It took me a month to get this article up on the site because I had to have friends cut it out of the paper for me. But I have it here now and it’s surely just as relevant as it was when it was published in July. I’d like to thank Sarah McCoy for writing such a nice article about me!
(Click to Enlarge)
Thanks to the Marlborough Arts Center, donations to Hindsight can now be made online via PayPal. I always wanted to make the donation process easy, and now with a few clicks you can support the project! Please consider donating, any amount, no matter how small or large, will help me work towards of my goal of completing the project by May of 2010.
I am currently working towards reaching my goal for summer fundraising. I have lots and lots of film that I haven’t had the chance to see yet because of lack of funds. With your help, I can get the film I shot in Marlborough this summer processed and transferred. To reward your gratitude, I’ll release lots of trailers and clips from all the locations that I filmed. I can’t wait to see what I shot way back on Memorial Day weekend!
Please visit the support page of this website to learn more about how to donate via PayPal.
I just got back from my road trip out to Lake Superior to shoot a BFA film for a friend. I’m exhausted. But I have one last production still to share, and I think it’s pretty sweet. We put the 16mm Aaton camera on top of a ladder and got some slow motion shots of skater’s at the Hebron skate park. I still need to process the footage to see if these shots came out any good. I hope to get that done by the middle of August.
Fourth of July weekend was my last shoot of the summer. It was my last chance to get some remaining shots that I wanted to complete the summer sequence of the film. I think I was successful at that, but we’ll have to wait until we see the footage.
There is a lot of locations that you don’t see in this video because I kept forgetting to turn the webbie on. I again stayed with my teachers from high school, and I had a blast hanging out with their son (who you’ll see in the video).
This was the first time that I brought a video camera down to cover a HINDSIGHT shoot and the batteries made it the whole way through. Our plan was to get to Connecticut early, and shoot some nature scenes around town, then head to the high school to set up for graduation. My roommate Greg shot most of this footage and I edited it together to show a little bit of our day, plus the drive back to Boston. The music used is “City of Dog” by Console, sort of an ode to a video I made in high school, and I thought it was fitting since we were shooting graduation.
This was the last shot of my 4th of July weekend. These cliffs look out over Dickinson Creek and Roberts Road in Marlborough. I forget who first showed me these cliffs, but this isn’t the first time that I hiked out into the woods with a backpack full of gear to get some shots here. Back in high school, my friends and I shot a war movie in these woods. It was called The Greenhorn Hero. I don’t dare put it online at this point in my life.
But anyway, after a long and tiring weekend of filming, I packed my backpack with the Bolex, tripod head, hihat, a bottle of water and a bag of cherries, and cross the creek to the cliffs. The sky was summer blue and the clouds were nice and puffy. The shot ran for about an hour and a half.
Other than some timelapses around Marlborough, I filmed at the viaducts in Colchester, the skatepark in Hebron, and the boom box parade in Willimantic. This was the last shoot of the summer for Hindsight. I’m taking a break from shooting until September to 1) focus on other projects and 2) to raise funds for the next stretch of production. I have 4,000 feet of film from this summer that’s awaiting to be processed. Once I have the money together to process that footage, I’ll surely make a summer teaser to put on the website. Until then, keep up to date by following this blog, on Twitter, or the Facebook group.
On my last shoot, I planned on filming a lot at the Salmon River, but I missed a turn and ended up finding a pond that I’d never seen before. It ended up being the perfect place to film some nature scenes. There was a grove of pine trees that reminded me of the Where the Wild Things are trailer.
Photos by Greg Blake.
Along with an article in the Hartford Courant’s Sunday iTowns magazine, Hindsight got some local press in the Rivereast Newspaper. Here is the article that appeared in the June 12th issue. While filming graduation at RHAM High School, many people came up to me and said they had seen the article. It felt good to know that people were interested in the film.
(Click to Enlarge)
Friday’s trip down to Marlborough was the same as usual – driving in the pouring rain. But once we got into town, the gray skies parted a bit and we were offered some good filming conditions. Shooting the RHAM High School, Class of ’09 graduation was the main reason for being in Connecticut on Friday. There was a chance it was going to be rained out, but the weather held through until the evening.
Crew for the shoot: Jackson as Camera #2, Spencer as 1st AC, and Greg as Photographer. I was on the SR1 with a 240mm zoom lens while Jackson was using the Bolex to get some wide coverage. To cover the event, we drew out a little map and planned to keep shifting angles. My goal was to get the ending silly-string, air-horn celebration and I think we were successful.
The sunset over Hebron was really pretty, so we decided to head over to Buck Road to shoot a bit at a field that I used to visit a lot while I was in high school. The field looks west and sometimes you can see Hartford. I shot the sunset with the remaining film I had left, and then we all packed up the car and drove back to Boston.
I just got back from my 4 day shoot in Connecticut and I’m very tired. I don’t feel like cleaning up everything yet, so I thought I would make a quick post. I’ll do a recap of my whole Memorial Day shoot in another post sometime soon. For now, enjoy these pictures of Spencer and I shooting at my old high school. We were given a lot of access so I’d like to thank everyone who help out on that Friday.
