Sunday, December 28, 2008

Happy Holidays!


Happy Holidays! from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

For the holidays this year, I made this video to send out to my family, friends and collegues all over the world. From our family to yours, happy holidays!

Monday, December 8, 2008

A Motorcycle Documentary About the Paranormal


A Motorcycle Documentary About the Paranormal from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

This is my art-film opus. This is the full 30 minute piece, so sit back, dim the lights, slip on your headphones and scale the video to 100%.

My pal David and I started riding cross country on our motor-bikes chasing down UFO's and American road-mythology. The result is this film. It was our college thesis project and got good play at the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival, the Wild & Scenic Film Festival and the Nevada City Film Festival. Heck, we even got a rare positive review from The Onion when we premiered in NYC.

In a big way, this trip & film combo was directly responsible for my life in AK, and my first contact with the environmental and native issues that persist with me in all of my current work. Enjoy!

Friday, November 28, 2008

1 year of www.frontiermediaarts.com!


Escape from NY from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

I started this blog a year ago. It's been really great to have a place to publish my own work and get constant feedback. I make a lot of media - and putting them all together in one place has been personally and professionally a pleasure. Kudos to Vimeo, Blogger and all 1181 readers like you! I have a special request for this next year, honorable reader: leave comments!

I'd like to share this personal film with all of you. I made this out of scraps from my film bin. Different scenes from different road trips re-mixed together with scotch tape. I have boxes of these kinds of films waiting for a niche... got one?

Monday, October 27, 2008

Creative Marketing with the Renewable Resources Coalition

Mobile Ad Truck Documentation from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

I got a call from the Renewable Resources Coalition to do some creative marketing. The goal was to deliver positive images of Bristol Bay to the attendees of this year's Alaskan Federation for Native's conference. We decided that this would be a great time to use non-traditional media, so I called up the folks at Mobile Ad Alaska to see if we could rent out their truck. What we ended up with can best be described as a mobile 10 sided billboard that could be moved around to target different flows of people throughout the event. Of course, the best place of all to park the billboard was the entrance to AFN. I'm still pulling together numbers of attendees, but the feedback so far has been very positive.


Mobile Ad Truck 4 Sides from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Long-form


Things at FMA have been pretty busy as of late! 2 big projects have kept me pretty busy.

1) New baby. She's very cute, very little, and needs a lot of attention (as well as Momma-Bear and big-boy Spencer).

2) I've been editing for Alaska Outdoors Television. It's been a blast editing long-form (half hour episodes) video for HD Broadcast. Our broadcast date on the regional Fox is just around the corner, so I'm swamped.

Keep checking back. I can't wait to show off some of the cool stuff I've been working on lately.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

River Reactions


River Reactions from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

Here is a video I recently did a finish edit for the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council. This was a fun gig to work on. Rough chunks of the video had already been assembled, and I was asked at the last moment (just over 24 hours!) to come in and tie everything together with editing, graphics, music, and additional testimony. This is not an optimal way to get quality work done, but I always welcome a creative challenge and a good cause. Kudos to Multinesia Productions and Monty Worthington for giving me solid material to work with.

If you or your organization is having a multi-media emergency (like an imminent grant deadline), give us a call.

Here is the synopsis for the video: The Yukon River has been the lifeline of the First Nations and Tribes of Alaska's interior for thousands of years. In 2005, Toshiba offered the Native Village of Galena an experimental nuclear reactor for "free". In this video, we hear reactions of the tribes of the Yukon River to the proposed nuclear reactor.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Hoop Convergence 2008


2008 Hoop Convergence HD from Groovehoops on Vimeo.

What happens when you get 50 of America's best hula-hoopers together for a week to share tricks, strategies and moves? The world's fist international Hoop Convergence! Here's a short video that I shot and produced for the event. It was a blast to capture so many wonderful performances on tape, and then interview everyone in beautiful North Carolina. I especially enjoyed have a collaborator in the project -- Stephan over at Groovehoops in NYC did the post-production work. That's the way it ought to be. I'm honored to have been able to work and play with so many great people. Enjoy!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Bidarki: Where Science and Spirit Meet


Bidarki: Where Science and Spirit Meet from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

Subsistence. What does that word mean to you? To many Alaskans, subsistence is a way of life: living off the land and the ocean. There's a saying here that "When the tide is out, the table is set." Take a stroll at low tide and you will encounter a life clinging to every available surface. Rainbows of snails. Carpets of mussels. Forests of kelp.

This is a video about Bidarkis, An invertebrate critter that is important for both native culture and modern science.

I edited for an upcoming exhibit at the Pratt Museum along with Wendy Erd, another local filmmaker.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Film Diary: Istanbul


Film Diary: Istanbul from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

Back in the day, right at the dawn of Final Cut Pro, miniDV and firewire, I went to art school. We learned how to make lots of different types of things on lots of different types of media. Posters, magazines, newspapers, cookie packages, drawings, paintings, plaster, photo, silkscreen, videos, films... one of my big loves was film diaries. Like a big dork, I carried my super8 camera with me everywhere. This is one of my favorite pieces of work from that period, a super8 film diary of a trip to Turkey. This is a synchronized dual-projection film. Good times.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Eyes Wide Open


Eyes Wide Open from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

Here's a video I made for Memorial Day Weekend, at the request of a few non-profits in town. It's been a while since I've done a war video... a long while. it was a powerful event. Thanks to Anne Nixon who coordinated all the artists, and thanks to all the volunteers who put their time into the project. Here's the video synopsis:

A group of artists gathered on Memorial Day Weekend in Homer Alaska to remember Alaskan soldiers who had fallen during the Iraq War. 108 pairs of combat boots to symbolize our Alaskan troops and 400 pairs of shoes and sandals to represent the Iraqi civilians deaths. Here is a short video interview with Charlie Gibson, one of the volunteers who participated in the event.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Chiswell Ridge in HD!


Welcome to the Chiswell Ridge from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

OK. So we've seen this before... but have you seen it before on HD? I thought not! I have recently begun an affair with Vimeo. Benefits over Youtube and Google Video are being able to show your films in HD and 500MB max filesizes. All the others limit you to 100MB per file. Plus, these videos just look better.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Group Worksample for Alaska Statehood Grant


FMA Group Worksample from Kevin Co on Vimeo.

This is a group worksample that we submitted with a recent grant. The first piece is a excerpt from a video that was edited by Miriam Elizondo and shot with Kevin Co. Second piece is some animation work by David Nicholson, and third piece is a excerpt from Kevin's upcoming film about Bristol Bay that he shot and edited.

The project we've proposed is a historical documentary of Bristol Bay, exploring pre-statehood to the present. The film will be told through the personal stories and images of Violet Wilson, an Aleut Elder who has been fishing the Bay for 51 years with her family. Keep your collective fingers crossed.

I've also started to use Vimeo as our online broadcaster. I think you'll agree that the videos look much better.

Monday, April 28, 2008

HoopCon 2008


We've been in North Carolina for the past few weeks at the first ever Hoop Convergence. Try to imagine 7o of some of the best hoopers in North America coming together. It was an amazing experience, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to witness such a powerful moment in hooping history. We shot loads of video which will shortly be edited by Stefan @ GrooveHoops. Thanks to everyone who shared their stories, time and energy!

Friday, March 28, 2008

Archive Film: Nothing is Better, Nothing is Best


We love 24 hour film fesivals. Here is a film that we produced for the 2006 DramaSlam. The theme of the film was drawn out of a hat: "Nothing is better, nothing is best". Here was our documentary interpretation of that concept, illustrated by these 3 wonderful young men that we met on the road to Homer.
Enjoy.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Editing in the Studio
















This past weekend we offered up our editing studio to the Homer Film Society for this year's DramaSlam. The mission was to create a film in 24 hours. It was great fun to have the building full of filmmakers, and to max out our editing bays with creative energy. Other groups in Homer's drama community labored to create 4 other original plays in the same period. Keep on checking back as we upload our videos!  

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Disaster strikes!













It's been a long time since an update, but we have a good excuse. This is a picture of Apple's version of the "blue screen of death". Yes, Macs do melt down. 

In this instance my main system hard-drive on my video editing computer physically ground to a halt. The fine folks at Mac Service did a fine job at replacing the unit, although the data was a total loss. Fortunately I my back-up regimen saved my project media files (still working on Invasive Species videos) and parts of my operating system and applications. Despite the back-ups, it's still going to take a few days to get everything back in working condition. Deadlines? What deadlines?

Lesson: back everything up! Keep clones of system drives ready to go, as well as media drives. 

Geek out over, crisis over.  

Monday, February 11, 2008

Archive Film: Roosevelt Island



Roosevelt Island is one of the hidden gems of New York City. It's a small island nestled between Queens and Manhattan and can only be reached by an aerial Tram that parallels the Queensboro Bridge. Mystery surrounds it. Half of the island is sealed off from the public -- the ruins of a derelict psychiatric colony from the turn of the century. This film isn't about that though -- it's about my love affair with it's Tram.

I used to spend lots of time in New York wandering around with an old film camera. I'm happy to be able to give them new life here on the internet. This is from my personal archive, enjoy!

In current news I'm finishing up another project for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for their Invasive Species program. It's been an interesting process -- most of the work was done in the research phase where I gathered all my source images from a variety of research groups in the lower 48. It took a long time. For example, can you tell me where to get underwater images of a New Zealand Mud Snail? What about an escaped farmed Atlantic Salmon?

I thought so.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Homer to Amsterdam


I was recently given the opportunity to voice a piece/performance for artist/filmmaker Pablo Pijnappel in Amsterdam's lovely Rijksacademie. It was awesome to reunite with old friends in old Amsterdam and be a part of the art world again. 8 years ago, Pablo and I studied Media Arts together in Amsterdam at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie of Art & Design.

The show was a photography installation of Pablo's images of Homer. It was surreal for my family to travel half way across the world only to be suddenly immersed in Homer all over again. Taken in a European context, Homer Alaska is totally alien -- beyond the end of the road for sure. I voiced a wonderful story that he had written, and then performed live readings of the story for the start of the open studios (of which another 50 artists were having concurrent gallery shows).

I heard a rumor that 10,000 people from all over Europe converge at the Rijksacademie over a period of 3 days for the open studios.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Video: Exploring the Chiswell Ridge



We just finished this video for the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G). It was our first project to incorporate HDV -- which quickly turned into "render hell" since we were mixing SD and super huge images/animations with the new video format. Our older machines were pushed beyond the system requirements for sure. As in 8 hour plus render periods on the timeline. Ouch! Time to move on to the next version of FCP.

The video was made to shown on wildlife cruises (on Kenai Fjords Tour boats), science conferences and general "outreach" situations.

Rebecca Sheir of Alaska Public Radio voiced the piece. Kammi Matson wrote the script and Miriam Elizondo labored hard as the finish editor and sound/music engineer. Great team work!