BLUE COUP D’ETAT

new delhi, india
november 2006

brent and onslo

chibi lays it down
drunk uncle concurs

blue light
mvp

my wife
pineapple juice and shochu (misspelled in the video, will be fixed eventually - thanks to chizu the spell checker)
courtesty of hug heaven

this was on the walk to hug heaven in queens
while sante was swinging around parking meters and ron was doing his little jitterbug kumi and i were geeking out with cameras

after many requests and demands by chibihentai and mvp -
fun times, a few bruises, lots of love

thanks to a couple of great hosts - pants and moto

my first roll of holga pictures (actually my 4th, lost the others in a bar in scotland after meeting some norwegians and drinking scotch and guiness)
the pictures are creepy and weird and empty
everything feels like i am stumbling and cockeyed
pictures:
-a woman in a castle window
-manikins at the edinburgh castle
-the street from my window in edinburgh
-the cold bathroom morning before leaving for amsterdam
-a park in amsterdam near where i was staying
-canal at night
-clocktower at night
-a building facade
-my flat in amsterdam, my host was adan, he is from chile but has lived in amsterdam for a long time
-blurry amsterdman street (i am probably lost)
-some landmark in amsterdam but i have no idea what it is

september 9th, 2007 after the meatball and sausage dinner

there are several elements involved in editing a transition that fall into two categories -
PICTURE: moving picture (film, video or animated images), still picture, graphic, or title
SOUND: natural sound, sound effects, and music
the basic actions involved with the transition are dissolves, fades, and straight cuts. this applies to both sound and picture.

in making transitions it is good to remember that starting everything at once is often overwhelming and jarring which can be very effective but is often distracting. start one or two elements at a time with the others joining in as the transition unfolds. allow the brain to process the information and then add more. consider editing as a musical composition.

also consider the purpose of a transition - to fold space or leap from points in time or leap from emotion to emotion. contemplating the purpose of a transition often helps dictate the kind of transition.

beijing, china
feb 2007

directed by derek cianfrance
edited by jim helton
photgraphed by claudio miranda
produced by @radical.media

directed by derek cianfrance
edited by jim helton and ron patane
photographed by peter donahue
produced by @radical.media

directed by derek cianfrance
ddb creative team - tom mcdonnell, joanne diglio, bonnie lutz, howard finkelstein, and marilyn kam - good people
graphic design by davi russo
photography by ayumi sakamoto
music by sixtwo (he did a ton of music for battlegrounds, love his stuff)

my first commerical

directed by derek cianfrance
ddb creative team - tom mcdonnell, joanne diglio, bonnie lutz, howard finkelstein, and marilyn kam - good people
graphic design by davi russo
photography by ayumi sakamoto
music by sixtwo (he did a ton of music for battlegrounds, love his stuff)

directed by derek cianfrance
photography by bill winters and davi russo
edited by jim helton and ron patane
title design by davi russo

here is a scene from the battlegrounds tv series i did for nike and mtv a couple years ago (2005)

directed by derek cianfrance
co-produced by jim helton
this scene edited by jim helton and joey curtis
additional editing for the series done by two other great editors - ron patane and jonah moran
title design by davi russo
still photography by davi russo and atsushi nishijima
videography by derek cianfrance, paul bozymowski, and bill winters
this was a really great project to work on though it was very hard to do in the short amount of time we had (i had three days off in three months), the people i worked with were amazing and i keep up with them all and work with them all to this day
i’d like to also credit and thank the kids from new york and chicago that participated in the show as well as executive producers justin wilkes and bill davenport - these guys gave me my first shot at being a head editor on a tv series and gave us a lot of creative freedom as well as great creative input
and this wouldn’t be complete without thanking jon kamen, the man who saw me in a elevator one day after my first job with radical media was over (think it was the annie lennox job though technically i did some sound work and title work on “shots in the dark” but nobody really knew about that at the time) and asked me what i was doing and when i told him nothing he said, “we’ll have to keep you busy” - i’ve been working ever since

jay z goes to miami to meet timbaland and hears the track for “dirt off your shoulder” for the first time

directed by mike warren and patrick paulson
scene edited by jim helton
additional editors on the movie - ron pantane, jonah moran, and zuk

from battlegrounds year 2 “king of the world”
one on one basketball players from the u.s., france, italy, spain, and germany compete in the nike battlegrounds king of the world tournament
american erron maxey prepares for his game against amara sy of france in paris

directed by derek cianfrance
co-produced by mike warren
scene edited by jim helton
graphics by davi russo
videography by derek cianfrance, paul bozymowski, and bill winters
music by dare diablo
another great collaboration with a great group of people at @radical.media
see other battlegrounds for more details but a few names - justin wilkes, bill davenport, ron patane, zuk, josh pearson

all analog, made on film with an optical printer, some lighting effects, and some hand processing on one of them
a collaboration with my friend steve hidinger back pre-1999
again not happy with compression, i’m working on it….
but if you can’t wait here it is

another one i did for annie
she didn’t like this one either
this was part of a project headed by kristi zea
derek shot it and i added some of my own footage in the layering

unreleased work i did for annie lennox
unfortunately i don’t think she liked it
this was part of a project headed by kristi zea
derek shot it and i added some of my own footage in the layering

in the back of a car waiting for a light in new delhi
young kim gives a bit of commentary

sante working the grill memorial day weekend 2007

1) the point - learn footage, break the whole into pieces, make things shorter, search for character and rhythm
2) types of scenes
–VERITE/SITUATIONAL (a free flowing, improvising scene in which actors are put into a situation and asked to respond to it) - edit with care on first pass, leave lots and lots, cut out camera glitches or make cuts on action, compress things into phrases and character moments, compress time or show passage of time
these scenes are character building
–SCRIPTED - keep whole takes, compare them, look to let it feel like one camera, one performance
–INTERVIEWS - the first pass is only about cutting out questions and looking for silent in-between moments; always look for the physical character, vocal rhythm
–BROLL - cut long shots down to short shots (snap shots), find smooth moments, rough moments, highlight camera moves (zooms, pans, tilts, dolly, whip pans, etc.), make it short because you can always stretch out again, rhythm rhythm rhythm search for rhythm

** there are more variations but these are some basic categories to consider