Whitney Pallend at Cuchi Cuchi

Whitney Pallend at Cuchi Cuchi from Joshua Guerci on Vimeo.

From now on, I'm going to swallow my pride and use auto focus in these tight situations where I am having trouble focusing. In these low light scenes, I have to open up all the way to get a descent exposure and often sacrifice some depth of field. It makes it hard to focus, escpecially when running off the flip out screen and not the eye piece.

I use the Sony NEX-VG10. I am not afraid to push the gain all the way up because the noise doesn't bother me so much. The important thing is to tell a story and I believe this video gives us a good feeling for Whitney's personality.

I could have gone for a little bit more ambiance shots.

Editing Video for Rocco

I want to share some work I am doing for a client. I am editing these informational videos as part of a campaign to boost Rocco's SEO on his website. I hope it works.



I Photoshopped the logo in the beginning. The client's original file is much smaller with a white background. I lightened the colors and ran some filters to smooth the pixels over. This is also my first real effort with lower thirds graphics.

As a filmmaker, I must learn to embrace these opportunities. They teach me to be more methodical in my work. Lord knows I could use some help in that department.

Don't forget to be social!

When people think of marketing, the first examples that come to mind are typically television commercials, print advertisements and billboards. People don't often realize marketing is much more than getting the word out. For example, the Starbucks store layout is a major part of their branding. Apple's customer experience is also a marketing strategy. They discount the social and experiential aspects to marketing.

People fail at social media because they approach it in the way they might develop a traditional ad campaign. They use their twitter account like a psychic hypodermic needle, injecting their narrative into public consciousness. Young people and professional marketers make this same mistake: Mass tweets to people they don't know, blind Facebook invites, generic blog posts. It comes off as inauthentic. Worse, creepy. Its as though they missed the social aspect of social media. The connection part of the internet.

A friend once described it as soft marketing. The goal is to ease yourself into the conversation by listening to your audience and responding accordingly by providing a value add. Such as personal responses, compliments and thoughtful questions. Let them know a real person is on the other end of the tweet. The trick is to allow their curiosity to lead them to your product. And be available for them when they have questions.

When I released my Battle of the Buskers video series to accompany the contest hosted by Seattle Metropolitan monthly magazine, the first thing I did was send a link to each performer who participated in the event to let them know the video was up. I then re-tweeted their tweets. I kept an eye out for people commenting on YouTube or mentioning my video on Twitter. I engaged with those people. I sent an e-mail to the Pike Place Market staff, thanking them for their participation and included a video link. I posted links to blogs that embedded my video and I engaged with people who were talking about my buskers on Twitter.

Not that I can claim any credit to the following success but: Fox Q13 posted my video of Carly. Winner of the contest, she went on to New Day on K5 and Rolling Stone.

Further reading: I Will Never Hire A Social Media Expert And Neither Should You

Lulu in Berlin by Richard Leacock

This is pretty dry for a documentary about sex and murder. Louise Brooks was one of the most beautiful women in motion pictures but this documentary doesn't really pull me in. According to her story, Richard Leacock was not to first to intellectualize the vivacious actress. The most interesting part of the doc is when Louise tells us about how Pabst was most happy with her when she was playing the part of Lulu on camera and must furious with her when she continues to be Lulu off set. Comical, the inability to recognize Louise and Lulu as the same girl. But I feel this film doesn't show me anything I couldn't read in a well written article. Its falls flat.

Behind the scenes look at Occupy Boston

You really have to go down to an Occupy Wallstreet protest and spend a couple hours walking around camp to understand it. Its an anarchist collective, in the philosophical and historical sense of the word. Its a club for manic late night conversationalists. But one thing i its not is: a political organization with a poised agenda. Nobody knows whats going to come of it. At best it's a think tank. Its a place where you can go to express your frustrations and not worry about making sense. And everybody is already a member. They're pretty accepting down there.

October 5


I didn't really know what I was doing on my first day. I've filmed cinéma vérité before but usually when people were expecting me. I filmed The Tommy Dean Show. Even a Westboro protest. But this was a more intimate setting. I was behind the scenes and capturing people at their most vulnerable. Some of them asked me to stop and so I did.

October 7


On the second day, people remained apprehensive about the camera. People tried to lecture me about asking before I film them but to avoid confrontation, I ran away.

October 11


This was the day after the mass arrest. People were especially apprehensive, forcing me to grow some courage and start introducing myself to people. Once I explained myself to people, they seemed more happy to have me around. A few people maintained their distrust but I was able to avoid them.

Edit: October 24



I would be down at Occupy filming more but I've been fighting a cold. Boohoo me! ;-p