Quarter Orange's 2nd Annual Halloween Kickoff Extravaganza!

Once again Quarter Orange will kick the pants off Halloween weekend with a raucous night of unfettered awesomeness and horror at the Holocene. Badassery to include: A screening of local horror short Evidence of the Sasquatch, which documents the grizzly demise of four filmmakers on a location scout in the Mt. Hood National Forest. Brief Q&A with the filmmakers following the screening. Jams from local electric party monster, Kind Brother and rock providers, Father Figure.

Quarter Orange is a boutique production studio specializing in visual storytelling, fresh ideas and cheery dispositions. We are four directors, plus a network of artists, filmmakers and friends kicking ass and taking names in the great soggy Northwest.

Join us for an amazing night of local film, music and Halloween pageantry. Costumes not required, but come on, its fucking effing Halloween. This event is free to the public, so bring your friends, kin, or elderly neighbor who you haven’t really talked to, seems like they could use a night of partying their face off. See you there!

Quarter Orange
Evidence of the Sasquatch
Father Figure
Kind Brother
Facebook Event

How we spent our Summer Work-Cation

Remember when you used to get a summer vacation? Alot of people still do, teachers, professors, New Yorkers. Us, not so much. That doesn't mean we didn't have fun. With the onset of fall fast approaching I figured I'd write down my Summer experiences for posterity, you know, for the kids.

It depends on where you start Summer, in my native Oklahoma (Eli here in case you couldn't guess) we kick off summer Memorial Day Weekend, because it's probably already warm out, in my adopted Oregon, Summer starts June 21st, or July 4th.....or August 8th. I was kidding about August, but it sure did take forever for Summer to get here, right? The whole country was engulfed in a heat wave in June and we were all still running around with a jackets and hoodies! Weak. Sauce.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah.

Memorial day! We all went down to California, 3 of us to the Redwoods, and Jason went back to the bay to see his folks with his new fiance!

Then we got back go to work!

We shot the "Game On 2.0" spots in June, We were able to "idea shower" these ideas, pitched them to OMSI and made some really great spots. Here are some links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFCFsMtCl7Q&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7FpZ8ujIbg&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8tGnbDZWTc&feature=relmfu

We also began working on a new Marketing package to go out to local and regional advertising agencies, and we are almost done! We are also putting together a new website that should go live at the end of this month, so...YAAAaaay!

Then we shot the Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling promo videos. Lewis and Clark is a great school to work for, and Hanna Nueschwander, our contact at Lewis and Clark was an amazing person to work with. Here are some links:

http://vimeo.com/28272076

http://vimeo.com/28269492

http://vimeo.com/28269219

We continued to work on the marketing package and our new website, Eli and Selena went to St. Louis and Chicago, KG worked on a bunch of different features and Jason kept killing it with his motion graphics freelance work. Over the course of the Summer, we bought gear, sound equipment, lights (we have a light kit!) new tripod, a Pro Tools setup. Things we own now, and can charge for, instead of renting from an equipment house. Yaaay!

Selena has been getting together everything for a music video she is directing with Josh and Mer, an awesome local band, she is creating puppets and a whole crazy world for them to live in. This video is going to be really cool and we expect to put it up before the end of the year.

Finally, just last week we shot a commercial for "Fright Town" the haunted house at the Memorial Coliseum here in town. We have been working like crazy to get it finished as it is due in less than a week! Plus we did a photo shoot as the final thing necessary for our new website and marketing package with Martin Melnick. The picture above is from that shoot.

We are shooting some videos this Friday for OMSI, which is the official first day of Fall. And we've got a full plate for this season already! A Sasquatch screening (more on that later), finishing these OMSI videos, Stand For Children (like we did last year), and a possible second commercial for Fright Town. Then it's Thanksgiving!

Personally, I'm looking forward to jacket weather, dark beer, corn mazes, and scary movies. LET THE AUTUMN BEGIN!

On to the next ones!

And just like that, we are on to the next one (follow the link for Eli's favorite music video right now). I realized in my latest post I didn't even mention the gala videos!

We did these videos for OMSI back in January of 2011 as part of OMSI's annual fundraising gala. It was amazing. It was Egyptian themed with belly dancers, trapeze artists and a real live camel out in front (watch out, they spit). The event brought out Portland's finest businessmen and women. The food and drinks were amazing and the fundraising portion had the entire crowd split into three groups between the planetarium, the theater, and another area for viewing. Matt Zafino, (KATU's weatherman) was the M.C. These videos played first, and were extremely well received. OMSI was able to raise an incredible amount of money (especially in a recession), and everyone went home happy. Enjoy!

