A year in the life: 2016 Edition
I had a great year in 2016 working on a number of different projects, including commercials, music videos, web series and feature films. I also covered a lot of ground, shooting on location in all four corners of the state. Here’s a look back at some of the highlights.
2016 started out with a few weeks of scouting for a movie based on the novel “Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” The project got delayed, but not before I spent several weeks scouting locations in and around Seattle for them. As the story is set in Seattle we hope it will come back here to shoot next year . . . but we’ll see. After that job concluded, I had a great time working on a music video for Kygo– we shot at a farm near Cle Elum, in the woods on Snoqualmie Pass, and at a bunch of places along the Washington coast. You can view the video here.
In the Spring I worked on a number of different jobs for the folks over at Workhouse Creative. Spots for the Department of Health, Lenscrafters and Mazda all shot in Seattle. I then worked on a promotional piece for the Xbox One game “Forza Horizon 3”. We used different portions of Washington State to double for several of the Australian locations that appear in the game. A highlight was getting the chance to have a souped-up pickup truck tear through a wheat field outside of Wilbur, WA. It took lots of negotiating with the farmer to make sure it would work. The footage was awesome, but as sometimes happens, it didn’t make the final cut. It sure was fun though! Here’s a nice pic of me with fellow location scout Jimmy Canavan in the field before we trashed it:
Here’s the truck making it’s run:
And here’s the aftermath:
Check out the final spot here.
Later in the summer I did a lot of work for Visit Seattle, including several episodes of “Sounds by the Sound,” their web series that promotes Seattle’s music scene. The show highlights local musical acts by having them perform at various Seattle attractions and visitor sites. We had fun setting up performers in unique places, including onboard the Seattle-Bainbridge ferry, at the Seattle Pinball Museum, and at the top of Crystal Mountain. We also shot onboard one of the Argosy boats, getting some fantastic footage of a Will Jordan/Andrew Joslyn mash-up at sunset.
I also worked on Visit Seattle’s “Hey, Seattle” campaign, which placed a mobile talk show set in various places around town. Hosted by John Roderick from the Long Winters, we shot at places like Pike Place Market, Dick’s Drive-In, MOHAI and Golden Gardens. A highlight was filming an interview with the drag queen “Sparkle Leigh” outside of the Comet Tavern– while a massive Black Lives Matter protest was marching up Pike Street directly towards us. Cap Hill at it’s finest!
In the fall I spent some time on a print shoot for Nationwide Insurance that sent me up to Deception Pass, a spot for Microsoft that had me scouting a bunch of tattoo parlors, and a feature film that was looking for places to film whitewater rafting scenes. I also scouted locations for a fun spot for Fruity Pebbles that involved a little girl zip-lining out her bedroom window.
