mikehedge.com

December/January Split 2011

Sundance/Slamdance 2011

Feb 2011

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

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

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

It’s difficult enough trying to put into words some of my experiences, but cramming an entire year into one post, especially this year has been quite an ordeal…

Welcome to 1127 2009! Hope this year has been outstanding and successful for everyone. This is my 7th year sending out these 1127 emails. Each year I give a quick recap of my past 12 months. Hopefully people will keep me up to date with what they are up to. This year’s 1127 blog will follow a slightly different style than last year’s. Last year, was my first year adding photos to my 1127 blog. After posting that post, I continued to post blogs with lots of photos and descriptions of all my adventures. If I were to include everything that happened since my last 1127 post, It would be 10 times longer than my last year’s post. If you want to check out what that looks like, it’s crazy!!!

I left off on my crazy 1127 blog last year, on a plane flying to China. It’s hard to believe an entire year has passed. Do I feel that I have accomplished what I set out to accomplish in the past 12 months? This is something that I continue to think about. What is it that I accomplished? What am I comparing my accomplishments to? What makes life fulfilling? What is the goal I have this life? My goal has been: “To inspire others.” I’m sure I have inspired people this year, I’m sure I continue to inspire people. Has it been rewarding?

I did manage to fill my year up with many film shoots, many film festivals, many trips, and shot another few hundred thousand photos. I was published in many magazines, and even received an award for a short film I edited. Did I finish the things on my todo list from 2008? No. Did I finish some of them? Yes indeed!

The largest project of my life, which I started back in 2008, continues to be worked on. I hope that 2010 will be a year of finishing many of the incomplete projects I have done over that past few years. In many ways, I feel like I have been writing pages in my “book of life” so fast, but have never bothered to go back, fix the spelling errors, bind the pages, and publish the book!

I am incredibly grateful for the people who choose to surround me with their support. A huge thank you to all the people who continue to inspire me.

So last year, after an amazing shoot out at Burning Man, and several months traveling all over Europe, I ended up in Madrid where my friends, Macgregor, Zac, Pedro, and I talked about doing a trip out to Asia to shoot some tests and location scout for a film project. We left from Madrid on Nov 27th 2008 and flew to Shanghai, China. then to Thailand, including Phi Phi Islands) then to Mumbai, India. Here’s a quick clip from India including a shot of India’s largest slum, Dharavi. India Dec 09-2008 Please read the blog here.

In mid-December, we flew from India, back to Madrid. Once Macgregor and I landed in Madrid, we quickly repacked and flew to London to shoot some footage for a teaser for the Erased Tapes’ band, Codes In The Clouds.

While is London, I got to hang with Erased Tapes Records owner, Robert Raths for a couple days. It was really awesome to see the day-to-day operations of Erased Tapes. Before leaving the UK, I got to meet several other inspirations of mine: Bill Erickson, one of the founders of the BIL Conference, Richard Moross, founder of Moo.com, Frank Da Silva of DMTlabs, and Matt Biddulph, one of the founders of Dopplr.com. I also got to hang out with Anita Ondine of Seize The Media and Lukas Fittl co-founder of Soup.io. Check out the adventures in the UK blog.

After finally returning to the US in December, I flew to Tennessee to spend Christmas with Jackie’s family. Check out the blog here.

Connecticut became home base for the month of January. Roger Ingraham was nice enough to let the As The Dust Settles team set up shop at Highland Terrace.Team ATDS edited all month. Check out the photos, and the blog.

In February, I finally returned back to LA. It had been months and months since I was last in LA. I left in October and continued traveling. I ended up going to 12 countries. The amount of media I created on that trip was crazy! terabytes and terabytes. Please read the blog here.

Days after returning to LA, I found that my hillside was on fire! A pretty large brush fire had erupted very near my house. Lucky for us, the wind was blowing west! We joined many neighborhood people and watched as helicopter after helicopter full of water put out the fires.

