Up On A Roof: Storm Clouds Over Somerville Timelapse

Storm Clouds over Somerville, MA, July 29, 2013, A Timelapse from Brad Kelly on Vimeo.

Dramatic stock music rolls in over the Boston area last night. Also, some awesome summer storm clouds.

I was rolling on some timelapses yesterday when some freaky Ghostbusters worthy clouds moved in.

Shot at 4 seconds per frame and edited using Quicktime and Final Cut Pro.

iPhoneography in Print. An Article on My Cellphone Photography in the Somerville Journal

The February 16, 2012 issue of the Somerville Journal has a full page article about my cellphone photography.

Old School / New School: iPhoneography on the printed page.

I was contacted by Jillian Fennimore, a reporter from the Somerville Journal, who had seen my iPhone shots in various tweets and postings online and asked about doing a brief article on them for the "Somerville Life" section of the paper. I was happy to oblige! The world is infused with little moments of visual poetry if we pause to look. I try to share that online and I was pleased for the opportunity to share my images, with perhaps a different audience, in print.

In the article, I mention the wise saying that when you see something extraordinary, the best camera to use to capture the image is whatever one you have with you! For most people these days that is their cellphone.

Since getting an iPhone, even I admit that I'm less inclined to carry my Nikon around with me, in favor of knowing the iPhone, with its halfway decent camera, is as close as my pocket. This is convenient and makes me look less like a photo dweeb.

However, I'm also more likely to miss out on serendipitous moments that might demand high resolution and the capabilities of a professional camera (such as my fortuitous luck, in capturing the Harvard Square meteor in high resolution with my Nikon, last year).

As a visual artist, I'm drawn the slightly surreal and unexpected beauty in the everyday things around us. These images, I find, are almost always unexpected and unplanned. They rise up out of the environment like a sort of visual haiku. Even hitting with the force of a poem, a visual poem, if you will, if you can look for a moment in a mood of contemplation. Perhaps, the visual equivalent of a William Carlos Williams haiku, like his famous poem about the Red Wheelbarrow:

so much depends

upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

This reads, to me, like the perfect description of a great iPhone photo of a poor American family's backyard in the 1920's. Provided, of course, that the iPhone had been invented then, and possessed by an iPhoneographer of William Carlos Williams' sympathetic imagination and a good 99¢ iTunes photo app.

Nothing enables a (post) modern visual haiku-ist better than a cell phone with a decent camera. I'll admit I'm partial to the iPhone, but I'm sure there are Droid phones and Blackberries, etc. with equally competent cameras in them.

It's a fact, however, that almost any cell phone photo needs a little post-processing work, to bring out its best. Most shots come out a little flat to begin with, by design. That's where the apps come in. The article mentions a 99 cent app that I use. For me, that's Camera+. ($.99 when I bought it - seems to have gone up to $1.99, for the moment) Truly, 90% of what I post online has gone through this app. It's not perfect, but it does a great job, overall. There are plenty of free photo apps, too, that do amazing things, including the ever popular Instagram (as well a some very cheesy apps).

So much of what we shoot these days never gets printed. In fact, the definition of what a photograph is has probably actually changed. For many, printing their photos today, is a rarity. And even more so with small, low-res mobile photos. Witness the demise of Kodak.

Consequently, I've rarely printed an iPhone photo, assuming them to be too lacking in pixels to look good. So I was pleasantly surprised with how good these ended up looking printed on newsprint in the Journal. Long live print! There is something to be said for a photograph that has an actual physical presence.

This issue of the Somerville Journal will be on newsstands until next Thursday. Get yours soon, as it's sure to be a collectors item! Some years hence, there may be no physical paper published anywhere, having all moved online and to iPad-style devices.

But, for now, here's visual poetry on the printed page. Little visual haikus of Somerville life!

Outtake: Rosebud Diner in the Rain

UPDATE: The Somerville Journal has now posted the article online.

Somerville Night Live

Doing my Lorne Michael impression. Red Sox cap maybe not the best choice.

I produced and directed my first show for SCATV Ch.3 in Somerville last night. It was a live hour with some very talented cast members (and crew!). It was a SNL-ish mixture of skits, short films and news updates with a strong local Somerville slant and a seasonal holiday flavor.

It was precarious, as live events often are: Key actors stuck in traffic, crucial video files exporting with only minutes to spare, balky studio equipment and twenty odd cast and crew rushing around mustering costumes, props and script changes. Invigorating to say the least!

I didn't sleep for two days prior as more than half the show content was created in the final 24hrs. In fact 90% of the skits & films were written, and in the case of the short films (excepting Father Pike) were shot and edited, in the space of three days. Rehearsal? HA! We laugh at you and your "rehearsals."

Art Hennessey and Amanda Good Hennessey did the lions share of fleshing out our concepts into workable scripts. Not to mention managing the actor chaos backstage with admirable aplomb.

I was also really happy create some "Lord Somerville" short films out of Art's essays. Lord Somerville is an enigmatic top-hatted anachronism who strolls around observing the Somerville scene. Look for them to pop up online separately, too. Hopefully, we can do more of these!

Jason Reulet, of Oblique Sector fame, came up with a great musical theme for our "Eye on SCATv" news breaks.

Erik Rodenhiser took a break from his North Shore theater endeavors to break out his "Andre" character to host a few segments. Although, I cringe at the thought of seeing Andre do any more yoga. One downward facing dog was enough.

Some other talented performers brought their lightly scripted/improv A-game, including Sheryl Faye, Floyd Richardson, James Saguinetti, plus relative newcomer Sunil Dikshit.

