Here are my highlight reels for the 20th Anniversary Iowa Women's Music Festival. Being part of the Festival was such an amazing experience. It was a huge privilege to have the opportunity to meet women changing the world with their music. The positive vibe that was generated between the performers and audience was powerful, and I will hold that feeling with me as I move forward with new work and new projects.

The video below features a clip from each of the Festival performers:  Jillian Noah, Summer Osborne, the Iowa Power Women (Natalie Brown, Lojo Russo, Gayla Drake, Kimberli Maloy, Laurie Haag, and Kim-Char Meredith), Claudia Schmidt, God Des and She, Andrea Gibson, and the Annie Mack Band. 

The 2013 IWMF fundraiser featured Summer Osborne, Zoe Lewis and comedian Julie Goldman.  Julie Goldman had me in stitches for the entire hour plus of her jokes. I especially loved her description of the Los Angeles "affect" and of the camping-workshop-wedding she attended in the Bay Area. 

The heavy rain that started and stopped with the Iowa Women's Music Festival on Saturday dampened wool socks worn with Tevas, but not spirits as talented artists from all over the country rocked the Johnson County Fairgrounds. The performances were empowering, fun, and inspiring. It came as no surprise that as the cool blues of the last set by Annie Mack Band faded from the barn, a full double rainbow flickered into being. 

For me, one of the highlights of the festival was riding the roller coaster of Andrea Gibson's spoken word performance. Her poetry is at once deeply personal and universal, emotional and visual, striking and soothing. I found myself alternately weeping and laughing, sometimes laughing while weeping. She broke us to pieces with poems like "Ashes" and put us back together again with "A Letter to My Dog on the Human Condition."

The highlight of my week was learning that a video clip I put together was posted on a site Andrea and her tour manager, Kelsey Gibb, created called Stay Here With Me.   The website aims to generate community around how art can play a critical role in helping to live with depression. In the clip below, Andrea and Kelsey talk about why they created the site and Andrea performs "The Madness Vase." 

Stay tuned for a highlights reel of the festival! 

On August 28, the United Way of Johnson and Washington Counties kicked off its Campaign for the Common Good. It was a great presentation and so much fun to see the CGV logo on the sponsor slide.

Earlier this month, I posted about the process of shooting this video, and now it is live! One of the highlights of this project was that for the first time ever, I worked with a musician who composed for the piece. Dan Brown is incredibly talented and his music contributed so much to the overall feel. The transition from gritty electric guitar to hope-inspiring ukelele perfectly matched the content. 

I would like to thank all the people I encountered on the Ped Mall who through their willingness to help a stranger, made this video possible.

Client: United Way of Johnson County
Location: Iowa City Pedestrian Mall
Gear: Canon 60D HDSLR, Canon XH-A1s

I am producing a video for the United Way of Johnson and Washington Counties' 2013 Campaign for the Common Good Kickoff Breakfast. The video aims to encourage giving by revealing locally-sampled statistics about issues such as poverty, domestic violence, and educational inequality. The piece underlines the slogan "Think We Before Me," promotes the notion that these issues directly or indirectly affect everyone within a community, and states that the responsibility to rise to these challenges is shared by all.  

Shooting the piece required me to roam downtown Iowa City seeking willing participants. At Mount Holyoke College, I was very comfortable with this guerrilla-style approach to casting because I knew the community was open and willing. Would Iowa City residents be open to participating in a video based on a stranger's solicitation? So far, I have found the answer is largely, "Yes." Whether or not it was the United Way t-shirt I was wearing, I was overjoyed by the level of interest in the project by people of many ages and backgrounds. 

For the opening of the piece, I needed to capture establishing shots for Johnson and Washington Counties. I loved this adventure and introduction to my immediate surroundings. In Kalona, which is notable for its large population of Amish people and Mennonites, I bought cheese curds at The Cheese House, passed men driving horse-drawn buggies, and shopped in a store lit exclusively with sunlight where I felt a little embarrassed for not being dressed more conservatively. From Kalona, I went to Riverside, which was quite a change in tune. There was a model of the starship USS Enterprise on the side of the road and a sign that indicated Riverside was the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. Kirk is scheduled to be born March 22, 2228, so I won't be around to meet him, but I might consider checking out TrekFest next June. A visit to Coralville and North Liberty completed my establishing shot adventure. 

I am currently in post-production for this video, and will post it as soon as it is public.