video

Bringing Back the Bohm

Proud to present my debut as a documentary film maker with Bringing Back the Bohm, the story of a dedicated group of community leaders coming together to restore a closed and dilapidated theater in Albion, Michigan.

Last fall, through my job at Albion College, I had a chance to photograph students learning about the theater’s restoration process. Elizabeth Schulteiss, the executive director of the Albion Community Foundation and lead cheerleader of the Bohm project, and I talked about how several documentary offers had fallen through.

Having done video work for the college, I volunteered to complete a short documentary for the theater in time for their grand opening on December 27, 2014 – the 85th anniversary of the theater’s opening in 1929.

The project was well outside my comfort zone. A five minute video I can do, but a half hour video?

Luckily I had lots of help from the Friends of the Bohm committee, my co-worker (and producer!) Erica, and the resources at the college.

The documentary debuted at the grand opening, after a rushed few weeks to get all the interviews and editing done.

I’ll say this: it’s a heckuva thing to see something you made on a real big screen. The film has its quirks, and I see lots of stuff I’d like to make better. But the point is, it’s done and out in the world for lots of people to see.

Learn more about this great historical community theater, and catch a movie there. You can order a copy of the documentary on DVD by contacting the theater, too.

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‘We Work for Tips’

And so it went last weekend in Las Vegas with three of my good friends: Andrew Krukowski, Chris Driver, and Keith Coates.

My experience with Vegas before last weekend was more like sticking my toe in the pool. I stopped there during a rush-hour traffic jam along I-15 coming home from the Route 66 trip. Then there was last summer, when I flew in and out of Vegas during my driving tour of the western national parks.

But I had never done Vegas righteously. Last weekend I finally got the chance, and did it as it should be done: with good friends to enjoy the spectacle.

The entire weekend was like one long-running comedy routine, with new in-jokes appearing from the sights, sounds, and people of this city. We took our accommodations and had a lot of fun with it, both with the people that we saw and the location of the hotel. Staying off-Strip means you get to see that other Vegas you always hear about – the one we saw, in full color, along Fremont Street.

Ah, Fremont Street. You take the old Vegas that appears in movies, the Vegas that Sinatra and Martin knew, you put a roof over it, and you turn it into an amusement park. It was still my favorite part of the trip. The Strip seemed like a giant themed shopping mall. But Fremont Street was the Vegas that I always pictured in my head: lights, mutants, cheap booze, the whole works. If I ever go back, I’ll be sure to spend more time on Fremont Street.

No one in our little group struck it rich, nor did anything too crazy happen. The trip was four guys who know each other so well taking this spaceship of a city as it is. We walked, and took in a ball game, and saw a show, and took a trip to the Hoover Dam. And then there was karaoke. Lots of that in a bar called Ellis Island, where tourists and locals both meet for cheap (but good) beer and lots of fun.

My role in these types of trips is usually the documentarian – a role I relish. Between photos and the video above, I feel like I captured some of the best parts of the trip while still leaving those fun parts – the ones only us four guys would get – locked away in memory. That’s as it should be.

The title of the video comes from a brief snippet of Fremont Street. The showgirls, the ones on either side of the gentlemen where one whispers something in his ear, walk around ready to pose for pictures. When I stood there to get my own picture taken, the one whispered “We do work for tips, okay?” into my ear.

Nothing is free in Vegas. Not really. And that’s okay.

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I Am Not A Filmmaker

I Am Not A Filmmaker « Photofocus

Such an important distinction from Scott Bourne:

Owning a camera that shoots motion-pictures, i.e., video, does not make me a filmmaker. Filmmakers have a very unique skill set that I find myself lacking. I can operate a camera, but that’s pretty much where my skills end.

It takes a director, producer, editor and many more folks to make a real film. If you think it’s easy, you’re wrong. I’ve come to realize that I suck at trying to make films. I am pretty good at capturing the footage, but I need help knowing what to shoot so that the filmmaker’s vision can be executed.

I’ve learned that I’m more of a doer than a leader – that I can executive things very, very well. But having that “vision” thing is tough for me.

Creativity comes once in a while, and some of my professional work wins awards and compliments and whatnot. But I find it far easier to implement someone else’s vision than come up with my own. They think, I make it happen. That’s the kind of setup where I thrive.

Some blessed folks have both vision and know-how. And good on them.

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