One of the big benefits that I find of being a part of so many various filmmaking organizations and groups is the opportunity to occasionally vote for my peers in award selections. Sure enough shortly after my arrival back from New Years a big packet arrived in the mail from the Spirit Awards. I was lucky enough to be selected last year (big thanks for letting me catch Mike Mill's Beginners, it was fantastic!) and am fortunate again to have a whole slew of amazing films that I may have been unable to catch at the theaters. Some to note already have been Moonrise Kingdom, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook with many, many more to come. Voting wraps up in a couple weeks so here's to a busy schedule of indie film watching evenings!
;)
Panoramic view from North Mound showing New Jersey Industry, Power Plant and Lower Manhattan
;)
Our trusty parks vehicle for the journey along all the gravel roads
;)
Panoramic taken from the top of the South Mound
;)
Adjacent Staten Island commercial/retail strip
;)
Future roadway into park from the East over eastern edge wetland and East Mound
;)
Crowd of ducks along the main Freshkills waterway throught the center of the park with West Mound in the distance and I-440 on the bridge
Picturesque Richmond Creek from the southern edge of East Mound
;)
Water runoff into the Richmond Creek
;)
A robust stormwater management system is layed all over the biggest East Mound which direct all the water from these barren hills into fresh water wetlands along the entire east edge of the park
;)
Another example of the impressive stormwater runoff infrastructure on the East Mound
This project has a variety of unique issues that it presents in so far as how do you produce a video on a park that is yet to open and only has people (non-Dept of Parks or Sanitation workers) on any of the grounds a couple of times a year. Another aspect which I think the picture speak to is the sheer scale of the place. I mean, it is multiple times the size of Central Park and is subdivided into three sections by the natural contours of the Freskills Creek and it's two tributaries, the Richmond Creek and Main Creek, and a fourth by highway 440. So, rarely do you actually get to see the landfill-turning-park in its totality or grasp its massive size unless you're looking down from outer space. Note, this site made headlines year ago because it was actually viewable from outer space when it was a landfill! To even further distort your perspective of scale there are few things on the various hills that could help you such as trees, cars, people, structures... anything. One of the most compelling moments for me during the trip came when we were on the South Mound when a Dept. of Sanitation SUV cruised along the road which runs down the spine of the East Mound. At that moment with sprawling Staten Island strip-malls and housing providing a backdrop, did the vastness of this amazing place finally shock me into perspective. Watching that little tiny vehicle reminded me of a rover on mars, while it drove along a landscape of odd bulbs outs that capture the precious methane pushing up from the decades of decomposing trash below.
;)
East Mound showing the methane capture system burried unlike the rest of the site looking East toward the adjacent Staten Island neighborhood of New Springville
;)
Looking north from the East Mound at the wetlands of Main Creek
;)
Looking towards the North Mound from the East Mound across the frozen Main Creek
View from East Mound looking north with Lower Manhattan on the horizon
;)
Giant trash movers from the days when the landfill still processed trash
;)
Edge of the West Mound along Arthur Kill with disintegrating ships and industrial past
;)
Mixed recycled stones used for water runoff along roadways
West Mound where Fresh Kill meets Arthur Kill
As we move forward with this project, this very specific yet undeniably unique quality of space will be an intriguing aspect to relay though our cameras. We're looking forward to the challenge and will likely shoot some B-Roll using either a helium balloon with a camera or a helicopter camera drone to help provide the expansive feeling that these rolling hills induce when you're there in person. We are constantly attempting to put our cinematic minds in the frame set of all who will watch the video and continue to ask the same questions we asked as we began to devour this vast and globally innovative new park for the citizens of New York. Where and what is exactly Freshkills Park.
]]>
Flashback to December when I, like many, got the ominous looking letter with purple coloration in the mail from Kings County notifying me of a date and time to report for JURY DUTY. I immediately stuck it to the fridge and started to ask around to friends and colleagues if they had ever served and what their experience was. At the time it was over a whole month away and I was fast underway preparing for the holidays and wrapping up end-of-the-year projects, so the sense of urgency was absent.
photo by Old School/New School Mom
Upon returning to the city at the beginnign of January from my annual holiday pilgrimage home, it quickly dawned on me that I needed to figure out just what the hell this jury process was all about. My early personal research returned a bunch of drab feedback about spending many, many hours waiting and that "it is easy to get out of" examples. Many people asked if it was trial or grand jury, hinting that grand jury was a massive pain and a huge time sink. Naturally, I also worried about how I would cover myself financially if I was pulled into the worst case scenario of an O.J. type criminal case! Most friends said that it would likely be civil court and that these usually go quickly especially if you don't really agree with the extremely litigious nature of our American suing system.