Feb 3rd, was Nathan Reid’s comic book release party for his new film Prey: The Beginning. Feb 7th and 8th I got to attend the BIL Conference! Lots of passionate people brainstormed about innovative ideas about what’s going on today and ideas for the future. It’s sorta a sister project of the hugely inspiring conference called TED. While at BIL, I got to meet up again with Bill Erickson, Todd Huffman, EFF Chairman, Brad Templeton, and Lukas Fittl who was in town.

Later in February, I got to join the New Media West: Office Hours meeting, where everyone joined up to discuss new forms of online media projects. It was awesome to see a bunch of people that I hadn’t seen in a while! Shout out to: Mike Ambs, Rudy Jahchan, Casey McKinnon, Ric Rey, Meg McGarry, Brigitte Dale, Cristian Olave, and I also got to meet the co-founder of the Streamy Awards, Marc Hustvedt. February also marked the first time big screen screening of America’s Phoneless. We had many of the cast and crew there at LAFS, it was great!

Macgregor and I shot this teaser for the Erased Tapes band, Codes In The Clouds. Their new album came out in June. Macgregor also finished the ad we shot for Nissan out in Death Valley last year = genius! Codes teaser. Nissan spec.

In March, Arin flew out to LA to do a couple presentations. One was at Cal Arts for Jon Reiss’ new media class, and the other was Film Independent’s Directors Close Up event with Sleepdealer Director, Alex Rivera. I got to shoot photos and video for Arin, and it was neat to be part of the events and be around like-minded people, thinking about ideas for the future of how we are changing the film industry and distribution.

I didn’t make it out to SXSW this year, but congrats to the Ross Brothers who won the Jury Award for their doc 45365 and congrats to Brett Gaylor whose film, RIP: A Remix got lots of great press.

March also marked the completion of the UYUNI project! Thanks everyone for making the REDuser.net thread the second most viewed thread in the “Shot on Red” section in the history of the forum. Here is a quick slideshow of production and post: And here is the first 2 minutes.

Live life to the fullest! right? Check out the blog from April. April was a crazy month of projects and travel! Nathan Garofalos flew in to LA to shoot a quick scene with Nathan Reid and I.

We then picked up Jackie at the OC airport and started the most epic PCH road trip ever. I have never done the PCH, so I figured I would take the opportunity to head up the coast on my way to the Sacramento Film Fest and the Ashland Film Fest for the premiere of Wake Up You’re Sleeping.

We headed north and visited with Randy Carranza, and his daughter Alexis, then stayed at Markus Sandy’s house, the Digital Dojo. The next morning we met up with Scott London and his daughter Gabriela in Santa Barbara and visited with them. We then met up with Trevor Carpenter and camped on the beach at Pismo Beach.

In the morning we had breakfast with Steve Gibby, then headed to Cal Poly SLO to visit with Katharina, then to Bubble Gum Alley, past the seals, up through Big Sur, past the Bixby Bridge, to meet up with Miles and Elise, then stayed with my friend Robin Beck and her daughter Allison. The next morning we had breakfast with Jessica Zylker who I hadn’t seen for 20 years, then drove out to Lake Tahoe, NV to drop Nathan off. We stayed that night with my Primal Quest friend, Aja Cook. The next morning, we got to shoot with Lauren Rosenbaum, Karen Strolia, and Diyosa, all super inspiring flickr friends. That same day, while we were doing the epic road trip, the film I edited, America’s Phoneless, screened at the Lake Havasu Film Fest and won the Final Cut Award!!!

We then headed to SF and went photowalking with Thomas Hawk at the SF MOMA, then met up with Tristan Savatier and talked about Burning Man and photography. We then headed to Startup Weekend (which was created by my friend, Andrew Hyde.) Tyler Willis and Jeremy Tanner organized the SF Weekend which went really well! Many of the startups won’t end up sticking, but some do, like my friend Paul Stamatiou’s project from Atlanta Startup Weekend 2007, Skribit.com. Anyways, I had a fun time shooting photos and video I hope to edit some day. I also finally got to meet Daniel Brusilovsky, one of my inspiring internet friends.

We stayed that night with my friend Jerry Paffendorf at The Dragon Drop and headed to the Burning Man BBQ where we met up with fellow Burners and met with Marian Goodell, Heather Gallagher (Camera girl), and Andie Grace (Actiongrl) !!! And I finally got to meet Michael Michael (Danger Ranger), one of the original Burning Man co-founders and a huge inspiration for my documentary As The Dust Settles.

We then headed to the Sacramento Film Fest screening 11am on Sunday April 5th. It was fun to see the team all together. Brette Way, who plays Emma in the film, and her husband Evan (both in an awesome LA band called The Parson Red Heads) came up for the film fest.

After the fest, we headed north to Redding and hung out with Tracy Evans and her family, then up to Ashland, OR for the premiere of Wake Up You’re Sleeping! It was a sold out screening of over 200 people! Nathanial Bennett, the director, gave a great Q&A. Many people were excited to get the DVD or find out where they could see the film again.

We then headed down to Redding to hang out with team SOAR which is one of the adventure race teams I met while shooting Primal Quest in Montana. We went snow shoeing for the day in Lassen National Forest with Betty and Tom Thomas. Crazy fun!!! I also got to shoot some RED footage of the team bike riding.

We then traveled south to Alex Rich’s house. Alex is the genius musician who did the music for the SXSW video I did last year. He has several projects going, including his new project Tonight’s the Night. We then headed to Reno, NV with out hitting any deer!!! or getting cought in the snow storm, and met up with Lauren Randolph!!!!! (jumpshot photographer extraordinaire, and member of the ATDS team) We got to hang out with her for the day and shot some jumpshots. Yes this photo hit Flickr Explore!!!!!

Here’s a recap of April and May. The blog has a ton of photos. April 15th, I went to the DVD Party for the film The Art of Travel which Chris Masterson starred in. The film was directed by Thomas Whelan and produced by my filmmaking friend Brian LaBelle. Erased Tapes launched a great series called Found Songs, where Olafur Arnalds did one song per day for a whole week. All the songs were free and never before released! It was awesome! On April 19th, my two best friends from high school, Kellyn and Nikki got married. Wow. Happy for them. Wish them all the success in their marriage. Here’s the wedding set.

Isis and Titus were in LA with the band they were tour managing, The Whip from the UK!!! It was a blast seeing them and shooting for the band. Here’s my set from the two nights of shooting in LA.

Did Jury Service for a few days which sucked…. Then Alex’s new EP for his side project, Tonight’s The Night launched on itunes! I then went to the Evolver Los Angeles launch where Daniel Pinchbeck ran a gathering of minds. A few days later my friend Leah Meyerhoff cast the main actors for her film Unicorns. She was written up in Variety. congrats!

On April 30th I got to work with Logan Kugler for a few articles he was writing for some magazines. We got to hang out with Jay Leno at his Garage. It was neat. Look for my photos in Autoweek. Big shout out to my friend and fellow photography Brad Kugler for the opportunity.

In May, the all the new 16×9 widescreen Four Eyed Monsters episodes launched on youtube! The DVD is available in the US here.

May 10th was the LA premiere of the film I edited. America’s Phoneless, directed by Ted Prescott. It was part of the closing night of film at Mockfest 2009.

On that same day, Mike Ambs also started his journey east. He will be editing Project Pedal in Michigan for a while. Excited for new episodes of Pedal and the cut of the genius feature documentary film, For Thousands of Miles !!!!!! Also in May, Roger (who did the film Moonshine) launched his new short film, The Age of Change online.

