"Death Holds A Hoagie" 48 Hour Film Project

For the fifth year in a row team Playomatic has made a film for the 48Hour Film Project. This year we drew Detective/Cop as our genre. The resulting film (completed in 48 hours and, uh, 18 minutes) is a little film noir farce we've titled "Death Holds A Hoagie."

It is screening Thursday night at the Kendall Theater in Cambridge. Tickets are available online.

A Hoagie Rogues Gallery

Karma Generator Screening and BVA Concert

Setting up the wide shot camera in the rafters.

It was a really special night in a great space, despite a West Michigan Spring snowstorm. BVA managed to get the Airstream on stage by some miracle of driving prowess. Bill and Lisi Szymczyk made it in for the show and the band was kickin'. "Karma Generator" played on a huge screen and the audience really seemed to enjoy it, laughing at all the right moments.


My brother snapped this photo of the action.

We filmed the set with five cameras. Look for the DVD release hopefully later this Spring.


Pre-show from back stage.

Local Resonance

There's been some really good press in the run-up to the show here in snowy Michigan!

This morning WYCE aired an interview with Brian Vander Ark and my brother about "Karma Generator" and Brian's concert. You can listen to the INTERVIEW stream online, too.

And there's another nice mention in John Sinkevics' Grand Rapids Press blog here:

http://blog.mlive.com/soundcheck/2008/03/easter_weekend_picks_hopping_m.html

I just checked out the venue and worked with Blue Water Technologies to set-up the mega-giant projection screen for the movie. Awesome!

Plus, the stage setup is such that Brian Vander Ark is bringing the Airstream right on stage as a back drop. How cool is that for our concert film shoot!?!?

See you there tomorrow for blast-off!

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...

URC at 303 Third Street: You don't have to be smart to live here, but it helps...

MIT President Emeritus Paul Gray

Want to live in sleek modern surroundings high above the intellectual buzz of Kendall Square?

Got your diploma?

I worked with the fine folks at inMotion Real Estate Media to shoot some interviews in High Definition to get the word out about the new 168 unit development called URC (University Residential Communities) at 303 Third Street in Kendall Square, Cambridge.

The only catch is, in order to be eligible to purchase there, you need to be affiliated with one of three venerable New England institutions; MIT, Harvard University or Mass General Hospital. (I visited a friend once, at Mass General, does that count?)

O. Robert Simha, long-time director of planning at MIT

The final product incorporates some motion graphics and animation as well as the HD video elements. You can view it here in the video gallery:

http://www.303third.net/media.php

"Karma Generator" trailer -- Behind-the-scenes with Brian Vander Ark

karma generator trailer from Brad Kelly on Vimeo.

In November, I spent some time in North Carolina, shooting a documentary I'm doing with my brother through our redBrick media venture. My brother is a commercial photographer and stunning fine art photographer (who favors moody nocturnal B&W images) -- and he's blogged about this project here.


We've combined our love of images and stories (and music) into several short documentaries over the last couple years -- and this latest one is called "Karma Generator."

"Karma Generator" goes behind the scenes as talented singer/songwriter and former multi-platinum Top 40/MTV Flavor-O-The-Month (while fronting the Verve Pipe) Brian Vander Ark records his new self-titled solo album with legendary record producer Bill Szymczyk (The Who, Eagles, B.B. King, Bob Seger).

It was a treat to watch the creative interplay as these two hashed out the songs in Bill's home studio (although much of the instrumentation was recorded at Mitch Easter's Fidelitorium).


The album is due any day now and some of the songs are up already at Vander Ark's myspace page. I'm partial to "I Went With The Road."

"Karma Generator," the short film documentary, will premier March 22, 2008 in Grand Rapids, MI prior to a Brian Vander Ark show (with full band). Tickets are available here.

(production action photos courtesy of Lisi Szymczyk)

in a minute: YMCA Commercial Shoot via Vimeo

If you shoot high quality video and want to showcase it on the web at a quality better than a highly compressed postage stamp (ala YouTube) there haven't been many easy options.

Recently, I stumbled upon Vimeo, which advertises its ability to host HD quality video for free (albeit, still compressed for the web) and streamline the upload process to something approaching the simplicity of YouTube. What also intrigued me (as a new blogger) was the ability to embed high quality videos right into my blog via Vimeo. So today's blog entry is a test of that feature. Let's see if it works...



in a minute: YMCA commercial shoot from Brad Kelly on Vimeo.


(I'm pretty pleased so far, although I've noticed that you have to click through to the Vimeo site and watch it there to get the best quality. Especially playing full-screen, the embedded version is showing serious compression artifacts, while the full-screen version at Vimeo is crystal clear. Still, it's a marked improvement over YouTube for embedding purposes. Particularly if you shoot HD, since Vimeo is natively 16:9.)



Lately, I've been bringing my still camera to my shoots and snapping a few photos during downtime (provided there is any).


For the behind-the-scenes timelapse, I simply put my Nikon on a tripod and had it shoot a picture every thirty seconds. Then I took those stills (about 700 of them) and animated them into a sequence and resized for HD (1280x720) in Final Cut Pro.

A few minutes to upload to Vimeo -- and there you have it: A production for the local YMCA featuring an Arri light set-up, a green-screen key-effect and a parade of wonderful North Shore talent all in about a minute!

Barry O'Brien, Master of Darkness -- and Light!

Barry is an experienced producer, copywriter, lighting director, editor and jack-of-all-video trades. He runs North Shore Communications Group. He was the guiding force behind this particular production and I'm pleased anytime I get to work with him.

This video was used as part of a campaign that has raised a significant amount of money for the local YMCA.








(photos and text ©bradkelly2008)