it’s visuals. (Unless you’re making a silent film, of course). There are HD channels for a reason people!… and it’s not just for the 1080! Anyways…. I could go on forever about that, but let’s move on…

X96′s Radio From Hell Film Festival was a blast! I was involved with one of the 5 minute shorts called ‘Session 1138′ written & directed by Mario DeAngelis of Salty Horror Film Festival, starring Renny Grames (congrats to Renny for winning x96 Radio From Hell ’Best Actress’ award!) & Allan Groves who might’ve won best actor… if he didn’t have a gag in his mouth the whole film. Congrats to all the participants and winners of the x96RFHFF!

Right after the film fest ended, Ilustre Films & Sound|Speeding got together with Sohrab Mirmontazeri & Renny Grames to shoot a quick promo for their feature, ‘Blue Door‘. A few days later Sohrab and I shot another little promo with Larry Filion.  (I hope your clicking on these links… as there’s some pretty funny stuff on a few of them).

Trilogy Productions‘ – Afternoon Of Short’s at Brewvies Cinema Pub was great. A real decent turnout and I got to see a lot of friends I had the previous pleasures of working with. I thought I had worked on 3 films screening at this event… turns out I worked on 5 of them. I’m wishing that the event had taken advantage of the house 5.1 system… but there wasn’t enough notice to work it out. Hopefully, next time they can plan ahead for the rich, realistic depth of surround sound because it really helps keep the viewer’s attention ’into it’. Or better yet, call me and I’ll take care of the sound! = )

Ahhh… the film festivals are rolling in. Click on the links for more info or to submit:

We Like Short Shorts

Salt Lake City Film Festival 

Looking forward to finish up what March has planned then moving on to an even busier April!

Hmmm… while I’m here I should let you filmmakers know…
If your film has a screening or film festival coming up and you would like to have a nice 5.1 Surround Sound mix to match your beautiful HD video, let me know. I can turn things around pretty fast for you and you’ll have a hard copy DVD to duplicate at will! Call or hit me up on facebook for details!

Happenings… Dancing w/The Sun

Wow… It’s 2011 and we already have 1 month behind us. Sundance Film Festival… I started it off with a 6:30am crew call at the Sundance Channel with John Corser of FilmUtah Magazine doing some news gathering & ‘man on the street’ interviews… then we let the partying begin. 

It was great to see so many of my friends up there and a big thanks to Sohrab Mirmontazeri & everyone at The Independent Filmmakers Lounge, including…. Utah Film Locations, Foreclosure Boys, Brad Olsen, Fedora Pictures, Mirmont Entertainment, Zoe & Kelly, Jsu Garcia & The Wayshower, … Danny Thompson & Co really know how to throw a party. (How about that red velvet cake w/cream cheese frosting from Nothing Bunt Cakes? Dayum!!)

I know it’s a bit early for this…. but I can’t wait until Sundance 2012! Now that Sundance 2011 is over, it’s time to get some filming done. This week… we’re finishing up ‘Red Umbrella’ directed by Renny Grames. Getting some more scenes in the bag with Brandi Lynn Anderson‘s None The Less… met with the boys from FightKing, a Utah MMA event promotions company, and we’re going to try and team up with them and cover their monthly live events… what else… hmm… oh yeah!, If you have a film, commercial, event, interview or other endeavour you need sound for… hit me up! That’s what I’m here for.

Happenings…. (December)

What a great week it has been for filmmaking. Started off at my friendly neighborhood The Wine Cellar to do some filming for some comedy with ‘None The Less’, featuring Brandi Lynn Anderson, Justin Tyme, Dave Hales, Todd Michael Thompson and a slew of others…

… Then started mixing down audio for ‘Yellow Umbrellas’ directed by and featuring Renny Grames, Brighton Hertford Phelps & Matthew Bellows  … DP is the amazing Sohrab Mirmontazeri.

On Tues & Weds, I had the pleasure of heading down to 4 Corners in Farmington, New Mexico to do sound for a great documentary regarding the Navajo Nation and got some great sounds of native songs.

After my little excursion I arrived back home to help out our friend & fellow director David Moffitt with ‘The Wet Spot’. This was a lot of fun and another reunion of sorts with makup artist extraordinaire, Amber Arcury, the halarious improvisational ramblings of the multi-talented Antonio Lexerot, and DP’ing was my friend Yelena Baykova. Made some new friends that I hope to work with too.

Today I’m back with cast & crew of ‘None The Less’…. I hear I’m breaking the 4th wall. This is going to be fun.

Thanks to everyone… it’s been a great week!

After tonight, I’ll be gearing up for next week’s short, ‘The Piano Man’ written and directed by Danny James to be filmed at The Wine Cellar.

It all comes back around, don’t it?

 

Photo by Michelle Marie Jeppson

Always Learning – Knowledge Is Power

Knowledge Is Power

Thankfully, I have been keeping busy providing sound services for some film work here in Utah. Utah Filmmakers are lucky to have all of the different surroundings and environments to work in… and a pretty creative film community in which to be a part of.

During one of the recent documentaries I have had the pleasure of working on, I noticed how I have also been finding the multi-faceted content extremely ‘eye opening’ and informative. One of the great things about being part of a documentary is that you could get thrown into a subject that you’ll soon become intimately aware of… which can be very inspiring.

Before doing this film, I was completely unaware of the content… never mind having an educated opinion regarding the subject(s). I hope the post production of these projects really does a lot for getting these films SEEN, especially SEEN by those who may be unaware or misinformed in regards to the topic(s) of discussion.

I am not going to release the topics just yet, as I feel that the content may provoke strong discussions and opinions… and I would like to save that for those who watch the film. Once the film is released, I hope to share these topics with anyone interested as they could really positively impact the world we live in by helping create ______ and keeping ________ flowing and growing in our ________ ________________.

Eco-Friendly Audio

We’re about half-way thru shooting BLOODFAREmovie and I HAVE MADE THE SWITCH!!!

It was an initially large financial jump for me, but totally worth it. Having Micheline Birkhead as our cast & crew’s Eco Advisor got me thinking of just how much waste a decent sized group can come up with at the end of a long day. Judging by the size of the trashbags I saw Micheline carrying out in the designated waste spot, I’d say even when constantly & consiencely keeping in mind our individual waste footprints… we still had a considerate amount left to deal with at the end of each day. I would also say that a large part of the actual weight of the waste was from my dead batteries.

The cost of this regargable battery & power distribution system was $1161.12. But it just made sense for me to invest in this switch. Instead of buying bricks of batteries for every sound mixing gig (and the more important waste that proceeds… approx 16 batteries every 4 hours) I have a Lithium-Ion NP-1 rechargable battery kit with 2 batteries and a charger. The batteries fully charge in about 4 hours. Each battery will power this rig for 15 hours of use vs. having to go thru 60 batteries in that same 15 hour period. The BDS v3 Battery Distribution System can power up to 5 different devices.

Anyways, I’m glad that I made the switch.
Those trash bags at the end of the days will be a lot lighter because of it!