Swanman Travels Live Show

A while back, Vitalie and I went up to UC Davis for the Whole Earth Festival to film my brother's band, Swanman Travels. Unfortunately, the band isn't around anymore as a few of the band members moved away from home. It's a shame, cuz they have such a wonderful sound and energy. As you're about to seeeee...



It was hard to string together one piece out of their whole performance, since it spanned the entirety of the sun setting. Some shots it's bright out, some shots it's very dark. I tried to take some creative license in in giving the brighter stuff a more of a gold color tone, so that it didn't look like it was meant to be part of the performance, but rather, almost a flashback of the beginning of the show.

I'm hoping these guys get together again and make some more music. Love their album!

Jared and Christy's Wedding Film

Check this. Seriously. The last part of it combines so many camera trinkets it's like a camera connoisseur's vision of heaven. I'm talking a modified 5D with an ultra-violet sensor, a digital harinezumi, car mounted GoPro hero, handheld time-lapse, tilt shift lens. And WHAT!? This is a wedding video? Damn straight.



This is of course the newest film made for my company, Sandbox Love. It was shot by myself and Vitalie Ungureanu and edited by me. The reason I got to go crazy with all of this camera gear is because Jared himself is a camera junkie. He is an amazing photographer and a great filmmaker. Check out his company, Redtail Media. It was fun to film with him; he kept asking us about our little film trinkets. Like my digital harinezumi, a toy video camera that makes footage look like 8mm film. He and Christy also totally played for the camera. Like doing cute little things when they knew we were shooting, so that we'd get great moments.

Such a fun wedding, and so excited for Jared and Christy who really are perfect for each other. Here is the official Sandbox Love blog post: http://sandboxlove.us/?p=204

MORE
Jared and Christy's Love Story!
Jeffrey Neal's Demo with Jared and Christy!

i365 Cloud Vs. On-Premise Episode 2

Here is another video we shot for one of our client's at LaunchSquad. You may remember Episode one of Cloud vs. On-Premise.



Brett Marty and I had so much fun making this video. Something about having a giant Cloud costume in the streets of San Francisco makes the vibe of the shoots very low key and fun. We shot a bunch of other fun stuff that didn't make it into the video, but we're hoping to use it in the future.

Editing this film was a difficult, as there were a lot of considerations to make about what each scene said about the company's messaging. We wanted it all to work with the idea that a cloud storage solution mixed with an on-premise solution is the best option. A hybrid.

I'm happy with how it came out. I'm hoping we get a chance to up the ante even more in the next one. I see a lot of potential in putting our characters in some very dramatic situations and locations.

Here it is in action: http://blogs.i365.com/cloud-connected-recovery/backup-brothers-battle-video-part-ii-cloud-vs-on-premise/

Charlie + Morgan's Wedding

Well, I've been meaning to blog this on my personal filmmaking blog for a while. It's been up on Sandbox Love for a few weeks. But I figured not all of my followers watch my wedding company. So here it is for anybody who hasn't seen it.

Here is the Sandbox Love post for Morgan and Charlie's Wedding. As people at my PR firm like to say, "to add some color to this," Morgan and Charlie's wedding was really a perfect wedding. I cannot tell you how many things about their wedding were right on. I'll try.

First, I LOVED the colors that they picked. That salmony-type pinkish orangish color of the bridesmaid's dresses and the groomsmen's ties was classic and stylish. When I look up at the notes I have pinned on my wall about their wedding, that's exactly what they said they wanted. Well, they got it with those colors.

Second, their families were an pleasure to work with. We showed up very early on the day of the wedding, and I helped Morgan's father set up the rows of benches for the ceremony. Everybody just welcomed us with such warmth, and I think it had something to do with us making the Save The Date video and Love Story for them. Our team had already been incorporated into their wedding, so it was no problem to chill with their families as well.

And third, because Morgan and Charlie are such a young couple, the party was rocking. Hard. Like, rocking REALLY hard. The outtakes that might be included on their DVD are hilarious. It was for sure a fun party.

Also, props to Nick for shooting the wedding with me. As always, killer footage.

Award: The Yesterage

Well here is an unexpected bit of awesomeness. My film for the San Francisco 48 Hour Film Project, The Yesterage, was recently recognized as a Finalist in the 2010 Image Gazer Film Festival. Saweeet!


Also, I don't think I ever announced the awards that we won from the actual contest. I wish we had some photos from the awards screening. We pulled home 4 awards...

Best Directing
"The Yesterage" by 4QR98 Pass

Best Editing
"The Yesterage" by 4QR98 Pass

Best Choreography
"The Yesterage" by 4QR98 Pass

Best Film Runner-Up
"The Yesterage" by 4QR98 Pass

For us this is awesome. I want to thank my team of 3 other people for their work on this film. Alex Hersler, Ben Tuller, and Nick Markham. I still think that the film we accomplished, in the time that was given to us and with such a small crew, is pretty spectacular. So major props to team 4QR98 Pass! BEWARE: You will most likely be seeing another Nellius movie soon.

Watch The Yesterage Here.

On Top of New York: Towerstream

Brett Marty and I got to go over to New York for a couple of days to film this for Towerstream, one of LaunchSquad's clients. I was pretty siked when I was told we had unrestricted access to the coolest and tallest buildings in New York. Here's what we came up with!



There are a lot of really cool shots in here of skylines, clouds, and giant towers. There was one night where we were chilling on the top of the LaunchSquad New York office with a six pack, timelapsing footage of the Empire State Building. At the same time, we were doing a "Dolly Timelapse" where at every interval, we pushed the camera forward on our Glidetrack. It was funny, because we were doing this every 30 seconds, and we would sit down in between the intervals. So Marty and I had a lot of short, 25 second conversations: which is perfect for our rapidly declining attentions spans.

Me on top of "The Hub".
Marty on top of the Empire State Building.

Timelapsing sunrise from the top of the Empire State Building might be one of the coolest things I've ever done. We got a ton of beautiful footage for this film. We're excited to go on top of Chicago and Miami next!

J Hilburn - Revolutionizing Men's Clothing

About a month and a half ago I rolled to Dallas to film for an up and coming men's clothing brand called J. Hilburn. What they do is pretty awesome, and I had a blast getting to know the guys behind the idea. Check out the video, I think it does a good job of explaining how their business model works, and why they are able to offer top of the line custom clothing for less than half the cost.



I shot this with Vitalie Ungureanu, who's quickly becoming my go to shooter. Both days we shot were scorchers, luckily the 7 million dollar mansion we were shooting in was pumped with AC that felt almost as valuable. We used two 5DmkII's, an assortment of lenses, and the 'ol glidetrack. We got tons of good footage, some of which you might see more of. Every interview we shot was just packed with soundbites. It was a very successful shoot.



Going into filming, I knew that I wanted to include some elements that made the video look a little more "magazine-esk." I had a couple of different aesthetic choices in mind, and we ended up going with a merging of the different looks. Nick Markham did the visual effects in the beginning of the video, as pretty much his first dive into After Effects. So excited to see how far we're going to go with motion graphics and visual effects. We've just begun.

Editing this puppy took a while; lots of late nights, chipotle, and scotch. But I think that we definitely got a winner here. I'm very proud of it.