vatche arabian productions

I had a great weekend of shooting. Both the projects were run and gun – experiments in DSLR workflow. I must say, I’m really happy with what we came up with. Special thanks to everyone that assisted in the projects – now, onto the extreme editing process.

There aren’t a whole lot of shots, but there is a lot of work to be done in post. One out of the two shorts is essentially a silent film, with just environmental sound, which most of will be put together in post, a challenge, that I know will have an excellent end result.

Just to wet your appetites a bit. Here are two of my favorite shots from today’s shoot.

Just wanted to share that I’ll be shooting two brand new projects this weekend (first official short films since The Omelette). I’ll be shooting them on DSLR. I’ve been experimenting with it for a few months now, using it for work shoots as well as recently for a live band shoot. They really are great cameras, and allow you to shoot quickly and with discretion.

Both shorts are void of dialogue. I’m treating them both as a bit of an experiment. I’d like to post them for all to enjoy, however, many festivals require them to have no been made available online prior. So I may have to wait till after I’ve submitted to post online – I will however gladly offer more detailed information on them once they are complete. I’m trying to use this blog to outline my journey back into creating brand new original works.

In addition to film projects, working with my DSLR has inspired me to take up Photography as a hobby. I will be adding a “photoblog” section to my site soon to share some of what I’ve shot in the last few months.

For this years Brattle Theatre’s Trailer Smackdown (their annual fake trailer competition), the film title was “Labor Day.” I decided to go full force with the Labor theme, and make it a story about a non-union “scab,” whose family has fallen victim to a corrupt union. With a quick intro-story, the trailer dives right into an ordinary man in extraordinary situations, with tons of gun shots and explosions.

The result was a ridiculous action trailer, starring my good friends Ben Swicker, Phil Healy, Brandin Tumeinski, Meredith Calvey, and my brother Razmig. Of course, I can’t fail to mention the stellar voice over work by Jim Jakala for the title and tagline (provided by Mr. Jeff Bartell) at the very end of the trailer.

I’d say the whole project probably took 40 hours from start to finish, including shooting, and Gregg Swiatlowski’s sound work. It was a lot of fun, and our work paid off because we won the contest!

Thank you to everyone who lended a hand in making the trailer, and congrats to all the other submissions! The Brattle’s trailer treats is their annual Summer party, and it is always a lot of fun to go to, and this was my first year participating and I’m glad there are opportunities like this

It’s been a year and two weeks since my trip down to inauguration. I stopped in a few cities along the way to D.C. and asked folks what they thought about the President Barack Obama. It was an eye-opening fun project, and it’s definitely going to be interesting to hear what people think these days of the President. Perhaps I can look back at this project a few years from now, and I hope to retrace my steps and see what the consensus is in the communities I stopped in.

But for now, I want to direct your attention to the Vimeo Channel that features all the episodes of the series.

Check them out, and see how people’s hopes turned out in the first year of the Obama administration.

So, I’ve been thinking about one thing I never ever do, I never make resolutions. So I decided, maybe putting them out on a public forum such as my personal website, it might make me adhere to them.

In no particular order:

Create minimum 1-2 pieces of original content a month (Video)

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done Hello Simon/Hello the Podcast, and almost a year since the Lonely Reviewer Show & Road Trip for Obama. It’s about time for me to produce one of these many ideas that I’ve been bouncing around in my head. I’ve been posting more frequently to my Youtube page already, so we’re off to a good start, but MORE is coming.

Write

The source of this original content? Of course, my writing. I’ve been lackadaisical as of late, so I want to write for 30-60 minutes at least 5 times a week. If 90% of it never sees fruition, that is fine, at least I’ll have a nice back catalog to turn to in the future.

Produce a New Web Show

I’ve posted in the past about a new show I’m developing and I finally think I’ve got the technical kinks worked out of it. I won’t divulge any details other then I’m currently working on a final visual effects test that will be the final step in pursuing this new show. I’m excited about it, and you should be too.

Some of my other non-project related resolutions include, the obligatory exercise more, and continue to read minimum one book a month.

So there we have it, these are my resolutions for 2010, if you notice me slacking, feel free to call me out on it on here, or on Twitter!

Southwest Airlines recently had a contest to make a video showing what you would do for $100 dollars. Since competing airlines are charging up to $100 to check bags for a round trip. The approach I took was a video showing what I would rather do instead of paying to check my bags.

This short clip took me a few hours on a rainy Saturday to do. I shot it in 1080 with an HVX200, made the lightning effects from scratch in After Effects, as well as the particle explosion. I added the smoke and the fire part of the explosion from a clip library. It was a fun little video, kind of inspired me to think about doing more spec commercials. Really, I just wanted a reason to do something crazy in After Effects.

A 60 Second Short for One Short Minute.com. I thought it’d be funny if a 60 second short was mostly opening credits, with the “film” part being an after thought. This is what I came up with.

I’ve experimented a lot with various online projects, ‘Hello Simon,’ the IPTV Network ‘It’s My Remote,’ my latest project is called ‘One Short Minute.com’

Launching November 1st, One Short Minute is an online community built around 60-second short films. All are invited to participate by submitting short films no longer then 60 seconds, and rating the each others videos.

One Short Minute offers filmmakers, experts, and hobbyists, the opportunity to have their work discussed, and perhaps even find future collaborators, and above all, have fun.

My goal is to set up various contests and festivals based around the community and rating system. More details on that to come in November. Meanwhile, get cracking on some short films!

For fun, here’s a random one minute and fifty second camera test I did earlier today!

My last narrative short, ‘the Omelette’ was a fun little project I did with a few very close friends. I was trying to tell a lot in the shortest amount of time possible. Basically, we have two characters, clearly have been together for a long time, that are stuck in the same cycle. My intention was that what you see played out in the two minutes, is something that is played out for all eternity.

It was a fun little project, and I had a lot of fun making it.

It’s hard to believe it is actually June up here in the Boston-area despite the Fall-like weather, but it is! So I thought’d I’d drop by with a little update. I’ve been focusing alot on some freelance projects outside my own for the past few months. While I enjoy doing some of these projects, it leaves me little time for my own!

It has been a few months since the ‘Road Trip for Obama’ project, and something I thought of back during that time is coming to fruition. Though, I cannot talk about it yet, expect a launch of this new project towards the end of the Summer.

I am still planning something with Hello Simon/Hello the Podcast, that could be much further down the road however. Back a few months ago, I’d written a few episodes for a new series similar to ‘Hello,’ but I’m not sure that is quite the direction I want to go in. There is always something in the works!