Rubber Stamps, Work, and Books

Short and sweet this week. It's another busy one and I'm on the road in the Tulsa area for a bit with some wild call times. Thankfully I got a later call this morning and was able to sneak over to a coffeeshop in Broken Arrow, OK. Big fan of the dude behind West of Death and the work they've done for Rattlesnake Cafe and Lioness Coffee Roasters, plus their sister shop Chimera in Tulsa.

More to come later, but I'm like 20 mins from being strapped into an EasyRig and full-kitted out Sony FX9 for the next 12 hours. Trying to get some reading in beforehand. I'd finished Ernest Cline's Ready Player One last week (and was beyond disappointed by Steven Spielberg's dumpster fire film adaptation). I'm now into David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years and dang that dude has come out swinging.

Washington, D.C. with the Cherokee Nation

So about last week...

I'd gotten a last minute call from the Cherokee Nation about a shoot they were doing in Washington, D.C. A Cherokee citizen, Dwight Birdwell, was being awarded the Medal of Honor for acts of heroism during the Vietnam war. He was one of four Vietnam veterans being honored at several events throughout the week and the Cherokee Nation was out to make a feature for their Osyio, Voices of the Cherokee People series.

We filmed quite a bit with Dwight Birdwell as well as a few of his Army buddies who were actually there that day in January 1968 when Birdwell helped drive back as many as 1,000 enemy troops during an assault on a Saigon base. Spending time with those veterans, hearing their stories, and seeing them find the names of their fallen friends on the Vietnam Memorial wall was incredible. As difficult, frustrating, and exhausting as this job can be at times, experiences like this past week in our nation's capitol help make it worthwhile.

Beyond getting to meet and hear the incredible stories of these actual heroes, the highlight for me was getting to visit the White House. This was the first time I'd gotten past the heavy metal gates and actually into the building. The Cherokee Nation producer/director was cleared as a guest for the event, but the sound recordist and I weren't supposed to have gotten in at all. We somehow got cleared for entry and were corralled in with the rest of the media in the White House Briefing Room and then escorted to the East Room for the event. As the Secret Service walked us through those historic hallways and into the largest room in the White House, I tried to absorb whatever I could while also pretending like I was supposed to be there. By all means the White House is one of the classiest places I've ever been and I was furiously trying to remember the building layout by way of all the time I'd spent watching The West Wing.

The East Room was packed with invited guests and the press was kept at the back of the room behind a rope line. Thank goodness my Oconor tripod legs extend as high as they do, otherwise I'd have been blocked out by all the other media who've been there before and thought to bring their own step ladders. I was able to wedge myself in-between a still photog from the New York Times and another agency I'd never heard of. Good Lord too you'd better believe I made sure that little red record light was on when it needed to be and that my image was as sharp as I could make it. None of this "double-clutch" nonsense that keeps people on my side of the camera awake at night.

Washington, D.C. is a wild place to be during the July 4th holiday. It was crawling with people and security was even tighter than normal. We had a good deal of downtime and I was able to go hunt down the rubber stamps I could find, wander around with my still cameras, and live that luxurious life of eating take out on top of washing machines at laundromats. Georgetown University is something else and I found out why random tourists were laying down to take awkward photos on a crazy steep staircase. I also stopped by Bridge Street Books to pick up a copy of Ready Player One and a book about debt over the last 5,000 years which I'm sure Saint Anne the Wife can't wait to hear me talk about.

I've done the whole National Mall thing before, but never made it to the other side of the U.S. Capitol and out to the Supreme Court building. Considering all the news lately I made it a point to visit the place where a lot of the sausage gets made by nine fancy lawyers who aren't voted into political office. The day I was there with just my stills cameras was pretty tame. There were a few pro-choice activists with signs just outside the newly installed barricades. The next day was July 4th and I was back out at the Supreme Court building with our sound recordist to film "Washington, D.C. b-roll" for the Cherokee Nation. We unintentionally wound up in the middle of a spat between a large group of abortion rights activists and a handful of pro-lifers looking for a fight.

A white, brown-haired, college-aged girl in a blue dress walked right up to the edge of the abortion rights activists and held up her "We Won't Stop at Roe" sign. In the time it took for the dude she was with to take a few photos, she quickly got mobbed by the other side, creating even more fodder for r/LeopardsAteMyFace. I didn't see any punches, but it got rowdy and I remember seeing her sign getting skewered by the tip of a small American flag just before someone ripped it in two.

Pretty quickly the nearby U.S. Capitol Police got involved and stood between the two groups who were still yelling at each other. Within minutes those Capitol Police grew by about a dozen more, and then another 2-3 dozen officers. It wasn't like they were siding with either of the groups, but it was obvious they weren't playing around.

Afterward I dug through Instagram and found the girl in the blue dress along with several other posts from the event. Her recollections aren't what I saw and she for sure leaned into being the victim online. It's not worth giving her more attention, but I'm sure you know how the internet works and can find her yourself and the conservative merch she's selling on her website. I'm always down for protests, but simply looking for a fight is something else altogether. No clue if the footage I shot of the spat will actually see the light of day considering I was there for something else entirely.

Travel Week

It's a travel week and I'll be on road through this July 4th holiday. St. Anne the Wife is maintaining her role as family superhero while I'm hustling through airports and hoping my footage is exposed and framed well and somewhat in focus.

It's Saturday as I'm writing this and I'm on a three hour layover in Houston before my next flight. Both the airport shuttle driver and the ticket counter agent asked if I was getting paid extra to work over the holiday weekend. I'm assuming it was the stack equipment cases I'm traveling with that suggested I wasn't out for a summer vacation like the rest of the world. Two plus years is a long time to be putting off leisure travel and a lot's changed since I started flying again during the pandemic. Those nearly empty airports and flights back in August 2020 are long gone and it's certainly back to fighting for empty seats and armrests.

I'm flying from a different city on another airline and meeting my producer/director & field audio at our destination. Luckily my 7am flight out of OKC had no issues, but they're delayed and hoping to make their connecting flight. If you've been paying attention, they're not the only ones dealing with yet another Covid related dumpster fire.

Delays and cancellations have plagued air travel, and the Fourth of July weekend may be the biggest test yet for the airline industry, which has faced scrutiny from customers, regulators and investors. - Lauren Hirsch, nytimes.com

Still, as a freelancer who's certainly gone months without work – especially this year – I'm a happy clam to jump on an early flight to a paid gig.

In the meantime, the July-August edition of EdibleOKC just came out and includes a two page spread about my rubber stamp collection. I'd connected with EdibleOKC Editor and Co-Publisher Stuart Husdson via Sam DuRegger (Woodshed Tea & TMRW Coffee). The fine folks at EdibleOKC heard about my stamp hunting and are doing a series on food related collecting. Stuart and I connected for a couple different interviews for the print piece and they sent out a fantastic freelance photographer based in OKC named Charlie Neuenschwander. I'm an awkward person to begin with plus not used to being on the business end of a camera. Crazy thanks to both of them for putting up with me, let alone being interested in my project. I've yet to see an online version of the article, but I'll make sure and include a link if and when it's available. While I'm writing this too, make sure and check out the other work Charlie's website.

"The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water"

Woof. So last Friday and women's rights in the U.S. huh? Growing up I'd never planned on becoming an active protester, but here we are. I'd also never imagined I'd be on this side of the fence considering my evangelical Christian upbringing, but again, here we are. Quoting one of the protest signs I saw yesterday at the Oklahoma state capitol building, "The Patriarchy Smells like Hot Dog Water."

Phones across the country melted just a bit more than normal as social media caught on fire following Friday's news of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. There's plenty of extremely qualified and insightful writing out there on what's happening, so I'll let them handle the facts. The best I can do is let you in on what brings this nonsense home to me.

Before this weekend, I'd assumed I knew women in my life that've had first hand experience with abortion, but more than I expected came forward with their own stories. Friends of mine posted about their abortions and how they chose to end their pregnancies due to medical as well as personal reasons that certainly aren't any of my business.

My Christian faith is still important to me, but I know that our country is filled with people and faiths different than mine. As people of faith, why should we expect others to respect our beliefs when we don't respect theirs? I'd found it incredibly helpful seeing a social media post from U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about "beliefs are not facts."

