Boxcar Films recently worked with Vangel to complete an ad campaign for non-profit organization First Chance For Children. We created two TV and two radio PSAs for the campaign.

We filmed the TV PSAs in June around Columbia, MO using a combination of local actors that we found through an open casting call and babies/toddlers that actually participate in FCFC. In addition to some outdoor and private locations, we also filmed at Jefferson Junior High School just around the corner from our office downtown. The PSAs were filmed with the Canon 5d MarkII and Canon 7d cameras, which we’ve been using on a lot of projects lately.

Check out the two TV PSAs below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last weekend we premiered our latest music video for the song “Independence Day” by Decadent Nation at a show at Mojo’s in Columbia. This video is unique in two ways: 1) it was created as part of the Stephens College Summer Film Institute, and 2) we made use of a new 360-degree lens attachment in the video.

Every other summer Boxcar Films assists Stephens College (the only all-female film school in the country) with their Summer Film Institute. This year the first two days of the program were spent testing our new 360-degree lens attachment, and the third day was spent filming this music video for Decadent Nation at the Blue Fugue. In addition to all of the normal camera angles, we made occasional use of the 360-degree lens throughout the video.

Check out the video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And mark your calendars for September 10th. That’s the date of Decadent Nation’s CD release show at the Blue Note. They will be playing with Ghost in the Machine, who is also releasing their new album on that day. Boxcar Films completed the latest Ghost in the Machine video as well, for the song “Never Trust a Pirate.” That video premiered in April of this year.

Check out that video below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Check out the site at www.timmermanshvac.com.

Soon we will be launching a couple of sites for the City of Columbia, as well as adding a few new videos we’ve been working on lately.  Stay tuned!

The citizens of Canyon City, Colorado have been fighting for years to have 1.3 billion gallons of uranium-contaminated groundwater cleaned up.  In November of 2008, the community organization Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste hired Boxcar Films to come out to Colorado and help tell their story by creating the short documentary “Yellowcake.”  Today they are still fighting… but an end may be in sight.  HB10-1348, The Uranium Processing Accountability Act, would ensure that the polluter, not the taxpayer, would have to pay for cleaning up the mess.  The Bill has been moving through the Colorado House and Senate easily. It would require all Colorado Uranium Mills to clean up their toxic waste before they can expand their licenses, and would warn future residents about contaminated well water.

KDVR, FOX channel 31 in Denver, recently ran a story about the pending legislation and used a lot of footage that was provided by Boxcar Films.  We sent them b-roll of the uranium mill that we filmed back in 2008 and they used a lot of our footage in the final news piece.  Check out the video below to see the news story and learn about the proposed legislation.

If you want to learn more about the broader implications of this issue, watch our short documentary “Yellowcake” below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After working for several months, we have finally completed a new Boxcar Films commercial reel. We’ll be sending this reel out to advertising agencies and marketing firms around the country to show them examples of our best commercial work.

The artwork for the case turned out to be really exceptional thanks to our good friend, artist Ben Chlapek, who not only designed the art but also pulled each screen print by hand. Ben also designed and printed our business cards. Check out more of his work on his website:  www.neversleeping.com.

Jonny Pez took some great photos of the new reel packaging the other day. Take a look:

Back in November we were contacted by the Missouri Department of Labor to create a PSA for a new workplace safety program. We filmed at Spectrum Studios with NASCAR driver Carl Edwards and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. This was the fifth time we’ve worked with Carl and the first time we’ve worked with the Governor.

It took a couple of months for the DOL to get permission to use the NASCAR b-roll in the spot, but finally in early February we got the go ahead and finished the edit. The PSA first aired statewide in February and it will continue to air all year, during every NASCAR race, in every TV market in Missouri.

Check out the PSA here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Once again, the True/False Film Fest was an amazing weekend for everyone.  And for us here at Boxcar, it represented a chance to truly challenge ourselves again this year.  First of all, in January we complete the TV spot for the festival which aired around central Missouri during the month of February.  The concept for the commercial came from the timelapse tilt-shift videos of Keith Loutit and others.  We created the video using a Canon 5D Mark II camera with a normal lens and the tilt-shift affect was added using After Effects (as was the giant hand and magnifying glass).  We used a song by our friends Capybara and the finished spot came out great.

