I got a copy of the Recordsetter World Record book

It is super neat to have my world record for my jumping photos published! I was even included on the cover of the book!

Since I returned from the awesome Robot Heart Stories road trip, I have successfully transitioned the editing of As The Dust from my laptop back to my desktop. I have turned off my phone, and have been nearly completely off the internet. I have been editing solid 15-18 hours a day. Since this project has consumed my life pretty thoroughly for several years, I am really interested in getting it finished as soon as I can, so that I can be spending my time doing the things I want to be doing. Like launching some free-energy devices, traveling the world, or organic gardening, etc.

It can get pretty lonely editing non-stop all day long with no distractions. But in mid November, I had visitors! Jamie and Kieran stopped in LA on their road trip. It was great seeing them. I continue to post updates on SIMILO, on our kickstarter page. UYUNI has now been in over 55 film festivals, so that’s exciting. Every so often I do get outside to continue the backyard gardening master plan, which includes adding a bunch of steps.

Soon I will have an assembly edit of the film, then I can focus on getting that edited into a rough cut. Every time I think about it, I start to cry. For the most part, I have been utterly alone in this feat, I have had to rely on my personal strength with no shoulder to cry on. I gave my word that I would finish it, so that’s the plan. Get it done. Soon I can share a new teaser for the documentary.

Cheers,
Mike

After several weeks of solid travel all over America and Canada, I finally returned to LA just in time for the DIYDAYS event we were having at the UCLA campus. It was a really great event, where we got to present the Robot Heart Stories project and photos. While there, I got to participate in a bunch of great discussions and presentations about filmmaking, new media etc. I also got to see a ton of friends like, Yoms, Zeke, Lance, Janine, Jon Reiss, Nirvan, Tommy Pallota, Henry Jenkins, Hunter Weeks, etc. Here’s my photos from the event.

After driving over 3000 miles to get to Montreal, I basically turned around and drove the whole thing back again, except this time I got to road trip with someone, which is always super fun. We got to go through many cities for the Robot Heart Stories project. First driving across Canada for a bit, from Montreal to Toronto, where we got to see Ayz and Judd of Dimeworth Films, then to Parry Sound, and Sault St. Marie, then to Minneapolis where we got to visit with my good friends Michelle and Jeremiah. Then we went to South Dakota and got to see Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse monuments, then past the Alamosa Solar Farm and the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado, then out to Four Corners area where we got to stay at The View Hotel right at Monument Valley. It was crazy neat to be right in the middle of all the large formations! Then on to the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and back to LA, stopping by the Griffith Observatory which is always a fun place in the evening.

The whole trip was super fun, Every day a new post would go live on robotheartstories.com and lots of people would track us, as we were the travel buddies for the robot name Laika. Our journey, (and all our great photos of Laika and her journey) were posted on the blog here. The project got blogged in a bunch of places including GOOD, and Wired.com. Here’s my whole photo set.

Right after I returned from the unschooling conference in San Diego, after a solid 6 months on the road, mostly on the east coast getting the editing on As The Dust done, I decided to join a neat project that my friends Lance Weiler and Janine Saunders were doing called Robot Heart Stories. The trip started from Montreal. So super last minute, I decided to drive out to Montreal with the rental car. I’m glad I did, as it allowed me to visit some friends that I missed on the way back from the east coast in August.

I left LA and headed straight to Texas to visit my friends at the Garden of Eden. I was so great seeing Jamie and Kieran and Shellie. I had a blast doing some gardening. We even planted some seeds for some new plants.

I stopped by in Nashville and shot for a few days on a neat video that my friend Ashleigh was making about Nashville, then on to visit Gregor at his new shop in Ashville, NC, then to Charlotte, NC to visit Randy and Juli at Luna’s Living Kitchen. Always great seeing everyone!

I visited with Owen, (who was part of our crew for As The Dust back in 2008) then stopped by Roger’s in Connecticut, before picking up Tiff in Providence, and driving into New Hampshire to say hi to Kelly of The Unschool Bus, then a quick hello with the Martin family, then to Caitlin’s house, where we had a pizza party celebration! We then managed to make it to the festival launch of Robot Heart Stories at the Festival Du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal.

I had a blast shooting the conference. I shot almost 5000 photos, over 4 solid days of shooting. There were so many super awesome kids, a bunch of inspiring presentations, and so many fun activities and people! Here’s the whole photo set.

Flo now has a new site up with the new name: Wide Sky Days. Check out the video that Flo made using all the photos I shot while at the conference:
 

This year I returned to Burning Man once again. This time, I was part of a special documentary team that my friend and fellow DP Terry Pratt put together. We were invited a week earlier than the event was opened. We shot some great footage of the various artists as they created their projects for the 2011 festival. It was awesome being there with only about 500 people. The playa was very open and empty. After they opened the gates, over 50,000 people arrived, and the Black Rock Desert became Black Rock City! Here’s my set of photos. Once again, during the week of the festival, I was a cinematographer for a documentary, so I only shot a few photos because the whole time, 12-18 hours a day I was shooting with RED998 MX

It was so awesome seeing friends like Scott London, Erica, Clay Haskell, Alexandra Liss, Jesse and The Do Lab team, Lighting who had an awesome art project called Otic Oasis, Lauren Randolph and Diana, Halcyon, Spitfyre and Shimmer, Nick who makes the most awesome Burning Man videos ever, Adam, Matt Scott, and Adrian Belic, it was a crazy beautiful year. So much great art, much of which I got to see being build.

This year, while I was waiting for several hours for media to copy to hard drives, after a long 18 hour day, I decided to walk out on the playa completely naked, not even a camera. It’s super cold at night, so I managed to enjoy several art sculptures that had lots of fire. It was a pretty freeing expereince, inspired by several people who did it in 2008 in our documentary As The Dust.

After the awesome time at the Black Mountain Ranch, I was excited to be back in California. Right when I got back I zoomed off to the beach to meet up with some awesome people. My Italian family was doing some travel in California, and were in Santa Monica. I hung out with them for the day at the beach. It was super great to see Viola and her family again! It’s amazing how fast people grow =) Then the very next day I got to visit Lisa Russell and her family, as they were in California on their huge road trip they did. Lisa has some super incredible kids. I was glad I got to meet some of them.

While passing through Colorado, I headed out to Black Mountain Colorado Dude Ranch to meet up with my friend Andrew Hyde. I was only there for one night, but it’s a pretty exciting place. Below are some photos from a typical Colorado Dude Ranch vacation. While there, I did get a great jumpshot of Andrew for my Jumping Book project!

Here’s my whole set of photos. Here’s a great video showcasing what they offer there:

After being on the east coast for many many months editing with people involved with As The Dust, I needed to head back west. After we wrapped on Dan’s short, I left Quebec, and went through Montreal, then to Toronto, where I met up with Kiki and her family. We did some camping and canoeing which is always super fun. Then I went to Indiana where I got to see Madison and her family again! Always so so lovely to see her. Then I headed on to meet up with fellow free-energy inventor, Russ Gries. It was great hanging out and discussing the future of water-based free-energy solutions. Then I got to meet up with Chicago-based dancer Monica Thomas, National Cycling Champion, Magen Long and fellow jumper, Nicole Faaborg. Then I headed to Colorado out to Black Mountain Ranch.

In August I finally headed out of the US, on my way back west. I decided to drive via Quebec where my friends Ayz and Judd were producing a short film that our friend Dan Gaud was directing. I was able to help out immensely and while there shot some great behind the scenes photos. It was great getting to work again with the great DP Kevin Rasmussen, looking forward to the short!

