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After many many weeks on the road for my epic Jumping Book tour, I returned to LA and continued rockin’ life. I met up with Peggy and Ondi Timoner at a great IDA Mixer. Always great seeing them. I saw Andrew Strugnell as he passed through Los Angeles on his whirlwind world travels. I met up with Rob Simonsen (who did the score on Mike Lynch’s BURDEN) to do a great jumpshot in Hollywood for my Jumping Book. I posted a few updates on our fundraiser for SIMILO. Our shortfilm UYUNI got into another dozen or so film festivals, including several in Spain and one more in France. We also got a special jury mention for the film at the Certamen de Cortos Universidad de Cantabria y Ciudad de Santander (shorts competition) and won a Platinum REMI Award at WorldFest – Houston International.

In late April we threw together a pick up day shoot for KOR3. It was great seeing it all come together. I had a blast working with the new RED Prime lenses, and several of my good friends Macgregor, Nathan Garofalos, Stephen Sullivan, Kevin Dorian, Luis Labrador, Ruairi Robinson, and Nathan Reid, (lead actor in my film Room 27) etc. The footage looks magic.

I was lucky enough to be in the LA area for the Newport Beach Film Festival, where Hunter Weeks and Mike Dion’s new documentary, Ride The Divide was having it’s Southern California premiere. It was great meeting up with Mike and a few of the cast from the film. I also got see Zaq (who joined Mike, Hunter, and I on the epic 50 States in 14 Days trip) and Jessica and Rima which was great.

At the very last minute IndieGoGo invited me to join them on May 3rd, to do a quick pitch at the 2010 Digital Hollywood Content Summit for As The Dust Settles. I was joined by fellow ATDS collaborators Lauren Randolph and Matt Scott. Panelists included: Danae Ringelmann Co-Founder, IndieGoGo, Moderator Angela Shelton, Director, Searching For Angela Shelton, Adam Chapnick, Vice-President IDA, Distribber, and Steve Reich, Writer, PBS Nova. Everyone there loved the project, and several of the panelists had some great feedback about our pitch. There were some fellow Burners in the audience who had some great ideas for the project as well. I also had a great discussion with fellow documentary filmmaker, Adrian Belic about As The Dust Settles.

In addition to the feature length documentary As The Dust Settles, I am also making a great soundtrack for the film, as well as a collaborative photobook. I am working with some truly accomplished photographers including Scott London, John Curley, Tomas Loewy, Tristan Savatier, Lauren Randolph, and Ryan Jesena, it was great meeting up with some of them and discussing plans for the photobook. We even did a jumpshot =)

I attended the Cinefist screening where Gary King’s film What’s Up Lovely screened. It was a great evening that included a neat discussion about crowdfunding with Gregory Bayne as well. I had a really special Mother’s Day, where my whole family went out for a hike to the Bridge to Nowhere (it’s been on the list of hikes to do for many many years.)

Towards the end of June, as the teaser for KOR3 was coming together, Macgregor decided we needed another pick up shoot. Super super last minute everyone came together, Nathan Garofalos flew in with RED998, we got an awesome downtown LA location, and a 40 foot greenscreen. =) It was a great day of indie filmmaking. I got to work with a bunch of really talented people on this shoot. Super grateful! Thanks to Stephen Sullivan, Luis Labrador, Tim Hyten, Mathew Lorenceau, Kimmy Ngyen, Mia, Tiffani Bearup, Jack Daniel Stanley (main actor in UYUNI) and all the other great cast and crew for making this such a successful shoot! The footage is beautiful. I can’t wait to share the teaser!

After missing Lightning in a Bottle in 2008, I decided that I wouldn’t miss the event this year. Lightning in a Bottle is a great event in the Los Angeles area put on by the The Do Lab. Many people part of Los Angeles Burning Man community attend. I shot the whole event with RED998, so have very few photos. Hopefully soon I will be able to export some of the great footage I shot. I got to see some of my favorite bands/friends perform including Lynx and Janover, DJ Wolfie, Glitch Mob, and The Album Leaf. I also got to meet up with friends like Liz and Scott from Evil Twin Booking and fellow documentary filmmaker Chris Paine. Here’s some great links with other people’s photos and videos and reviews on the Do Lab site.

This genius recap video by Matthew Smith is a great example of what I experienced. Love it!

When you get the call to fly to Toronto, do you drop everything and go? I did! It was awesome. My friends Judd Tilyard and Ayz Waraich were in Toronto shooting a feature called Skeleton Lake, which Neil Mackay was directing. I was up on set with them for a week, and got to shoot some great behind the scenes shots. They have just released a new teaser for the film, which is a fine example of what you get when you shoot with RED998 MX and LOMO anamorphics. The film also recently got a neat write-up on Twitch Film

Mid-June I got to attend my brother’s commencement ceremonies. He graduated magna cum laude with honors from Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering. We had a huge pool party afterward to celebrate, and Mia and Braden stopped by=)

Near the end of June, I got to attend the the NPA Conference at Cal State Long Beach. It was great meeting some genius inventors and getting to meet people like Greg Volk and Marko Rodin. They have some videos and photos online from the conference, and here’s some photos I took.