Roma Settlement Film

This is one of the last two of a series of short films I shot in Transcarpathia, Ukraine in June and July of 2008 for S.A.R.A. This Roma, or Gypsy settlement is on the outskirts of the city of Bergaszas. The music was recorded in a Roma church and the voice over is by S.A.R.A.'s Rev. Stephen Szylagi.

Book

http://www.blurb.com/books/919865

Monkeys of the Day from my Samsung Alias Camera Phone

New Hardcover Photo Book

WOOSTER--I recently finished editing the following book. You can preview it and order it at the following link!

http://www.blurb.com/books/919865

The Oak Barrel Company

WOOSTER--Among other new and on-going projects I recently edited this short film/commercial for my friend Chris Deffenbaugh. Chris is the owner, founder and artist behind the Oak Barrel Company (www.oakbarrelcompany.com), a business that he began some years ago. Chris began taking reclaimed whiskey and wine barrels and turning them into various pieces of furniture. Some are fairly straightforward--a barrel with a door and shelves or a wine-rack inside. Other pieces include benches made of the staves which have a lovely Asian feeling. Chris also takes various pieces of industrial salvage--huge saw blades and drive chains and gears and modifies them into one-of-a-kind pieces. Another piece, the subject of this video, is the piano table. A beautiful coffee table with the harp from an upright piano as its base.

Chris shot the footage himself on a PS digicam and I edited it into this film. The music was graciously provided by Josh Krajcik. I have been doing photo and media work for Chirs and the Oak Barrel Company for years now but this is the first video. More are planned so stay tuned!

Monkey of the Day

Shot by Blair at my request on her tricorder on planet Phoenix

Wine Country Correspondent Video

WOOSTER--My friend Jake told me about this job as Wine Country Correspondent right when I got back to the US. The major part of the application was to shoot and submit a one-minute video explaining why you should have the job. Here is mine. Please give it a view and send a vote for me and then come visit me in California! Click on this text to see it...

Memory

LUND--It just occurred to me that a camera like the D3 ought to, in addition to the excellent feature of having slots for two CF cards, have a gigabyte or so of internal memory. This would serve several functions. It would allow one a significant amount of extra shooting when the regular cards were shot up in the heat of the moment. It would, in the same manner, give one that little extra bit if, in the field, you shot every bit of card space. And it would give the photographer a "secret" bit of storage if one were ever forced to give up one's memory cards or if one thought one was one could switch over to shooting on the internal memory. The feature, like almost everything else on the D3 could be customized and, given the amount of storage that can be fit on an SD card now, shouldn't have to take up much room.

Mental Hospital

LUND--I am trying to find the structure of the fourth short film in the series on SARA's Transcarpathian projects. This is on the State Mental Hospital in the Carpathian mountains. I have a lot of good footage and even a lot of music as one of the activities at the institution is a music club. But almost all the narration and interviews are in Russian. I am hoping to complete this film before returning to the US in a little over a week, thus basically finishing the project before what promises to be a hectic and uncertain time!

Storm at Sunset Over Transcarpathia

LUND--It is difficult to explain how small one feels in Ukraine. On a sunny day one can see huge storms as they move towards you, huge banks of clouds and lightening flashes darkening a section of the horizon.

We were out, visiting different sites to film and had to drive into this one. I took several shots out the window before the rain hit. The light and feeling in the air was very similar to tornado weather in the American Midwest but the Ukrainians said they didn't have twisters. It seemed to me the perfect place for them. I wonder why.

FILM: Carpathian Home For Disabled Children

LUND--Click on this text to see the third short film in the series from SARA's relief programs in Ukraine shot at a home for mentally and physically handicapped kids. The institution, located in the rugged Carpathian mountains of western Ukraine, houses approximately 200 children. SARA and other organizations have been working there for many years to improve conditions.