The adventures never seemed to slow down. Late in May, I got to team up with Hunter Weeks (10 MPH/10 Yards/Ride the Divide) and Mike Dion on a project for Quiznos. I joined the team and did the lower 48 states in 12 days. Check out the blog here. Here’s the flickr set. Here’s one of the videos we made on the trip.

Welcome to 1127 2008!

Wow. Hope this year has been happy and successful for everyone. I have been sending out these emails for 6 years now. Every year, I try to stay in touch with everyone, by sending out an email updating people on what I’ve been up to, in hopes that others will keep me up to date with what they are up to.

So in November of 2007, I went to the The Winnies. It was put on by Bonny, Lan, and Vu Bui, and a lot of online new media friends were there. I ended up winning the Adventurous Spirit award, so that was pretty neat! I made an awesome picturevideo of the event.

In December, we got the spec ad for Nike posted and I went skiing with my family up in Mammoth. It was some great skiing. While there, my Grandma passed away in her sleep. She was an accomplished painter and artist, and always an inspiration to me.

In January, I got to be a production assistant on the feature film, Eagle Eye starring Shia LeBebouf. It was a really interesting experience, all the PAs on set for the days I was there, got to make sure the streets were clear and safe so we could film giant car crashes.

As a Ron Paul supporter, I continued sharing his ideas, and in January we got the opportunity to go around the neighborhood and talk to people house by house. The small group of friends I was with, ended up spreading the message of freedom and the reminder to vote in the February elections, to 120 homes. Then late in January I drove out to Park City for Sundance, and met up with a bunch of friends. I saw many films including Phoebe in Wonderland starring Elle Fanning and Sleepwalking which used a song in the film and credits by my friend Ali from A Fine Frenzy.

After Sundance, I drove out to the SLC area to go skiing up at Brighton with a friend. It was really cold, but there was tons of snow. I ended up back in LA, and got to shoot some behind the scenes shots for an AFI film that my friend, Michael McGuire was producing.

In February, I drove north to San Francisco, where a bunch of my photos were part of a huge collaborative photo project that the Art House Co-op runs, called A Million Little Pictures. It was awesome to be part of it, and I was one of the few featured photographers at the art show. While in SF I also got to go photowalking with Thomas Hawk!!!

In March, I headed out to Austin, Texas for SXSW with friend and fellow filmmaker Mike Ambs. The drive took us 35 hours. While at SXSW I got to shoot many panels for From Here To Awesome. I also got to see many films and hang out with many of my filmmaker friends. On the last day I was there, I got to talk to Mark Cuban for a brief moment. I told him that Ryan Dacko had finished his film, Plan 9 From Syracuse and the DVD would be for sale soon. Mark said congrats. The DVD, with some neat special features is now for sale on Amazon.com or for rent on Netflix.com The awesome picturevideo that I made from all the photos I shot at SXSW ended up getting reblogged on sites like Variety.com, Cinematical.com, Filmmaker Magazine, and IndieWire.com, it was awesome.

Later on in March, to meet the submission deadline for From Here to Awesome, I got two trailers up for two films I was part of. One was the short I produced that we shot using 16,000 still photos called Louder Than Words. I also was the editor of the short comedy film Ted Prescott directed called America’s Phoneless.

In April, I got to drive out to Las Vegas for the annual NAB conference. Sidenote- When people get their RED cameras, normally people will shoot photos of the unboxing so others can share the passion and excitement. Some people have even shot video of the unboxing, but no one had ever done a live unboxing. So I set up the web camera, and from the hotel I broadcasted the unboxing of RED camera number 998, which had finally arrived days before NAB.

While at NAB, at a special REDuser party, Erik Widding showcased his Birger mount for the RED camera, that lets you switch out the standard PL mount for a Canon EOS mount. I was super excited about this, as all my still photography Canon lenses could be used with the RED camera then. It was truly awesome to see, but we would have to wait a few more months to actually beta test it. After NAB, I drove out to the dust flats in Utah to do a test shoot with fellow filmmakers Macgregor and Ozan. We shot on 2 RED cameras and tested out a new set of Zeiss high speed prime lenses.