Click here to view the embedded video.

During the festival we wanted to create something similar to last year’s Thank You video, but we had the idea to finish the video before 7pm on Sunday so that it could screen in the Missouri Theatre before the closing night film of the festival, which was Lixin Fan’s “Last Train Home.” Jonny Pez only slept for 2 hours on Saturday night on a couch in the edit room, but we pulled it off. At the theatre that night several festival staff told us that this video reminded them why they work so hard to create this amazing film festival every year. The video is now on the True/False website as well as our own. For this video we mixed the tilt-shift concept from the commercial with the montage idea from our Thank You video to create something that we hope captures the essence of True/False 2010.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our friends Nathan Truesdell and Kim Sherman and the team at Arable Entertainment created the bumpers this year, which turned out great.  The bumper was shot on the RED camera and was screened before all of the films during the festival.  Nate has created the bumpers for the past several years, but the bumper is the most ambitious and entertaining one I’ve seen so far.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’ve recently begun using Google Alerts to notify us when Boxcar Films or “Box Elder” is mentioned in the press. One of the first articles we found a few weeks ago was in the local paper here in Columbia about a project we just finished with Warren Dalton and David James. We created a DVD to accompany their new book, called “Historic Downtown Columbia.” The photo above is of the original courthouse in Columbia and is taken from the book. This article in the Columbia Daily Tribune explains the project.  If you’re in Columbia, copies of the book/DVD can be ordered at the Missouri Theatre box office.

A recent result for “Box Elder” brought up this article on the site of the Gene Siskel Art Center in Chicago. Range Life Entertainment was recently in Chicago screening several comedies as part of their Fall Tour ‘09. The new Range Life Spring Tour will kick off in March and will take several films, including “Box Elder,” to cities on the east coast.  We also found this review of the film, written recently in The Maneater (Mizzou’s campus newspaper).

Finally, a funny result came up for Todd Sklar (writer/director of “Box Elder”) in Matt Dentler’s blog, top 10 whatever of ‘09. Matt (from Cinetic Media), wanted to break the mold, and instead of creating a “top 10 films of the year,” he put together a list of “top 10 anything else.” Todd submitted a list of his top 10 sandwiches of 2009, and you can check them out on Matt’s blog.

As the decade comes to a close, we have quite a bit going on here at Boxcar Films.  This month we find ourselves prepping to shoot a TV commercial for the True/False Film Fest, as well as making plans for several projects that are coming up in the spring.  We are also wrapping up the projects that we spent the last part of 2009 working on and you can see several recently-finished videos up on our site now.

For example, we just finished a promotional video for a new line of fishing rods by Wright & McGill.  Last month we completed a :30 TV spot that we shot at the same time (back in October), and you can read about the project and view the :30 spot in our last blog post.  But this promotional video is now complete and will play in stores around the country as a point-of-sale video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We also just released a music video for the band Ghost In The Machine.  The video was filmed in 2008 during the Stephens College Summer Film Institute, but the band had several delays in finishing their new album, so we’ve waiting to release the music video until now.  The song is called “Never Trust a Pirate,” and we had a blast putting it together.  We created elaborate sets and dozens of sock puppets and filmed for 3 days in Studio B on the Stephens College campus.  We’re all really proud of the final product, particularly because it has received praise from such a wide range of people, from grandparents to kids to G.I.T.M.’s loyal hardcore fan base.  It walks a fine line between light and dark humor and provides a nice contrast to the music.  The new album should be out soon, and the music video will launch on youtube in the next couple of weeks, but in the meantime you can watch it here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This month we will have a lot more news regarding Box Elder, True/False, a new Boxcar Commercial Reel and more.  But for now we’d simply like to wish all of you a Happy New Year.  Bring on the 2010.

Also this past week the Cinema Eye Honors website went live.  Our friend, documentarian AJ Schnack, created the awards to honor excellence in non-fiction filmmaking.  The website for the 2010 awards was designed by Ryan Nelson (who works in our office in Columbia and recently designed the new Boxcar Films website) and all of the artwork on the website was created by our good friend Ben Chlapek of Neversleeping Design.  I think the website and the artwork turned out great, and we’re all excited to see which films will take home a Cinema Eye Award on January 15, 2010.

Click here to view the embedded video.