Like the FB for the film and follow along as Dan posts updates.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tonight-I-Strike/195336330551180

I have been blessed to have met some really neat people recently. I have gotten to hang out with a bunch of unschooling families. Thank you for the fun adventures!

The OM Family-
I was able to do a bunch of editing at Caitlin’s house in Maine. Hanging out with the kids was a super blast.

Julie Persons and family-
On my way up north, I got to hang out with Julie and her family. Super fun time in Maine!

The Martin Family-
I had a great time shooting Dayna’s conference back in April, and had the chance to hang out with them in New Hampshire. Super fun family. Dayna’s website.

In July I ventured down to NYC to shoot some jumpshots with some awesome people for my Jumping Book. NYC is a crazy place with a car, always trying to figure out where to park and dealing with traffic etc.

Here’s my twitter from NYC from July 20th

a whirlwind few days in NYC. shot some great jumpshots w/ @alexisgoldstein @snerko @janinesaunders @edyson for @jumpingbook.
20 Jul via web

I did a jumpshot of Alexis Goldstein, Recordsetter.com co-founder Dan Rollman, and had a great time meeting up with Janine Saunders. We made a fabulous meal. Janine even did a blog post on her food blog. And while in NY, I got to meet long time online friend Esther Dyson. She is a huge inspiration to me. We did a great jumpshot at the Meetup.com office.

After Nova Scotia, I continued editing in Connecticut for several more weeks in June and July. I got to enjoy yummy food that we made, fun adventures to nearby places like the lake, as well as exploring the forest more.

Here’s a twitter I posted from June 4th:

today = dreaming gardening cleaning creating ATDSing going cooking eating gathering enjoying fireing dancing laughing photoing #thankyou
4 Jun via web

While there, we even had our power out for days due to the storm knocking over power poles. We managed to move our editing over to Clear Point Center, thanks Steve and Shannon <3 I also got to visit Sirius Community in Massachusetts. Which was really neat! I celebrated July 4th a few times, once in CT and once in upstate NY at the lake house with family! I had a really great time getting a bunch of the editing for As The Dust done, and enjoyed the editing time with one of the main filmmakers on the doc; Tarynn Wiehahn. Here’s the photo set.

Trying to figure out the overwhelming technical problems with ATDS sometimes are so mindboggling, sometimes I feel like I will never be able to get it finished. It has been hard. Very hard. Dealing with all the people involved, as well as the massive amount of media we have.

Sometimes I go for a walk, sometimes I scream, sometimes I have a dance party. Ultimately I somehow figure it out. Every time. I promised I would finish this doc, so I keep going. =)

Here’s a twitter I posted on July 11th:

Another unfulfilling day editing @asthedust. Overwhelmed + feel like screaming. More problemsolving tomorrow. Thx for the continued support.
11 Jul via Mobile Web

I did the long drive from Nova Scotia back to Connecticut to continue editing on As The Dust. While in the Connecticut area, I got to attend the Annual Strawberry Soiree at Red Fire Farm. It’s a grand celebration, with lots of guests, and lots of strawberries! We had so many flavors, it was great. I enjoyed shooting the event. Check out the photo set here.

I left the CT area and headed up to Nova Scotia to meet up with some great Burning Man friends, Spitfyre and Shimmer. Every year they are part of the Kidsville Villiage at Burning Man. It was a great adventure. Here’s the photos link.

I celebrated by birthday while up there. We celebrated by making oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies, and homemade spring rolls. It was great. I got a ton of editing done on As The Dust, got to shoot an indoor lacrosse game, and even got to explore a bit of Halifax around Duncan’s Cove.

Wow! What can I say. I am so blessed to have gotten to opportunity to shoot Dayna’s conference. It was a total blast. Here’s a twitter I posted about it.:

I’m in a place called Magical, surrounded by magicians. #unschooling
11 Apr via web

Here’s a bunch of the photos I shot: link. Also check out my friend Lisa Russell’s recap of the conference, as well as Dayna’s blog post right after.

Dayna is already getting ready for the 2012 conference! Life Rocks 2012 Unschooling Conference

Luna’s Living Kitchen is a magical place. I have been lucky enough to get to visit there a few times recently. It’s basically an awesome raw vegan cafe. They make everything in the kitchen. Their creations are beautiful and delicious. If you are ever in Charlotte, NC, make sure to visit them, and say hi to my friends Randy and Juliana that run it.

Here’s a bunch of photos I have taken there: link

check out their facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/lunaslivingkitchen

and their site:
http://www.lunaslivingkitchen.com/

and their yelp page:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/lunas-living-kitchen-charlotte

As I said in February,

In March I get to adventure out to SXSW then out East on a journey to get As The Dust Settles edited. I have never switched so many things around, canceled so many of my plans, and put so many things on hold for any project I have ever done. I have a lot of support, and I hope that all my effort, persistence, and patience will be worth it in the end.

Since being in Los Angeles was far away from various people that were part of a huge documentary I have been in the middle of finishing, I decided to fully commit to getting it finished. I decided that I would drive to the East Coast with a bin full of hard drives for the project, and just edit on the East Coast with whoever wanted to work with me on getting the project finished. In future blogs I will share what happened, for now, here is my trip out east =)

I went to Sedona, AZ. A super beautiful place. I got to hang out with fellow inventor and friend Jamie Buturff. Then I headed out to Texas, via Meteor Crater, AZ, which was so awesome to see again. The last time I saw it was in 2001. After SXSW in Austin, while still in Texas I hung out with family, as well as my friends: Christine Moers, Rachel Huson, and Kimmy Ngyen (who was in our shoot for our upcoming film KORE.)

I left Texas, and headed to Nashville, where I got to hang out with Anja, the Nickle family, and Ashleigh Prince, then on to Atlanta, for a Royksopp show with Allie Rivenbark, who I hadn’t seen since film school days back in 2003. Then out to South Carolina, where I met up with flickr friend Jackie Pennoyer, then to North Carolina to meet up with Jamie Dee to work on As The Dust, then to Luna’s Living Kitchen to hang out with Randy and Juliana.

Then I headed north and stopped to visit Susanna Greever, a fellow PQ 2008 staffer, then I met up with Johnny Utterback, a fellow photogrpher, as well as one of the musicians for As The Dust. Johnny and I put together the first teaser for As The Dust, and in April, I got it approved and launched it online. Then I visited: my cousin Lauren, Zeke Zelker, Tene Kelly, Katheryn, and Jeremy to do some editing work on ATDS. While I was in NY I got to see Matt Zchoche, (who I worked with on Room 27 back in 2003) and I attended a screening of Brook Silva-Braga’s new documentary The China Question.

Here’s the teaser for As The Dust:

Then I headed north to New Hampshire and visited with the Halldorson family who travel around in their awesome Unschool Bus. I love the jumpshot we did for my Jumping Book. Then up to the Life Rocks Unschooling Conference, that my friend Dayna was doing. More about that and my other travels in later blogs.

On my way out East, I went to SXSW in Austin. It pretty much felt like a dejavu from last year, but differnet people, different films, different photos. =) I saw a ton of movies. Here are my photos from this year: link

At SXSW, my friends Cherie and Chris from Technomadia, and Tynan were giving talks about travel. It was great to see their presentations. After, we had a travel gathering, where I got to meet people like Gary Arndt.

I got to see Mike Ambs, Zadi, Lan, Vu, and Bonny, which is always fun =) At the IndieGoGo party I got to see Slava, and Emily Hagins, who was premiering her film My Sucky Teen Romance at SXSW. I also got to attend the Austin Burning Man gathering at a local park.

I also got to attend the huge Vimeo party, check out the video that Mike Ambs helped with:

I was able to see a ton of movies this year. Most were pretty awesome, but some were super horrible films, films that should have never been made. I guess that is what the movie industry is about, people make what they want. I am not including links to them.

96 Minutes -

A great multi-storyline film. Shot well, well edited.

Dragonslayer -

A interesting documentary, that followed a skateboarder.

Fuck My Life -

a super enjoyable relationship film shot in Chile. It mixed with all sorts of present day relationship things like people inteacting online via facbook etc. It was shot on a 7D.

Apart -

Bizzare film.

Natural Selection -

super well shot. engaging plot. Intense

Hesher -

A crazy crazy film starring Joseph Gordon Levitt of Hit Record. Intense… Natalie Portman also has a role in the film.

My Sucky Teen Romance – directed by my friend Emily Hagins

wow. super fun. well shot. Great comedy about vampires… huge sold out screening. Actually every one of her screenings were sold out. =) Here’s her trailer:

I attended a great panel that included Billy Corben and producer Christine O’malley moderated by IDA board president Eddie Schmidt. I had lunch with Scilla Andreen of Indieflix,  Brian Chirls who made Crowd Controls,  Brian Felsen from CD Baby, and Nic Baisley from Film Snobbery. I saw Micki Krimmel of Neighborgoods, and got to see Bill Erickson at his bday party, April Johnson, a fellow filmmaker, and Shannon Lepere, a fellow jumpshot photographer. Andie Grace and I had lunch, we caught up about the Burning Man documentary I’m getting finished.

SXSW has a great Music portion that lasts for many days. This year, several people I grew up with were performing as part of the official SXSW lineup, Endless Hallway, and Skrillex. Their shows were totally crazy. SXSW is crazy. At night it becomes a huge loud party scene, with a huge mixture of people visiting the festival for films, people visiting for all the music shows, and a ton of local people form Austin just out walking.

Maybe I will finally get all these photos made into a proper picturevideo for this year sorta like what I did for 2008: http://vimeo.com/797750 Thanks again for such a super great SXSW adventure, and thanks Shannon for letting me stay with you guys.

Mike

For several years I have been filmmaker friends with Olivier, but had yet to see his documentary about Burning Man. I loved his other short form videos he made about the Flaming Lotus Girls and have been promoting his screenings of his feature length documentary Dust & Illusions.

On March 6th, I got to finally see the documentary at the LA Cinematheque, with a ton of other Los Angeles Burners. Wow. Some amazing footage. A great look at the history of Burning Man. After the film there was a great Q&A moderated by the LA Burning Man regional coordinator Athena Demos, and included Olivier, John Law, and Michael Michael from the BM Org.

Check out Olivier’s site, he has screenings always upcoming.
http://dustandillusions.com/

DUST & ILLUSIONS. 30 Years of Burning Man History, from the late 1970s until today. An in-depth look at the event and how the philosophies have involved in 30 years.

Here’s Olivier’s trailer

Here’s part 1 from that Q&A

February was fun. I got to join some friends on an epic photowalk at El Matador State Beach.

We had another update on SIMILO. A couple of the truck rigs were completed. Another step towards getting the VFX finished!

I had several friends who were nominated for the Oscars this year. They didn’t win, but it was super awesome wishing them luck.

And with all the crazy rain we have had and the crazy cold temperatures (for LA) we actually got some snow!!!!

In March I get to adventure out to SXSW then out East on a journey to get As The Dust Settles edited. I have never switched so many things around, canceled so many of my plans, and put so many things on hold for any project I have ever done. I have a lot of support, and I hope that all my effort, persistence, and patience will be worth it in the end.

Mike

I have had a few tabs open for several weeks with a few blog posts that I think are just great.

Here they are:

marcandangel.com/2010/12/13/28-dignified-ways-to-impress-everyone-around-you/

gracefulbalance.com/2010/11/30/what-life-has-taught-me-so-far/

Look at this one, find the opposites:

marcandangel.com/2010/11/29/75-ways-to-stay-unhappy-forever/

and lastly a great post about perfectionism. Even though I don’t agree with every point, it’s been eye opening.

bemorewithless.com/2010/why-you-should-boycott-perfection/

Here is my “life” tag. There are hundreds and hundreds of truly genius links and posts:

delicious.com/mikehedge/life

On my way out to Park City this year, I got to meet up with Marsha and Rick, which was great =) Always great seeing them again… I also got to meet up with Sterling Allan and his beautriful family for some jumpshots!!!

I made it to Park City just in time for the Slamdance/Sundance sled-off and the filmmaker hot tub summit. Always a blast!

Sundance 2011 was crazy! I shot a ton of photos, and met up with a ton of people. I also got to work on a great transmedia project called Pandemic 1.0 with Lance Weiler, Zeke Zelker, Josh Cramer, Janine Saunders, Zak Forsman, Alison Weber and others. Here’s the WIRED post and the Filmmaker Magazine post and the Tribeca post about the project.

I met up with a ton of other filmmakers, a few ATDS advisors, and several friends including Cindy Baer and Lucy Walker (who had her film Waste Land nominated for an Oscar =)

Here’s a twitter from me from Sundance:

Great seeing everyone! @moredillon @zekezelker @saskiawb @DanMirvish @gogoslava @shericandler @Jon_Reiss @paulrachman @AdrianBelic

7:38 PM Jan 23rd via web

I saw some truly amazing films at Sundance this year:

Like Crazy

Which was a great story about a long distance relationship. Very moving and something I have dealt with myself. Like Crazy won the Grand Jury Prize !

Another Earth

Was a great drama with a great sci-fi aspect about another planet that was an exact mirror of ours. Brit Marling was awesome. Another Earth won the Special Jury Prize

Life In a Day

Was an awesome collage film with thousands and thousands of clips sent in from people around the world, all shot on the same day. Earth is truly an amazing place.

Connected

Was a great documentary about how everything we do, is connected. Tiffany Shlain did a great job.

Sound of My Voice

This film, also starred Brit Marling. It was a great film about a small group who had knowledge from the future. Loved the ending. Really made me think.

All of my Sundance photos are here: link

On the way back to LA, I got to do some jumpshots with some great friends including Rick, Ashley, and TJ Nelson.

Hope Sundance 2012 will rock!

December and January were intense months. When reality is ripping apart your understanding or how you think things are, you hold on. You try to preserve the understanding you have.

The restructuring of a huge project I’m working on was tough. My solution was and still is: patience. If Karma is listening, I hope she gives me an A, just for keepin’ with it. Here’s a twitter from December:

This clean up and recovery process is taking a long time. I’m being patient.
3:01 PM Dec 17th, 2010 via web

For me, friendships are a core part of my life. I depend on them, I give them my all. So restructuring friendships, is not a normal activity for me, but had to be done. So I cried. I complained. I struggled. Ultimately I did what I felt was best. So now I’m on to a new year with out the awful mess of many toxic friendships. Feels good. I have had the opportunity to make lots of new friends in the last couple years… Here’s some of my twitter posts that summed up what I went through:

I trusted people who I thought were friends. Unraveling this nightmare is overwhelming. Keeping my chin up.
11:18 PM Jan 7th via web

somehow I had friendship and fanship mixed up a bit. still sorting it out. not interested in being taken advantage of again.
10:51 PM Jan 10th via web

I gave the majority of my friendships my all. I got burned out. the majority of my friendships weren’t friendships. creating a new strategy.
12:04 AM Jan 11th via web

My life is my party, who i invite is my choice.
Mon Jan 17 2011 11:12:20 via txt

PS…  Our short film UYUNI won another few film festivals! http://bit.ly/uyirun http://bit.ly/uypap10 and a jury award! It’s pretty exciting when we get into another festival or win another award. UYUNI has now been in over 50 film festivals.

2010 has been interesting. It has definitely been a transition year. Completing one chapter of my life and trying to start a new one, wrapping up projects, acknowledging that old friendships are over, associating with new people who are honest, as well as lots of travel, lots of shooting, lots of film festivals, and lots and lots of patience.

Attempting to summarize my year is difficult because I filled my year up with so many great adventures, each which deserves a mention. Here’s a few highlights:

January, I went out to Park City for Slamdance and Sundance. I met up with a bunch of great filmmakers and saw a bunch of great films. February, I ran a hugely successful crowdfunding effort for a great scifi short film, SIMILO. March I was out in Austin for the SXSW festival. While there, I saw many great documentaries and met up with many people. The rest of March and April I did a huge epic roadtrip through 27 states for my Jumping Book Tour. April/May I ran several pick-up shoots for an epic scifi project called KORE. May, I got to shoot some beautiful RED MX footage at Lightning in a Bottle. June, I was shooting in Toronto. July, I was part of the great Marko Rodin team out at the Tesla Tech conference in New Mexico. August/September I was shooting RED MX on a friend’s documentary project out at Burning Man 2010. September/October, I was in Toronto for the Toronto Film Fest and for a shoot, then out in Detroit shooting with my friend Ruairi. November, our short film, UYUNI got into a bunch more film festivals (now over 50 film festivals) and earned several more awards, and Ruairi’s teaser for BLINKY was released online! Progress continues to happen on getting my documentary As The Dust Settles finished. I never predicted the amount of patience I would need to get it finished, but I have several collaborators back on board, and together we will get the doc complete =)

I am super grateful for all the support, and all the people who continue to inspire me. I have high hopes for 2011, as several of my projects are nearly finished. Truly grateful for my parents’ continued support of my passions and dreams.

PS I now have a world record for my jumping photos and am making a book! If anyone else will be out at SXSW 2011 in Austin, let me know.

For the past few years, I have wanted to make a picturevideo of my whole year, for this year’s 1127 blog, I decided to do it! These are only the best photos that mostly were published to my flickr throughout the year. Music by my great friends: Counterspark, Rhian Sheehan, and East Forest. Please let it load, watch it in HD and fullscreen. Cheers! Here’s the super epic picturevideo called Every Day is Spectacular: the 2010 Mike Hedge picturevideo.

Below are just a few photo highlights from each blog I posted throughout the year. If you want, you can read each blog by clicking the individual blog titles. And if you want to read my entire year as a single post, here it is: 1127 2010 (please allow 10 minutes for all the text and photos to load)

December/January Split

Sundance/Slamdance 2010

February

March/April/Jumping Book Tour

SXSW

April May June Recap

Tesla Tech Conference 2010

Burning Man 2010

September and October Recap

Nov Recap

Anyone gonna be out at SXSW 2011 in Austin?

11271127112711271127112711271127112711271127112711271127

All the photos I take: flickr.com/mikehedge (over 45,000 photos posted during the last 4 years)
All my semi-daily updates: twitter.com/mikehedge (over 1050 posts during the last 4 years)
All the great sites/links I tag: delicious.com/mikehedge (over 20,000 posts during the last 5 years)
Here is my facebook: facebook.com/mikehedge
Here is my RSS feed: feeds.feedburner.com/mikehedge

Lots of appreciation, freedom, and joy.
PS if you know of anyone still asleep, wake them up!

Light and Love,  Mike Hedge
behedge@yahoo.com

November so far has been an interesting month. Lots of projects being finished. A bunch of neat projects from friends being finished, announced, or launched.

My friend Tom Lowe has been out shooting a great film all over the southwest. He recently launched the teaser for the film:

My friend LYNX, has launched her new album! Here’s a track from the record:

Ayz’s new teaser for Dan Gaud’s new film project DAYLIGHT launched!!! Here’s the Quiet Earth post about it. (They shot on RED998 with anamorphic lenses.)

While Macgregor was in LA, we did a pick up shoot for a project we shot while on the crazy CA roadtrip adventure last year. Shooting in downtown LA is always beautiful. Especially with people like Ayz, Ruairi, and Macgregor.

November was the theatrical release of Lucy Walker’s great documentary, Waste Land. I got to attend the LA premiere where Lucy did a great Q&A.

Speaking of Waste Land, it along with another one of my favorite IDA documentaries This Way of Life, were named on the short list for the 2011 Oscars!!!

November also marked the release of the new teaser for Ruairi Robinson’s film BLINKY. This is a film that I was the 2nd AD on, as well as still photographer. The film stars Max Records.

During November we had tons of great news for our film UYUNI.

We got into another dozen or so film festivals!!! Including: Región de Murcia, Arona, Cineclub Soria, IKUSKA. We won second prize at Orotava, and we won 1st Prize at Eibar.

The last few days of November I got to visit the Hoover Dam and the new Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. It was quite a site to see. We got to walk out on the bridge and look back on the Hoover Dam, then we did the walk along the Hoover Dam and got to see the new bridge from there. It was beautiful =) While in the Vegas area I got to jump off the Stratosphere and visit Red Rock Canyon. Hope everyone had a pleasant Thanksgiving.

Lots of great plans and ideas for the upcoming months.

I arrived back in Los Angeles, after a crazy couple weeks filming at Burning Man 2010, for a great documentary project, then I flew to Toronto, to help shoot some pick-up scenes for a feature called Skeleton Lake. While there I attended the Toronto International Film Festival, and saw a great indie film directed by Charlotte Sachs Bostrup called Karla and Jonas. Then I visited friends, went to a great farmer’s market, helped can a bunch of tomatoes, visited my friend, Paul Cormack, to shoot some great jumpshots for my Jumping Book, then flew back to Los Angeles.

While in LA, I had a beautiful moment with a great double rainbow in my backyard, posted some VFX updates on our SIMILO project. Saw Sara Ziff’s awesome documentary Picture Me, and Mike Dion and Hunter Week’s genius documentary Ride The Divide got released!! (and is now on youtube for rent.) Got an awesome mention about my Jumping Book on a site called Visual News.

I then flew to Detroit, helped shoot some scenes for my friend Ruairi Robinson for his awesome next sci-fi short film, starring Kett Turton, and got to work with people like producer Nick Ryan, DP Macgregor, and friends Judd Tilyard and Ayz Waraich. I briefly saw Jerry Paffendorf before I flew back to LA. I had a gorgeous sunrise at 30,000 feet before I returned some gear on the WB lot.

Grateful for the last few weeks of shooting, traveling, and visiting with great people. Very exciting to share some of the video I shot, as well as some of the great projects I have been lucky enough to be part of.

Near the end of October, I got to join the great people from the IDA for a great discussion with Lucy Walker (director of such great documentaries like Devil’s Playground and Waste Land. It was so great hearing from Lucy about the documentary process. She is quite inspiring. Her documentary Waste Land is in theatres now, check it out. I first saw Waste Land out at Sundance this year and blogged about it here.

The past few weeks have been great for our short film UYUNI. We got into several more film festivals, and we just found out that we won another two festivals. First prize at the Festival de Cortometraje Jerez 2010, and second prize at the Festival de Cortos de Orotava. I’m very proud of all the success with the film.

The new awesome remix album from Codes in the Clouds was released recently! Check out the center spread background of the CD jacket, which RED998 shot during our shoot in the UK with Codes in the Clouds. I also recently got Halcyon’s new book! I can’t wait to read it.

We are slowly getting the VFX work finished for SIMILO! I hope to have more updates soon!

My twitter post from Oct 24th:

“your experience is solely based on what your expectations are.”

This year’s Burning Man was absolutely beautiful. Thank you for everyone making it such a great year! This year I joined a film team to work on an ambitious multiple-year documentary. Shooting on RED998 MX was such a pleasure. The footage from this year is like nothing anyone has ever captured at any Burning Man event ever. Hopefully soon, I can share some of the breathtaking footage.

With two tickets, (designed by my friend Arin Fishkin) my dad and I headed out to the playa. This year upon arriving at Black Rock City, 50,000 other people and I were blessed with a beautiful double rainbow. I shot the whole week for the documentary project, so have very few photos, but I did manage to shoot some stills. I had a great time, and managed to meet up with a bunch of friends.

After several years of being jealous of people who have gotten to shoot Black Rock City from the air, I got my chance! I was lucky enough to shoot some RED footage from the sky.

I managed to shoot a few jumpshots for my Jumping Book. Such fun shooting with great people including: Jess Bobier, Chris and Cherie from Technomadia, Tao Ruspoli, Halcyon, Tim Ferriss,

I also got to meet up with a bunch of friends including: Scott London, John Curley, Andie Grace, Yomi, Paul Caridad, Lauren Randolph, Caitlin Randolph, Dillon Morris, Lukas Fittl, Kati Bicknell and Will Sacks (who are launching a new company called Moonlyght), as well as many others. Here’s my set on flickr.

I was not able to attend the Tesla Tech Conference last year, so I really wanted to go this year. The event being all the way in Albuquerque, NM was a bit far, but several days before the conference, I got a call from Marko Rodin about joining the team to document the week. I drove out to Marko’s house, met up with a few other people on the Rodin team, and we started our roadtrip out to Albuquerque!

Over on Sterling Allan’s great wiki site PESwiki.com, Michael Riversong has a great recap of the conference. There were many great presentations by many truly great inventors. Check it out here. And here is a bunch of photos I shot.

It was a really adventurous week. Lots of information and video will be released soon, as well as several groundbreaking inventions. It was truly an honor getting to meet/see people like John Searl, Paul Pantone, Bob Boyce, Clayton Nolte, Jeff Cook, and all the great people on the Rodin team including: Randy Powell, Jamie Buturff, Jack Scholze, Tyler Thurmond, Gregor Arturo, Fried Khan, BJ White, and Peter Van Bakel

Alien Scientist did a quick recap of the event:

A portion of Jamie Buturff’s presentation:

Part of John Searl’s presentation:

Recently Randy Powell did this great TED talk at TEDxCharlotte

After many many weeks on the road for my epic Jumping Book tour, I returned to LA and continued rockin’ life. I met up with Peggy and Ondi Timoner at a great IDA Mixer. Always great seeing them. I saw Andrew Strugnell as he passed through Los Angeles on his whirlwind world travels. I met up with Rob Simonsen (who did the score on Mike Lynch’s BURDEN) to do a great jumpshot in Hollywood for my Jumping Book. I posted a few updates on our fundraiser for SIMILO. Our shortfilm UYUNI got into another dozen or so film festivals, including several in Spain and one more in France. We also got a special jury mention for the film at the Certamen de Cortos Universidad de Cantabria y Ciudad de Santander (shorts competition) and won a Platinum REMI Award at WorldFest – Houston International.

In late April we threw together a pick up day shoot for KOR3. It was great seeing it all come together. I had a blast working with the new RED Prime lenses, and several of my good friends Macgregor, Nathan Garofalos, Stephen Sullivan, Kevin Dorian, Luis Labrador, Ruairi Robinson, and Nathan Reid, (lead actor in my film Room 27) etc. The footage looks magic.

I was lucky enough to be in the LA area for the Newport Beach Film Festival, where Hunter Weeks and Mike Dion’s new documentary, Ride The Divide was having it’s Southern California premiere. It was great meeting up with Mike and a few of the cast from the film. I also got see Zaq (who joined Mike, Hunter, and I on the epic 50 States in 14 Days trip) and Jessica and Rima which was great.

At the very last minute IndieGoGo invited me to join them on May 3rd, to do a quick pitch at the 2010 Digital Hollywood Content Summit for As The Dust Settles. I was joined by fellow ATDS collaborators Lauren Randolph and Matt Scott. Panelists included: Danae Ringelmann Co-Founder, IndieGoGo, Moderator Angela Shelton, Director, Searching For Angela Shelton, Adam Chapnick, Vice-President IDA, Distribber, and Steve Reich, Writer, PBS Nova. Everyone there loved the project, and several of the panelists had some great feedback about our pitch. There were some fellow Burners in the audience who had some great ideas for the project as well. I also had a great discussion with fellow documentary filmmaker, Adrian Belic about As The Dust Settles.

In addition to the feature length documentary As The Dust Settles, I am also making a great soundtrack for the film, as well as a collaborative photobook. I am working with some truly accomplished photographers including Scott London, John Curley, Tomas Loewy, Tristan Savatier, Lauren Randolph, and Ryan Jesena, it was great meeting up with some of them and discussing plans for the photobook. We even did a jumpshot =)

I attended the Cinefist screening where Gary King’s film What’s Up Lovely screened. It was a great evening that included a neat discussion about crowdfunding with Gregory Bayne as well. I had a really special Mother’s Day, where my whole family went out for a hike to the Bridge to Nowhere (it’s been on the list of hikes to do for many many years.)

Towards the end of June, as the teaser for KOR3 was coming together, Macgregor decided we needed another pick up shoot. Super super last minute everyone came together, Nathan Garofalos flew in with RED998, we got an awesome downtown LA location, and a 40 foot greenscreen. =) It was a great day of indie filmmaking. I got to work with a bunch of really talented people on this shoot. Super grateful! Thanks to Stephen Sullivan, Luis Labrador, Tim Hyten, Mathew Lorenceau, Kimmy Ngyen, Mia, Tiffani Bearup, Jack Daniel Stanley (main actor in UYUNI) and all the other great cast and crew for making this such a successful shoot! The footage is beautiful. I can’t wait to share the teaser!

After missing Lightning in a Bottle in 2008, I decided that I wouldn’t miss the event this year. Lightning in a Bottle is a great event in the Los Angeles area put on by the The Do Lab. Many people part of Los Angeles Burning Man community attend. I shot the whole event with RED998, so have very few photos. Hopefully soon I will be able to export some of the great footage I shot. I got to see some of my favorite bands/friends perform including Lynx and Janover, DJ Wolfie, Glitch Mob, and The Album Leaf. I also got to meet up with friends like Liz and Scott from Evil Twin Booking and fellow documentary filmmaker Chris Paine. Here’s some great links with other people’s photos and videos and reviews on the Do Lab site.

This genius recap video by Matthew Smith is a great example of what I experienced. Love it!

