What it really came down to is pretty simple. The main focus for a lot of people when discussing the current state of rollerblading is television. Rollerblading does not have that massive broadcast exposure it once had… I decided to take it upon myself to do a complete X-Games/ASA style broadcast of the Bitter Cold Showdown with fellow video-bladers. Rather than simply sit back and complain, I decided to take action and see what happens.
The script for this commercial promoting Ho-Chunk Gaming’s summer giveaways came to me with a few notes and little video direction. This presented the opportunity for me to develop the fun, energetic, do-it-yourself look of the finished commercial. The appearance of found images cut out and attached to wooden skewers was done in Adobe After Effects with additional image editing done in Adobe Photoshop. Produced by Tom Kermgard and the final audio track was done by Haggar Audio.
The Bitter Cold Showdown is an annual rollerblading event that I founded in 2001. The event has grown to become the largest event of its kind with an attendance of well over 1000 rollerbladers from all over the world. The 2010 event was host to a television pilot produced by the World Rolling Series that has not yet been publicly released. This is an online promo for the 2011 event. Editing was done in Final Cut Pro and graphics were done in Adobe After Effects.
The World Rolling Series is an international organization linking together some of the largest rollerblading events, organizers and professionals across the globe. The overall goal of the WRS is to increase global recognition and awareness of rollerblading as a sport. This is a web promo created for the WRS to promote the 2010 World Finals, which took place November 6, 2010 in Rye, New Hampshire. I not only organize one of the largest events of the series, the Bitter Cold Showdown, but also organized many parts of the 2010 World Finals. Filmed by Benjamin Buttner, Kato, Jordan Maders, Ivan Narez, Matthew Dearden, Simon Mulvaney, Vinny Minton, Mike Torres, Juan Mosqueda, Alex Beaupre, 912 Crew and PMG at events all over the world, editing was done in Final Cut Pro with effects and graphics done in Adobe After Effects.
Check out an additional promo for the event below.
This project came together while I was in Tehachapi, California at Woodward West for the Amateur Inline League World Championships. Over the course of the weekend I was tasked with coordinating several cameramen in documenting not only the competition but also gathering interviews from the various amateur competitors. Friday night, before the competition we were given access to The Hangar after it was closed to the public. Several amateurs were gathered along with a few key figures within the rollerblading community which included: Chris Edwards, one of the originators of the sport; David Sizemore, a competitive rookie that has recently made his mark and Chris Haffey, the most prolific rollerblader of the past decade. The message is simple; without a future generation to carry the torch, all of the accomplishments of the current generation mean nothing. This is just the first part of a longer project documenting the young talent that was present at these amateur championships. Currently it is being used as a promotional video for both the Amateur Inline League and the World Rolling Series, the professional rollerblading tour. Editing was done in Final Cut Pro and graphics were done in Adobe After Effects. It was filmed by Juan Mosqueda, Daniel Montellano and Chris Fowler with 2 Panasonic HPX170′s and a Panasonic HVX200.
The Bitter Cold Showdown is an annual rollerblading event that I founded in 2001. The event has grown to become the largest event of its kind with an attendance of well over 1000 rollerbladers from all over the world. The 2009 DVD is fully HD and documents all of the highlights from the event, including interviews with the competitors and various attendees. The DVD is distributed internationally and is available at retailers specializing in rollerblading products. Below is the entire 2009 DVD.
The Bitter Cold Showdown is an annual rollerblading event that I founded in 2001. The event has grown to become the largest event of its kind with an attendance of over 1000 rollerbladers from all over the world in 2009. The 2008 DVD documents all of the highlights from the event, including interviews with the competitors and various attendees. The DVD is distributed internationally and is available at retailers specializing in rollerblading products. Below is the entire 2008 DVD.
“Blood, Pride & True” is a rollerblading DVD produced for Sixwonsix, Inc. The DVD was created to promote the brand by featuring rollerblading from 6 individuals sponsored by the company. It was filmed during weekends and three weeks of vacation touring with the team across the Midwest & Florida. The project was a dream come true in many ways as I have been rollerblading for 12 years and have admired the company for the majority of that time. Once the project was completed I was fortunate enough to premiere the DVD at a packed 400 seat theater in downtown Columbus, Ohio. The premiere occurred after the 2008 Bitter Cold Showdown. For more information on the process of creating “Blood, Pride & True” be sure to visit the production blog that was updated continually throughout its production. The DVD sold out within 6 months of its release and is now available in it’s entirety online.
The concept and storyboard for this spot was put together by the Notre Dame Media Group not only to promote the University of Notre Dame Softball team but the new stadium they would be playing in. After reviewing the storyboards I became excited about the challenge of mirroring the two images. I brought the project together quickly under a limited budget and time constraints. However, once the shots were pieced together it became clear the desired effect had been achieved. Editing was done in Adobe Premiere Pro.
This advertising campaign won an Honorable Mention in the 2008 international Videographer Awards.
St. Joseph Regional Medical Center needed a video to help get their employees excited about the launch of a new program dubbed “Genesis.” This program utilized a computerized records system that would eventually eliminate the need for paper records. The term “Indiana Joes” was given to me by the client along with the request that the CEO play the lead role. I was fortunate enough to have complete creative freedom in filling in the rest. Once the concepts were approved, steps were taken to transform a hallway into a mysterious and dangerous jungle. In addition, a soon to be outdated records room at the hospital was changed into a murky, paper infested, cave. The video was shown to a large group of SJRMC employees and ended with the CEO entering the room in full costume as “Indiana Joe.” Editing was done in Adobe Premiere Pro and graphics were created with Adobe After Effects.
