Sherwood

Back in December just 3 days before Christmas I had the distinct pleasure of working with a friend's band Sherwood for the video "You Are" directed by (the reason I moved to Long Beach) Matt Wignall and produced by the ever-awesome Jonathan Wang for Shooter Classics.

We chose the windiest day of the year to blow up hundreds upon hundreds of balloons to tie onto the poor band's belts. It was a fun day of carrying helium tanks up and down muddy hills and doing all we could to keep warm. I met a lot of cool people on this shoot and re-united with Dan from Sherwood which we'd hung out one time previous, but realized at that point we really really liked each other. We filmed the video in a park in Huntington Beach and then at my old loft in Long Beach (the grey concrete one) where I got to deal with my old property manager who always hated me, he told us the city is mad at us for filming and that they were going to call someone. Super threatening and...specific. You can see me left frame at 1:24 and right frame at 1:25 running in the video. How embarrassing:

Introducing Michelle from Quail, Stylist

Michelle from Quail my stylist for ever and ever Amen. I can’t tell you what an asset she is on set, she’s one of the only people I can (due to my obsessive-compulsive-nothing-less-than-perfection-sometimes-micromanaging-nature) walk away from and fully trust her decisions to be better than mine. Michelle owns Quail and Quail Bridal and I’m lucky to steal her away when I can, because when she is by my side her attitude and eye so add to the project it’s not something words can describe. I need Michelle and I love Michelle and we laugh so hard together it should be illegal. Now go buy a Quail dress already!

The Greatest American Novel (Part 1)

The Greatest American Novel (Part 1)

They say,
If you don’t use a language you start to lose it.

I am 2,387 miles from you.
Chased your mariposa echo across the border,
Busting into every bar and brothel on the way,
(To see if you stopped off for a drink (or a fuck)).
And with every step, I start to forget.

Buenos Aires used to be a beautiful city,
Until progress.
Until you.
I even took three semesters of good ol’ Espanol,
So I could understand all those cryptic phone calls.

Our conversation hangs strangling in the gallows,
At a $1.46 a minute every second counts.
My words are kicking feet looking for something to stand on,
I try to connect, but I just forget, and the feet go limp in just one breath
Good Bye’s used to kill you,
But now I’ve forgotten, and it’s voo doo.

Live torture,
Malpracticed acupuncture,
Amnesiac pupils replaced with pushpins,
They’re just periods at the end of sentences like
“Your tongue is a noose in which I hang myself with.”
And “I’m the wetback border breaker that’s escaping the poverty of us.”
It’s amazing what you see when you don’t have to look each other in the face.

And like a stabbed matador that hears the silence of the crowd,
I say ‘You there?’
And you lay silent, wounded, alone, then you say ‘have you forgotten me’
And I don’t speak,
Sometimes silence is more of an answer than words will ever be.

THE END OF THE COLD WAR (IN REVERSE)

It all started, with the teaser trailer for their new EP, it all started with a music video Vern and I did for them in 2006 which gave me my blood lust for the amalgam of music and film, it all started with someone with the screen name bloody knuckles aol messaging me in 2000. This is the story of the Cold War and why I am one of it's kids. Here's the 2006 version of a Cold War Kids video Vern directed and I produced:

And this is what a Cold War Kids video that Vern directed and I produced in 2010 looks like:
More on my history with the Cold War Kids, Vern and I in another post, but here are some behind the scenes shots of us testing out the underwater camera housing, The amazing yacht I got for the shoot (for a 36 pack of Coors Light & a Bottle of Rum) and filming on the edge of a cliff cheating death to get the right light for the convertible scene.

While we were filming the teaser trailer which was an ambitious 6 locations in one day, with multiple scenes in each location, including a performance piece in The Cold War Kids brand new performance space which you can check out an MTV video of here. Below is photos of Vern and AC John Raines filming on the edge of a cliff cheating death to get the right angle for the convertible scene with Johnnie & Noel. I was mostly have a panic attack that there'd be an earth quake or they'd trip and i'd have to explain to Vern's pregnant wife why he's now Polish goo splattered on the side of a cliff.

While we were filming, Nathan Willett, lead singer and I were talking and realized that the footage we were getting would make a great music video. It was debatable whether the label would go for it as EPs traditionally don't sell very well, and CWK were going to put it out on their own initially. It was a strange turn of events with the label, but the teaser came, they were happy and they green lit the Audience video.

