MUSIC VIDEO: Greenhorse "Don't Leave Me"

Last year I had the privilege, nay... the DELIGHT to work with a band called Greenhorse. They are local to Los Angeles and have been working pretty hard to develop a unique sound and style.

From the moment I met with them and listened to their music, I was hooked. They seem to capture the very essence of my preferred music listening needs. I have been obsessed with their new album The Shapes of Dragons which you can get on BandCamp or iTunes.

Sometime last year (I don't recall just when) I met with the band and shared some ideas for a new music video. Here are a few screenshots of my concepts based on their ideas:

We spent a good 12-14 hours filming in the dead of night. Our locations ranged from Downtown LA, to Hollywood Boulevard, to Studio City in the Valley, to all the way out into the Palmdale Desert.

I shot the entire thing with a Canon 7D with zoom lens and my GoPro Hero 3. A lot of the GoPro footage didn't make the cut, but looked pretty cool anyway. Would love to share a making-of sometime when I get the time.

The video was edited by my good friend and master editor Aaron White. He turned the concept I had and the notes I gave him into a pretty impressive first cut. I couldn't believe my eyes! He had captured exactly what I was thinking. After a few tweaks he sent a finalized cut and this baby was ready to be released.

The band released the video on their YouTube page last month and it has already climbed to 1,000 views (which I would love to see doubled, tripled, quadrupled... etc.)

Take a look and enjoy! As a reward for watching and sharing, I'll post some behind-the-scenes pics tomorrow:

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FATFIT - A Personal Fitness Journey

Hey everyone! It's been a while and lots of things have changed. Mostly I've changed --- Into a fat slob. A big fat, no-good, couch-sitting slob. The only fault lies within me.

Since the St. George Marathon in October of last year, I've had a lot of stressful things to deal with. Not least of which was moving back to Utah, the land flowing with beef and fry sauce (if you don't know what that is, please look it up, it's disgusting .... and so, so good.)

A lot of the pride I had in my journey of fitness the last few years was swept away as I found myself eating out every night, especially at terribly wasteful fast food joints. I stopped running (GASP!) and even though the jobs I was working were quite physical (one job left me sore and bruised for weeks), I still wasn't getting the exercise that I needed.

INTRODUCING:  FATFIT on my YouTube page!



This is the first video in a series that will document my change into fitness. I'm putting it all out there - I've started the new P90X3 fitness program from BeachBody. I'm starting back up my run training for a new marathon (haven't picked one yet, but I'm looking!) and I am documenting all the pitfalls, successes, hardships, fun, gear, and wackiness that comes along with changing yourself.

I'll be posting each workout I do as well as post-run summaries. Each week I'll have personal videos that will discuss anything from Nutrition, to P90X3 (and how hard it is to keep going), to things I like when I workout/run, to ... anything!

Here is the video for the P90X3 Fitness Test:



As you can tell from my lame jump, I have a lot of work to do.

I know this may not be your thing. But if you are at all interested in changing yourself - like I am, then I beg you to consider what types of activities and workouts that you DO like and you share them with me. I want to hear from all of you. I want you to be at the race with me, I want you to message me on Facebook or Twitter and tell me how awesome your workout was today, or how you ate so much nutrition you can't even believe it.

Mostly I want to share with you how much fun this is. Because it is. And It's also: challenging, tough, excruciating, long, and boring sometimes. But lets do it anyway.

Final video for today - my first workout with P90X3 "Total Synergistics" and boy is this one tough. Why did they make the hardest workout first?!?



Thanks for listening and thanks for reading. I hope you are as excited as I am right now.

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NEW MUSIC VIDEO: Ryan Darton - "Uptight"

This post is a bit late. I've been extremely busy working out the post workflow for several projects. At the forefront is my film Express, which we are editing. Super excited to share more about that with you, but first, I am extremely pleased and excited to tell you about the music video I directed for Ryan Darton which was posted a few weeks ago.

The video is for the song "Uptight" off of Ryan's album I Am A Moth.

This video was shot oh so long ago. We initially filmed it before Ryan's album was released in July of 2012.

What took so long you ask?

Well, let me tell you. It was an extremely long and arduous process of trying to find the right editor as well as the right visual effects artist.

