Through my eyes...

Keone Madrid’s short-film supplement (read after watching)

Since the dawn of the Canon 5D mark II, Digital film DSLR’s were becoming popular. For a reasonable price you can record video in 1080p. Anyone can now shoot high-def, while also having the quality of the “film-look” to your video. YouTube/Vimeo scene exploded. Everyone was shooting DSLR these days. I see music videos after music videos. I see concept after concept. I see everything shot with DSLRs, and its starting to all look the same to me, for example: really cool lights, muti screen looks, and simple cut and paste etc. Even I am guilty of doing all those while editing, I easily got bored of doing it over again. So personally, I had to make an effort to set myself apart. I want my video’s to stand out. I want everything that I envision to come to life in my videos. I guess it all started with watching the Freddie Wong channel (youtube.com/freddiew). He made simple concepts with visual effects. That’s when it hit me; I need to stimulate my audience visually. The programs he uses allows him to create on film exactly what he envisions in his head. I don’t want my videos to be limited to just cut and paste, I want my creations to be limitless. That’s when I started learning visual effects. It allowed me to be more abstract. It challenges the way I view cinematography, and it got my brain to be more active, because I’m dreaming up shots left to right. I still have lots to learn. I’m no film magician like Freddie W, but I want to instill wonder when people see my videos too.

For choreographers, they love to put their choreography in film too. That’s when I knew I have to capitalize on this market, because I know choreographers imaginations are so inventive that simple “cut and paste edits” aren’t going to cut it. My goal is to make everything that a choreographer dreams up come to life. If they want something to look like “this” I better be able to make it happen. If they want something to look like “that” I better be able to make it happen. AND KEONE MADRID was one of the choreographers who challenged me to make his vision come to life.

Keone pitched the story of a guy having the ability to freeze time with an imaginary remote control. I asked myself “How in the world am I going to make a guy freeze time believable and not cheesy.” I didn’t. I somewhat lied to Keone and told him I knew how to pull this effect off, and once he gave me the green light, I would eventually learn how to composite time freezing. It was a big gamble but I was confident I would pull this off.

I feel what makes this film what it is, was the collaboration between director and choreographer. It was a back and forth type of relationship. He threw an idea, then I threw back an idea as well. The brainstorming of this project came together so well, that everything flowed so smoothly. It wasn’t a simple shoot at all; we strategically had to come up with a thorough game plan. We wanted to give the audience the impression of a short film. Not a concept. We were inspired by classic musicals (from the likes of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire) and we researched how they shot their dance numbers. We wanted the dancing to feel like a dance number and not a “music video.” Just like how there are random dance numbers in “Austin Powers”, or like the prom scene in “She’s all that,” we wanted the effect of a big production dance number in our film (the basketball court). Even though there is no singing in our short, we shot the dancing like a musical, hence the genre a dance-musical short.

Everything was planned out shot for shot, from the iPhone battery dying to the baby in the end freezing. All of this was done before shooting. So planning was a major factor when it came to the final product. All the time freezing was of course strategically planned. I had to imagine where everything was going to be while shooting (the basketballs, as well as, the b-ball players in the air). Editing it was a pain, but so much fun. The toughest shot was when Keone froze the two guys right after the choreography outside, and you see Keone cross over. That shot literally took 10hrs to complete, while the final duration of the shot was about 5seconds. Let me be clear, editing this film was labor intensive. Maybe 2-3 months to get the first rough draft done. I don’t have a crew to do this for me, cause I am the only person in my circle of friends who can do this. I need to teach people so I can have people help me. ANY TAKERS? Haha.

One more thing, moments before we shot, Keone and I prayed. I think he felt led cause this project was so much greater than him that he wanted everything go according to plan, and God had the power to make everything happen. The more I look back on his prayer, the more I felt God use me to make all this happen. I mean look, I never dabbled with special effects until now; I didn’t know half the things I was doing; and I only had about 4 days to prepare before we shot. Seeing how things were coming together in the editing room, everything just felt so miraculous to be honest. I mean, remember I didn’t believe I was capable of doing this film to begin with. All glory to God. Now that the film is finally on youtube, I look back and it was so much fun to be apart of something that was very challenging. I’m thankful that I had an opportunity to do it. It gave me an opportunity to learn more about the art of filmmaking. The challenges I came across were learning experiences that I would use for the next video and more to come. In summary, I told myself I wanted my work to stand out from the others. I am not there yet, but Keone’s project helped me become one step closer to it.

