No Progress is Good Progress

Over the past eight months, I've learned what it's like to be an independant designer in a tough economy. I absolutely love the challenges, the work and my clients have been incredible.

So, a few seasons have passed, and I'm finally carving-out time to turn focus back to this project.

Probably the biggest spark was playing with "toy" photography again. Sadly, I haven't touched film in a few years. My Lomo, SLR and medium format film cameras are now dusty. However, owning an iPhone4 has changed the game. It's a high-quality camera that's always in my pocket, and paired with several quality apps, I've been shooting some really great shots and some happy accidents. 

alone in a quiet morning

After a few months of really playing with the format, I began "processing" rural images into epic scifi stills, and through this process of experimentation, I found my voice again. (special props to the instagram app)

I've posted some of my favorite images in what I'm calling the "Inspiration Gallery".

I hope you'll like what you see...

Art for Art's Sake.

"Anton Project" / Copyright 2010 Anton Peck

Today I was contacted by a designer friend, Anton Peck from antonpeck.com, who saw that I had posted some Socketcreep site designs on dribbble.com. The good news— Anton offered to provide me with some design work for the project!

I am thrilled, because the dude is talented.

What this means is, you can expect a few t-shirt designs, poster(s) and some killer DVD artwork! How awesome is that? (so-very)

Camera Shopping.

I've been looking at cameras for years, going back to the early 90's. I've always rented, as purchasing the latest thing took a serious investment, and the realization that whatever I get will be out of date within six months.

Jeff (Crone) and I were passing emails back & forth about camera models, and Jeff suggested I look at the Canon EOS 7D DSLR. I've heard of others who were thrilled by the quality, but never considered shooting a film with a DSLR.

Last night I spent a little time searching for "7D" tags on Vimeo, and after what I saw (see below), I was totally sold.

I just spent an hour talking to my good friend Randy Thomson of Cameras & Crew in Fishers, IN. Randy has been doing live production work for over 20 years now. He is one of those guys who has every last piece of video, projection, editing and audio gear that you see at the big corporate events. In-short, he knows cameras VERY well.

After talking to him about our production needs, he confirmed that the 7D would be perfect. Even more-so than a pro-sumer Sony model. The main reason is that the Canon has gorgeous glass lenses that are inter-changeable. He also confirmed that the depth-of-field that an SLR can provide is what filmmakers are after.

Here's only a few examples of the 7D footage out there... enjoy!

Location Scouting: the cart is well-before the horse.

Being a very visual person, I tend to have to sink my teeth into more-tangible things to make sure I'm heading in the right direction. I really think this process of pre-planning and even location-scouting, helped me come-up with the general concepts of the film.

The script hasn't been finished, but tonight I drove-out to map-out potential locations to shoot. It wasn't a difficult trip; it's my home-town.

Sheridan, IN is your typical small Indiana town. We have a few restaurants and several "mom and pop" businesses. Most everything has been untouched for decades. The businesses that sprout-up quickly usually will move-into pole-barn construction, which just has a very temporary feeling. The only "strip mall" in town is this type of construction.

I love our little town, and I can't wait to help put it on the map.

In this video, you'll see Sheridan's Main street, a few parks, the American Legion (bingo hall) and a few other small businesses. As you'll see, it's a very amateur video. I drove around with my iPhone and really didn't pay-attention to what I was saying. :-) Enjoy!

Oh, and that ending? I snuck my iPhone into Dollar General Store and shot totally incognito, only to learn later I was holding it upside down. Instant. Art. Film.

The plot thickens.

Today, I am thrilled that I finally came-up the the missing part of the plot.

I have goosebumps just thinking how perfect this little story is. Once I filled-in the blanks, I immediately called Terry to get his opinion.

As per usual when I'm on the phone, I paced-around the house telling the story, dusting and re-arranging Missi's various home accessories. When I'm really excited about an idea, I tend to walk and jump-around so much, that I lose my breath.

Terry really liked the direction, and immediately added a few things that rounded-off the sharp bits.

Our next step is to write the script so that all people involved with the project will get an idea of what we expect.

I really want to spill the details, but I think at this time I'm going to wait until we're a little bit deeper.

And so it begins.

How does a film project really start? This one starts right here.

I thought it would be fitting to fully-document this project, both because I'm glued to the interwebs and also because I love reading all of the gory details in other people's projects.

A real inspiration for this site is Mike Davidson, who's blogging about building his modern home. It's a unique project, and why not document each and every step?

For the entire decade of the 90's, I produced corporate/industrial videos for an audio-visual company and in-house at a local pharmaceutical company. For the past decade, I've been designing websites. Aside from occasionally painting and podcasting, it's occurred to me that I really miss creating art. And no, I really don't feel that designing websites is art. It's a problem-solving business.

So here I am. I've started co-writing this film called Socketcreep. Terry Coffey is the co-writer, and when we get to production, I'll be Producing/Directing.

I'm excited beyond what you can even imagine. Let's do this...