We Create

42 dedicated women filmmakers and photographers.
Five sparkling days in the Bahamas.

One powerful message: We Create.

You just never know where you might find inspiration! 
Late one night at POSH, an amazing female filmmaker retreat/cruise, my filmmaking friend and roommate Maura Coleman-Murray and I were discussing the idea of women in the filmmaking industry and what skills we believe women bring to filmmaking. Traditionally, the filmmaking industry has been a male dominated field, but that is slowly changing and more and more women are making it their career. We talked about how women have changed the industry in various ways. Bringing what we see as a more emotional, intuitive and personal approach to the making of films. We thought, here we are with 40 of the top female event filmmakers in the world, lets make a short film about it!


We asked the rest of the 40 women on the retreat what they thought of the idea. Of course everyone was very enthusiastic and full of ideas. We met the next morning on our one day off in the Bahamas and spent the morning working together coming up with the concept, writing the script, and filming the piece. 
It was an amazing collaboration of the most talented women.  


Based on the concept of sharing a positive message about women and what they bring to the craft of filmmaking, we choose to create the film around three sentences: "I am a", "I am" and "We are". The "I am a" statements describe the roles we all play in society: "I am a mother", "I am a sister".  We used the "I am" sentences to describe what skills we bring to the craft: "I am creative", "I am intuitive", "I am sensitive". Then we went to "We are" statements and delved into the actual things we believe we are, such as: "We are storytellers", "We are documentarians" and finally "We are filmmakers". 


In the end we hope to inspire other women to use their natural intuition and believe in themselves to forge ahead in this male dominated field confidently. Women Create. We create. Create.


Shot on location at POSH 2010, “We Create” was directed by Maura Coleman-Murray and Kara Jensen, filmed by Maribeth Ratajczyk and Luiza Perkowska, and edited by Meg Simone. 
With Collaboration from all 42 POSH attendees: jen moon . reagan zugelter . kristen * . jessica roman . brea mcdonald . dawn kelly . tasra dawson . luiza perkowska . jolanta piwowarczyk . meg simone . lisa mckendry . kat small . melanie darlington . amy warkentien . mary howland . gina howland . jessica ringor . danielle kaiser . beth oslander . april robles . isabel gonzalez . nicole stamps . maribeth ratajczyk . krisztina horváth . tímea jaksa . amy grissom . kria macalpine . terry taravella . sarah pendergraft . tammy akard . jennifer leyva . candice cossel . stephanie higginbottom . stephanie keysacker . regina drury . stefanie childs . carolina bonnelly . gina lende . cherie almand . joanna banks-morgan . shelby downing

Five sparkling days in the Bahamas

Inspiration shoot on the Island of Coco cay with Brea McDonald http://www.BreaMcDonald.com and Dawn Kelly http://www.soireefloral.com

This conference was so amazing! 42 women event filmmakers all on a cruise ship for 4 days makes for a wonderful experience. Been home for 2 days and I think the swaying has stopped and now I am trying to absorb all the great information. Really the biggest take home for me was feeling really positive about my work and my style. Women are so supportive and positive and it is so wonderful to spend time with a group of women who are doing the same thing as you, only they are bringing their unique perspective. So interesting to share and talk and learn from each other. I am inspired to continue learning and exploring and connecting so that I will always  be growing. http://posheventonline.com/

Lovely Blog I just discovered

Reading their Humanifesto really resonated with me. Love the concept that good manners can change the world. Go Check it out here:
http://teamsuperforest.org/superforest/2008/04/23/the-superforest-humanifesto-2/

Taking the plunge: go Kitty O'Neal

Originally published in the Los Angeles Times (1975), with the following caption:

“It wasn’t a plane. It wasn’t a bird. It wasn’t even Wonder Woman. It was a stunt. On Monday, stuntwoman Kitty O’Neil plunged from atop the Valley Hilton in Sherman Oaks into an inflated air bag at the pool deck, as the scene was being filmed for an upcoming two-hour special episode of the Wonder Woman series.

A Warner Brothers spokeswoman said Miss O’Neil, who is deaf, established a new high fall record and broke her own previous mark of 120 feet. After the leap, she rode to the airport for a return flight to Bonneville, Utah, where she’s attempting to set a new world land speed record* in her jet powered car.” 

*1/4 of a mile in 3.22 seconds at 396 mph

Summertime!