"...beliefs are not facts. The belief that abortion is murder is a subjective one. Banning abortion violates the religious views of many. Judaism, Islam, and many other faiths and philosophies have widely ranging, different takes on the matter. Judaism, for example, not only condones abortion but insists upon it in for cases where a mother's life is at risk... So banning abortion raises real first amendment violation questions."

What's happening in right now is wrong. I'm struggling to express how I feel, but I'm upset. I'm frustrated. I'm angry and I'm sad.

“What’s happened is not about religion, or morality or unborn babies. It’s about politics.” - Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood (How Did Roe Fall?, New York Times)

There's been protests across the country since Friday. Oklahoma is frighteningly conservative, but there was a solid showing of protesters on the north lawn of the state capitol Sunday afternoon. I'd come to not expect much from Oklahoma City protests, but yesterday made me proud. I've not seen official numbers, but I'd heard someone estimate nearly 1,000 people showed up.

Anne and I took the boys to the event because we think it's important they see their parents as active and visible participants in standing up for what they believe. I remember going out with my mom when I was young during the Oklahoma teacher strikes back in 1990. Tiny Tanner was more stoked about being out of school for a few days and had no idea what those frustrated teachers where actually doing, but I remember it. Protesting doesn't seem practical, but the further into it I've gotten over the years the more I believe in it and see the strength of its long game. Knowing I'm not the only one frustrated with what's going on brings me hope. Showing up and being visible is important.

Developing Black & White Goodness

Freakin' black and white film photography has been good for soul lately. Not caring about the color temperature around me matching the film in my camera has been a nice change, plus I'm also diggin' the fact that a roll of Ilford HP5+ is nearly half what I was spending on Portra 400.

My first legit experiences behind a camera go back to high school me. Back then I spent most of my time in the band room and/or trying to keep up with my honors classes, but then there's that one photography class I took that ended up being the most related to what I do for a living. Not sure where I got the camera, but we shot our assignments on 35mm black and white (B&W) film that we later developed and printed in the school's darkroom.

The fact I really don't know if the images I'm trying to make will actually turn out or not is pretty great. My 1970's era Mamiya RB67 Pro-S smells like an old car and doesn't have a light meter. Sometimes I'll do test shots with my DSLR to dial in shutter and iris settings. Sometimes I'll lean into my handheld Sekonic light meter to do the thing, but then again shooting film is all for naught if you screw up the developing part. I've got a growing binder of color and B&W negatives I've shot since getting my film camera and can honestly say there's only a handful of images in there I'm proud of. In our world of instant gratification, forced patience is a good thing.

Back in May I was in New York to film an abortion rights protest and came home with five rolls of Ilford HP5+, some powdered Kodak D76 developer and fixer, plus a small bottle of concentrated Kodak liquid stop bath. I'd had a good experience with powdered C41 chemistry before and knew the powdered form would have a longer shelf life. Plus I didn't want to chance big bottles of liquid spilling out and destroying the other gear and actual livelihood packed away in my checked gear cases while in transit.

For my C41 film processing, I already had a Paterson developing tank, dark bag, and some other misc. bits. I keep my color chemicals in one liter dark amber glass bottles, but opted instead to get those accordion style plastic bottles for my B&W goodies. So far I'm more impressed with those plastic bottles seeing as how they're less likely shatter and they can squish down to keep out excess air (and oxidation) to help extend the chemistry's shelf life.

Most of the internet told me not to try and break up the dry chemistry batches into smaller quantities, but they're not the boss of me. A couple other rebels let me in on their secrets and I too broke up my gallon batches of D76 developer and fixer. Make sure you're prepping your chemistry in a well ventilated area so you're not losing a lung like this hero. Be smart too and wear rubber gloves, a mask, and avoid doing this nonsense in the same place where you prep food.

There's tons of B&W developing tutorials online. For some reason they all seem to not get along or agree like those nice hipster kids doing their thing with C41 color developing. I kinda mixed and matched what I could find considering the film stock and the chemistry combination I'm using.

