Happy New Year all! I apologize to any of you who landed on my page recently only to find an outdated SXSW post from March as my most recent update. The dates seemed to have gone haywire on my posts and I’ve just fixed the issue. Dates & posts should be in order now.

Two days ago I just returned from an adventure I will never forget. My brother, his girlfriend and my boyfriend trekked out to Ecuador for the turning of 2011 into 2012. It was an adventure of a lifetime.

I’ve barely been home long enough to unpack my suitcase let alone absorb what I have experienced in an articulate story to share, but as I sort through the 3000 photos that we captured and 70 video clips we took, I’ll be stiching together and mapping out our adventures and post them here for you.

I just wanted to say a very quick happy new year to those of you who swing by regularly. I’m very excited to start this year with fresh eyes and optimistic outlook. Feeling full of creativity & love and excited to start 2012 off with some sparks….

In two weeks I am heading off to do something I have never done before – I’m hopping a plane to San Francisco to participate in the city’s annual foot race, Bay to Breakers for their 100th year!

The race starts at the north east end of the downtown area adjacent to San Francisco Bay, and runs west through the city to finish at the breakers of the Pacific coast on Ocean Beach. The complete course is 7.46 miles (12 kilometers long) and is not a traditional race by any means.

Participants are known to dress up in all sorts of crazy costumes and some have even run it naked! This year for their hundredth they are enforcing some rules that they haven’t in the past. No alcohol, no floats and no nudity. We’ll see just how much the public abides. There will be 50,000 runners this year!

Since I’ve never done anything like this, I’ll be thrilled just to complete the course. I made it my personal goal to focus on various upgrades in all different aspects of my life to start 2011. There have been many times in my past that I’ve sat at my computer editing 60 hours a week and ditching the fitness in favor of deadlines. As a result of changing that dynamic this year I’ve felt so much happier and more productive on a daily basis.

My training started in January when I began the 4 Hour Body diet, started taking latin based dance classes, and mixed it with training runs. While I haven’t been 100% consistent with my training, I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. I’m lucky enough to have a great partner to run with and support me along the way, and I’m super excited to meet this epic achievement in my life. 8 miles may not seem like a lot to most people, but I have hated running all my life and I’m not a runner by any means. The closest I have come to this has been inline skating 10K races in the past. It’s very different when you have wheels on your feet!

This makes me all the more energized to meet this challenge that I set out to accomplish at the beginning of this year.

If anyone wants to meet up, say hi, or cheer us on while we’re out there, drop a line here or keep a look out for my Danger shirt among the sea of runners. I’ll be deconstructing one of my shirts and representing Danger all the way!!

Here is what the course looks like!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Regardless, Day 5 was epic!! I woke up bright, early and stoked to finally see my first round of films! Spent so much time in the interactive sessions that I hadn’t seen any despite having a 5 day film badge! Plus it’s hard for me to sit in a dark theater when it’s 75 and sunny outside. Today I made the effort. I drove over to the Alamo Drafthouse theater and took my seat at the narrative shorts showing. I forgot how much I love that theater!  The seats are cushy, and they will deliver beer & food to you while you sit back and watch. The narrative shorts ended up being hit & miss. I liked 3 out of 8 films.

OK, so the one’s I enjoyed were:

Equestrian Sexual Response (TERRIBLE NAME!! – but well made film)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pancake Breakfast (ANOTHER BAD NAME and I’ll tell you why – Due to misreading the guidebook, I thought this was announcing that there WAS a pancake breakfast at the theater!! Ha! I was actually disappointed to learn that it was the name of the film! Regardless, this one was funny, I wish there was more to the story.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lastly, Girls Named Pinky (Good simple story, shot & acted well, with a twist!)

Click here to view the embedded video.

The last film dragged on for so long. The audio wasn’t mixed and my ears were bleeding, I nearly left.

I was also late to approach my next item for the day – seeing Broken Bells downtown! Former frontman for the Shins in collaboration with Danger Mouse! However… due to Austin SXSW traffic mania, I got to 6th Street pretty late and had to make a choice. It was 12:40PM – Do I race to find a spot, find the venue and wait in line to see Broken Bells who were going on in 20 minutes, or do I take my time and head over to see Tobacco play at Emo’s at 1:30? After seeing all of crazy long lines at each of these venues, I nixed my plan of racing to catch Broken Bells. Oh well. Next time! Tobacco gave me all the excitement that I needed. There were THREE Emo’s venues to scavenger through to find the right one, but I made it just in time. He played a pretty cool set, although he had no stage presence whatsoever. I snagged some video & some photos and happily strolled up the sunny street in search of lunch.

Tough day!

This year in Black Rock City, my partner in crime, Jeff Schram, decided to document our adventure with his flipcam. The resulting video is very low-fi, spontaneous and fun, just as you’d expect from a drive to Burning Man. I started working on editing part two but it hasn’t made it out of my studio yet. It seems that we spent more time filming the trip on the way in than getting footage while we were out there enjoying it all. Nevertheless I still plan on exporting Part two sometime in the coming months. I swear!

Hi guys!

I am gearing up for my annual romp in the dust. That’s right, it’s my yearly visit to the Black Rock desert.  By all means if you are attending, please let me know so there is a chance of meeting up outside of the digital realms. I’ll be staying with my friends, Camp Monkey Business at 4:30 & G this year – and once again I’m bringing my VJ gear and would love to meet up with other VJs out there. Right now I’m deciding which equipment can stand to be in those desert conditions.  I’m also lining up my VJ performance schedule right now and hope to nail it all down before arriving. Once I arrive, anything goes!

So here is my current schedule & VJ lineup for the upcoming week:

Saturday – (Aug 28) I arrive in Reno to collect my supplies/bike/tent etc. out of storage & take care of biz..
Sunday – Buy whatever supplies I need, food, water, etc.
Monday – I arrive on the playa – early morning!  Set up - Possibly VJing at Nexus in the evening hours.
Tuesday –  VJing the False Profit party (4:30 & Esplanade) – Timing TBD
Wednesday – VJing the Apres Ski Party – (3:30 & B) – Sundown til late night.
Thursday –  VJing at Nexus (10 & Esplanade) – Sundown til 11pm
Thursday Late - Possibly VJing at the Phage party after Nexus party (4:30 & Esplanade)
Friday/Sat/Sun/Mon –  Anything goes ~ Possibly VJing on the Robot Heart Bus on those nights.
Tues/Wed – (Sept 7/8) Wash off the dust & travel home

That is the good word on all my latest news. This week is for collecting gear & packing..

See you the other side my friends!…..

Pix & Reviews to come!

After every trip, I am immediately fueled into an active wanderlust, longing to go somewhere else…

I always come up with the most visual ideas when I’m outside my routines and experiencing different cultures, conversations and vibrations of people in other places. Traveling is something I became obsessed with years ago when I first started designing. Having only been back in town for a week, I can happily say that Austin sparked a new light for me. It’s the beginning of spring and the beginning months of my studio. There are good energies all around, exciting shows on the way and hopefully more travel in the near future. New visuals on the way!

By Day 3 I was hitting my stride and in full information-absorption-networking-documenting mode! I trekked to the convention center with my laptop & I began my day with a panel called Real Time Video Blogging led by the makers of Rocketboom, a witty, successful NYC-based daily video news blog, and Amanda Congdon of Sometimesdaily.

A lot of the session seemed pretty common sense to me, but there were good tips to remember. They suggested that if you are interested in starting your own documentary style blog series, to first and foremost, always get a lawyer involved and make sure you are legally contracted, no matter what the project big or small. Find your personal niche to write about, create a mission statement and figure out who your audience is. Then get involved with larger projects that attract a similar audience so that you can attach your name to them and generate threads of new contacts back to your site.

A great site for copyright free stock video material to use in your blog if needed: archive.org. I’ve known about them for years, but haven’t yet put any of it to use in my own work. Personally I think they need a more organized website to be useful for my needs, but there is a tremendous amount of free material on there.

Video blogging in itself is something I’d like to try my hand at, but have never been good at turning the camera on myself or interviewing people at random. Those are two things I’d like to work on for future documenting practice. After this experience at Burning Man, I promised myself I would learn how to speak in front of the camera properly!

Next up I went to Visual FX for Indies: Big Impact Small Budget by Zane Rutledge of Zane TV. This was probably my favorite panel so far (next to seeing Gondry!). Zane is a writer, filmaker, editor, director, and FX junky who’s main love is post production. He provided a number of awesome slides that I photographed and uploaded here, in order to remember all of his great lists of tips & links.

This is pretty obvious, but the number one thing he stressed as being the key to great fx, is great audio. Never underestimate the power of sound effects and music added to visual effects to give the animations life.

He also went over something he calls “invisible fx”. Touchups and additions to film work that you don’t necessarily notice in the final piece. For example he showed us a clip where he actually tracked cold breath to character’s faces into a scene where you had to understand how frigid the temperatures were! That’s a lot of rotoscoping! I don’t have the type of patience.

He also spoke about “camera projection” which involves mapping still photography over a 3D landscape and matte painting to fake depth. This was really cool and possibly something to experiment with. A good example of this, is the first scene in one of his films called “Wake Up” which I’ve posted below. The entire city-fly-through is done with one still photograph! If you watch the whole thing you’ll see other scenes which use this effect as well, including the man jumping off the building at the end and the cityscape below as you see little cutout cars animating around the photograph. Very cool! Sometimes I forget that simplicity is the answer to achieve a certain effect, especially on a low budget production.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pretty soon it was time for me to catch the keynote for the day, featuring Evan Williams who created Twitter. I barely got a seat there were so many people who crammed themselves into this lecture. I’m not a Twitter fan, so I was reluctant to go, but I decided it was important to see what all the buzz was about.

Evan described Twitter as a constantly evolving information network to share and learn what you care about at the exact time that it happens. While I personally haven’t quite adapted that into my own life, I see how this form of communication could be necessary progression in our tech-obsessive, ADD culture. It is the quickest and easiest way to connect with the most people at any given time, at anywhere in the world. It was actually hugely useful at the SXSW event itself, because it led me to know exactly what panels, films & shows were going on at the minute that I checked my phone. Perhaps I’ll try and adapt to it a bit more since so many people these days are using it as a major form of communication.

Here is a clip from the keynote where Evan describes the future and evolving features of Twitter. I got bored and left, sorry Evan!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Later in the evening I trekked over to the Texas State Capital building to join the VFX Master Series presented by SIGGRAPH. I specifically enjoyed listening to the visual effects directors for the film, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” They said that the character design was adapted from 60′s children’s travel book designer M. Sasek & UPA Animation Studio films of the 30s & 40s. After many iterations of design for each character, they storyboard out the entire film and begin 3D tests for each character’s gesture, color palette, voice and body language.

After dinner, my last stop that evening was to check out the interactive after-party event called Plutopia. I only caught the end of the performances, missed DJ Spooky, but loved the 3 projection screen set up, visuals by Dr. Strangevibe, and live music mixed with electronica in the auditorium of the Mexican American Cultural Center. I was in time to catch the last band called White from Bejing. The energy of the crowd and the visuals got me excited for my own gig that I was preparing for on St Patrick’s Day as part of House by Southwest. I spent the rest of the night documenting with some video, and drawing to the music until the lights went on.

On Day 2 my number 1 priority was seeing Michel Gondry in person. He is one of my all time favorite visionary heros, who has inspired me endlessly in creative projects. I waited an hour to see the man and get 4th row at his seminar. Gondry echoed a similar practice to something Ze Frank had mentioned in Day 1′s panel. The emphasis to pay attention to every single off-the-wall idea that you have. Don’t dismiss it out of fear or logic. Pay attention and put energy into them. Give them breath before you kill the idea. Test it out and reinvent each step of the way to be as open as possible to all concepts.

It was pretty thrilling to hear and see him in person. I missed the premier of his new film “The Thorn in the Heart“, but I was just as excited to see him a few feet away from me. He’s quite timid, thoughtful and charming in his approach to how he answers questions. Something that resonated with me was that he said that sleeping is part of his creative process. “Listen to your dreams”, he said, “That is the time when memories are reactivated, and talking out your dreams lead to great ideas.” He also stressed that story boarding is absolutely key before executing ideas and sitting in front of the computer. If the idea makes sense on paper, it should make sense for the film or story that you’re trying to create. Another little exercise he does to begin a creative project is that he edits soley within the camera. Films for a few seconds or minutes, hits pause, and then continuing to the next shot. No further editing in the computer afterwards. I think it’s a fantastic and simple idea to try and see what you come up with in a single stream of thought.

Next I headed over to see a panel on Cinematic Title Design. We were shown a title design case study of the new film “Life 2.0” about Second Life, the virtual world, user-generated online community. They showed us each design iteration, with & without music and how the sequence was built up over time to it’s end result. The speakers stressed how important it is to tell your basic story up front without giving anything away, and hint at something that happens later so that the audience feels a sense of connected familiarity when they see it again. Story boarding is also equally important when considering the title sequence. Play around with the location of the intro, whether or not it makes sense to fall in the front, middle or end of the film. Personally I wasn’t crazy about their design for Life 2.0, however, when the presenters went to show us the final sequence with final music in an online clip off Vimeo, they accidentally found that Tronic Studio had remixed their title sequence, and I find this so much better! Tronic studio has long been one of my favorite animation & design firms in NYC.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I then sat in on Remix Goes Mainstream, a session involving the art of remixes, video mashups and copyright law. They briefly discussed two main sets of guidelines that we should be aware of as editors & filmakers: Creative Commons and Fair Use. I’m never quite sure of my rights to use clips of other’s work in my projects, so I bought the book from one of the speakers, Clearance & Copyright by Michael C. Donaldson. They showed us a few examples where it was completely legal to use other filmmakers work when it was presented in a new context. One I really enjoyed, was created by another one of the panelists, Johnny McIntosh of rebelliouspixels called Buffy vs. Edward. He used footage from two different sources, and cut them together as if they were telling one new story. Hilarious!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other examples showed documentaries that couldn’t have told their stories without using clips from other works. Under a certain time limitation, it is completely legal to use, and was even released to HBO. Another great resource for artists, specifically for photos & stock images, is Flickr’s Creative Commons page.

Later I sat in on Improving Social Media with Live Streaming Video led by Brad Hunstable, the creator of Ustream. Ustream has allowed us as users the ability to broadcast video live from anywhere in the world, from our cameras and even from our phones. While still in the panel listening to the creator of Ustream I downloaded the iphone application within minutes and gave it a shot when I was at a concert later that afternoon. Ustream gave me a URL telling me where the signal would broadcast to, and then asked me if I wanted to post the link to any of my social networks. After that, all I had to do was hit the “Go Live” button, and I was on, streaming from SXSW! Streaming live makes anything we do an “event”, which makes it a more special occurence than something that can be viewed on-demand at any time later. Huntsable emphasized that the impact of broadcasting one time live, will attract a larger audience than shooting something and posting it later. It gives people a reason to go to your page, in real time, and allows people to engage in a more meaningful way. It is also trackable to discover where your audience is coming from, and records how long they stayed on the stream.

Due to over-scheduling myself, I missed Valerie Casey‘s keynote, but happily found a clip documented here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Valerie Casey consults with start-ups, governments, and companies all over the world on challenges ranging from creating new products and services, to transforming organizational processes and behaviors. She was named a “Guru” of the year by Fortune magazine, a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and a “Master of Design”by Fast Company. She was also selected as one of the “World’s Most Influential Designers” by BusinessWeek. Valerie is the founder of the Designers Accord, the global coalition of designers, educators, and business leaders working together to create positive and sustainable impact.

I ended the night meeting some of my friends from HUGE over at Ruby’s BBQ for a Lonestar and some Texan barbeque. Little did I know, it had been written up by one of my favorite traveling chef’s, Anthony Bourdain.  Thanks for taking me out for a great night guys!!

I finally have a quiet moment to myself to digest, decompress and formulate information. I have an overwhelming amount of data swarming through my head and need to transcribe it all along with the words scribbled throughout my trusty notebook.

Day 1 began when I left the windy rainstorm that took over NY, as I departed Laguardia at 6AM. I was on 2 hours of sleep and on the cusp of delirium. Somehow in that state of mind I thought it’d be a good idea to upgrade my flight to first class since the self-check in machine asked me if I wanted to. The big shiny button was too enticing not to push. Plus it was 5AM and I was feeling claustrophobic and sleep deprived. Though for the most part I just really wanted some decent space to set up my laptop and do some editing. Yes – Editing at 6AM! I was in the mood for some god awful reason. Most likely motivated by the fact that later that day I was aiming to hit a Final Cut “Supermeetup” that would allow me to share my work with a group of editors. I had to cut down a reel into 10 minutes, so I spent that morning cutting deliriously before the sun rose.

This is my 4th trip to Austin, and yet only my first experience at SXSW. I organized my schedule to reflect over 95 panels during the course of my 5 day stay. Saturday I arrived, just narrowly escaping the hurricane behind me, and got in just in time to catch a conversation late in the day with Ze Frank.

Ze is someone I learned about in college for his witty, weird, spontaneous humor through videos and design concepts. Probably most well known for his “How to Dance Properly” videos. Due to the nature of his off-the-wall ideas, he says he’s always had anxiety over whether or not they’re going to be successful, but that he’d make them regardless of whether or not anyone ever watched them. This only fuels his desire to want to push the envelope, and get his concepts out in public rapidly and faithfully to his viewers. Not only that but he says he strives to do things that have not been done before. He’ll do massive amounts of research and data collecting before starting a project to see if he can be the first one to do it. He deems it a success if you can google an idea and it doesn’t exist yet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I realize from his talk that I need to pick up my game & brainstorm more.  His ideas are so zany, and so unexpected, that it is a breath of fresh air to hear about, and it leaves me curious to see what else he’ll come up with next. It also reminds me how I can harness that kind of energy to put my own ideas into action, despite any anxiety I might have towards them potentially being too weird, or not good enough. It takes you out of your routine ways of thinking and allow you to start opening up to the unexpected.  For example, when someone asked a boring question about jumping into the freelance world, Ze’s answer was, “I’m a Unicorn!” There is so much to be said for just putting out your craziness into an audience and see what happens.

Later that evening I headed over, DVD in hand, to the Final Cut meet up over at Maggie Mae’s on 6th Street. I immediately met up with one of organizers who was able to show my work on the projection screen and TVs filtered throughout the venue. While it was fun to show work at SXSW to a room full of editors and videographers, it would have been more exciting for me, if it was more of a forum and less of a party. The work on the screens became background videos and we didn’t get enough interaction following up with each artist who showed. For example – there was a guy who showed work before me that almost entirely resembled a brazilian collage animation that I love, yet when I went to ask who’s work it was, the guy presenting the work had no idea. So that was kind of a bust. What made up for it was the $10 raffle ticket I bought, that won me a copy of Adobe’s CS4 Creative Production Premium Suite, worth $1700. I couldn’t have asked for a better first night!

In just a few days I’ll be boarding a plane to Austin, TX to join the SXSW festivities. You will most likely find me sipping a Lonestar and attending something nerdy between the days of March 13th through the 18th. I’ll also be VJing at an event on Congress called House by Southwest on the 17th, (St. Patricks day!)

Keep checking back here to the Dangerblog, because I have decided to create a daily write-up for each day that I’m out there.  I will be experimenting with a pocket Mino HD flipcam lent by my good friend Jack from Steelblender. Thanks Jack!!  It shoots 60 minutes of HD footage, is as tiny as an ipod, and has a built in USB for quick import. I’m sure by the end of this trip I will want one for myself.

I’m looking forward to all of SXSW, documenting the trip and meeting a lot of new folks. Drop me a line if you’re going, or stop by the show on Wednesday night at Silhouette!

Two quick pieces of news!

I’m excited to announce that I will be getting my very own studio space dedicated to all of my Danger visuals work!! I was waiting to blog about this until I had some photos to go along, but they will have to wait until after I’ve signed the lease and retrieved my keys. I will be setting up shop at the Loft Artists building in Stamford in just a few days!  More on that to come.

I’ve also just bought a gold pass to the SXSW festival in Austin which starts in a month. I’ll be bringing my VJ equipment along for the ride and see what events might let me hop in. If anyone knows of any opportunities, please send me an email or leave a comment here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

My little hut at La Zebra the last few days in Tulum

2009 has really been one of my favorite years to date. I’ve always said that if I were to get into video art, that my main goal would be to find the means to travel while doing what I love to do. My goals being to incorporate my love of art, music, culture & adventure with the world of design, performance and exploration.  Keeping those ideas in mind, a lot has shifted this year. I am slowly feeling this awakening of a newly positive outlook for 2010 and what is to come.

I just returned home from a long weekend in Tulum, Mexico. A birthday gift to myself for entering a new decade and welcoming my 30th year. What a magical little slice of the earth that place is. This particular adventure bought an overwhelming sense of peace, serenity and unbridled creativity. It was a slower pace than I’m used to, but wonderfully so, and a much needed breath of fresh air into a part of the world that I had never been.

I stayed in a variety of little palapa huts on the beach all along Boca Paila, a long beach road in Tulum. Very charming atmosphere with endless waves crashing on the turquoise shore, hammocks, hand painted signs and solar/wind generated cabañas. I planned my trip with two events in mind:  A weekly festive event at the Mezzanine, including puppets, stiltwalkers, breakdancers, djs and fire spinners and a salsa night & fire pit roast at La Zebra.  I’m hoping in the future I may be able to meet some folks over there who would like to incorporate video into their events, and possibly go back out there to perform. That would be quite a dream!

After a few days/nights of swimming in the Carribean, drinking fresh mojitos, feeling the powdery sand beneath my feet, snorkling in ceynotes, and bicycling above the tree-line, I’m ready for my next round of creative projects that are coming this way through the end of the year.

Saturday, January 2nd, will be the next big Monkey Town event for Kodomo and I, and we will be playing with my good friends, the Cutlery with visuals by Waking Dream.  We’re on at 9PM, so I will make sure to send out reminders for reservations when the date gets closer.  In the meanwhile I’m catching up with some outstanding projects at the moment and will be up for new endeavors as the new year begins. If 2010 is anything like 2009, I will have a big smile on my face all year round.

Hello all!  I’ve been back for a little over a week and it has taken me this long just to catch up with life, time zones, and the digital realm of documentation. Our first european show was so incredibly fun and soulful. Many thanks to Camilo Tribin of Makinola who organized, promoted and put the whole thing together. Gustavo Osorio and his amazing photographic talents. Margarita Rojas of the Crayon Incident for her creative inspiration and beautiful performance with us at Miscelanea. Emily and Bryan Dunn for letting me run around with them all day and crash their honey moon. And of course Kodomo, whose music continually inspires me to do what I’m doing. Many thanks to all the lovely people that I met along the way.

Day 1

My adventure began when my plane arrived early at the Barcelona airport around 7AM. The place was dark and desolate, and our flight was the only one that had landed. I had been in the air since 5:30pm the night before, wired and exhausted. The hotel I had booked wouldn’t have an open room until 2pm that day, so I made arrangements with two of my favorite Brooklynites to meet at their place at 10AM. I had just done projections during the ceremony for their wedding a couple weeks before, and as synchronicity would have it, they happened to have one day left in Barcelona, the day I arrived.

Having 3 hours to spare before meeting them, I connected with another lone american traveler, who guides bicycle tours in Utah & Oregon. She was waiting for friends, and I was waiting for a reasonable hour to head out into the universe, so we chatted and had a great morning meeting each other and exchanging travel stories.

As I said good bye around 9AM, I walked out into the grey rainy weather welcoming my arrival, to a little black and yellow taxi cab. I said something like, “¿Me puede tomar usted a mi hotel?” and showed him an address on calle Mallorca, and off we went. About a half hour later I arrived at a cool little boutique hotel, nestled in the middle of a vibrant NY-like city. Memorable amounts of colorful graffiti were splashed across doorways, cabs were plentiful, and there were dozens of bicyclists and pedestrians all across town.

I arrive at the hotel, and am pointed upstairs to my friend’s room. I lugged my equipment and bags up to the fourth floor and was greeted with huge hugs from the newly married couple. It was such a surreal meeting of worlds to have been in Brooklyn with them a couple weeks earlier, and in another country then and there. So I dropped off my bags, grabbed my umbrella and we headed out. We maneuvered in and out of amazing narrow, beautiful streets, until we made it to Barri Gotic, the Gothic quarter of the city. Absolutely stunning. Cobblestone streets, archways, exquisite cafes, cathedrals that look like dripping wax and even the occasional street performer playing instruments or wearing costumes.

We arrived at a little cafe to order a coffee and chocolate y churros! My new favorite indulgence. After catching up on the news and sharing some delicious pastries, we headed to the famous La Ramblas to veer off into La Mercat de la Boqueria. By far the best market that I have ever experienced. My eyes were overloaded by the color, texture, variety and freshness in every direction. Such a wide creative mecca for people who love and appreciate good food.

From there we wandered in and out of cathedrals, dodged raindrops, walked along the dock near Port Vell, and mused about the inspiration of the city. Eventually we made our way out of the rain, and into a cozy vegetarian cafe, which was serving a buffet of salads, quinoa, soups and other such delicious options. Everything we had was incredibly fresh and colorful. I can easily see why there are so many great artists in Barcelona, and I can’t wait to plan another trip there (possibly) next year to re-indulge myself in such inspirational surroundings.

As we finished our meals and made our way to the door we were stopped for a few minutes by the ensuing of quite a monsoonish downpour. Emily made the comment that even the rain is passionate in Spain!

We soon left into the rain, where we caught a cab and we headed back to our hotel so I could pass out for a few hours before dinner, and before the show schedule for 11pm that night! Yes, not only did I arrive in a whirlwind after not sleeping much, and a day of wandering, but I had to be awake enough to perform our first show! Mind you, starting at 11pm in Spain, is 5AM in New York. I was looped out of my mind, but so thrilled and excited, a few hours of sleep at the hotel would do just fine.

After the rain passed, and a double rainbow appeared just in time for our evening out on the town, I had a drink at the hotel bar and we made our way to a very unique restaurant in the area known as El Raval. Interesting seafood dishes, ox tail soup, and a variety of vino later, we all made our way to meet Kodomo, and crew who were setting us up over at our first gig at Bar Lempika. Drinks were passed around, shots that tasted like mini mojitos were shared, and this little Brooklyn-like Barcelona bar slowly became more and more crowded to come hang out with us. I projected some fun italian cartoons that I had just pilfered from the library last week for fun, and let it run while we set up to play. We began playing at midnight and had a great response from everyone there that night. Even the local guy who walks in and out of bar trying to sell roses decided to stay and watch the action. It really turned out to be such a fun evening, and it was great preparation for the next night for our gig at Miscelanea.

Day 2

Sunny skies poured through my window at the 987 that morning. I gathered all my equipment and bags and made my way over to Pension 2000 to meet up with friends. The morning began with a short walk to La Rambla, and into a beautiful pastry shop of sorts. Cafe con leche, a potato tortilla y tarta de manzana. Delicious food everywhere we ventured. Then a short trip over to the market once again for more photos, fresh juice and food samplings. The day consisted of an amazing stroll up and down the Mediterranean coast line, past the sandcastles, and dipping our feet into the smooth sands and warm water at Port Vell. Quite a magical place if you ask me.

It’s hard to recount exactly where the wandering lead after that, because Barcelona is possibly the most amazing place to wander by foot that I have ever been, but I do remember an incredible italian restaurant where the chef had made his own pasta, and the prawns were freshly caught that morning.

The night came quickly and it was time to prep for the show at Miscelanea. Very cool art space! Upstairs bar, white gallery walls, and funky art on t-shirts and in book cases. There was even a little wink from the universe, when I saw posters by my favorite designer, Scott Hansen, hung up on a little clothes line of art strung between a nice little collection. There we set up limited edition CDs & vinyl for sale and continued to set up for the show. Unfortunately with my new mac pro I’ve run into all sorts of issues with being compatible with certain projectors and S-video cables, but 50 feet of VGA cable later, solved the problem.

Set up had been achieved and it was nearing showtime. Kodomo and I did a quick interview with a lovely journalist, and it was soon time to start. The Crayon Incident & GLUP! began their amazing set of very innovative electronica, and gorgeous hand created live visuals. I’m completely enchanted by their performance, and hope to see them perform again.

Around 9PM it was time for us. The room had packed itself with a wonderful crowd, and it was vibrant with incredible energy. I couldn’t have asked for a more fun performance and such an organized event. I’m still editing down video clips from the show and will be posting here shortly. We received warm smiles and a wonderful audience response all night long. Continued the show later at an after party, where I shot video and danced until we had reached the end.

Day 3

Sadly, this was already my last day. It was the quickest whirlwind weekend possible. I spent the time taking photographs and getting lost in the city. Tempting to do some touristy ventures, but I instead chose to let the day take me where my intuition guided. That will remain with me forever, and really have no words to capture it’s meditative beauty.

Day 4

Air Italia and Rome. Craziness. That is all I have to say about that!

~

I loved every second of my time in Barcelona and will definitely be going back, as soon as it is meant to be in future dates to come.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Videos to come!

Thanks to Jimmy Deane & Ryan McCann (aka Media Victim), I got to meet some really wonderful VJs from around the world at Burning Man this year, during their organized VJ meetup at Center Camp. Ryan was sweet enough to give me this wonderfully edited clip to capture a few words during my playa adventure at Burning Man as a VJ.

Thanks again guys! From this point on, I’ll learn how to speak in front of the camera lens!! Usually I make a point to stay on the other side. Nor do I usually wear kitty ears. Well, sometimes.

Below is a link to the full segment of all the VJs.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo by one of my lovely campmates, Rebeka Bieber

Grateful. I’ve just re-entered the digital abyss after two weeks of a disparate connection.  Hot generous sun, moon and mountains behind me.  The laundry piles from my desert journey have each a layer and a story. Not one item of clothing was spared. Just one step forward into this ethereal Black Rock City, into the Black Rock desert of Nevada. The inevitability of overwhelming dust takes over you and all that you have. You have no choice but to embrace what comes.

It’s a desert dream. A whirlwind sand storm. Blink your eyes and it’s over. A powerful oasis of magic and art if you choose to see it that way. Liberated matter of the formal routine. A re-awakened world that doesn’t compromise our personal art and expression for practicality purposes. Art for the sake of doing, being, sharing. Life for the sake of living simply, yet extremely. No money exchanged, only energy and ideas.

My own centered routines turn into dust immediately as I pack my last bag and board my first plane. This feeling of no turning back hummed a mix of wired & tired, for the four hours of sleep I had shaken minutes before.

Everything after that is a blur of watercolor and ink. Lights and stars. Sound vibrations. Fuzzy laughter. Scientists and pocket watches of burning time. Hugs of old familial energy. Self-contemplation. Fish bug fire. Night visuals upon a Phage car. Meet & greet of international VJ’s. Prima Tivo wine tasting. Jazz clubs. Fly me to the moon. Abstract angles & electrolytes. Barrels of flying fire. Warmth and sun. Bicycle wheels spinning, and a penny slot in Reno which won me $75 bucks and a philosophical conversation.

Spare change?

I will try and set free the disappointing lack of time that I spent at the Temple. The solitude that I craved there and had not taken. The personal compromises I made to find balance. The expectations of health & motivations within myself. And other such thoughts that would tap me on the shoulder and walk me through the desert hand in hand.

I’ve seen the universe wink in many colors, shapes and languages on this trip. After four years of making this journey to BRC and back, I hadn’t expected to feel as different coming home this time, but I do. Something is calling. Shapes have shifted and I am listening.

Visual inspiration = infinity

Burning Man 2007

My little studio is quickly becoming overwhelmed with equipment. I’ve decided this year for my annual trip to Burning Man, that I would take a small amount of my VJ gear out with me, and meet up with the video artists from all over the world, to collaborate for a variety of amazing events and parties.

In order to do this, I’ve had to purchase some used equipment that can live and breathe in the dusty environment and last for many hours. Last night I picked up an Epson Powerlite 76c (only 26 hours on it) with screen for $350! Never underestimate the power of people wanting to get rid of things in their homes.  Also brought home a used 13′ Macbook that is perfect for traveling. I need to come up with a plan to keep all of this stuff as dust proof as possible and with only 6 days to go, I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do it all. I am however really stoked to experiment out there. Not looking forward to lugging all this equipment on the plane with me, but there are an amazing amount of VJs that go to this event and I’m excited that this will be the first year that I am joining my peoples!

If you’ll be out there this year, I’ll be camping at 7 & C. Come find me & say hi. I will unplug from my computer universe here from Aug 28th and will be back in the default world September 8th.

Click here for our info on Monkeytown’s website. The calendar for August was just launched.

We’re getting excited for our upcoming show!! Mark your calendars and send an RSVP here. August 6th, Thursday at 8:30 PM. We are currently looking for a second act to play with us, open to suggestions!

Soon I will be posting the massive amount of photos & video that were taken this weekend in the Chrysalis Dome from the festival we performed at in upstate NY this past weekend. The rain gods did not hold off on any rain that they had planned for us despite my plea, but as a result the adventure became that much more spontaneous and unpredictable.

Unfortunately we were only able to get Chrysalis up for two nights before the rain turned everything into swamp lands. We then took our cables, projectors, tarps and equipment over to a smaller inflatable dome to keep the party going to finish out the weekend. Either way, the project continues to become more interesting with each launch.

Thanks to everyone who made it all the way up there and stuck it out through the rainy conditions. I had so much fun working with everyone and experimenting with this amazing project.

I expect that I’ll be projecting video for the next 4 days on the dome! Much much photo & video will be sorted through and posted here in the next week. Then it’s time to prepare for Monkeytown with Kodomo, Thursday August 6th, 8:30PM!!  

Thats all I have time for, for now!  Struggling to finish editing for the night at the day job. Then movie trailer graphic revisions. Then VJ editing. Then packing gear. Then a stop at Trader Joes to fill my coolers…  Don’t know which direction to go in first. Full report upon return!  

Pray to the rain gods and please ask them to hold off on any precipitation until next week!!

Photo by Waking Dream

This weekend, July 17th & 18th will be the first launch of the Chrysalis multimedia dome project at Lorenz Studios in East Morris, CT. There will be a number of DJs coming up to perform and myself & my friends of Waking Dream, Light Harvest & Levitation Theory will be spinning the inner world with our 360 visual designs.. 

I’ll be up there Saturday July 18th and setting up camp! Looking forward to road-tripping out there & projecting in the middle of the woods! Come out and play with us!

Details:

Chrysalis is an interactive multimedia performance space. Full surround visuals and sound inside a 100′ inflated dome. It will be a unique experience, which we hope to present on an ongoing basis. This event is to help us get it up and running, and to help us present it at the Starwood Festival the following week. Please come support us and spread the word to all your friends and please have them do the same. Free Camping. $20 Donation. Food & Drinks served. Music featuring live electronica by the Spinning Plates, electrofunk by Stratus-M, and guest DJ’s.

Tonight I designed a flyer to promote a few upcoming fundraiser dates for the project. I’ll be projecting visuals in the dome on Saturday July 18th, with Waking Dream, Light Harvest, and Levitation Theory. There will be endless amounts of music both nights, and camping available for free.

Make sure to mark your calendars for July 17th, 18th, and a pre-event fundraiser at the House of Love on July 11th.

Click here for location of the dome in Google.
 

J&R Kodomo Danger Show / 6/20/09

Yesterday morning, I packed up my car with my new portable screen, my laptop, mixer, cables, gaffer tape, wires & hard drive, and headed south to hit J&R’s Summer Expo.

At noon Kodomo and I set stage amongst thousands of CDs in the back of J&R for an afternoon set promoting his album, Still Life. While projecting under fluorescent lighting makes for a difficult performance on my behalf, it was a lot of fun and ultimately a successful rainy afternoon for both of us. I didn’t realize how much I missed being amongst all those records & CDs, and I always love performing. Especially for a good old fashion record store audience.

I really miss the experience of going to my favorite local record store on any given afternoon and spending hours wandering in the aisles. Record stores have always felt like design museums to me. Album covers spanning years of musical history and varieties of style, art and culture.  Since downloading has been so easy and accessible in the last few years, I’ve watched all of my favorite music stores close down one by one, and many more musicians releasing digital downloads instead of putting money into tangible albums.

These days if I want the experience of picking up an album I have to either drive an hour north to Culters in New Haven or an hour south to my NYC spots. My preference these days is Kim’s Video, or my latest favorite, Ear Wax in Brooklyn. J&R was a first for me, but they had quite a collection, and it was cool to be a part of it.  Happy Summer Solstice! 

Don’t forget, this week I’ll be at Monkeytown, Thursday (Jun 25th) projecting for the Cutlery. 8PM Showtime.  Just make sure that if you plan on attending that you shoot your info over to Monkeytown’s reservations. You can do that by clicking here. See you Thursday!

 

Warper Party May 26th Theatre Ste. Catherine Montreal, QC

It’s official! I head out in less than a week to make a trek to the lovely & charming Montreal. I’ve taken off a few days of work following Memorial day, and am ever so tempted to use a few more days and stay out there to make another visit to Toronto while I’ve gotten that far. Especially since there is another Ghostly International tour happening the day after our show that I would looove to be at. It would involve some last minute maneuvering, but I’m tempted!

As it stands, Kodomo & I will set stage at 6pm at the Theatre Ste. Catherine in Montreal on May 26th to be part of the Warper / PreMutek Party. I’m a little nervous about the early time slot, but we’ll make the best of it. Very much looking forward to another journey, and see what may happen along the way..

I am VERY happy with how many people showed up from all over (much appreciated!), the energy of the place, and our performances went better than I could have even expected. There were a few personal flubs that were probably unnoticeable to anyone other than myself, but it will just fuel the fire to keep doing this and get better and better. This was the first gig that I’ve actually rehearsed visuals with a musician beforehand, and designed different concepts around each song specifically. The results, to me, are far more exciting and stronger than anything I could have ever improvised.

Right now I am ANXIOUSLY awaiting the time to digitize footage from last night. Check back tomorrow and I will have a full posting of video from our gig!

We are currently looking into the possibility of playing a show in Montreal during the Mutek festival that is happening at the end of this month, but need to see how we should go about doing it. If you, or anyone you know has any insight to Mutek and/or booking shows during that week up there, please let me know!  I can’t wait for the next show!

Dvein, Prologue, Psyop, Black Heart Gang, 1st Ave Machine, Imaginary Forces, Rachel Maddow, Moment Factory, Jonah Lehrer.Â

Since having worked in the corporate world of video production for the last few years, I haven’t had much opportunity to immerse myself in the art world (or even the commercial world) of motion graphics the way I wish I could. Thankfully, conferences like F5, after effects meetups and the VJ world have brought this back into my life in many ways. Most nights after I come home from day to day editing, I begin to collage my own new work and find myself experimenting into the early hours, to create a bigger, more original and more ecclectic library for future live video performances.

The F5 conference reminded me just how powerful motion graphics are, and how much I love that world & the people who make that sort of magic happen. Not only did the conference showcase some of the best work I’ve seen in years, but there was a really interesting discussion about the state of creativity, and how it works from a scientific angle. We talked about how to better access innovations from the left side of the brain, and how we should be open to all new endeavors that allow us to create connections, and draw inspiration from experience. Insights seemingly flourish best when not forcing creativity. Some highlights for me were seeing & hearing all of the bizarre places that people reach to for inspiration.  Found everywhere from rubberbands that were made into stop-motion spaghetti  to one person dipping their hands & feet in cement just to see what it would feel like to wear on their limbs for a week!  Ideas are formed in some of the most oddly beautiful ways and it has always been a passion of mine to explore how other people’s brain’s work.

Later this week I’d like to transcribe my notebook that I had with me for the two days and capture the raw thoughts I had while listening to these fabulous heros of mine.  As a result of the festival I’ve already taken some of the advice and put it towards a new identity scope for my danger visuals.

A few frame grabs from new Danger intro visuals

Lastly  I want to mention how VERY excited I am to say that a new collaboration is underway with electronic musician Kodomo. It looks like May 6th will be our first performance at the Delancey for the next Warper Party. Details soon to come!!

Last year I was really inspired by Pipilotti Rist, who created a huge video installation at the MOMA. A lot of her work was seen from a sort of bug’s eye view, and I took that inspiration to do a bit of that style filming on my own at all the beautiful parks in SF. Looking forward to cutting some of that up this week and integrating it into my footage library.

I’d also really like to create a new reel for the hollydanger.com front page, as it is supremely choppy and outdated at this point. The page itself is also unfinished and in limbo, waiting for me to add my entire portfolio to it, and link over here to this blog! Cliche to say, but there really aren’t enough hours in the day. Last night I just finished my 3rd round of package designs for a canadian musician that I’m working for. Things are looking really great, but I’m afraid of how many hours I sit slaved to these machines working on projects! I have a full time 9-5 job during the week editing videos, then I come home to freelance work & VJ stuff on the side. There are barely any hours left to sleep & eat.

Thank god I love to do this stuff, I just wish that I had ways of doing it all faster so I could do more of it.

This week I’ll be receiving my new video controller in the mail!!  I splurged last week and bought the OHM. I should be receiving it in the next two days. Perhaps just in time to learn how to use it, and give it a try at the Monkeytown gig on Apr 3rd. I think I’m also going to drop the dime on a new laptop to make sure everything runs smoothly. It’s about time for a full round of upgrades!

Photo found on Flickr.com / Tycho Show / March 6th San Francisco @ the Mezzanine

Traveling is one of my favorite things in life.

To begin March 2009, I decided to take a spontaneous journey off the east coast and absorb some California sunshine. The winter has been a long, bleak period for me and while I’ve been keeping busy as well as hibernating, I’ve been deeply desiring spring. I’m feeling all sorts of new flows of creative energy that are bustling and ready to erupt into a thousand colors, but I’ve felt held back by the mundane daily routines, and the weather that keeps me from exploring outside with my camera. I have not enjoyed the cold this year, even having been a snowboarder for much my life. 

To remedy this, I put my cards on the table and booked a flight. I heard that a very special show was happening in San Francisco on March 6th that piqued my interest. My design hero, ISO50, who also makes his own beautiful, ambient music and visuals to go with them, was part of a 10 year Ghostly International anniversary show at the Mezzanine.

 

 

I took a photoshop workshop of his at the OFFF festival in NYC in 2007, and have been following his work for many years. I actually see a lot of similar techniques between how he puts things together and how my creative-brain works.  His ideas always breathe a freshness of vitality into everything he does, and he inspires me endlessly. His show on Friday night did nothing less but overwhelm & excite my senses.

I was elated to the point of geekgasm when he set stage at 12:45AM on Friday night in San Francisco. Not only did he have an amazing stage presence and the crowd worshipped him, but every single person who performed that night was mind-blowing. Ghostly has given me a new sense of inspiration, in a new direction of musically integrated visual styles. I was amongst the best of the best, and am grateful that I had the opportunity to fly across the country to be there.

More words, pictures, video & inspiration to speak of once I am fully re-adjusted to east coast time zones again.

In the meanwhile, here are a few tracks by Tycho.

Tycho – Sunrise Projector

tycho-sunpro.mp3

Tycho – Day Dream

tycho-daydream.mp3

 

Simultaneous shot taken by Holly & Jeff

I’ve just recently returned from an excursion down south, where I spent a week in Austin, Texas. This was my second visit there this year, and it is quickly becoming a favorite little oasis-getaway of creativity, music, healthy fresh foods, mental clarity, clean air and cheap booze!

~

Here is my collection of favorite spots & eateries in Austin:

Bodicelli’s – Best italian food I’ve had in years, mixed with live outdoor music & beer garden.
Bouldin Creek Cafe – Muraled space with fresh healthy vegetarian dishes & board games
Vivo – Tex-mex all the way! 
The Continental Club – Good music all night, every night.
Saxon Pub – Great divey bar with fantastic rock shows.
Zilker Park – Gorgeous place for hikes, kayaks, lush trees..
Jo’s Cafe – My favorite coffee spot hangout on congress.
San Jose Hotel – Hands down favorite hotel. Classy, cool and very well designed.
Uncommon Objects – Super funky collection of antiques & thrifty goodness.

~

This time while I was there, I schemed some ideas for future work-living potential in the area. Austin is absolutely beautiful in the winter. 75 degrees and eternally summer. I’m not used to being able to walk outside without getting in my car, and have access to tons of great shops, cafes, music and life right out the door. The idea of living seasonally struck me during both visits there this year and I’d like to try and put this into action come 2010. Ideally I would love to spend a year (or more, depending how it goes) living a few months at a time in different locations. My aim is to work on a variety of projects throughout the US and if possible, even a few outside the US.

These are a few of the places I’m considering living seasonally:

Austin TX
Portland OR
Boulder CO
Northern California
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Brussels, Belgium
Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver, Canada

~

2008 has really put me in a place of stability. I’ve worked really hard over the last 2 years to pay off my college & car loan debt, and to invest in a collection of video equipment to get myself off the ground as someone who can work independently.

2009 holds a lot of that same potential and I’m really excited. As I am approaching the new year, I am beyond thrilled to say that I am one pay check away from owning my car and being completely debt-free. My living expenses have gotten more affordable with the help of a really sweet house-mate, and my work situation is quite liveable for the time being. Going into 2009, and my third year of corporate video editing as my day job, I’ve earned 5 weeks of paid vacation. I’m going to use this time wisely to save money for traveling and the future of wherever I’m headed. I want to spend a few weeks of that vacation traveling around Europe and more importantly, putting energy into a documentary project that I’ve always wanted to complete.

I never thought these ideas would come into fruition, but the possibilities are proving to be possible afterall, and I can’t wait to see where I can go…