When you get the call to fly to Toronto, do you drop everything and go? I did! It was awesome. My friends Judd Tilyard and Ayz Waraich were in Toronto shooting a feature called Skeleton Lake, which Neil Mackay was directing. I was up on set with them for a week, and got to shoot some great behind the scenes shots. They have just released a new teaser for the film, which is a fine example of what you get when you shoot with RED998 MX and LOMO anamorphics. The film also recently got a neat write-up on Twitch Film

Mid-June I got to attend my brother’s commencement ceremonies. He graduated magna cum laude with honors from Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering. We had a huge pool party afterward to celebrate, and Mia and Braden stopped by=)

Near the end of June, I got to attend the the NPA Conference at Cal State Long Beach. It was great meeting some genius inventors and getting to meet people like Greg Volk and Marko Rodin. They have some videos and photos online from the conference, and here’s some photos I took.

This adventure I’m on never seems to die down. Couldn’t be more grateful. A short film I produced named UYUNI played a few more film festivals in places like Columbia and Iceland (totally wish I could have gone!) My friend Nirvan got his awesome new website for The 1 Second Film launched! My friend Ondi launched her new documentary We Live in Public, which is now on DVD! And I got a nod on Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools blog ! PS, Kevin has his new book out now! My friends Rich and John from The American Dollar released another genius album! ”Atlas” http://theamericandollar.info/

Sometimes life feels like what I’m doing while I am living, but a lot of the time, life is what happens while I’m making plans. The idea is from a John Lennon quote. For me, I very rarely get to see the people that are the most important in my life. I live at such a fast pace some years, that an entire year goes by without the proper communication or hugs with the people that inspire me that most. As my main mission here is to inspire others, I don’t often spend the time I should finding people or things that inspire me. I am infinitely grateful for those people who inspire me. You truly make my life more fulfilling. I got to briefly see Alison and Bryn in March. Two people I love dearly.

For the month of March, I knew I was gonna be out in Austin for this year’s South By Southwest (SXSW) and I also knew that I wanted to attend the US premiere of UYUNI at the Cleveland International Film Festival, and I knew I wanted to visit some friends in Toronto. I also knew that it was time for my Jumping Book to get made. So I crafted a super fantastic Jumping Book Tour!!!!

I set up a new website for the book at www.jumpingbook.com, created a flickr group for people to add their own jumpshots to the collage in the back of the book, a facebook fanpage for the book so I could keep people up to date with the project, and launched a fundraiser on IndieGoGo. I quickly created a video for the project and jumped in my car.

I sent out a quick announcement that went something like this:

In order to make this book happen, I will be traveling all over America to get some of the remaining needed photos for the book. If you would like to help with getting the book made check out: www.jumpingbook.com

Here’s the video:

In order to really do justice to my epic Jumping Book tour, I really need to get some of the great photos and videos I shot edited together. I hopefully will be able to do that at some point, but for now a quick blog recap of the journey will have to do. Here’s a taste of my epic journey:

The epic roadtrip led me first to Phoenix to do some jumpshots with Clintus, and the guys at Gangplank. Then I headed to Austin where I met up with my friend Rachel and her Austin friends and went hiking around Hamilton Pool which was so super awesome.

I then headed to SXSW!!! I have written a whole blog about it here.   SXSW blog

After the crazy awesome week at SXSW, including some great jumpshots with Brian Shaler!!! and meeting up with Matt Brown and Anna-Lynne Williams of Trespassers William, I headed south and met up with Sara Janssen and her awesome family, then down to Houston to visit with my grandma and family there. It was great seeing them! We went to the Houston Rodeo at Reliant Stadium and saw the Eli Young Band.

Leaving Texas, I stopped by for a quick jumpshot with April from Rocket Science Shorts, then up through Arkansas, where I got to visit with my friends Tona and Landon and their beautiful daughter Daisy! Then on to Nashville for a few days with Ashleigh and the Nashville friends. Then on to Indiana to meet up with Erin and her lovely family. Then I met up with my grandma’s brother, who is also a photographer. So we out for a day of shooting. Then I met up with fellow inventor Jeff Cook.

Then after a long 20 hour drive, I finally made it to Cleveland for the US premiere of the short I produced called UYUNI at the Cleveland International Film Fest! At the last minute I saved the day, and with the awesome staff of CIFF, I got the film to play correctly. It was super awesome to see the film with an audience. Got some great feedback (all compliments =) Then I headed to Toronto, and stopped along the way at Niagara for a jumpshot with Eric! While in Toronto, I hung out with Ayz and his family, met up with Gayle, met up with Kyron, and also met up with the Mugglesam family! Sam made a super nice video of the visit =)

I left Toronto, sad to be leaving so many awesome people.  On my way to NYC, I stopped for lunch with Delaine Dacko, the lovely sister of Ryan Dacko, the team behind the documentary Plan 9 From Syracuse (which I helped shoot the final day of.)

I finally made it to CT to shoot some jumpshots with Hannah and Nathan (the two younger siblings of ATDS collaborator Jamie Dee) I then spent a few days meeting with a bunch of the ATDS team.

Then I headed down to New York City, stopping by to visit more family on the way. I made it to NYC just in time for the NYC gallery opening of Philippe Halsman’s JUMP book. I even got to do my own jumpshot surrounded by Halsman’s jumpshots on the walls of the gallery. I also got to meet Philippe’s daughter Irene Halsman, which was a complete honor.  While in NYC, I met for dinner with my old uncle Tar, then I got to meet up with my friend and fellow youtuber Caitlin Hill, met up with my friend Erik Paulsen (who did some music for the original SIMILO,) and did an awesome tour of WABC, met up with a few of the NY based ATDS collaborators, Tarynn, Clay, and Katheryn, and I also got to spend a couple days with my Italian family, Simona, Max, and Viola.

I then headed to DIY DAYS where I met up with various people in new media. Ted Hope gave the keynote introduction. There were many great speakers talking about social media, and storytelling etc. I tried to twitter “@” a bunch of the people I met up with that day: … Now at @diydays #diydays w/ @tedhope @lanceweiler @bnewman01@getstoried @1basil1 @noahharlan fun day! #diydays many friends: @bchirls @karlj @girlgamy @anitaondine @paulrachman @saskiawb @GoGoSlava & @fhta alumni!: @zekezelker @zaffi. While there, I met up with several ATDS Board of Advisors as well. I also got to meet up with my friend Hannah Bailey (who was in the awesome documentary American Teen) to do a jumpshot!

On April 5th, I posted this twitter:

My 93 Honda Accord just crossed the 200,000 mile mark! bam! http://flic.kr/p/7QYZzT

After leaving NY, I was on a pretty crazy schedule trying to make it all the way back to LA to shoot a wedding, but I had a few people to visit along the way =) First stop was in Illinois to visit fellow photographer Ben Geyer and his awesome family. Then I headed to Chicago to meet up with friends Tiff Tate and Wendy Alas. Then on my way to Minnesota, I got to shoot jumpshots with Ashley, Leslie, and then Ross Heintzkill.

After a bizarrely long drive, I finally made it to Minneapolis, Minnesota!!!! Michelle and Jeremiah have been friends of mine for many years, but I rarely find myself in Minnesota, so it was so great seeing them. I then headed south to Sioux Falls, SD to meet up with Angela and her awesome Electric Pulp team. It was a blast shooting with them. We even got ice cream =) Angela and Stefan have a new iphone/ipad ap out now as well.

I then traveled through Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, visiting my friend Jess, my friends and inspirations Trevor and Austin, two of the guys from from Mammoth Media, my friend Sascha, more family, fellow jumpshot photographer Rick Smith, and friend Kacey Cash, before making it back to LA for Krissie and Mike Lynch’s wedding.

