Yearbook 2006, the Katrina website-documentary that Austin and I have been working on for the past two months, goes lives today! (read: Wrapping Up Katrina to learn more about our involvement).
Please check out: www.y06.org to see this amazing website! So many hands have been working late into the night to make this all come together. It was a real pleasure working with Josh and Jim Goldblum of BlueCadet.
We hope you enjoy Yearbook 2006!
This is our final week of editing “Yearbook 2006”, a narrative/documentary website, dedicated to telling the Katrina survival stories of a few New Orleans high school seniors.
Josh and Jim Goldblum (of Blue Cadet) were the brains behind this operation, spending the majority of this past year documenting roughly 30 high school seniors at Franklin High in the heart of New Orleans.
Yearbook 2006 also features the beautiful photographs of Joshua Cogan, a truly talented photographer.
Be sure to listen to Morning Edition (NPR) on Friday August 25th to hear Josh Goldblum’s interview!
We’ll post up the link to the site when it goes live on the anniversary of Katrina, August 29th.
Austin is off to Edinburgh, Scotland tomorrow (the bastard!) to shoot the fourth episode of NightHawk. Working title? “KnightHawk”. We pride ourselves on our ability to really push the envelope.
Reggie Watts, the lovely creator of NightHawk and top-notch Comedian-Extraordinaire, is performing in the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival all month, so Tommy Smith (writer & co-creator of NH) and Austin are flying the friendly skies to take advantage of a fabulous city stuffed to the brim with starving actors.
Haven’t heard of NightHawk? Be sure to catch one of Reggie’s many stand-up shows to get a sneak peak at what Tom, Reggie, Austin, and I have been cooking up these days.
We enjoyed shooting Jason Webley performance at American University in January almost as much as we enjoyed going out with him and a few fans to the cafe above Kramerbooks in Dupont Circle afterwards.
to view a higher resolution, click here.
Last week Austin’s plays closed the Capital Hill Inaugural Fringe Festival with a bang. Having sold out almost every performance, the actors beamed as we piled in an extra two rows of people at the 11am final showing of Short Works Exploring Dangerous Devotion.
They cheered, they laughed, they wept, and best of all – they stayed for the entire 45 minute performance featuring the works of Ionesco, Fornes, and Durang. 
Austin directed (and Emily assisted) the short plays with the intention of getting back to the art of working with actors. Taking the time to really rehearse the shows was the main reason for signing onto this project (it certainly wasn’t the money), and in the end it paid off. Working with celebrated actress Tina Renay Fulp was certainly one of the biggest of all the perks, as well as offering Emily the opportunity to learn how to silk screen t-shirts [one of her creations is featured on Katie Atkinson above] even if it was 2am when she finally got round to it.
Overall? We might not do it again any time soon, but it was certainly worth the two months of prep work, the nightly rehearsals in that stuffy sweltering church basement, and the countless late night walks arguing over book work when we saw the packed houses night after night. Congrats are in order for the excellent cast and crew of Short Works!
We shot this for the Dresden Dolls over at the 930 Club last May.
to view a higher resolution version, click here
The Alphastates, an Irish band we befriended while living in Dublin, asked us to shoot a music video for them. We had a blast filming this in Seattle with a very talented group of actors.
for the record: Catherine and the rest of the band refused to be used in the video as they had “a bad experience” on shoots with other directors.
To see a higher resolution of this video click here.
the chop shop notebook 