Category: Music

Conversation with Tom Maxwell Former Squirrel Nut Zipper Front Man

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First met Tom Maxwell at a fundraiser for Snüzz, a friend and fellow musician of Tom’s. It was one of those amazing nights of music and community that I’m so glad that I was able to attend and capture the evening. Tom is one of those cats when he talks you just shut up and listen…not because he demands it or is a jerk. He has a command of the modern English dialect that is just plain fun.

Tom Maxwell and The Minor Drag “Jacob Marley” from All Aces Media on Vimeo.

To purchase the single go to itunes here. http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/jacob-marley-single/id491188196

Recorded live on November 26, 2011 at The Murphey School, Durham NC

Tom Maxwell – vocals, guitar
James Wallace – piano
Mark Simonsen – vibraphone
FJ Ventre – string bass
Evans Nicholson – drums

Engineered and mixed by Thom Canova
Filmed by Andy Coon, Blake Faucette and Nic Beery
Edited by Andy Coon

Music Video: Tom Maxwell and The Minor Drag “Jacob Marley”

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Download the single from iTunes

This was a lot of fun to shoot and edit. I’ve never shot a music video like this before which was a great learning experience. We actually recorded the music live at the venue while we were shooting the video. The mix sounds beautiful. The concept behind it was to document/shoot a music video. We had 3 cameras all Canon 60Ds and spread out across the floor. We covered Tom really well. The hardest part of the shoot was covering the piano and vibraphone players. Each take was different solo, so unless we were recording them during that take it was impossible to show them playing. The vibes were easier to cover but he chose to use different color mallets (or whatever you call those things) and sometimes with 2 or 4.

It was a challenge but something that I’m glad I had a chance to do. It has been a long time since I’ve worked on or shot a music video that I wanted to do. I love this song and so glad I could work with the former lead of Squirrel Nuts Zippers lead Tom Maxwell. He is a very cool and fun guy to work with. I’m also very fortunate to work and be friends with a couple of North Carolina’s best filmmakers, Blake Faucette and Nic Beery. Enjoy this poignant Christmas music!

Recorded live on November 26, 2011 at The Murphey School, Durham NC

Tom Maxwell – vocals, guitar
James Wallace – piano
Mark Simonsen – vibraphone
FJ Ventre – string bass
Evans Nicholson – drums

Engineered and mixed by Thom Canova
Filmed by Andy Coon, Blake Faucette and Nic Beery
Edited by Andy Coon

Short Film Friday: The American Dollar, “Anything You Synthesize”

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http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10868869&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=FF7700&fullscreen=1

From the production team:

“After hearing work from ‘The American Dollar’ we really felt the urge to create a music video for one of their new songs. Inspired by the music we had the idea of making a decaying world. One single cameramovement from left to right, showing a landscape, looping 9 times. Day becomes night and even the seasons go by. After we finished the production, we decided to reverse the whole video. This gives you a seamingly happy end, but you know what’s going to happen. There are no lyrics and we did not pay attention to the title of the song, we just felt this was the right thing to do.”

CREDITS:

Audio:
The American Dollar

Director:
Kasper Verweij

Design & Animation:
Menno Fokma,
Harm van Zon,
Reinier Fleas,
Heerko Groefsema,
Kasper Verweij
Rogier Hendriks

Post:
Rogier Hendriks

Production:
Onesize

Sonicfire Pro 5 a Must For Any Final Cut Pro Editor

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As an independent filmmaker one of the hardest things to do is get a great score for a project. If you use Soundtrack Pro you cycle through the amazing tracks and have a difficult time finding one that you haven’t used on numerous occasions, or heard everywhere on the net or local TV. That is why Sonicfire Pro 5 is so great. With Sonicfire Pro 5 you will have the highest quality of royalty-free, layered music available to you and fully-customizable in a variety of ways to fit your video.

Music
The music is of the highest quality that you will find available for royalty free music. The categories of music is essentially for any video you can think of. Here is a list which is full of music tracks for you to customize.

Usability
Just like all software, you need to get an understanding of what each window does before you can go and play. With Sonicfire Pro 5 it was easy enough to get things started. Once I opened the software up I began downloading the CDs that came with the package and it was really easy to upload the tracks and get things started. I successfully scored a video track without even referring to the instructions or tutorials. Which brings me to the tutorials, which Larry Jordan knocks it out of the park and I’m really glad he teamed up with SmartSound.

Final Cut Pro Integration
The sweet function about Sonicfire Pro 5 is that you can import markers from Final Cut Pro into Sonicfire Pro and create perfect synced music with your video. Not sure if that was available in their previous edition but it compares with Soundtrack Pro’s features of importing your footage and scoring it with Soundtrack’s library. Instead of importing the video into Sonicfire Pro it imports the data from the markers. That way you can export a synced score to your video. Sweet!

Timing Control
I messed around with Timing Control and realized how cool this feature is. You can manipulate every track that Sonicfire Pro has to offer and change up intensity or bring it back down with the timing control feature. Open a video file in Sonicfire Pro and manipulate the audio track to fill the b-roll coverage with the exact feel that you are going for and move around the timing controls to a specific point on the track to get perfect placement for an emotional and a controlled score. To watch it in action check out the tutorial.

