I started listening to a bunch of my old music again (mostly because I had found them on my external hard drive recently) and, what would you know, “This Is Not An Exit” made it into my regular rotation. But I took a closer look at the lyrics and felt incredibly inspired by them: the lyrics compare life to floating down a stream. It’s a stream you can’t control and it’s full of perils and crap, but even though it might hurt, it’s worth it in the end. At the end, there’s celebration.

I was heading down to SLO and wanted to take advantage of the setting and the people I would be hanging around with. Piecing together this idea actually came during the late afternoon at work for me. See, when ideas comes… they come. And they seem to come so naturally. I planned most of it on Friday, and on Saturday in SLO, we filmed and edited all of it.

Win.

Production:
I told Christian about this idea for the video, and he immediately hopped on the wires to find help. I said we needed around 10-15 extras, so he flexed some social media muscle and made an open request on Facebook and Twitter. We had an overwhelming response from our friends who were willing to help act and lend a hand.

Eto Circle in SLO seems to be a favorite spot to film. We gathered there in the mid-afternoon with so many excited faces. I quickly assigned roles based on a loose script I had written previously.

I was incredibly excited when, out of nowhere, Emily brought up the idea of throwing together her theater makeup skills to add on to our principal character’s look. The result is amazing.

The whole film took about 2 hours to shoot that afternoon. We were pressured to take full advantage of the brilliant sunlight, which, fortunately, we were able to do.

Production Photos:
(credit goes to Kevin Gee and Emily Chau for several of these)

Final Product:

I collaborated with my buddies Christian and Eric (who, at the time, was studying abroad in Shanghai; thank goodness for Google Docs!) for fine-tuning the script. While we were finishing up, we threw around ideas for who we’d like to see play these roles (considering the script was dialogue-heavy and would require some pretty convincing acting skills). We chose Joel (from Pretentious) and a freshman at Poly, Chris (check out Chris on YouTube here).

Production:
Joel had just started living off-campus this year in SLO and he and a bunch of the other guys were ready and willing to open up their new home to us for the better part of a Saturday morning to film. We had a great crew who managed camera operation, boom operation, and lighting, and it really helped to exemplify the collaborative effort I was hoping to build through Vocal Eyes Media. It only took us about four hours to complete filming, especially since Joel and Chris were very adamant about delivering their lines well (and thanks to Emily for doing some great on-the-spot acting coaching).

Production Photos:

Final Product:

But the highlight of the afternoon event was hearing from Reed Morse and Xander Pollock, founders and developers of Punch’d, a mobile application that puts customer loyalty cards on your phone. These two are Cal Poly grads that were selected to speak at the event as Cal Poly success stories (Punch’d started off as Morse’s senior project). Recently, the Punch’d product was acquired by Google, and the original team has been hired on to work on developing the product under the Google brand.

I was able to steal a few minutes of Morse and Pollock’s time and got a few words from them about Punch’d and entrepreneurship. Check it out:

They asked that the location be filmed specifically in SLO since their relationship had developed in that town. All of the specific locations in SLO that they chose represented something special about their relationship. So the question was how we could utilize all of these different locations but still create a coherent “story” with them. I spent those summer days jotting down ideas and sketching out potential shots.. and at some point, the idea of using a Viewmaster toy popped in my head as a great prop to use for transitions.

Production:
I asked a few friends in SLO to assist me with this shoot. I also had my Flycam Nano out for the first time, so while I had some crude tracking shots to work with, I also needed a stationary cameraman at the same time set up on the tripod. The other assistants helped capturing photos (see below) and helped with composition.

We drove all around SLO (and Shell Beach) to get the necessary shots, but I think what we ended up not only showcases some great places in SLO, but also brings together the natural charisma that Ronald and Amanda share.

Production Photos (by Ryan Quon):

Final Product:

I started to play with that idea and developed Pretentious. As a confession, I had only written the first scene by the time it was time to film (note to self: don’t do this… often).

Production:
I was actually in San Luis Obispo to film another video (“Rhythm of Love,” to be released soon) and since I had the luxury of having many actors at my disposal (friends from Cal Poly), it would be good to try and tackle filming Pretentious. So on the afternoon that I was supposed to leave back for SF, I gathered a few willing souls to take on the parts that the script called for.

After filming the first scene, we pretty much improvised. I had a few loose ideas in my head of how I wanted things to progress and end, but I have to thank Joel, Bandy, and Ryan for helping me along in that process. Not surprisingly, however, was Joel’s uncanny way of taking on his part as Charles as his own… I guess he was naturally built for characters like that.

We shot the video in 3 hours in my old house’s living room.

Final Product:

Inspiration and Pre-Production:
My buddy David was on a missions trip to Honduras this past summer and came back to San Francisco with stories to tell. Over a tasty meal of wonton noodle soup, he told me about how his summer was spent ministering to locals through music. But there was also another aspect: a girl aspect. As he was telling me details of his story, I thought that it would be a great short film to create.

So we met up for coffee (Ma’velous SF ftw) for the next several weeks, collecting his thoughts and planning them on a timeline fitting for a short film. We had to convert a few aspects of his story to fit the setting and timeline we had to work with (e.g. instead of the girl leaving for a missions trip, she left for a conference).

Eventually we were presented with the issue of casting. Unexpectedly, our friend from LA, who had just come back from a mission trip of her own in Southeast Asia, came to visit San Francisco for a few days. So we asked her to play the part of the girl in the story.

And it all worked out great.

Production:
I chose Duboce Park in San Francisco as the setting for this story. I passed by this park all the time when I took the N Judah Muni line and it always stood out to me as a family/young couple-friendly environment, nestled in the midst of an urban setting. It was a great day to shoot: overcast in the morning leading to a sunny afternoon, so we were able to simulate several days of story. Not surprisingly, we had a lot of curious people passing by and stopping to watch. Every N Judah train that passed by, all eyes in the train were on us.

With the help of a few of our friends acting as extras and production crew, we shot everything we needed in just 5 hours.

And that was convenient since our female actor left for LA when she was done (wow, celebrity status, huh?).

Production Photos:

Final Product: