I’m working on shooting two documentary shorts in Kodiak, Alaska this week for AMP Studios. The first is on what life is like on in a small coastal Alaskan town and the second is on the fishing industry in Alaska. Kodiak is one of the the largest fishing ports in the world. One processing plant I took footage at employs over 300 employees and processes over a 500,000 pounds of fish each day. It’s a town where bald eagles circle like vultures, scruffy men say “Hello, gentlemen,” as they pass you in the harbor and people know as much about history of a boat as they do the owner.

I’ve been trying for a couple months to line up a trip to get footage on one of the commercial fishing vessels. Boats are changing fisheries so fast that it’s difficult to pin someone down. I was told the best thing to do was to just show up and walk the docks. So that’s what I did- and I found someone willing to take me aboard. Then storm front hit and virtually everyone is staying in. That’s unfortunate because to stick within the budget and timeline, I only have this week. Fishing trips are a minimum of three to five days at sea. On the other hand, I have enough footage to make the stories work well and I’ve been able to get some more challenging image sequences, such as the Aurora Borealis over Kodiak.

7 degrees. Across the frozen tundra and lakes via snow go in search of Inupiaq fishing for shee fish. Inupiaq. “Real people”. Eskimos. One lone caribou. Selawik lake looks small on maps, but from the frozen surface seems vast. Black specs on the horizon turn into a heard of caribou racing south over the frozen lake. Land and sky are vague. We spot the real people. They have a pile of about 30 shee fish and pike, landing several while I’m there. A smack from a club crushes a pike’s head and drops of bloody juices land on the monitor of my camera, freezing within moments and falling off. The nearest roads, cars and trucks are more than a hundred miles away. I’m so grateful to Paul and Brian for the gig.

Now it’s time to leave. This is the hard part. Asking people to speak openly in an interview requires opening up yourself. Now I’m attached to my new friends. Will I see them again?

Finished production and first edits for nConnect this week. nConnect  helps connect high school students with internships at local businesses. For this projects, filmed students and contacts from Reliance Investing, Bad Monkey Bikes, City of Vancouver Urban Forestry Outreach, Frito-Lay and nLight. Six video segments total.

Next, headed to Alaska for some mini documentary segments for AMP with stops in Anchorage, Celawik and Kodiak. Assigned segments are about Alaskan Native culture past and present, life in a small coastal village and commercial fishing. Looking forward to Celawik, a village with no cars or trucks or roads. Just board walks across permafrost. Looking forward to Kodiak too. Talked with a lot of neat people all around during pre-production.

LANDA is North America’s largest pressure washer manufacture. Furman Pictures is working with LANDA on a marketing piece for their ECOS Mobile Wash and Reclaim system. The ECOS unit recycles the water it uses.  Check them out.

Recent search results came up with this photo from the Adidas booth at the New York Marathon Health & Fitness Expo. Production and post production of the video featured at the booth and in this picture we complete by Furman Pictures, LLC. The video honored runner Grete Waitz many achievements.

Adidas had a long working relationship with Waitz who passed away in 2011. They developed a line of shoes and uniforms to honor her. All proceeds from the NY Marathon Adidas experience were donated to the foundation she helped establish, AKTIV Against Cancer.

I’m happy to be working with a wild life refuge group on a promotional piece. As a producer and cinematographer, working with non profits and outdoor projects are two of my favorite things, so looking forward to that project. More to come as it develops.

I’m also working on some other projects, but it’s too early in the process to share details.

Working this week on editing a presentational project for a local business. Also talking with a couple new clients I’m excited about working with.

Furman Pictures recently completed three videos featuring Skamania County. “Portraits of Skamania” has been selected by the Skamania County Chamber of Commerce to be honored at the 2012 Annual Dinner and Awards on January 20 in Stevenson, Washington.

The ninety second video features portraits in motion of people and places in Skamania, from views Mount St. Helens and the fishing villages in the Columbia Gorge to local business owners and the swans on Franz Lake.

Furman Pictures completed production and post production for Matt Brown’s “I’ll Be Here” music video. The project filmed last week and edited week prior.

Brown found that music alone wasn’t cutting it because people often wanted to see video of his work. He tried shooting a video on his own several times, but it just didn’t have the polished feel he wanted. Brown came to Furman Pictures wanting a simple theme that would give potential listeners and venues a good taste of his style.

Prepping a video to be shown by Adidas at the New York City Marathon Expo is one of the projects underway at Furman Pictures this week. While the marathon is this weekend, the expo starts tomorrow.

Furman Pictures contracted under the Vancouver, Washington based Meaty Design in conjunction Systom to produced several videos for Adidas last year focusing on the Grete Waitz, AKTIV, and Marathon 10 – a related product line. However, Adidas requested some specific changes and encoding for the venue.

Waitz is has one of the most accomplished runners of all time. In addition to setting numerous world records, her impressive record includes winning the New York City Marathon nine times.