Tiffany surprised everyone this past Wednesday by announcing that this would be the final practice of the Season.

It’s hard to believe that the season is coming to a close. Seems that tryouts were just a few months ago. Now another season has passed.

The good news is that the break gives Tiffany and I an opportunity to discuss the future. We’ve been kicking around a lot of ideas but whether we can make them work or not is yet to be determined.

Even though the season for the pro team is wrapping up, I still have footage to shoot of people who have known Tiffany in all stages of her life. So Fall will still be a busy one for me as far as getting the last of the footage I need to tell her story. Then comes the edit.

We also have on our discussion agenda if I’ll be coming back next year at all. There are a lot of stories that could be told I think. We’ll have to see. Tiffany has become a close friend and the girls are like an extended family. I’ve enjoyed my Wednesday with them. So not being there certainly would make me sad.

On another sad note, Emily will not be returning next year. She’s hoping to add another addition to her family but she wanted to dance one more year.
I am happy to say though mission accomplished as far as Emily goes. Here’s a shot of her smiling!

So if I’ve accomplished nothing else, I’ve captured Emily smiling.

The Spirits had two shows this year. Show one was the show most often performed. They did have a couple special routines for Tiff’s Birthday Bash and her daughter Crystal’s graduation. But show one was the one they pretty much performed all season long.

So on the last night of this seasons practice, they did show two one more time. None of the routines from the shows will be coming back next year so if you missed them this year, you’re out of luck if you wanted to catch them next season.

So here’s some raw footage of just one routine from show two. The Spirits are second to none.

I’ll keep you posted on the films progress and where we go from here. I’ll know in a few weeks if I’ll be back or if last Wednesday practice was our swan song. I hope not.

Well, another Spirit season is almost over. Next month Tiffany will hold tryouts for the next Spirits season and the cycle will start all over again.

It’s hard to believe I’ve filmed them for two seasons now. For the most part they pretty much ignore the camera and they’re not afraid to talk about anything while I’m there. We’ve earned that level of trust between each other.

But now I need to be focusing on Tiffany’s story. That’s what this documentary needs to be about, Tiffany. So I have a lot of interviews to do with people who know Tiffany from the beginning to now. I need to visit the places she’s been and most of all I need to really sit down and talk to Tiffany and get her story from her perspective.

Since this film is about Tiffany’s story I really could have wrapped the filming of the team a long time ago. But like anything the story I wanted to tell kept evolving and being refined.
The judges at the CR Film Festival though gave me the best advice. Make it short, tell a story and makes us care.

So that means a lot of what was originally planned had to be cut and pieces of the revised stories were trimmed away as well. What is left is all Tiffany. So in reality for this story I didn’t really need to put the girls through all this trouble with a camera in their face every Wednesday.

I know Tiffany jokes that I’ll never stop filming them but I’m sure they’re ready for a break from me and want to go back to how it used to be.

I’ll probably film one more round of interviews with the girls and then I think they can finally be free of me.

Then comes the arduous task of going through all the footage to find just those right shots. I have a shelf full of hard drives and each hard drives contains hours and hours of Spirit footage. I’ve found a great database that I can put in all the footage and find the shot I’m looking for quite easily once everything is logged.

Currently Tiffany and some of the team are in Orange County California where they performed at the OC Fair Saturday. I’m sure they knocked their Birkenstocks off with their performance. The Spirits are like no other dance team I can tell you that.

So, is this the end of the road? I know Tiffany and I need to sit down when she gets back from California and have a long serious talk about where the Spirits are going and if I’m going to be there to lend some sort of hand where I can.

So we’ll see where we go from here.

I have a new venture starting up very soon called Filmmaking Naturally. It’s still under wraps for the moment but hopefully when it launches it’ll spread it’s wings and take off to allow me to pursue other dreams.

I know what other dreams could be better than filming a bakers dozen or so of incredibly talented, extremely beautiful dancers? Most people would say I was nuts.

I do know that this is probably the one of very few non nature and wildlife related projects I’ll ever do. My true love has and always will be nature. I’m been deeply troubled for a very long time by the way we’ve treated our wildlife and our planet. From canned lion hunts, killing entire packs of wolves, destroying the rainforest. It weighs heavily on me and grows heavier by the day.

