The Prize

Several years ago my ward Relief Society asked me to help them make a movie about the "WRONG WAY" to do Visiting Teaching. This was in the early days of YouTube and it became a "Viral Hit" and I was getting about 20-30 requests for DVD's a week. I simply couldn't keep up with demand so I posted an .ISO and let people burn it themselves...moral of the story is that they crashed my server. Now, I tell them just to rip it off of YouTube themselves. I still get about 2-3 requests a week for "permission to use it" (people in the Church are so polite). Here is the original video, it is showing it's age.



I bring this up because about a month ago the Young Men approached me and ask me to teach them to "make a movie". Well, this was around the time our new baby was being born-
(side note for obligatory baby picture update)

I was in the middle of a freelance project and was working my day job. So, I pushed them off for a month and asked them to go write a script.

As many Young Men do, with little to no training, the script I got back was 4 lines. So, this is how it went down:

-Night 1: write script.
They were actually pretty good writers, considering we wrote by committee.

-Night 2: shoot 4 page/ 4 scene script in 2 hours
We pulled it off with some help from my old buddy C. Peck (the greatest audio, grip, lighting, all around good guy to know on a set guy in the biz)

-Night 3: Cut a trailer
And that is what you see below.


The boys in my Ward are awesome and I hope this video is as "viral" as the Visting Teaching video (it is now an official competition and it will be premiering in Stake Conference). The full film should be done in a week or two, but remember I am a father, who coaches soccer 2 times a week. Is attempting to teach my daughter fractions (and doing a mighty fine job I might add). Is trying to finalize potty training on another daughter. And is raising a 6 week old...okay, let's be honest, mom is doing all the hard work on that one. I'm just having fun playing filmmaker.

It's a tough gig.

I am Octolingual & The Mesa Easter Pageant

Two part post, one blog entry.
Bare with me since i haven't written in awhile.

PART 1
In my last post I told you the adventures of completing the Easter Mormon Message for the LDS Church.

(please watch it again before Easter comes HERE)

My latest initiative as post-production supervisor is to begin implementing the 10 internet languages (this is new and will be a slow roll-out, so don't pressure me!) Right now we already produce them in English and Spanish, now we want try adding:
-Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, German, French, Italian & Pig-latin.
(okay, I made the last one up).

I think this is great, but I only see one problem. I speak one language and I don't even speak that language very well, that is English. Working with Spanish is just beginning to be smooth. But with these new 8 languages, I thought it would be simple because the Easter message is mostly text that I could just copy and paste. For the most part I did pretty good except when it came to the Asian languages. Man, those characters are HARDCORE. I'll hyper-link the above messages as they become live on YouTube in the coming days.

Luckily, at the Church we employ a plethora of people that speak a ton of languages. Sitting next to me is a French speaker. Across from me Portuguese and French speakers. The floors above me have Mandarin & Japanese speakers. Just a few clicks away and a file gets send to a friend that can check the German and another that can check Korean. And let's be honest, I'm pretty good at ebonics, yo! Quite remarkable that we have the 'internet 10' covered in our building and by the end of this process I'll be Octolingual.

PART 2
Last week I had the opportunity to go to Mesa, AZ and film a Church News & Events story about the Mesa Easter Pageant.

I've never seen a Church Pageant and I had been told that this was the one to see. It was a pretty cool shoot with some talented producers in Media Services (Jim and Erika, I'm talkin' about you!) and a very enthusiastic cast and crew. We got to interview many of the cast members, families who had been in the pagaent for years, non-member cast, even a lamb!

Additionally we interviewed some missionaries that were there last year, the director and even the actor who portrayed Christ. I was impressed with how humble he was and what a great responsibility it was to him. The pageant is a HUGE deal to the community of Mesa and brings in 8,000-12,000 people each night, totally amazing. They even have live animals (sheep, a donkey which didn't kick me off the stage) and a real baby playing the part of baby Jesus.
(side note: during the 2nd performance one night one, Baby Jesus was not a happy camper...just saying, it was his nap time!)

Here is the final product that the news team put together:
VIDEO STORY
ACCOMPANYING WRITTEN NEWS STORY ALONG WITH STILL PHOTOS THAT WE ALSO SHOT

I encourage anyone that has the opportunity to see the pageant once in their lifetime, it is pretty cool and just tells the Easter story, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Very powerful stuff.

LABOR PAINS

Even though I was only gone for 3 days, I missed being away from my family, particularly because I had a 4 week old new baby girl. I'm amazed at how much they change practically overnight. I skyped home one afternoon (since we primarily shot in the evenings) and couldn't believe how chubby her cheeks had gotten. My others kids were so excited to "see me" over the electronic airwaves. I'm one proud poppa. It made me reflect on this amazing technology that seemed to be second nature to them, but was amazing to me still (does this make me old?). I was talking to them from thousands of miles away and seeing them, as well. They were performing for me, my son was showing me his latest Lego creations and my 3-year-old daughter was showing me her dance outfit and my oldest daughter was telling me all about school and activity days. It was just like being there. It made me happy to be a father in this era of technology.

