2022 UPDATES
CAMPAIGN FOR POTENTIAL ENERGY COALITION
“Leaf Blower”
Science Moms
And a recap on some highlights that I’ve been up to the last two years in France…
A MUSIC VIDEO TURNED BRAND VIDEO
“Christmas Harmony”
Playmobil, featuring Violette
Shot a music video at home with the family, and because Playmobil is amazing it turned into a brand video…
We were at home on a Saturday night in lockdown in France (moved here, away from our home outside of NYC, for the year in the midst of this pandemic craziness), my wife Violette wrote a melody, asked if I’d join in on writing some lyrics. We did. We had fun. We liked what we did. We decided to talk about making a music video. We got a few, great local collaborators to help. We made said music video.
The video was inspired by our kids’ Playmobil toys. There’s a pandemic going on. We wanted to make something joyful. The only safe party we could throw was with toys, so that’s what we did.
Well - Playmobil happens to be an awesome company. They want people to really play with their product. They want people to interact. They want people to make things that make themselves happy, and apparently, they want this to all be shared with them as well! Because, they saw our video and decided to share it with all of their fans on their various social media channels.
Here’s a :30 second teaser we made out of it (plus dubbed the intro and end text into German and French):
And here’s some of the fun press we’ve been getting. Not bad for a home quarantine project. :) But then again, there were amazing people involved locally and remotely, and also from the brand side - so this really is much bigger than something just happening at home.
ELECTION HELP
“Andrew Votes from Home”
Featuring Andrew McCutchen
A volunteer campaign sharing the rules needed to be followed to make sure everyone’s mail-in ballot is counted.
It was estimated that close to 100,000 ballots in Pennsylvania (a crucial state in the 2020 US elections) could be denied because not all of the steps are taken for those mailing/handing them in. 100,000 votes thrown out by technicalities which could swing the election one way or another. Andrew McCutchen of the Phillies maps out in this video the steps people need to take to have their votes counted.
Saturday Night Live writer Bryan Tucker wrote the script, I directed and edited (remotely), Allison Specketer made all the illustrations and animations, and Ava Eisenson and John Fuller produced it. The video features cameos from notable Pennsylvania natives and residents:
And it effectively got out there and was shared by quite a few people online…
HOME MOVIES
I thought this would be a good opportunity to teach the kids some basics in filmmaking. All filmed on the iPhone. The youngest (3 at the time of filming) just ran around as I tried to wrangle him into the shots, while the oldest (7 at the time) was helping with the ideas and also learning how to edit these. I plan on our roles reversing in a few years and I’ll most likely be their PA.
Slam Dunk
For this one we used a karaoke version of a song and our daughter Annabelle (with mom’s help) put some vocals on top. We are not officially affiliated with Spiderman, it’s just that Hugo refused to come out of his trailer unless we let him keep this costume on. So that’s that.
Tractor Jump
My wife was the stunt (ehem... special effects) coordinator on this one.
IF YOU BUILD IT…
I realized one day that I’m allowed to mow the grass anyway that I’d like, so we made a baseball field in our backyard.
OLDIES BUT GOODIES
And before Covid-19, we were warming up for the family home movies with some photoshop.
