Persistent Productions on Spinner

Today, June 28th, Persistent Productions' latest collaboration with Wishes and Thieves for their Forest Fire song (and similarly title EP) has been featured on the website Spinner as the Video of the day.

It was great fun working with Wishes. Long hours, shooting into the night at our Rockport, MA studio blaring the song until 2am as the band needed to 'feel' the vibe of the song during the recording session. We shot it a number of times, and ended the night with three full, non stop, performances of the song - after already shooting for 7 hours. It was an aggressive way to end the shoot, but it was a great reminder of how much energy a live performance gives a music video.

We hope you enjoy the video and look for more music videos from us in the near future.

Check it out here: Spinner Link here

http://www.spinner.com/2012/06/28/wishes-and-thieves-forest-fire-video-of-the-day/

P2 Dailies, Once a week

Please take a look at some interesting footage from our Series; P2 Dailies, Once a week. This one comes from our shoot with TCRP while we were in East Timor producing a film for their company. It's a quick video, but fun to see what nature does sometimes if you take the time, set up a nice looking shot and let the action unfold.

Thanks for watching.



P2 Dailies, Once a week - "The Look" from Mike Rogers on Vimeo.

Sala Bai

For the past several months we've had the pleasure of working with the Cambodian non-profit Sala Bai. 

This organization provides life changing education to young & poor Cambodians who otherwise would have a very small chance of being gainfully employed and a very high chance of being at risk for sex and labor trafficking.  For a little economic perspective: the students they accept into their program are coming from families (families!) that survive on less than $30USD per month. 

How the program works: Sala Bai is a free hospitality school based in Siem Reap. Over the course of one year they train students in one of four different specializations within hospitality. After graduation 100% of the students find employment. This employment places the students squarely in Cambodia's emerging middle class. It's an incredible track record and the people in charge of running the organization are wonderful as the place itself.

Where we come in: 

To showcase the transformative elements of the Sala Bai school Mike, Scott and I documented one of their student's, Khatna, from her rural floating village, through the school's program and onto employment at the (lovely) Heritage Suites Hotel. 

We documented this story in film and video with the aim of helping to share and expand the work that Sala Bai does.

The Debut: 

We debuted the film earlier this month to a very receptive audience at the Hilton Hotel Singapore in honor of International Women's Day.

Khatna, our main character was in town for the screening as well as Sala Bai's director Emmanuelle DeThomas, and the films' trusted translator Sokly Sour. This tireless threesome went on and screened the film with UNIFEM numerous times during their short trip to Singapore. 

Launching:

All of these efforts launched a new fundraising initiative for Sala Bai. To find out more about this initiative visit: touchsalabai.com

TBC...
Our  documentation of Sala Bai and the Touch Sala Bai initiative are the work of the very committed Sam McGoun. More on Sam in the coming weeks....

ORPHANS

This behind the scenes video was created with the talented team....


Photography by Scott A Woodward 


Video by Persistent Productions 


Produced by Ugly Duckling Projects


Hair and Make-Up Styling by Andrea Claire


All of this for the launch of Ian Hinden's GarbAge, a surreal and glamorous fashion line and web show.
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Sea Nomads

I have an article this month's in Silkwinds Magazine on the Baju Laut community in Torosiaje, Indonesia.  This was an adventure Mike and I embarked on with photographer James Morgan and writer Johnny Langenheim. 
The area we visited, on the island of Sulawesi, was rumored to be home to some of the last nomadic members of the Baju community. We were curious to see what martine nomadism looks like in the 21st century: Did it still exist? Was it thriving?  Was it all as romantic as it sounded? This article answers some of these questions and recounts that exploration.  

Photos by James Morgan

LAXMI TAKES ON OCTOBER

This was a good month for our little leopard, as the film In the Spirit of Laxmi screened five times. P2 set sail for the US in early Oct. to attend some these screenings and landed back in Asia to bring them to a close.

During the first week of October Laxmi opened The South Asian Film Festival in Florida. We are happy to report that The Orlando Weekly gave the film 4/5 stars, and you can find their review here.

The film then traveled to the esteemed Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival where it played as part of National Geographic’s Big Cat Day. The backdrop of the festival is the stunning Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Jackhole was great opportunity to connect with old friends from DC and beyond. The photos below were captured by the talented DOP Mark Emery whose informal tour of  Yellowstone was my festival highlight.

From WY the film headed west for one of favorite US festivals The Bend Film Festival, set in a groovy little town in Central Oregon where the Laxmi enjoyed Friday and Saturday screenings. A highlight of the weekend was meeting fellow filmmakers: Sara Terry of Fambol Tuk, Alex Dawson of Wild Horses Wild Ride, and Jen and Grant of The Clean Bin Project on a panel where we discussed documentary films and social change.

At the end of the month Laxmi had her first screenings in Asia as main character Gerhard Weihahn was asked to speak in Singapore at the CondeNast Savers Conference World Savers Conference: 2011

Our last and final screening was hosted by American Express in Singapore. Following a cocktail reception and live Rajasthani music we screened the film at the LIDO cinema on Orchard Road.

Thanks to all those who came and supported at our screenings this month!

First Film exposed....

Four weeks ago I received the type of call you hope to get as a cameraman, a call about going to Mongolia on a shoot for National Geographic with Market Road Films, we’d be shooting recreations for show on the last days of Ghenkis Ghan. In the weeks leading up to the shoot, I traveled to NYC to meet with the crew; Tony Gerber, Innbo Shin and Stuart Dryburgh. During these pre-productions meetings, I learned that we would be shooting film. Film I say! In today’s documentary and commercial world this is a luxury afforded to few, and amazing opportunity to learn from one of the best DoP in the industry, Stuart Dryburgh.

A month later on the Steppes of Mongolia and I am loading film for Mr. Dryburgh, setting up a focus / frame chart. We’re in a Ger tent camp 70km outside of Ulaanbatar with four assistants and the Arri 416. The wheels of the shoot are in motion, and after the weeks of pre-production we finally had a chance to shoot, and use the equipment that we’d been discussing.

For many the idea of doing a chart test isn't that exciting, (Note: Chart Test is typically done on the first roll of the first day of the shoot so that the post production facility has a reference of how the camera is calibrated. Also - the chart usually has the project name and the DoP that is shooting...in other words, the chart is for calibration purposes for the post facility) for others - it means nothing. Well, I must say, I am in a third category, that being the category of complete excitement about rolling film on a white piece of A4 paper with frame marks on it!!


In conclusion - the first day ended with me staring at the stars through the top of my ger, waiting and wondering what the first day of our Mongol adventure would hold!