The Oral Histories of the Purple Foxes

I'm flying to Las Vegas in ten days to work on an incredible video project collecting the oral histories of U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam veterans from HMM-364, a helicopter squadron called the Purple Foxes. My uncle was a pilot in the squadron and he is coordinating the project. I am proud to be a part of it and am looking forward to meeting these gentlemen at their reunion in Mesquite.

I was a Navy man, so I expect to catch a lot of hell from these guys, but as I always tell them, they served in the Department of the Navy, not the Department of the Marine Corps. Of course, I'm just giving them hell. I certainly don't mean any disrespect to fellow service members, much less fellow veterans of a foreign war. It is my honor and privilege to use my knowledge and skills to help these men document their experiences. Several men have responded to my request for copies of personal footage that they may have recorded while in Vietnam. The footage has been digitized and I already have three DVDs of video to watch and log.

The approach this year is very relaxed as it is the first year. I'm using a DSLR with a Zoom H4n to capture video and audio. I am planning to shoot interviews in front of a green screen because we will be collecting over a period of several years and it provides flexibility in post-production for unifying them. The objective right now is to simply get the guys to tell their stories on video and collect it for archival purposes. They will be individually edited and posted online with the permission of the interviewee. From there we will improvise.

As a producer, this is a dream project. A little bit of travel to get out of the studio (or home), a great group of people to work with, interesting stories and easy post-production work. Since I'm not stringing all of these together into an overall story, editing will be quick and painless.

Be sure to check back for updates. I'll be posting more soon.

Funding Your Projects

OK! So you have this great idea for a project, but have no idea how to secure funding to make it happen. Before you put it on the shelf of great ideas that were never realized, check out Kickstarter, a funding platform for creative pursuits of many kinds.

I have read just about everything on their site and I have concluded that this is a great opportunity for producers, at least to get feedback on your ideas. The worst thing that can happen is a project doesn't get funded and you are back where you started... except you at least received feedback on the demand for your product. With easy tools that allow you to share and promote your project through social media, you may just muster up enough support to make some money doing what you want.

Keeping Up

I have been experimenting with my new camera.

I am working on several projects at once. I am editing footage I shot with my new T2i from my family's Easter. I think I have a reason to use split screen at a point in this project. My kids and their cousins found a turtle and I captured footage of the turtle walking, as well as the kids' reactions. I think this would be great as a split screen with the kids looking in the direction of the screen showing the turtle. Alone, each of these shots would be boring, but I think as a split screen it can capture the excitement and wonder they experienced and the viewer will be able to see what they were excited about.

I am also shooting a couple of career profiles (video portrait style) that I hope will show students what production jobs are like.
(609:Project 4) I'm profiling Gabe Juhnke, the Production Manager at KPTS, and (609:Project 5) Stacey Jenkins, a producer at KPTS. I am shooting on my T2i and have already started collecting footage. I took my camera to work and got some shots in the control room during the production of Ask Your Legislator. I'd like to get shots of each of them performing various aspects of their jobs: directing in the control room, shooting in the field, editing and directing personnel. I also plan to use some of KPTS's footage in my edit.

I am also planning a video portrait (609:Project 6) of my other boy who has hemophilia. He is 8 and self-infuses... meaning he sticks the needle in himself and is learning to give his own meds. This will be the focus of this video and I may again employ split screen to show him infusing on one screen and on the other (or others) I'd like to show some ways in which he lives a normal life: playing soccer, at the playground, going to school...

I finished editing my Center of Hope video. I'm not completely satisfied with it. I wish I could have captured more shots, but some things were out of my control and I had to work with what I had. Despite this, I learned how to import alpha channels from Photoshop and I was able to experiment with text motion graphics. I wish I had time to experiment with AfterEffects, but not yet.

Anyway, I'm busy... and this is why I have been neglecting my blog.

Poster Ideas

My first idea was to do a poster for the IMAX show: Vikings: Journey to New Worlds playing at the Cosmosphere. I am of Viking and Celtic stock and I love Viking design. They were great artists, so designing a poster using these distinct designs would be fun. I searched for some cool backgrounds and images, but found very little that coincided with my ideas, so I will throw this bone out tomorrow in class.

I have found an alternative that works better. I am going to design a poster for World Hemophilia Day (April 17th - my daughter's birthday). There will be a fundraiser walk in Wichita that day. They provided a set of materials, including a logo graphic, for use in designing promotional materials, so it works out great for me and hopefully I can help out the local organizers.

Video Portrait: Living With Hemophilia

I have two boys with severe hemophilia A with inhibitors. This means that their bodies do not produce enough Factor VIII clotting factor in their blood. Inhibitors make it hard to treat because they combat the medicine used to treat hemophilia. In short, they bleed and bleed... and their bodies try to reject the medical treatment. This affects their joints regularly... their ankles and knees especially. They swell and become very painful. As you can imagine, this affects their lifestyle. They cannot play hard-contact sports like football. Their options in life are limited. Hemophilia affects not only the patient, but also the caregivers. I plan to get footage of the differences that hemophiliacs and their providers experience on a daily basis. I have flexibility: I can tell this from the patient's perspective, from the caregiver's perspective, from the treatment provider's perspective, or from any combination of the three.

