In 24 hours I'll be on a plane headed to Singapore. 18 hour flight, a day in Singapore, and then at night another long ass flight to Australia. My last post for awhile. Everything's going great; excited for the trip, good response to my latest treatments. I may even get a chance to see Mary, the Irish girl I went out with for five years. She's relocated to Australia happily and man I hope to get to see her. The only thing I'm worried about is I wasn't able to find someone to feed the stray cat who lives in my backyard and has sort of become my cat. She's very self sufficient, but she's gone from being scared of me to such an extent I thought she was feral, to putting her paws on me whenever I go outside and begging for pets and cuddling next to me. I hope she's ok and remembers me when I get back. Be well, Caids. I give you permission to eat our squirrel friends if need be. Fucking circle of life, you know?
(I tried to change her unfortunate name given to her as a joke but it's all she responds to)
_
I amost forgot: this is for the Decemberists fans.
On March 20th, the day after my birthday, the Decemberists DVD, A Practical Handbook is finally released after working on it for two and a half years.
I think my favorite thing about the entire process is that I got to make something with Carson Ellis doing the artwork for it. That gives me a really pleasant feeling in my belly.
It all started unintentionally. I started as just a fan of the band, turned onto them by a girl when she came to visit me for a few days and she kept listening to 'Red Right Ankle'. I was working at the time at Dreamworks Animation of all places. It was post film school the first job that randomly came up after working in a video store for a year. I even worked in that video store for a little after I quit Dreamworks, such is the life of a film school graduate. That job was everything horrible they tell you about the corporate environment with the added pressure of self important people strangling each other to make family fun entertainment. It was a lot like The Office, even including ill informed office romance and bad pranks and the same existential dread and comedy. I spent, in fact, the first day after I quit watching the entire British series on DVD wincing.
During that time I'd caught the Decemberists on tour, at the Great American Music Hall and this is exactly what happened. I went alone, was sitting next to a redhead and during one of their songs I started singing along. She kinda giggled at me. I told her I'm sorry I love this band. She said so do I. And that's when I met Carson. Afterwards I met the rest of the band and they heard I'd done some live shooting and asked if I could come back for night two and film. I did. Unfortunately I can't ever show that amazing footage because in a guitar / accordion solo duel Jenny and Funk covered a lot of famous expensive songs.
A little while later I was doing nothing, going nowhere, figuring out what to do with my life and they asked me to come up and film them recording Picaresque. I dropped everything and drove from San Francisco to Portland. As seen in the documentary it was a good deal of insane fun. Friends and family dropped by continually, becoming part of the album. It was one of the best summers I'd ever had and suddenly I felt I had a new vocation. There are people who like shooting sports, nature, etc. I just really dig shooting bands. Here we are years later and they remain the one band who I love working for more than all others and people I'd truly call friends. The videos I've made for them are the least selfish things I've ever made. I want them to be for and of them. They're just great people I'd do anything for.
Things have changed for us now; I get a lot more chances to work but don't have that personal connection I do with these other bands that I did back in those days when we were working so small. It's neither better nor worse, just very different. Things have changed for them, too, for certain. But they remain the same great people. That's incredibly rare and is a testament to their character. We'll never probably have an atmosphere and time in our lives like that again, but we have the memory of it and I'm excited we get to share it, too.
So anyway I promised to share something to the Decemberists fans, the treatment for 16 military wives written in one hour five days before we shot while I was recuperating having just come out of hospital. You'll see some things that are different, but this is how naive I was back in the day: I even wrote it in script format. Due to my headache problems I had to direct the video on a cocktail of medications one of which was experimental. I'm sure people have been on drugs before while directing, but not these ones. I don't think I was ever proud enough of this video, because I see so many problems in it, but looking back this is where it all started and I was a right lucky bastard to be a part of it.
Here it is.
_
Hope to write you all from the road...
(I tried to change her unfortunate name given to her as a joke but it's all she responds to)
_
I amost forgot: this is for the Decemberists fans.
On March 20th, the day after my birthday, the Decemberists DVD, A Practical Handbook is finally released after working on it for two and a half years.
I think my favorite thing about the entire process is that I got to make something with Carson Ellis doing the artwork for it. That gives me a really pleasant feeling in my belly.
It all started unintentionally. I started as just a fan of the band, turned onto them by a girl when she came to visit me for a few days and she kept listening to 'Red Right Ankle'. I was working at the time at Dreamworks Animation of all places. It was post film school the first job that randomly came up after working in a video store for a year. I even worked in that video store for a little after I quit Dreamworks, such is the life of a film school graduate. That job was everything horrible they tell you about the corporate environment with the added pressure of self important people strangling each other to make family fun entertainment. It was a lot like The Office, even including ill informed office romance and bad pranks and the same existential dread and comedy. I spent, in fact, the first day after I quit watching the entire British series on DVD wincing.
During that time I'd caught the Decemberists on tour, at the Great American Music Hall and this is exactly what happened. I went alone, was sitting next to a redhead and during one of their songs I started singing along. She kinda giggled at me. I told her I'm sorry I love this band. She said so do I. And that's when I met Carson. Afterwards I met the rest of the band and they heard I'd done some live shooting and asked if I could come back for night two and film. I did. Unfortunately I can't ever show that amazing footage because in a guitar / accordion solo duel Jenny and Funk covered a lot of famous expensive songs.
A little while later I was doing nothing, going nowhere, figuring out what to do with my life and they asked me to come up and film them recording Picaresque. I dropped everything and drove from San Francisco to Portland. As seen in the documentary it was a good deal of insane fun. Friends and family dropped by continually, becoming part of the album. It was one of the best summers I'd ever had and suddenly I felt I had a new vocation. There are people who like shooting sports, nature, etc. I just really dig shooting bands. Here we are years later and they remain the one band who I love working for more than all others and people I'd truly call friends. The videos I've made for them are the least selfish things I've ever made. I want them to be for and of them. They're just great people I'd do anything for.
Things have changed for us now; I get a lot more chances to work but don't have that personal connection I do with these other bands that I did back in those days when we were working so small. It's neither better nor worse, just very different. Things have changed for them, too, for certain. But they remain the same great people. That's incredibly rare and is a testament to their character. We'll never probably have an atmosphere and time in our lives like that again, but we have the memory of it and I'm excited we get to share it, too.
So anyway I promised to share something to the Decemberists fans, the treatment for 16 military wives written in one hour five days before we shot while I was recuperating having just come out of hospital. You'll see some things that are different, but this is how naive I was back in the day: I even wrote it in script format. Due to my headache problems I had to direct the video on a cocktail of medications one of which was experimental. I'm sure people have been on drugs before while directing, but not these ones. I don't think I was ever proud enough of this video, because I see so many problems in it, but looking back this is where it all started and I was a right lucky bastard to be a part of it.
Here it is.
_
Hope to write you all from the road...
Labels: 16 military wives, decemberists, stray cat, travel
1 Comments:
so i had written this fantastic long comment wishing you well and asking you to bring me stuff from singapore and australia to which i was denied (its a mental thing i got going here, roll with it) and it vanished! the horror! well you were spared, so small favors, eh? anyways, have a fantastic trip and hope that you find whatever you're looking for. yah i know that's a song lyric from u2. shut up. i said roll with it. love ya, aaron, and stay cool!
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