When my parents came to visit two weeks ago, I graciously asked for them to bring every tape I had ever shot between middle school and the end of high school. It turned out to be two full shoe boxes! I plan on going through the tapes, looking for moments here and there that might be useful as scenes in Hindsight. Many of them are from the first movies I ever made, while others are simply unlabled and I’m sure show my friends and I running around in the woods testing the night-vision function on the camera. However, I think I’ll find some good clips to manipulate digitally, and then edit into the final film. Now I just need to find the time to sit down and watch all them!
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!
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.
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.
As an independent student film, HINDSIGHT is up against an ambitious fund raising goal. The project will be shot on 16mm with plans to finish on film. Compared to other films with limited shooting dates, Hindsight will be shot continuously over the course of an entire year, meaning the costs will be stretched out over the entire length of the production. In order to raise funds for the project, I have begun a campaign to build local support.
I recently received press attention in both the local Rivereast paper, and in the Hartford Courant’s Sunday iTowns magazine. The biggest news so far is that the Marlborough Arts Center, a regional non-profit devoted to community arts has agreed to be the fiscal sponsor for my film. As a 501(c)3 organization, they will manage all solicited donations coming in for Hindsight. Any donation that goes through the Arts Center will therefore be tax deductible! For their help in setting up the fiscal sponsorship, I’d like to thank Betty O’Brien, President of the Arts Center, and also Doug Yeager, Vice President. More information on their organization, plus classes and upcoming shows can be found on their website.
I urge you to look around the site and see the stages of production. If you feel compelled to support my film, please donate through the Arts Center. Instructions on how to donate can be found on the Support page.