Later in April, Arin and Susan had the cable television release of their film, Four Eyed Monsters, and the DVD was finally made available for people to buy. They did an exclusive deal at Borders stores. I decided to help them with their west coast tour of the film, and so in May, drove to Seattle. We ended up doing a west coast tour to various friends of the film and in Portland shot a video with Gingerbread Patriots who had music in some of the episodes. We ended up arriving back in LA in time for the huge Google/YouTube event where Arin got to join the panel with other successful YouTube filmmakers.

Later in May, I left with my dad for Israel to help the Association for Peace and Understanding. Traveling around Israel was amazing, there is so much history and culture, and many religions all getting along. We explored Old Jerusalem, saw the ancient fortress of Masada, saw the Sea of Galilee, stayed at a kibbutz, and visited Tel Aviv. I also got to float on the Dead Sea and went kayaking down the Jordan river on my birthday. The trip was incredible. I left Tel Aviv and flew to NYC to shoot a friends’ wedding. It was a really awesome wedding with so many great people, it was fantastic. Congrats Gabi and Nathan Reid!

In June, I got a ride down to South Carolina to meet up with fellow filmmakers and friends Roger Ingraham and Arin Crumley to shoot a documentary while traveling up the east coast, after many days of filming, we ended up at the Kushi Institute in Becket, MA. I shot a bunch of photos for them. It was really relaxing and beautiful, although we nearly got struck by lightning. From there, we visited Red Fire Farm where we picked strawberries, moved hay, and had a bonfire.

I then flew to Montana for Primal Quest 2008, where I was one of the lead photographers for the event. For ten days I got to chase racers as they competed in several skill sections including: mountain biking, kayaking, rock climbing, trail running, and water boarding. It was a crazy couple weeks spent out in the beautiful Big Sky area of Montana. Mike Kloser and team Nike ended up winning! Photo Link.

After saying goodbye to many of my new adventure racing friends, I headed west to go water skiing on a lake for Fourth of July. I got to visit friends out in Montana, Washington, Oregon, and ended up at the Burning Man office July 8th. There I met with Communications Manager for Burning Man, Andie Grace. She liked our proposal we had submitted months earlier and approved my documentary project for Burning Man. I posted a great blog recapping all my travels over the summer: Link

Days after I returned to LA, both of the projects that I had submitted to From Here To Awesome won!!!! So both were picked to be part of the top 10 shorts. All the films launched at a huge filmmaker event in LA called DIY DAYS. I was also in Filmmaker Magazine for the Summer 2008 Issue. Here are the photos from DIY DAYS LA.

In August, Viola and her family from Italy came out to California to visit, I had a blast hanging out with them for a couple days. I then headed up to San Francisco for the DIY DAYS SF event. Which was sponsored by Current TV. It was an awesome event with many great speakers. The DVD, which I helped shoot, which has all the panels from DIY DAYS LA is now for sale.

So after a couple weeks of conference calls, Skype chats, getting people committed, and preparing for the huge collaborative documentary, a great team of 25 people was created. I booked many airline tickets, got the RED cameras ready, got some great advice about sound from the guys at Coffey, researched ways to protect all the gear from the elements out at Black Rock City, and ended up with 16 people at my house. All of us were ready to head out to Burning Man to meet up with the others.