I’ve wondered for a long time about my destiny. We all wonder what our purpose in life is. A Shaman once told me that in my heart I already knew. I just had to figure it out.

That view is coming closer and closer into focus. And I’m not sure if I can do what will be asked of me. I guess time will tell.

But I guess I kind of digressed there for a bit.

Tiffany has become a very close friend. I know I can depend on her for anything and I hope she feels the same. If this is my last season with the Spirits, I know our friendship will continue and grow.

So stay tuned…

In June Oprah Winfrey announced a competition to be the next talk show star on her new network OWN.

I didn’t know anything about it but Tiffany called me all excited about the opportunity. We talked for a bit and decided to get together and shoot some footage to submit.

So, I set up a background, put up some lights and Tiffany came over and we shot some footage. We kept rolling until we both felt there was enough to put together a good submission.

Now, the original idea was to talk about Tiffany, the dance studio and the Spirits. But after reading the rules of the contest pretty much everything we had planned on doing for our entry wasn’t allowed.

You couldn’t mention your business, couldn’t show any logos. The only music allowed was what they provided for your use. Pretty much everything we wanted to do we couldn’t because the rules forbid us from doing so.

So, I sat on the footage for a while and just tried to figure out if there was something we could use or if we would have to rethink the whole idea and come up with something else. I read and reread the rules trying to figure out what exactly they were looking for. I discovered that it’s actually a contest to pick contestants for a reality show where one by one potential talk show hosts would be eliminated until finally the last one left would get a show on OWN.

Some contestants would be picked by the number of votes their entry received. Others would be picked by the producers. The way the voting was set up is you could vote as many times as you wanted to. So, I knew to not even bother trying to go that route. People will enlist friends, family and probably pay people to sit on their computers all day and click to vote running up unnaturally high numbers of votes. To me, that’s not really indicative of how great your entry really is. It just tells me that you have no life and can sit on the computer all day and vote for yourself. Sure you’ll get picked to be a part of the reality show but it’s not my style and I know it’s not Tiffany’s.

Reading the rules a little further I discovered that there was a possibility that they could love your show idea but if they didn’t like you, they could just give your show idea to someone else. So you might have the greatest show idea ever but if they don’t think you can carry the show, they’ll give it to someone else.

So I figured it really wasn’t so much about what your show idea was but about the personality of the entrant.

Now as hard as it is to believe, I actually thought even further. Yeah I know, kind of a rarity for me. But I thought about the number of talk shows that come and go. The format is really pretty much the same no matter what the subject matter etc. I mean it’s a talk show. You can shuffle the parts, but in the end, it’s a host talking to a guest. So it really comes down to the hosts personality if a talk show makes it or not. I came to the conclusion that whatever we did, it had to really show off Tiffany’s true personality.

So let’s recap for a moment. No mention of the CR Spirits is allowed. No logos. No music other than what they provide and to top it all off, showcase Tiffany’s personality in a way that will set her apart from the other entries.

So I went over the footage. Then I went over it some more and then some more. Even though you can edit different takes together it’s always better to have one clean take from start to finish. Well, I quickly discovered that we didn’t have that. What I did discover was that I found myself laughing at all the outtakes we had shot. See, I learned long ago that with Tiffany you need to keep the camera rolling because you never know when you’ll get that one moment where all the stars align and you get that perfect take. So when she would stumble on a take I just kept the camera rolling.

So after watching the footage over and over I realized that I had captured Tiffany’s personality but it was in all the bloopers. So, what to do? I started laying down all the different bloopers and after a few minutes I realized that I might finally be on to something. I wasn’t quite sure how Tiffany was going to feel about submitting all her mistakes instead of a polished piece but I really felt it captured her essence. Luckily, she liked it too.

In the end, who knows if she’ll get picked or not but the important thing is she tried. I think we showcased her real personality and her entry stands apart from pretty much everyone else’s. Not because we submitted her worst footage when everyone else submitted their best but because it was honest. Anyone can capture your attention when they know the camera is rolling. Tiffany captivates even when she thinks the camera isn’t rolling. Who do you think would make the better talk show host? My money’s on Tiffany!

She got over a thousand views and votes and she didn’t get them by sitting at her computer voting for herself night after night. In my book, that already makes her a winner!

Wanna see her entry?

Let us know what you think…

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the film. I’ve come to the conclusion that this really needs to be two and possibly even three films. The judges at CRIFF this year were pretty specific in what they were looking for in a documentary. We want it short, we want you to tell a story and we want to care. I had an opportunity to talk to them specifically about the Spirits documentary. Everyone agreed that there were many great stories there to be told but exploring them all would dilute the message of the main story.

So, I was faced with a couple choices. the first would mean that I was essentially done filming the team and I needed to focus just on Tiffany. I pretty much threw that one out because I think there’s still a great story about the team that needs to be told on it’s own.

The second choice was to keep filming the team and start working on a plan to do a second film that goes in a different direction than the first. This would require a lot more filming but would allow me to focus on other stories about the Spirits.

Although I haven’t talked to Tiffany about it yet I’m leaning towards doing two films. This would allow me to focus on specific storylines without diluting the main focus of each film.

I think we’re finally getting to the point with practices that we can start upping the filming game plan. The girls have worked really hard to get the routines cleaned and I think we’re almost to the point where we can start getting some specific shots down. Ultimately, it’s all up to Tiffany. She has to make the call when we can start to deviate a bit from the current status quo.

In other news, I took home another award. This time from the Iowa Motion Picture Association. It’s the first time I’ve ever entered anything in this competition. Sp, it was certainly nice to be recognized for my cinematography. It was really something to know that my little film was able to stand alongside a multi-million dollar film.

In the end, I think it all comes down to passion that separates you from the rest of the pack. I think that is what ultimately separates the Spirits from other dance teams. Other dance teams may be as talented, they may have the best choreographers, they may be in a better geographic locations. But the Spirits have passion and that’s something you can’t buy, teach or relocate to get.

Cedar Rapids Independent Filmmakers held their Tenth Annual Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival on Friday and Saturday, April 9th and 10th at the Collins Road Theatres in Marion, Iowa. The festival showcased the work of filmmakers from across the state and around the country. In accordance with the CRIFM’s stated mission, all the films screened featured stories or filmmakers with strong connections to the Hawkeye State.

What sets the Cedar Rapids Film Festival apart from most other festivals is that you can schedule a critique session with the judges to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your film. Even if your film isn’t selected to screen at the festival you can still schedule a session to get some insight on the judges thoughts.

Last year my short film “The River” took home the top prize in its category, the Gold Eddy.

The critique session was a very humbling experience for me. I’m usually my harshest critic and I see all that is wrong with my work. The only thing the judges really had to say was that they wanted to see more. One commented that it was like a painting on film. They all agreed that there was really nothing that they would change to improve the film. So I asked where do go from here? We want to see longer pieces and just keep doing what you’re doing.

So when the submission window for this years festival opened I almost didn’t make a submission. I had gone to Africa back in January and February to help test a new HD camera that Panasonic was introducing.

Although I had some stunning footage from Africa, I didn’t feel I had put it together to tell a story like I had for “The River.” So, I waited and debated.

Finally I decided to enter two films. “The Prairie” and “Silent Kingdom.” Both were about the same length as “The River” and both had a story to tell. But I felt neither one was as strong as “The River.

I hadn’t heard anything back from the festival and April was quickly approaching. Then one morning just a few weeks before the festival I received an acceptance letter for one of my films. But which one? The letter just said congratulations, your film has been accepted. I knew a writer friend of mine Kelly, had submitted one of her films so I emailed her and asked if she had heard. Sadly she had and learned that her film wasn’t selected.

So now I’m thinking if I didn’t get a rejection letter maybe BOTH my films were selected! How cool would THAT be? Sure enough, both films were official selections of the film festival.

Several years ago I watched one of my films on the big screen at the festival. For me, it was a horrible experience. All the things I saw wrong in the film were magnified a thousand times up on the big theater screen. So I vowed never to watch my own work again at a festival.

I had planned to attend the award ceremony on Saturday evening as I knew several friends who had films in the festival as well. But my schedule didn’t permit it this year.

