After a missed opportunity on Thursday after Zaha arrived from London for her lecture, we were able to land twenty minutes with one of the most prominent architects in the world following graduation. It took us five different times to set up for the interview before we were able to pull her away from her booked schedule of lecturing, meeting, speaking and accepting an honorary degree from Pratt. It was good training on our end for rapid fire 3 point lighting techniques and testing our abilities with extremely limited settings. A few months ago we would have been unable to deal with such circumstances but now we have become pros. Zaha was very animated and energetic to our questions which will prove invaluable to the film's content. What took 10 hours of work from two people and 20 minutes of Zaha's time will boil down into 15 - 30 seconds of film time. It was all worth it.

Take a look at our latest set of photos from the interview and of graduation to see the production.

That is right folks, we just put up photos from the last 2 weeks of production. There were over 1500+ taken over that time span, so it took us a good bit of time to digest and post them. They trace all the last minute production/design work leading up and through the final reviews. In two days the students graduate.

We are also scheduled to interview Zaha Hadid, the 2004 Pritzker Prize winner tomorrow night. You can see her work here. She is in the neighborhood for the School of Architecture's Spring Lecture Series and to receive an honorary degree as part of Pratt's Commencement on Friday, May 9. I'll let you know how it goes.

Immediately following Saturday's final honors reviews and a little bit of celebration that evening, we dove deep into two grant submission. The first one was due yesterday for From the Heart Productions' Roy W. Dean New York City Video Grant and the second was due today by the New York State Council on the Arts for Individual Artists in Film, Media and New Technology Productions. Now that these are out of the way and our fingers are crossed, we will begin to determine how we will survive the cost of living in New York City and complete our transformation into Archiculture salesman. We have trips scheduled to DC and Yale University for interviews/fund raising in May. We will also be presenting at a few office in New York throughout the month to help raise funds. Much more to share in the pipeline but too early to unveil. We will keep you posted as we acclimate to our new post-production lives.

Today starting at 10AM is the final review for the thesis students. It is the climax of the semester and the closure of major production for Archiculture. Lots to share but too exhausted and busy filming to fully describe. Their journey as students of architecture and our own as documentary filmmakers are coming to an end.

Not to make the situation worse for the students, but spring has finally arrived in full force. This is making it very difficult to stay inside and labor over a computer, drafting table or model. We have managed to get outside for a few campus shots and capturing a couple of the students on their bicycles or skateboards. Photos will soon follow.

If you have not looked in a while, check out some of the recent post in the student's blog such as the recent thread of "Quotes," the "COUNTDOWN" realization or the anthem "I think you need a healthy dose of Thesis."

We have also been fairly busy keeping our blog updated with new posts; "Breaking Down the Barrier," "It is 4am, where is your kid at?," "A shake of reflection, a bit of excitment, and a tad of terror" or everyone's favorite "Discouraged, Like a Boneless Chicken."

The students have moved into a very intense mode of production using computers, 3D printers, laser cutters, the woodshop, plotters, plaster casts and the metal shop. Amongst this we were able to interview one of the students at his office and home studio. There is even a visit from Legoman. Check out the two new sets of photos from the past week to see their round the clock efforts.

We just posted some new photos of our trip to Harvard to present and film at the FuturePresent symposium and Structures for Inclusion Conference. It was an amazing mix of students, professors and professionals discussing case studies from around the world on socially conscious design initiatives. Putting the power of the built environment back into the hands of the communities who are severely underserved was the rallying cry. Two of the students from Pratt, whom we are documenting, were also invited to come along to join in the conversation. Personally, it was an extremely inspiring group of people to listen to, film and interview. Some of the people we were able to grab for short interviews for our film were Derek Ham, Clifton James, Steve Lewis, Toni Griffin and Casius Pealer. The Archiculture Team would like to specifically thank Harvard, Design Corps and the efforts of the GSD student group for Social Change and Activism for thinking of our project and making our participation possible.

For the full list of photos from the event, visit our Archiculture facebook group.

Like the students, we have gone into a very intense production mode. They are receiving their last significant critiques this week as they transition into full blown production for the final two weeks of the semester. The hopes are to have all their major design ideas solidified by the end of today's studio, so they are only "ironing out the details" when they begin to construct final models and drawings. Some are further along than others, but the studio's intensity is definitely building.

In culmination with their efforts we are attempting to capture as much of this creation as possible. Some amazing ideas will formalize and be created over the last few weeks of the semester and we have to be there with our cameras. Late night bodega runs for coffee, going to the hardware store for sheets of MDF, sporadic cigarette breaks are all apart of the studio culture. We must capture them before our characters vanish. So we must apologize in advance for any less frequent news updates leading up to graduation. Please bare with us, we will be back to normal in a few weeks.

