Peter Earl McCollough: Seven Ways to Sunday » Cinema

11/15/11 Leica #8 Blow Up

Peter Earl McCollough — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:24:37 +0000

12/22/10 David Lynch Music Video

Peter Earl McCollough — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:25:44 +0000

Earlier this month I came across a music video contest being hosted by Genero.TV. The contest is for two new tracks released by David Lynch, a very significant creative inspiration and spiritual guide for me. So when I heard of this contest, I got that flashing, heavy feeling in my stomach where I knew it was time to stop talking and start making. The underlying and personal challenge was in making myself vulnerable by actually applying myself as much as possible, or in other words, facing the fear of failure. And as Julie Elman, a design professor from Ohio University, would always say to her students, you must “dare to suck.”

Last weekend I rented a Canon 7D for a weekend and in 48 hours, using Miki as an actress and our apartment as a backdrop, we gave it our best. It was a difficult and frustrating experience, a true DIY project. Lights from the hardware store, trying not to melt gels taped to tripods, doing take after take to get a fluid shot because I don’t own a video tripod, etc.. I spent about 4 days editing through 40gb of footage with the contest deadline hanging above my head and, in the end, as imperfect as the video is, I’m happy with it. I embrace the flaws because they’re a true reflection of where I’m at. And most importantly, just by completing this project I’ve taken a significant internal step towards becoming a cinematographer, which is my true passion.

Take a peek at the link to the video below, and if you like what you see, take a minute to vote for it or share it with a friend. Thanks to Miki for being so patient and supportive and to Scott Brauer for that trip to a decrepit indie theater in Detroit where I was first introduced to David Lynch.

Good Day Today: A David Lynch music video by Peter Earl McCollough

Here are some scenes from the video:

12/7/10 Music Video Sketches II

Peter Earl McCollough — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 01:08:45 +0000

8/6/10 City Streets 1

Peter Earl McCollough — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:48:16 +0000

8/4/10 Devil’s Lake

Peter Earl McCollough — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:07:14 +0000

Video grab from a dip in Devil’s Lake, Wisconsin.

5/27/10 Hi8mm

Peter Earl McCollough — Fri, 28 May 2010 04:55:40 +0000

Hi8mm grabs from personal moments.
Summer 2008 in Athens, Ohio, & New Paltz, New York.

3/31/10 Truth

Peter Earl McCollough — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:37:23 +0000

“Cinéma vérité is the accountant’s truth; it merely skirts the surface of what constitutes a deeper form of truth in cinema.”

-Werner Herzog

1/10/10 Erasure

Peter Earl McCollough — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:10:19 +0000

Watching Eraserhead in my room. Wish there were more filmmakers like Lynch.

9/18/09 Post-Production

Peter Earl McCollough — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:21:01 +0000

Just recently started editing the short my friend Pradeep and I co-wrote and co-directed. I probably shouldn’t be getting ahead of myself, but here’s a couple frames I pulled during editing today.

7/1/09 Production of “Blue Satellites”

Peter Earl McCollough — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:08:04 +0000

During the end of May and the beginning of June my friend Pradeep Edussuriya and I collaborated on a short film together (check his reel on his website). We have different writing and directing styles but our goal was to merge them together in a complimentary way. We started by deciding to write scripts independently and then meet up to decide how to combine them. It was an experimental process that was difficult at times, but I’m pretty happy with the results. His script, which has a cinema verite aeshtetic, ended up being embedded into my “Existential-Sci-Fi-Film-Noir” script as a memory sequence. These are just a few frames from the production of Pradeep’s script.