Anna Schwaber

Zacuto Kits!

This camera is amazing and will take the LIVE world into the cinematic world. Love it.

Lately The Porchlight Sessions has been asked to move into live webcasting of music-based events. In considering the future of “The Porchlight Sessions Live”, here is some research:

http://livestream.com/ - Livestream, formerly known as Mogulus,^[2] is a live streaming video platform that allows users to view and broadcast video content using a camera and a computer through the internet.

https://watershed.ustream.tv/ - Ustream’s paid service

http://qik.com/ - Qik is a mobile live video streaming and two-way video conferencing application that allows users to stream live video from their cell phones to the internet.

Chase Jarvis Live checking out 5300 fps Phantom Camera tests and DIY ring lights w/ car batteries. Photography at its geekiest.

LADY MADONNA

A year ago exactly, Chris and I followed a non-profit based in Ft. Collins, CO called WADSO to help chronicle their efforts the help a small community in Umuahia, Nigeria. A film about the hospital that WADSO is building, the Nigerian healthcare system, and people helping people half a world away, Lady Madonna is a project near and dear to us. So help Chris raise the funds to finish editing!

MARCH 2012

Alright, so we’ve launched the Kickstarter campaign for The Porchlight Sessions, which is the feature-length music documentary about Bluegrass that I have been working on for a long time now! Some really awesome perks have been donated for the cause so you will just have to check it out to see for yourself. I’m in the middle of working the cut with my editor, Chris Cloyd, sending out as many emails as I can about licensing, while trying to maintain all the websites that we have to look out for now. I’ll be headed to SXSW next week so if there are any of you out there who would like to meet up, be sure to reach me ahead of time!

In other news, life in Los Angeles has become very routine as I now live next to Chris and we are in the editing room all the time. I’ve been keeping up with my personal yoga practice over at Hot8 in Santa Monica and Breathwork at The Hub. For all of my yogi and fire friends out there and down in Costa Rica, I’m looking forward to sharing some fun workshops and festivals with you again once things calm down in regards to putting the pieces together for The Porchlight Sessions. I’ll be working as stage crew at Shaktifest in May and will announce the festivals for April. Keep me in the loop about what you are up to and hopefully we will see each other out there! - anna

DECEMBER 2011

It’s about mid december and we’ve been fairly nonstop with working on the The Porchlight Sessions . I’ve been too overwhelmed with responsibilities pertaining to maintaining that website that I’ve decided to put this one on hold. I’ll be building a new site in coming months to update my website and the past few years of work. You can always keep up with what I’ve got in my Visual Diary, which I use for personal reference. My personal Pinterest site with current vision boards is here.

In the meantime, we’re about to launch a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter asking a lot of the community to come together and support our film. We need folks coming out of the woodworks to announce their pride and say “hell yea, I’ll donate!”. We’ve been scraping by to keep the train moving in post-production with the resources we have. All this is compounded by the sheer amount of research and coordinating that has to go on with sourcing as much archival footage as we want to use. We know that its all going to be worthwhile and possible. We are so close to the end of this epic journey in finishing this film. Its been a labour of love all along the way and there are just too many of you counting on us to succeed…so we just have to! I mean, we didn’t wake up before dawn to climb a mountain in Telluride to get the sunrise over the concert grounds for no reason. It was too darn cold for me to ever let that footage go to waste!

To the family we’ve built in the past few years of our lives through working at festivals, going into musicians’ homes, camping, or even just along the way, we appreciate your support and allowing us to get this far. Thanks to all our sponsors (still working on more) too - we will be releasing the list of their fun gear they’ve donated for the cause as part of the incentives/perks program on the Kickstarter campaign.

with gratitude, anna

I’ve been following these guys since the beginning. Love their work! Support it!

NOVEMBER 2011

We are currently in Post-Production on the Porchlight Sessions.
Please visit www.porchlightsessions.com for all relevant information and to follow me in the process.

AUGUST 2011

June/July/August has been a 100% commitment to Porchlight Sessions. June we filmed at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, July and August was filled with filming in Nashville. I’m losing track of time and space. Even though its about 92 degrees outside here I cannot help but wonder what season it is. Weekdays blur into weekends, time-zones are meaningless, and sleep is super precious. Yup. the rough cut is due in two and a half weeks and wait a second…I’m still filming! Be sure to stay posted with my whereabouts on the Porchlight Sessions blog as well by following us on twitter and becoming a fan on facebook!

In other news, I’ve gotten my hands on some Polaroid 600 replacement film for my old SX-70 through the Impossible Project and I’m taking instant shots again!! Even though each shot is about twice the price of what it used to be when Polaroid was making the film, I’d have to argue that this Color Shade ISO 640 stock has better color and quirks than that last batch of Polaroid 600 that was being made by far! Well worth it!

anna

MAY 2011

First off, I must mention that I am writing to you from my childhood room in Nashville, Tennessee where outside my window there are large cicadas flying everywhere. With the heat that has come this week, the population of the 13-year cicada has risen. When I was a child, I remember these cicadas being frightening as they are absolutely everywhere and that they liked to swoop down on us. Although their collective “hum” sound is constant during the day and seems to freak out my dogs, the cicadas themselves are not as “everywhere” as I remembered. They mostly stick to their schedule of flying from branch to branch in the trees, mating, and leaving their larvae for the next release. Oddly, I never thought I’d want to experience this again but since having been here for two days now, I am quite interested in them and their reason for being. As my mom says, “isn’t the circle of life just beautiful?”. She thinks the cicadas are here for human’s auditory enjoyment. I’m on the fence about this one though.

I am here in Nashville as tomorrow I am embarking on a journey to the Smoky Mountains in S. Appalachia for filming some pastoral landscapes for the film, Porchlight Sessions. It is going to be an interesting time, leaving the computer and all these unnecessary distractions behind, to be one with nature and to experience the isolation of the mountains that so many people speak to in this film so far.

MARCH/APRIL 2011

Early in the morning on March 26th, Chris Cloyd, his mother Cindy Cloyd, and I left their home in Ft. Collins, Colorado, picked up several board members of WADSO (West African Development Support Organization) in a shuttle, and away we went to DIA. I remember sensing the nervous anticipation within the group as we traversed the expanse that seemed already unfamiliar as it was hidden in a thick fog on that particular morning. What was it going to be like in Nigeria? Would we make it safely? What were we going to find? I think these questions were on all of our minds. I was mostly nervous about the amount of gear I was going to have to look out for as Chris and I were headed with the WADSO group to film their experience and to create a feature film that raises even larger questions about models and problems of Healthcare that are present in both Nigeria and America.

Chris Cloyd, the director, and I posing in front of the Madonna Hospital. Umuahia, Nigeria. April 2011

Chris (with my help too) raised enough money through Indie GoGo and I want to say thanks here to all who helped and donated! Without your support, we wouldn’t have been able to have the equipment that we needed to make filming this project a possibility.

In the fundraising campaign, Chris wrote this about the project:

“Like may others, you may have received an email from a prince/banker/family estate in Nigeria with an embarrassing legal problem that if you would just help them out with your social security number/bank account, a portion of their windfall fortune could be yours. You may have heard the news, and deleted that email out of hand. You may have even wondered how to help people in Africa, but you have probably dismissed anything coming from Nigeria as a scam. I did. That is, until I heard about the Madonna Hospital Project. Through the efforts of the Diocese of Umuahia and a small NGO half a world away, an abandoned project has been given new life.

In March, the Madonna Hospital will officially open her doors to the poor and under-served communities of Southern Nigeria. Through the remarkable actions of the West African Development Support Organization, a Colorado based non-profit, the possibility of health care is becoming a reality for a community that has been overlooked and left behind in a pay-to-play system. 

The Madonna Hospital is a remarkable example of global grass roots activism in an age when at home, and abroad, governments seem unable or unwilling to address the very real problems that face people every day. Through international outreach, ordinary people have made a profound difference in the lives of a community they have never visited and people they will never meet. They give because they can, or because it is the right thing to do. They work to help others because they still believe that individuals acting together can change the world. The dedication of this hospital is a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate the actions of these everyday heroes.

The impact of the Madonna Hospital is direct and immediate to the lives of the people of Umuahia. Their quest will continue to be serving the community in which they live. The impact of this film will be to raise awareness for their cause. If this film is not made, the efforts of so many who have contributed to a worthy and immediate cause will fall into the obscurity of underrepresented causes around the world.  The Madonna Film is a project of celebration of the community Madonna Hospital serves in Nigeria as well as an exploration of the health care challenges we continue to face here in the States. The Madonna Film will ask if health care is a human right, or just a luxury for the well to do.” - Chris Cloyd

Anyway, we arrived in Abuja, Nigeria somewhere about 3pm or so but it took us about 2 hours to clear the little line of customs and to locate all of our 20-something bags we brought full of medical supplies, gifts, and film equipment. Father Francis, a Priest in the Parish of the Catholic Church of Umuahia in Abia State, was there to greet us. Father Francis comes into this story through having met several members of WADSO while he was doing a 2-year residency as a Priest of the Catholic Church in Ft. Collins. He apparently answered the ad that was placed by the regional Bishop in Colorado and got the job… Anyway, he told the WADSO group about a project in his hometown of Umuahia that was needing funding for its completion. This was the Madonna Hospital. This was the main reason for us coming to Nigeria as the members of this small non-profit have raised the money (and are continuing to raise) that will complete the Hospital which will serve a community who’s access to healthcare is very limited.

Bishop Lucius During Our Interview At the Cathedral.

We left Abuja, slept the night on the outskirts, and woke up to take a domestic flight to Owerri where we were driven to Umuahia. Upon arrival, we met with the Bishop and had dinner with all the doctors and nurses at the Madonna Hospital as well as the other Fathers and Sisters in the Parish. My first observations about this specific region of Nigeria where we were based are the following: there is a lack of trash removal services, electricity is unpredictable at best and scarce on average, soap is a luxury and clean water is a relative term as “Dettol” can apparently be poured into your water to make it clean enough for bathing, the earth is all red clay, people greet us with “you’re welcome” in a tone that makes you want to answer “thank you?”, Africans eat “everything”, and we are the first white people a lot of people had ever seen in person. I think all of these things can be expected of West Africa but my unexpected observations were that people on a whole were elated to see and meet us, alcohol was served to us all the time and everywhere with the clerical people, we were all made Chiefs, female circumcision is the norm, school girls in remote areas like watching Smallville and the OC, the average wage for working 12 hours a day is about $100USD/month, there is no dairy except for powdered milk because of the tsetse fly, and the average person does have a cell phone and doesn’t know how to turn off the standard Nokia ringtone.

The Head of the Autonomous Community’s “Posse”.

Despite the fact that life is slowly developing and progressing in Nigeria especially now under the new rule of leader Goodluck Jonathan (took me a while to understand this was a first name and not a campaign slogan during the election time we were there), there are still major issues regarding the lack of resources to the people. Imagine if you lived in the bush and there was no access to healthcare or emergency facilities as the roads are too rough to make it anywhere near an actual hospital. And then even those “hospitals” have equipment that is becoming so outdated. HIV is a reality as birth control is not used and people are not tested. People die at an such early ages it becomes a natural and normal part of life. If statistics show you about the conditions in Nigeria, then about 20% of children die before the age of 5, infant mortality rate is about 10%, the life expectancy is only 46 years, and the median age is 19 years of age. In the US, the median age is 37 and the life expectancy is 78. Enough said.

Sister Amauche, Me, and Sister Stan at Christ the King Church Mass Led By Father Francis.

From our experience there, it was obvious how far the US dollar can go, how helpful “plumbers without borders” would be in addition to the “doctors without borders”, how the thought of a Home Depot in Nigeria is so far out, and the fact that we could do so little to help so many. I also just recently visited Planned Parenthood and must say here how extremely fortunate we are to have such a system set up for us. Absolutely amazing.

My entire experience in Nigeria is a whirlwind of bizarre occurrences seen exclusively through a lens. We visited private clinics, clinics in the bush run by the autonomous community leaders, Federal Clinics, and clinics built through the aid of the Rotary Club of Umuahia (we also spent a lot of time with these Rotarians). We toured Secondary and Primary Schools, interviewed a range of people on the issues facing Nigerian people when it comes to healthcare, and also were greeted with huge celebrations of performance by means of music and dance. Never in my life have I seen such joy in people as when we danced with the ladies who had walked for hours just to meet us and watch the ceremony where we were made Chiefs.