DEVELOPING B&W FILM

ALL CHEMISTRY NEEDS TO BE AT SIMILAR TEMPS

PRE-SOAK
Agitate for :60
Dump out
Rinse
Dump out

DEVELOP (stock)
Agitate first :30
Invert 4x every :30 & tap out bubbles
Developer back to storage container for reuse

STOP BATH
Agitate for :60
Stop bath back to storage container for reuse

FIXER
Agitate first :30
Agitate & invert every :30 for 5 mins & tap out bubbles
Fixer back to storage container for reuse

RINSE
Rinse film for 5 mins with room temp water

DEVELOP TIMES (STOCK)

Ilford HP5+ & Kodak D76

ISO TIME TEMP
400 5:05 75° F
800 7:07 75° F
1600 9:29 75° F
 

The one thing most agreed on was using The Massive Dev Chart website to work out and match up developing times and temperatures. According to the website, you're supposed to process Ilford HP5+ at 68°F with your Kodak D76. But it's summertime here and during these months our house never gets below mid-70°s. Again, thank goodness for Massive Dev Chart because it's got a conversion option to help do what you need done. I'm using my developer at stock vs. diluting it – at least at this point. I'd shot a couple of my rolls at the box speed 400 ISO, then the others pushed to 1600 ISO. Again, Massive Dev Chart came in clutch with the help in developing.

Another thing I found out in doing my B&W goodness is that my scanner is jacked. I've got an Epson V600 that I've been using for a bit, but turns out I've also got the magenta line curse like a ton of other people on the internet. For the longest time I thought my film back was scratching my negatives. But no. It's thanks to supposedly dirty sensors that this dude on YouTube was able to fix. I did the thing and cleaned the sensors on my V600, but it didn't help like it did the other film bros lurking in the video's comment section. Looks like I'll have to reach out to Epson and work out warranty stuff.

deadCenter 2022

While I should be finishing out an expense report from a fancy corporate shoot early last week in Vegas, I'm instead letting you in on what I fanboy'd over this weekend with the 2022 deadCenter Film Festival here in Oklahoma City.

Since 2006-ish I've either volunteered, worked, and/or had different short films in deadCenter. I skipped the 2019 event seeing as how we were out in New York. Then – along with everything else – Covid forced the film festival to be fully virtual the last couple years. No parties, no in-person screenings, no forced conversations while waiting in line with strangers. We got that nonsense back this year and I spent the last few days soaking it in.

Considering how I'm nearly drowning in trying to get my rubber stamp doc made, I tried to focus on seeing as many documentary films at this year's festival as I could. First off was Skate Dreams, a documentary about the rise of women's professional skateboarding. Then there's Octopus, a unique doc about the aftermath of the August 2020 Port of Beirut explosion. Finally I caught a documentary that legitimately made me cry called Refuge. It's about a former white nationalist connecting with a Muslim cardiologist and a community of refugees in a small town in Georgia.

I only caught one narrative feature at the festival this year and it blew me away. Chicken House is a low-budget comedy/horror about three struggling actors in Oklahoma City taking in an unusual new roommate. It could be that I've really been into Siouxsie and the Banshees and late 70's early 80's punk rock lately, but writer/director Cate Jones and her motley crew killed it with their film. There's no question I've been incredibly frustrated with being back in Oklahoma and the creative scene here. Films are being made and keeping the locals working, but for the most part it's the same copy and paste conservative Christian film of the white working girl finding her true beau with the help of her one black friend. Chicken House not only directly called that propaganda out, but this much needed underbelly art film absolutely shivved those direct to Hallmark Channel films. I had zero shame in seeking Cate out on Instagram afterwards and gushing in her DMs.

The parties and in-person events are the highlights to deadCenter. My hack to navigating networking events as an introvert is to grab a drink and keep one hand free to shake hands. I give myself a quota to meet and talk with 3-5 strangers before being cool with ducking out from the event and recharging. Pretty sure that's how I met NYC-based producer Elizabeth Potter back in late 2018 at an event in Brooklyn. She was in town for deadCenter with a film she EP'd plus she was speaking on a documentary panel. We hung out Friday night at one of the events and got to catch up and talk shop.

