Studio Time

Sorry I haven't been updating you for the last couple days. I am rushing to hit a deadline on the Holy Trinity Pipe Organ project. I am a couple days from putting it to bed. Stay tuned.

Youtubing

I threw together a quick music video. It looks much better in HD than on youtube, but here she blows. 

On Jan 4th I changed the getting started video and re-linked it. This short music video is included as a special feature in the Holy Trinity Pipe Organ 2-DVD set. 

Merry Christmas

Can you believe we are getting more snow in Seattle? This is fantastic/horrible! It is horrible for the roads. It is fantastic for "White Christmas" stuff.

It does give me a chance to spend some extra time in the studio working on some of the sequences. I captured the Pasi reel yesterday and then had to rush off. Hopefully I can lay down the pipebuilding sequence Martin demonstrated for me. He did a fantastic job taking me through the process. During the capture I was happy to see the picture was in focus, and it looked like I got some good footage.

I will try and get a rough cut of the pipe sequence onto Youtube before the end of the year.

Snowy Sunday

Well, I hit the deadline and had something to screen on Sunday at church, but the snowy Seattle area kept 3/4 of the church away. So no screening, but it was sorta ready. I still have lots to do with the recital to make it more visually stimulating. 

We are talking about pipe organs after all. The biggest question I get about this project is, "Why pipe organs?" 

I suppose the next time I pick a documentary subject (or a subject picks me) it will be cooler. Like screamo bands ala The Fall of Troy. Why do they scream their lyrics, when they are actually good singers?

Or maybe squid fishermen standing on the pier in the dark November night jigging for squid. Visually perhaps a bit more exciting than the pipe organ, but we are talking about squid.

But for right now the pipe organ it is. 

The next shoot is set for the Paramount Seattle and their Mighty Wurlitzer playing for a silent movie. That shot is Jan 5. Many people in the classic pipe organ culture don't associate the Theater pipe organ together with a tracker or a more modern electric action classically voiced pipe organ. I am still trying to force the two cultures together in this documentary. I sometimes feel as though I am knocking my head against the wall trying, and it may not actually work. After all it is a documentary and that means that what I am showing must be true, right Michael Moore?

Trailer/Teaser Done

I wrapped up on the mini-documentary I was working on yesterday and pulled 2 minutes from it to make a trailer out of. I am uploading it to youtube right now to see if it plays online well. I know I shouldn't do this, but it was so much fun removing the outtake, I didn't want to let you miss it. There might not be room on the disc for it in special features, so here he is for your entertainment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GddSjc4ZCmo

 

Studio Time

I was really productive today during the snow-fest 2008 in Seattle. I really wish I had grown up in Seattle instead of Montana. I never got to miss school because of snow. Not unless there was a power outage due to a blizzard, and then only reluctantly. The best excuse we ever got for missing school was due to hunting season.

I have three sequences laid down in rough cut: the sermon for the dedication service, the David Kriewall concert and an 18-minute mini documentary. The Sermon is done, done. The other two need at least another day in post production for sound editing and adding in some b-roll cutaways etc... 

It looks like we will have another snow day tomorrow, third one this week. Hopefully I can get some good studio time in tomorrow and have something to screen on Sunday. 

Production Update

Well, the power is back on. And that works much better for capturing. I have got to purchase an external harddrive for the camera. The real time capturing of 10 hours worth of video takes just about 10 hours! When you can drag and drop 40gb at a time with the dynamic harddrive it really speeds up the transfer. 

That said, I have about 100gb less space than I did 10 hours ago! I will start laying the audio track now and, God willing, have a nice start on the mini documentary for Holy Trinity. The first task for me is to get a 2-3 minute highlight reel, and the sermon ready for the website.

Little Power Outage

Just started capturing some more of the project and we go black. Well not really black, it was 11:30 in the morning when the power went out in the neighborhood. I had only captured about 20Gigs... about 80 more to go, in the HTLC mini-documentary, when whammo!

I should have most of it captured and a raw cut ready by Sunday. I would like to see if I can screen it between services and be able to at least drop some video by so that the Church Website can upload some content.

Flentrop and Fritts at St Marks

The red-hat ladies and I got a chance to meet Tom Joyce and the 3944 pipes of the DA Flentrop when St. Marks opened a tour to me this Friday. Tom did a wonderful job selecting pieces that suited the voice of each style of pipe he demonstrated. We listened to excerpts from compositions that showed how the different voices sound. Then he played a couple pieces that gave him a chance to pull out (almost) all the stops.

Tom has been the assistant organist at St. Marks for 5 years while he has been completing his doctorate at the University of Washington under Carole Terry. This spring we will likely be congratulating Thomas Joyce as a new Phd.

I think the most interesting thing I learned was that the pedal board has not always been as it is now. The Fritts in chapel has a flat and straight pedal arrangement and is built to represent a baroque instrument. According to Tom only a couple of ranks of pipes have been added that would not have been in a period instrument, else while it remains faithfully representative.

It was a great shoot.

Working On The Middle

While we are now smack in the middle of the shot schedule for Pull Stops we have been looking at the direction the interviews are taking us, and trying to get a handle on the story. I am still trying to weave the elements together in my mind and so I have been bouncing some ideas off of some of you. The cool thing about the project is the number of surprises that have popped up while shooting and researching.

It is these surprises that are the ingredients to a compelling story line... at least that is my way of looking at it. I heard it said one time, "that the more personal and private the thought you have the more universally shared it is." When I am lucky enough to catch an ah-ha moment on tape... a moment where I have just learned something... these are the moments I dearly want to keep in the project. The most memorable so far was when David Dahl was asking me why I was doing a documentary on pipe organs. While I was explaining that our church was getting a new pipe organ that had come from a church in San Francisco, closed because of earthquake proofing expenses, he asked me, "which church?" Since I didn't know at that time he started asking more questions about the pipe organ we got. David Dahl was so sure the church that we got our organ from was one he grew up in, his parents were married in, that had a 20-rank Wicks.

