Author: berkun
How Folklife Festival Is Made (Location for WMS)
We’re hard at work scouting locations for We Make Seattle. One possible location for some filming is the Northwest Folklife Festival, which takes place later this month at the Seattle Center (May 23-26).
I reached out to the organizers to talk about the project and soon discovered they had their own story of helping make Seattle a great place for creative people. I met with Michael Chandler (Festival Production Director) and Kelli Faryar (Programs Manager) at Cherry Street coffee on Denny and 5th yesterday.
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Best Secret Parks In Seattle
In my interviews it was surprising how often Seattle’s quiet places, the parks, the seascapes and the waterfronts, came up as sources for inspiration. One of the magical things about Seattle is that for a city of its size it has an astounding number of public parks.
Six interviews for We Make Seattle complete
Hi everyone. Welcome to spring. Here’s some good news for you.
On the road to getting the rough audio track completed, the WMS team interviewed six local creatives and entrepreneurs. I wanted to announce them here and thank them for lending their voices (quite literally) to the project.
- Sara McNally, Co-Founder of Constellation & Co
- Robi Ganguly, CEO of Apptentive
- Jesse Smith, Chef & Host of Deep Prep on PBS
- Kyle Kesterson, CEO & Founder of Freak’n Genius
- Martina Welke, CEO & Co-Founder, Zealyst
- Karen Clark Cole, CEO BlinkUX
They each let us interview them for an hour about Seattle, entrepreneurship, creativity and why they chose to pursue their work here in our city. And a 5 minute audio track, edited down from hours of recording, is the basis for the actual film.
As a general update, now that spring is here our pace is finally picking up. We’re working on locations and a shooting schedule this week. More soon.
Update: Rough Cut Audio Complete
Hi folks. Apologies for the long silence (I’m hanging my head in shame as I write this). Without the audio track narrative put together, not much other work could be done, and I didn’t see the point in empty, fluffy updates.
I’m posting with good news and a nice sized update. The major task at hand had been working the 6 hours of audio interviews down into a 4 minute track. That sounds like a magic trick and it is. It takes much time to reduce time, especially if the audio is going to be the spine of the film. I’ve been splicing, editing, revising, listening, reviewing, note taking and then revising again like mad.
I worked all weekend to finally get this step complete and I was successful. Yay.
36 Reasons Seattle Wins At Life
Interesting how many of these fall into our non-goals for the film. Lots of cliches and common references (Space Needle, Fremont Troll) show up in here.
I’d like to put together a similar list, but comprised of places, elements and aspects that aren’t commonly talked about. The real Seattle that locals love, not what earns attention from the tourist.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/04/seattle-wins_n_4717220.html
Portland Ad during Superbowl?
Did any of you catch the “Portland Happening Now” ad during the Superbowl?
It’s part of a series of advertisements. The spot I saw was 30 seconds, but here’s a 60 second version.
Production update (audio interviews complete – round one)
Hi supporters, fans and other folks. This is Berkun here with the latest update.
Things have been rolling along here at WMS HQ (we don’t have a HQ of course, but it’s fun to say) and I have some news on the production of the film to share.
As mentioned in the past, I’m building the audio for the film first, using interviews local creatives and entrepreneurs. DP Dan McComb and I have completed 5 interviews to date (officially known as: round one). Here’s a photo of interview #4, of me interviewing Jesse Smith, star of the local Deep Prep cooking show.
Schwag is in the mail
Last week the production team had a marathon schwag party at producer Adam Baggett’s Belltown abode. With beers and pizza (carefully) in hand we folded, packed, labeled and stamped every single package for each of you wonderful supporters. We put extra TLC and good vibes in each and every package.
Production & schwag update: work underway
Hi folks. Apologies for taking so long since the last update on the production of the short film We Make Seattle. It’s entirely my fault so if you have been giving dirty looks to the website or any of the crew, please re-aim those looks right here at yours truly.
I’m pleased to report significant progress. Over the last month I’ve done audio interviews with three local entrepreneurs and creatives. These have gone well and I’ll continue doing them over the next few weeks. Soon we’ll post here on the blog with profiles of the people we’ve interviewed to share the stories we’re capturing and invite you to into the process.
Cast and pre-production updates
Since the backer meeting a few weeks ago we’ve been meeting regularly and working to cull down our list of over 60 possible candidates as subjects to the film to a workable number. I (Berkun) have been leading the process and have finally made some headway. I have about 10 candidates and will be reaching out to some of them over the next few days.
As the vision describes, we’re looking primarily for voices that can tell first person stories of why Seattle is a great place for creatives. In terms of production, the first material we’re after is audio.
I’ll be recording interviews with some of the candidates from the list and weaving together a very rough audio track for the film. We’ll discuss this in our production meeting and only then plan for what visuals will match the story we’re telling. This process makes tremendous sense, but it does mean a slower process for putting the film together.
I’ll keep you posted as these interviews roll along.