The show will be re-broadcast in Somerville a few more times before moving on to Cambridge (CCTV) and then the Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN). Eventually, it will hit the web and I'll post the link.

I look forward to doing this again, only with a little less hectic creative process next time.

Lord Somerville scans the scene for the subject of another essay.

Homer Simpson's Favorite iPhone App

I was playing around with the AroundMe iPhone app--a very nifty feature that lets you check for things like "restaurants," "gas stations," "hotels" or simply and importantly, "coffee," and the application uses your current location data to direct you to nearby establishments.

In this case, I was home and I used it to tell me something I already knew:

There are a million freakin' Dunkin' Donuts in Somerville! No less than six within a mile of my house!

Transsiberian and Sir Ben Kingsley in Somerville

Transsiberian opened the IFFBoston this year.



Director Brad Anderson and co-writer Will Conroy serve up a tension filled train trip through Siberia, with more than a little Hitchcock along for the ride, rubbing up against the post-Soviet Russian underbelly.

Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer play husband and wife, taking a once-in-a-lifetime side-trip through Russia after a short-term missions trip to China with their church.

Fine performances throughout, especially Moritmer as Jessie, the not-quite redeemed missionary wife struggling to move beyond her past. And Eduardo Noriega as their magnetic and dangerous fellow traveler.

And of course, the aforementioned Sir Ben playing Grinko, the Russian narcotics inspector--and as one would expect, much more Sexy Beast than Gandhi in this one. And effective he is, wearing his sable hat, slovic accent and attitude of resigned post-Soviet opportunism as if he was born to them.

If there's a weak link at all it's Harrelson as Roy, the naive optimist. I just didn't buy the vodka-swilling evangelical bit. The way he plays him, Roy is maybe one-part missionary, two-parts frat boy and three-parts corn-fed Midwestern rube. But it's not entirely the actor's fault. As scripted, he's about as credible as a Nancy Pelosi Bible verse.

The cinematography is solid, contrasting the vast desaturated snowy wastes outside the train, with the threadbare hothouse of the lounge car and sleeper cabins inside, featuring stopped up toilets and menacingly indifferent customer service where eventually it seems the only true freedom left is the freedom to smoke pretty much anywhere.

Despite one sickeningly graphic interrogation scene where I feared we were heading into Eli Roth territory, director Anderson pulls back quickly, before the mood veers irredeemably into torture porn, getting back on the rails again to deliver a satisfying final twist or two.

*****************************************************************************


An audience Q&A followed the screening.


Director Brad Anderson


Sir Ben Kingsley and scriptwriter Will Conroy



Our friends at our local film collaborative New Film Nation (formerly Beanywood) have posted an interview with director Brad Anderson, filmed on a balmy Somerville sidewalk outside Orleans restaurant right after the premier:

(photos and text ©2008 Brad Kelly)

IFFB 2008 Kicks Off Tonight in Someville

80 degrees and sunny! Spring has definitely sprung in Boston and that means....

The 2008 Independent Film Festival Boston officially launches tonight with a screening of director Brad Anderson's new Hitchcock-ian thriller Transsiberian. Anderson and Oscar-winning star Sir Ben Kingsley are going to be in attendance for a Q&A after tonight's screening.

My first on-set experience for a "real" movie shoot was when I was a PA (production assistant) for another Brad Anderson film, Session 9, when it filmed in the Boston area at the long abandoned Danvers State Lunatic Asylum (made up of very, very creepy, crumbling Victorian gothic buildings...it is currently mostly demolished and being redeveloped into apartments and condos).

The Festival closes next Tuesday with great German provocateur Werner Herzog's new film, Encounters at the End of the World.

Herzog is back in documentary mode after his last Hollywood action film, Rescue Dawn (itself, actually a dramatic take on his inspiring 1997 documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly).

Far from the steaming jungle (or "june-glee" as Herzog has it in his German accented narrations) of Laos, the director finds himself closer to Grizzly Man territory in climate, if not location, visiting with the oddball collection of characters who make their home at the very bottom of the world, Anartica's McMurdo research station.

Between tonight and next Tuesday the IFFB will showcase a lucky 96 hand-picked films (of 2000 submissions screened and considered!) as well as a host of industry panels, parties and special musical guests (check out local media sensations, Harry and the Potters on Saturday, playing after a screening of We Are Wizards, a fan-umentary exploring various aspects of Pottermania).


On a side note, the jester hatted folks in the photo parading in front of the theater were chanting, "L. Ron Hubbard died to save your soul! L. Ron Hubbard died to save your soul!"

I'm not sure what that was all about but it was probably a Scientology protest or local college students with a little too much time on their hands.

It's sort of like that around here.

Karma Generator Premier Almost Sold Out

The latest word is that there are less than 50 tickets remaining for Saturday's inaugural showing of our short documentary film "Karma Generator." (Oh, and there's also some guy named Brian Vander Ark playing afterwards, too.) So if you were thinking of getting them at the door, I'd hate to see you disappointed. So get your TICKETS now.



We're really happy with how the film turned out. My brother Brian came from Grand Rapids to Somerville recently and we worked on the editing and I think we've shaped a pretty interesting look at what goes on behind-the-scenes during the recording process. It's a lot harder than most people realize. And if you're a Brian Vander Ark fan, it's absolute catnip.

LOOK OUT! I think it's an East Grand Rapids gang sign.

Oh, and we're filming Brian's show Saturday with his full band for a DVD release. I'm DP-ing it with five cameras (maybe six!), plus a ProTools rig for stellar sound. Be there and be a part of big screen history!

My brother always brings his appetite...