It used to be that I had to send an e-mail (or worse yet, send a postcard), which couldn't express my true emotions or love, or call and only talk to one person at a time. But this way I could talk to all of them at once, smile and express love to them all with the expression on my face.
Thank you technology.
Thank you internet ( and Al Gore :) ).
Thank you Skype.

My final Mormon Message

As I alluded to in my last post, my job description is changing a bit in the Mormon Messages world. I'll still be working on them, but rather then coming up with ideas and being a producer, I'll be the post-production supervisor, making sure that the technical standards are followed correctly and then aiding in finalizing the pieces and prepping them for delivery to the web. Additionally, I'll be working with some outside companies to do turnkey outsourcing of Mormon Messages or just portions. I'll be responsible for much more in the workflow and touching each and ever message that come through the shop.

Additionally, I will also be coordinating Language production and making sure that the messages get translated into Spanish in a timely manner, something that has been lacking in the last little while.

As I reflect on these changes, I thought I would post the first Mormon Message that I ever produced back in 2008. This was a talk from Elder Holland and was produced in record time, about 3 days from start to finish, including approvals.



Today's latest release, my FINAL Mormon Message is the 2011 Easter message. "His Sacred Name - An Easter Declaration"



I was privileged to work on this message and touched by the spirit that I felt as I worked with my co-producer Christina Torriente-Robey. All of the images are brand new still images produced by the still photographers and they did some amazing work and once again I was deeply touched by their work and the portrayal of the Christ story.

I am thrilled to be able to work on these messages everyday and although I won't be producing them directly, I'm lucky to be working with incredible producers and helping them make top quality products each month and helping where I can.

I feel a bit like a father who has created a piece of media and then moved on and let other producers now come into their own and start producing stuff. I'm so proud of them and the work that they do and they are pretty amazing and I'm just the proud dad that sits back and watches with a smile (and happiness knowing that I don't have to deal with the approvals anymore.) My time has come and I'm ready to move onto the next challenge.

A visit from Mickey Mouse

So, we live down by the Jordan River and about 5 years ago we had an infestation of mice. Caught us a family of 7. I sealed up the outside and we've been good ever since. A few months ago we heard some scratching in the walls, ol' Mickey was back.

First off, who ever came up with the idea to make a cartoon of a rodent? That's just ridiculous. Second of all, how do you catch a mouse that is engrained in your walls?

Well, a house infested with mice is never a good environment for a new baby, or anyone for that matter. But I have managed to catch my fair share of mice (I won't put a number on it, because it is just appalling). Luckily, we aren't the only ones. Many of our neighbors (the cat-less ones) are in the same predicament, it comes with the territory of living by the river banks.

Soon we will be taking a little vacation and I am going to cover the house in mice traps. Have you ever seen that movie Mouse Hunt? Yes, that's what I'll be doing and we will see how it works out upon my return. Mickey doesn't stand a chance...

This is just another example of the life of a dad. The annoyance that is life.

Dammit Jim, I'm a film making, not a Wedding videographer

So, on Tuesday my sister-in-law got married. It was a beautiful day all around. But as the resident "film maker" it is expected that I make the wedding video. There are pro's and con's to this.

PRO's:
I get out of being in most of the pictures. I can't stand being in pictures. I am much more of a behind the scenes type guy.

CON's:
Wedding videography isn't really my "thing". No offense to anyone that does it, but it is just an art that I am not that good at. It takes a certain kind of skill that I just don't possess (I'm much better at shooting puppet shows :).

I recruited a cousin, who is an amazing shooter, to help out in the shooting and we covered it with 2 cameras. My forte is really editing and in about 2 hours I had a finished product, ready for the dinner that night. It turned out pretty decent, much better then I thought it would.

It was a long day, and I was feeling it the next day, but I"m happy that I was a part of it. Congrats to Amy & Travis and here is the finished piece.

Amy & Travis get married from WillowayMedia on Vimeo.

Mormon Messages & Puppet Shows

I get to work on some pretty amazing projects at my work for the LDS Church. I have had the privileged of being involved in the MORMON MESSAGES campaign since its inception in 2009.

Lately, we've been working on an ambitious piece for Easter that I've played editor on and it has been pretty inspiring to watch other producers come into their own and get involved with our photography department who do some amazing work in their own right. This should be released before General Conference, is the hope.

I'm taking a new role in Mormon Messages where I'm doing more of the technical backend of things and I won't be producing messages anymore. I'm actually thrilled about this because my strength really is in the technical specifications that we've created over the years.

But tomorrow I'll be shooting a freelance project that I have been doing every year for the past 16 years. My BEST freelance client is brining me this project ONCE AGAIN and I'm thrilled to do it. I love working with Siemens Medical and their employees. Usually they write very ambitious scripts that we have to pull off by shooting in one LONG day, but this year they are giving me a bit of a break. I'll be filming a puppet show. Yes, you read that right, a puppet show.

See, film making isn't always glamorous.

Dancing

Here is a fun video of my oldest daughter dancing back in 2006.