I've worn so many hard hats this past week I'm starting to feel like a Discovery Channel special series

Yesterday morning we did an interview at Urbanspace, as part of our ongoing exploration of what all the development in Austin means for its culture.

In the afternoon we went over to the Austonian, where we met with Bob, the construction manager. He took us up six floors in one elevator, then we transferred to another one and went up to the 29th floor. The view was incredible, and the wind intense, whipping through the windowless concrete floor we were standing on.



Nathan and Rob wanted a better shot, so we climbed up three more floors on thin, wooden stepladders. It felt kind of unstable and there were no beams on either side to protect you if you were to slip and fall down several floors onto dusty concrete with nails and things sticking out. Needless to say, I didn't look down.


One of the shorter ladders


Dang

We got some nice shots but had the wrong tripod, so there were a lot of missed shots too. We got a decent amount of work done, and Bob offered to bring us back for a sunset shoot. If we're really lucky and he's comfortable enough trusting Rob, he'll probably get to go up on the crane here too and get some great footage of Congress Ave. from above.


Barton Creek towards the East


West Downtown

Today we have a production meeting (which I'll spare you the details of), and tomorrow the guys are going to shoot wit Bill Baird in his studio.

The Crane

One of my aspirations in life is to eventually become one of those people who go to bed early and wake up early. Dawn is my favorite time of day and I'm absolutely a morning person -- I'm just never awake to enjoy it. So when I had to get up at 5am yesterday for a sunrise shoot on top of the Spring condo-to-be, I saw it as a great opportunity to really savor a morning.

And what a morning! It was absolutely gorgeous, albeit frigid. The sky was smeared with clouds here and there, with a thick layer at the horizon so that when the sun began to rise through it, the glow was a bright orange perfect sphere.





The only awkward part of the morning was being the only girl in an elevator packed with construction workers. That was a first.

Nathan and Rob got some wonderful shots of the city, and Kirby - the project manager - was so gracious and open to our project that he got Rob up onto the crane later in the morning.


Rob vs. The Crane


Thus begins the climb...


Climbing... The tallest crane currently in Austin, by the way.

For the record: it takes the crane operator 22+ minutes to climb up to his perch every morning. Rob did it in 12.

You know what else Rob did? Blow my mind with the footage he shot. The whole office was talking about it yesterday after we'd logged it and watched it. I should have some screencaps soon, but I can't even... it's amazing. He got shots from every part of the crane, and at one point he climbed into a basket and was wheeled out to the far edge. Then the crane was spun around so he could shoot the whole city below. There's a point where you can see a tiny Dave below, loading gear into his tiny car.

I have to say, even though this city is full of very open and relaxed people, and we owe many thanks to Perry Lorenz and Kirby Kuntz for granting us such access to their site, at the end of the day all you need is a couple of cameras and no boundaries. Our attitude, both crew and production staff, has been to just go for it and it's really turning our material into something immensely impressive. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's to at least give things a shot -- you never know when it may turn out to be worth it.

After watching Rob's footage, we met up with Dana Falconberry by the South Lamar Bridge. The interview turned out to flow really well and went for way longer than planned, with the guys following her down along the riverbank for the second leg of it. She even played a few songs, and then in the evening we filmed her show at Salvage Vanguard. The greek play/rave set is still intact, and the room was rapt with attention. She has such a beautiful voice and such truly lovely songs. I noticed a woman watching her sing, completely astounded, a smile of mesmerized wonder stuck on her face. I must say, I agree with her sentiment.



Today we shot some follow up stuff with James Moody, and tomorrow we have an interview with some real estate guys and then a shoot from atop the Austonian. Early to bed I go...

What day is it again?

It's been a crazy few days, and it looks like there are only more like it to come! Saturday night Gary Clark Jr. played a birthday show at Antone's with Bavu Blakes. It was both intense and fun -- those guys can rip up a stage like nobody's business.