Photo Taken By Cindy Cloyd of Me Being Named Chief.

I will forever be grateful to the people in Abia State who welcomed us with open arms, to the school girls who petted me with such curiosity, and to the onslaught of ladies who were curious about my marital status. I’m sorry I couldn’t marry all of their sons and I am also sorry I couldn’t provide medical attention to anyone. I do hope that the camera work that I did will help bring attention to the needs of these people who are falling away from the International spotlight because of bad press concerning internet frauds.

I am also incredibly humbled by this experience because it makes me realize how much we as Americans take for granted in our daily lives. It’s amazing how wrapped up in our immediate realities we can get and how easily we can slip away from that reality by just merely getting involved with the amazing efforts of non-profits like WADSO. They truly are inspirational people and I thank them for showing me how it is possible to actualize a dream even for people who are half a world away.

**Thanks also goes out to iKan and Manfrotto for sponsoring us in Nigeria!!**

ALBUQUERQUE JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2011

I’ve been hanging out in Albuquerque, NM lately after coming out initially to work with Steve Fierberg, ASC, while he was the Director of Photography for the feature film titled, “Ten Year”, directed by Jamie Linden. The film meant many long hours filming in locations scattered around the vicinity of the Andaluz Hotel and downtown Albuquerque. Shooting party scenes meant there were many extras and it was cool to make friends with these local film creatives. Filmmaking is a definitely a great way to learn about a place and its people. The cast was a roudy bunch but a lot of fun to work with. Most importantly, I was fortunate enough to spend much of my time by the monitor with Steve Fierberg, his gaffer Steve Mathis, and also his key grip, Chuck Smallwood. Being able to watch their dynamic as they all work together to achieve the look of this 2-camera shoot (shot on 2 RedMXs) was really informative for freshening up on some lighting tricks and scenarios. The film was shot mostly handheld and with a steadicam so it was cool to see how the camera operators might work together to create the feeling and sense of movement that Steve was trying to achieve.

El Madrid Bar becomes “Pretzels” in the filming of “Ten Year”. Albuquerque, NM 2011.

In other news, I’ve been staying with the lovely Lori Baker who does hair in the film industry here. Through her and other crew members, I’ve been hearing and learning about protests towards the state taking away the tax incentives for filmmakers filming in New Mexico. Its been interesting to also learn similar changes may be in the air for the industry in Nashville, Tennessee. Either way, I’ve had a productive time with Miss Baker getting some creative endeavors underway as well as searching for my mobile device in the brush of the Sandia Mountains. Her Puerto Rican street rat dog, Tia, is also due credit for finding the phone. When I am not catching a sunset on the Sandias, hitting up the steamrooms at the Sports & Wellness locations, or trading tricks with Lori, I am working with Chris in post for Porchlight Sessions, wrapping up a shoot with photographer Wes Naman, as well as getting ready to go out to Abuja, Nigeria to film a doco on the dedication and opening of the Madonna hospital in Umuahia.

Lady Madonna project is raising funds on Indiegogo so click here to help us!

View from the Sandia Mountains from the Indian School Rd. Trail-head. Albuquerque, 2011.

ISRAEL 2010

We landed in Israel at 4am and the Taglit (Birthright) group set us on a jam-packed Day 1 tour all the way to Haifa towards the Golan Heights. Its amazing how in a 2-day time span I was in Nashville, Cincinnati w/ Doc Watson, Philadelphia w/ Dena, NYC, and then Tel Aviv, Haifa, and yup, all the way to northern Israel. Time and space are really heavy concepts. I firmly believe this…Anyway, as exhausted as I was, the whole “tour bus” culture took me a little while to get used to but after several nights of going to bed early I was back on schedule. Or at least I was 4 days later somewhere in Jerusalem where we spent Shabbat at the Western Wall.

Aerial View of the Western Wall about 3pm. October, 2010.

