Wausau Through the Lens of a Video Camera
by erik on September 20th, 2008 • No Comments »
Per Dino’s request I’m checking back in and occasionally reposting something from El Video de Wausau, my new home on the web. And I guess it fits seeing as how proud of my heritage I am and that at heart I’ll always be a kid from Wisconsin.
Quick personal note: I’m in Maryland! The van survived after being taken completely apart and being put back together by a place called Murray’s Autocare. If you’re in the Dayton area they are really great guys, do good work and treat you very well.
So with that out of the way I buckled back into work and finished off a webmercial for John Powers. Powers is running for State Assembly in Wisconsin for the 6th District. We wanted to make something that stood out a bit in local election ads, even though I did suggest doing a safe, candidate talking to the camera type ad as well.
I’m glad John decided to go with something else.
The result was “The Grand Experiment.” An idea he pitched to me and I loved it. I ran away with it and started searching Archive.org for public domain footage to match it and quickly came away with some great stuff. For those of you unaware, Archive.org is a depository of public domain and otherwise open use moving images, stills and sound on the web. Check the copyright information just to be certain, but almost all of it is open for public use.
After that, I shot some footage of Powers talking to a crowd about his policies to mix it up and then had the voice over done by Milwaukee actor Luke Cieslewicz (of Microcosm fame). I could’ve done a couple of things better, most notably a very more longer lens shots of him with the crowd would have been a good idea. But overall I’m quite pleased with how my first political ad came out.
This guy was edited in Final Cut Pro HD, both sound and video. It really feels good to be back on an Apple editing after spending a year and a half cutting news packages on an Avid machine that crashed multiple times a day.
Tell me what you think of The Grand Experiment.
And of course if this looks like the type of ad, video or production you think could help your business, ad company or other need for video just drop me a a line at erik [dot] cieslewicz [at] gmail [dot] com!
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by erik on September 11th, 2008 • 4 Comments »
When I first started as a photojournalist I was looking for ways to come up with cool news story ideas, stuff off the beaten path. For those of you unaware, television news can rarely have beat reporters. Assignment editors rely heavily on local papers to let them know the local stories and then cover it. There’s just too wide an area to cover without enough man power to do it.
So I was looking for something non-traditional, and being the tech savvy kid I fancy myself, I turned to the net. It wasn’t long until I found The Wausau Blog. And while Wausau Blog has mostly fallen into sporadic at best updates and no longer has much of a community voice bend as it only had one author, Citizen Wausau popped up.
And while Citizen Wausau has rarely provided me with good news ideas, it gave me a whole hell of a lot more, a lot I never saw coming. It gave me a community in Wausau. Despite living downtown and going to everything from the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum to Chalk Fest and everything in between, I just never really fell in with the cool people in Wausau.
Thankfully, I found where they all hang out on-line.
Wausau is a town of Greeks and Visigoths (to reference the immortal Neil Postman) and the Greeks are horribly outnumbered. In way, its a microcosm (see what I did there) of America in general. I’ve tried to live like a Greek and enjoy their company a whole hell of a lot. Those that appreciate the value of education, art, current events and basic outside the box thinking. While the barbarian hordes in Wausau would love to drive the Women’s Community out of their neighborhood, keep Downtown from expanding and growing and continue to underfund our schools, there is some comfort that there are some kick ass Greeks in Wausau that are trying their best to responsibly grow Wausau in a center of culture and community.
And a good chunk of them hang out in Citizen Wausau.
You are the Greeks, the custodians of intellectual discourse, appreciators of more than corporate produced entertainment, the constant questioners… you have vision that goes beyond the tip of your nose. And I’ve hope that in the coming years you’ll make Wausau into the place I need it to be right now. Because I’m not alone. There is a small, but fierce, bohemian culture in Wausau that needs the old guard to warm up to them.
And there’s a lot that gives me hope all this will happen. The Fillmor can be so much more than it is, and it’s starting to finally live up to its potential to bring in the cutting edge music acts it’s suited house. The University if finally expanding, and finally giving the students a much needed true fine arts center. Downtown is gorgeous, I know many people don’t realize it because they see it every day, but be proud of that place. I can remember being a photographer at the Nuemann case and some reporters from Milwaukee commented on how nice it was. The Weston Skate Park is such a step in the right direction to accepting fringe cultures into the mainstream of Wausau. Downtown Grocery is so important in this world of global food spreading diseases like mad. I may be the first person to say this: but the Vertigo Gaming Center is a great resource for the next great art form: video games.