When Gary Clark Jr. first took the stage, I looked down and saw a tall man in a suit go up to Rob. He was clearly asking him to turn his camera off, but by the time I fought my way through the crowd to where he'd been shooting, Rob was gone. I found him a minute later and took the tall man in the suit aside to see what was up. Turns out he was Gary's father and didn't know we were filming the show. We smoothed everything out and Rob went on shooting the show. It was intense for a few minutes, there but we didn't lose too much filming time luckily.







This morning we went back to the Spring condo-in-progress to get some dawn shots, so I'll be posting about that later. Rob climbed up the crane! Amazing.

Right now I'm running off to meet the guys near downtown, where we're shooting an interview with Dana Falconberry! We're also filming her show tonight at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, so there will be a lot to catch up on...

Various glowing cities

Last night {{{sunset}}} held an EP release party at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. The space was set up for a play that's currently at the theatre, which, according to my sources is a rave/greek play, so there you go. The layout and lighting were really cool - the stage was tiered and jutted out so the audience could not only surround it on three sides, but sit on the steps so it felt a bit more connected than the usual audience | performer layout.







A good half dozen other bands played, and the place was pretty packed. There were a lot of familiar faces, and it took me a while to realize why that was strange -- I'm just not used to seeing them here yet. So I guess I must be acclimating and really living here, which is nice. It's incredibly thrilling to be in the middle of a completely foreign place, having adventures and whatnot. It's also a bit scary sometimes, being a tiny you in a big, new place.


As a part of the EP release festivities, the band brought a cake to commemorate YouTube's birthday.

This morning we filmed a conversation between Catarina Sigerfoos and Carolyn Schwarz, of SIMS and HAAM. Both institutions do great things for local musicians, and the two of them go way back so there was good energy.

Then, finally, 3:45 rolled around and it was hard hat time! We met up with Perry Lorenz, one of the most powerful developers in town, under the Spring building. The structure is pretty intimidating from that angle, especially when Dave keeps cracking jokes about plummeting in the elevator with the counterweight following.



To be fair, I joined in, but only because Nathan is supposedly more scared of heights than I am. He didn't seem fazed at all once we were in the elevator, actually, and Dave was the only one who seemed uncomfortable - though that may have had to do with the awkwardness of the hard hat vs. headphones situation.



Perry was joined by Kirby Kuntz, whose company is building the Spring Towers. We climbed into a construction elevator (passing the counterweight on our way up) and went up to the 41st floor.




Which is very high up. And unfinished. A few corners were still missing windows, everything was concrete, and interestingly enough the giant "41" that marks the floor, and that I see on my way home from the office all the time, is no more fancy than what you used to make school projects with.

Outside on what will soon be a balcony, Perry talked to us about developing in Austin.



He's proud that this high rise is going up while so many people are feeling the effects of the recession, and while he's a pretty liberal guy and values local music and arts, he thinks that the cultural changes surrounding the building of condos like the Spring are inevitable. He's the most powerful developer in town for a reason.


This is 2 stories below the top of the building, which is 494 ft. tall -- 6 feet short of being required to abide by airplane flightpath safety regulations.

After the interview Perry showed us around the top of the building. We looked around the future penthouse while speaking with him and Kirby Kuntz some more. The giant red crane that looms over downtown was suddenly very close. Perry told us that the man who operates it gets up there at 6:30 in the morning and is up there all day, and then asked what would be the first question one would pose... "how does he pee?" of course. He pointed to a black tube running down the side of the crane.



I still have my doubts. (Also, are there ever any lady crane operators?)







Once a week a guy climbs to the top of the elevator pulleys to grease them -- we lucked out, because apparently that day is Monday!


Right??!

It started to rain and was getting late, so we packed up our things and headed back down. We're going to try and go back to get some nice shots of the city when it's not all cloudy and the light's better.

Finally, since I'm going nuts with the photo posting anyway, I leave you with my favorite:


This is where the elevators will go.

Talking to a lot of people

Thursday we had our second interview with James Moody (owner of the Mohawk, Transmission Entertainment). This time around he was joined by Graham Williams (also Transmission Entertainment). It's been about two months since we last met, so there was a lot to discuss about the Live Music Task Force and everything else in town.


