The Girl Epidemic

Aero Film director/photographer, Indrani, had a very rare experience to go back to her native country of India and shoot a PSA for a cause very near to her heart—providing education for females in India. This doesn’t just mean that girls learn to read and write, this is a pathway to becoming a valued part of society, which can be the difference between life and death in India.

Sheetal Mehta, the director of Nanhi Kali, the organization behind the film stated, "The StrawberryFrog and Aero Film teams traveled to India earlier this year to shoot on location. Through the tenacity and passion of Indrani they were able to capture their extraordinary story on film. The Girl Epidemic must be seen and shared, there's never been anything like it."

And that’s saying something, as Nanhi Kali's past work with agency StrawberryFrog was extremely provocative as well. The award winning "A Girl Story" was the worlds first donation based online film series. It was followed up with  The Girl Store, an opportunity to bring e-commerce and creativity together in an innovative campaign and where you can buy a girl her life back-- through education and school supplies-- before someone else takes it. These campaigns have won Gold Lions in Cannes and recognized by the TED conference.

Indrani and production designer/producer GK Reid traveled to Mumbai India and shot for 7 days. With a shoestring budget, they proved that moxie and cultural understanding can go a long way. From sourcing the actors for free, to location scouting, their tiny production team made many miracles happen... Including shooting around the Mumbai slums and finding a 2 week old baby to feature in the crucial birthing scene. 

Indrani was the also the cinematographer of the film, shooting it all on the Canon 5D Mark II. It was the perfect camera for the hand held, documentary/news-reel-footage look they wanted to capture.

Sonejuhi Sinha from Final Cut NY cut this piece—the second project that she and Indrani have collaborated on.  Terressa “T” Tate was the sound mixer, with sound design and score by Human.  The Aero family was able to help out as well, with the color correct, conform and VFX work completed by Sam O’Hare and Jesse Holmes at Aero Studios in NY.

Stay tuned for a behind the scenes video that’s being cut as I type. Till then, please watch, share and donate if you can to this worthy cause. Learn more at....

http://www.thegirlepidemic.com

Complete credits:

Agency: StrawberryFrog New York

Client: Nanhi Kali

Production: Aero Film

Director/Cinematographer: Indrani

Production Designer/Costumes/Sets: GK Reid

EP: Sara Eolin

Lead VFX Artist: Sam O'Hare

VFX Artist: Jesse Holmes

Conform Asst: Hannelore Williams

Assistant Director: Yash Verma

2nd Camera: Ashish Virola

Casting:Yoshika Verma

Logistics: Adil Billimoria

Location: Anil Parmer

Production Assistant: Ashok Babaria

Production Assistant: Stacey Thiel

Production Assistant: Youngkyu Park

Special Thanks: Scheimpflug

Music and Sound Design: Human

EP: Kit Winter

Edit & Mix: Final Cut

Editor: Sonejuhi Sinha

Mix: T. Teressa Tate

Producer: Lauren Cancelosi

EP: Lauren Bleiweiss

President:Stephanie Apt

Chief Creative Officer: Kevin McKeon

ECD: Corinna Falusi

ACD: Justin Via

Interactive Producer: Wilder Wells

Design Director: David Orton

ACD/Designer: Mari Keeler

Developer: Mat Kur

Logo Design: Stephanie Krivitzky

Independent Agency Production Dept: Driver Media

EP: Becky Razzall

Managing Director: Linda Rafoss

Aero News Desk

Holy smokes, it's been ages. Hi, there. How are you? You're good? I'm glad to hear it! How am I doing? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. I'll tell you in a word-- BUSY!

First up, we just found out that Sam O'Hare's short film, Coachelletta, has been shortlisted in the Vimeo Festival + Awards!  The category its shortlisted in, Lyrical, was curated by judges Philip Bloom, Maria Popova (@Brainpicker), and VP of Creative Development at Vimeo, Blake Whitman.  The winner of each category wins a $5000 grant and the grand prize is a $25,000 grant to produce new work.

And now the voting is now open to the general public!  Wooo!  That's where you can get in on the action.  Go HERE and click on Coachelletta to vote.  You'll need a Vimeo username/ passcode to vote, and you can vote once a day.  Check out the other categories too as there is so much good work in every category. Thank you to Vimeo for giving directors a showcase for their passion projects!

And now the things that are keeping our lives very, very busy....

• Ken Arlidge just shot a campaign for Chase with McGarry Bowen
• Indrani has returned from India where she shot a film for Strawberry Frog
• Klaus Obermeyer and Austin Smithard just returned from Australia and Tahiti for Outback Steakhouse
• Sam O'Hare just finished a promo for Syfy Channel
• Jason Farrand just finished a promo for the NBC/Ford tie-in show, Escape Routes

Stay tuned for all this new work as soon as it hits the air, it'll be on the blog!