The final jumpshot of the tour I shot at Mike Lynch’s wedding!!!

So after about 35 days on the road, I met up with hundreds and hundreds of people along my tour. I shot 11,700 photos total, and a bunch of video. I have posted 2400 photos here.

I decided very last minute to head to Austin, Texas for SXSW, because a couple friends were premiering their films there. I also wanted to visit with my grandma and family in Texas after the festival. I decided to make a huge roadtrip out of it, and I actually headed out to the east coast afterward. I wrote a huge blog about the whole trip here:  March/April/Jumping Book Tour

Once in Austin, I had a great adventure with my Austin friends around Hamilton Pool. It was great seeing everyone! I then headed into the Austin Convention Center and got my SXSW Gold badge. This badge allowed me to see any of the films as well as attend any of the interactive events and seminars.

While at SXSW I saw many great documentaries:

I was at the premiere of Jeff’s film 11/4/08 which was made from a ton of footage shot on that day (Election Day) it was shot by 15 people, and Jeff edited it all together. It has some super low-resolution footage, bad sound, and bad camera work. But what was great to see, was that the story of that day in history, and the stories of the people, were able to still get across to the audience. They had subtitles when the audio was bad. So it proves the “content is king” or the “story story story” idea. If the story is compelling enough, then the audience is still involved. Jeff calls it a participatory documentary, and is letting people add their own footage from that day. I believe Jeff plans on making the film available for remix, like how Brett’s film did. The film is now released in theatres! http://11-4-08.com/

A great film called Pelada was one of my favorites. It’s shot all over the world and follows the game of soccer. They shot the film over 3 years. I cried. Genius film. I got to hang out with the filmmakers.  http://www.pelada-movie.com

I saw Dirty Pictures which is a film about the chemist/scientist Dr. Alexander ‘Sasha’ Shulgin who invented MDMA (Ecstasy.) It was a very well-edited film, and very interesting. They showed both the science/lab research, a bunch of stuff about his actual life, and also the people that use the drug, and why/how. They had a couple shots of Burning Man in it, but focused on the people who are fans of the scientist’s work, and books, and drug. The film was sold out. http://dirtypicturesthefilm.com/

I got to see Hood to Coast, which was shot in Oregon in 2008. They had a pretty nice budget, and the film followed 4 teams competing in the race. It was great to watch and I loved the various filmmaking styles. They continually cut between the 4 teams. Since it was a race, you always had that feeling like the finish line was just ahead. The film was entertaining and inspiring to watch. http://www.hoodtocoastdocumentary.com/

I also got to see Gondry’s film, The Thorn in the Heart. It was a great personal doc about Gondry’s family. He followed his aunt, and got to find out about her family, who she was, and also a bit of who Gondry was growing up. The film has a few great animations and reenactments. Here’s the trailer.

I got to attend a great panel with Scott Kirsner and Gary Hustwit (documentary director of great films like Helvetica, and Objectified.) I loved the discussion, and the various ideas and tips that Gary shared about making documentary films. I also got to see Gary Vaynerchuk speak as the keynote speaker for the interactive part of SXSW. Always great to see him speak. Inspiring guy.

I met up with several of the great people on the Burning Man media team. Marian Goodell was part of a neat discussion about the similarities between SXSW and Burning Man. She was interviewed by Daniel Terdiman from CNET. It was great seeing her, Heather Gallagher, and Andie Grace. Proud to be working with them for my documentary As The Dust Settles.

I saw a bunch of short films including a film which premiered at SXSW called Depth of Phil, which was directed by my friend Jack Daniel Stanley (one of the actors in UYUNI) It’s always fun to see short films. An amazing amount of time and money goes into making them.

SXSW this year I got to meet up with a bunch of friends including: Micki Krimmel, Brian Chirls, Brian Shaler, Slava and Danae from IndieGoGo, Paul Stamatiou, Liz and Scott from Evil Twin Booking, and many many others. Great seeing everyone!

At SXSW, part of the week is focused on music. Many bands from all over the world come to Austin to perform as part of the SXSW lineup. Every night there are also many venues with live bands playing. I got to see Todd Sapio perform with his band Language Room. I also got to see the lovely Jenny Owen Youngs, as well as the lovely Matt and Anna-Lynne from Trespassers William. It was so great seeing them perform.

During the week, I also met up with a bunch of film festival programmers, including ones from Sundance, SilverDocs, and True/False. I talked with a couple about other documentary fests like CPH Dox, HotDocs, Sheffield, IFDA and several others. I also met up with several Board of Advisors for ATDS. It was great talking about ideas and the progress of the documentary. After watching all the documentaries at Sundance and SXSW, I am still certain that we really do have something that will truly inspire people. Deeply grateful for the privilege that we have to craft a documentary. Exciting times ahead!

Here’s my whole flickr set from SXSW including a bunch of jumpshots I did for my Jumping Book. Here’s an average evening in Austin at SXSW:

Right after I returned from the epic Park City trip, I launched a huge crowdfunding fundraiser to get the final VFX shots finished for Zac&Mac’s genius shortfilm SIMILO.

It was a huge effort. Together with the large indie film community, all the fans of the original short, and a bunch of my closest friends and connections, I managed to raise over $14,000 for the project. It was truly a great experience. I almost wish I was fundraising every month. It’s exciting to gain support of like-minded people. It’s exciting to post updates on the progress, it’s exciting every time someone donates, even if it’s only a dollar. And yes it’s very exciting during the final few minutes before the cut-off time. These funds have allowed Zac&Mac and I to continue getting the VFX done on SIMILO. During the fundraiser we were mentioned on all sorts of blogs, and even highlighted by Kickstarter.

Here’s a few mentions: Fresh DV, No Fat Clips, Colorcubic, and an interview on IndyMogul. During all the buzz regarding the SIMILO fundraiser, we also hit the front page of both Slashfilm and Twitchfilm as well as Filmonic regarding our epic sci-fi feature project KOR3. So that was exciting! Our other short, UYUNI played it’s eighteenth film festival during February as well.

February 12-14th I got to attend this year’s BIL Conference! It was great meeting up with various friends, several ATDS Board of Advisors, and several people who are working on innovative projects or ideas. Here’s a bunch of photos from the event.

In February, it was the first Cinefist event screening. Zak Forsman and the team at Sabi Pictures have created a great quarterly screening series at the Downtown Indie theatre. They screened Tom Quinn’s film The New Year Parade, which is now out on DVD on Ashley’s Carnavalesque Films label. The screening was great. Before the film was played, the entire audience got to vote for the film that would play in the next quarterly screening.  photos link

February 13th I got to go inside the brand new RED Studios Hollywood. Jim and his team have set up an incredibly impressive grading suite with the latest and greatset SONY 4K projectors and real time 4K playback systems. We all got to hang out with the RED team and learn about the new EPIC camera, and watch some of the new RED MX footage from the new RED MX sensors that RED is now installing into the RED ONEs. Always fun getting to play with the RED team, and various fellow RED owners.  Twitter recap:

Was @ @bilconf #bil10 now @ new RED Studios Hollywood w/ 200 other owners. Jim, Cioni, Kelly, Rob, @Gnattress, Lukas & everyone is here#R3D

Through my friend Frank Da Silva I got to work with Jacqueline Genie for her project on Positivetv.tv at the Consciousness Life Expo. While there, I got to shoot interviews with some great people including; John Hogue and Mike Bara. I also got to meet Richard C. Hoagland, David Wilcock, as well as Kerry Cassidy from Project Camelot. It was an incredible event, and I learned some pretty amazing things, much of which you can learn if you read David Wilcock’s blog. Fun times ahead! Here’s my twitter recap:

Filming w/ friend here @ Consciousness Life Expo. Just met Howe, Hogue, Brinkley, Maxwell, Sitchin, @mikebara33, Hoagland, & @david_wilcock

On Feb 15th, LA Film School got to host a WGA meeting of the Oscar nominations for screenwriting, and I got to shoot the event. Amongst those nominated was Jason Reitman. Always fun being at my school and seeing fellow alumni and Media Center Manager, Iris again. Here’s the LAFS blog about it.