I couldn't get a photo during the interview since I was filming with one of the cameras.

Revisiting someone we've spoken with before gave us a more linear sense, I think, of how the story we're following has progressed in the past two months. There was a specific place in time and events that took place that we now followed up on, and a progression between the "then" and the "now."

The next day we spoke with Paul Oveisi, owner of Momos on 6th street and chair of the Live Music Task Force. It's so interesting to me how many different things people have their hand in. For a town that seems very relaxed and mellow, there are a lot of people here who do what seems like an immense amount of work all at once. Paul not only chairs the Task Force, owns Momos and is there most nights, he's managed bands and is involved with the music scene very actively. Maybe because everything here is so chill that it's possible to do all these things at once -- less stress and less crunch time opens up more space for involvement.

Tonight we're filming the {{{sunset}}} show at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. Tomorrow we have an interview with reps from SIMS and HAAM in the morning, and in the afternoon we're interviewing Perry Lorenz, a very influential developer in town. He's taking us up to the Spring condo, which is still under construction (we get to wear hard hats and everything!), giving us an interview up there and maybe even letting us get some nice shots of the city during magic hour. I predict beautiful pictures tomorrow....

Not quite ours

We're working on getting some video content up here, but post-production isn't quite at that stage yet. In the meantime, I thought it would be interesting to grab some things from and about the artists we're focusing on most, and share them here.

This is from Belaire's Vimeo page and was made by Cari and Christine:


You Really Got Me Goin' from Belaire on Vimeo.

This video is taken from {{{sunset}}}'s blog - I picked it because we have some beautiful footage of Bill Baird playing it, which made me love it even more than I already did.




This is just a cool SOUND Team piece from La Blogotheque's Concerts à emporter. Since SOUND Team is so closely related to {{{sunset}}} I think it's fair enough to include it here.

#SPLIT 07 - SOUND TEAM - No More Birthdays
by lablogotheque

Finally, here's a video of Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears that I found on Yahoo videos:

Black Joe Lewis - Lolla clip @ Yahoo! Video

"That sounds really cool... what is it exactly?"

People keep telling me that they like reading this blog - right before they ask what exactly the film is about. And while it's a work in progress that's constantly taking on a more exact shape, I can still sum up what it is we're doing. As a handy reference, I've added a link to the sidebar ("about the film") which will explain things.

Basically, we're making a documentary about indie culture in Austin and how it relates to the city. We're exploring artists' process and work, while also covering the landscape of the venues they play, the people who book them, the various sides of the noise ordinance issue, and the changing landscape of Austin both culturally and physically.

So how did I get to be a part of this? I've been working in film and television, with a dash of theatre for good measure, for a few years now. About three years ago a friend of mine told me I should check out a band called Voxtrot, and the whole Austin love affair kind of snowballed from there. I was struck by the interesting sounds and vibrant spirit of the music coming out of here, and by the communal sense each band or artist exuded. When I discovered Belaire I felt like I had stumbled into a whole new universe - especially when the EP I ordered showed up in the mail, completely hand made. Thoughts of moving to Austin and documenting this incredible niche started formulating in my head.

Nathan and I have a mutual friend here in Austin, who forwarded the link for the ATX Converge preliminary piece that was done for this film. I was working on a farm in CT at the time and didn't really want to leave, but I had to take this opportunity - the guy had already started work on my idea! I got in touch with him immediately and basically told him that I'm coming to work on his film, and after showing him the various reasons this would be a good idea, I was invited down as line producer.

All I had wanted to do was to explore the bands I liked and see where it took me. Nathan, however, knows this city much better and has a great eye for the grand scope of things. The Live Music Task Force, the emerging architecture, the dynamics of venues and a knowledge of the people involved. So when I was invited to come down and see Belaire record a new album, interview Bill Baird, go on tour with Peter and the Wolf... well, what would you have said?

So I guess that's basically what the film is about. It's a film about local music from an emotionally invested fan's perspective. It's about every element that comes together when music is made. You can't just have an album; you need artists to record it, who need a stage to perform and hone it on, a workspace to craft it, an audience to listen to it. You need a city that supports the arts, but everything is a compromise.