Along with the films, I also hit up a couple of the panel discussions. The Indie Film 101: Breakthroughs on a Budget session had a few helpful insights, but it also highlighted and promoted some incredibly unhealthy financial advice. Having personally been in the game long enough to know better, there's no legitimate reason to literally use the down payment on a home to get your art piece done. Also, low-balling a teenager who "knows how to do VFX" isn't financially savvy, it's selfish on the producer's part and setting up young creatives to not properly value their work. I've absolutely called in favors at times from friends I've hired out on commercial jobs. I've also worked out long-term licensing splits with talent and crew on stock footage projects, but damn I'm not going to be the one who pays in "exposure." The most helpful thing I got out of that panel was fleshing out the idea of selling shares of your film like you would shares of your business. That same panelist who used the down payment on a house for their film also talked about how they sold 50% of their project to investors and how those backers would be re-paid 110% of their initial investment if/when their film was sold.

Now it's Monday morning and I'm back to my own nonsense. I'm still staring down that figurative herd of elephants I've committed to eat with my own film project, but now I've got a bit more of an appetite after a weekend of independent films and filmmakers who've already had their fill.

Above the Lumpy Blue Water

This post was supposed to be about the May 14th Bans Off Our Bodies rally in New York City and the people I met in making this short edit. I meant to talk about how I approached the people I spoke with at the rally and instead of asking "Why are you here?", I asked about their signs and banners.

Instead we're collectively dealing with yet another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school.

I'm not even sure how to properly and respectfully mention what happened this past week in Uvalde, TX. We spent time with good friends a few days ago and talked about how this one felt different considering those kids were nearly the same age as ours. Even before this past week Saint Anne the Wife has talked about how every time she's in a new classroom setting one of the first things she does is instinctively look for the exits and figure out what she'd need to do to protect her students.

How are we supposed to keep up with the fire hose of bad we're living through? It's like the last few years has dunked our heads in one turd filled bucket after another in an endless row of sun baked porta potties. This far in we've learned to appreciate the time we have above the syrupy blue water knowing the next suffocating dunk will come soon enough.

We're living through history and at times it takes nearly all I have to just not collapse into a numb and helpless puddle. I'm not kidding about learning to appreciate the time we get in between those lumpy blue dunks.

I sincerely didn't know how to feel about being a guy at a rally supporting women's health, but knew that I was there to do what I could to support it. There's a shot in the edit of a guy holding a "Men for Choice" sign that I'd put right up there with me getting super excited about the new Kendrick Lamar album and this latest season of Atlanta. I appreciate these women and the other strong ones I know like my wife and my mom. As educators they spent (are spending) their professional lives raising up the next generation of leaders while I'm here polishing spreadsheets, writing words no one will read, and trying to make "art." More and more is being required of teachers on even thiner resources, and conservative politicians would rather arm teachers instead of consider gun control.

While the governor of my home state recently signed into law the nation's strictest abortion ban, I'm thankful for Oklahoma officials like Reps. Cyndi Munson and Trish Ranson for fighting back against these short sighted political grabs (even Rep. Mickey Dollens and his tounge-in-cheek proposal of mandatory vasectomies). Wasn't sure at first how to feel about Beto O'Rourke's crashing of Gov. Greg Abbott's Uvalde press conference, but I'm totally fine with him standing up with actual solutions to their "thoughts and prayers."

"What are we doing?" - Senator Chris Murphy

Professional Juggler and Knot Tyer

It's the first Monday of summer break for St. Anne the Wife and our boys. Try as I might, that woman will always be the better of us. Along with the rest of the year, she runs the summer circus at our house and we both know the lions and tigers are getting stronger and smarter. Surely they'll figure out they need us at some point, but I'm not holding my breath.

Somehow I've gone from gathering dust and questioning my life choices to being incredibly busy and still questioning my life choices. This past week had me busting my tail as a grip & electric on a commercial shoot here in Oklahoma City followed by a wild and memorable day of doc work behind a "camera."

If nothing else, freelancing teaches you how to do the thing while simultaneously prepping for the next thing. In between my hauling sandbags, rags, and combo stands to the next setup this week in the G&E department, I was juggling emails, texts, and Basecamp pings for the other jobs I'm in, all in various states of progress. There's the audio bid I'm submitting to a new-ish client, followed by the tech questions I'm working through with the Tennessee rental house for the shoot in Vegas, and the edits that are sorta working on that other thing. "Dang, looks like I'll need the nine inch 15mm rails instead of the six" and "Will you be needing sound effects with that audio guide too?" and "Here's my Venmo info for the first half of tomorrow's day-rate and expenses." Oh, and I also learned how to tie a clove hitch knot and that a combo stand weighs and feels just about the same as a built out Alexa Amira on my right shoulder.