This corporate video won a Silver Telly in the 28th annual Telly Awards.
The majority of planning for this television campaign was already in place when Gibson Insurance Group came to PentaVision Communications, Inc. The scripts were already written, smaller models of the chair were in use to convey the company’s message to clients and a full scale model of the chair was under construction by an Amish craftsmen. I was immediately drawn to the project because of the special effects that would be required. The goal was to bring the image of insurance buyers losing the legs of their chair and staging a closing tag for each spot featuring the chair in the same position amid a variety of backgrounds. Producing the effect of the disappearing chair legs was deceivingly simple due to the fact that the chair was constructed with removable legs. This allowed the actors to reach under the chair and react to a missing leg while still safely sitting on three others. The disappearance of the remaining legs was accomplished by shooting an empty background plate without the chair once the initial reactions from the actors were obtained. Once both of these elements were shot, masks were used to cut out the legs of the chair and reveal the empty plate underneath. Editing was done in Adobe Premiere Pro and special effects were done with Adobe After Effects.
This advertising campaign won a Platinum Award in the 2007 international Ava Awards.
The Troyer Group, an architecture firm from Mishawaka, Indiana, came to PentaVision Communications, Inc. needing to create video for an interactive CD-ROM they were developing for distribution to prospective clients. I found the project interesting and was given the opportunity to produce the project from start to finish. I began the task of highlighting The Troyer Group’s wide variety of work by focusing on specific case studies within each area of expertise and supplemented this with testimonials from satisfied clients. Additionally, graphics and special effects were used to emphasize the different phases of planning, stages of construction and branding of the company. In the end, the project was successful in utilizing all available resources provided by the client to convey their message and most importantly, do it all on budget. Editing was done in Avid Media Composer and graphics were created with Adobe After Effects.
This corporate video won a Silver Communicator Award in the 14th annual Communicator Awards.
“Vile Affection” was in pretty much every way an experiment. It was created for an advanced Producing and Directing class at Ball State University entitled “Hands Across McKinley” in the summer of 2005. This class incorporated students from disciplines such as Acting, Writing, Video and Audio Production and brought them together to make numerous short films throughout the semester. This project was the only one of the semester shot entirely in HD as the reward for a previous project, “Goodwill,” receiving the highest grade in the class.
“Vile Affection” is based off of a brutally violent script entitled “Playing God” in which the protagonist has a “god-complex” leading him to stalk and in the end kill his victim by crucifying him to a wooden floor. I chose to work with this script because it was drastically different from any of the other selections and posed an entirely new set of challenges for the actors and myself.
The first challenge in the production of “Vile Affection” was to modify the script to make it more appealing to a college aged audience and allow for a greater connection with the main characters. The protagonist remained a confused, disturbed, schizophrenic whose actions eventually lead him to become violent and the “god-complex” was replaced with confusion over his sexual orientation. Whether or not this was all medically sound was irrelevant to the story because it gave the protagonist the needed internal struggle that leads him to become violent not only towards his initial victim but the victim’s girlfriend as well. This helped the story reach its intended audience but also became the next big challenge.
Although the script was modified, the violence was kept along with the addition of another violent scene ending with a sexual assault. We were warned early in the process by professors that film violence should not be taken lightly especially when it involves novice actors and directors. Thus, the proper steps were taken to choreograph the action with the help of a Ball State University professor, Darrel Rushton, who specialized in theater violence. Not only was the physical safety of the actors a high priority but also their mental well-being; especially surrounding the sexual assault. Both Sarah Haworth and Zack Florent were terrific in the planning, choreography and execution of this scene and even more importantly, understanding after the initial footage was taped over and the scene had to be re-shot. Which was completely my own fault.
The third major challenge was taking advantage of the technology that I was able to use for this project. Shooting the entire project in HD on a camera that no one was familiar with was a big challenge and would not have been possible without all of the help from my Director of Photography, Krystal Rizzo. She spent a lot of extra time acquainting herself with the camera so that we had one less thing to worry about while on set. Additionally, we were granted access to a Steadicam for two scenes of the film but no one was able to overcome the steep learning curve to proficiency. So our professor, Tim Pollard, stepped in to help us get exactly what I wanted.
The finished project was premiered to a large group of students along with other selections from the class at the newly constructed Sursa Hall on campus.
“Goodwill” was my first project that I believe still holds value today. It was created for an advanced Producing and Directing class at Ball State University entitled “Hands Across McKinley” in the spring of 2005. This class incorporated students from different disciplines such as Acting, Writing, Video and Audio Production and brought them together to make numerous short films throughout the semester. I was fortunate enough to participate in the first semester that this class was offered.
The majority of the project was shot early on a weekday at a Goodwill store in Muncie, Indiana while it was open to the public. It is amazing what you can get away with when you are producing a student film. Additional scenes were shot at the home of the lead actress (Lana Cook) and throughout the city of Muncie. The original script was meant to be a linear story and this remained the intention until after everything was shot and I began editing. I have always been fascinated with non-linear films and this was the perfect opportunity for such an experiment. In the end, it paid off because it received the highest grade in the class for that round of projects and, as a reward, allowed me to utilize additional resources for my next project; “Vile Affection”.
Take the time to watch Winterclash 2013 - Snowtime. Showtime! // Two incredibly talented videobladers put in work vimeo.com/benjaminbuettn… // 1 week ago