On the one hand, supporting means allowing freedom for performers. On the other other hand, being a city means respecting citizens, even if those citizens moved into a condo across the street from the Mohawk right before they started complaining about the noise. Developing new condos downtown is the logical next step in expanding industry here, and putting weight under the support beam of local artists -- it can cause conflict, however, when out of towners start taking over the DIY sensibilities of the locals.

So this is why we're filming. This is what we want to capture. We want to be flies on the walls of this town, watching what happens and letting progression and change speak for itself.

You don't know what you'll be listening to next week, but they do

This past Thursday we followed Dániel Perlaky over to Sean O'Neil's office at The Onion, where much was discussed about the usual topics: indie bands, the challenges of Austin living/working, changing landscapes both music and industry-wise etc.


We first spoke with Dániel on the street...


Filming in Sean's office


Nathan, Sean and Dániel

Once again I'm amazed at how interconnected this city is. There hasn't been a single person we've spoken to, who doesn't have ties to at least five others.

In the meantime, we've met with Bryan Keplesky from Misprint about animating some of his work for the film, have interviews lined up with representatives from SIMS (counseling services for musicians) and HAAM (Health Alliance for Austin Musicians), an interview coming up with Austin real estate developer Perry Lorenz, and an amazing cityscape shoot from atop the Austonian (one of the new condo buildings in progress). I would also like to point out, that the previous sentence is not a run-on, and technically grammatically correct. Also: Perry Lorenz will be doing the interview at the Spring condo building which is under construction, so we get to wear hard hats and everything.

While these shoots are less oriented towards the live music end of things, they should be a pretty fascinating insight into the various cogs and gears of the various elements of this town.

So you're making a low-budget documentary...

This happens to practically anyone trying to make an indie film anywhere these days. Maybe it's because we're halfway through production that I'm feeling the stress a lot right now. The thing is, when you're making a low-budget film, be it documentary or whatever else, you're always improvising new ways of making the best of what little cash you have, and hoping that things will somehow stay in one piece until you finish.

Don't worry, this film will absolutely be finished. We're definitely way past the point of no return, and Reversal Films has put so much into it. I've never worked with a company like this -- the producers spend all of their time working to raise funds, and the crew gets to work without being disturbed. Nathan pretty much has free reign to work as he does best, and it's yielded some incredible ideas (not to mention footage!) so far.

I feel like we're in a slightly odd situation here. Austin isn't exactly known for its film industry, and the more I deal with vendors and rental places, the more I feel like I have to immediately be firm and prove that I'm not some silly kid putting together a half-assed student film or experimental project. That I actually know what I'm doing and am a professional. On the flipside, a lot of artists view us with wary eyes and sidelong glances. I don't blame them either, usually film crews that roll into town filming bands end up exploiting their image and popularity and leave the artists with a crummy rep and barely any cash.

The more we progress the less I feel like the latter is a problem. Still, it's difficult to prove yourself to someone you haven't worked with. You can tell them what you're all about, but until they see it, you're all lip to them. We're well aware of it, not just for the obvious reasons but because it's yet another topic we're exploring. SOUND Team and the way Capitol Records treated them; White Denim and the images they ended up being a part of unwillingly. White Denim was actually very skeptical of us, until Nathan took James Moody, owner of Transmission Entertainment and the Mohawk into the editing room.

Really, all anyone has to do is talk to Nathan for ten seconds. He has such a strong vision and is so passionate about this project, it's impossible not to get caught up. Every couple of days brings a new revelation about where the film is going and what is should say, how it should say it, and how we can find that moment in real life. Of course, I was on board for this film before I even heard about it, but I've seen others' reactions, so technically, that's an unbiased statement.

Sometimes all I see is how narrowly we can make things happen. Other times all I see is everything we've done so far and everything that lies ahead, and the rest just seems like a technicality - once we can maneuver our way through it, we can get back to focusing on the real task at hand.