This week also had me finishing out a book I'd bought about New York City while in New York City last weekend. The Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead was a fun read with a crazy interesting writing style.

“You are a New Yorker when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now.” ― Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

I'm already onto the next book I'd picked up at Books are Magic in Brooklyn last weekend. The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner has already taken me through her experience racing down the Baja Peninsula on a Kawasaki Ninja. Stoked to get through the rest of her book.

35 More Hours in NYC

Back in New York this past weekend for something like 35 hours. It's turned into an incredibly busy time here at the Herriott house, so why not include a somewhat last minute trip? On top of that, Elliot and Saint Anne the Wife got Covid right before I left town while Housefire Two and I are still testing negative. Did I also mention it's the last week of their school year?

On Saturday, May 14th, there were abortion rights demonstrations happening across the country. According to BuzzFeed News, there were something like 10,000+ protesters out doing their thing in New York City and marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. Considering the historical significance of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion and what's at stake, I thought it was important enough to be there with a camera and see things first hand. I'll be cutting a video from the event, but this fight isn't going away anytime soon.

Here's the actual journal entry I wrote the morning following the leak:

We're still reeling this AM following last night's leaked Supreme Court document laying out the overturning of Roe v. Wade... Neither Anne nor I are the same people we were in our younger days. Had this decision come in our late teens, early 20's, we'd be having a different conversation. I'm absolutely in favor of letting women decide what they do with their bodies. This is ridiculous. Again, the black and white lives we led have no doubt turned incredibly gray and we're better people because of it.

In the meantime, just know flights and hotels have gotten INCREDIBLY expensive the last few months. I'd gotten spoiled with $300 roundtrip flights from Oklahoma City to New York during the scary parts of the pandemic. Flights for this quick trip ended up costing $700+. I'd also found a groove with a $150/night Hilton in Long Island City that could've listed as my second address considering how often I was there. I 'bout puked when I saw those same rooms now going for $300-600/night. There's no way I was up to spend that kind of money, so crazy thanks to a DP buddy of mine, Jeremy McDaniel, for letting me crash at his place a couple nights.

Going to Grad School

So I got into grad school. This coming fall I'll be starting my MBA at the University of Oklahoma and hopefully earning/developing my business school superpowers.

Having an MBA in my pocket won't get me hired as a cinematographer, but the reinforced business background is a long play. In my experience, learning to navigate the business side of creative work is just as important as constantly improving my artistic skills.

Not gonna lie though, taking on student loans again makes me want to puke.

Going back to school – business school specifically – is flat-out an investment in my business infrastructure. No question those small business loans and credit lines for gear purchases over the years helped improve my business revenue and opened up opportunities I'd have not had otherwise. The student loans I'll be taking on for an MBA will be comparable to what I borrowed for my first RED camera back in 2012. Again, not super excited about the new student loans, but it's reassuring to know I'll not need to replace that graduate business degree three years later.

I've already connected with my CPA about Tanner Herriott Inc. paying for my grad school costs; businesses send their employees back to school all the time. Turns out my employer (me) sending its employee (me again) back to school for a business degree doesn't exactly work out as a direct business expense. It's a tax write-off for me to go to a filmmaking conference or training due to my business setup, but tax-wise it's looking like business school for a filmmaker is off the table. Again though, it's all about the long game.

If by chance you're also a filmmaker applying to MBA programs and desperately searching around for personal statement examples, here's mine 'cause I'm cool like that.

I've already had clients ask if I'll be working while I'm doing business school, and yes, I'll still be doing the thing (and being married, a parent to two house fires, etc.). OU's Online MBA program is synchronous, meaning classes are taught via Zoom in the evenings during the week, so we'll figure that out when I have work conflicts. Not super worried though because the program is full of working adults, the classes are recorded, and we'll have access to them afterward if necessary.