Vern wanted to do underwater shots and some sort of boat, preferably a sail boat. So I have a friend who went on a party boat months back and I reached out to see if we could borrow it, they respectfully declined because we wanted to go pretty far out in the water, and it's a harbor boat. Accepting defeat, I hopelessly checked Craigslist for a non-insane boat owner...30 minutes later my friend writes back, we have a 50 foot Yacht in San Pedro (exactly where we're filming), and a captain and a crew, will that do? Vern and I, after getting a complete boatner, were like...how about drinks tonight? Here's just a few photos of the Yacht.
Original Family owner since 1954, it was built for them.
Their grandfather thought it'd be funny to plate everything on the boat that was brass with real gold. What a sense of humor.

We had 14 people on board with a ton of props, craft services and equipment and it was still comfy. The family, when they sail to Catalina say it sleep 12 comfortably. I kept asking if they wanted money and they said, nope, we just like people who like our boat! Seriously cool people. A HUGE HUGE thanks for Oliver and Cat for hooking us up!

Next the underwater housing, for an HVX 200 there are only 2 underwater camera housing companies in LA that carry a housing for that camera. One wasn't sure if it'd be back from Indiana on time and the other one was this guy who had the shittiest store front like a quarter mile from LAX, and he had no finger nails and so much dandruff on his shirt a thought it was a pattern, but he makes pretty cool housings, this one he made specifically for the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show and we were the first people to rent it since. Here are some photos of John and Vern testing it in the AMAZING Adam Ganser's (seriously, favorite dude that I can't wait to work with!) pool.

So we did a day of shooting on the open seas somewhere a couple hundred feet off the coast of Rancho Palos Verdes, and honestly had the time of our lives. We had also had a day of footage from the teaser trailer and did one more day performance at Maust's art studio though when it went to be edited there were some continuity issues, so they went in and did another quick day of shooting band performance and yet one more day of the couples in the studio. And I must say it turned out great. Also they were recording for some footage for the back drop for their live shows and also came up with this awesome video:

Broken Bells

Danger Mouse and The Lead Singer of The Shins teamed up to create Broken Bells, which Vern had the opportunity to do behind the scenes for their video and created a couple of blips. I thought they were pretty neat so I decided to post them, though I had nothing to do with them.

I got to see The Shins when Delta Spirit opened for them last spring as Matt from Delta got me in (swoon), but was less than impressed with The Shins performance (Delta is a hard act to follow). I really like the Broken Bells album and I think Dangermouse does a lot for the team, and of course I love the lead singer of The Shins voice, so judging by the footage and the blips they’ll be a more exciting show…if we can ever get tickets!

The Dead Sea

The Dead Sea

When I was little I asked too many questions.
I asked my mom to teach me how to swim.
I asked her why rocks don’t float.
I asked her where babies come from and why I had freckles and what grade you’re in when they teach you to spell curse words.

I asked her if the soul of the Dead Sea is in heaven or in hell.

She never answered in order.

‘Some things just don’t float, and some things don’t have a soul.’

So I paddled furiously through these questions,
Like a moth with wet wings,
Like a disposable razor dancing in the drain.
But I sank, like a knife in a sink, with no hopes to float.

Some nights I lay in bed and pray for the soul of the Dead Sea.
I put a word in for Kilimanjaro’s bi-polar kin,
I want salvation for that mineral laden maiden,
who lays like a body of water, but is just an island of loose mortar,
waiting for the silt deposits to coagulate together.
But it’s just like the perjury of drunk kids and Catholics,
we can’t purge loved ones from purgatory.

It must be lonely to be the sodium chloride sea of peace.
Just stagnant saline solution waiting to evaporate or for someone to take a dip.

Nothing can live in her,
tourism killed her,
like a broken life preserver.

Kamikaze fish sometimes swim from their freshwater homes to explore what lies beneath what they know. Pioneers destroyed for their pursuit of holiday, drink the lullaby, and die instantly from her siren salt. She coats them in brackish mother of pearl and casts them to the shore.


I found out how to spell curse words from abandoned billboards.
I learned how to swim from drowning.

I still wonder who the Dead Sea really is, if she ever felt love.
Was she Lot’s liquid wife waiting to meet her faithful partner in the afterlife?

Have not-so-buoyant boys taken stabs at sex,
realizing they were necrophiliacs?
Nothing can penetrate her.
Anything with life must stay above the surf.

But I will save the soul of the Dead Sea.
Even if she is Medusa with freshwater deltas that martyrs the lives of the unsalted.
Even if I can never penetrate her briny coverings,
And I have to lay there hovering above the surface.
I will float there, belly up, in pious levitation, praying that ascension is possible.

Introducing John Raines, Cinematographer

John and I are so in love with working together that we are severally bummed, like buuuummed when we don’t have projects together. He is sorta the wiz kid around town/triple threat/going to be an insanely big deal in the future. Editor, Cinematographer, Cameraman; See for yourself, here’s his cinematography reel:

And an EPK for Shakespeare & Friends:

And working with our friend Luke Scott for his side project Richard Smash: