stillmotion

a very touching story of adoption from Kelly boy, Kelly girl, + Posey. we were invited to come into their home and tell this story right before Candice, the birth mother, was set to leave town after Chapel was born. Kelly girl first shared her very powerful story with us to see what we thought and if there was a story there. we were really drawn in by the idea of being able to get involved with such an intimate and personal process that includes some pretty remarkable paths crossing. Joyce started out by calling all of the parties involved, getting an idea of their role and seeing if they would be willing to share their take on camera.

we ended up spending two days with the Kelly’s and it was definitely an experience that left quite an impression on everybody involved. this film was commissioned by the Kelly’s so that Chapel would know her story and so that they could share their story with so many others who might be struggling with the many different aspects of adoption.

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sometimes all you have to do is ask. we ask because we want to know something more about you than a date and a venue. we ask because we are often so inspired by what is returned that it changes how we approach your imagery. for the No Bull giveaway we asked one very simple question- tell us about your story. here is a little snippet of how much fun we had in getting to know so many couples.

Michelle + Adam | Kansas City // ”She was captivated by his wave-like hair and equally-awkward skinniness, and he was fascinated by her animated expressions and her ability to sleep anywhere, anytime.” 

Robert + Amy | Oregon // “Sarah Palin and Brett Farve are the same person! Think about it, they are never seen together”.

Esther + Jay | LA // “i have this rad van dubbed the whitey tidy limo van aka a 98 nissan quest. i can stuff about 10 people in it, but it can’t hold one refrigerator. fail.”

Rachel + Lorne | NYC // “lorne – tall, handsome, and most definitely not female, walked in”

Bruce + Brian | Massachusetts // “REILY, HUMOR ME?” “HUMMER LMAO” “RIO MUMMY REALLY?” “WILL YOU CARRY ME?”

Shawna + Daniel  | Toronto // ”We have joked about him wearing a speedo and me wearing all black but we have not yet chosen our wedding garb.”

Jon + Rebecca | San Francisco // “to this day, her phone still rings “jewish scientist” when i call”

Han-Hsien-Hsieh + Tom | Santa Monica // “what you think are burnt sausages are in fact lemon slices coated in too much cinnamon.”

Abigail + Logan | CA // from one archeologist to another “i’ll never take you for granite”

and with that, we present Sophie + Jason, our winning couple for the No Bull giveaway. in their words;

‘Sophie is a Hungarian graphic designer who grew up in Canada and the US who picked up everything to move to London, UK without a job or a place to live.

Jason is a Canadian civil engineer of Chinese origin who decided to change his direction in life by quitting his job to travel the world.’

with guests travelling from over twenty countries to share this four day event with them, we are excited to get to know them better and build on all the ideas we’ve already tossed around. thanks for all of the submissions, we were incredibly inspired by so many of the stories we received.

on Monday night at the amazing Museum of Modern Art in New York, the stillmotion fam joined a group of people invited to the premiere screening of A Game of Honor. it was an incredibly rewarding experience and such a fitting end to months of intense production. this past week A Game of Honor has been featured in GQ, the New York Times, the Examiner, the LA Times, and even Sports Illustrated. a big thanks to Cinevate for sponsoring the premiere screening and helping to make the night possible.

the day after the screening, Neil Best said this in Newsday

‘After the screening, CBS Sports president Sean McManus rose to tell an audience that included television and military personnel that the evening was “one of the proudest nights in the history of CBS Sports.”

I would say it was one of the proudest in the history of all sports television.’

Dennis, from Cinevate, and Paul, from LensProToGo, join us on the red carpet for a picture before the screening.  Both Cinevate and LensProToGo have been huge supporters of stillmotion over the years and we will be forever grateful for all that they have done for us.

the stillmotion fam grabbing a picture together after the screening. Joyce, Justin, and myself shot the majority of the film with Paul, Ray, Quenna, and Amanda also contributing whenever and where ever they were needed. Quenna also spent 7 weeks straight in New York helping in post as the film neared completion. Evan and Amina joined us for the final game and helped out with BTS pictures and managing all the gear.