The critique sessions were the next day and I had no idea if my friends had won anything or how my films had played out.

The festival director came out of the meeting room they were holding the sessions and asked if I’d be ok with going last. I had nothing else going on so I said sure. So I waited for the last filmmakers to finish up. Finally it was my turn.

Walking into the room it was like having a family reunion. Most of the judges have been with the festival since I started entering my films. So it’s great to be able to come back the next year and find out how you compared to previous years.

I think we all agreed that my films this year weren’t as strong as “The River” was but they were still top notch.

We pretty much always have a discussion where I say the bar I’m reaching for is here and my work is still way down here. They always tell me I’m wrong and that my work is already at that level.

This year I told the judges that the bar for me is set at BBC’s Planet Earth. It is probably one of the most visually stunning film projects of the natural world I’ve ever seen. One judge said “Dude, you’re already there.” I disagreed. but he went on to explain and for the first time it really made sense to me. He said, “You’re a one man band, you go out and you get this stunning footage all on your own. The filmmakers from Planet Earth had support crews, millions of dollars of resources, everything you could ever need for a production yet you’re just one guy and you’re on their level.” For the first time it finally made sense to me.

Since there really wasn’t a whole lot to discuss about the films I had entered in the festival I started talking to them about next year and hoping to enter the Spirits documentary.

I think they were a little surprised that I was working on a non-nature project but were excited to see what I could come up with. So, I asked their advice about what they’d like to see in a documentary.

The first thing they said was they had been telling all the filmmakers that entered documentaries this year was to make them shorter. They said every one they had seen could have been much shorter. The original plan had been for the Spirits film to be feature length which meant an hour or more in length. But after talking with the judges I think we need to par that down quite a bit and focus on having just the essential elements in the film.

We talked for quite a while on what made a good documentary and what they would be looking for in the Spirits film. It has certainly caused me to rethink the direction the film needs to go.

The original idea was totally wrong. It would have failed all the judges points completely. The idea I had been working on would have worked but would have introduced too many branches in the story. So that needs to change.

So the vision I have now is pretty much on target with what the judges are looking for. It’s going to take some refining to get it where it needs to go but I think it’s going to be a much better film in the end.

As I was getting up to leave Scott the festival director said he had some hardware for me.

“The Prairie” had won the Silver Eddy and “Silent Kingdom” had won the Gold Eddy in the same category!

Now my goal is to work on making the Spirits documentary worth of being selected into next years festival

Hopefully this time next year, we’ll be talking about the Spirits film and how it did in the Cedar Rapids Film Festival!

I got an email from Steve Cooperman from Panasonic Broadcast and Television Systems asking me to give him a call. Well, it’s not every day I get a call from Panasonic so I certainly was curious to know what he wanted to talk with me about.

Last year I had the good fortune to go to Africa and test drive the HPX-300 P2 HD camera before Panasonic announced it to the world. The footage I shot while there helped show off the camera when it was finally announced a few months later at NAB in Las Vegas. NAB is the National Associate of Broadcasters which is the premiere event in the television and broadcast world.

So, I gave Steve a call and he was wondering if I had some time to test out their latest camera the HPX-370 which had many improvements over the HPX-300 I took to Africa. Steve was hoping I could get him a minute or two of footage from the HPX-370 so they could again roll it at NAB when they announced the new camera.

I told Steve that Iowa is in that transitional state between Winter and Spring and it’s not at its finest right now. But he said anything I could get would be useful for them. So, I said sure, I’ll give it a shot.

So on 6:13AM on a Saturday morning a 45 pound flight case showed up on my doorstep. Inside was the first production model of the HPX-370 fresh from it’s journey from Japan.

Because it was pretty much identical in function as the HPX-300 it didn’t take long for me to familiarize myself with all the controls and before you know it, I was out the door looking for subjects to film.

The camera was really amazing to work with. It has lower light sensitivity, less noise and a whole host of new features. So I had a blast roaming around Eastern Iowa shooting whatever I could find.

