I recently told you about some of the commercials I’ve been making. Here’s the first one. It will only run for the next two or three days in the US starting tomorrow. If you have the TV on while you eat your turkey, you’ll be hard-pressed to miss.
It was shot by Jeff Preiss of Epoch films, edited by Charlie Johnston at Lost Planet, scored by Mark Isham and produced by Drew Lippman.
Last week, the lovely and inspiring Jane LaFazio sent me a bunch of questions for an interview and I decided to turn them into a little film, shot in my home and the places I frequent about town. It’s a little long, 20 minutes or so, but vaguely amusing:
You can see Jane’s comments about it here;
http://janeville.blogspot.com/2012/07/interviews-as-inspiration-danny-gregory.html
Last night I sat down with my camera to talk aloud about how I feel having the first copy of my new book, A Kiss Before You Go in my hands. Here’s what I said:
An utterly ridiculous experiment in film making. The latest from sketchbook labs. vimeo.com/43860865
I have become utterly bored by my breakfast (in dismay at my shortening belt, I’ve taken to eating celery and radishes and the like while staring out the kitchen window dreaming of waffles) so I have embarked on a new subject – my reflection. I don’t think it’s pure vanity but rather the easy availability of the subject and his increasing lumpy wrinkledness which makes for more interesting lines and shadows than the usual bagel.
I have also been considering the several international trips I have scheduled for the rest of the year and wondering if there’s an easy way to make Sketchbook Films on my own while I am abroad. I plan to draw, obviously, while I’m there and it would be interesting to share the process with you. Unfortunately I won’t be able to sneak my crew into my bag, so I may have to make do with ingenuity and a jury-rigged camera setup.
To that end, I knocked out a quick test at home which was fairly educational. I didn’t plan it properly so I ended up drawing myself with a couple of Sharpies on an old shopping list and the light was quickly fading. The old Flip camera I was testing likes a lot of sunlight so I’ll probably get better image quality in Shanghai, Rio, Capetown and Perth. The resulting film is a bit ugly and fairly interesting, like the drawing itself, and if you have any creative suggestions about how to improve future versions (that don’t require helicopters, Teamsters, or an army of makeup artists), please leave a comment. I have been collecting some small tripods and a wide-angle lens so testing will continue.
If you think the idea of me doing a drawing and stopping to readjust a barrage of cameras around me like some schizophrenic paparazzo, you are quite right. These are the sacrifices I willingly make for art.