This has been an amazing summer! We have shot so many wonderful, original and inspirational weddings I can't believe it. I am in editing mode during the week and shooting on the weekends. Can't wait to share all the wonderful people and their stories here over the next few weeks.
This summer has also included: road trips, mountains, lakes, stand up paddling, canoeing, old and dear friends, home town visits, cousins, swimming pools, sunshine, beaches, bears in trees, tents, quilts, new kitties big cities and lots of laughs!

A blog inside a blog

                                                                        Image by Julia Junkin
I recently had the pleasure of writing an article about the challenges of balancing being a mother and an artist for the POSH retreat for women filmmakers blog. Take a look here...http://posheventonline.com/?p=446

Vegas!

So, in March I was lucky to travel to Las Vegas for the WPPI convention. ( Wedding Portrait & Photographers Institute, http://www.wppionline.com/) and to assist a friend and fellow wedding filmmaker Julie Hill from Elysium Productions (http://www.elysiumblog.com/) with a wedding shoot. The first all women crew, Same day edit music video ever!

I attended a workshop about HD DSLR filmmaking put on by Bruce Patterson (http://cloudninecreative.com/index.html) and Joe Simon (http://www.joesimonweddingfilms.com/) that was incredible.  This was a hands on workshop where Bruce and Joe shared with us their huge amount of knowledge and skills. I was pumped since I had only owned my Canon 5D for a month and really had a ton of questions. It was a great seminar!

The WPPI tradeshow was gigantic! Fun to dream about all the gear I would love to own. Met up with a large group (maybe 30) of wedding filmmakers and reconnected with some wonderful friends. Went to some great parties, my favorite was put on by Junebug weddings (http://junebugweddings.com/) in an amazing Las Vegas skyline view suite. Drank a bit too much bubbly :)

The wedding was so much fun! The team was all women, Julie, Kristen* from Bliss Productions (http://www.blissvideoproductions.com/), Christina Valdivi (http://cristinamvaldivieso.wordpress.com/) and myself. I was super excited to work with these women as they are all amazing filmmakers and I was hoping there skills would rub off on me a bit :)

The Bride and Groom had been practicing and memorizing the lyrics to the Michael Franti song "I love you" for a few weeks. On the wedding day we carried around a boombox and filmed 3 or 4 takes of the song with  Aria & Elie and their guests. Plus we shot all the rest of the wedding day. Meanwhile our editor was in the other room editing away our footage as we dropped memory cards off. Around midnight the SDE was shown on the big screen and it was a hit! Take a look:



I feel so much gratitude to Julie for inviting me to assist with this wedding and trusting me to be apart of such a wonderful team! There is always more to aspire to and Julie has got me totally psyched and motivated.

It's a white Easter

This is the first Easter I have ever experienced when the ground was covered with snow!
It was a bit hard to put my mind around at first but now I am finding it gorgeous! Was inspired to go out and shoot the vibrant eggs my children dyed in contrast with the white snow. It was so much fun to hide them too! Happy Easter and I hope you all find pleasant surprises when you are least expecting them

Sisters Quilt Show 35th Anniversary Documentary

I am excited to share that I will be producing a documentary for the Sisters Outdoor Quilt show over the next couple months. It will be premiered at the 35th birthday party on June 6th 2010. Our working title is "Every Quilt Tells a Story: Celebrating 35 Years of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show".
 A bite from our synopsis: This will be a vibrant, warm and friendly documentary approximately 30 minutes long featuring the personalities and stories of the Central Oregon quilting community and those it has touched. The film will provide insight and inspiration for those who have contributed so much to the quilt show over the years as well as those new to the event.

I keep thinking how similar the making of a film is to the making of a quilt. Taking all the pieces and stitching them together in to a cohesive and interesting story. It's so fun! My to-do list is huge, but I am slowly checking things off. I am lucky to be working with my sister, Bridget and we just finished the rough draft on the script and it looks so great. This morning I had my first shoot with the Quilt show board. It went great. What a wonderful group of women! 

http://www.sistersoutdoorquiltshow.org/

Inspired by technology

For the last year I was coveting a camera, the Canon 5D mark ll.. It got pretty bad. I tried to tell myself that its all about the person shooting and not what they are shooting with (and I do believe that) But still I dreamed of this camera. The ability to use 35mm lenses, and the amount of fun I could have with that! The size of the camera is much more portable and conducive to being up close and personal with out really being noticed. And many more reasons that I couldn't stop obsessing about, so, I saved up same cash and bought it!   It's been so amazing. I am totally re-inspired to shoot. I carry it with me practically all the time and I am truly amazed at the quality and depth of the images. It feels so good to have my passion renewed for film making. I am posting this short film I made the other morning on a walk. I was feeling very Zen like that morning and tried to represent that in what I was shooting. It was so much fun.

morning walk in the snow from kara jensen on Vimeo.

