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New Addition

Before Eli we made another small addition to our apartment, an extra room. Ever since we moved into our one bedroom apt I've alway been curious of a locked door that presumably lead to another room under our apt. One day when our landlord was over I asked about it and he showed me and told me that at one point it was going to be a small studio but when neighbors complained about parking they cancelled it and the room turned into a storage unit for them. I was in love at first sight, something about an empty room that calls out to you... endless possibilities. So I came up with a plan to ask for the space. "You know that room downstairs... well I was thinking since you can't rent it out to anyone maybe you could let us use it for $100/month. Of course I'll clean it up, you don't have to do anything to it." After a week they got back to us and it was a go! Nice! So I started cleaning it out, horrible carpet, dust, cobwebs and crickets all over the place. Eventually I got to this brand new portable AC unit that he decided to leave for us to use still in the box and when I moved it... mold!!!!! Ah... we thought, "well too bad, would have been nice." So I called up our landlord to let him know and... bada bing bada boom, they had someone come in a clean up the mold and put in a new floor, they also let us pick the floor! So for the past two months I've been fixing up the room little by little on my own. I painted the walls and trim, bought and put together a shelf, and recently made something to hold photo seamless backdrops.

It was hard to decided what to use the room for; as an office, personal studio, storage, guest room, or entertainment room. Though empty it feels big as soon as you put stuff in it gets small quick so I came to the conclusion to keep the main room as empty as possible and resist the urges to fill it with stuff. It will be our creative area, a place that can be anything at anytime. A drawing room, a photo/video studio, an office, a sewing room, a screening room, a music room, or just a hang out room.

My imagination needs a place to fill. Here it is.

From New Room

From New Room

From New Room

From New Room

From New Room

Elijah James Kanka

On April 28th, 2010 at 10:11pm my son was born. 7lb 4oz and 20 3/4".

LSD NO NO

"oou.. I just made a touchdown!"

Update: Me = Gaffer

gathering vostfr from Young Francis on Vimeo.

Various Pictures I've Taken

Natale a Beverly Hills

The last two months I worked on an Italian comedy called "Christmas in Beverly Hills." It's kinda like National Lampoon's Vacation, this was the latest in a long string of films; Christmas in... New York... Rio... Miami. Here is the teaser we shot right in the middle of things on Rodeo Drive.

Did you catch that? "Don't worry bout us." HA. It was a lot of work on our part to clear tourist from the shot... especially when a bus let off a group of Italians who all knew the actors, which are the biggest in Italy. Of course they took video and I managed to snag a close up... right at the end.




Over all it was a great experience! I got to work with some really talented people who had a lot of experience and were friendly. It was also the first feature I worked on in which the crew was union. And because it was Italian I grew a new appreciation for Italian coffee, the espresso, I made a "few" for the director and actors during those 45 days.