Merry hack, cough Christmas

We're all sick. Both kids have pneumonia; Annie and I have colds and fevers.

Christmas Eve Day and all four of us had fevers. Ian is doing the nebulizer every four hours. Two trips to Urgent Care. One trip for Silvi. Lots of lying on the couch and watching movies. Poor Ian is miserable.

That was also the day I shot a music video on three hours of sleep after Silvi had a reaction to cold medicine and spent the night tossing in our bed. I shot all day with 102 fever, then crawled into bed, aching. Had to skip the Christmas Eve party with my parents.

Christmas Day we made it to Annie's parents house - barely - and probably should have stayed home. Fevers and, well, you get the jest of it. Send Kleenex.

Yesterday I worked for five hours shooting for my new company, again with a fever. Salsa dancing and performance art.

Right now I'm down at my office, editing the music video, and yes, another fever. Wonder how it will affect the finished video? Did Lewis Carroll have a fever when he wrote Alice in Wonderland?

Beauty

I can't think of a better way to return to blogging than to begin with an image of my gorgeous daughter, Silvi.
She and I had a daddy-daughter date last night, going to our favorite place, The Global Market. Thursday nights are especially fun because they usually have live music, as they did last night. We always visit the fresh fish counter, look at the lobsters, eat Mexican tamales and rice and beans and spend time picking just the right sweets in the candy store. There's a mostly deserted hallway where we end up playing tag or stand on the walkway to watch the bicyclists pass below.

The last month and a half has been a walk through the refining fire. I'm not going to share here just yet - perhaps never - the details of my struggle. Suffice it to say that I am starting down a new path, one that I am ultra excited to be on.

I'm closing down my Narrow Ridge side business that focused on philosophy and training videos. In it's place I have created a new company called Latitude 81 (now Wanderview Films) that will work within the fashion and creative arts industry. I had my first shoot this past Tuesday night with a model that I hired to fashion various outfits. I haven't had a chance to edit the video yet, but you can find a sample of it here.

To switch from philosophy to fashion may seem to be a complete about face to many people. I don't see it that way. Part of why I loved philosophy - and still do - is because of the orderliness and beauty of the thought and language. Much like mathematicians find beauty in a proof or a poet in the rhythm of words.

Ian and Silvi have impacted my view of philosophy deeply. They have drawn me out of abstraction into the concrete world, though I still struggle with favoring fantasy over reality. The nature of the arts, I suppose.

This brings me to the title of this post - beauty. The fashion world is consumed with beauty and mostly with surface beauty. Surface beauty is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. The symmetry and orderliness of a beautiful face or body, as our culture defines such things, point us toward what we all aspire for - perfection. And the line between false beauty and true beauty is fine; the fashion industry is rampant with false beauty, fantasy and illusion.

But...

There is something in our hearts that longs for the beautiful. Just because many, if not most, fashion has as its focus the sensual (this is often sexual, but not always - I draw a distinction) does not mean we must abandon it. I love the union of style and clothes with the grace and elegance of a model's body. It calls to something within me. Reminds me of something lost. Makes me feel alive. Sparks my creativity, my passion, and yes, even draws me into the presence of God.

Yes, it is surface beauty. And Ian's smile and laughter strikes deeper into my soul than any walk down the fashion runway. I don't know how to merge these two world's yet. I am just beginning to walk, to learn, to make mistakes, to fumble my way through a fashion world wrought with pitfalls, yet where I desire to go.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so the saying goes... the tagline for my company is "Beauty beyond the boundaries." The short clip I posted for you to see on my site is just a glimpse of a segment I'm calling simply - "Dance." I hope you do.

"Creeps in this petty pace..."

...and the rest of my Sunday

Blogging from my new phone

Cameraman

I've been following the coup in Fiji over the last few weeks and months, mainly because I was a cameraman on a video shoot to the capital city of Suva where I got to interview Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase (in the news today) and President Ratu Josefa Iloilo.

That's me and one of the Secret Service agents in the Presidential Palace. (You can see how hot it was by the sweat on my shirt!)

Depth of field

I have a little cheap camcorder (on the left) that takes the worst footage but is so convenient. Tonight I was determined to create a camcorder that was both easy to take with us (unlike my professional camera) and also captures good footage. I went to the hardware and camera store and for about $25 of PVC and fittings, made a rough depth-of-field adaptor. I got the wrong kind of focusing screen so I have a "dot" right in the middle of every shot, but when I exchange it tomorrow, I think I'll be pleased with the final results.