My Take
If you can afford it, get it. If you can’t, save up and get it. That is how important it is to have this in your editor’s toolkit. Especially for filmmakers like me that can’t compose a soundtrack or create music or have a budget to hire a composer. If I had my way I would work with a composer and get inspiration from their music…but realistically this is the best option. It takes some time to get used to the application but if you go to Smart Sound Music’s youtube channel it will help you with the learning curve immediately.

Our Dotmatrix Project with Project Tritium

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In August, Blake, Micah and I shot Project Tritium for the dotmatrix project at The Green Burro downtown Greensboro. We set up three 1k lowell lights and did some hard lighting and shot the song at a high shutter speed on 2 Panasonic HVX200s and a Canon HV20. Had to color correct the HV20 a bit to match it up. Used the Threshold filter in Final Cut Pro. Here is the result. Enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1810950&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1
Project Tritium: Affectus Incognitus from All Aces Media on Vimeo.

The Dotmatrix Project… Showcasing Talent Across The World

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The dotmatrix project is my brother’s idea. But the concept is so much bigger than one person. The music is what gets all of us together. The bands, photographers, filmmakers and the crowds. This time word has to take a backseat to music, because that is what bonds us.


The Radials: Ain’t Runnin’ Too Fast from Andy Coon on Vimeo.

The concept. Simple.

The execution. A bit more difficult.

The results. Very cool.

The band gets a live album cut from the board mixed with a few live mics. The filmmakers get to edit together a live music event. As far as what to expect it all depends on the filmmakers and bands. They can shoot a live performance or they can collaborate with the band and shoot a concept for a music video . We are always looking for filmmakers to join in the project.

Sean is working hard to get these videos noticed and has worked out a deal with The Carousel Grande Theater, a local theater in Greensboro, NC. Check out what Sean and Robert McHone (Co-owner of Carousel) have worked out.

Before every film is shown in the Bistro section of the theater, Carousel Cinemas will show one dotmatrix project music video in its entirety. Yes, that includes the film/editing credits for participating filmmakers (you do the math as to how many people in Greensboro will see that).

Before each mainstream film in the front of the house, Carousel Cinemas will show a 20 second trailer of the dotmatrix project. And it won’t be the kind of ad that makes you groan at a movie — we’re talking about seeing your neighbors doing something cool that you can be a part of too.

The cross promotion is phenomenal. The on-line resource groups that Sean has created are so user friendly I can see this being useful for so many projects.

  • Basecamp – to follow project goals, milestones and to do lists.
  • Google Groups – to inform the involved members
  • Google Calender – to set dates
  • Facebook – is a great place to find out who is playing and follow along with new videos and pictures uploaded
  • Last FM – Another great place to listen to the live album on-line and see all the photos and videos, plus sign up with that band and explore new bands that are similar.
  • Vimeo – The coolest video site in which allows full blown HD video. We upload all the videos to this site and you can subscribe to The dotmatrix project channel.
  • Flickr – We have a flickr group with all the pics taken from all the shows.
  • The Dotmatrix Project Home – This is Sean’s blog about music, collaboration and news about progressive thinking and some amazing ideas and criticism.

If there are any filmmakers interested in shooting a show (one song per band) and want to be a part of this project hit me up.

Enter The Nokia Film Awards 2008 Here

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Win a Nokia N82 Prize Package!

Here’s the deal. Nokia/WOM World is sponsoring a video competition that promotes positive filmmaking. It is part of the Pangea Day event. Pangea Day is a global event bringing the world together through film. In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film.

Details:

All videos must be shot with a mobile device (cell phone). I will judge all entries. Upload your video at… http://www.twango.com/pangeaday To enter please leave a link to your video in the comment section on this post. The winner will be notified on May 11th.

The Prize:

A Nokia N82 phone, a carrying case, tripod, memory card, headphones and speakers!

The Rules

All videos must follow 1 of 4 briefs, which can be found at to http://share.ovi.com/pangeaday

  1. Film an act of kindness
  2. Film the best part of today
  3. Film the next thing that makes you smile
  4. Film the next person to inspire you

How to enter:

Follow one of 4 briefs found on to http://share.ovi.com/pangeaday
Interpretation of the brief is up to you. To tag the video with the brief you followed i.e: “act of kindness” or “best part of today” or “thing that makes you smile” or “person to inspire you.” All other tags must be relevant to the video or your video will be disqualified.

Enter before April 30th, 2008

Check out the filmmakers guide

Terms and Conditions:

By submitting your video to the competition you assign the copyright to Ovi.com. Nokia reserve the right to use all material submitted for entry in the competition for promotional and other purposes.

Submissions must not contain any defamatory, threatening, obscene, harmful or pornographic material or material which would violate or infringe in any way the rights of others (including intellectual property rights, rights of confidentiality, or rights of privacy) or cause distress or which does not comply with all relevant laws.

All entries are subject to approval by Nseries WOM World and may be rejected without any reason given.

By submitting material, you warrant that any persons appearing in the material sent have given their full permission to appear.

It is the responsibility of every entrant to ensure all relevant permissions are obtained when submitting material

Any changes or alterations made to the competition, or to these terms and conditions, are at the discretion of the WOM World and can be made at any time without notice. It is the responsibility of the entrant to ensure they are aware of such changes.

All entries must conform to Ovi.com’s terms of use.

womworld/nokia decision on all matters relating to the competition is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

Good Luck to all and have fun, enjoy this contest.