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A Queens Hotel Blues update and more

May 12, 2008

Editor’s Note: SO things around the office have been nothing less than slammed as of late. Many, many projects on the go that have be unfortunately diverting my attention from theOwen.com a bit. A few steps are being taken to rectify this …first off I am about to begin the process of seeking out some summer interns. Secondly, it is likely that I am looking to hire someone on the creative services side of the business and thirdly I am working on getting more good folks set up with publishing power here at theOwen.

An excellent case in point (both of the me being slammed for time and the setting good folks up with publishing power) is the fact that it has been weeks that I haven’t gotten around to publishing several updates relating to the Queens Hotel Blues documentary which was shot and produced locally under the guidance and direction of local filmmaker Graeme Bachiu. I have a couple of drafts detailing what has happened lately with this project that have yet to be published. To save myself the trouble I figured I would pass that task off to Graeme, who nicely summed things up in an email this past weekend…

It’s been a few months since our successful A Night at the Queen’s documentary premiere event. Thanks to the combined efforts of our MC, Ryan Wiseman, Paul Thompson and Eric Van Allen who handled the musical entertainment, David Adair who said a few words about the importance of documentary work, the staff at the Roxy along with my parents, my sister Kate, Adam and Jenn Olivero and of course, Mr. Steady himself, Ian Austin…well, we had a great night.

Then came Christmas and New Years’ and other complications and challenges to overcome. By the end of the winter the three of us were feeling kind of exhausted, I guess. But as the weather gets warmer and spring is in full swing I’m prepared to get to work again and set some new bearings for where our work will take us.

Thanks again to Ryan Wiseman and his website theowen.com we’re working on a better home for Queen’s Hotel Blues on the web. This has always been our plan and even though we’ve been a bit busy over the past few months we’re back in business. We’ve also got a few added goodies to whet your appetite, all available at www.theowen.com/go/queens-hotel-blues …

* An audio podcast entitled Toe Tappin’: A Musical Journey to the Queen’s Hotel Blues that features selections from my vast archive of Eric Van Allen and Paul Thompson recordings…narrated by myself
* A video podcast version of Queen’s Hotel Blues. Yes, take the Queen’s Hotel with you on your iPod!
* A gradual ‘making of’ documentary on our next project, done in the style of ongoing video blog type posts
* A sneak peek of our new documentary: Ten Years Gone

The last two items are perhaps the most exciting part of our new content! Weeks, once the snow started to melt and rebirth from winter seemed possible, I began thinking about what our next project would be. We have a number of interesting ideas on the go but for the most part I think we wanted to keep things brief and simple…or at least simpler than QHB had been. I’ve recently upgraded some of my equipment, as well, and I wanted to try something a bit different.

Another impetus for the direction we’re going with all of this is that I’ve been doing some web video work on the side and I feel strongly…well, all of us do…that video on the web is still just in its infancy. Sure, you can watch TV shows and endless Star Wars spoofs and Deep Purple concerts online but content specifically for the web is still somewhat of a niche thing. I also felt compelled to give something back to Ryan Wiseman, whose support through the final stages of Queen’s Hotel Blues was invaluable.

To get myself going, I started going through my tape archives, cleaning things up and rearchiving on DVD or other better formats. I found some funny stuff that I’ve done over the years and some video that Ian Austin and I shot almost 10 years ago now of Eric Van Allen and Paul Thompson. I was surprised that I’ve known these two guys for a decade (yikes, getting old) and the wheels in my mind started moving. Other content surfaced as time went on and I expanded my search. Eric and Paul both came up with old videotape and audio recordings that I didn’t have.

Getting a small crew plus Eric and Paul together with all of our busy schedules is a challenge but when we hang out I have a great time with these guys, and I’m going to bring you along for the ride. Due to the improvements in my own personal technology I’m going to make video podcast posts on theowen.com as we produce the documentary. We’ll give you some peeks behind the process and, hopefully, in the end you’ll be drawn into the process and the content in a way that is unconventional and compelling, as long as I’m a good storyteller!

During the production and post production of Queen’s Hotel Blues I sent out emails as an update on our process. This time—along with the video podcast segments—Ryan and I are planning to automate the process through theowen.com, freeing me up from writing long emails and adding context to the video podcast segments. In other words, check out theowen.com for more updates!

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Written by Ryan · Filed Under Guest Post, theOwen Features, Features, Video, theOwen 

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