photo by Amy Around Town
Anyhow, the day came and there I am sitting in a massive room with hundreds of people in downtown Brooklyn knowing none of us have the firepower that is strewn across all news media from the Newtown massacre having just been close to strip searched on my way in the door. Note, the supercops at the magnetic gateways were actually extremely nice. So yes, with these random thoughts filling my head there pops up Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer from '60 Minutes' telling me about the jury process in a surprisingly well shot video by THE STATE of New York. It was definitely at least 10 years old but it placed a great deal of gravity in the civic duty we were all currently partaking in. The obvious democratic patriotism for our rights filled the room and I honestly found myself affected.
Emotions subsidded as another hour passed, and after a huge role call of names tensely went by, I found myself still seated deeply focused on my free wifi electronic world. Then came role call number two and my ear's perk up to MY NAME. I am quickly herded into a room with 80 or so people where each of our names are confirmed before we are whisked into the elevator shaft to a floor far above, a court number tacked to my name. Here we sat again. Now, I was assuming that the interior of this building would be akin to most other terrible off-white, dropped ceiling institutional settings we find so often in post-WWII American governmental building, but this place was actually fairly decent. It was well lit with plenty of ambient natural light pouring in through large windows facing north to a beautiful panoramic view of Queens, Midtown, all the East River bridges, and even the Catskills looming far off in the distance. I stood there transfixed to the unique view, and having studied Urban Planning, finding some sort of almost drug-like cerebral fix.
Then alarmingly came the next stage, the courtroom. I assumed that we would be interviewed as potential jurors somewhat individually by the prosecution and defense but the whole process is largely out in the open for the other 80 or so potentials to witness like some sort of performance. The judge was witty and entertaining while she plodded through the first group of 20 potential jurors. The rest of us sat listening in anticipation and analyzing their responses versus the ones in our own heads. The tension of room was occasionally shattering with laughter from the judges. This went on for a couple hours before they broke to discuss which people's lives they would consume for the upcoming weeks with the trail. This being a criminal case, the multi-week trial was explained and scheduling forcefully refuted to anyone who had a "reason" for not being available to participate. One woman even requested being dismissed for potentially missing a show she had tickets for! Honestly, it felt like watching a watered down Law and Order being performed by pickup "actors." The whole process was a fine display of the subtle line between people complaining and shrinking away from their responsibilities, with obviously fictitious reasons, and upholding your civic duty.
Anyhow, next came lunch! We got out and from some previous online research I had done from other juror's stories I headed directly across Cadman Plaza to Montague Street. It is such a nice repose from the newness and bureaucratic nature of downtown Brooklyn to wander into Brooklyn Heights, the first neighborhood deemed a historic district in the US. After five or so minutes I found a nice warm seat near the window of Vegetarian Ginger which is a Chinese restaurant that specialized in amazing vegetarian and vegan Chinese food. I ate my delicious Black Pepper Seitan with Chinese Broccoli and Hot and Sour Soup before taking a relaxing walk to the promenade for some mind cleansing before the afternoon. Oddly enough, the court lunch break starts rather late, at 1PM and lasted until 2:30. So I had plenty of time to enjoy the walk and views over the harbor. After the mind cleanse, I begrudgingly turned East again to head back to the courthouse.
Upon arrival, the first group of jurors was done and now it was on to group two. I almost made it to the end but just before the end, again MY NAME was called out. I took my place in the "box" to continue the process while having the uncomfortable reality of making eye contact with the defendant. Now I'm not allowed to discuss the nature of this case, but let's just say it is not something that would allow you to sleep easily at night for a while. I didn't want to make up an excuse for my potential emotional response to the case or manufacture an "issue," like I could read on the faces of some of the other jurors, so I stayed put participating in the intense Q&A. Upon reflection I was definitely naive to all of this, but was amazed at the sheer gravity of the scenario. I mean, I could be responsible for deciding the defendants fate along with the lives of those effected by the proposed crime.
Fast forward into day two after being required to return to finish up the interview process. Luckily, I was ultimately NOT selected for this case. Brilliant, right? Well, we then had to return back down stairs to fulfill the second day of your required service. That's right folks.
This is one big aspect that I did not really hear or read from my research but unless they are for some reason running slow in the courts or have a shit-ton of potential jurors hanging out, you have to come back for a SECOND DAY for your jury duty!