(Inside the Epilogue)

After the credits, there is a epilogue, but it wasn’t to bring closure, it was to show what it is to come. If you haven’t figured it out. This is only part 1 of a trilogy from Keone and Mari. Don’t keep your hopes up for more time freezes in the trilogy, cause there won’t be. However, I do feel the playfulness/the cartoony-ness of Keone in the first film will play a key part to the trilogy in my opinion. So a girl is introduced in the epilogue, and it’s played by Mari. DUN DUN DUN!!! That’s it; all you can do is wait until the next vid. I don’t want to give anything else away, but I am also excited to show the next video from this series. GOOD NEWS is the wait wont be long. It will be premiered no longer than two weeks.

∞

movementlifestyle:

theTOUR “Community” commercial: San Diego Edition

This video has much more meaning to it than what you see at first glance. In that night that we put this together, there was more than the 5 hours of rehearsal, the choreography we had to learn, or the character we had to portray. The meaning goes much deeper. I’m writing this blog, to share with you what it was.

Let me take you back to the Southern California dance community before the Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, or any social networking days. Where the only way to watch each other was being at the actual show, or watching it on DVD. For any dancers that was around that time, they can tell you that they have a collection of DVD’s or even VHS from several of the shows. Here was where you saw amazing teams like Culture Shock San Diego, Urban FX, Funkanometry LA, Unity, even before the Jabbawockeez were called Jabbawockeez, they were Mindtricks, and several others. All great memories for those who were a part of that era, and great history to learn about for those who are a part of this current era.

I can go on and on about this, but I’d like to dive into the San Diego dance community. To me, San Diego has been a vital life line to our dance community. Many of the styles, and creativity that you see today stem from SD’s past. I’m sure many who were a part of the past generation and the current generation can agree. As you saw in the commercial there were 2 people that walk out in the beginning. One named KJ Gonzales and the other Anna Sarao. You probably had no idea who they were or are a bit confused on what was going on.

Anna, as most of us that know her will say, is the “Yoda” of our dance community. She was artistic director for Culture Shock San Diego for a period of time and really changed the game with what she did with them. They had such an all-star group of dancers and had several Jabbawockee members as well. Today she still is very involved with our dance community, judging several of the dance competitions that you know about today. She also is the co-creator of BODY ROCK.

KJ, is a complete innovator of his time in the dance community and is a huge inspiration for some of the “new” styles that you see today. He was artistic director for Urban FX(San Diego) and they completely affected the way people performed, choreographed, dressed, what songs they danced to, etc. KJ’s energy, power, speed, and performance changed the game and it still shows in dancers’ work today. He was my first dance teacher and mentor, and many of us today have learned so much from him. Today he no longer dances, and is currently happily married(living like an old man :) ).

Several of the pieces that they created inspired me to start dancing and did so for many of the well known names that you hear about today.

Going back to the commercial you will notice they start by watching old videos of CSSD and UFX. Then it transitions into current SD teams watching newer videos of Choreo Cookies, 220, and Super Galactic Beat Manipulators. An intro to sort of pay homage to our past and how much they’ve influenced us, and a moment to be grateful for where we currently are.

Which brings me to my next point…

In our current day and age we have all the instant access you can ask for. The ability to know what ones doing, where they are(scary), and, in the dance world, what all the latest dance craze is. All this is available in the click of a mouse, trackpad, or touch of the finger. Yet there still resides studio rivalry, unhealthy competition, a huge amount of individualism and more. Some people are so focused on being the next big name, being the next big choreographer, or even the next big crew, when the word “community” is slowly drifting away. Even today when I perform at a show or event in our California dance community I barely know any of the dancers that we share the stage with, when in the past everyone knew each other and it would feel more like a reunion. Our current generation has so many resources that we have yet to tap into the best of it to benefit each other.

In this commercial the part of the San Diego community came together on a scale like this for the first time. The first time! And we’ve been around for MANY years. Even though the scale felt large for us it is still small compared to how many of us dancers are in San Diego, let alone the world. To me that night was even more special because as I looked around the room it wasn’t “big name” dancers that filled the room, or even people that have dance as a career. It was ordinary people that have school, work, families, children, and more. It showed that you don’t have to be the biggest name to make the biggest impact. There’s power in numbers. If we can come together studio by studio… team by team… city by city… then there’s no telling what can happen when we get to country by country, continent by continent, and planet by planet(haha kidding).

In all seriousness that night did something very special for us and I’d like to challenge YOU to do the same for your community so OUR community will only benefit. You don’t have to be famous or even have to have dance as something you’re pursuing. You just need each other. Whether that’s representing your city and coming to the mLtour, sessioning, or just taking class it all is effective. The SD dance community came together to make this commercial happen, imagine what can happen if yours does too!

As said in this famous Henry Ford quote;

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

Let’s come together and do exactly what the word “community” says… come unite.

Thanks for taking the time to get this far into my blog. I know it’s long(I tried to make it as short as possible), but I hope you feel any type of motivation after reading this. I’m sure I’ll see you somewhere along the journey :)

Godspeed

-Keone