1127 All posts 2011

2011. Wow, another epic year! I did lots of traveling this year, and lots of editing. A lot of things did not work out this year, maybe they were all waiting for 2012!!!! I’m looking forward to many projects finally being finished and released soon. Super grateful for all the support and inspiring people in my life. Thank you.

Music is by my friend Rhian Sheehan, Please let the video load, watch it in HD and fullscreen. Cheers! Here’s the super epic picturevideo called: Thank You 2011 – Picturevideo by Mike Hedge.

My narration recap, and a bunch of the photos I shot in 2011 are in the picturevideo above, but here’s a quick summary of some of the highlights from 2011:

December 2010 was intense dealing with dishonest people. In January, our film UYUNI won several more film festivals, and I went out to Sundance for a neat project Lance Weiler was doing called Pandemic, I also saw some great films, and met up with a bunch of friends. February, I went for an awesome photowalk with friends. In March, I headed out east to work with people on my doc, As The Dust Settles. I visited a ton of friends along the way, and also went to SXSW in Austin, where I saw a bunch of films, and met up with a bunch of friends.

I continued east, visiting Luna’s Living Kitchen, and shooting photos at Dayna’s Unschooling Conference. For the rest of April, I continued editing in Connecticut. In May, I did a bunch of editing in Nova Scotia. In June, I got to visit Red Fire Farm, and continued editing in Connecticut. In July, I went to NYC, and met up with a bunch of people and shot some great jumpshots. While on the east coast, I got to visit some awesome unschooling families.

In August, I headed back west finally, unsuccessful in getting the editing finished for the doc. On my way back, I was able to help on a short film in Quebec, and got to visit some great friends. In mid-August I went out to Burning Man again, and got to shoot for a couple great projects. In September, finally back in California, I headed down to San Diego to shoot Flo’s Unschooling Conference.

October, I drove out to Montreal for the start of another great project Lance was doing, called Robot Heart Stories. On the way out, I spent time to visit dear friends in TX, TN, NC, ME etc. I then did a crazy roadtrip back to LA with a robot. We arrived in LA near the end of October just in time for DIYDAYS LA. Since the beginning of November, I have been editing solid, every day, all day long, getting As The Dust Settles edited. Soon I will have a rough cut.

Below are just a few photo highlights from some of the blogs 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: Thank You 2011 (please allow 5 minutes for all the text and photos to load)

Here are the direct links to my blogs throughout the year:

December/January Split 2011

Sundance/Slamdance 2011

Life Tips

Feb 2011

Dust & Illusions – Burning Man – Screening LA

SXSW 2011

2011 Trip

Luna’s Living Kitchen

Life Rocks Unschooling Conference 2011

Editing Away in Connecticut

Nova Scotia

Red Fire Farm Strawberry Soiree 2011

CT Editing Reality

trying to figure it out

NYC Jumpshots 2011

NH / Maine Unschooling Families

Dan Gaud’s short film shoot Quebec

2011 Road Trip Back West

Black Mountain Colorado Dude Ranch – Colorado

California Beaches

Burning Man 2011

Unschooling Conference San Diego 2011 – Wide Sky Days

Road Trip to Montreal – Oct 2011

Robot Heart Stories – the journey

DIY DAYS Los Angeles – 2011

As The Dust – editing update

Recordsetter World Record book

December/January Split 2011

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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

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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.

Sundance/Slamdance 2011

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 beautiful 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!

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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

IMG_3421IMG_3718IMG_3460IMG_3474Lance Weiler at the Pandemic HQIMG_3648my friend and Director Lucy WalkerIMG_4211

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.

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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!

Life Tips

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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

Feb 2011

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

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

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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!!!!

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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

Dust & Illusions – Burning Man – Screening LA

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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

SXSW 2011

On my way out East, I went to SXSW in Austin. It pretty much felt like a dejavu from last year, but different 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.

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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.

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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 interacting online via Facebook etc. It was shot on a 7D.

Apart –

Bizarre 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:

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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.

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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.

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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

2011 Trip

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.)

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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.

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Then I headed north and stopped to visit Susanna Greever, a fellow PQ 2008 staffer, then I met up with Johnny Utterback, a fellow photographer, 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:

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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.

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Luna’s Living Kitchen

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.

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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

Life Rocks Unschooling Conference 2011

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.

smilethe moments happen when they want. each one is unique.IMG_5420IMG_5521IMG_5642typical moment =)IMG_5804IMG_6040IMG_6118IMG_6257IMG_6317IMG_6512IMG_6693IMG_7134IMG_7557IMG_7867IMG_7928IMG_8058IMG_8315Life Rocks! We Rock!

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

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Editing Away in Connecticut

After leaving Dayna’s awesome Life Rocks Unschooling Conference, I headed up to the Connecticut area to get some editing done. For weeks and weeks I edited and edited. Surpassing most technical problems. The weeks were filled with adventures in the woods, great food-making, lovely meals, some trips to Red Fire Farm, and some good solid editing time with Roger Ingraham

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Nova Scotia

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.

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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.

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Red Fire Farm Strawberry Soiree 2011

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.

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CT Editing Reality

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.

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trying to figure it out

this is me trying to figure it out

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

NYC Jumpshots 2011

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.

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NH / Maine Unschooling Families

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.

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

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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.

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Dan Gaud’s short film shoot Quebec

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

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2011 Road Trip Back West

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.

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Black Mountain Colorado Dude Ranch – Colorado

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!

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

California Beaches

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.

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Burning Man 2011

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 built.

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.

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Unschooling Conference San Diego 2011 – Wide Sky Days

As soon as I returned from Burning Man, I immediately joined Tiff, to head down to San Diego for Flo’s great unschooling conference, now called Wide Sky Days.

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.

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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:
 

Road Trip to Montreal – Oct 2011

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.

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Robot Heart Stories – the journey

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.

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DIY DAYS Los Angeles – 2011

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.

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As The Dust – editing update

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

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Recordsetter World Record book

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!

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All the photos I take: flickr.com/mikehedge (almost 60,000 photos posted during the last 5 years)
All my twitter updates: twitter.com/mikehedge (over 1150 posts during the last 5 years)
All the great sites/links I tag: delicious.com/mikehedge (over 25,000 posts during the last 6 years)
Here is my RSS feed: feeds.feedburner.com/mikehedge

Keep Imagining. And remember, the most important thing you can do is feel good.

Light and Gratitude, Mike Hedge
behedge@yahoo.com