But the barbarian hordes are relentless. There’s still so much work to be done. Where can one see limited release films? What night life is there that doesn’t involve getting tanked? Where’s the Chipotle (seriously, it’s the best place in the world!)? What do high school students do after 9:00 PM? Why is free Wi-Fi a dirty word?
I admire just how much the folks in Citizen Wausau have taken on their plate by choosing to be Greeks. It’s tough, thankless and slow. But so necessary. Especially in Wausau.
I’m heading back over to my blogger blog and will stay there unless I find a Citizen Baltimore or something. I doubt I will. This is something special. Something that can mobilize.
And I’ll check back in on occasion, but I’ve got a new community that I’m responsible for plugging into and there’s only so many hours in the day. If you’re coming out my way, give a holler and I will met up for lunch or something.
And thanks for letting me spend some time with the Greeks.
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by erik on September 10th, 2008 • 5 Comments »
Last night, while working on a campaign ad for John Powers, I get a text message from TV’s Mikel Lauber that reads
Congrats. Secrets in Shawano is Emmy nominated.
My, vastly appropriate response was
W00t!
What else can you say to the prospect of winning what is arguably the most important award of a television professional’s career? I really am beside myself with the whole thing. After only a year of experience Mikel and I decided to go after Secrets in Shawano one afternoon when he told me about the story. I was instantly hooked, and sometimes it takes a little effort for me to get exciting about news stories. So I knew Mikel had something special on his hands. What followed was the two of us researching the whole thing like crazy. Multiple trips from Wausau to Shawano, and one of the best stories of my life.
No, not one of the best news stories, one of the best stories; as in an experience that you tell to your friends, family and anyone in between. I may someday write up the whole adventure, but not today. For one thing there’s no time, but I also don’t want to bore you!
After all of the photography (to whom I must share thanks with to Brooke Sperry, Randy Bise and Jason Klappa, who did a bit of extra photography for me), I moved out of my apartment and into the edit bays at work. I remember getting in at 9:00 AM, doing a normal shift, going someplace fast foody for supper and then back to the station until 11:00 or midnight even working on these pieces. My apartment seemed to exist solely to keep my cat off the streets during this time.
The works were scrutinized (and were better for it) by lawyers, the news director, assistant news director, the program manager and even the general manager of the station. I’ve never had that type of oversight except on occasion when Sue Ramsett, the news director, looked over a couple of the Snowmobiling and Drinking series Mikel and I did (with aid from Jonalee Merkel and Jason Klappa). This spoke volumes to me about how important these pieces were. And if I wasn’t already putting my best into them, I certainly was now.
The response was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Mikel’s in-box and phone were flooded with praise, hate mail, legal threats and everything in between. The web-site has thousands of responses posted on the stories, a feat never achieved before then, and still never seen since. Even The Wausau Daily Herald had a topic started on their discussion boards about an exclusive story by a competing news provider.
I always knew this series was special. It’s worth of entry as a short subject documentary in a film festival. It goes beyond what most people think of when they think of broadcast news, especially on the local level (and even more so in small market). Congrats again to Mikel on this, he poured himself into this story.
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by erik on September 8th, 2008 • 3 Comments »
I had my first premiere this last Friday. For those of you that don’t keep up with this blog (welcome!) I have been living with a film for about a year and a half if you include the screenwriting process that finally had its premiere this last Friday.
The film, of cousre, is Microcosm. The biggest mama jama in my tag cloud here on Citizen Wausau.
I’ve never premiered any of my fillms before. I relied on Internet screenings and film festivals to get the word out. And the latter is still a big part of my plan with Microcosm. It was amazing to see so many friends, family and even folks I’d never met before that night in the audience. What I thought was going to be an affair of twenty people ballooned out to somewhere around 60 folks or so. It was really, really touching.
But far more amazing was the crowd during the whole thing. There were laughs and guffaws for Chris Leslie in a fish suit all over the place. Dead silence during the dramatic climax of the film. Cheers for Ireland (Arwen Fonzen) when she decked Scott (Alexander Taylor Mace). One member of the audience, middled aged, gave me one of the biggest compliments of the night after it was done: “I’m about forty years removed from those types of feelings and that last scene brought me back in to all of them.” My high school drama teacher actually made it out for the screening, one of the men most responsible for my continued work in fine art. He noted my influence from Ingmar Bergman and told me “all you need know is your big break.”
In the hours upon hours of nitpicking every little blip in the sound, every frame of video to make sure the shot lasts exactly as long as it should, you get disconnected from a film. It feels like its gotten away from you. When not only are you responsible for the aesthetics, but also the technical aspect of the art, the aesthetics fall out of your mind. But Friday night I was able to reconnect with the characters, to feel goosebumps when Mikel (Luke Cieslewicz) puts up his hand for Ireland.
And for that I’m truly appreciative of.
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by erik on September 1st, 2008 • No Comments »
After speaking with a lot of talented folks and running a gamut of music through Microcosm, we have some pretty sweet stuff. I’m really proud of this soundtrack, it’s rare for a short to have this many tunes, but I’m such a music dense director, it shouldn’t come as a shock. Still, with six tunes total rounding out the soundtrack we have about half of what you would see in a feature length of this nature and only a sixth of the running time.
Whoa.
Now my biggest danger might be that the film will only be remembered for the amazing soundtrack 
Anways, here’s the skinny:
Apparently Nothing is the only element of this film that isn’t Wisconsin, it’s Minnesota. But they’re in the Twin Cities which, as we all know, Wisconsin should annex anyway! They contributed a song a piece off their most recent releases: “Sprawl” and “& the Usual Things.” “Mutual Friend” will be setting the tone for the piece as it’s the first song played in the soundtrack. But it’s the electric track “Thirteen” that I think most of you will remember by the time the credits roll.
Awesome Car Funmaker has contributed two songs from their Green Means Go album. Their debut album features a lot of mood setting tunes that really worked well with Microcosm. The two tracks are “Take It,” which can be heard at the end of the Microcosm Sneak Preview and “Awesome Car Funmaker Part 1.”
Kaitlin and Ryan have been with us since the very beginning. They are two Wausau area high school senoirs, and so they are a perfect fit for a film that’s practically about their peers. Their track, “Summer,” graces the Microcosm trailer.
Rounding it out we’ve got Antigo-based Vinny Bex Dae. Originally just a twosome, they’ve added a rhythm section and have started to sound great, as shown by their contribution to the film: “A Lighter Heart.” You can take a listen to it at the beginning of the Microcosm Sneak Preview.
You can hear just how great these tracks sound with the visuals, performances and script of Microcosm at the premiere this Friday. 8:30 PM, The UWMC Theater. Can’t wait to see you there.
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by erik on August 27th, 2008 • No Comments »
Hey all!
If you’re a fan of Stop That Nun on Facebook then you already have seen this bad boy, but for followers of this blog, I offer you a chance to see a scene and a half from the final cut of Microcosm.
Like what you see? The whole thing goes up for public screening on September 5th, 8:30 PM. The place is The University of Wisconsin: Marathon County, in the Theater. A Friday night at the cinema is probably something many of us do in Wausau, why not do it for free?
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by erik on August 19th, 2008 • 3 Comments »
First of all thanks to everyone who both viewed and voted on our Point Beer Webmercial! We have by far the most views, the most votes and the highest rating, even with some steep competition.
I’ve been glued to Microcosm for the last week. Our Sound Designer stepped down and as such I was thrust into doing the post production audio. With such short notice, this deep into the production and considering our location (Central Wisconsin) we just didn’t have anyone in our network of filmmaking friends that could take that over for us. I have limited experience, but not enough to make it go fast enough. All the same, countless hours after work and over the weekend in the Final Cut Suite have yielded some good results. The rough audio cut is done. I’m having cast and crew listen and give their pair of pennies on it and what we can do to improve.
One thing that needs to improve is our soundtrack. While we have some totally awesome tunes from Vinny Bex Dae, Awesome Car Funmaker, and Ryan and Kaitlin, we could still use just two to three more tracks to really round out the whole thing. Jim Carlson sounds interested and I hope to get some tunes from him soon to see if he’s a good fit for our aesthetic. The other thing we’re doing this weekend is ADR, that is bringing in actors to re-record lines because the sound captured on location is not usable. The cast has not seen each other since production, so I’m excited to get them back in the same room together to get chemistry rocking and rolling again.
We are still having a premiere September 5th! It’s at The University of Wisconsin: Marathon County, in the theater. We get started at 8:30 PM, so I hope to see many of you there! Again, we cannot put this film up in its entirely on the web due to some festivals frowning upon Internet screened films. So if we don’t get into the Central Wisconsin Film Festival, this may be the only public screening of the film in this area for a long time and regardless the only one in Wausau.
In other news I’m looking at shooting a campaign ad soon for a local politician. Until I end my affiliation with the news station I work for, I’m not saying who it is. All the same, I’m excited to be getting straight back into the political process after having to take two years off for the sake of appearing impartial.
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by erik on August 11th, 2008 • 2 Comments »
So I know this has really become the Microcosm blog, but I swear it’s not! Sadly, I have not had much as far as “oh wow!” news stories lately. Nothing I’ve come away from really impressed with anyway. I have covered some pretty amazing stuff though, like Edward Lanphear and the Tomahawk Mill Explosion.