I shot all this footage a couple of hours ago in front of my office.

New Office

I'm super excited about finally moving into my own office. I still have my day job, but am working on making my own business viable. I completely redesigned the website over the weekend; check it out here at www.narrowridge.com. I eventually also would like to offer some videos that address certain Down syndrome issues. My office is about a hundred yards away from our apartment, convenient to say the least. Silvi and I went and grabbed a few shots of it a minute ago.

My office is on the second floor, looking toward our little downtown area.

Famous Dave's restaurant is right around the corner, as is our little coffee shop.

From my office window, I look down on the main steet of Linden Hills.

Sufferin’ succotash

Talking about how busy you are at work is about as interesting as talking about the weather, but, man, I'm wiped! It's been six super stressful, seditious, sorrowful and scandalous sets of seven days. I'm going to do nothing this weekend but engage in severe amounts of sedentary, succulent sleep. Sheesh!

Twenty-four little hours

I'm putting in a 24-hour day today - continuous, that is. It started at 4am and, judging by how long it's taking to burn these DVD's here at the office, I'll be heading home around 4am. Back at 8am for a showing. Gotta love this industry.

I did, however, take a few hours away to walk to the lake on this awesome Spring evening with Annie and the kids. So many dogs to pet, swings to test, train tracks to... pretend a girl monster is coming around the corner? All righty then.

I've still got my winter legs - pasty white and as weak as Keanu Reeves' acting in Much Ado About Nothing. Time to break (hopefully not literally) out the skateboard, I suppose. Fat, long-haired 40-year-old on a longboard. You will NOT see that picture on this site.

Did my taxes a few minutes ago online to the sound of dentist drills burning to DVD. Not recommended. Hope I didn't forget to carry the 1; happy tax day.

Update: It's 4:06am. Do you know where your video editor is?

Play

Yesterday was an eighteen-hour day of editing. Today looks to be the same. Five hours of sleep; add it all up and you get - twenty-three hours. I took the leftover hour in the evening to play.

We all walked down to the park where I had a blast pretending to ride the slide into outer space with Silvi. She's smack dab in the middle of her "Look at me, look at me" stage, wanting the world to see her splash through ice-laden puddles or swing - by herself - on the big people's swings.

I would be lost without that little girl, continually pulling me out of the "grown-up" world of deadlines and meetings and important things. "Daddy, you're it!" "Daddy, come play in my room."

For all the work I did this week, the memory that stays with me most is not found on a computer screen, but on a playground, with my little, blond-haired girl dodging stars atop a wooden jungle gym.

Africa

While I'm waiting for my timeline to render, I thought I'd mention that I got a phone call earlier today that a team of doctors from the Mayo Clinic saw my work and are hoping to hire me (freelance - for my own company) to go with them to Africa for a week in September. They teach on the latest techniques and want to document the training. I'm not sure, but it may be a little more exciting than shooting a dental training video.

Dental shoot

I spent all day yesterday shooting a training video in a dentist's office. The office was an hour and a half away in a small town, the kind where everyone knows everyone. It was snowing pretty hard, making the drive treacherous.

It was a three camera shoot, with one small camera suspended directly over the various patent's mouths, another camera shooting a different angle through a mirror clamped onto a stand, and the third camera shooting a wide, establishing shot. The dentist talked like one of his high speed drills, and I think he has been sniffing too much of the nitrous oxide. We went to lunch with him, where he often whistled loudly when he wanted the waitress. He spent the entire lunch hour drawing diagrams of crowns and teeth on his napkin.

We hired an additional freelance cameraman who we'd used before; he has narcolepsy. He forgot to take his pill once during a different shoot and kept dozing off in the middle of takes. He took his pill yesterday.

This morning we woke to snow-covered trees. I drive around a lake on my way to work each morning, and was wishing I had a camera.

This week is horrendously busy for me. I better get back to it.

Church, two books and some video projects

This morning we had breakfast at Patrick's Bakery, a cafe that is located inside of a greenhouse and serves terrific French pastries. I tried to take some pictures of Silvi against some of the colorful flowers, but she has become camera shy lately. I think I did manage to capture one or two shots without her in flight away from the lens.