The Sachlav (trip organizer through Taglit) group of people were mostly from the Northeast like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. There were several of us from California representing…either way our group was filled with fun crazy Jew characters! Together we hiked, saw the border to Syria, toured the holy town of Tsfat , Kibbutz hopped, walked through underground water tunnels in the Old City of David, crawled through narrow dark caves, visited bunkers of old war sites, visited holy sites in Jerusalem, floated in the Dead Sea, partied in the Bedouin tents, rode camels, went on moonlit hikes, saw sunrise at the amazing Masada (desert fortress overlooking the Dead Sea), understood the realities of the Holocaust on a different level through a guided tour of Yad Vashem, added on 8 Israeli soldiers to the group, partied hard in fancy nightclubs along the port of Tel Aviv, and ate a lot of eggplant, humous, falafel, and pita.

Stopping with part of the group during a hike in the Golan Heights.

After the 10 days of Taglit, I hung around recovering with friends from the trip in Tel Aviv. Once they all parted ways after our final Shabbat together, I got acquainted with the elderly ladies of the “women’s dorm” at the Hayarkon 48 hostel. I also spent a lot of time biking along the ocean side towards the old city of Yaffo. Tel Aviv is a lot like Los Angeles in that it is a modern city situated along the coast with a long boardwalk and bike path you can take to go all the way from Yaffo to Tel Aviv’s port. While there, I had a hard time making the decision between trekking to Sinai or to Petra in Jordan. In the back of my mind I was remembering this program through Livnot in Tsfat, which is back up near the Sea of Galilee. I was set to take a bus to Eilat but the morning I woke to do so for some reason the conversation I had with Stephanie (a girl from the program I met while she was dropping off brochures at the hostel) the previous day about getting “connected” with Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah started to sway me.

Off to Tsfat I went. I arrived to do an 8-day program with Livnot U’Lehibanot where I spent the mornings working landscaping on Tsfat’s Citadel or in the Soup Kitchen, the afternoons at the Yemenite Pizza joint or with an artist around town such as David Friedman or Avraham Loewenthal, and the evenings with the girls of Livnot either in class on campus or studying Kabbalah around town at various places or homes. I’d also teach yoga to anyone interested, talk about mystical concepts with friends, and hit up a concert of Jewish folk music at the Khan of the White Donkey. Pomegranates grow everywhere in Israel so the juice of several oranges mixed with the fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice was a favorite street stand treat of mine.

Pomegranates in a tree in the Old City of David.

We cooked together 2 meals a day in the kosher kitchen which is separated out for the dairy side and the meat side. Tsfat is one of the four holy cities in Israel representing the element of air. After 2 earthquakes, the town has rebuilt itself upon old buildings so the old city has layers and layers of depth that keep being rediscovered through excavations like those Livnot does. Imagine a city built on a city and the ancient underground structures they’ve come upon. The history was something I really connected with in Israel. It’s so strange to be somewhere with so many years of history yet the modern day is a loosely populated place with a slight urgency to build back the race in a space that has been vacated by so many waves of different people. Its incredible especially to me who’s lived in the relatively new state of California and the relatively new country of the United States and also Australia…

Example of the ancient arches that were built on after the Earthquakes in Tsfat.

Anyway, Tsfat was a beautiful time for me to connect with the the mystical side of Judaism and to learn about the vastness of the religion through the different sects of Hasidism. On Shabbat, I was fortunate to be given the tour of Tsfat via all the different synagogues. To be in a religious part of Israel on Shabbat is a time like no other. Everything stops for Shabbat. The lights are not switched, electronics are not used, and everything food-related (and this is an important part) is prepared ahead of time. It all begins with sundown on Friday and ends on sundown on Saturday. During this time you do not read, you do not work, you do not type, listen to music, drive your car, or do much more than celebrate together. Being in Tsfat, an orthodox town, was interesting to see how people preserve tradition. The specific dress, the payots or earlocks, and the large families with as many as 10 children were several things that make Tsfat’s people so “Tsfat-like” or unique.

