Tag Archives: filmmaking

Slack Tactics

It has been over two months since my last update. I feel like all I have been doing during that time is working, but that isn’t necessarily true. Above is a teaser for a web-series I have been working on with my Butcher Bird Studios partners. We completed most of the photography in the last couple of months, but I still have plenty of post-production to keep me busy on top of paying gigs.

Besides shooting all four episodes of G.O. – Get Outside in the last two months, I have managed to do some other stuff after all. One of my favorite climbing events, The Red Rock Rendezvous was a few weeks ago. I’ve run a few canyons and lead a few routes since my last check-in. I also got my Wilderness First Aid certification and took a Mountain Athletics Training course from Conrad Anker and Mark Jellison. There have been a few cool shoots in there as well. So, I guess I haven’t been slacking as much as I thought.

A Glimpse Behind the Hike

I’ve been working on this piece in my “spare” time for a few weeks now. It is hopefully a prelude to many more Butcher Bird Studios outdoor videos.

In addition to our other productions, Butcher Bird Studios is moving into outdoor and adventure video. The quadcopter is the latest tool we’ve adopted to aid in that pursuit and our other production work. In September of 2013 we ventured into the Ansel Adams Wilderness to test the copter and our own abilities.

Aerial Footage shot with GoPro HD Hero 3 on a DJI Phantom.
Behind the Scenes footage shot with Canon 7D and Sony FS700.
Interviews shot with Panasonic GH1.
Audio recorded with Tascam DR100.

Additional aerial footage shot in Joshua Tree National Park and Texas Canyon.

Dragging Feet Stop Dragging

For over three years, I have been dragging ass getting my portfolio and reels updated. Occasionally, I would get a request to see my reel and I would dread having to give the “sure, but it hasn’t been updated in three years” response. Now, I don’t have to anymore. I have not only updated my reels, but also completely redesigned the site and portfolio elements. See the new site at chinnystyle.com.

I also embedded my general and director reels in this post.

Sugar Pi Fairy

I’ve been looking forward to sharing this. Earlier this year, my friend (and past documentary subject) John Brown recommended me for a Nerdist project. Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years) was working on a math/comedy (mathedy?) series and needed someone to direct and post a short music video based around the mathematical constant pi. We shot all primary photography (Danica and ballerinas) in one day in June followed by a couple of short pick-up shoots throughout the summer to grab the various celebrity cameos. I handled all of the post: editing, color, compositing, animation, design, etc. As a sign of her appreciation, Danica brought me a homemade chocolate pecan pie afterwards. I’ve never had a client bake me a pastry before or deliver it to my somewhat secluded (by L.A. standards) residence. She is setting a high bar for all future clientele.

And, yes, she really did have the whole song memorized.

pipie

Summertime Respite

Descending in Texas CanyonThe arrival of Summer was a strong incentive to better manage my work life and my personal life. May was populated almost entirely with work including a small job where I played a military officer and had to chop off all of my hair (much to Erika’s chagrin). Yet June and July were a beautiful balance of manageable work hours and many days off to get out of town. Among the more interesting activities were summiting Half Dome, hitting four canyons in Zion, and hiking up and down the Grand Canyon (it rained on us this time). Comic-Con was pretty enjoyable this year also. So far August has been promising. I was able to run an extremely fun and wet canyon in Kernville called the Seven Teacups, eat some crawfish at the Long Beach Crawfish Festival, and Steven got to test out his quadcopter while we climbed in Texas Canyon (video below).

Not too bored yet? Maybe these pictures will put you to sleep.

Video Avalanche

It’s been a busy year. With the holidays approaching, things are slowing a bit (although they may ramp up again in a week or so). This gives me a little time to finally update this neglected journal. Unfortunately, this post will primarily be another avalanche of videos I’ve worked on in the last few months. Hopefully, I’ll start adding some meatier content again soon.

I’ve shot a fair bit of GoPro footage this year, but only now have I edited any of it. Above is a video from the Foam Fest back in May. Hopefully I can throw together a couple more GoPro edits and the 2012 collective video in the next few weeks. In related news, I lost my GoPro Hero 2 camera (along with the LCD backpack, tripod mount, a monopod, and the footage) while canyoneering a couple of weeks ago.

Below is a recent video I directed, edited, and posted for Ubisoft and DeStorm Power. This was also our most recent Butcher Bird project.

There are several commercials I’ve worked on in the last few months, but they aren’t online yet. There is this one that I did for this year’s West Hollywood Book Fair. This is the third spot I’ve done for them.

There have been several Nexon videos over the last few months. I am particularly proud of the three part series we did for the Presidential Election. Brian Schmoyer handled the character animation of the three MapleStory characters. I handled the motion graphics, animated infographics, puppet show, backgrounds, and compositing. The third installment is embedded below followed by links to the first two.

MapleStory Election 1
MapleStory Election 2

Oh yeah, I moved into a new place in September.
That’s all for now.

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

Even More Videos

I received an interesting email in December. An ad agency in Northern California had seen my video Hesperia Swimstream on Vimeo. This is a video from the summer of 2010—a few months after I had purchased my first GoPro—where I played around with the camera for the first time underwater. This ad agency was creating a 2012 ad campaign for Coldwell Banker using footage from various sources featuring families enjoying their homes. They asked to license some of my footage and now Erika and a couple of her nephews are in a few national commercial spots.

Coldwell Banker: Kids
Coldwell Banker: Backyards
Coldwell Banker: 30 Second

I’ve also been working on a few local commercials with a company called The Agency. I was responsible for the graphics, animation, and compositing in the above commercial and the following commercials for CCA and Living Spaces.

CCA – Fitness Trainer
CCA –  Phlebotomist
CCA – Counselor

Living Spaces – Special Order
Living Spaces – Special Order (Spanish)

I squeezed in a few videos with my buddies at Nexon as well. Here are a few of them below.

MapleStory: Aliens (Character Animation & Titles)
Maple Love Story (Character Animation & Compositing)
MapleStory: Ellin Forest (Animation of Titles)

There are several other projects ongoing or recently completed I’ll hopefully be able to post (or at least mention) soon. For those of you sick of seeing these video/work-related posts, fear not! I’ll be posting about some recent outdoor excursions shortly.

Enter The Marty

February 7th will be the three-year-anniversary of the Marty Mitchell shoot in my living room. Friday I completed the final tweaks and output of the last scene of the show. And it only took three years. Well, to be honest, it didn’t take three years, but it was stretched out over that time period. Thirteen and a half minutes of animated characters interacting with a live-action kid in animated worlds. Finally. Finished. Well, I am being a bit hasty. It isn’t truly finished. Ben Chan is currently scoring the soundtrack and we still need to review audio. Then. Then, it will truly be finished. Well, I’ll still have to output a master file, then create discs and compressed outputs, blahblahblah. But then. Then. Well, then, I need to screen it and maybe enter it in festivals and….

Anyway.

The “Light Teaser” is embedded above. Check it out and prepare yourself for the main event…coming soon (I hope).