Tim Chaisson and Morning Fold - Broken Hearted Beat EPK

Tim contacted me a while back about the possibility of doing this video for him. At the time, I had no idea what and EPK was, but jumped at the opportunity to work on what was sure to be an interesting project with a guy as talented and cool as Tim. He is, quite possibly, the nicest fella you'll ever meet.

Original video on Vimeo.

I had a lot of fun working on this project. As mentioned, Tim is a great guy to work with, and was trusting enough to let me take over creatively. That said, he and the band were still on top of things with some great suggestions, most of which I was able to fit into the final piece.

The greatest challenge was fitting all of the concert footage over top of the song Tim had suggested we use. I think I managed to line it up not too bad, but with the band obviously playing different songs, instruments, and tempos throughout the footage, it wasn't always easy.

The interviews and concert footage was shot with a Sony EX 1, and the footage from the recording sessions were shot by Tim himself on his MacBook's iSight camera. I think the combination of the HD clips and the iSight material is really interesting.

You can check out Tim's website at timchaisson.com.

Nine videos in two weeks.

(Note: This post was originally written for my work blog, Jumpcut... just so you know.) While the Canada Games were at UPEI, I, along with my trusty sidekick and host Fraser McCallum, produced a series of web videos around the Canada Games. We managed to knock out nine videos in about two weeks. Impressive, if I do say so myself. During the process, I learned quite a few things about throwing together a short-run web series. In no particular order:

Get a host

Getting a host was probably the best thing we did for this series. While I've worked with "hosts" in the past on a video-by-video basis, never before has one person been the face of nine. The host acts as a familiar face, and makes the editing process much, much simpler. Rather than trying to tell the story with only images and sporadic interviews, the host can tell the entire story in a matter of seconds. Plus, if you get a fella like Fraser, he can help with the production.

Schedule the episodes, but leave it flexible

Before we started, we knew we wanted to create a collection of vignettes, but also knew that we wanted to have the flexibility to create some "news" content. In other words, if one of our students were to win a medal, we wanted to make sure we could add that piece into our production schedule. It worked.

Know when to stop cutting and post

I love to edit, and if it were feasible, I'd take a week to edit a three minute video. But when you're trying to do one video a day, that's obviously not possible. When the video had to get up, it had to get up. As such, I had to sacrifice some of my pickier post-production tendencies.

One in the can is worth two in the bush

This depends on how time dependent your content is. If your content is "this is what happened today, and tomorrow you won't care about it," then maybe this statement is not true. However, if you plan on people watching this episodic content weeks or months down the road, then deciding to put the extra effort in one video and dropping another is definitely worth the consideration.

Less (footage) is more

This took a while for me to learn, but when I did, it made everything so much faster. Keep in mind that every frame you shoot will have to be logged, captured, and considered for editing. This process, as you likely know, takes a lot longer than you think it should. Thus, if you've three shots of athletes jumping hurdles, you probably don't need a fourth.

Post to YouTube while you're still waiting for approval

Like all good editors, I had to make sure that someone looked over the "completed" videos before we let them free to the world. Sometimes, this approval process took hours. Perhaps the approver(s) didn't have time to see it right then and there, or perhaps I was out shooting when it did. Most times, my first edit was the one that was going to go live, so while I was waiting for approval, I posted to YouTube and set the the privacy setting to "Private." That way, when approval came through, I simply had to change that permission, and the video could be live right away. If changes needed to be made, I could just delete that uploaded video and throw up the new one.

The Sony EX 1 is heavy

I love this camera, and trying to produce this series on tape would have been a major pain in the neck. The tripod we had it on was about two times as heavy as the camera. It didn't really slow us down, but it sure helped in tiring us out. So that's it. Sure, some of it may be common sense, but I hope it at least reinforces the points. If anyone has other tips for this kind of production, I'd love to hear about it.

UPEI 2009 Canada Games Spotlight video playlist.

The 2009 Canada Games are now in full swing Charlottetown after (also being in full swing) in Summerside last week. The Athlete's Village this week is located at UPEI, as are several of the sporting events (namely indoor volleyball, athletics, swimming, and men's soccer). To celebrate (for lack of a better word) we're producing a pile of videos that shows off the games, as well as the campus, and gives the viewers a bit of a behind the scenes look at how some things work at the Canada Games. You can check out the videos here: When it's all said and done, I'll post a few notes on the production process.

Night of the Living Tea Infuser.

I enjoy tea. No, it's not as manly as coffee, but I still like it. For a very long time, I only ever made it from supermarket-esque tea bags, but longed to make it with loose leaves in a tea pot or infuser. So, shortly after we were married, Rachel and I picked up this dinky tea infuser from The Kitchen Store in Charlottetown.
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We got it instead of an actual tea pot because it was only a few bones, and we figured we'd try it out to see how we liked the whole loose tea thing. As if being interested in drinking loose tea wasn't girly enough, the infuser came with this little girly tea-cup charm on it. I knew it had to go, but had no idea what to replace it with. A couple of weekends ago, Rachel and I found ourselves at How Bazaar!, a touristy shop found across PEI (and possibly beyond) featuring clothing, decorations, and trinkets from around the world. That was when I first met Little Wooden Zombie Guy.
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He was so wooden and undead and cute... As soon as I saw him (and his friends – there were several others like him) I knew he would make a great replacement to the dinky girly tea-cup charm. So home he came. I promptly replaced him at the end of the tea infuser, and put him to work.
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He may look innocent, but he'll eat your brain. So watch it.

Memorial Movie Marathon: John Hughes edition.

I was quite shocked/upset to hear about iconic 80's teen movie writer and director John Hughes passing this past week. I have always been a huge fan of Hughes, and always admired how he could make incredibly deep films whilst making each and every scene of his movies incredibly and genuinely entertaining. I think I re-watched his films more than any other filmmaker's.
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In that spirit, it is only proper for myself (and any other John Hughes fan) to celebrate his life with a movie marathon. I plan to watch:
  • The Breakfast Club: My all time favorite high school movie.
  • Home Alone: He didn't direct it, but I my sister and I have quoted this screenplay many, many times.
  • Weird Science: Which I will embarrassingly be seeing for the first time, although I have caught the odd episode of the TV show.
  • Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Which I have seen only once, but know it is worth seeing again (and again).
  • Ferris Bueller's Day Off: My second all time favorite high school movie. (Rooney eats it).
I know this is only a taste of his work, but I don't like suggesting marathons longer than five movies because they'll never all get watched. There has always been a handful of filmmakers I really wanted to have lunch with. Hughes, with his tight, well written, and amazingly entertaining and fun films (there are few of those these days) was most definitely on that list. I suspect we'd have eaten at Chez Quiz (reservation under "Froman").