The Ethos Of Sekwej

I've had the opportunity to compose music for various film and video projects over the years. One such film was a humorous look at the worldwide year 2000 computer date bug /crisis known as "Y2K". The film was aptly named Y2K A Comedy for its regional release and later, plot extended, nationally as Yankee 2 Kilo.

It was a small budget independent film and the first feature film produced by director Kels Goodman, who went on to produce several other features and is the magic man behind the wildly successful Will It Blend? Blendtec® commercials.

The music I composed for Y2K A Comedy / Yankee 2 Kilo was mostly orchestral in nature with the exception of one pop song, Only Survivors. Kels agreed to help out in the production of a music video as part of the deal for me to compose the score for the film. The idea was to have the music video play after the end of the film like a "special feature". Henceforth, the music for the film was composed, the "pop song" was written, the video was made, the film was released, time went by and I (like everyone else) became involved in other projects. Unfortunately, Only Survivors with its accompanying music video never saw the light of day as a separate work outside the movie. . . until now.

But before you watch / listen, however, I'd like to reminisce a bit about the creation of the video. Why you say? Because: 1. It's sentimental, and these events allow me to opine a bit about the music industry in general. 2. The events will probably seem funny, stupid or both to you (either way, I hope it will be enjoyable to read). 3. You'll be able to catch a glimpse of some of the pleasing, whimsical, painful, stressful, uncomfortable and overall ridiculous situations that one goes through. 4. I thought it would make an interesting and, perhaps, educational blog for those who are looking to glean information on what, and more importantly (by my own misadventures), what not to do when planning a production such as this.

I must say I feel very fortunate to even have opportunities to do things like this. I've benefited from the support of many people; family, friends and complete strangers alike. In the case of this video, all of the above were involved with its creation. My wife (then newly married to yours truly) was involved, my parents were involved, my sister was involved, my sister's mother-in-law was involved, my brother-in-law was involved, my friends were involved, people I had never met before were involved. We were working with a shoestring budget. All of us were investing our time, talent and money.

The original plot for the video was as follows:

A member of a luxury liner stage band finds himself stranded on an unknown island after the ship on which he worked wrecks and founders on a rocky shoal. After reuniting onshore with two of his band mates, they slowly discover the islands secret. It's home to a Siren (based after those found in Greek mythology or the writings of Homer).

The plan was for me to gather up a 2nd unit crew to shoot preliminary and block footage along various locations at the Oregon coast which could be filled in with later footage shot on a green screen stage in Utah where Kels was putting the finishing touches on Y2K A Comedy. The problem with this scenario was my minor (or was it major?) misstep in thinking. I forgot that I was a musician / songwriter / composer / audio engineer: not a movie director. It didn't become clear to me until everyone arrived on site at our first location, Sand Lake Dunes, that there would be no one boss or chief figure to organize our efforts. I had underestimated the complexity of what had to be done. Sure, I wrote my little script for the video, I had a vision in my head of what it was supposed to look like and how it was to happen. But being able to, in an organized manner, implement the script had not been thought through.


Working with Kels on the movie in Utah had been simple for me logistically. He had everything under control. I didn't think much about what his job really entailed. He shot the film and I composed the music for it. No problem right? Not so when you try to do a production without a director! So here we were, our diverse crew from Washington, Oregon and Utah plopped down on the sand with our cameras, electrical generator, lighting equipment, props, instruments, etc. and having little ideas or agreement on when, where or how to start the production. I slowly began to realize that my humble low budget music video about a Siren and a shipwreck was actually about to become a train wreck instead! Rrrrrrrrrr. . . crash! Fortunately, however, everyone involved had great talent. So, we all finally came to agreement about what, when, where and how & got on with it. In the end it was talent and determination, not logistics, that saw everyone through the Oregon coast location shooting. Also, it was friendship. Two thirds of the crew I'd been able to put together for this little adventure was either a personal friend or family member. Of which I tend not to make a lot of distinction. They're all family and all my friends. As for the others who I'd never met before. . .they became friends by their kind and caring actions and interest to do the best with what we had. I cannot express enough how grateful I am for anyone's work in my behalf. The lesson here is never, ever, forget who has helped you and who your friends are. No matter whether you make it big, small or somewhere in between, your friends and, if you're lucky, fans (which should be viewed as friends you have yet to meet) are the most important assets. They are pure gold.

The next step after Oregon was for me to fly to Provo Utah for the green screen sessions. There I met Kels and, for the first time, met Lisa Deml (the lead actress from the movie who also was to play the "Siren" for my video) and Darin Andersen (who was to direct the green screen compositing and editing). Of course having producers and directors around in control of things made my job easier and more enjoyable. So, as you can imagine, things on the green screen stage went smoother and quicker. I then spent several days with Darin at his home studio editing the entire video. These were long, tiring hours even though my job was relatively light. All I did was sit around and say, "yea, I like that" or "maybe we could try this", etc. It was Darin that ran all the equipment and did the real work. It was nice for a change to not be the one operating everything.

It wasn't so nice, however, on my wife. Newly married, the peculiar nature of the music business came as a total shock to her. Her recent marriage was to me, not the industry, and she struggled to adjust to a husband who frequently left town or got lost in a studio for weeks at a time without a lot of contact. I, totally green to this husband thing, made things worse by failing to call her for days at a time. To think of her now, stewing away at home in Washington while I disappeared into the abyss of Utah with no updates of my progress. It was a stupid mistake; a mistake of being too absorbed in ones work and not realizing that one now has a family of ones own, however small, to protect and nurture.

***It might be eye opening to note that even the more successful and bigger name artists I've met, or know or have talked to. . .the ones whose careers far exceed (in my expectation) much hope for me to obtain a similar level of success, even they, in moments of true honesty, express fears of how long their success will last. How long before their popularity fades. How long before their record label gives them the boot because the latest album hasn't sold as well as the previous one. Is this the last great gig they're going to have? Where will the next paycheck come from then?? Make no mistake, the music industry is, at best, a soul killer and, at worst, a marriage killer. I'm not just talking about the artists; I'm talking about everyone behind the scenes as well. Frankly, its amazing Andrea and I are still married and have found happiness. The business side of the industry, which I'm saddened to acknowledge, has very little to do with true art anymore (especially the so called "pop" industry). The business side is absolutely ruthless. It is cold, it is hard, it is demanding and exacting. It is shallow, selfish and narcissistic. It is competitive in a bad way; encouraging artists to see who can be the most sensationalistic, slim, young, sexy, outrageous and controversial. Honestly, what does any of that have to do with good song writing, arrangement, musicianship and vocal quality? People with marketing and law degrees, instead of art or music degrees, largely run the industry. The significance, with few exceptions, is that a businessman's reason for art is greatly different than an artist's reason for art. Dealing with the "business" side of the music business is like having a mistress. . . It is not innocent like Hannah Montana. . . You do not, as her song suggests, get "the best of both worlds. . .". With no disrespect to Ms. Cyrus, the person who wrote that song or the Walt Disney® focus group who came up with the idea that selling "pop stardom" to children is a good thing; as if stardom should be a desired road map for successful living. . . With no disrespect to them intended, everyone in the industry knows, deep down, the "Hannah Montana" concept is a load of absolute bull s--t. Artists, with their families and friends, make significant sacrifices whether they completely understand it or not. Some of those sacrifices can be Faustian in nature.***

Ok, I digress.

On a lighter side, here are some silly (at least we can laugh about it now) ridiculous situations or circumstances encountered during the production of the Only Survivors music video.

1. For fear of permanently damaging a valuable working instrument during the filming at the coast, I purchased a non-functional ES-335 style hollow body guitar from Capitol City Guitars DOA repair pile in Olympia, WA. for $20.00. It was originally a twelve-string guitar, now in terminal structural condition. I quickly took off half of the tuners to make it look like a six-string. Hence, the reason the headstock looks unusually long for a six-string guitar in the video. The guitars hum-bucking pickup was missing so I cut out a piece of wood about the size and shape of a pickup with my band saw and then wrapped it in tin foil to give it a metallic look. Most people won't notice, but I'm sure a few guitar players will wonder what the heck I actually had attached to the guitar in the video.

2. During the second day of shooting at Cape Kiwanda it started to rain. So the whole crew, except me, scrambled into my dad's Z71 extended cab pickup truck and drove up and down the coast line filming me through a rolled down window, in the cold rain (and even colder ocean) laying sprawled out in the tide, getting up, stumbling around, etc. Problem was, high tide was coming in fast and, a couple times my father, as he was the one driving, almost lost the truck to the ocean because the waves were ripping the sand from under the tires in such a way as to render the vehicle immobile. I witnessed the whole crew bail out several times to help push the truck to safety or to just run away from the impending waves. I'm sure this situation put several hundred more gray hairs on my father's head as they struggled to keep the truck from getting mired in the deep wet sand, then flooded by the tide and finally dragged out to sea. My dad was the Division Manager of auto claims for the Pacific Northwest region of State Farm Insurance at the time. I wonder, had he not been able to get the truck out in time, what his claim report might have read . . . Chevrolet Z71 - 1/2 ton pickup, driven out to sea, total loss. . .

3. The lights we used for the nighttime beach seen (where Jason, Tom and I are sitting around the fire) were merely 500 watt halogen work utility lights on stands (like the type you'd find at Lowes® or Home Depot®). To counter the "hot spots" they created, I built my own light diffusers by making a 24" rectangular frame out of 1" x 2" pine studs, stretching muslin fabric over the top and staple gunning it to the underside. The muslin "diffusers" did there job quite nicely. I was very proud of myself for coming up with such an inexpensive solution to a portable light rig. That was until, on the night of the location shoot, someone placed the "diffuser" a little too close to one of the halogen lights and the muslin fabric caught on fire and came crashing down with people frantically trying to stomp the flames out as it hit the sand.

4. Looking back on the Oregon Coast location shooting, I realize that we probably should have applied for and obtained a license to film on the locations we did. We had all these lights going, an electrical generator so loud we could barely hear each other, a full drum set being played on the beach, people standing around, etc. I think we were lucky that the sheriff's department didn't show up and shut the whole thing down.

So now I've decided, before I go back into winter production for the follow-up of the "Standard Candles- EP" , to release a re-mastered version of "Only Survivors" as a single along with the video. I've had the audio re-mastered by Jim Wilson of Airshow Mastering (Thanks Jim) and am happy to put this song officially in my repertoire. It's been long overdue. . . I hope you like watching the music video. Some of you will think it's amusing, some will think it's dumb, some will think its cool and some won't. Everyone has their own gauge of what they like. Only Survivors, the song and the video, represent many things to me. It represents a time of increased turmoil where I had to learn to start making adjustments for the sake of my wife (God bless her) and show more "grace under pressure" as one might say. It represents the last big production that involved some of my closest friends and fellow musicians as I have moved away from my long time home in Oregon, relocating to Washington and now Colorado. It represents a time of better physical health before my lung collapsed (Pneumothorax) for which I'm still on medication to keep it from reoccurring. It represents all the efforts in time and money my parents went through to help lift me a step higher in my career. It represents the fact that I've survived Only Survivors and that part of the reason I'm releasing it as a single outside of the movie soundtrack is because my young son thinks it's one of my best songs and shouldn't be kept in the file drawer anymore. So there you have it. Enjoy! :)

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A little story of things not captured in the frame. . .

Part of the challenge in photographing wild animals is to know, and sometimes guess, where they’ll be in any given time and place. One is often found fumbling around in the woods trying to find the correct position, trying not to make much noise, trying to get as close to the subject(s) as possible yet maintaining a safe distance, etc. Yes, indeed, photographing wild animals is a lot like hunting, except you shoot a camera instead of a rifle and the animal is still living when you’re done. There are times, however, when you (the photographer) feel like the one who is being sought. Such is the case with my picture, Moon Gold.


I took this shot in Rocky Mountain National Park on an early autumn evening after photographing elk during the start of the rutting season. The moon was rising low over the horizon with one of those golden “harvest” like looks to it. Tired as I was from a day full of shooting I couldn’t just walk away from a scene like that without trying to take a picture. So, with a sigh, I pulled my camera gear back out and, in the afterglow, began to set up the shot.

Now, you can’t see it in the frame but just over the hill and to the left was a sizeable herd of elk about 50 strong or so. They must have thought I looked pretty silly bumbling around trying to find a good spot for my picture because not too much time went by before the whole herd started to march over the hill in my direction. At first I didn’t think much of it, assuming the herd was just side skirting my position on their way to the forests edge. Suspiciously though, they suddenly took a hard left, came up to about 30 feet from me and stopped. Stranger still, they then began to file in like concertgoers finding seats in an auditorium. Needless to say, for the next half hour, I felt like the lead player in a surreal gig for a very unique audience. The whole herd standing there watching me work the camera. . . quiet and intent.

“What, they’re not supposed to do that!”, I slowly thought to myself. “They’re supposed to be weary of me, not interested in me. . . am I blocking their way or. . .” And then came the scary thought, “Crap, it’s rutting season. . . if there are any bull elk around I’m going to become the target of a crazed male’s testosterone filled rage!”. By now I’m starting to get a bit nervous, peering out the corner of my eyes. . . waiting, with some trepidation, to see antlers fly my way any moment. Luckily, none came. . . just the continued casting gaze from my seemingly curious oddly calm audience.

A couple more exposures and. . .done! Pack up the gear, find the Jeep, start the engine, engage the drive and watch, in the rearview mirror as I pull away, my hoofed spectators holding still, in the dark, as if I might return with an encore performance. I assume they eventually made it to their bedding grounds. If elk could talk I wonder what they might say the next morning. . . “What did you and the girls do last night Darla?. . . Oh, we watched a stupid human play with a black metal box. . . what a show. . . How interesting, I see people do that all the time here. . . don’t they have anything else better to do, like eat grass??” So now I tell all I meet who see this picture about the elk in it. And, of course they query, “What elk, I don’t see any elk?!” And I respond, “Oh, yes they’re there. . . just to the left of the frame. . .right beside that bush. . .they were there the whole time”.

Wapiti, you never know what they’re going to watch!

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New for this year I will be offering a diverse compilation of select images for a series of special edition collectible pieces. The first series out the gate will be the Monogram Special Edition 2008. This series was designed as a cost-effective and efficient way to acquire one of my prints pre-mounted and double matted ready to be put into a 16 x 20 size frame of the buyers choosing.

"Monogram's" feature a beautiful pigmented Giclée fine art print on Ilford professional lustre paper. I hand selected the mat colors for each print in order to facilitate, tonally, the most optimum presentation of the work as a whole. The prints are water and scratch resistant. They are capable of being displayed without glass. They are rated not to color fade, under normal conditions, for a lifetime. All materials used are acid and lignin free.

Each different print in the series will be offered in a limited run of 250. They come with a certificate of authenticity, which is permanently attached to the back of the work. The certificate is signed, numbered and given a serial number that is used to register the print to be archived in the Jeff Jewkes photography registration files for further long term protection of the owners investment.

I have spent many, many long hours of painstaking labor in designing the Monogram Special Edition. My fervent hope is that the buyer will find this series to be absolutely stunning, that these prints will bring inspiration and add a pleasing aesthetic look to ones home or office.

The first two Monogram Special Edition prints: Saint Vrain Creek 1 and Saint Vrain Creek 2 are available now with more in the series to shortly follow. For those who live outside Colorado and can not visit my gallery, other exhibits or stores in the area I have now opened an online shop via the well respected Etsy.com in which anyone, anywhere can easily acquire prints from this edition as well as others works in the future.

I wish to give my heartfelt appreciation toward all who have purchased or considered a purchase of my fine art photography and I hope to continue to bring you great art. Thank you friends. . .

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