I have been getting an amazing response to my article about Independent Series.  Thank you!  I truly appreciate all the people who are liking, re-tweeting, and basically spreadin’ it around.  Many, many people, both friends and people I’ve only met through this blog have contacted me with questions via e-mail, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, phone calls–the whole gamut.  And I love it.

But I have a request: Is there any chance we could keep the main discussion on the Blog itself?

So many people have had such wonderfully intelligent and insightful things to say about the topic—You know who you are!—that I think a lot of other readers would benefit from your comments.  Also, I plan to talk about this topic quite a bit in the weeks to come and adding your comments to the post itself keeps things all permanent-like for readers who come across these posts in the future.

And big thanks to the folks who have been discussing this on the Blog page.

A few people have asked me about adding a threaded BBS forum to the site to discuss some of these topics.  I’m looking into it and if the comment pick up I will try to add one.  Let me know if you think this would be useful or if BBS forums are all just extra chatter in the age of Facebook.

So, you’ve been asked to represent your company or organization in an interview as part of a promotional or information video.  Congratulations!  It means people believe you’ll present well on video and avoid saying anything embarrassing.  In other words, somebody thinks you’re good looking and intelligent—not too shabby.  I have seven tips that can make a video interview process enjoyable and effective.

I direct video shoots for organizations all the time.  Frequently, the people I interview are executives who have received corporate media training, but more often the interview subject is new to the process and a little nervous.  The tips that follow are the ones I give to friends or clients who are taking part in their first corporate video.

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I had just pre-lit a product shot for a shoot the next morning and was about to head home when my friend Andy showed me this amazing bobble-head doll that some drug company sent around to doctors as as a promotional item.  The opportunity to film it was too good to pass up.

The toy is a thing of beauty: it’s artfully sculpted and painted by hand. And it includes an IC chip with a lovely recorded tune…about vaginal itch! It must have cost the drug company a pretty penny. I certainly learned more about BV than I ever hoped to.

I think about the people involved in making this–particularly the song. Who is the unknown hero of a lyricist who found a good rhyme for “bacterial vaginosis”? How many takes did the singer need to get all the way through the song without cracking up?

Shot on Panasonic GH2 with Leica 45mm/Macro lens.

Backblog bak’ blôg n.

1. an accumulation of unwritten blog posts
2. a blog that is deeply out of date.

v.intr being in a condition of backblog.

“The last couple months I’ve been so slammed with work, my poor site is in serious backblog.”

I see a lot of backblog going on right now around the web.  I don’t know if people have lost some of the blog fever or if they’re just busy making a living in tough times.

My acute case of backblog is due to a whole lotta projects all demanding my time.  But of course, that’s when I need to blog the most.  So here’s the quick overview of what I’ve been up to.  I hope to catch up with more info on each of these projects shortly:

• Two short documentaries I made for MTV have finally hit the web as part of $5 Cover: Seattle.  Look for the “Seattle Scene/B-Side” Videos “Tube Addiction/Verellen Amps” and “Vortex.”  You can watch them on the MTV site or in higher quality here.
• My family film, The No-Sit List (staring Danny Trejo, Rico Rodriguez, Trenton Rogers, and Dee Wallace Stone) is about to be released on DVD (street date: March 8, 2011) by Phase 4 Films, retitled Babysitters Beware.
• Another family film I wrote is preparing to go into production in a month.
• I directed the short film Coffee & Pie in New York, and just learned of its first festival acceptance.
• My co-creator Dan Southworth and I (along with a truly amazing nano-crew) shot the first several episodes of our action/sci-fi web series Divergence. We’re now winding our way through post.

There’s some other bric-a-brac but that’ll hold until I get some more photos, links, and updates uploaded on these projects.

So, sorry about the delay.  I’m still breathing, still dedicated to the blog.  More info, videos, and articles are on the way.

Here’s a commercial I directed recently. It can be hard to get permission to put these on the web so I feel lucky to have been allowed to put this one up, as it’s especially fun.

Agency: Daniels-Brown Communications / Victory Studios
Producer: George Riddell
Director: Douglas Horn
DP: Geoff Dunlap
Cast: Rick Turner, Jessica Von, Annette Tutonghi, Don Brady