After Tsfat, I spent a couple of days as a more secular Jew would in Tel Aviv hitting up co-ed Hebrew yoga classes before trekking back to New York. When I landed there and took the train into Brooklyn, I learned that my favorite Infamous Stringdusters were playing a show in the city at the Bowery Ballroom. Within 3 hours of arriving in the US, I was at a bluegrass show in the middle of New York City. Again, I am amazed at the notion of time and space. Oh, and did I mention there is a bluegrass following in Tsfat? Shmuel plays the banjo and David plays the mandolin. They sing the blessings after the meal set to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies by Flatt & Scruggs. Small world.

OCTOBER 2010

Porchlight Sessions filming picked back up at the end of September in Nashville which took me to the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Awards where I got to meet a lot of Bluegrass legends and to interview/meet a lot of people who were part of the World of Bluegrass Convention at the Nashville Convention Center. I learned about the stories from the first festivals in Roanoke, VA and got to see Earl Scruggs play guitar (not banjo) with his sons! I also met the Davidson Brothers from Melbourne, Australia who knew my banjo-playing friend from Canberra, Cowboy Phil!

Next I went off to Asheville, NC to meet up with my friend Ruby Mae, whom I was living with in Ojai, California on a Ranch before setting out to Nashville for filming. Mae is from Asheville so she came out to help me produce a couple sessions there including visiting our friend David Hamilton who’s now managing a community garden/farm from his Tobacco-barn abode outside of Chapel Hilll. David always reminds us of living the simple life and how to get back to our roots through developing the land to live off of it. He really amazes me how he can cultivate a plot of land to grow whatever he can seasonally from greens such as arugula to sweet potatoes and red chard. Ruby Mae and I had been living off the land as well in Ojai as we were fortunate enough to be nestled on a citrus orchard with acre after acre of oranges, avocados, apricots, and lemons.

Next we were off to Charlottesville, VA where we did a shoot with the local radio station while the Infamous Stringdusters were in to promote the festival we were following them to - the same festival that they were putting on called the Festy. The weekend had glorious weather, tons of great music, beer, pickin’ parties, and quality campfires, fire dancing, and oddly enough…bagpipes! Check out the video below that I did for the Festy site, the Artsit Farm, and for Relix magazine.

The Festy! from Anna Schwaber on Vimeo.

“Here is an exclusive look at The Festy Experience, which took place over Columbus Day weekend in Nelson County, VA (directed by Anna Schwaber)”

-Relix Magazine (www.relix.com)

The Event was put on by The Artist Farm, Cerberus Productions, the Infamous Stringdusters, and Devils Backbone Brewing Company in 2010.

After we got back from the Festy, Nashville shoots included visiting locals such as Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien, Sarah Siskind, and JT down at the Station Inn (aka Bluegrass Mecca). We then trekked it up to Cincinnati to visit with Doc Watson before he performed at a college campus. The next morning I flew out to Philadelphia, met up with my roommate from Costa Rica who was kind enough to drive me the next morning all the way to NYC’s JFK to fly out to the Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, Israel!

SRI LANKA 2010

Sri Lanka came and went like a massive blur of high speed events. We crashed cars into constructed markets. We sent a jeep over a 200ft. cliff inside a rock quarry. We built a car mount for driving effects plates and had a driver who’s idea of “near missing cars” was a little too realistic. We went onto the Sri Lankan Air Force base in Colombo to meet out pilots who flew the picture helicopter and the camera helicopter. We had a surprise hospital commercial shoot sprung on us when we landed our camera copter on a hospital complete with nurses in outfits and a frantic director instructing us to get out of the way of the shot as an actor on a stretcher was brought next to us on the landed camera copter. We had to work around an elephant’s circadian rhythm when using him on set. We rigged jeeps, tuk-tuks, and helicopters for all kinds of mobile shots mostly using suction cups, custom built parts, pieces, and large seat belt straps. I doubled as the lead actress in motorbike wheelies, chase scene shots, and day-dreamy flashback sequences. We somehow managed all-access to the famous Kandy Perahera traditional Buddhist festival on 2 day’s notice. We searched the country for waterfalls and traversed night and day to find that the one we needed was not fit for cliff diving. We learned patience. We learned its important not to work on the full moon and we learned its important to keep spares of things such as car batteries and international power strips. We also learned how to communicate with silent head bobbles and broken English. We ate all kinds of curry, sambal, hopper, king coconut, and on-set samosa snacks. Click here for more on Sri Lanka cuisine. And we were interviewed by the local paper, the local television station, and had a huge entourage of curious on-lookers wherever we went.

