Sunnylands, soon to be open to the public

I’m pretty excited about this.  My friends and colleagues have put a great deal of time and energy into the media for this new visitor center.  It will be gratifying to see it all installed and open to the public.

One of the best things about my job is that I get to learn about things that were never on my radar before.  While I’d heard the name “Walter Annenberg” before as a sponsor of NPR and other worthy causes, I never knew what an interesting character he was.  He was a close friend of the Reagans and Nixon.  He played golf with Sinatra and Bob Hope (on his own personal golf course), and had one of the largest private collections of Impressionist and Post Impressionist art in the world….and not because it’s a cool thing for a fabulously wealthy man to have art, but because he genuinely loved and appreciated the art.

So – an interesting character.

If you happen to be in Palm Springs, take a look!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/us/annenberg-estate-sunnylands-to-open-to-the-public.html

and

http://sunnylands.org/

Forgotten Flier is now Remembered, and sent to Slaughter!

Yep, I’ve submitted The Forgotten Flier: The True and Amazing Story of the First Controlled Airplane Flight! to the Vimeo Film Festival.  I submitted it to the Documentary category because:

1. It IS a documentary
2. Most documentaries are boring and self-important (especially many of mine)
3. This documentary was specifically designed NOT to be boring
4. MOST IMPORTANTLY – I’ve got a philosophical thing about expanding the notion of what a documentary is, while still honoring the strand of truthiness and journalistic integrity that is assumed to be part of the documentary art form.

In point number 4, I wrote “art form”….and that’s because documentary is a form of art.  Journalism and Scholarly Research are both very noble and important pursuits.  But they are different than documentaries.  The English Language has  even seen fit to give them different names from each other to help distinguish them.

I may or may not dive into this issue on this blog.  Whatever I write, however witty and profound, will still be a pale imitation of the Truth I received on this topic at the feet of Dr’s Aufderheide and Engel at American University….but reading this blog is free, and tuition at AU is not.

Stay tuned!

Remembering a Forgotten Flier

I’m so pleased with what I wrote on my “Current Work” page that I’ll quote it here:

I’m making an animated documentary about Gustave Whitehead.   He was a flier, and was largely forgotten.  The reason why this is interesting is because he made a controlled, powered flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle two years before the Wright Brother’s flew!  So, I’m making an animated documentary about him.  Perhaps this work will inspire other people to innovate and push the envelope of human discovery, knowing that even if they never achieve fame, even if they die penniless, it’s possible that someone might make an animated documentary about them.  Indeed, a chance at immortality.

Yep — I am indeed doing it!  I’ve made the bulk of the artwork, which is charcoal pencil on heavy watercolor paper, and I’ve got it into After Effects.  The voice track is done and I’m quite pleased with it!  An original score is also underway.  Exciting things!

Below are some low-res captures from my first renderings.  I’ll no doubt do some general color correction and maybe throw a vignette on it and whatever other finishing is needed.  Blah blah.  Here are some stills!

Since when do airplanes cast shadows on the sky? Since I adopted a puppet show aesthetic for my new documentary! That's when.

Gustave Whitehead exhorts his assistant to stoke the steam engine!

Advocacy Video – Colorado Wolf & Wildlife Center

This is a piece (at the time of this writing, the featured project video) that a colleague and I edited and finished with some graphics for the Colorado Wolf & Wildlife Center. This project came to me as part of Prof. Larry Engel’s course in advanced documentary production at American University.

Channel G is an interesting organization. In their own words:

Channel G produces short format documentaries, Project Presentations, for distribution on television, the internet, film festivals and other video outlets. Project Presentations showcase environmental, social, and health-related projects from local and international nonprofit organizations.

With Channel G, the American television and web surfing public is educated and informed while getting the opportunity to participate in the success of great projects. Channel G highlights the projects’ scientific and educational value, as well as the personal stories of the people involved.

You can watch the video here: http://www.channelg.tv/video.php?project_id=71

Advanced documentary production with Prof. Engel was a pretty tough course, but truly rewarding. I think I discovered that I really want to make documentary films more than any other film in that course, and he also taught me new ways of thinking so that I have half a chance of making good documentaries. Thanks, Larry!

Move Over, Nanook!

I have some good news! My short animated documentary, Pac(hyderm) Attack! is one of the 2008 Official Selections at the Anchorage International Film Festival! This is some welcomed affirmation as I struggle with a fiction script I’m writing.

Please check out the festival here: http://www.anchoragefilmfestival.org

And my short film here:
http://kristianperry.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/its-nice-to-be-recognized/

To sample Flaherty’s documentary classic, Nanook of the North, try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_wS-Li-9eE

Profile of a Pacifist

I produced this with some classmates in an early production class. I was influenced by some things I’d learned in my Film Theory class, specifically the French New Wave (Renaise-Hiroshima Mon Amour), that helped me shoot some of the static stuff in a more interesting way. This piece is a profile of Andy Shallal, the owner of Busboys & Poets in Washington DC. He’s doing much more than run a cool restaurant, he’s providing a space for culture, art, discussion, and progressive politics and change. Enjoy!