Noelle's Noel: Noelle O Designs

A quick little video of what Noelle has been making lately. Noelle is my wife but that sounds so odd to me like she belongs to me, oh well, we are partners and I guess I am her husband, we have been married for awhile. OK! she is very clever and can make anything, this is what the last few weeks have looked like around here. So, want to give a handmade gift for Christmas this year? you can get her stuff today through Saturday at the Beehive Bazaar in Provo, UT, she also has an Etsy site.

Sketchbook Sunshine

It's 3 degrees this morning in Midway, Utah. We are getting cold sunshine but not enough snow. (this sunshine is a repost from a old sketchbook/journal from a few years ago) I wish I had more time to draw, but come to think of it, I wish I had more time to learn music, make art, party with the kids, learn a language, ride my bike, ...but I am stoked to be a filmmaker, that is a lovely gift.

Lantern Rouge, Tour de France 2004

I dreamed of going to France to watch the Tour de France so I pitched an idea to OLN to do mini documentaries about the stuff that goes on at the side of the road during the race and they bought it! Crazy! It was one of the most amazing shoots ever. My crew was host Hans Rey, Editor Tim Irwin, Norge boy French translator Maggie Hendriksen and me as director boy. It was a month on the road living in our euro camper van. Most of our stories were about the fans, this one was about the last place racer. I love it when he said, "...after the last climb, I saw the tip of the Eiffel Tower." We were almost a week from Paris, haha!

Spike Lee Book: "Spike Lee's Gotta Have It"

I have always been a fan of Spike Lee, his book “Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It” changed my life and altered the way I look at filmmaking. Most of the book is from his journals as he was making his film, “She’s Gotta Have It.” I don’t know if the book is still in print, but it is worth reading.

From the introduction by Spike Lee:
“Everybody and his mother has a script or is a filmmaker, but the ones who gets their films done are the ones who don’t listen when everybody says, “Forget it, you’re wasting time and money.” The ones who believe, have an unwavering faith in their films and ability and are almost, but not quite, willing to kill to get that “bad boy” made, will prevail---’cuz dat’s what it takes.”

It has been fun to watch his career evolve from “She’s Gotta Have It” to bigger Hollywood stuff, to stuff shot on DV to documentaries. “Four Little Girls” is one of my favorite documentaries he has done, and shot by one of my favorite cinematographers Ellen Kuras.

The Circus Project

I returned to Portland, Oregon to shoot the kids of The Circus Project and their performance of CircOddyssey. It was so great to see the show and hang out with the kids and the artistic director, Jenn Cohen. We filmed the performance and did a few wrap-up interviews. It was brilliant and I am very thankful to do this for a living. I get to meet amazing people and help tell their stories. Meeting people like this is good for the soul, thank you all. There is a song that we sometimes sing around here that that goes like this, “Have you done any good in the world today?” that makes me think of the big hearted Jenn Cohen- that spends her life helping others, Good luck sister. It will play on the TV show "Turning Point" check out the story I did about
young adult dealing with cancer here. (photo: 3 or the 4 kids that were in the show, #4 needed to go to bed for work in the morning)


This photo from the Oregonian article about the Circus Project.


a snip from "The Circus Project" website...Our cutting-edge aerial performances and expert training enrich the Portland arts community, while funding outreach to homeless and at-risk youth in the Portland...

Vintage Reel ... Filmmaker Steve Olpin

I ran to this online the other day (googling myself? maybe I was just taking a break! haha!!) forgot about this one but this is mostly 16mm stuff and a video treat at the end. Filmmaking is going great right now, I 'm very happy. I am finding peace being a nonfiction director/director of photography, digging for passion with a camera in my hands. I am a recovered film snob and shoot mostly vidoe now, my camera of choice right now is the Canon 5d. Enjoy the reel, there is a lovely intro by Gary Fisher and few great shots of my BMX hero TJ Lavin. (photo below TJ in his yard)