In late February, after many months of shenanigans, one of my awesome ATDS collaborators, Jamie Dee flew out to LA to help with the massive ATDS todo list. It was great finally getting things going with the various post production things for the film. She also inspired several of the other ATDS collaborators to have a few conference calls and a couple skype video chats. Communication is vital on a project of this scope, especially with various collaborators being based in various cities all over the US and world.

For the soundtrack for As The Dust Settles, I’m working with so many great bands. I was very excited to get Alex Rich’s new The Soul’s Release album out on Dynophone Records, as well as David’s new Relmic Statute album out on Hibernate Records.

On Feb 28th, I was issued my World Record on the Universal Record Database for my jumping photos. I am the number one jumpshot photographer in the entire world. It’s official now!

Other exciting news for February included the acceptance into the Cleveland International Film Festival!!! Here’s my twitter about it:

We got into @CIFF! http://www.UYUNI.eu Anyone in Cleveland, OH on Mar 27th? We play in Columbia next week! then Iceland first week of March!

Back from Sundance 2010! It was a truly amazing experience.

This year, I decided last minute to drive out to Park City for Slamdance and Sundance. The drive out was a pretty rough experience. At times it was 10mph through thick snow storms. I ended up making it without driving off the road and without needing to put on my chains!

I made it just in time for the Filmmaker Summit that was being put on by Slamdance, Saskia Wilson-Brown, and Lance Weiler’s Workbook Project. It was great being part of the Summit. Bomb It director, Jon Reiss was there doing a special workshop for Hunter Weeks and Mike Dion’s mountain bike adventure documentary Ride the Divide.

Every year Dan Mirvish and the other Slamdance people challenge Sundance to a sledding competition. It’s always fun to join in. The group out on the slopes this year was great!

After the sledding, Slamdance hosts a hottub discussion about indie film. Some really great conversations this year. Filmmaking stories and distribution stories are always great to listen to and learn from when they are being told by people with some incredible expereinces like American Hardcore director, Paul Rachman.

I got to attend the huge Indieflix/IndieGoGo party, which was way fun. So many great people there including Burden director Mike Lynch, Scilla from Indieflix, Slava and Danae from IindieGoGo, Lance Weiler, and Zak Forsman and the whole Sabi team!

Since both Lauren Randolph and I (the two greatest jumposhot photographers ever) were both up in Park City at the same time, our flickr friend, Rick decided to make the drive up from Salt Lake and join us for some jumpshots! it was such a huge blast! Rick rocks! Rick has given me a run for the number one jumpshot phtographer in the world status, I better keep shooting!!!

I got to see many films while in Park City. Some I had tickets for, some I had to hike for hours in the snow to get to the wait list in time to get a ticket, and one film changed my life. Here are some of the films I saw:

Lucky, a documentary about people winning the lottery.

A great documentary called Teenage Paparazzo which follows 13-year old paparazzi named Austin Visschedyk made by Adrian Grenier

Runaways which is about the 1970′s rock and Joan Jett starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart.

Grown Up Movie Star, which is about two young teenagers growing up, shot in Canada.

I really wanted to see Katie Aselton’s film The Freebie. I had heard great things about the film, so made sure I had tickets. The film is great! Loved it! A truly great example of an indie film, great story telling, great look, very small budget. Passion project.

Cane Toads 3D!!!! A great documentary about one of Australia’s greatest environmental problems; cane toads.

Gasland Josh Fox’s very important documentary about the hydraulic drilling process called “fracking” check out the trailer

Countdown to Zero a doc about the world’s near nuclear disasters.

and last but lot least,

my most favorite documentary film I have ever seen:

Lucy Walker’s Waste Land

The main experience I had at Sundance (which was worth the entire cost and time of going) was the film Waste Land. It was directed by a women named Lucy Walker, and it followed a NY artist photographer named Vik Muniz, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as he did an art project in the world’s largest landfill/garbage dump. The story follows him as he takes photos of some of the people living in the garbage dump. These characters become the main focus of the doc, we learn about who these people are, what their backgrounds are and what they feel about life and about their work.

Vik ends up shooting some portraits of these people. He then brings in a ton of garbage into an art studio, and arranged the garbage as if it was pixels of the photo. He ends up shooting photos of the garbage looking straight down on it from 50 feet up. He takes these photos and makes giant 60 inch prints from them. He then takes some of the people from the garbage dump and heads to a super famous art auction in UK and NY. These prints of garbage end up selling for tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars. We see the main people crying and transforming, as they realize that their garbage is actually art. Worth a lot of money. They basically have life-changing experiences as they tour world famous museums with the prints, and are doing interviews for major press and media. The money goes back to them and the landfill association. The film ends with a beautiful epilogue telling us what has happened to each of the main characters.

Waste Land is an incredibly powerful doc, it touches people, it makes people cry and it makes people think. It’s not the trash or the money, it’s the emotional experience that the people go through as they transform into a whole new reality about their lives. This is exactly what ATDS has, and is the higher level stuff I talk about in my internal ATDS blog posts.

While watching the film I cried many times. Truly beautiful crying. One because of how the story developed and two because the main message of the doc, is identical to the main message I plan on reaching by the end of ATDS.

Here is the trailer for Waste Land:

I was lucky enough to be able to join up with Matt Scott and several of his friends. We all stayed together in a condo, saw movies together all week, hung out photowalking, it was really nice getting to know weveryone and I truly enjoyed the adventure, thanks guys!

Here’s a twitter to recap the good times:

Thx for the good times @laurenlemon @dzevans @ddarcyana @mattscott711 @nattie27 You guys made my week super awesome! http://flic.kr/p/7yGzMW 4:08 PM Jan 28th 2010 via web

While in Park City, I got to meetup with several As The Dust Settles Board of Advisors, including Jeffrey Abramson and Scilla Andreen. Many ideas were shared. I also had great conversations with Chris Paine and with Adrian Belic, about Burning Man and ATDS.

Here’s a twitter that summed up the Sundance part of my trip:

Fun times at @sundancefest @slamdance jumping, photos, parties, films, crying, ideas, people, sledding, parties, long walks in snow, so fun.
5:53 PM Jan 26th 2010 via web

The drive back from Sundance took me through Reno with Lauren. We stopped off at the Bonneville Salt Flats. (same place that I shot UYUNI.)

Lauren was part of a Reno art show where she got to display some of her great photo work. At the show, I got to see @caitran @dirtydiana @audreyobscura as well as some other neat Reno Burners

I stopped by Tahoe for a great day of skiing at Heavenly with Nathan then headed to the SF area to go photowalking with fellow photographer and inspiration of mine Jill Carmel. I then headed over to meet up for dinner with Primal Quest friend and fellow adventurer, Aja Cook

and that is the end of this adventure =)

Mike