Medieval Times!

What happens when Game of Thrones and the Renaissance Faire have a mash-up? Throw in a few chicken legs and a grog of beer, and you have… Medieval Times! (Insert trumpet blasts here.) Aero teamed up with Concussion out of Fort Worth to bring this dinner theatre and tournament to the big (or littlish) screen.

"360 production" seems to be a new buzz phrase that people like to toss around, and we here at Aero aren’t tossers. (Wait… that came out wrong…) When we say we have a production pipeline to do it all, we can back it up. That’s exactly what we did with Medieval Times. 

 Austin Smithard was the director and editor with Sam O’Hare of Aero Studios overseeing the VFX. The music was composed by Aero friend, Nick Wood of Syn in Japan. From having the creative all under one umbrella, we were able to stretch the budget within an inch of its life and create a piece with impeccable production value… as well as a director on top of every layer of detail and storytelling from day 1 to shipping. Austin’s vision for this spot was way out of the scope of what the agency and client thought was possible for their budget and timing…. But we did it! And we’re all really thrilled with the final piece. 

Click HERE to view!

The spot was shot at the Medieval Times Castle in Anaheim CA. 90% the backgrounds were created in CG, as well as the snow and mist. Many scenes were layers of composited elements shot on green screen. 

To see how these still started out, click HERE to view the side by side of what was shot compared to the final spot.  And WATCH some of the more complex scenes broken down step by step.

Austin and Sam were a natural team. The key to having Aero Studios work under the Aero Film umbrella is that we can pair up the VFX team with any director. So if the board is comedy with VFX, Jason Farrand or Gary McKendry pair up with Sam. If it’s grand visual storytelling with a lot of action scenes, Klaus Obermeyer and Sam get together… We can mix and match to create the best team for the job… on either coast. No fighting egos. No battles for budgets… which is good because as you can see we’ve become rather adept at jousting.

Geocaching With GMC

Geocaching is the newest treasure hunt that doesn't involve Nicholas Cage!  But it does involve Aero director, Ken Arlidge (who is equally as swarthy, but has a better hairline).

Ken shot the latest spot for GMC's Terrain which features a group's geocaching quest that takes them from land to water.  This gave Ken a chance to flex his director/DP muscles by both telling a good story and making things that aren't typically thought of as gorgeous to be just that.

h

But let's back up a step...  "What is geocaching?"  you may be asking.  It's a global treasure hunting game that anybody can play!  All you need is a GPS enabled device (such as OnStar), and it helps to have USB and SD card readability which the Terrain has in its console. 

The spot was shot in San Piedro and a quarry near Santa Clarita.   Finding the quarry was a real coup for the Aero production team in that it has very clear water which is great for shooting, but the water was only 40 degrees!  There was a hot tub on set to keep the divers warm (as stunt people were used and could only be in and out of the water over the course of an hour). Ken’s eye for art direction really took a dank and dirty quarry and an abandoned warehouse to a cinematic level.

Ken shot with the Arri Alexa on land, and the Red Epic underwater.  Car shots were with the Russian Arm.

CREDITS:

Client: General Motors

Agency: Leo Burnett Detroit

EVP, Worldwide Executive Creative Director: Peter McHugh
Creative Director GMC :Chad Laughlin
Creative Director: Jack Crifasi
Copywriter: Cameron McIntosh
VP, Executive Producer Jennie Hochthanner

Editorial: Beast,  Chris Chynoweth

Klaus Cam Adventure!

The Klaus Cam, developed by Klaus Obermeyer, has been used in countless commercials and is continuing to be used in feature films!

The Klaus Cam has already been used in the films The Dark Knight and Eat, Pray, Love; and  latest venture being on the set for Of Mavericks and Men, starring Gerard Butler. The movie enlisted the services of Aero aerial director, Craig Hosking to help capture the high intensity surfing scenes for the film. Klaus co-piloted with Craig and took these amazing stills. 

You may be wondering, "What is or are Mavericks?"  Well, I'll tell you.  The Mavericks is (yes, singular) "a world renowned wave break" that's located in northern California a half a mile off Half Moon Bay. 

In short, it is a dangerous and daring bit of ocean to surf on (as you can see in the above picture the surfer is incredibly small in comparison to that wave!) and shooting an action sequence on these giant waves is nearly an impossibility. But the Klaus Cam is perfect for a shoot like this because unlike other helicopter rigs, this camera can get right at eye level with all the dangerous action (but without putting any of the crew/talent in jeopardy!)  So thanks to the Klaus Cam, all those close shots that they needed were captured! (You can read more about Mavericks here.)

Of Men and Mavericks is scheduled to open in theaters October, 2012.