All in all, our Sri Lankan adventure was filled with surprises, improvisational moments, early mornings, and wondering what time the offices around the world opened and closed. It was a lesson in adaptation and makeshift operation and I loved every minute of it. The shoot was for effects and action shots done by Master Key Visual Effects for the Season Finale of USA’s television show “Covert Affairs”, August 2010.

Checking the “crash cam” from the Jeep that was sent off the 200ft. cliff outside Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Rajeev Dassani and I discussing the plan before shooting while at the hanger owned by the head of Asian Film Location Services, Chandran Rutnam.

ROCKYGRASS 2010

In July, I traversed across the Wild West of Nevada, Utah and Colorado to find myself in Lyons, Colorado for the Rockygrass Bluegrass Festival put on by Planet Bluegrass (also do Telluride and Folks Fest). I’ve been working on this film called Porchlight Sessions for some time now which is a music revival film aimed to update the appeal of Bluegrass and Mountain Music with the hope of bringing people back to their roots or at least to American Roots. The idea behind the filming process and the structure of the film is to bring together a community in support of the music and from all around the country. This festival was a chapter in the film and I was fortunate enough to sit down with legends such as Sam Bush, Peter Rowan, Bryan Sutton, David Holt, Sierra Hull, and Ben Kaufmann. I ran around with the people who put on the festival and also partied into the wee hours with all the other pickers. There was little time for sleeping between filming, photographing, and eating many Cliff Bar samples and drinking New Belgium’s beer. And it wasn’t like anyone could sleep with the driving sound of the up-right bass coming from the campsite next to my tent which was weaseled into a small plot of grass in the campground of the die-hards who waited in line for days to camp there. I realized later that I missed the staff camping somehow where I thought I was plopped.

Thanks to Ikan for sponsoring the shoot which turned out to be a solo mission for me with just the b-cam.

Highlights from the Festival include the kids area (Kavu Elements Tour guys) and all the fun two-stepping lessons I got. The St. Vrain river runs adjacent to the Planet Bluegrass property which provided lots of fun for the tubers and the river rats. I also enjoyed singing gospels in the river led by the amazing Peter Rowan to celebrate the end of the Academy and its graduation. That was really special as the Festival hadn’t started yet so it was very intimate and cinematic. The Academy was filled with classes held by some of my favorite Infamous Stringdusters who are always fun to see. During the final act all the musicians from that day and days past (most of whom I’d filmed by now) went up on stage. I was told to get on up there too. So I got up there and took some great shots of the everyone with the Sam Bush Bluegrass Band!

Rockygrass Academy students practicing for the final performance ceremony and graduation on the Planet Bluegrass Property, Lyons, CO.

After the 4-day extravaganza, I only made it to Denver to my friend’s place where I passed out accidentally for 5 hours while attempting to “nap” before the big journey back to Los Angeles. I ended up staying overnight and got to hang with high-school friends during their final days living in a huge house not far from Downtown Denver. The drive is calming, expansive, and for a lack of a better word, AMAAAZZZING. With temperatures well above 115degrees, I coasted at 80MPH through the National Parks of Utah.  With each passing mile, I couldn’t help but feel the Earth and the Native American spirit. One thing is for sure. After filming across the US for Porchlight, I have realized how incredibly vast America is. Its rich with diversity and history and so many different kinds of people who listen to this kind of music.

Sam Bush pickin’ for me backstage at Rockygrass in Lyons, CO.

Jesse Cobb of the Infamous Stringdusters saying hi while they set up.

COSTA RICA (pt. 2) 2010

a. getting attacked by beatles b. tahalinas c. scorpions d. movement, rythmn, music, breath e. tide pool backyards f. fire asanas and sequencing g. illuvia h. possessed cats i. prayer flags & pura vida j. que tal mae? k. donde vas? l. antes y despues m. Walkin’ with a box of Clos. n. street fights and dance bars o. hamacas y playitas p. empanadas de Jorge q. las cascadas r. gel de sabila y citronella s. camphin y fugatas t. ATVs u. ReggaeNoche v. vamos a bailar w. mariposario y la casa de Tommy x. gallo pinto a la cafeteria de Cabuya y. Paso Fino y karaoke z. finding stillness.