Upon arrival downstairs we saw a room full of blank faces, just like ours were the day before, waiting for the big call up. After an hour of this and the hunger pains of the 1PM lunch time growing, we were luckily called up after a separate role call and were granted our freedom. We each turned in our little barcoded name card and were handed our 8 year get-out-of-jail free letter by the clerk.
Overall, it was actually a fairly pleasant experience. Every staff person that I came into contact with from the door, to the judge, was absolutely nice and patient. Having to deal with the full cross section of Brooklynites every day is I'm sure very taxing, especially with such stakes, but the staff was phenomenal. It definitely provided me a newfound respect for our justice system and appreciation for this to be the norm where I live. For now, I'm free to have my normal workflow back again and thankfully only had about a day and a half of work suspended. I'm not sure what other self-employed people do but it was not something that the judge was permissive about and guess you just have to deal with it in one of the most expensive places to live in the country. Anyhow, that's my story and now I have a little less to worry about in my mailbox... though my 8 year release doesn't work for federal courts.
So my jury duty takeaways
]]>
We've been hired again by our friends at ESI Design to produce a video showcasing one of their recents designs for AT&T called the AdWorks Media Lab. You can see a video on the space by AT&T here.
Focusing mainly on the heavy data-driven graphics that coat most of the walls inside the Lab the video will explore ESI's design process for creating this successful, interactive ad sales space. This type of interactive exhibition/sales design is what the firm, which is headed by Ed Schlossberg the author of Interactive Excellence: Defining and Developing New Standards for the Twenty-first Century, is widely recognized for.
Throughout the all day in-office shoot we heard from a wide range of the team who worked on the project shown in these images. Fortunately we were able to find a somewhat acoustically isolated conference room and a wide range of supporting design graphics to create the set for so many quick, back to back interviews.
Beyond the standard B-Roll shot of each interviewee working and communicating with each other in various locations and arrangements, we were also able to capture a good bit of general ESI office B-Roll to help cover segments of the edit. Looking forward to getting into the editing studio on this and having more footage in the can to work from compared to our last video project for them which was a extremely quick two-week turnaround without time to shoot on location at Cleveland's PNC Fairfax Connection or in the office.
The AT&T AdWorks Media Lab video is scheduled to be released in late January.
]]>
The exhibition titled, Harlem Edge just closed at the Center for Architecture after having been up for the past four months. We produced the two videos and the large storefront gallery wall photograph (above) for the exhibition which are shown in these images.
It was the second time we've produced the central video for an exhibition at the Center for Architecture. The other being the fabrication and installation of the innovative Liquid Wall competition winner a couple of years ago. The unique demands of an exhibition video brings out a lot interesting challenges and potentials as opposed to our more direct commercial or architectural video projects. The most critical component, in my mind, is the aspect that this video will be living in a context surrounded by supportive informative graphics, models and text.
We definitely attempted to create a video that can stand on it's own after the exhibition comes down but the most crucial audience is the museum viewing audience. The Harlem Edge video additionally had to act as an outreach product since it is a largely unknown area physically cut off from the city and it's local Harlem community by highways, rail tracks and a 100 ft plus elevation drop.
As with all our work, we spent a bit of time doing our own distribution outreach by sending it around to various local Harlem blogs to attempt to spread the word of the competition, the exhibition and ultimately to empower those in the community to demand and find a use for this aging piece of potentially useful infrastructure.
If you haven't seen the video yet, please watch it here. And if it entices you, then you should check out the competition website which showcases some of the other creative proposals that reimagine our waterfront, especially in our post-Sandy future.
This is a somewhat tangental post but something that I wanted to share with our readers. November has become the annual month of Movember where guys around the world grow moustaches to raise funds to support research for testicular and prostate cancer. This is my second year participating (I've raised $145 so far!) but it took on new meeting when we recently did a set of interview shoots for our friends at the amazing organization, I Had Cancer. I Had Cancer is a cancer support network that is cleverly broken into three categories of supporters, fighters and survivors. The founder is a colleague of my girlfriend who found when she was diagnosed with cancer there was not an easy social network to talk to people with her new disease.
A couple months ago we setup in their office to interview a selection of 15 members of the I Had Cancer network to tell their personal stories. I'm not sure about Matteo, our sound tech shown in the second image, but it was an extremely intense range of emotions hearing these people's stories from behind the camera and has caused me to have a new perspective on the fight to find a cure and how it wil be diagnosed in 1 of every 2 men in the US.
They are currently cutting our interviews up now into a variety of videos for the site and we're excited to help them continue to grow their amazing network. So be sure to sign up on their website and get involved, and if you're looking to help the fight against cancer head on over to my Movember page on this last day of donations!
]]>