More Words About Cities & Films: Archive

Millions of Potatoes, Potatoes for Me

I shot a documentary at a potato packaging factory the other day as part of a larger piece about farming, and during filming I was presented with a unique challenge. It seems that the millions of potatoes running along conveyor belts cause the floors of the factory to vibrate. My initial plan for b-roll in the factory was to shoot on my slider with my DSLR. However, this caused a weird jello...

Feb 8th

Epic Can Do Stills Too

In Seattle we don’t just have hobos under our bridges. No, we also have Mountain Bike parks under there. Yes, our hobos are that athletic. But anyway, I spent today hanging out with the crew from Chase Jarvis and shooting video with the Red Epic. We wanted to see if still images could be pulled from the video in a high enough quality to pass for professional photo work. Since a lot of...

Feb 4th

Gary Oldman Interview

We’re gearing up for the third season of The High Bar (the show I’m Director and Technical Director for) and we managed to get a few minutes alone with Gary Oldman while he was promoting “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” to discuss his career and process. And by a few minutes, I do mean a few minutes. He was on a crazy schedule and we got into the room 30 minutes before he...

Jan 9th

The High Bar Is In Your Home

Awesome news that we’re finally allowed to announce. The High Bar will begin airing on your TV (assuming you live in the greater Seattle area) starting in 2012. We’ll be carried both on local PBS affiliate KBTC and the UW channel starting in early February. Not only is this a great validation on the work we’ve already done, but being associated with a television channel should...

Dec 20th

Shhhh

I did a shoot today for an aerospace company. But I’m not allowed to talk about it. Aliens.

Nov 15th

creativeLIVE: Matthew Jordan Smith

creativeLIVE is a pretty cool company. They do live instructional classes featuring all kinds of talented artists. The most recent one was with world-renowned photographer Matthew Jordan Smith and I came on as a camera operator. The feel of these shoots are a mix between event and documentary. There’s three operators working the shoot and a director guiding you in the ear. Which is why...

Nov 14th

The High Bar TV - Advancement

A while back I came on board as a technical director for an interview show called “The High Bar”. Go ahead and take a minute to check it out at: thehighbar.tv It’s a pretty great show, right? Warren Etheredge is the host and he avoids those “tell me something funny that happened on set” questions and instead really asks the deeper more interesting ones. We also...

Oct 24th

Williams-Sonoma Shoot

I produced, directed, shot and edited a video for Williams-Sonoma recently. The product was a pot rack that was handcrafted in a factory local to Seattle. One of the great things about making handcrafted videos is you get an insider look at something most people never see or even think about. Like now I know how to hand stress metal. Not much of a real filmmaking lesson here, just a reminder...

Sep 27th

"Tying The Knot"

I was a gaffer for a short film over the weekend down in Olympia. It was a pretty tight shoot with a limited budget and a small crew, so one thing that really saved us time was that we ended up staying in one of the locations. It did help that the location was a hotel room. But being able to wake up and just start shooting saved us a ton of time. Especially for me, I’m generally an...

Sep 10th

New Webpage Design

I just uploaded my newly designed webpage, it’ll probably get a few more updates when I get a moment, but check it out! www.alexwalshfilm.com

Aug 26th

Aug 11th

Jun 14th

Holy Rollers in SIFF

A few years back I did some additional camera work for a documentary about card counting Christians (as in blackjack) and the film is now completed and showing at SIFF this weekend. It looks like it turned out pretty great, check it out if you get a chance! http://www.siff.net/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=44555&FID=206

Jun 11th

Jun 3rd

Watch

I just finished the biggest production of my life so far… my wedding. Phew. An exhausting year of planning, and the last 5 months even more so, but it was awesome and turned out perfect. But enough of that, sorry for the delays in updating the blog, as payment here’s a music video I DP’d a while back. We basically shot it one evening on a green screen and then handed it...

May 27th

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Worked as Gaffer on this TV commercial with Blaine Ludy (Director). It’s most memorable to me as the hardest shoot day in Seattle I’ve had with regards to weather. Every 20 minutes it shifted from overcast to bright skies to punishing rain. We had our HMI go down and were moving lights, manipulating the sun or protecting the gear constantly. However, the overall feel of the video...