When you are working on something creative but with limited budget, you try and do your best to find those that will help make the project better without having to pay them too much. This means you pull favors from friends and colleagues. Sometimes these friends and colleagues agree to do something. Sometimes when they agree, they are in fact only able to work on it when they are not busy. Sometimes they are never not busy. This is not their fault. Them not working on your project and not finishing anything is not their fault (and to some extent - not their problem.)

What it came down to in the end, was I did my absolute best to edit the video in my spare time. This meant that I made mistakes (because I don't normally edit, but I'm getting better at it!) and it also meant that it was going to take a long time. Once I finished a cut I would send a quicktime to Ryan who would give brilliant notes and changes, then it would be several days/weeks/months before I was able to make those changes.

Once we had a really great cut, we wanted to get some really amazing visual effects. I have several brilliant friends who are VFX artists, but because they are so brilliant, they are super crazy busy. Somehow I got it in my brain to try and do it myself. I'm going to share with you the results of my stumbling through After Effects. (Please, don't laugh. The boy can't help that he's an After Effects nincompoop!)

What was I thinking?!? I'm not a VFX artist, turns out.

Fortunately for me, Ryan said something that was really important, and something that I have begun to adopt as my directing mantra; he said, "We've spent all this time and money, we might as well spend a bit more to make it perfect."

Also fortunately for me I have exquisitely talented friends, some of which can refer me to other exquisitely talented people. This is how I came across one David Wehle. This guy is L E G I T. He took the raw footage, a few notes on what I was looking for, and gave back some of the most amazing effects I've had done for me. He also did it in wicked-fast time. Seriously - hire this guy!

Anyway, almost two years later, and several revisions and someself-imposed time pinches later and we got ourselves a fantastic video.

Please check out the video and give it a share or thumbs up or two. As a reward, some behind the scenes photos of the shoot!:

Until next time!
-E

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NEW MUSIC VIDEO: Greenhorse - "Grim City"

A while back I was excited to have the chance to film one of my favorite bands: Greenhorse as they played a show at The Echo in Los Angeles. They were opening for the band AM & Shawn Lee, and the show was completely fantastic.

Some fun stills from the night:

Along with the band, we put together a video from the performance to go with one of the songs on their latest album The Shapes of Dragons. The song we used for the video was "Grim City" which is one of my favorites on the album.

Here's the video:


To make it even cooler, they got a sweet writeup in Indie Rock Review:
http://www.indierockreviews.com/2013/11/video-premiere-greenhorse-grim-city/

More great stuff coming from the band (as well as myself), just need to get my stuff together in-between prep for my feature.

Will post more later...

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See You On The Other Side

Rockin the 2013 St. George Marathon

Howdy folks. Been a while and a lot has changed. Rather than go into big details droning on about everything - I'll give you the penny version:

Late September my wife and I quit our jobs in Los Angeles. In October we moved to Utah and are now living in my parents basement. This month (November), I will be directing my first feature film. (More on that in a later post.)

What possessed us to do such an insane and bold thing? I can't really tell you. It's not a secret, it's just really hard to explain. If you see me sometime, I'll try and give you the full story.

Either way, here we are and this is what we're doing. I might fail. I might succeed. I might go mad. Whatever happens, I think I feel vindicated in my attempt and all the experience that will come with it.

Another big aspect of my decisions lately have been to improve on my running. I want to be a better runner, but mostly I just want to be the best runner I possibly can. This means training properly and becoming more of a regular season runner. As of now I just hurriedly train the few months before a race and feel really awful when I miss certain workouts or have a lapse in my proper dieting. The 2014 season is going to be different for me I hope. The plan is to train the full year and beat my time by at least a full half-hour.

I am also planning to drop 30 pounds in the next three months. It has been going really terribly. Every time I get into the swing of the diet, an event or a restaurant comes around and I engorge myself, enjoying it, but hating myself for it. This needs to STOP. I need to learn to say "NO!"

This is a life-changing time. It is a scary time. Please help me feel like I'm not insane. Tell me I'm going to be fine, because I am still unsure.

Thanks for listening. Sorry to be cryptic and for my ramble. I'll be better.

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