Year: 2020

Fashion Film Director Greg McDonald at La Jolla Fashion Film Festival

By Bylinegmcd on

Fashion Film Director Greg McDonald at La Jolla Fashion Film Festival

I just found this clip of fashion film director Greg McDonald and cinematographer Roberto Correa introducing the fashion comedy film, The Selfie That Changed The World at the La Jolla International Fashion Film Festival in 2017. (I only refer to myself in this paragraph in the 3rd person for SEO reasons. My ego isn’t really that big.)

The film was nominated for Best Creative Direction and Best Narration.

Watch the clip on the Fashion Film Network‘s vimeo channel.

This is the first time I had seen the clip. I knew they were filming the introductions and I meant to look for it shortly after the event and then I forgot all about it.

The La Jolla Fashion Festival is really a great time and unlike many other festivals, they actually like filmmakers! ha! It may sound odd if you’re not familiar with them, but many festivals treat filmmakers like leeches. Seriously. Like necessary evils they have to endure to put on their festival. But we need them and they need us so we get along just like any other normal dysfunctional family in America.

Greg the gringo

Of course, during the introduction of the film I pronounced Roberto’s last name like a gringo and he promptly corrected me. I took Spanish in the 8th grade but apparently not much took. So I appreciated the help. I returned the favor and helped him out by offering him proper microphone holding technique.

We’re taking our act on the road!

I think the most fun was the reaction to our introduction, that is, other than the reaction to the film itself, of course. Was that one person came up to us after the screening and asked where we perform. He thought Roberto and I were a 2-person comedy act. Now that’s comedy!

But I don’t know, I think maybe we should hit the road. Might pay better than independent filmmaking. It’s good to have a back up plan.

Related: the shortest horror movie in the world.

fashion film director Greg Mcdonald at La Jolla Festival and Roberto Correa

Another clip I just came across was of a quick interview of Roberto and I at the after party after the screening at The Lot. I think it was about 1am or so when we did the interview and we’re remarkably lucid.

Watch that interview clip with fashion film director Greg McDonald and cinematographer Roberto Correa on the Fashion Film Network’s vimeo channel.

What about film? Where can I see it? You can watch it on Gate5’s site, The Selfie That Changed The World.

Sacrifices You Made

By Bylinegmcd on

Sacrifices You Made

How do I repay you for the sacrifices you made for me?

Sacrifices You Made, a flash fiction story

You sacrificed for me, I know. You sacrificed affection for resentment. Compassion for contempt. Encouragement for humiliation. Love for your limitations.

I’m grateful for your sacrifices. It made me who I am.

You gave me a gift. A gift that allows me to see things differently, to have a unique view of the world. The gift of doubt.

Confident well-adjusted people don’t make art. They become doctors and lawyers and design furniture for Ikea. That’s what you said. You saved me from that misery.

I don’t know how to repay you, so I’ll do what I learned from you. I’ll sacrifice my worthlessness and destroy the thing that you love.

~ Sacrifices You Made – a flash fiction story by writer-director Greg McDonald based on the photograph.

Backstory to the story

I hate selfies – what McDonald’s is to food, is what selfies are to photography – but I’ve given in and I do take them at certain times just for the hell of it if I feel like it and to document an event or something. When I took this I was going over the story of a script in my head that I’m working on.

I snapped it while driving to the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California from Los Angeles. I was going there to see the hemp pavilion and talk to companies in the hemp world about the video series I’m launching on hemp. It was exciting to see some innovating new hemp products that are coming out.

I’ve never set out to write a flash fiction story, they just sort of happen. Usually I write one based on a picture I’ve taken like this one. They’re fun to write and are a good quick writing exercise that you can do about anything at anytime without making a big investment in time or commitment to a story. Write it. Like it? Then keep it. Expand upon it if you want and incorporate it into something else. Don’t like it? Then leave it in your notebook and forget about it.

Like the other times I’ve written a flash fiction story, such as A Sunny Desert Day, it didn’t occur to me until I got home and looked at the photo that it could tie into my script and could be used as an image that represents the main theme which is about the relationship between a mother and son. I’m currently writing, or rather rewriting it and plan to have it ready soon. I don’t like to talk about things until they’re done so that’ll have to be it for now!