OMSI 2011 Gala Video 1 featuring Nancy Steuber from eli shell on Vimeo.

OMSI 2011 Gala Video 2, featuring Dr. Billy Martin from eli shell on Vimeo.

Eli Shell directed both of these with graphics by Jason Windsor, Assistant Directed and cut by Kyle Glenn, shot by Jason Windsor and Anthony Gainer. Music by Andy Combs.

These videos were alot of fun to make and they were well received by all (including Matt Zafino, swoon!). Nancy Steuber is such a pleasure to work with, and Dr. Billy Martin, might be one of the most fun interviewees ever.

So there you go. Oh you want some more? Great. Because we've got more videos! Check back soon for our latest series of commercials!

Back, Baby!!!

Hello!!!

We are back! It's been a long, long while, but we are back!

First order of business: Our newest member! Selena Persiani-Shell, long time collaborator, and esteemed director, is now an official partner. We annointed her in a secret pact involving blood oranges as per our by-laws. It was awesome.

Next! We've made a few things since we last posted on the blog. KG directed a super sweet music video:

Ron Rogers approached us to make him a music video for his fantastic Texas Roadhouse style single "Alabama Chrome". We worked closely with Ron on the aesthetic and story, and KG did a masterful job directing. Watch for cameos from our newest partner!

We also made couple videos for OMSI's original exhibit "Design Zone". Here is the short sales video:

Jason did all the graphics work for this, once again showing his ability to go above and beyond, as per usual.

And here is the longer video:

Eli Shell directed both of these. Produced by and VFX created by Jason Windsor. Production Coordinated by Selena Persiani-Shell, Assistant Directed and cut by Kyle Glenn. Photography by Joe Paulet, music by Andy Combs.

OMSI has been really great to us and allowing us creative freedom in many ways has helped us to achieve our goals of high quality work at a significant savings to the client. It has been a pleasure working with such a wonderful organization.

Plus we've got more! I think I'll save the next batch of videos for the next post. Thanks for tuning in after all these months. More blogs coming soon!!!

Exercises in Reference

Film making, by nature, is one of piecing things together. For me this has always been influences in story, visuals and many other elements. I constantly find myself referencing other films, books, videos, etc. For the Ron Roger's video we shot last weekend I wanted to try something new. When explaining my thoughts and visuals to people I would still reference things, but unlike before, this time I wouldn't immediately find a computer to pull up a video or picture. I wanted to see if I could get at the heart of what I really liked about my reference material, what I wanted to take from it and utilize, therefor making it my own. If the person I was talking to had seen the same reference, all the better, it got us a little closer to the idea of what we enjoyed about it and how we could utilize the strengths that stuck with us, while taking it to the next level.

I felt this was a successful exercise for myself, it forced me to explore the things I enjoy watching and would love to weave into my work, and really find what it is I liked about it. Next time you're working on something and want to reference a video on youtube, take a second, and really try to explain what it is you want to pull from that. Let me know how it goes.

100th Post!

100 posts in three years. We kinda suck at this.

Oh well, I wanted to share our newest music video with you all and give you a little background.



Directed by Kyle Glenn
Shot by Tyler Carey
Edited by Steve Crocker

I had been wanting to do a video with And And And for a while, they were friends of Steve's and their energy on stage was crazy. I had a few ideas floating around through my head when Tyler came to me and told me he had been talking to them about doing a music video for a class. I immediately jumped on the boat. We didn't have the time or budget to do any of my other ideas, but that was fine.

The song we originally talked about shooting, "You Can't Hide," had a harmonica part that just yelled sun drenched day at the river to me. Though the content was a little darker I really liked the idea of the conflicting imagery of the video and the song.

One day in September we loaded up in a few cars and headed down to my favorite river spot, about 20 miles this side of Tillamook. We stopped on the way for sammies and beer. When we got to the river the band decided to change the song, they hadn't really had a chance to thoroughly discuss what song they wanted to do. After a few minutes of talking they settled on "Is It Any Wonder?" A very different song, but once again I bit at the idea of the contrasting images of the song and video, this time though even the melody was dark and anguished.

The shoot of the day was pretty simple. I piled all our gear in a raft and took trips back and forth from the rock to the shore. We shot the performance first, getting the technical stuff out of the way. First we shot from the shore, capturing the rock in the middle of the water, getting some nice flares. Then Tyler jumped in the raft and I swam/walked him around in our makeshift dolly. Getting some pretty cool, fluid shots.

The remainder of the day was spent hanging out with the band just capturing life style stuff

It is a goal of mine to push myself conceptually for music videos. Starting with themes and constructing complex imagery. That however, was not my goal for this video. THis music video would be the bands first, and with first videos I think it is important to really get a sense of the band. The audience of the video will be current fans, but there will be many new ones, so I try to give them a slice of what they can expect from the band at a show.

With the shooting finished Tyler took the footage and cut a video for his class. I gave a copy of that video and the footage to Steve Crocker, who had previously edited the Local Superheroes video I directed with Eli. I have grown to trust Steve quite a bit when it comes to editing. He can take edits to a place that I can not. He is willing to tweak and cut up frames, reverse them over and over. I can definitely say this video would not be the same without his touch on it. Because he's so good, it took awhile for us to connect on the video and get a finished product. Luckily Steve is friends with the band, so he would show them pieces every now and again to keep them satisfied.

I want to say much thanks to Tyler for giving me the opportunity to work with these guys, and for his fantastic photography. To the band for being a great group of guys to hang out and work with. And to Steve for kicking this video's ass to the ground, cutting it into pieces and stitching it back into a super monster.

You know who we love?

Andy. Freakin'. Combs.

There are a lot of you that might not know about our close QO collaborator, Andy Combs. The building blocks for what would become Quarter Orange were actually forged on our first Andy Combs music video. Directed by the lovely Selena Persiani-Shell,
Shot by Kale Heily, Produced by me (Eli). Here is Bloodship:




And that was just the begginning. I also directed a music video for Andy and used his music in many of my shorts throughout college. My favorite being Dos Hermanos Tacos.




All the music featured in Dos Hermanos was Andy's, and it is still some of my favorite music of all time! (A bit hyperbolic, but whatevs, I really dig his stuff!)

Lately we've been working with Andy on our doc-style client projects, from Stand for Children and now OMSI (we'll put the link up after we finish the projects).

Andy is great to work with. He always comes through and his stuff is unique in it's sweetness, while staying deeply rooted in the weird land that Andy inhabits. A place with giant robots and 50's style doo-wop, lasers, zombies and shacks full of coffee. I've used his talent more times than I can count at this point. He is fantastic, but my favorite usage of his music in film thus far, has to be...

this.


Andy is the best. He always comes through, and I am a huge fan. AHe can be a bit hard to find, like the proverbial "diamond in the rough" (first Alladin reference of 2011! Woot!) but you can download new music and hopefully talk with him on Facebook. Andy plays around town with his band "The Moth". Look for Andy Combs and The Moth at a venue near you.

Listen to Andy Combs, go watch Andy Combs, Love Andy Combs!

Changes at QO

As us in the great soggy northwest know all too well, In all of our lives a little rain must fall. And so it goes with companies. Here at QO, with great sadness we want to inform you all that we have lost a member of our team. Walker Williamson will no longer will be working with us as active partner. Walker was an extremely valued asset in our creative arsenal at Quarter Orange, sadly, he has chosen to take a separate path. Though we are sad to see him go, we know he will go on to do great things in the industry and we wish him the best of luck.

That being said, we continue moving forward with the new year. We are deep into submitting Sasquatch to horror festivals around the country. With a new year comes changes that can be scary, intimidating and difficult, but also these changes can lead to new opportunities, new successes. We feel that Evidence of the Sasquatch is a strong film that is both entertaining and scary that will do well on the festival circuit.

We are currently working with The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry to produce a series of videos for both fundraising and marketing purposes. The experience thus far has been wonderful and fulfilling as we all believe in OMSI’s mission of educating the public from kids to old folks. This institution is a much needed part of life in Portland.

Jason just finished a project that he has been working on for years on the side from our many other projects. It is an amazing animation that we’re sure you are going to love! We will be premiering this short animation as soon as we develop a plan for it’s release.

We are also in talks with local musician, Ron Rogers, to produce a music video in the near future. We are very excited about the direction it is going both story wise and aesthetically. We'll let you know more as this moves into pre-production.



If you’ve been following us on our blog and facebook you will have seen our “1st Quarter Orange Cell Phone Photo Competition”. Everyday for a week Quarter Orange friends Sean O’Grady and Alex Ladzinksy posted a cell phone pic that people voted on by “liking” on Quarter Orange’s facebook page. This has been a fun week and you can see all the photos on our facebook page.

We are also working on three different feature length scripts that we hope to have finished later this year. Each one is extremely different from the others and shows the spectrum of talents located in our circle. 2011 is going to be a big year for us and we look forward to every minute of it.