On Aug 24th we headed out to Burning Man, which became the most epic two weeks ever. So for 12 days, we filmed with several HD cameras, a few still cameras, and 3 RED cameras, one with the beta Birger mount =), all together capturing 450 hours of material. I ended up shooting 7000 behind the scenes photos of the production. Burning Man is a place like no other. For two weeks about 50,000 people gather in the desert to express their ideas following ten basic principles. Many people build giant art projects. For many years I have been inspired by the photos from the event, always wanting to shoot a project out there. I am so honored to have gotten the opportunity to work with such an awesome team of people, so thank you, and thanks to Andie and the Burning Man staff and thanks to RED, Birger, Element Technica. Stay updated on the progress of the film at www.asthedustsettles.com

After finally returning to LA, Arin, Nathan, and I resized, copied, and renamed a ton of media on many hard drives. I also got to shoot behind the scenes stills for a TV show pilot that was shot with several RED cameras called Oregon Files. Should be an awesome project…

In October, I flew out to Washington, DC for the pre-wedding party for Amy and Erik Widding, then headed north to NYC to shoot some footage with our As The Dust Settles team.

I then got on a plane with Jackie and flew to Iceland. We spent several days there shooting the huge music festival called Iceland Airwaves and also met up with fellow photographer and friend Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

We then flew on to Ireland and London, where As The Dust Settles got to be part of the London Film Festival by being part of Power to the Pixel. We were part of the Project Forum launch, with 3 other films. The Project Forum is a new marketplace for cross-media projects. Arin Crumley was also one of the featured speakers. Here is his video from his talk about collaboration. Arin and Lance were also part of a talk about audience. All my photos from Power to the Pixel Link

After P2P, we headed to shows in Oxford and London shooting for Erased Tapes musician, Olafur Arnalds. Some of the RED footage is now part of the short film by Iceland filmmaker, Gunnar B. Gudbjornsson. While in Oxford, we visited my friend Jerome who is the genius behind Message To Bears. We then ended our UK adventures filming for my friend Robert Raths, at his label night where 3 of my favorite bands performed. Shout out to Codes in the Clouds, Kyte, and The British Expeditionary Force. Stay tuned with the great artists from Erased Tapes Records.

Later in October, we were in Filmmaker Magazine page 106. Then Jackie and I took the Chunnel into France to shoot at Mont Saint-Michel and visit friends along northern France. Then to Switzerland to hang with Tobias Straka and the team from Octamas. We then headed to Torino, Italy where we met up with Viola and her family who live there. She is a really amazing kid, I look forward to shooting a film with her some day.

Later in November, we headed to Madrid, Spain to meet up with Macgregor and the team who I shot with on the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2007. We were there doing final color correction and sound mixing for the final version of the film UYUNI. While in Spain, Jackie, Macgregor, Bianca, and I headed to the south of Spain to visit Granada. It was beautiful!

While I was in Europe traveling around, so was Ali with her band A Fine Frenzy. She was playing a show in Zurich, Switzerland, so I quickly booked a flight and filmed her show at the Kaufleuten with 2 REDs

I then headed back to Madrid, where Macgregor, Zac, Pedro, and I talked about doing a trip out to Asia to shoot some tests and location scout for a film project.

And here it is November 27th 2008. I’m leaving in a few hours for Shanghai, China!!! I will be traveling for several more weeks, as the trip will take us to China, Thailand, and India. After that?

More adventures!!!

PS I’m still looking for a talent agent for Viola. Anyone know someone at Osbrink?

And finally, I just found out that the feature film I produced, Wake Up You’re Sleeping, which was directed by my friend, Nathaniel Bennett, will be premiering at the Sacramento and Ashland film festivals in April! So if you are around those cities, let me know.

www.twitter.com/WUYS

www.wakeupyouresleeping.com

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All the photos I take flickr.com/mikehedge
All my semi-daily updates twitter.com/mikehedge
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Here is my RSS feed:feeds.feedburner.com/mikehedge

Good luck, peace, happiness, freedom, energy, love, and remember think for yourself.

Mike Hedge
behedge@yahoo.com

I have been sending out these emails for 5 years now. Every year, I
try to stay in touch with everyone, by sending out an email updating
people on what I’ve been up to, in hopes that others will keep me up
to date with what they are up to.

