My Office is not "The Office" but it is "An Office"

My boss wanted to make a little video about our USA office to send to the UK office to help them see what's going on over here! I had a little fun with it, but didn't want to spend too much time editing...


The (Ashdown USA) Office from Chris Christensen on Vimeo.

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The Brave Little Stapler

I am going through a training series for Maxon Cinema 4D and today I made a stapler! I am so awesome. Pretty soon I will be animating the new pixar film, "The Brave Little Stapler." :)

This guy has some good points...

I was browsing Vimeo today and saw this guy making some statements that actually make a lot of sense. I hadn't even thought of some of these things... Even though his demands will never be met, our government should spend time coming up with ideas like these and spend money on programs of the sort instead of giving billions and trillions of dollars to rich guys.

To see the text of this video click this link


Obama Public Works, Just More Pork? from Richard Haskell on Vimeo.

Mr. Obama is On Vimeo!

As I sit here and eat my lunch at work, I was browsing the Vimeo HD channel, as I do most every day while eating lunch, and I realized that the whitehouse is on Vimeo! We all know that President Obama has embraced the Internet as a medium for communication with the American public and it was also a huge part of his campaign and victory in that campaign. He has been on Youtube for the most part, but now it is excited for us dedicated Vimeo users to see Mr. Prez on Vimeo! I will most likely be watching every weekly address from now on!


01/24/09: President Obama's Weekly Address from White House on Vimeo.

The movie poster for our the short we shot last weekend! This should be rad.

Another day on the job...

Within days our studio has turned from an empty cement floored barn to a pretty rad looking building.

Random Trips To The City

I took a picture of the Foshay Tower, an art-deco skyscraper downtown that has a rich history. I remember going there as a part of a family vacation as a pre-teen with my family. We went to the top on a tour and it was one of the most fascinating things to me. I had never been so high (no pun intended).

Short Film Saturday!

Todd was here so i had my cousin Elijah come over and act out a little script I wrote this week! I still have to shoot the news reporter stuff with a co-worker of mine who actually used to be a news anchor, so that should be legit, we will see how it turns out!  

My setup was pretty simple, I wasn't trying to be creative with the lighting since this was the first time I had used my light kit, which I was pretty disappointed with upon opening the box. It was cheap though, so I can't complain.

From Blogger Pictures

This is my 19" HDTV from my kitchen, I use it for a monitor just for focusing, not for color, I don't have it calibrated yet. 

From Blogger Pictures

This is Todd (Right) and Elijah (Left) sitting in their positions as i set up the lights and camera gear.

From Blogger Pictures

I.  Am.  A.  One.  Man.  Band.  

From Blogger Pictures

We took movie poster Photos!  :)

Below is a funny thing I whipped up of Elijah screwing around in between takes.

Sexual Donut from Chris Christensen on Vimeo.

Long Week, Long Friday, Short Weekend!

Today was a looooooooong day...  One on location shoot and two in the new studio!  I am fearing the worst for the audio as we have done nothing to improve the acoustics in the room.  My boss approved the shoot based on the test shoots though, so we will see how it all turns out when I get to editing next week.  I took good pics, but they are on my Mac at work so I will put up one from my cell.

I am PUMPED because two of my best friends from College (St. Cloud State University) are coming down for the weekend!  Todd and Liz are a great couple to hang with and our tradition always used to be that we would watch Lost every wednesday night, ironically the first time we see them since we moved in August, is the week of the Lost season premiere!  We have had it sitting on our TiVo since Wednesday!  I can't wait to see where the island moved to...

I am Also excited because in college, Todd was pretty much the only person who I ever had act in my films... He had zero acting experience and actually became a pretty good actor as the years went by!  Tomorrow we are making a short film and I am pretty excited about the script, because it is making fun of the absurdity of the hype that is going on about the DTV transition... OMG you can't use bunny ears anymore!!!  Cry about it.  Below is what I think, one of the best films I worked on with Todd in college.  It is pretty poor quality, but hey what can you expect, we were learning! 

A Little Part of My Work Day

I shot this timelapse of myself tearing down after a shoot on Tuesday.  We shoot in this house-turned-studio about 3 days a week.  The setup is pretty simple.  I do a two camera setup with Sony HVR-Z1U cameras and a Lowel DP core 3 light kit.  I definitely need another 1k DP flood light (center) so that I can light each subject separately, I should be getting this soon.  On this shoot I switched from what I normally do and used the Rifa softbox as the key and the DP flood light as the fill... It really doesn't matter at this point though, because they are both sort of just pointing at both subjects...  

Two of the sites the company I work for are BeadTV and DollshouseTV

Striking The Set from Chris Christensen on Vimeo.

Below are some stills from the shoot.

Our new studio is almost done!

"Parking" Tickets Are For "Parking!"

I just got done shooting for work downtown Rochester, MN. Both myself and my Producer got "parking" tickets for having expired tabs! Mine were only expired in Dec, what happened to having 1 month grace period???  Also, why should a damn meter maid get to give me a ticket for not renewing my tabs!!  Where does that money go?  Not to the registration tax I am sure!

Ughhh... anyways...

The shoot was in a really small space, I could barely fit all of the lights and both cameras in there with myself and the producer.  I took some pics with my cell phone (EnV2) cuz I forgot the Nikon D50 we have at work and usually bring to shoots!  (I also own this camera at home).

The Cart Crusher 5000

i was at the mall last week and saw this cart!  It looks like the incredible hulk crunched it up and used it as toilet paper!  How did this happen??  I really want to know!

It Starts With Droppin' Phones

I dropped my phone in the snow this morning...  It is dry now.

I ate my favorite fast food sandwich at the mall food court with my cousins ike and izzy.  The sandwich is the Arby's chicken salad... I got a wrap this time, it was ok.

I finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point Last week and now i am reading Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People for the 4th time in 5 years.  It is a book to live by, but I need to keep refreshing myself of the points the book makes.  It is easy in the world we live in to be mean to people, to lack a loving heart and to go out of your way to be genuinely interested in someone.  I used to be better at it and I really believe I have gotten much of the opportunities in my life based on the principals in this book.  Every new adventure and new situation I get into requires the finesse that is taught in the book.  

(note to future self:  Read this book once a year... or listen to the audio book.)

I have lost 12 pounds in the past 5 weeks!  I am doing research for a new documentary idea that I have on how to lose weight.  So far it is working, but I have sort of hit a plateau due to -20 weather here in MN the past week.  I should have been out playing hockey, but instead I was sitting inside watching Woody Allen films.  I watched 6 in the past 10 days.

At work today I was in the middle of shooting and the director of our office busted into the studio with the rest of the staff and said, "cut!  we are watching this inauguration!"  I was pretty stoked because Obama is one of the most intriguing speakers I have heard.  It is always an inspiration to watch him, I really hope he lives up to his promises because he made some good ones :)

It is Skyler Stone's Birthday Celebration tonight at the improv in LA!  Someday I will live in the LA area and get to go to his shows at the Improv and take advantage of his comp tickets.  Show him some love! 

My first blog!

I have started this blog to keep track of my inspirations and watch myself grow over time, thanks rhett ;)

Today I pushed a truck out of a snow bank.

I took out my plugs a year ago and one just randomly got infected today.

I have been trying to tell at least one person a day to watch Summer Heights High.

I EFFING LOVE CRAIGSLIST. I got a pretty much new LG EnV2 phone for $50 with a 1GB card and a case this weekend!

Vimeo upped their PLUS members' upload space and additional HD embeds + more!

My Documentary preview hit 90,000 plays on YouTube!