“How Does It Feel to be In Love?” by The Bynars

After many months of troubleshooting, this interactive video was released to great fanfare. This is my first attempt at creating an interactive music video, and the experience was both challenging and exciting. Getting twelve videos to load quickly over the Internet proved very difficult. We also had trouble with compatibility for the HTML5 version. (Hence this is now coded in Flash.)

The video was featured on Mashable.

Click here to check it out.

FILM: 1028 [short]

My cinematography professor, C.E., told me that if there was only one piece of advice that I took from him, it would be that I should work with Yan Haixao. Yan is a fellow student in the Media Arts M.F.A. program at Emerson, and his narrative style is wildly different then any other director I have collaborated with. This film that we shot together in March/April 2011 is a sampling from his larger thesis project, which we will collaborate on in the fall of 2011. Thank you C.E. for bringing us together!

The Banjo Project

Between March and September 2011 I will be working as an Associate Producer for The Banjo Project. After many years spent as a camera operator on this project, I helped launch the project’s social media presence, Back in November 2010 we launched a Kickstarter campaign for the project that raised over $45,000 and helped renew interest in this project that is now in its 10th year of production. I will now have the opportunity to help see the project through to its completion.

The Associate Producer role is new to me. While I have worked in a variety of roles on film/tv productions, serving as a producer has never been one of them. After discussing the role with the producer/director Marc Fields, I felt like I would be up to the challenge of taking on this job. Gone are the creative challenges that I encounter as a DP, and in their place are the organizational and administrative challenges that are necessary to seeing a project of this magnitude fully realized. It will be busy summer, but will result in the completion of a very special project.

The Banjo Project is a cross-media cultural odyssey: a major television documentary, a live stage/multi-media performance, and a website that chronicle the journey of America’s quintessential instrument—the banjo—from its African roots to the 21st century. It’s a collaboration between Emmy-winning writer-producer Marc Fields and banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka, one of the most acclaimed acoustic musicians of his generation.

Paint/Dance Shoot

This is a production still from an upcoming video piece that I directed on the Paramount soundstage at Emerson College. In this photo (taken by crew member Nancy Lockhart) camera operator Ian McClellan photographs co-producer/painter Daniel Jacobs as he begins work a giant mural that will become our set. Two days after this photo was taken, Joh Camara and one of his students performed a traditional Mali dance in front of the mural. The final video piece will juxtapose the creation of this mural with the dance performance. Big thanks to all those that helped out on crew for this shoot: Daniel Jacobs, Renato Rodriguez, Ian McClellan, Julie Adler, Nancy Lockhart, Emeka Onodugo, Renee Choi and the entire staff at the Paramount Soundstage. Special thanks to Josh Dolby for lending us his camera gear!

SOUND: “Winter Cow” Cut-Up

These tracks were submitted as my final project for the Introduction to Sound Production class at Emerson College.

My band, The Sift, has been talking a lot over the past few months about recording some of our newer songs. I decided to use this project to kick start that process. Thanks to Sam Burke and his access to the recording studios at Berklee School of Music, we were able to spend a night recording sections of one of my favorite Sift compositions, “Winter Cow.” Here is a sample from that song that I mixed using ProTools 9:

My initial plan was to take these tracks and simply remix them. But, after toying around with the Beat Detective function in ProTools (at the advice of my professor Pierre Archambault) I decided instead to employ the ‘cut-up’ technique, popularized in the literary form by William S. Burroughs, to our music. For this version, I cut-up the guitar and drum tracks, while keeping (my) bass tracks intact. Here is the resulting track:

PHOTO: Greyhound

On an early morning bus ride back from New York City, I noticed these tears in the back of the seat in front of me.

PHOTO: get out the vote

My neighbors, Michaelann & Nat, and I spent the night before the elections hanging these pamphlets on doors in our Ten Hills neighborhood. Michaelann has devilish red eyes, while Nat has devilish white eyes. November 2010.

SOUND: “Cherry Blossoms”

I created this piece with my friend Danny Blair, guitarist from The Sift. Influenced by John Cage’s experiements with indeterminate performance, we used a digital set of dice to compose this piece (assigning notes and note lengths to each value of the dice). Danny used Ableton to put together and mix this piece. He even managed to work in a sample of my voice in to the beat.

PHOTO: Jason Ongvelope

Here is machine/man Jason ploughing through a membership mailing for CCTV. He was so quick that I had trouble getting a shot of him without a lot of motion blur. It was only during his envelop licks that he was steady enough for me to grab a shot. Notice how the clutter of the CCTV back office is apparent in the window reflection. October 2010.

PHOTO: Reneye

This is picture of Renato at The Field in Cambridge, MA. I took this on my cell phone camera with one of the fancy camera applications that I had downloaded. October 2010.

SOUND: “Amendment First The”

This was the second piece I created for the Introduction to Sound Production class at Emerson College. The week before this assignment was due, I was working on a shoot in Norwalk, CT and staying in Brooklyn. Being away from Emerson, and their Equipment Distribution Center, I had to get creative with my resources…

The sole requirement for this project was that it included a ‘voice, so I recruited Julie to be my talent. And I borrowed a Sound Devices 702 to record the piece (thank you Nathaniel Hansen!) and edited using Audacity. At the time, Julie was studying for her First Amendment class. We decided to have her read the First Amendment backwards, and I layered a recording of the Star Spangled Banner (reversed).

SOUND: Gas Stove Rock

This the first piece I created for the Introduction to Sound Production class at Emerson College. We were asked to create these first projects after reading Luigi Russolo’s The Art of Noises manifesto. I used a Zoom H4 to record Julie’s stove, and ProTools to edit the piece. In the spirit of Russolo, I can forgive myself for the excessive ambient noise.

VIDEO: “Catch a Fairy Tale” by: Britt Sawdon @ Johnny D’s

This performance by Britt Sawdon was recorded at Johnny D’s in Davis Square (Somerville). We covered this with 3 cameras: Daniel Jacobs and Ilan Azoulai on Sony EX1s, and me on a Canon 7D. My camera was stationed low and to the side of the stage. This video was produced and edited by Daniel Jacobs. September 2010.

PHOTO: Sunset over New Jersey

Julie and I were invited on to her cousin Dan’s boat for dinner and a cruise around the Hudson River. Though barnacles on the motor prevented the boat from reaching its top speeds, the weather was perfect. I whipped out my G1 to take this picture as the sun was setting. August 2010.

PHOTO: Julie – Walden Pond

I took this picture on my G1 phone as Julie waded into Walden Pond. I had forgotten my bathing suit, so I remained landbound. I was impressed with how well my cell phone camera could handle the colors and contrast of the water. July 2010