A Game of Honor premieres tonight on Showtime at 10PM EST. we are so excited for the world to see this film and we hope you are able to check it out.

we absolutely work best as a team and we could’t have got to where we are now without each other, and that extends well beyond the SM family. the constant support we receive from our sponsors has helped push our films as well as our educational endeavours. for EVO we had a great group of sponsors that supported the workshop by providing gear and/or prizes. this comes together to make a more challenging experience for attendees and has everybody leaving with that much more hands on experience. below we have the winning films from EVO San Fran, but before we share those inspirational shorts, we wanted to say a couple words to all of our fabulous supporters;

Cinevate // so we’ve all seen various cinevate sliders in tough situations before, but never as tough as what it went through this time around. it’s been under and over cars, chairs, and worst of it all, licked by puppies! ok, so they may not be the toughest of situations but because they are so portable and makes such a cinematic impact with such a small footprint, it definitely helped in situations where space is tight and unfamiliar environments. with that said, their generosity has not only helped in “class” time, but also some very lucky attendees post workshop by providing a Simplis, won by Danny and an Atlas FLT, won by Peter. thank you so much.

Lens Pro To Go // when have we needed you and you not be there? i’m not just talking about lenses and cameras. perhaps you remember the lack of speakers incident at wppi 2011? organizing a workshop can be a lot of work, with all the logistics, workshop experiences, food, hotels and gear. your organization in labelling your equipment and easy return shipping methods was a huge stress reliever. of course thats not the only reason why you guys are great, but the fact that we can trust that everything you send us is in prime shape ready to use, helps tremendously.

smallHD // there were many instances where not having you would’ve been impossible. our attendees never fail to surprise us with creative and unique ideas. execution may sometimes be hard and not always possible, but having smallHD onboard really opened up the doors to some different places they could put the camera. team Russia had a great idea to shoot part of their film from the perspective of a box looking out, having the smallHd meant they didn’t have to guess their way through the shot which is so very important on the tight timelines they had .

Kessler Crane // nothing gets our attendees more excited than being able to play with big toys, and Kessler Crane never disappoints. everyone was told from the beginning of the workshop that for the shoot day they are welcomed to use any “big boy” gear they wanted but they must provide us with a solid rationale as to why that tool was needed. Kessler provided a cineslider, pocketjib, and KC-12 all for attendees to use during the workshop all of which offered huge gains in production value in the shorts.

Profoto // we made some new friends and we couldn’t wait to share with everyone last week. Profoto sent out two of their 800watt HMIs and they were used almost exclusively to light the set, both for in class demos and for the shorts. with a selection of lenses, barn doors, and soft box options it couldn’t be easier to shape the light to fit any situation and the Profoto air remote let us turn the HMIs on and off from anywhere in the room as well as tweaking the levels so they were just right.

Shootsac // we’ve been spending a lot of time together these days but we haven’t expressed just how grateful we are for our shootsacs. nobody knows on-the-go more than Jessica Claire, and the shootsacs most certainly helped on all our on-location shoots at EVO.

Zacuto // every shoot, every workshop, every production Zacuto’s z-finder is one of the most important things we pack aside from our cameras and lenses. these nuits handle everything we have been able to throw at them and that says a ton. a thank you is also in order for providing a z-finder for another winning attendee josh. :)

Tiffen/Seadicam // there’s been many a times during the day that we can expect someone really excited to try on the steadicam  just take a walk around the studio and see what it feels like. it is the closest thing we have to a standup video game in the studio. needless to say no one is ever disappointed with how great the result is. steadicam is a serious invest for a filmmaker to make and it can radically change their films and what they offer, so it is awesome that we are able to have extra units on hand for attendees to try on just to see what works for them.

With Etiquette // a huge thanks to WE for supplying tracks for the groups to use for both their shorts and business films. WE also provided a pile of licenses for attendees as prizes.

Canon Live Learning // last but not least we’d like to thank Canon Live Learning for their support over EVO. by sending a large pile of camera bodies and lenses (in addition to LPTG) it meant we could provide each team with a set of camera, primes, and zooms so everybody could try the best of Canon glass and not need to bring their own gear.

on behalf of sm and all of our attendees we’d like to sincerely thank each and every one of you in making EVO possible and helping us all become better filmmakers and storytellers. below are some shots of EVO in action.

with all that being said, here are the winning films from this years EVO. assignments were given to teams (of 4) Tuesday night so they could review and prepare. on Wednesday each group had 4 hours to shoot either their business or short films.

the winning business film is for a local company called West Coast Classic Customs created by team Island Fever.

the winning short film was created entirely in studio and almost all in our set. congrats to team EC/WC on their brilliant short.

tonight at 10 PM EST (November 24th) you can catch Prelude: The Making of A Game of Honor on both Showtime 2 (SHO2) and ShowtimeHD. A Game of Honor is the feature length documentary that SM has been DP’ing and shooting for the last six months. tune into the show to see our team in action and see what the doc is all about.

P.