Told Video is Born

Hi everyone: We have moved our video services, and most of our time nowadays, over to Told Video. Rebecca is still writing a lot of fiction, and has a novel in the works. Please visit us at Told, VimeoLinkedIn , Twitter for Rebecca and Twitter for Told Video to keep up with our current work!


Artist Profile for Double Shift Clothing

When we were asked to create a short video for the Greenfield, MA clothing line Double Shift, visions of beautiful local locations, gorgeous models, and flowing fabrics filled our heads. And we were not disappointed: that’s exactly what we were able to capture on a beautiful fall day here in Western Massachusetts. We hope this video serves you well, Double Shift – we sure had fun working on it!


Small Business Profile: Window of Heaven Acupuncture & Yoga

We recently finished this profile on Window of Heaven Acupuncture & Yoga for their website and social media. Owner Courtney Hill Wulsin wanted a video that showed her practice, her space, and the calming environment that she welcomes her clients into when they join her practice.

With all the acupuncturists and yoga practitioners to choose from in Western Massachusetts, we think she’s made a smart move by setting herself apart with a new video. We’ve got a yoga-focused video coming up for her soon. Stay tuned, and good luck to you Courtney!

 


Video Profiles for Small Business Owners

We recently completed a short video for Dr. Laila Tomsovic, a naturopathic doctor. This service is a great way to promote your small business, especially if your services are best shown visually (artisans of all kinds), or one-on-one services where your personality is an integral part of your services (personal trainers, doctors, etc). The videos are affordable, attractive, and effective. Click on the photo below to watch the video and check out our new page for information on all of our compact, custom video options.

 

 


The Stubborn Lives of Freelancers

Only a hopelessly romantic soul could find beauty in a production trip for an ad for a major oil company. But there were so many interesting people I left after the shoot was over, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

My brain is working slowly today on making the connections I would like to make. About the heart breaking slowness of it all, the day to day dull patterns of money ebbing and flowing and the tooth brushing and eating and transporting our bodies from one place to another.

Just having met so many souls who piece together their freelance lives, their creative lives, making time for their dreams or putting their aspirations on hold while they travel: screen play authors making words come together on laptops in vans that whiz toward the airport; musicians and comics and actors going home to start over, start again; writers waking up to wash the evening’s dishes, vacuum dog hair. All of us throwing ourselves up against a wall, a formation made of stone that crumbles from time to time to let us in a little further, to give us hope that these slamming motions repetitive and continuous and monotonous will give way to our stubborn, relentless poking.

As I drove home the other night, the almost-full moon floated up above a multitude of clouds that danced like a weird finale of costumed performers in a recital: the spiky sharp mohawked with the round fluffy tutus with the long, narrow gymnast with the polka dotted  polka dancer, until the curtain ever so gradually fell on them and the road ahead of me was gray and lit only by beams of electric light.

The dull ache of the slowness of it all gave way, like the fade of daylight, to a feeling of hope for all those I’d just met, each headed on their own path toward fulfillment or disappointment to lives filled with regret and longing or overflowing with success and recognition. And even those, those who reached their goals they so naively and courageously spoke of, even they will eventually want more, and pursue that again with just as much chance of winning or losing that battle. And just the way we all pine for something, someone, some life, and the way human nature tends to always want more, and the hilarious and painful truth of it all made my chest overflow with a heavy, jittery feeling of happiness and content. Maybe it was just the lack of sleep and delirium of being away from home working for five days straight, but whatever the cause my eyes blurred up and the feeling burst out of my throat and I laughed and whimpered and kept on driving under the nearly perfect moon.


New Film Release by Florentine Films / Hott Productions

This fall I’ve been working with Florentine Films / Hott Productions, doing edit room management and overseeing their social media outreach. I worked for them back in 2005-2007 on the American Masters’ film John James Audubon: Drawn From Nature, the Alfred l. duPont – Columbia University Award in Television winner Through Deaf Eyes, and WNED’s Niagara Falls.

This year, they have two very exciting films in production. The first is a ninety-minute film on the life and work of Frederick Law Olmsted; the other is a sixty-minute film about the efforts to revitalize the Lakota language in America. Both films are set for national broadcast in the coming year(s).

Their most recent release, however, is a short film they produced for the Library of American Landscape History (yes, this exists). You can watch this gorgeous film online here. I had nothing whatsoever to do with it, except posting an excerpt from the film on their Facebook page. They’ll have another one of these gems coming out online in December. Enjoy!