During the kid's nap time, I bought two books - Notes on the Making of Apocalypse Now by Eleanor Coppola and The Beginning and the End by Russian philosopher Nicolas Berdyaev - at Magers and Quinn, a must-browse bookstore if you're ever in the Uptown area of Minneapolis.

Yesterday we went to the Saturday evening service at church, then had supper with my parents at the Perkins down the road, which stayed with me into the wee hours of the morning. It's only been a month, but going to church feels right for the first time in, well, ever. Guess I've made my peace - for the most part.

This week at work I'm editing an hour-long training video for a large medical company and am working on another project on the side using my own gear. It'll help to pay off some of the debt I incurred when I bought all the video equipment for my company.

Contest

It's 8:30pm on Sunday night; why am I at work waiting for a DVD to burn? First one to get the right answer wins a free pineapple.

Out of the office

It's almost 8pm and I'm at the office, getting ready for tomorrow's shoot. I'll be out until Wednesday. See you then. Oh, and pop over to Annie's blog; she's got a doozy of a tale coming up.

Global filmmaking

For all you armchair travelers out there, a buddy of mine who I used to host a documentary discussion group with before he bailed from Minneapolis to work at National Geographic (bum) is blogging about his whirlwind trip over in Turkey, amongst other places. He's a talented documentary filmmaker; check it out.

Non-actors

In addition to the five actors I hired from a local talent agency, I also have to use two non-actors for my shoot on Monday and Tuesday. The client insists that they play a prominent role in the production, including pages upon pages of speaking parts. There are dark mysteries at the heart of large corporations that I have yet to fully comprehend.

I've worked with many non-actors in the past; but most of the time they were in their natural working environment and had few, if any, speaking parts. Like the time I sat inside a gutted Cessna plane - the pilot holding onto the back of my safety chute so my 20-pound camera and I wouldn't fall out of the open door - and filmed a group of skydivers jumping into the void. Or the time I filmed a cryogenic prostate surgery with a room full of latte-drinking doctors as they "violated" the poor patient.

Those are perfect examples of when it is proper to use professional "non-actors." But anytime a person has to act, I always insist on hiring actors. It just makes the shoot go so much smoother, and the final product that much better. Like the time I was shooting a kids show in Colorado and had James Earl Jones (yes, I'm name dropping) deliver his lines... twice. (with that voice, just ordering a cheeseburger conjures up scenes from a Shakespearean play.)

I have a feeling that I'm going to eat up a lot of tape next week. And find a few more gray hairs.

"Take 23! Roll cameras. Speed. Action!"

Dream crusher

I'm pinned by my workload right now, squashed under the weight of a hairy, sweaty giant I call The Deadliner. Spent the morning auditioning about 10 actors for a marketing video I'm directing next Monday and Tuesday. Hard to tell people they're just not right for the part. I'm a dream-crusher.

Editing an hour long video today... been working on it forever. Training piece. All the projects are piling on at once, like a horde of desperate bridesmaids pouncing on a tossed bouquet. Like that? Even under the gun I can still whip out a flowery simile.

Pun intended.

Chicago shoot

I made it to Chicago around midnight on Wednesday night. A snow storm forced hundreds of flights to be canceled and I was rerouted through Memphis where I spent about 4 hours reading John Irving's classic, The World According to Garp. His other well-known book A Prayer for Owen Meany is on my top 10 list of favorites.

Our client put me up in another classy hotel, the kind where they give you a warm chocolate chip cookie when you check in (which I regretted eating at midnight). After a great breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we drove to our location so that I could light the "set." Which in this case was an old warehouse right out of the last scene in the original Terminator film. Dark and cold, piles of steel everywhere, steam coming out of various pipes.

It took about an hour to set up, three hours to shoot the marketing video, half hour to tear down and then back to the airport. I got some pretty cool shots of the product against the eerie background with steam pouring out of the ground.

I'm back at my desk, waiting for the computer to compress a dvd I'm authoring - a documentary recorded in four languages that I have to figure out how to fit onto a single dvd.

This weekend it's dropping back down to -15; guess we'll be looking for things to do inside. Annie wants me to go to a pot luck with the Down syndrome group tomorrow.

I feel a cold coming on.