S.A.R.A. 's Ukrainian Dental Program

Once Upon A Time in El Salvador

EL ESPINO--(L-R) Betty Ann Larson, Joyce Gilberg, Dr. Ephrain Alvarenga, John Gilberg, Sharon Fiely, Kim Hemelgarn

S.A.R.A. 's Ukrainian Orthopedic Surgery Program

LUND--This is the first of a series of short films documenting SARA's (Sharing America's Resources Abroad) projects and programs in Transcarpathia, a region of western Ukraine.

SARA Film on YouTube

You can watch the SARA short here at YouTube

Article

LUND--A few weeks ago I wrote an article on this blog about Sharon Fiely, one of the SARA team members I met in 2007 while filming "The Children of the Mangroves". It has been recently published again on the "Your Cause" website. Check it out there.

Currilero on El Espino Beach

S.A.R.A. (Sharing America's Resources Abroad)

This is a short film, a visual introduction or advertisement for S.A.R.A., the organization that commissioned my last two films, "News from El Salvador: The Children of the Mangroves", and "Faces of Transcarpathia" which is currently being edited.

Two Faces of Transcarpathia

Leica Photo Contest

LUND--The Leica photo contest rules are deceptively simple. Eight to 12 photos in a photo essay, on the rather up-to-interpretation theme of "Man in relation to his environment" at least one of which needs to have been taken in the last year. Well, for me, that left out all my Central America stuff so entered 12 shots I had taken at the Transcarpathian Regional Mental Hospital. It was that or the ones from the Roma camp and for better or worse decided on the mental hospital. This was the first year for digital submissions. I see a lot up that are very good and also a lot that are pretty heavily manipulated. All I will say for mine is that they were shot with a Leica M6 ttl on Kodak 400CN and scanned with a Nikon Coolscan V with some help from my friend here in Sweden the photographer Justin Brown. As for PhotoShopping nothing was done other than what can do in a darkroom--contrast adjustment mainly and a modicum of dodging and burning. Regardless, please go look at Leica Photo Contest

In the Carpathian Home for Disabled Children

LUND--Jennifer Lawrence, a nurse from Ohio whom I met on the SARA trip to Ukraine last summer, just sent me several CDs of her photos from the trip. This is one she took of me at work while visiting a home for mentally disabled children in the Carpathian mountains. The other is, more or less (there are three similar frames) the photo I was taking when she took this.

The Children Of The Mangroves Short Film

Current Projects

LUND--Last year I was hired by Film i Skåne/Cine Skåne a Swedish organization whose mission it is to promote independent cinema. The group organizes film festivals and contests, provides some funding for projects and works with area cinemas to show films that might otherwise have trouble getting shown. They hired me to make a series of short films for their website on seven area independent theatres. The films can be seen at Film i Skåne. It was a fascinating and fun project. Over the space of a few months I went to each theatre with Film i Skåne's Carolina Falk and we interviewed the owners and directors of each cinema, which varied from a small space in a museum of Swedish cinema in Kristianstad, located in what was Sweden's first film studio, to a large theatre in a modern museum, to theatres run by private individuals who simply love movies. During the project I met students, film directors, filmmakers who had just begun and ones who had been working for years and many, many interesting folks who simply love the magic of the silver screen.

I also recently re-edited a short version of The Children of the Mangroves with a lot of help from my American friend Matt Kuchta whose ideas made it, in my opinion anyway, a much better film (you can watch it in the above post). I re-edited it for the Pixel film contest but, unfortunately, they were unable to use it as it was shot on the American NTSC standard and I was unable to convert it to the European PAL in time since I got the submission in right on deadline. Still, I am quite happy with the re-edit and hope in the near future to return to El Salvador to take more footage of the currileros.

I am now deep in the editing process of the SARA Ukraine footage. I am anticipating a series of linked short films documenting the different medical and social programs SARA is involved with in Transcarpathia--from the orthopedic surgery and dentistry work to the mental hospital and home for disabled children up in the mountains to the Roma camp where that population is isolated from the general life of the city.

From Editing El Salvador

New Monkeys of the Day by Blair