But today I bring you something entirely different. Stop That Nun decided we should enter in a webmercial contest that Point Beer was hosting at the request of Brett Widmann. Brett’s name should be somewhat familiar, he’s the Music Supervisor and an Associate Producer for Microcosm. So Brett, Seth Callaway, Chris Leslie and myself sat down and pitched around ideas and we came away with Seth’s idea for a hot girl in a bikini.
In a room full of bachelors how could that idea not get some sort of traction?
So Brett and Seth offered to Produce the commercial, I tossed in my hat for director and we ran from there. I took Seth’s idea, put it to script and from there Seth and Brett hooked us up with actors and rounded out a crew. We had Seth Gaffing, myself heading up Cinematography, Alex Ackert was my Assistant Camera and Brett got down on doing on-site audio. We cast Brett Gilbertson, who will be in a supporting role for Microcosm, down for starring in the commercial. I love Gibby, if I were staying in the area he would be my the Jason Mewes to my Kevin Smith. Brett brought in Vanessa Derickson-Rivera to be brave enough to done a bikini around an all male crew and in the middle of a small town brewery where you can guess mostly guys work. She was very good to us. Additionally, Brett brought in Aaron Mielke to be the bartender and Luke McCain to be an extra. You can see Seth briefly as both an extra, and his hands bring the beer bottles into frame on the beach.
Seth and Brett did some editing and then I came in to put on final touches like color correction, sound editing and a couple of other quick edits. The result is what I think is a very solid locally produced commercial. Especially since we had no budget what-so-ever. That’s right, this commercial had no money behind it. Imagine what we could do if we could pay people and locations to give a business a commercial. We wouldn’t have to work around schedules either, since we’d be doing this for a living. Not to sound too full of himself, but as someone that has seen a whole lot of local commercials working at a local TV station, I think that we pretty much blow 90% of locally produced commercials out of the water.
But I’ve done enough talking when the final product should really speak for itself, here you go!
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by erik on August 2nd, 2008 • One Comment »
As we hit the home stretch of this production these are the type of updates you’ll be seeing on Microcosm. Stephenie is hard at work on the post production audio now that she has almost every bit of sound captured on location. Brett is trying to get us some more groups on the soundtrack and I’m trying to keep it all together. Actors are coming back in to re-record some dialog. Lucky for Alex all of his audio is clean, but every other person who speaks even one line will have to come back in!
The big news is that we’re adding another group to the already awesome line-up of Ryan and Kaitlin along with Awesome Car Funmaker. Antigo based Vinny Bex Dae will be hooking up with us as well. I’m mulling over exactly which track(s) of there’s will be making an appearance, but I’m really digging them right now and want them on this soundtrack.
In the original “dream soundtrack” I mentioned in my last post I employed eight different groups, which is an insane amount of music for a short. Most feature lengths will get just above that area and Microcosm currently clocks in at 16:20 with end credits. So really with one more group I should be able to completely round out the soundtrack.
All the same, I can’t say I’m surprised that my soundtrack would be really dense. I’m addicted to music something fierce. Just yesterday I waited for compression, FTP transfers and other various necessary evils of editing I just cruised band biographies on Wikipedia. Also, as mentioned back on my old personal blog, the film is very Altman-esque in that it’s a series of connected scenes that have big gaps in time between them. A solid soundtrack helps the audience make that jump and keeps the narrative feeling connected. I’ve also mentioned to folks before that the only reason I want a budget for my films is to pay everyone and to buy the rights to music. I don’t need special effects or anything other than the equipment I’ve scrimped and saved for over the last decade or so. Just give me a good solid soundtrack I’ll make the rest of it happen my own way.
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by erik on July 28th, 2008 • 5 Comments »
So I’m very excited to say that the Madison rock foursome, Awesome Car Funmaker’s “Take It” be in Microcosm. They were part of my “dream soundtrack,” that is when you just wish for the moon to give your crew an idea what you’re looking for, and then work within the means of the production. Thankfully not only is ACF talented, but giving as well. Look for their contribution at the premiere, September 5th, 8:30 PM at the UWMC theater.
Big props to Music Supervisor Brett Widmann for hooking that all up. It’s truly amazing when one can get part of that “dream” line-up in your film. We’re still looking for more groups to give us some different sounds, so if you have any suggestions, let me know.
And if you’re interested in checking out Awesome Car Funmaker, look no further than their MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/awesomecarfunmaker
Other than that post continues to go well. I really can’t comment much more on it because it’s a bit too much into the process. However, scheduling conflicts may make it impossible for the fine cut to be done for the premiere. So it’ll be a mostly final product, but not quite.
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