The website for which I have been producing videos for about a year now – food-hub.org – launched a new version of the site yesterday. It’s really quite pretty, but it’s also highly functional for all kinds of people in the food business – so much so that President Obama told my [...]]]>

The website for which I have been producing videos for about a year now – food-hub.org – launched a new version of the site yesterday. It’s really quite pretty, but it’s also highly functional for all kinds of people in the food business – so much so that President Obama told my boss and FoodHub’s Project Director, Deborah Kane, that it was “a great idea” at a Rural Champions of Change meeting at the White House last week!

I created the above video for the new home page and I have a confession to make – when I visited the site last night to see the upgrade in action, I smiled a great big smile when I saw the new, colorful, sexy FoodHub home page with my video right in the middle of it… We had the opportunity to speak to a number of food business professionals for the video and I had the opportunity to blend their comments and ideas together into a short, hopefully inspiring piece on why sourcing local food is important and wonderful and how FoodHub is helping people do it. Enjoy!

I work as a film workshop leader for Summer Drama Camps of uCamps, which is about as amazing as summer camp can get, and every year we create new, fantastic films with campers who choose to take our workshop(s). I just returned home a week ago and am once again very excited [...]]]>

I work as a film workshop leader for Summer Drama Camps of uCamps, which is about as amazing as summer camp can get, and every year we create new, fantastic films with campers who choose to take our workshop(s). I just returned home a week ago and am once again very excited about what we did this year. So I thought I’d share one of these little gems with you.

A week or two before I left for camp, I spent some time with some very dear, very cool, very internet savvy friends of mine. One of them mentioned a video he had seen on YouTube called ‘I Got It At Ross.’ I went home, watched it and loved it. So, naturally, when I was told the special projects were yet to be decided and that my input was welcome, well, I knew exactly what to do. I got the necessary thumbs-ups, took the reins and readied myself for the workshop.

Twenty-one campers came to the workshop (Much more than expected). And so we got to work. We created this video in the 5 days of the first week of camp and aside from being very happy about the way it turned out, had so much fun making it. But, seriously, how can you not have fun when you are directing and watching 21 awesome teenagers rap about Ross?

Enjoy!

I arrived in Santa Cruz two weeks ago to start the three weeks of Summer [...]]]> So, as it turns out, I totally lied in my last post. I do have internet. Though i’m still hoping that my guest writer will have something for you soon but in the meantime, here’s where I’m at…

I arrived in Santa Cruz two weeks ago to start the three weeks of Summer Drama Camp that I am in the midst of right now. My official job here is to teach a film-making workshop, alongside two other lovely and talented staff members, ‘Iceman’ and ‘Zula, and to capture documentary footage of the goings-on around camp. Note: we all have camp names… I am ‘Guatemala.’ But the overall experience of this camp goes far beyond that job description… I am, after all, living here for three weeks. And even though it can be pretty exhausting, it’s something I look forward to all year long and an experience for which I am incredibly grateful. Here’s why: The campers are creative, enthusiastic and highly talented. The staff here is made up of a group of people I admire, respect and love – many of which have become dear friends of mine over the last few years. Sometimes I look at the things going on around me and think, how did I get here? (The answer: Craigslist & a good interview). Basically, at the end of the day, even if i’m totally overwhelmed, I know that I am lucky to be here and am mostly just having a lot of fun!

That said, I am ultimately still here to make movies with my campers. So I thought I’d share with you what we’ve done so far… Last week I worked with seven campers to make a Western (inspired by the genre game we play on day one of the week) titled ‘The Return of Wild Willy.’ We had a lot of fun making it and I hope you agree it ended up being a pretty sweet film…