Mar 12th

Feb 28th

The New Year has been busy.

Film production in Seattle usually slows down during winter. The weather’s rainy, daylight is fleeting, and most businesses and people seem to let out a collective sigh as they recover from the intense completion of the previous year. This year? Not so much. It’s been a flurry of projects, deadlines and meetings. I’m only able to write this update as I’m on my annual...

Feb 22nd

What Month Is It Again?

Busy times as always, the end of the year is winding down though and I’m looking forward to a relaxing vacation with the family over the break. But first, some quick updates! I just finished handling the live switching for the allrecipes.com “Cookies Across America” webcast. We hooked up the Anycast (a wonderful machine) and I was running 4 cameras and a laptop into the...

Dec 12th

Nothing Up My Sleeves...

I did a promotional video for local illusionist/magician Heath Delaney a while back, and it was a good example of efficiency. First take a look at the video here: http://www.vimeo.com/15754668 Password: magic I used the word efficiency, let me explain further. The budget for this video was very small, and we were working in an uncontrolled location with little/no prep time (meaning I...

Oct 26th

1 note

Oct 15th

Slow On Updates

I’m writing this update from the W Hotel in Midtown Manhattan NY. We just finished a week of shooting for Microsoft and will be flying out in a few hours. Hoping for the upgrade to first class with my Silver Medallion card, but not entirely optimistic. (UPDATE: I got the upgrade!) But anyway, it’s been a busy couple of months, so I thought I’d give another one of my quick...

Sep 25th

Jul 21st

Jul 8th

If you're in a Starbucks today...

As of today Starbucks offers free wi-fi in all of its coffee shops, and when you open up your browser you’ll be taken to http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/wi-fi-connect where you’ll be greeted with a live performance by Sarah McLachlan. I mention this not just because free wi-fi is cool, or because of the free music, but because I actually was one of the camera operators on the...

Jul 3rd

Occurrence on IndieFlix

I got an invitation from IndieFlix to have “Occurrence Off A Country Road” screen on their site. I haven’t 100% decided to do it yet, but considering that it’s a non-exclusive contract that I can terminate at any time, I don’t see any harm in moving forward with it. With few exceptions, short films don’t make money. At least not directly… you make...

Jul 2nd

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Here’s the diet coke spec commercial I was a gaffer on, apparently we finished in 2nd place. Just missing out on the cash prize and a trip to Cannes. Still pretty cool.

Jun 21st

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Here’s a bit of fun shot on the T2i. I went off with my girlfriend (now fiancee) to Hawaii on vacation last month, and the small size of the DSLR allowed me to capture video of our time there. I’m pretty bad at doing nothing with the vacation footage I shoot, but this time I cut it together into a fun little music video as a gift for her.

Jun 16th

Jun 15th

STIFF Screening #1

Last night was the first screening of “Occurrence Off A Country Road” at STIFF with a Q&A afterward. Some thoughts on planning a successful screening: Publicize as much as possible. Bring friends, friends of friends, random strangers on facebook, people you meet at other screenings, fill that room as best you can. Nothing is more depressing than an empty room for a screening. ...

Jun 9th

Oh what a busy time it be...

I feel like a broken record saying it’s been busy and that’s why I haven’t posted, but I have a good excuse, I got engaged! Now we have to plan a wedding. Look for future updates about the difficulty of balancing film production with married life. In work updates… STIFF 2010 has started, I’m catching some great… and not so great films. “Occurrence Off...

Jun 8th

Probably not a safe site...

I googled “Occurrence Off A Country Road” to see what reviews/listings were out there and discovered that a website was offering the film as a free download. They even created their own summary! “A juvenile damsel surging loves a terrible affair also an unfamiliar assailant must hunt protection inside nation conjugal of a tenderly conjoined couple. But for nighttime falls who...