Obstacles to this project are: bad lighting/environment (my messy home), legalities (home health agency's permission), learning the features of a new camera (borrowed a Panasonic DVX from KPTS)

Using interviews and B-roll, I hope to get a good testimonial that can be used by the hemophilia community (ex: Hemophilia Federation of America's Voices campaign: http://voices.hemophiliafed.org)

Here is an outline of info I plan to gather (or draw out of subjects):

1. Diagnosis/Finding Out (first thoughts/feelings...)
2. How it changed life (career, finances, priorities...)
3. Treatment
• What did they need? (medicine, doctors/nurses...)
• Obstacles (cost/money, insurance, geographic location/resources...)
• Who helped? (non-profits, state...) How? (support, education, healthcare...)
4. Home Health Care (frequency of treatments/visits, relationships...)
5. Hemophilia Treatment Center (burden, services, experiences...)
6. Expand on Education (summits, conferences...)
7. What Would You Change
• If you could change anything, would you? What? How? Why?
• What needs to be done? What can be done? (dreams and reality)
• How can legislators help? (what powers do they have? what can they change?)
• How can you help? (how to advocate for change)

Short Shot Progress: Idea #3

Last I posted, I was planning on burning someone at the stake for my video. Leaping from that last step, I have decided to tell the same story from the perspective of wood.

The idea is that trees, representing humans, grow up dreaming of what they will become. Some dream of becoming a guitar and touring the world, rock-star style, while others are content to become a bench or some other type of furniture. The sad truth, however, is that most just get pissed on by animals or chopped up by humans for firewood and roasting wieners. The latter being every tree's worst nightmare.

I have listed my collection requirements:

WS of Trees (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles (some still and some motion)
MS of Trees (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
CU of Trees (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
*Vertical elements

MS of Guitar being played (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
CU of Guitar being played (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
MS to CU of Guitar being played (:10-:20) zoom and pan to finer details (wood grains)

MS of Furniture (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
CU of Furniture (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles

MS of Outdoor Bench (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles (some still and some motion)
CU of Outdoor Bench (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
*Wood planks are horizontal (I can juxtapose these with the vertical trees)

ECU to MS of Hatchet w/ Wood Handle (:10-:20) zoom out from grain to see hatchet (tree killer)

WS of Man w/ Hatchet walking toward trees (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
MS of Man w/ Hatchet walking toward trees (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
CU of Man w/ Hatchet walking toward trees (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles

WS to ECU of Man w/ Hatchet walking toward camera (:10-:20) from high and low angles
*The object is to create drama by using slow motion and music crescendo to build tension (the tree fearing that it will be chopped for firewood)

WS of Man w/ Hatchet chopping tree (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
MS of Man w/ Hatchet chopping tree (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
CU of Hatchet striking tree (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
ECU of Hatchet striking tree (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles

WS of chopped pieces of firewood (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
MS of chopped pieces of firewood (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
CU of chopped pieces of firewood (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles

WS of fire burning (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
MS of fire burning (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles
CU of fire burning (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles

CU of ashes (:10-:20) from at least 2 different angles

I started shooting footage Monday and continued on Tuesday, but my camera acted like a real bastard and did not work, so I have to try again tomorrow to finish collecting these shots. I'm hoping for clear skies... at least no rain... and preferably above-freezing temperatures.

I plan to not only mix my shots, but I'd like to juxtapose elements in the shots, such as placing a shot of the vertical trees next to a shot of an outdoor wooden bench with horizontal planks. I would also like to learn some time-shifting techniques, so I can use this feature to add drama. When the trees see the man approaching with the hatchet, I can use slow-motion to build up the tension. The climax is the hatchet striking the tree and the resolution is everything the tree feared... not becoming a guitar or other cool utility, but burning to ashes.

It is a sad story. It also shows the process of how a tree becomes firewood... and eventually ashes.

Short Film Idea #2: Burning

OK. I am creating a short film with no dialogue for my interactive media production class. My first idea was to do a cycle of life story that answers the question What happens when we die? from the perspective of dog food. Although I can envision great video, I am reluctant to include this in my portfolio. Since I do not have time to create several new productions for my portfolio, I have decided to explore a new idea, inspired by some really depressing lyrics.

My life is endless burning
on a thousand dead desires.

It means that when we are kids we say "I want to be a firemen," or "I want to be a baseball player," and a million other things. Throughout life, we change and someday we look back and see all the dreams and desires we left on a shelf unachieved. Sometimes we even feel like we are dying a slow, painful death fueled by our failures or our lack of ever chasing those dreams. In these lyrics, even death refrains from ending your misery... it simply allows you to suffer endlessly. If we had only pursued more of them, the fire might not be so miserable.

I have an idea of what I want to do to visually represent this, but before I do the first thing that comes to mind, I am going to sit down with a pen and paper and create a cluster of words that come to mind when I think of the words burning and dreams. I will link these words and create a visual map of interrelated ideas that I may be able to use when determining what kind of shots I want to capture and use. I may end up doing what I thought of first, but a least I will have explored more options.

My first idea is to capture shots of some of the dreams or desires I left behind, either in symbolic form or literal. Then I'd like to represent them on something I can burn, like a piece of paper (perhaps a ripped paper on which I write the dream/desire) or a photo. I can build a small-scale pyre of toothpicks surrounding a stake to which a representation of me (my life) is attached. Then I will set it on fire and watch it burn. It would be great if I could use something that doesn't burn up, so the fire burns, but doesn't destroy me. I also thought about using my kids to demonstrate all the desires and dreams by dressing up in all the costumes and outfits of the things they want to be... then burning representations of them at the stake.

To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.
— Chester Barnard