Tag Archives: butcher bird studios

3 Bags and an Ultrasound

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On 4 Feb. 2016 at 4:35 PM, I received a text from Steven, “R u avail for paid shoot in Hawaii feb 15-20?”
I replied, “Sure. What is the shoot?”
“fast changing project. are you okay to go to Amazon instead?”
And thus it began.

On the night of 9. Feb. 2016, the project was greenlit and I finally received a briefing. I had a week to put together a very particular shoot in an undecided Central American country. A producing gig, something I tend to avoid and let my business partners handle, something I am not especially experienced in doing. In a foreign country. To shoot in 10 days. With a limited budget. I’ve always wanted to be paid to travel to foreign countries so I accepted the ludicrous challenge. I scoured the internet for any sort of production companies I could find in Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Ecuador. I sent out a bunch of emails and went to bed hoping for the best.

The next two days were a proverbial whirlwind filled with nonstop emails, international phone calls, and general shoot preparations. Two companies were my international saviors,  Costa Rica Film Support and Belize Film Works. They helped me build packages of photos and promises to quickly sell our client on a location. Costa Rica won out and the night of the 11th I had tickets to fly on the 17th. My crew would meet me on the 20th (after multiple days of back-to-back shooting in Singapore). In 48 hours, we’d gone from a very rough idea to a full-fledged planned international shoot. Much of my thanks goes to Julie Echeverri of Costa Rica Film Support whose fast communication and problem-solving made this unrealistic goal possible. She also organized everything for us on the Costa Rica side from boarding, to transportation, to meals.

Wednesday morning arrived and Erika left me at LAX with 100 lbs. of luggage (2 duffel bags of props and costumes, a backpack of personal and work items, and a portable Ultrasound). Traveling with an Ultrasound is an interesting experience and I have become quite adept at explaining what it is in Spanish to confused TSA personnel. An Ultrasound causes confusion domestically as well and could effectively pass as either a record player, musical instrument, or George Foreman Grill. Not a single person ever asked me, “Hey, is that an Ultrasound?”

I arrived in San Jose that afternoon and was greeted by Zequ, an Argentinian Anthony Kiedis lookalike, and my local producer. The next morning, he drove me 5 hours (largely in the rain) down South to the Bri Bri region. We passed through an amazing rainforest, down coastlines, and over an abundance of rivers of all types. He and I would spend the next few days scouting innumerable rivers as possible shooting locations, preparing our local actors, building a thatched hut (ranchito) from bamboo, navigating Costa Rican permitting laws, weaving through dense traffic and across flooded backroads, traipsing through muddy marshlands, managing a local drunk canoe pilot we called the Shaman, repeatedly crossing a somewhat rickety suspension bridge, struggling to make everything come together and meet approval in 2 days, dealing with changing plans and weather, spying wild sloths in treetops, and amusing each other immensely. We put the finishing touches on our ranchito shortly before the arrival of the cast and crew Saturday morning. Late that night, we were done. Sunday was a day for a little work, a lot of travel, and celebrations.

Monday morning, the crew flew to Los Angeles for two final shoot days. My afternoon flight was cancelled and I was forced to spend another night in San Jose in a complimentary Sheraton room. The week of 3 bags and an Ultrasound refused to end. Pura Vida.

Taking Steps

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Exploration, adventure, and the outdoors have always been of interest to me. Growing up in Louisiana, I spent a fair amount of time outdoors, but adventure sports never seemed like an option. Climbing was something I saw on TV or in magazines. Besides, Louisiana has no mountains or boulders. I had to settle for trees. Surfing was something I longed to do, yet it was also out of reach. I wanted to try backpacking, but never did, even though I joined a club in High School that could have shown me how. I told myself I couldn’t afford it. Louisiana is known as Sportsman’s Paradise. The sports this encompasses are hunting and fishing. I knew many hunters and fisherman growing up, but not a single person who could have shown me how to tie a figure eight or paddle into a wave. The outdoor activities that interested me seemed complicated, expensive, and out of reach. I would finally learn otherwise at the age of 29 after living in California for four years.

