Inspiration

I wanted to give a quick shout out to my friends Paul and Denise Fejtek, who depart today for a 65 trek to the summit of Mt. Everest. They are a truly amazing couple and an inspiration to everyone they meet. This will be the last of the 7 summits that they will have climbed in the name of the The Challenged Athletes Foundation.


Check out this video, and pass it on.



Also, I wanted to offer my support to Greg and Shawn who are joining them all the way to base camp to lend their support. Good luck to you all!

Spring is upon us

I was walking to the train this wet March day and I came across the first bloom I've seen this year. It was a nice reminder that winter is behind us. Naturally, I checked the forecast for the rest of the week and it said that Thursday and Friday would be sunny and 70. That is great news! Dylan turns 1 on Friday.

Heading to LA

One of the benefits of my job is that I'm able to get back to LA every few weeks. I lived there for 14 years, so naturally there are things that I miss. I don't miss the traffic. I miss my friends really and it's always so hard to make time to see people when I'm usually in and out in less than 72 hours.

I'm off to Lala land tomorrow, but I'll be back in time for Dylan's second swimming class at the Y!!!

Snow day!!!

I've lived in New York for 5 years now, and I'm pretty sure this is the first NYC snow day since I've been here. They say it'll continue to pile up, but, so far, this ain't so bad.

The eagle has landed

We've moved. It was a painful week, but the worst of it is now over.

Poor Dylan. Not only was she home sick with us during this ordeal, but she slept in her own room for the first time last night which I'm sure caused some sort of deep rooted psychosis that will take her years of therapy to get past. All in I'm pretty pleased. The apartment isn't totally ideal for us, but it's only short term. I'll post some pictures tonight after we've cleaned it up a bit.

Moving day approaches

Beth and I are moving out of our home of five years on Wednesday. I'm sure you'll agree that moving is one of the worlds worst experiences. To go through all of the crap that you've accumulated and decide what is worth saving and what isn't is no task for the faint of heart.


The up side is that we'll have less "baggage", a second bedroom and a washer and dryer. I'm certain it'll be worth the pain, but now it's just pain.

Fighting the FLU

Aaahhhh. I am home in my pj's at noon on a Sunday hoping to avoid what yesterday felt like the inevitable onset of the flu. I'm sure it didn't help that we also started packing up the apartment. We spent the day yesterday cleaning house. Beth and I are moving in a week, so we began the awful process of clearing out the stuff we don't want to move. Don't get me wrong, it felt good to get rid of stuff - We took a trunk-full of clothing to "good riddance", I mean, goodwill.


 


I felt immediately better.


 


Time to rest.


 


 

Nearing the end...

I'm so close to end of principle photography on The Adjustment Bureau that I can taste it, or maybe that is the what's left of my dinner. In either case, I'm looking forward to things slowing down a bit and getting to spend a little more to with my amazing family.

Here's a picture.

Plate shoot at the Statue of Liberty

One of the best thing about my job is access to places like this in order to photograph them. I've been lucky enough to go to places that most people only get to see in photographs.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of shooting VFX plates at the Statue of Liberty. We had a crew of about 20, and some pretty heavy equipment.

This picture was taken by Bryan Wengroff , who is coordinating and data wrangling for me on The Adjustment Bureau. I think it really captures the feel of yesterday's shoot.

Been too long

As those of you who may be following this blog will note, I'm not very good at posting.

I have found it much easier to use Tumblr for little baby Dylan, than to update my own blog. I'm not sure if that's because its for her or that its just less intimidating to put up a picture and sentence. In either case, I think I need to simplify this blog so that I actually use it regularly and keep up maintenance on Dylan's like I have been. The biggest problem is where to post different information. There's Facebook, Twitter, Blogger and now Tumblr. It's really gotten out of control. I've got it set up so that my Tumblr posts for Dylan show up in facebook and on twitter. Facebook also picks up my tweets and my blog postings, but sometimes it takes a while. Also, just to make things more confusing for the three people who actually follow any of this, my wife's blog CookiePieBklyn posts to Dylan's Tumblr which in turn goes out to my twitter and facebook.

