Andy Binford is an amazing young man that has done so much more than we could cover in this short film. It was inspiring to see the drive and ambition that Andy has in every aspect of his life. Since we finished this film And went on to win 2 gold and one bronze Medal in the Idaho Games. I have no doubt that Andy will continue to push the limits of what people think he is capable of.
I grew up skateboarding and snowboarding so any time I can design for a snowboard or skateboard company the teenager in my brain has a party. This line of tees is for a clothing company based in Nashville. They were always positive and a pleasure to work with. The whim and excitement they have for their company is intoxicating and something I am trying to duplicate with my own brand. They really want to make awesome clothing that snowboarders can dig.
One of their themes is The Yeti attacking skiers and the above tee is that theme interpreted as an Iron Maiden teeshirt. It is definitely my favorite from the line. This was seriously one of my favorite projects by far. Please support these guys and their tees! Buy them here: www.badicalstore.com
There is a dangerous tendency in me to wrap up short film projects with a tight bow and a smiley face like an episode of the Cosby Show where everything turned out all right and we all get a nice life lesson at the end. But that is not how life works. Karen is an amazing woman that has had her share of trials and struggles. She single-handedly raised two boys with equally challenging personal struggles. She stood by them while they went through their darkest times and now they are all the better for it; that is why they are fighting so hard for her now.
When I started this project Karen was having a series of blackouts and my idea was that she would be back at work in a couple weeks. I wanted to focus more on her perseverance through this trial and her writing. She has written three books and is currently looking for a publisher. But this is life. The news and prognosis kept getting more and more serious and the film began taking a sadder tone. This is what I wanted to do but it hurt to watch this family walk through this terrible trial.
Through it all Karen was beautifully steadfast. When I would meet with her she would share how much she is learning about her sons, about God, through her cancer. I once told her that if I was in that bed I’m pretty sure I’d just be angry. She said “I don’t have time to be angry.”
Karen is currently going through Chemotherapy and radiation and persevering. Her boys are taking up the brunt of family duties and can use some help. If you want to help just email me and I’ll get you in contact with the Paynes.
My good friend Merritt recently needed branding done for a new business he is starting. Without giving too much away Merritt is building and installing an amazing shelving system his Grandfather patented. Merritt is cutting edge Americana. But unlike his contemporaries he was a craftsmen as long as I have known him and he will be long after the wheels fall off of this current trend. He wanted the logo to have a timeless quality and to reflect his other passion, British Motorcycles. It was a perfect fit for my style.
I haven’t been posting as regularly as usual because I have entered in to a season we shall call “The Busy Time.” I am currently moonlighting for a local company doing medical illustrations, audio editing, etc. On top of that I just stepped on to a short film that will be epic. To add insult to overworked injury I have been wrapping up freelance projects for all my clients prior to “The Busy Time.” All of these projects are completed after I put in my 40 hours at my full time gig as the video guy at the Kroc Center. All this adds up to 70+ hours a week of work. While I am grateful for the work I am also glad that this will be for a season and not forever.
That brings you up to date on my work schedule. Now for the business at hand.
A few weeks ago I had a meeting with the Kroc Centers Marketing Director and she had a brilliant idea. We had our first annual core values all staff meeting in a couple of weeks and she wanted to have a special video highlighting the employees at the Kroc. I do Interview style Documentaries all day long so this was par for the course. Then the Marketing director threw in my lap the opportunity to do something completely foreign to me: A musical parody. A Glee musical parody to be exact. I personally can’t watch the show for more than 2 minutes before boredom builds in my gut and I throw something at the TV. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t make my own version of Glee. I loved the idea and began immediately planning.
Through the next week I watched anything I could find on youtube about Glee. I watched The musical numbers from various episodes of the show. I watched other people’s parodies of Glee. I watched the Jimmy Fallon Emmy’s opening number that is by far the best Glee moment I have ever witnessed, original show included. I watched so much that now whenever I open Youtube up on my office computer it immediately loads suggestions based around show tunes, Glee Characters, and musicals. I googled glee so much that the ads that pop up are advertising glee fanclubs, 20th Century fox and musical theater. If an investigator took a few minutes to analyze my computer the conclusion they would come to would be that this computer is obviously the property of a teenage girl with dreams of hitting the bigtime.
All of that research led to one factor that set good, viral parodies apart from bad, nobody cares, parodies: Quality. A common theme in the glee parodies on youtube is groups of teenage boys singing all the parts in a “look at us, we are boys pretending to be girls, isn’t that funny” kind of way. I didn’t want to stoop to that. So, I decided to go for the tough laughs and go for quality. Quality video, quality, editing, quality actors portraying these singers as if this was their big break.
I understand that watching this there are rough patches that video guys can point out but I also was given a deadline. My marketing Director had to talk me off the ledge a few times as well because I wasn’t sure we could make it to the standard that I was aspiring to. She was great about reminding me that while quality is nice, this is supposed to be fun. So I had to live with a couple shots kind of out of focus and marks not hit. And while filming was rough in spots the actors in the video totally committed and made up for camera errors.
This project would not have gotten off the ground without the awesome support and help from Jodi and Erin in our marketing and design team, Miranda, who was the best AD I have ever worked with, and the men in the RJ Kroc suit, Zak (who also edited the audio) and Chris.
The night of the premiere people were laughing so hard you couldn’t hear the music. It was awesome to see a project go from an idea to premiere in two weeks with little to no budget.