May 10th

Quick Occurrence STIFF Update

I’ve been pretty busy lately, but I thought I’d quickly post that “Occurrence Off A Country Road” will be screening as part of STIFF 2010 as follows: Monday 6/7 9:30pm at the Central Cinema (shown with The Honeymoon) Sunday 6/13 4:00pm at the Jewel Box Theater/Rendezvous (shown with Evil Things) Two screenings is nice, only about 25% of the shorts selected get...

May 6th

Crack Shorts Festival - Occurrence Screening

We had our first screening of “Occurrence Off A Country Road” last night at the Crack Shorts Festival. This festival was comprised almost completely of filmmakers, actors and other industry folks. That may seem like a very forgiving crowd, but for whatever reason (my guess, the free champagne) it was also a very vocal crowd, they’d let you know what they thought every step of...

Apr 30th

Apr 7th

The Frenzy Is On!

A little late with this post, but it’s April and that means it’s Script Frenzy time. Script frenzy is a global event where screenwriters from around the world sign up to write 100 pages in the month of April. The idea being that with a deadline, and others to keep you motivated, you can pull out that much procrastinated script in a relatively quick fashion. My script is called...

Apr 6th

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Akiii Commercial 2: Once again I was DP, but this time we decided to go with a decidedly different look. The goal was to capture a free spirited/fun/rebellious youthful kind of energy. We liked the spotlighted look capturing quick moments effect that you see in some music videos, but wanted less of that fixed-to-a-camera/smooth-shot feel. So we went handheld with the camera and also went...

Mar 31st

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Akiii Commercial #1: I was DP for this commercial and we went with a more natural looking light setup. However, when doing stop motion it’s important that you are in complete control of the lighting around you, since shifting daylight can seriously destroy the effectiveness of the stop motion. Therefore we blasted in a 2k from the window to simulate daylight and overpower any natural...

Mar 31st

The Trouble With References

I’ve been swamped over the last few weeks, so that’s why the lack of updates, but here’s a quick rundown: Shooting continued on the feature film “Heart Breaks Open” over the last couple weekends. Really loving the T2i, and handheld with it is pretty good. Worked on 2 commercials for Akiii, a South Korean skateboarding shoe company. I should have links for the...

Mar 30th

Mar 18th

3-Cam Feature "Heart Breaks Open"

This past weekend I worked on the compelling feature “Heart Breaks Open”. It’s the story of a gay man who discovers that he’s HIV+ and the effect it has on his life. We’re shooting it in a documentary style with available lighting and 2 or 3 DSLR cameras filming improvised scenes where the actors many times are actually playing subtle variations of themselves. For...

Mar 16th

Mar 9th

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I updated my cine reel for the new year, check it out!

Mar 2nd

Feb 27th

Feb 16th

Super Bowl 2010 - In Which I Filmed Some Oscar...

My Eagles didn’t make the Super Bowl this year (at least they saved me the usual heartbreak of losing in the NFC championship game), so I ended up working Super Bowl Sunday instead in what was actually a pretty cool shoot. We were creating a promotional video for a small club in the U-district called Fusion who were hosting a Super Bowl party that featured the Three 6 Mafia as their...

Feb 9th

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The Ravenna Woods video got cut fast! Take a look, I’m really happy how it turned out.

Jan 29th

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I whipped up a trailer the other day for Occurrence Off A Country Road. One thing that bothers me about trailers these days are that they give away virtually the entire film. A trailer should tantalize, tease and give but a premise, not lead you all the way to the final scene. This did make it a bit of a challenge with Occurrence though. Because I didn’t want to give away twists in the...

Jan 26th

Kerosene In The Nose

Recently I was the Director of Photography on a music video for Ravenna Woods new single “In The World”. It’s a great song, and I really like the vibe and personality of the band. The video itself was also a lot of fun to shoot. We had fire performers of all types, contortionists and we even recorded one nice lady who hammered nails into her nose and set off a mouse trap with...

Jan 26th

What does night look like?

I was DP on a commercial shoot the other day, the general story involved a man kept awake at night worrying about the future of his family if something should happen to him. So from a cinematography standpoint we were looking to produce a somewhat moody nighttime look. For some, night can be a challenging time to reproduce on film. They think of night as the pitch black, and how can you see...

Jan 15th