I was only supposed to have the camera for a couple days. I had been sending frame grabs of the things I was filming back to Steve at Panasonic so he could see what I had been able to capture. I guess he must have been happy with what he was seeing because he asked if I wanted to keep the camera for a few more days. I said sure because that would allow me to test out the camera at a Spirits practice.

Luckily my buddy Jon Van Allen was free for Wednesday so I swore him to secrecy and he volunteered to bring down his four-ton grip truck full of lighting gear. We didn’t have much time as Jon made it down to the studio a little after 6 and practice was going to start at 6:30. On top of all that, they had a potential client coming in that wanted to see them perform. So Jon rigged up a few lights and before you knew it, the team was dancing.

We also set up a set in the second studio to shoot some additional footage to test the low light ability of the camera after practice as well. This consumed most of the time we had to get things set up. But once we were done we were able to get some awesome footage of the team.

Panasonic wanted the footage for Monday morning but by Friday, I still hadn’t finished my edits. I decided to send them two edits. One of the nature footage and the other of the Spirits. They were going to announce the camera on Monday morning so I had to ship them the footage by 4:00 Saturday afternoon to make sure it was in their hands by Monday morning.

Well, at 3:52:49 I made it down to FedEx and was able to get the footage express shipped for Monday morning delivery. I then sent them some additional footage on Tuesday as well so they could incorporate some additional footage into their presentation at this years NAB as well.

So if you’re in Las Vegas this coming week, you just may see the CR Spirits performing in HD at NAB. If not, here’s some of the footage that we shot that night during practice.

Many thanks to Steve Cooperman from Panasonic for allowing me to give this camera a test run before the world even knew it existed. And a boatload of thanks ( that’s more than many in case you were wondering ) to Tiffany and the Spirits for once again allowing me to destroy any form of structure they had planned for this practice. Filming is many times right in their face and they tolerate me and my ideas with elegance and grace. What they say after 60oz margaritas may be a different but we’ll save those comments for the special features section of the DVD.

If you’ve been following this blog at all you know that I’ve been following Tiffany and the Spirits for more than a year now for a documentary film.

One of the things that has always amazed me is the strength these women have. I’m not just talking about physical strength but mental toughness. Recently, I captured Tiffany talking to the team about seeing a guy in the Lindale parking lot haul back like he was going to strike the woman he was with. Tiffany slammed on the brakes of the Spirit van and was all set to open up a can of Spirit whoop ass all over this guy.

Lucky for him he decided that striking his female companion was maybe something he shouldn’t be doing.

I pulled up right after this happened and I saw the guy. Certainly not the cream of the Cedar Rapids crop. But Tiffany was ready to jump in and break it up if she needed to.

So, I thought to myself as I drove home that night, there’s really nothing these woman can’t do if they put their mind to it. They are like the Superwomen of Dance.

But that changed last week.

I had an opportunity to test out a new camera that Panasonic just announced this afternoon. So I called Tiffany and said what a great opportunity to test out this new HD camera and work on getting some interview footage. She had time in her schedule to come down so I set up a little make-shift studio and we sat down to talk a bit more about her early childhood.

For some reason one of my lights was making a slight buzzing sound that was getting picked up by the new camera. After dimming the light a bit the problem went away. But for some reason Tiffany seemed a bit distracted. She’d answer a question then she’d kind of drift off looking towards one of the lights.

Finally I saw and heard the reason for her distraction. It’s a little something I like to call Spirit kryptonite.

Check out the video below and you’ll see what I mean.

What does Escape to the Music have to do with dancing? Well, not a damn thing which is why we need your help coming up with the official title for the CR Spirits documentary film.

“Escape to the Music sounds like they’re refugees” is one comment I’ve heard about the film’s working title.And if you really think about it, if Tiffany “escaped to the music” she’d just be sitting in her room listening to the radio. Her story and the story of the women she’s empowered with self-confidence goes beyond music. It even goes beyond dance. We’re looking for a title that embodies all of that and more.

E2TM was only intended to be used as a working title. But the film has progressed to the point where we really need to see about locking in the final title. There’s been a lot of activity behind the scenes and some things are going to be rolled out very soon that are going to require the films title to be finalized.

So that’s where you, the readers of this blog, the fans of Tiffany and the CR Spirits come in.

