New Video: The Black Hills

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The Black Hills from Tom Baurain on Vimeo.

So, I finally got around to editing the footage I shot while on vacation in South Dakota. The Black Hills are an incredible region of the United States, you owe it to yourself to make it out there sometime in your life.

I haven’t posted this before now due to my contributions to “Love The Earth,” the film by Imogen Heap and Thomas Ermacora I blogged about right below this post. I wasn’t sure what they were going to use and didn’t have time to edit this until now. Sadly, they didn’t use any footage from South Dakota. I hope you enjoyed it! I particularly loved the shots of the buffalo itching himself against that wooden post. One of the weirder shots I’ve ever lensed.

Cheers!

Love The Earth

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For those in the dark, “Love The Earth” is a film collaboration between musical artist Imogen Heap and filmmaker Thomas Ermacora. The video below explains the project in Imogen’s own words.

I first heard of Imogen Heap in Zach Braff’s first film, Garden State. At that time she was recording as Frou Frou. She’s continued to make incredible music and continues this with her latest record, “Ellipse.” As she stated in the video, she’ll be performing at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow, November 5th. She’ll be conducting the orchestra live to accompany a nature film, “Love The Earth.” This project was “crowdsourced.” Thomas Ermacora and Imogen put out a call for footage. Submit footage of why you love the earth, and then the best footage will be edited into a half hour film. Imogen will provide the score for the film. The call for footage ran until September 26th.

The funny thing about this whole affair is my friend Joe Pollock and myself did not discover the project until the last day of submissions. Joe and I freelance together a lot so I told him about the project and suggested we submit footage. It was sort of on a lark. We’re still very “new” to the art of timelapse, but we still submitted our best timelapse clips we had on our hard drives. For me it was almost a joke, I had no time to prepare or shoot anything I thought worth submitting. Perhaps that is just the self-critic in me but that is how I felt.

As you may guess it was something of a shock to me when I got the e-mail from Patrick, the project coordinator, notifying me that my footage had been selected and the instructions on the next phase in the project. To my delight, Joe’s footage had been selected as well. Since we had been selected we were allowed to submit more footage. I had just got back from a trip to South Dakota’s Black Hills visiting a friend. While I was there I shot a lot, to say the least. So if you do see any footage resembling the Black Hills it’s probably mine. I am not sure what clips they chose, so I’ll probably update this blog when I watch the broadcast tomorrow.

For me it was an honor just to be selected. I thought, oh, I’ve been shortlisted but my footage will probably not make the final cut of the film. I got an email a few days ago letting me know my footage is in the final film and I’ll be credited. They are paying for my footage, too, so it’s not like they are using filmmakers. Many, including myself, tend to think of “crowdsourcing” as a dirty word. A fancy term for using the talented and not-so-talented. In this case, that is not true.

I’ve been a fan of Imogen and her music for a long time so making the final cut of the film is quite an honor. If you’d like to watch the live broadcast, it happens tomorrow, November 5th, at 7PM GMT. There is a 5 hour time difference so 7PM GMT is 2PM CST. I’ll be credited as “Thomas Baurain.” You can watch it on resounde.com. I highly recommend checking it out. Imogen will be conducting while the film plays behind her on a large projector. The other footage I’ve seen from the project is leaps and bounds better than mine. Many talented people have contributed to this film. I do hope you tune in for this global event.

Cheers!

UPDATE:
Just watched the final film, and to say it’s humbling to be included in “Love The Earth” is an understatement. It also gave me a sense of pride to see my buddy Joseph Pollock’s clips in there as well. We freelance together a lot, and have similar shooting styles. I loved so many clips in the film I can’t even list them all. Congratulations to the team that edited and made the film. There was definitely a story being told and a coherence throughout, not just a string of random nature clips in there. Watching it I actually recalled clips I should have submitted. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 as usual.

Imogen’s score was as breathtaking and beautiful as I thought it would be. I would love to see her compose more classical music. Love The Earth 2, perhaps? It would definitely be a good idea. I can’t even put into words how much I enjoyed her score. She’s always been one of my favorite artists but this definitely lets me appreciate her in a new and amazing way. I truly hope there’s going to be an archived broadcast for people to watch it again. I’ll post it if such a rebroadcast or archive does come online.

UPDATE 2:

Imogen tweeted this out just a short time ago: “There is a DVD in the making of @loveearthfilm with footage from the night, backstage, interviews etc + official soundtrack + film. xx” I am definitely thrilled not just because my own work will be on the DVD, but I am always a hound for behind the scenes type stuff. I’d also love to learn more about the making of the film from interviews and such. Yay!

Photo of the Day: Burros

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Sorry I’ve been pretty mum on this blog for some time! Things have been pretty hectic. This picture comes from a trip I recently came back from, taken in the Black Hills of South Dakota. A friend of mine took me through Custer State Park. There, wild burros will literally come up to your car and beg for food. By beg, I of course mean stick their face inside your car, try to eat your camera, and lick the windows if all else fails. Pretty funny, honestly – this particular burro thought my lens was some sort of tasty treat.