Balancing Act

Interview: James Carlson

On July 5th, 2008 we interviewed James Carlson, the director of Bucketworks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Talking to James gives a fascinating look into someone who has the desire and drive to do amazing things, not just for themself, but for the community. Seeing him get excited about what he wants to do, you can’t help but get excited yourself, and hope he can succeed with his plans.

We ended up shooting about 50+ minutes of James talking about work, life, art, creativity, passion, and the intersection between them all. James is this ball of energy, and getting him to sit still for so long was an amazing feat. :)

For this interview I served as the camera operator and interviewer, which was a bit of a challenge, and next time I really need to bring a monitor along to make the process a little bit easier, but besides that little hurdle, it went amazingly well.

Locations

Besides working on the first promo with some of the footage from Jeramey, and planning the next interview, I’m planning to do some location shooting of work environments. I’ll be targeting a few local businesses (hopefully) this weekend for a bit of footage. I’m mainly looking to capture people working different jobs in different locales for part of a montage. At this point I’m pretty unsure how this will turn out, as far as the footage and the process, but hey, it’s a learning process too, right?

Interview: Jeramey Jannene

Today we interviewed Jeramey Jannene, who is a college student and entrepreneur. Jeramey is probably the youngest person we’ll be interviewing, as he’s not even really be in the workforce for very long, and currently in school. Still, I think he brings a unique perspective to our question of balancing work. Besides running a company, and going to school, he’s involved in things like Web414, and BarCamps, and other community oriented projects.

David Overbeck served as the camera operator, and I did the interview. David has a lot of experience shooting, and it was great to have him along to help with things, as well as provide valuable tips.

I’ve got about 30 minutes of interview footage to go through, and I think there’s some good stuff in there.

On to the next one!

The 48 Hour Film Project

If you’re available for a whole weekend of production, and you love filmmaking, you might want to get involved with the The 48 Hour Film Project.

The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours. On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater, usually in the next week.

It’s a neat idea, and a cool project that forces a burst of creativity in a short amount of time. While it is happening in Milwaukee the weekend of June 20th, 2008, I sadly, cannot take part… at least not for the entire weekend.

1st Shooting

If the weather holds out this weekend, we plan to do a bit of outdoor shooting, mainly some intro footage.

Also, we got our tripod and I’d like to test it out and write up a short review if times allows.

Tripod

We just ordered a tripod from Amvona. Cost was about $70 including shipping.

While we can borrow a tripod (when available) having our own will make things easier.

As with other equipment we acquire, I’d like to allow other people to use it when possible. So if Web414 needs use of a tripod, they can ask me. This is the type of community sharing I love to see happen, and be a part of.

Balancing Act (Documentary)

Within a week of announcing I was planning to produce a documentary… things are starting to roll into place.

Oh, the working title is “Balancing Act” by the way…

There has been a lot of planning and discussion this week, including assembling the FAB (or ‘Film Advisory Board’) which is a group of people I will bounce ideas off of, and creating some different sponsorship opportunities. So far a handful of people have offered to help, financially, and otherwise.

In the next week or two we’ll set up a web site, and start outlining things a bit more. We plan to keep things fairly transparent throughout production, so people can keep an eye on what is happening.

(Once the site is up, expect most of the updates to happen there, but I’ll still post things here on RasterWeb! when it makes the most sense.)

(Republished from RasterWeb!)

I am shooting a documentary

During 2008 I will be producing a documentary about how people find the balance between what they want to do, and what they need to do. It’s definitely a balancing act; a struggle between making your dreams come true, and having reality set in.

Through a series of interviews we’ll explore how people deal with the choices they’ve made and have to make, to do the work they find rewarding and satisfying.

Filming will commence in the Summer of 2008, with editing wrapping before the end of the year. We hope to premier the film by January 2009.

That bit above…. that’s the pitch. That’s the description of the documentary I’ll be working on this year. It’s sounds like a large project, and it is, and I’ve got about 812 months to do it.

I’ll be shooting on MiniDV with a Sony PD150. Much of the equipment will be on loan from Z2 Marketing + Design, who is a sponsor of this project. I still need other equipment and supplies, and that’s where you come in.

While I thought I could produce this film for no budget, that’s not exactly true. I think I can do it very cheaply though. I’ve had a few people tell me I should apply for a grant, and that’s a possibility (know any grant writers?) but I also plan to get people to sponsor me. I’ll follow up this post with one specifically outlining how I see it working.

This is exciting to me. I’ve been compiling a list of people to interview, and if you know someone you think of when reading the description above, let me know. (It would help if they were in the Milwaukee area, as the travel budget is non-existent right now.)

Anyway… watch this space for updates. Thanks….

(Republished from RasterWeb!)