Last Minute Votes

I just wanted to make one last stitch effort to call out to any of you who may be interested in voting for my movie, The Gizmo Tree in the Yobi Film Contest. After several weekly rounds of voting, there's only a single day left to vote to see if I make the finals - the Top 5 and final round of the entire contest. This opportunity is huge to me, and at this point it really can come down to just a couple votes. To view my contest profile and cast a last minute THUMBS UP vote for me and my short, click here.

Thank you to all of you who have shown your support throughout this process, I can't express enough how much I appreciate it. We'll know whether the voting worked by tomorrow - be sure to check back. Fingers crossed, it's all come down to this.

Headphones (2009)

Created in the same technical guise as my earlier split screen experiments, Headphones is a brand new self-portrait of sorts. This is but one more short in a series of edits that is meant to reflect a process, a personal awareness, and a deliberate approach to editing as art.

I've said it many times before, but the idea behind shorts like this isn't about masked themes, but about appreciating the digital medium and editing technique by taking a forced look. Just as a painter might fill a canvas for the tactile experience of seeing the streaks and runs in drying colours of paint, these editing experiments serve a similar purpose for further nurturing my personal appreciation for the technical execution of editing. Working with seemingly mundane raw footage only emphasizes this, and putting myself in the mix puts a face to the technique.

As I find myself more inspired to shoot, more of these edits always pop up and I feel that it's for the sake of variety that I share them. While individually, Headphones doesn't say much, it does add to the diversity and overall arch of my portfolio. Which, for the sake of this blog and myself I think it's essential to showcase editing not simply as a career or task, but as a powerful way to express creativity.

Squonk Productions, Thank You!

I came across this video today, I hadn't even realized that it was uploaded over a month ago. Squonk Productions gave me a very generous shout out in what they advertised as their 'last video entry' on YouTube. I can identify with their frustration about getting noticed on YouTube. I was just mentioning this after noting my 200,000 view milestone. I work darn hard at my edits, went to film school, screen my work at festivals, etc. and still despite all the effort it's taken 2 years now to get a sum that seems even remotely impressive - I haven't seen any of my videos earn substantial individual views on YouTube.

I came across Sqounk's video as I was re-uploading Buick to the Future: Episode 1 due to a copyright issue with the song 'Good Vibrations'. This dispute between YouTube and Warner Music Group is just one more reason to complain about the site - it's started to become more about YouTube partners' individual revenues, royalties for labels, banner ads and popups, than about the free-for-all video hosting site it started out as - or seemingly was just a couple years ago. Who couldn't have seen this coming though, right?

Anyway, the obstacles do keep the path interesting. I'm proud of what I've done so far and truthfully, I never expected it to be an easy climb. It's just nice to be regarded as a deserving 'underdog' after all this time. The fact that anyone is tuning in or reading to begin with is pretty awesome! Thank you Squonk Productions for making my day! And thank you viewers and readers who continue to make this the great experience that it continues to be on a (near)daily basis! Stay tuned.