Schwabel Shoots Motion
In mid-2010, I was chatting with my neighbor, painter MB Boissonnault about my desire to turn my close-up “faces” portraits into video, but that I didn’t know anything about video and had no clue how to go about getting the look (within my budget — friends had all been telling me I needed to use a RED camera).
MB was interested in the project, and in being the interviewer… So we contacted mutual friend Rob Hache, camera man and all around digital video guru. We did 2 tests on his Canon gear. Being a Nikon man, I was skeptical. The quality was, of course, amazing, but the software control was lacking. Later I upgraded to a Nikon D7000, and we were able to get closer to the look I was after.
We filmed 19 subjects. John was #2 and our first attempt at shooting in color. He was a friend of MBs from the neighborhood (we are based in Venice, CA — come say hi someday), and he passed away earlier this year. A brilliant — if not troubled — man, John speaks about his life and his views on the current state of the world. I’ve done my best to keep his words and thoughts preserved in this edit.