I think this is the norm. I think most of us suspect that outdoor and adventure sports are something reserved for the elite, something beyond our capabilities.  They aren’t. You just need the personal drive and directions to the starting line.

Today, we at Butcher Bird Studios released a four episode web-series called G.O. Get Outside. If you want to get into caving, hiking, surfing, or canyoneering, these episodes can help you get started. Hopefully, there will be more episodes focusing on other activities in the future. It took me nearly three decades to find the trailhead. I hope these episodes can help you get there sooner.

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Quadcopter in the Sierras


One of my ongoing goals is to move into producing outdoor videos. I recently convinced my partners at Butcher Bird Studios to spend a weekend backpacking through the Sierras. We carried various lightweight cameras and a quadcopter. Above is some of the test footage we acquired from that copter.

3 Month Delay

Fabio and Me

It’s been a while. This year has turned into a busy one. Much of my time is, unfortunately, spent sitting at a computer, but I do manage to get out a fair amount.

That is indeed Fabio in the photo above. I do meet celebrities every once in awhile, but I try to avoid being that annoying guy who begs for photos and autographs. There are, of course, exceptions. When I discovered that the man who shirtlessly adorned every romance novel in the 80s and 90s, the man who recorded amazing work-out videos and romance cassettes, the man who appeared in hilarious bit parts on many B-rate TV series, the man who hocked butter that wasn’t butter, the man who defeated a goose with his nose on a roller coaster would be at my local Whole Foods Market—I knew fate had smiled upon me. I also knew that my dearest pal, Bryan Nelson, would never forgive me if I passed up this serendipitous opportunity. And so, Erika and I traveled to the Glendale Whole Foods just so I could meet Fabio (and apparently buy his whey protein powder). Who says dreams don’t come true?

Besides being shackled to a computer and admiring Fabio, I’ve also been keeping to a relatively frequent climbing schedule. I attended the Red Rock Rendezvous in Nevada again this year. It’s an annual climbing festival filled with clinics, events, and vendors giving away lots of great stuff (Mammut gave me a free $90 headlamp!). Despite having our tent destroyed by high winds again, we had a great time. My highlight this year was my multi-pitch clinic where I got to go trad climbing for the first time. If you aren’t familiar with the term, trad is traditional climbing, what some consider “real climbing.” It’s the type of climbing where a group starts at the base of a rock and places protection as they climb up bringing the rope up with them. As they make their way up the rock pitch-by-pitch, the follower removes (or cleans) the protection. I took on the role of follower. Leading a trad climb is the dangerous part and requires experience and practice. The guide was our leader. We climbed four pitches on a 5.8 (moderate) route. Besides Erika and I, a few of our friends came to the Rendezvous this year also. Maybe we’ll get even more folks there in 2013.

One of the nice things about attending the Red Rock Rendezvous are the cool people you meet. I met a guy named Mark who has been climbing nearly as long as I’ve been breathing. He offered to start taking me trad climbing. I’ve been trying to move into trad, but it’s difficult since I’m the most experienced climber amongst my friends. The multi-pitch clinic at Red Rock and Mark’s offer were two great opportunities that graced me on the same day. Two weeks ago, Mark made good on his offer and we headed over to Idyllwild and climbed a six pitch route on Tahquitz Rock. It was a low-grade easy route, but snow had fallen earlier that week. The base was covered in snow and four of the six pitches also had a bit of snow on them. That made the ascent a little tricky, but dealing with the snow was a valuable piece of  additional climbing experience. Mark and I are heading back tomorrow.

I’ve also been doing as much canyoneering as I can squeeze in. I’ve run Rubio Canyon multiple times in the last few months and Karl and I ran Little Santa Anita last weekend. If we’re lucky, we’ll get a permit to do Mystery Canyon in Zion this summer.

In closing, a huge thing that happened in the last few months was the completion of “The Many Maladies of Marty Mitchell.” This is a short kids’ show I shot in my living room three years ago. It was finally finished and premiered in March. We held a Butcher Bird Studios Screening at the Goethe Institute on March 16th. We showed several of the projects we’ve worked on together and with others. We closed the night with the premiere of “Marty Mitchell.” It felt really good to finally be able to show it to people, especially those who helped make it happen.

hanging out