It turns out this was the same church Golden Gate Lutheran when it closed a couple years ago, had been renamed. This pipe organ wasn't the one he first heard growing up. That was a Wicks about half the size. In 1965 that Lutheran Church replaced their smaller Wicks with this one. That was while he was at college at PLU. When he would go back to visit mom and dad, this was the organ he was hearing. The organ had three ranks added for Holy Trinity and has just been finished being installed.

This type of serendipity is priceless and must be somehow woven into the story. There are more of these that must somehow be stitched together into a coherent story. And this is what I mean by Working on the Middle. And before we get done with the shots (Feb 09 most likely) I would like to have a third or tenth draft under my belt. So any comments or questions or advice will most certainly be helpful.

Re-working the intro script

If I have gotten something factually wrong, or if you have comments, please let me know.

Some see Seattle as the launch pad for great rock and roll icons like legendary lates Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. Just down the road Tacoma gave us the Ventures. “Hype” about Grunge and ROCKRGRL are also rooted in the greater Puget Sound.

We’ve got the Experience Music Project at the foot of the Space Needle… Elvis slept here. Bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, the Foo Fighters, Heart, Modest Mouse, Queensryche and Alice and Chains come from here.

Jazz singer Diane Schuur and Robert Cray come from Tacoma and saxophone ace Kenny G also calls the Puget Sound home.

Throw icons like Sir Mix-A-Lot, Quincy Jones and Ray Charles into this area’s music scene, and you start to see the robust flavor we enjoy. Even everyone’s favorite Idol: Sanjaya once lived here, too.

Classically: the Seattle Symphony is over 100 years-old. The largest youth symphony organization in the US is the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. And Seattle Opera is one of the leading opera companies in the US, and one of the only ones in the world to perform the entire Wagnerian Ring cycle in one week.

No matter what your taste in music, chances are the Pacific Northwesterners were there first, holding a fancy coffee drink in one hand and tickets to Bumbershoot in the other.

It seems pop culture and cutting edge music have always found a home in the Puget Sound. Back before the digital age, rock and roll, even before TV… there were motion pictures.

Here at 1st and Pike in 1914, the Liberty Theater was being built. It was one of the first theaters built just for movies. Up till this time movies were shown in remodeled vaudeville theaters which would have had a stage and orchestra pit. Movies of these days were silent and needed music to help the plot. The versatility and many voices of pipe organs meant that you only had to hire one person, the organist, to get a symphony of music.

Holy Trinity

We are producing a preliminary documentary on the dedication and 1st concert of the Wicks at Holy Trinity. Some of those shots will likely end up in the Pull Stops documentary as well. You can see Dave Kriewall's hands and feet during practice for the concert he performed. We are aiming to screen it at HTLC before Christmas, we are still in post-production on this portion of the project.

Glen

Rescheduling Flentrop

We are rescheduling the Flentrop/Fritts shoot until Friday. Both Tom Joyce (organist) and I had very long days scheduled for Sunday. He is finishing the Messiaen cycle which is closing that evening at St. James, and didn't plan to take on Compline duties. And since I had just recently been rescheduled to work a 14 hour shift starting the following morning.... it will work better to set up the Friday afternoon instead.

St. Mark's Flentrop

I used the beautiful day yesterday to get some exterior shots of the Cathedral on 10th in Seattle. Afterwards, I stuck my nose inside to get my bearings for this Sunday evening's shoot following the Compline service. Mel Butler wasn't expecting me, but was gracious enough to open up the organ loft. We entered the sanctuary from the altar (west) end and the first thing I saw was the enormous D.A. Flentrop. (photo courtesy of St. Marks website)

This was the first time I had seen it in person. A normal visit to the church might not highlight the organ so incredibly. I would have walked through the front doors and then turned around to see it up above, but walking in the back way my breath was taken away. It is much better in person than on the web site. http://www.saintmarks.org/Worship/Music/organs.html I can't wait to hear it.

You would expect that someone producing a documentary on pipe organs to be a bit more savvy about them. This was the first time I have been next to 32' pipes. This organ is bigger than my house! And much more beautiful.

Mel also opened up the chapel so I could see the Marion Camp Oliver "Fritts". Wow.

Building the Story

For the last few days I have been working on the storyline of the documentary. Currently it seems to make the clearest story to break it into four pieces:

• The intro: Puget Sound Music Culture and History.
• The middle: what is a pipe organ.
• The surprise: what are organ builders making in Parkland and Roy?
• The organists: Training the new generation on how to handle a tracker

For the next several months we will be re-working this storyline, and perhaps throwing stuff out and re-aranging it until we have a compeling story.

Here is a sample of the inro thus far:

"Seattle’s greater metro area has become iconic for rock and roll music with legendary lates like Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. "Hype" about Grunge and ROCKRGRL are also rooted here. The next best thing to the rock and roll hall of fame is the Experience Music Project. It sits at the foot of the Space Needle. Bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, the Foo Fighters, Heart and Alice and Chains come from Seattle. Jazz singer Diane Schuur and Robert Cray come from Tacoma and saxophone ace Kenny G also calls the Puget Sound home.

"But long before Jimi Hendrix strapped on an electric guitar, this Pacific Northwest region was already well known for its cutting edge music.

"Here at 1st and Pike in 1914, the Liberty Theater was being built. It was one of the first theaters built just for movies. Up till this time movies were shown in remodeled vaudeville theaters which would have had a stage and orchestra pit. Movies of these days were silent and needed music to help the plot. The versatility and many voices of pipe organs was perfect for this setting."