Hemp Already Video Series

By Bylinegmcd on

Hemp Already Video Series

I’m super excited about a new episodic video series called Hemp Already, about all things hemp that I’m producing. Here’s the sizzle reel, or teaser. The first episode is coming in 2020!

Why a show about Hemp?

Hemp is going through a huge resurgence now that the Farm Bill of 2018 has made the plant legal again and we aim to capture this excitement and innovation!

Update: my video series Hemp Already is online! Read about it in this post.

The first use of hemp dates back about 8,000 years ago. It’s been used for thousands of years for many products and was one of the largest agricultural crops up until the late 1800’s. With the signing of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 outlawing hemp along with cannabis in 1937, it effectively killed the hemp industry. It’s such an efficient source material for so many things including timber and petroleum based products that it posed a major threat to those industries which played a part in the plants demise – hey, it’s competition so we need to squash it!

sun flare coming through a hemp plant with a house build in background

The renaissance of hemp has begun and people are using this miracle plant again to build all kinds of things. It’s the most versatile, sustainable, carbon negative, deforestation saving, eco-friendly plant in the world. It grows in only four months, can grow almost anywhere – wild hemp grows in all 50 states, uses less water than other crops such as corn or cotton, produces more fiber than cotton and more biomass than corn, doesn’t need herbicides or pesticides (or very little), regenerates the soil and has numerous other benefits. It truly is a miracle plant.

What can be made from hemp?

There are tens of thousands of products that can be made from the plant instead of the unsustainable, greenhouse gas emitting, toxic and fossil fuel based materials that are being used now.

The list of things that can be made from the hemp plant seem endless: negative carbon construction materials like hempcrete used in residential houses and commercial buildings for walls, ceilings and flooring, hemp insulation, hemp wood, fiberboard, carpets, paints, varnishes, inks, any paper product can be made from hemp instead of trees, supercapacitor batteries (yes batteries!), plastics and bio composites (nearly all European car makers use it now for car parts), biofuel, diapers, mulch, animal bedding, all kinds of clothing (much more environmentally friendly than cotton), rope, canvas, beauty products like soaps, lotions, makeup, nail polish, shampoo and it can feed people and animals with a whole bunch of food products and can help cure us with cannabinoid extracts.

hemp hurds for making hempcrete in episodic series Hemp Already

This is just a short list of things that can be made from hemp. This article from the Ministry of Hemp lists 73 things that can be made from hemp but that’s just the beginning. Some estimate that there are 25,000 products that can be made from it while others estimate 50,000! Whatever the actual number is, its large.

What will the show be about?

The show will feature the pioneers that are helping to save the planet by making things with hemp. Each episode will tell the story of a business or organization and their hemp products but it’s not a business show: it’s much more than that. Hemp is a movement and hemp advocates are an enthusiastic bunch to say the least! They love the plant and what it can do for the planet and the economy. Hemp Already is really about seeing new ways of doing things and different ways of living. It’s a show about diverse people who are making the world a better place through the hemp plant.

About the sizzle reel, what is hempcrete?

I’d like to thank Dion Markgraaff and the US Hemp Building Association and Sergiy Doctor-Hemphouse for letting us film their hempcrete workshop. 

Hempcrete is a sustainable negative carbon construction building material that is used in walls, flooring and ceilings. It’s fire, mold and pest resistant. It is not load bearing, and is usually used with wood stud framing. The thermal properties are incredible – it regulates moisture and temperature in the building thereby vastly lowering energy costs as many houses built with hempcrete do not need heating or air conditioning.

after pouring hemcrete in form you then tamp it down

Hempcrete replaces traditional insulation and drywall which is made of hydrofluorocarbons that produce potent greenhouse gases. Typically lime or clay plaster is used on the inside and outside although any permeable material can be used. 

In the workshop we filmed, the students were building the walls of a tiny house with hempcrete. And as you can see, it’s a pretty straight forward process. Hempcrete is made by mixing hemp hurds, water with a lime binder.

Hemp already. Let’s go!