down the line

Hi-res wallpaper, click to enlarge, and save:

Daniel Jones bonzering in Indo.

raju vs blacky vs kadek

Not really sure what the rules are for three player chess. This was right before an end of the day surf in Padma. Brothers Tonyo and Bleronk are looking on. This frame is from an HD transfer, though I did downsize the image. Decided to include the full super 16mm frame in the transfer, and I love the look. I like seeing the dirty edges of the film gate. Seems to add a lot of character, and make it seem more genuine.

I'm doing my film transfers in Chicago at Filmworkers and Astrolab. Ryan Emerson is the colorist on this, and all the footage I've transferred there. Just want to give a big thanks to Ryan, Duke Shin, and Chad Rohrback. They've been awesome to collaborate with on this, and have really gone out of their way to help me out with this no-budget film project/dream. Thank you for believing in this project, guys.

Ryan invited me in today to see some of my recent footage projected in their theater, cinema quality digital projection from the HD transfer. After more than four years of shooting, this was the first time I've seen my footage on a big screen. I was so happy to see what it looks like projected big. I thought it looked beautiful. The super 16 bolex footage looks like a painting in motion when projected big. Like a pointillism painting in motion. I had been really unsure of how this footage would look projected in a theater...I had concerns it might be too soft, or just not hold up. It holds up beautifully though, and I'm excited about that.

the surfer, the fisherman, and the barrel

Super 16mm film frames of Daniel Jones. The super refers to the wider 16mm film format, where the film gate is wider, and thus the edge of the film that used to be reserved for sound in years past, gets exposed also. And you get a native widescreen image. My cousin Rob and I converted my old Bolex camera to super 16 last year, and this footage is from the first trip I took after that. For the most part, it worked really good. A few rolls were all blurred though as I threw a few things off internally on the camera when I tore it apart to convert it. Had the camera serviced by Dieter Schaefer at Procam earlier this year and it works great now. I should mention that this camera filled up with salt water a few years ago in Kiribati, when the small boat I was on nose dived. WD-40 kept it working on that trip, and its still going strong, though it has a bit of rust.

I have a habit of getting my gear soaked in the ocean. While filming Daniel at this spot above, his last wave of the trip, he went over the falls and broke his board in two. When the front half of his board floated in with an oncoming rush of water over the reef that the fisherman is on, I went to grab it. I forgot my ipod was in my pocket. It got soaked and never worked again. My girlfriend had given that to me for my birthday. I was so bummed. If only it operated on a wind-up spring driven motor like my good ol' Bolex from 1967.