So jump back to the end of last year’s email. I spent the end of 2006
in Vail, CO. Love it there. So much snow!

In January, I went out to Sundance to meet up with a bunch of
people. While there, I teamed up with Arin and Susan, the creators
of the film “Four Eyed Monsters.” They were doing a Sundance
Channel video blog, A bunch of my photos from Sundance made it
into one of the videos on the official Sundance Channel youtube
channel.

While at Sundance, I got to see Alison perform as part of the
Sundance music program. She performed songs from her new
album “One Cell in the Sea.” (which got released on July 17, 2007
on Virgin Records!!!!!) www.afinefrenzy.com

After returning home from Park City, and the SIA tradeshow in
Vegas, I shot photos and video for a week, while on tour with The
Hanks. They were promoting their new album, “Your New
Attraction.” www.TheHanksOnline.com

Every year, the Cornell Club of Los Angeles has a film festival
showcasing great films.  We were honored to have Room 27 be
part of the event, February 21st.

Later in February, was the Independent Spirit Awards. As a
member of Film Independent, I got to vote for Four Eyed Monsters
for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography and for
the John Cassavetes Award. They ended up not winning, but it was
really great to see them out here in LA.

In March, to help a friend in need, I traveled for several weeks
through Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and down California.
While up in Idaho, we met up with my friend, Ryan Tidrick who had a
showcase of his films and photography. www.ryantidrick.com/

In April, my dad and I were out in Vegas with good friend Mike
Lynch, attending NAB again. It’s always a crazy event with so many
companies launching new software or new cameras. Of course
RED had their awesome booth there. visit www.RED.com

Back in Los Angeles in May, while reading a great blog called
Mashable, I found out about a really great opportunity this summer.
Very last minute, I miraculously got an audition on May 18th to be
part of the Windows Live Spaces Eco Trip. The next day, I found out
that I was hired as the team manager and would be leaving in 10
days!

But before heading up to Seattle for the start of the trip, I attended
the launch party for Project Pedal. a really inspiring project where
they documented a guy ride his bicycle across America all summer.
check out www.ProjectPedal.com

And on May 28th, I ran the annual Descanso Gardens 10K. This
was my 20th year running in the Descano Days race on Memorial
Day. Yep it’s true. Here’s a video, wait for it to load.

So, for the rest of May, all of June, and the first week of July, I along
with 3 other people, made our way across America by bicycle and
train. We kept a blog along the way, posting videos, photos, and
blogs about our journey. On 07-07-07 we made it to New York City
where Live Earth was. At Live Earth, I was able to shoot photos of
artists like Kanye West, Ludacris, and Bon Jovi etc. Check out our
summer blog at www.SpacesEcoTrip.com and the Live Earth site
at www.liveearth.msn.com

After the Eco Trip had ended, I spent a few weeks in New York City
hanging out with Arin and Susan, and visited my extended family,
many whom I had never met before. Thanks for such an awesome
time guys. Miss you all very much.

In late July, I left New York in time to visit my grandma in Florida for
a few days. It was really great to see her again. She is such an
incredibly inspiring person. I miss her.

After I returned to LA for a day, I participated in the Santa Monica
photowalk and got to meet inspiring photographer Thomas Hawk.
Here’s the photos from the day

In August, we left for Hawaii. For several weeks we traveled through
four different islands. I really loved going hiking, snorkeling, scuba
diving, and of course the incredibly beautiful sunsets. Photos

So, in September, after finally returning home from summer, we had
the annual welcome back party with Kellyn and Nikki. It’s always fun
to hear stories and see photos after summer. Thanks to everyone
who attended. Here’s a great video that my friend Lan Bui did.