I think I may try Squarespace.com. It seems that they're setting up a really easy to use, clean hosting system that will be able to integrate to all the other places as well.

More on this as it evolves.

For those of you who are following my professional doings, I recorded audio commentary for the Sleep Dealer DVD this afternoon. It was my first time doing that while watching the movie. It was actually pretty cool.

The DVD hits the shelves on September 15th, the same day Beth's book: You Made That: Dessert! comes out. Should be a good day!

That's all for now.

Mark

It's a girl!!!


I am sorry for the long awaited post, but i really have a good excuse this time:

On April 2nd 2009, Beth and I welcomed our little girl: Dylan Charlotte Russell into the world and everything else has been a blur.

You can find all the latest photos and musings here:

http://dylan.russelling.com

Somehow it's been much easier to update her blog than my own. Go figure.

Down time...

So I have been trying to take a bit of down time in preparation for the upcoming life change (baby's due in 5 weeks), but down time is not something I'm very good at.

I directed a Verizon shoot on Thursday in Los Angeles. It was a day of greenscreen and motion control, two of the least interesting parts about my job, but the shoot was fun nonetheless.

Then Beth met me out there for the Visual Effects Society Awards on Saturday - which Synecdoche did not win. I say this will all sincerity and honesty: It was a huge honor to be nominated. We were up against films like the Changling, Dark Knight and Cloverfield. Some of which had higher budgets for their supervisors than we had for the entire slate of visual effects.

After that I worked on a Subway (the sandwich shot) shoot with Alex at Charlex. It was fun.

Since then I've been taking care of my wife an cooking a little bit here and there. I made a Pear and Butternut Squash soup on Tuesday night that turned out REALLY good.

I started in the general area of the recipe below, but I swapped the cream for a little milk and I used Chinese Five Spice instead of cinnamon. The photo is mine.

It's from the Gracious Bowl:
http://www.graciousbowl.com/2005/11/butternut-squash-and-pear-soup.html

Butternut Squash and Pear Soup
Serves 4-6

1 medium-sized butternut squash
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 bartlett pear, peeled, seeded, and cubed
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp powdered ginger (try fresh if you have it!)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 good turns on the black pepper mill
salt to taste
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
cilantro for garnish

1. Quarter and seed the squash and rub with olive oil, salt and pepper then roast at 400 degrees until soft, about 30-40 minutes. Let cool and scoop out the flesh. (You can do this up to 3 days ahead of time.)

2. Saute the onion and pear until very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the curry, cinnamon, and ginger and let them toast for a minute, then add the squash. Add the chicken or vegetable broth and let it all simmer for another 10 minutes.

3. Puree the soup with an immersion blender (my preferred method) or in a blender (but be careful to do it in small batches...splattering liquids are HOT!) Add the cream and stir.

4. Feel free to garnish with cilantro and a little more cream.

Synecdoche and the Visual Effects Society Awards!!!

The nominations are in and Synecdoche, New York received three nods:

Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
Mark Russell, Richard Friedlander, Eric Robertson, Brett Miller

Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK - Matte Paintings
Brett Miller, Garrett Eaton, Matthew Conner

Outstanding Created Environment in a Feature Motion Picture
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK - Created Environment
Brett Miller, Garrett Eaton, Matthew Conner

It is such an honor to be recognized by this peer based organization. Click here for the full list of nominees.

The presentation is on February 21st, so you'll have to waqit and see what happens, but needless to say, I'm thrilled with the shout out.

HDRI in Sydney

So I was in Sydney just before the holidays and I took a few pictures. The first two are HDR which I then Tone Mapped to give them this unreal look and feel.

Please let me know if you like them.

Thanks,
Mark

Here are a few more...