Zach and Krissy's Wedding story

The wedding was set on the family land along the gorgeous Metolius river. With its rustic feel, Black Butte in the distance, the creek flowing through, the setting seemed to fit these two perfectly. It was a close knit family and friends affair, some of the guests camped in tents & VW's in the meadow , with guitars and beers in hand! The groom surprised the bride with a wonderful little cabin he had built just for them! It was so sweet!

Zack + Chrissy Wedding Story from kara jensen on Vimeo.

Wondering about having your wedding filmed?

Chin up Kid.

I accidentally elbowed my son in the eye = HUGE shiner. Poor guy. Life lesson: make the best out of the worst situation. Get on the bus and laugh it off. Not as bad as you imagined it would be. It never is.

Organic, unfussy feel

Just watched the film Rachel Getting Married and loved it! Why hadn't I seen that before? Geez. It was so real and raw. Did a little searching online after watching it and found this on wikipedia.com "Many reviewers praised the film for its organic, unfussy feel; Salon reviewer Stephanie Zacharek noted that "with 'Rachel Getting Married,' Demme has once again scaled back, making a picture that has some of the ease and warmth of his earlier movies, although it also feels stripped down and direct in a way that's new for Demme." ^[13] USA Today proclaimed: "After a foray in documentary films, director Jonathan Demme has returned to narrative storytelling, assuming a decidedly cinéma vérité style that has echoes of Robert Altman. The film's greatest asset is the sense of cringing realism in portraying dinner parties and interpersonal encounters that can throw family members off-kilter." ^[14]. The Los Angeles Times noted: "Helping give this story its essential air of reality is the decision Demme and cinematographer Quinn made to shoot it as what they call "the most beautiful home movie ever made." The director chose not to plan shots in advance, instead giving Quinn (whose credits include Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding") the ability to respond in the moment to what was going on with the actors, and it's a tribute to his ability (and that of editor Tim Squyres) that his camera always seems to be in the right place at the right time." ^[15]."
Hmm, that style sounds alot like how I like to shoot, no wonder I liked it so much. :)

A look back at some 2009 weddings

Put this clip together as a way to highlight some of the weddings we did this past year. I feel so lucky to have captured so many wonderful moments. Telling the stories of each couple is so rewarding. I love weddings!

Expectations Moving Pictures Wedding Highlights 2009 from kara jensen on Vimeo.

Color Relationships

Mark Rothko "I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom," he said. "If you . . . are moved only by . . . color relationships, then you miss the point."

I sat in front of this painting for 30 minutes in MOMA SF a few weeks back. Love it! I can't explain all the emotions it brings up in me. WOW!

Wedding show fun

Recently had the pleasure of shooting a glimpse of the Bravo Wedding Affair in Sunriver, Oregon at the beautiful Great Hall. This was all shot on my Canon 5D mark II, Take a look...



Bravo Central Oregon Wedding Affair from kara jensen on Vimeo.

"Get good, be good, stay good."

Lately, I have really been searching for what a friend and mentor calls my unique perspective. What the heck does that mean? I am still trying to figure it out. One thing I have always been good at is being what I think people want me to be. This can be a great skill, but it can compromise my own direction. So, I am trying to find balance, with what makes me happy and follow my heart and instincts instead of what I think others want. Its a way better way to go about life since I really can't please everybody. I recently read an article in Parade magazine about the actor Harrison Ford that struck at the core of what I am striving for: “I am secure in what I do,” he says. “I am very interested in having the respect of the people I work with, but I am not generally out looking to be admired. I want to be good at what I do, and I want to learn from other people how to get good, be good, stay good.” These last few years I have been opening myself up to learning more from those in the wedding film industry that inspire me. Hopefully this will continue to help me get good, be good and stay good!
As Harrison also says “I don’t look at things from an art perspective, I look at them from a craft perspective." To me this means that it can only get better and better! Which is a great perspective!

http://www.parade.com/celebrity/2010/01/harrison-ford.html

Bravo Central Oregon Wedding Affair

Come visit me this Saturday January 9th at the Great Hall in Sunriver and I will make it worth your while! If you book with us at the show you will receive $100 off your filming package!

If you would like to get in to the show for FREE go to http://www.bravocentraloregonwedding.com/index.php/About-the-Showcase/aboutshowcase.html and use the promo code "Bravoforce" (it is case sensitive)

Can't wait to see you!
Kara