Also in September, I got to shoot photos for Alison, who performed
for two nights at the House of Blues Hollywood. She had been
touring all summer promoting her new album out on Virgin Records.
www.AFineFrenzy.com

Then in mid-September, I got the call from Macgregor. Macgregor
is an incredibly talented DP/Director from Spain. I have followed his
work for quite some time. We talked about options, and ideas, and
working on a short film project. And two days later, the crew flew in
from Spain and we were shooting out on the Salt Flats in Utah.
What was so special about this project, was that only 3 weeks prior,
the first 25 RED cameras were released, and we got to shoot on
RED #19!!! The experience was amazing, so thank you to our great
cast and crew, and a big thank you to Macgregor, Zach, and Blair.
Our thread on the forum has nearly 40,000 views www.REDuser.net
The photos from the Salt Flats are incredible. Thanks Ayz for the
hook up.

In October, right after returning from Utah, we headed out to
Catalina Island to visit Camp Cherry Valley for some snorkeling and
kayaking. I was on staff there all summer in 1999. This was the first
time I had been back there in many years.

Later in October, I volunteered at the GOOD Magazine 1 year
anniversary party. I ended up shooting photos for the event, which
was tons of fun. Here’s a video version of all the photos I took. And if
you are not subscribing to GOOD magazine, you should:
www.goodmagazine.com/register

For the last couple weeks, I have been interning at the sister
company of GOOD, Reason Pictures. They have some really great
projects lined up. I also have been editing a short film directed by
Ted Prescott called, “America’s Phoneless.” Stay tuned for more
about that!

In other news, On November 14, REDCINE was released for Mac
and PC!!!!! This is the software that allows people to view and
export the footage from the RED cameras.

Of course there are probably a million things that I have missed, like
all the Venturing Crew 355 trips and adventures this year, and all
the things that I have photographed, like the Delphi Haunted House.

What’s next? “The Winnies” are November 30th!
www.youarethewinner.org Let me know if you will be out in Park City
for Sundance 2008. And I’m super excited for February, as I will
take delivery of RED #998.

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Well, here it is, 1127 2006.

Seems like it was a few weeks ago that I sent out this for 2005.

This is my 5th year sending out my 1127 email. So let’s start back

in November of last year. I was on a 63-day national tour with LA

band “Darci Cash” www.darcicash.com. We finished the tour

back in LA the day before Xmas 2005.

After being in LA enough time to wash my clothes and pack my

bags again, I headed up to Seattle to produce a feature film,

“Wake Up You’re Sleeping” directed by my friend Nathaniel

Bennett. We shot for about 30 days. We battled the rain each and

every day… fun times. Stay tuned for news and info!

I then left Seattle and headed for Park City to the Sundance Film

Festival, where my friend, Roger Ingraham was premiering his

feature film called “Moonshine” Very awesome real-life vampire

film. The easy 15 hour drive from Seattle to Park City ended up

being about 27 hours. The whole drive, roads were closed, and it

was snowing on and off the whole drive…….

The day after I got back from Utah, I began the production of a

short that my friend, Glenn Ripps, wrote and directed called

“Louder Than Words.” For the film, we shot 16,000 still photos on

a Canon 1D and the 20D. I was involved in the editing, doing the

pickups and finalizing the sound and music through May.

Then in May, I was invited to film in Africa for a human rights group

called Youth for Human Right International,

www.youthforhumanrights.org I spent three weeks documenting

the activities in Liberia and Ghana. While is Africa, I ended up

shooting 25 hours of footage and shot over 5000 photos.

I then had a day or two at home before leaving on the 45-day

Youth or Human Rights’ World Tour 2006. I traveled through 23

countries, shot over 75 hours of video and shot over 30,000

photos.

So now, here it is already November of 2006, I am working on

many new projects, doing lots of video editing and continuing with

photography. If you will be out in Park City in January for

Sundance, let me know.

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As this is my annual “official 1127 email,” lots of things have

happened this year and many big projects are in store for 2007.

Check out my friends’ film: www.foureyedmonsters.com

Good luck, peace, happiness, freedom, energy, and love.

Mike Hedge behedge@yahoo.com