Saint West takes GOLD at the ADDY's!

After a whirlwind year, we were very much looking forward to this year's ADDY awards, where "Winning Fixes Everything". It was great running into old friends and meeting new ones. As usual, the San Diego Ad Club, or SDX put on another stellar production. We only had a few months to create work we could submit to the ADDY's, and decided we would enter our 2016 reel, "Go West" as well as our latest branding mantra, "Making a Mark". We are pleased to announce we took home 2 Gold awards for "Go West" in the Self Promotion and Cinematography categories, while "Making a Mark" took Silver for the same categories. Go West will go on to Regionals and if we impress the judges with another Gold, will head to Nationals for our second appearance on the main stage! Congrats to everyone who came out this year with some amazing work, it's always a treat to be inspired by our fellow creatives! 

Photos by the lovely Brogen Jessup.

Making a Mark

We intend to make a mark on this world of ours. We don't shoot content for content's sake. We shoot life. We make things you feel. It's at the core of who we are and what we do as filmmakers. We chase stories and light with passion. But sometimes you need some help along the way. So, we engaged designer Jordan Stark and metal artist Michael Leaf to help us bring our mark to life. This video is our way of saying thanks to these guys for connecting our mission, culture and passion to a mark in a digital and tangible way. Now it's up to us to deliver on those ideals.

A very special thanks to Sennheiser for creating the AVX, Freefly Systems for the MoVI M15 and Marmoset for such a rich music selection. We couldn't do what we do without folks like you.

Saint West Filmworks Roadtrip 2015 - Day 4

Day 4, we found ourselves waking up in Chiloquin, OR which is just north of Klamath Falls in the Southern end of the state. This sleepy little town is surrounded by the Winema National Forest and has many rivers and lakes in the surrounding area.

We hooked up with a local sporting goods store owner and friend of a friend, Harry. Harry would be our fly fishing talent and guide for the day. Our goal was to capture some stunning fly fishing footage in the morning and hit the road to make it to Bend by sunset to meet up with the fine brewers at Crux Fermentation Project. Unfortunately, there wouldn’t be any brewing taking place, and we had to pull the plug on Bend at the last minute. We licked our wounds and engaged the MoVI and RED Epic to capture Harry in all his fly fishing glory. His backyard happened to be situated at the very spot were the Sprague and Williamson rivers meet. Needless to say, this collision of freshwater aquatica created one hell of a fishing hole. After spending some time with Harry’s beautiful and welcoming family, we grabbed lunch and headed to our second location, one which Harry hoped we would like. Boy did we ever. 

We have chosen not to divulge the name of the location we were taken to, as the thought of making it any more popular than it already is just tears us up. This river bend had the most beautiful turquoise, crystal clear water we’ve ever seen. We grabbed a canoe and our DJI Inspire 1 and took to the water and the skies to film some incredible footage of South Central Oregon in all her glory. We wrapped the day with Harry catching a few fish at Sunset on yet another beautiful river bend. 

We rolled back into Chiloquin pretty late, dog tired again and ready for our final leg to Portland. Day 5 coming soon! 

Photography courtesy of Sean Horton @ www.hortonvisuals.com

Saint West Filmworks Roadtrip 2015 - Day 3

Day 3 allowed us to sleep in a little bit and grab a solid breakfast at Red Hut Cafe in South Lake Tahoe. After buying a couple of Keep Tahoe Blue stickers for our Pelican cases and downing some pancakes, it was time to head up to Angora Lake. 

Angora may be one of the most beautiful best kept secrets in the country. With limited parking and nearly no signage, it’s very hard to find and if you don’t arrive early you will not get a parking spot for hours. We were lucky enough to have some local firefighters give us dibs on their spot as they were leaving, and we were off. The hike up is about 20 minutes with decent inclines, so hiking with 30 lbs of gear was less than ideal. But the view once we arrived would more than make up for the effort. We wanted to capture the fun of jumping from the granite cliffs into the crystal clear alpine lake water. There is a small audience of tourists and locals that line the small granite sand beach to the west of the small lake, cheering people on as they conquer their fears and jump. After lugging our gear across half a mile of huge granite boulders and steep hillsides, we finally made it to the 20 ft jump on the south end of the lake and set up our MoVI and RED Epic to capture the action. We also rented a rowboat to give ourselves a perspective from the water. This proved a fantastic decision, doubling as a gear cart for our return trip. Once we wrapped, we had to hit Big Daddy's Burgers back in South Lake Tahoe before making the long drive north to Chiloquin, Oregon. Luckily, the drive afforded many creative opportunities that we took full advantage of, including a sunset flight over a Nevada valley and long exposure star photography from the middle of the highway in the pitch black night. We rolled into Chiloquin around 1am, dog tired. Day 4 coming soon!

Photography courtesy of Sean Horton @ www.hortonvisuals.com