We need your help in coming up with that one perfect title that sums up Tiffany’s story and embodies the attitudes and philosophies of the CR Spirits.

So what do you have to do? It’s simple. Click on this link tiffany@crspirits.com and drop Tiffany an email with your name and title suggestion. That’s it!

The winner will receive a special thank you in the credits of the film and a link to download a digital copy of the final film.

So get your thinking caps on and get your entry in today!

You’ve probably seen the CR Spirit van traveling down the highway at some time and wondered what was going on inside.

On March 20th, 2010, I was granted exclusive access inside the Spirit van as it travelled to Central City for a performance.

Now, I can only tell you a little of what went on as I’m under a non-disclosure agreement not to divulge everything that goes on inside the Spirit van. The penalty I’ve been told for breaking a Spirit NDA is you have to get up and dance in front of the Spirits. So it’s safe to say some of the Spirits secrets will be going to my grave with me! Believe me, it’s better for everyone involved not to see the chunk ‘o funk dance.

One thing I did learn was the the Spirit van contains some pretty wild technology. Operating the CD player is a two person job due to it’s complexity. Tiffany said it was something about bit rates and data sampling.
Sometimes Tiffany talks over my head about this stuff. When asked about the two person loading system and why not just get a “normal” CD player Tiffany said:

“The S-670 uses the latest in super linear PSD technology, wireless communication and innovative design to offer the most feature-rich, accurate and reasonably priced system on the market today. The S-670 is up to 3 times faster and up to 10 times more accurate than laser transits and theodolites! The S-670 can easily be used by the most inexperienced music lover but is also highly advanced for the most experienced users.”

So I asked her what happens when you’re in the van by yourself? She just gave me one of those signature Tiffany looks and said ” You listen to the radio.”

The Spirit van draws a lot of attention wherever it goes. Tiffany and the Spirits are always happy to meet fans. Some more than others.

There’s a lot of ritual that takes place inside the Spirit van. After everyone has all their gear stowed away and is safely buckled in, the team says a prayer that Tiffany will…

keep her hands on the wheel,

keep her eyes on the road,

and not dance while the van is in motion.

I think that’s still a work in progress.

When the Spirit van reaches its destination the team is excited and fired up when they exit the van. There’s a lot of kissing the ground and other arrival rituals that Tiffany explained to me is all for having a good performance.

But no matter what goes on inside the Spirit van, rest assured that when the music starts it’s all about dance. And dance is what the Spirits do best!!

There are several once in a lifetime events I’ve been privileged to be in the right place at the right time for.

In 1969 I stared into the night sky and marveled how the moon seemed a little bit closer that night as Neil Armstrong walked on its surface.
In 1986 I looked up again as Halley’s Comet passed overhead not to be seen again until 2061.
In 1989 I watched as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.
In 2000 I watched the ball drop in New York as we began a new millennium.
And on February 27th 2010 I was there when Tiffany celebrated her 40th birthday.

If you weren’t at Cocktails & Company that night you didn’t have your finger on the pulse of what was hot in Cedar Rapids. It seemed that most of Cedar Rapids and the surrounding communities walked through the door at some point during the night. And if you know Tiffany at all, you know it’s not surprising that so many people turned out to help her celebrate.

And in typical Tiffany fashion, she gave back to all those who attended with performances by both the studio teams as well as two performances by the pro team.

It wasn’t easy trying to document the event. There were so many people it was difficult to get a shot as it was literally wall to wall people. And as seems to have become the norm, the light was incredibly dim for my HD camera which means I had to really push it to try and get anything useable.

Keeping track of Tiffany proved to be nearly impossible as she would see someone across the room and wade through the ocean of people to say hi. Then seeing someone in another corner of the room, off she’d go to greet them as well.

Now, if you happened to only catch the pro teams first performance of the evening, you missed the bonus routine they did for their second performance. Now, I’m not going to show you the whole routine, but I think you’ll get the idea of why it was only performed for the 9:00 performance.

Will the entire routine show up in the documentary? I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.

I’m glad I was able to share such a fantastic evening with Tiffany. She’s done so much for the community and touched so many lives. I think it was overwhelming for her to see just how many people that is.