January 2011
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Looseness
I’ve been working on a new script recently, with an eye to shoot something quickly and cheaply, and have been thinking a lot about looseness. Looseness not only in how I write, but in how I conceive the entire process: casting, running the set, and especially the performances. It’s really about shifting where a film is coming from in me, from my interest in the craft, aesthetics and...
November 2010
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RAWI 2010
(I originally wrote this blog post for the Sundance Institute website)
In the dead of night, the in-flight Mecca compass rotated left as the plane banked south somewhere over the Netherlands. Surrounding me, silhouetted by reading lights, a handful of Middle Eastern passengers quietly prayed as a movie flickered on screens above us: An Arab action-comedy satirizing James Bond in the style of...
September 2010
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A fan of NASA, fed up with their crappy PR, decided to make this inspiring piece of social media to help them out. With Carl Sagan reading his famous Pale Blue Dot speech.
August 2010
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1981. Wow.
June 2010
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Making It Real
I recently directed a series of trailers for the LA Film Festival in which I interviewed people about their love of film. First and foremost, the trailers had to capture the infectious passion people express when they talk about something they love. It was a unique challenge, since I had only 10 hours to interview 28 people, which averaged to about 10-15 minutes per person. Here are a few...
May 2010
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Working With Garry Trudeau
One of the projects I got involved with after Groove was a script written by Garry Trudeau called The E.T.C. It had been around since the mid-90’s at Fox 2000 with director Alan Pakula attached (until his tragic death in 1998). The script eventually found its way to Fox Searchlight, which is when I first read it.
I loved that it had all the satire and humor and rich characters of...
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Happy Friday
Here’s a standing cat.
April 2010
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Pixels
I think 8-bit nostalgia can now be considered an official emotion for anyone born in the early 1970’s.
March 2010
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28 Weeks Later Animatic
After November came out, I pitched on a bunch of horror and thriller scripts. Not that that was my interest exactly, but that’s was my agents’ best guess for selling me to studios. Most of the scripts I can’t say I was excited to pitch on, but there was one I was in love with: the sequel to 28 Days Later.
As part of my pitch to the producers, I created this seven-minute...
February 2010
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Goodbye, Jerry
Here’s another clip I found on an old VHS after cleaning out the garage: A music video tribute to the late Jerry Garcia I edited for director Wayne Wang.
I had just moved to San Francisco when Jerry Garcia died in the summer of 1995. Wang had recently directed Smoke and his improv follow-up Blue In The Face, and Garcia had done music for the films. When Garcia passed away, Wang...
January 2010
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The Making Of Groove
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Groove premiering at Sundance (has it really been 10 years?!) here’s the behind-the-scenes clip from the DVD. Enjoy!
December 2009
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Happy Birthday, Michael Barker!
Going through an old hard drive, I found this gem from 2003. It’s a 50th birthday video my producing partner Danielle Renfrew and I did for Michael Barker, the co-president of Sony Pictures Classics (the distribution company that bought Groove). It was included with dozens of other videotaped messages from filmmakers and producers that have worked with him over the years.
November 2009
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Scenes From A Mall
Back in 1990, I spent three months on a college internship in Los Angeles with Craig Murray Productions, a marketing company that created trailers and TV spots for films. By day, I’d log tapes and get coffee, but at night I would attempt to write and edit my own trailers, in the hopes of learning the craft.
Craig Murray, the owner of the company, was incredibly supportive and generous...
October 2009
2 posts
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Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No
Great story, fantastic lo-fi animation, uncensored subject matter. The promise of the internet: Realized.
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Naked Songs
These two clips come from a VHS copy I found of Naked Songs, a performance film of singer/songwriter Ricky Lee Jones I edited back in 1996 while living in San Francisco. It features her playing stripped down live versions of songs from throughout her career, inter-cut with documentary clips of her life from childhood to present day.
It played a few film festivals and was supposed to be...
September 2009
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Building The House Of Love
The first feature-length film I ever edited, way back in 1994, was Building The House Of Love, a documentary on Christian pop singer Amy Grant as she recorded her album House Of Love. I was basically left alone to craft a story from 60+ hours of verité footage, which was a huge challenge, as I’d only cut a handful of trailers and TV spots at the time.
It was released in music stores...
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The Longest Way
An incredible video that tells the true story of one man’s adventure walking 4600 km across China via a series of self-portrait stills and the length of his ever-growing beard. Talk about narrative economy: This short tells more in 5 minutes than some feature films.
August 2009
2 posts
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Auden Grace Harrison: Now Playing!
Born: August 27, 2009 at 4:51 pm Weight: 7 lbs. 7 oz. Length: 20 inches Status: Awesome
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Lake Tahoe
My wife and I often head up to her family’s condo on the lake for vacation or, as we did this last winter, for writing retreats. There’s no internet and the phone never rings, so it’s an ideal escape from our wired lives in LA. Each morning I’d wake to this view out the main window. When I snapped this picture on my iPhone, the fog was lifting just as the sun was...
July 2009
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Cuervo Man
I’m a total This American Life junkie, the radio show hosted by Ira Glass on NPR. Recently, I was trolling through the archives and found one of my favorite stories: It’s Another Tequila Sunrise by John Hodgman, from a 2002 show titled Plan B.
Hodgman travels on a press junket to Cuervo Nation, a small island owned by Jose Cuervo Tequila. Cuervo Man is the brand’s mascot,...
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Land Of The Free
UK-based photographer Steve Schofield has a fantastic series called Land Of The Free, featuring gamers and fans dressed as their favorite characters in everyday locations. There’s something simultaneously hilarious, endearing and sad about the photos, which is a tone I find myself constantly drawn to.
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Happy Friday
Here’s an anteater.
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SOUR / 日々の音色 (Hibi no Neiro)
I love this music video. Not only for its infectously cheerful, lo-fi esthetic (the entire thing was shot with webcams by fans of the band), but for the sheer math it must have taken to storyboard what each person should do so it would work in the final edit. That’s a level of nerd I can appreciate.
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The Making Of November
One of the inspiring collaborations I’ve had over the years is with designer and director Lew Baldwin. We worked together designing the main titles for both my features and, on November, he was not only instrumental in developing the visual effects with me, but scored the film as well.
This clip gives a sense of how we embraced the practical limitations of the film ($150,000...
June 2009
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Less Fart, More Midget
For anyone who’s tried to make a living in independent film, you quickly realize how important a money job can be. For me, that’s been editing commercials and trailers.
Even after selling my first film Groove at Sundance, it was clear I’d still have to dip into paid work to continue pursuing the films I loved. But I wondered: Will it be possible to deny the pull of the...
September 2007
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Tracy Street Cinema: Eat Our Shorts!
In lieu of screening a full feature film tonight, I’ve curated 75 minutes of the best short subjects, music videos, animations, strange clips and documentaries that the Information Superhighway has to offer. Think of it as the usual backyard movie night pre-game show, but on Angel Dust.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4: