Luck on Empire State

Yesterday my girlfriend and I went up on the Empire State Building. As we waited in line for an hour (it was a Saturday) with people from all over the world- it started to rain. But we went up anyway, and after braving the rain out on the deck for nearly 30 seconds we ran back inside. You couldn't see much anyway. A few minutes later the rain broke for about ten minutes and treated us to some clear views and a magnificent rainbow! It was just enough time to enjoy the visit, before the rain came back with thunder and lighting.

Multimedia: Zanzibar Coffee

Here's a short audio slideshow from a spice tour on the East African island of Zanzibar, where the guide describes growing coffee, with an almost comical intonation - he really enjoyed being a "character" to entertain the foreign visitors.

Behind the Scenes: RISD

As I do a lot of film work with Josh Backer at Animal, I thought it fitting to show behind-the-scenes imagery of us on location. This will most likely be a recurring theme on the blog.

On this assignment we were shooting testimonials for a series of promotional videos for Rhode Island School of Design. We've been lucky to be in a creative relationship with RISD for many years producing their video content for online distribution, and if you haven't seen it yet, by all means head over to their home page and check it out.



That's Eric Meier (left) and Josh Backer (right) setting up a shot, while Ethan Backer stands in for the subject.



Cinema noir extraordinaire, Josh Backer, working his magic.



We use these awesome LED light panels on the set. They are light-weight, have variable output and don't get hot... SO much faster and easier than the old Arri kit!



Okay, so it's a geeky camera-porn crew portrait - sorry, I couldn't resist!

Nick and Abby

It's really charming to see how my three year old niece relates to her infant brother. I'll keep an eye out and camera handy as this dynamic evolves over time.