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4 JUNIO 2010

Sitting at the main house at Paso Fino drinking a beer that Chaca brought back from her flight as a stewardess for Taca airlines. Gracias para la cerveza :) Wednesday I came in from Montezuma after finally deciding to leave about a week after I thought I was going to only because of the rain. Last week it rained 24 inches from Monday to Friday with about a 30 minute window of no rain. During this time between Yoga Teacher Training and coming here, I lived a life of teaching Fire Poi at La Escuela Del Sol, teaching Yoga for the current teacher at Montezuma Yoga, Vidya, and also taking photos at the Anamaya Resort and also of Javier, the Argentinian silver jewelry maker who lived across from me on the ocean for the majority of my time in Montezuma.

The bathroom in the top of the main house at Paso Fino with wall-to-wall windows.

When I first arrived in Costa Rica back in January, I found Montezuma only through my need to spin some fire and so I found Le Escuela Del Sol. I made a video for them, took 2 weeks of Spanish classes, and found myself a little home. When I returned there to do my Yoga Teacher Training in late April after an insane 5 weeks in the US, I lived at Casa de Dena, Hacienda Delicias, Hotel Lucy (when my room flooded with the initial rain that also brought the tahalinas aka crabs), Hotel Los Mangos, and also Casa de Tommy who is running the EcoStay program and also developing a LEED property and organic farm outside of Cobano. Staying with Amanda at Hacienda Delicias was such a beautiful time as it happened just as I became injured from too many adjustments, ATVing, and kayaking to Isla Cabuya. I had to emergency go see the chiropractor for the first time who also discovered aside from the pain in my shoulder that my pelvis was in such need for alignment that one of my hips was an inch higher than the other causing one leg to be much longer than the other. He straightened me right out and oddly I went from not being able to turn my head to full recovery in 4 days! In any event, I moved in with Amanda in her recently married bliss and lived on a diet of mangoes as it was mango season and we couldn’t even eat them fast enough! If the monkeys or the horses didn’t get to them it was mango shakes, mango sushi, mango chutney, mango salsa….

Edgar teaching us Anatomy and Alignment in the Yoga Pavilion at Montezuma Yoga

In the end, I rented a little white house for $10/day all to myself with a view looking out to the luna llena over the ocean and just across the street (again) from the tide pools and the Argentinians. They were an interesting bunch and I ended up helping them make a new line of jewelry by sanding down shells that were to be set in silver only to be rewarded with “pasta in white sauce” at about 3am…. I took some crazy portraits of “the illegal” aka the Argentinian who’s lived in Costa Rica for over 5 years now without a passport. If you need to reach him, you can always use a typical Costa Rican address (in spanish) such as Javier, the Argentinian who lives on the beach on the road to Cabuya, next to Montezuma Paradise, Montezuma, Costa Rica.

In any event, the training was a month intensive and now I have become a Yoga Alliance certified teacher. Spending my days with 17 other girls from 7am-5pm learning asanas, anatomy, and sanskrit, proved to be challenging yet also very fun and fulfilling. I now speak spanish well enough to communicate or explain myself here in Costa Rica and also I know over 100 sanskrit names for asanas (poses). I’ll be back to Los Angeles next week sometime after Dinga (here at Paso Fino) and I do an investigative photo essay on the pesticide issue/effects of the banana plantations of the border town Sixaola that most people know as the frontera from Puerto Viejo and Bocas del Toro.

Anyway, I think I am going to see Black Uhuru tonight in San Pedro before we are off in the morning. I have released the new video I did for the teacher of my Yoga Teacher Training on my vimeo if you have a chance, check it out!

Click here for the new video…

View from Anamaya Resort, Delicias, Costa Rica

Angela Boltz teaching a sunrise yoga class at Anamaya for the filming of the promo video

Hello and welcome to the new site! This is where I will be blogging about my adventures!
Up next: headed to Nashville for FilmCom with Porchlight Sessions and my sister’s wedding in Carillon Beach, FL!