We will be presenting tomorrow at the FuturePresent symposium at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. We were invited up by the Social Change and Activism student group to film the event and give a presentation on our documentary. Pierce and I will stay throughout the weekend to cover the Structures for Inclusion Conference and get some key interviews from the amazing list of speakers. David will come back to New York on Friday to present at the Northeast AIAS Quad Conference being held here at Pratt to architecture students visiting from as far away as Virginia to Maine. So we are very busy pushing the project out to a greater range of the architectural community and are very excited for the people we are about to interview and film for Archiculture.

See you when we all get back. For now check out some of the recent blogs by us and the student, and the new photos uploaded today.

Our latest episode of our Archicasts has been posted on our films page. Give it a view to see how production has been treating us the past month along with our recent adventures during spring break. Of course a new Archicast coincides with our monthly newsletter which went out this morning for March. If you are interested in receiving these notifications email us at subscribe[at]archiculturefilm.com or you can stay even more up to date by adding our new RSS Feed .

A whole bunch of icons have been inserted at the top of our website to further the network of Archiculture. Some of you may know a lot of them, others may know none. The point is to enable users of social networks, social bookmarks, wikis, photo networks and video sharing to have greater access to the content of Archiculture.

Another major addition is the new RSS Feed button at the top left corner. This enables instant updates when new news, blogs, photos, or archicasts are uploaded. For more information on RSS Feeds and how to set one up check out this wikipedia article.

Now that spring break is behind us and the halls are filling back up with students, the reality of the end of Archiculture's production is growning near. We are five weeks from final reviews and seven from graduation. The clock is ticking and the amount of work to accomplish for both us and the students is building. It will be an exciting process to capture.

We just got back from a trip north to interview a few of the students' parents. It was nice to get out of the city for a bit and see where some of them grew up. Each family greeted us with open arms and lots of fantastic food. We thank them each for inviting us into their homes.

Photos from the trip will be up shortly, but for now we just uploaded three new sets. Photos from the week leading up to midterms, from the two days of midterm critiques and from our Trailer Debut party at the Center for Architecture are now up on our photos page.

We have finally arrived to a very significant stage in the lifespan of any documentary film project, the Trailer. This is the point at which others are able to begin to comprehend your concept with actual footage. Real people with vivid moments in motion. No more text, graphics, articles, descriptions, or our own talking heads, it is all in this 2 minute and 30 second clip to begin to understand and embrace the story. We only hope our families, supporters, donors, friends, viewers and potential grant funders see the potential in this glimpse into the future of Archiculture.

It will be will be debuted live tonight at the Center for Architecture in New York and online via Archinect.com at 7PM. We will post it on our films page tonight when we arrive back from celebrating.

If you have any comments. We would love to hear them. Good, bad or ugly we need them to keep us engergized and pushing our own abilities. Send them to trailer[at]archiculture.com.

Some how we have arrived at the mid term critiques which start tomorrow and continue on Thursday. I'm sure some of the students share our feelings for wondering where the past eight weeks went. Tons of energy and work poured into our respective projects but amazing how fast it has gone by. After this week and spring break, there are only five weeks left till the final reviews. The tension is building and the studio is full of energy.

We are excited to follow their journey.

We have posted two new sets of photographs from the past two weeks of production. We got our hands on two still camera flashes for our Nikon and Canon, and can already see the impact on the quality of your shots. We are excited to see how these will help with the low lighting situations of the studio.

A big thank you to Emily and Matt for the equipment.

In our ever present search for writing talent we have landed a new Grant Coordinator in Ben Parker. With a degree from Clemson University in English, Ben has been instrumental in developing and editing grants and proposals for Archiculture. Without his expansive knowledge of morphemes, demonstrative adjectives, zero articles, the Flesch-Kincaid Index, and capital letters we don't know where we'd be. We welcome Ben to the team.

In the constant search for new team members, we have landed a critical one in our new production assistant Emily Levy. She is a recent graduate of Pratt's architecture program and her local knowledge has proven invaluable. Emily has been involved with the front end of editing our trailer, managing our photography collection, coordinating efforts for the trailer debut event, and providing a much needed injection of creative life into the project a few days a week. We look forward to her continued input into the project.

We were able to corral Thom Mayne of Morphosis into an interview following his lecture last night at Pratt. Thom has a pretty impressive portfolio of work and recieved the Pritzker Prize in March 2005 for his efforts. He also helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC) in 1972, and frequently teaches at both UCLA and SCI-ARC today. The interview was brief but we covered a wide array of topics from the meaning/purpose of the architectural thesis, what today's students face in the field, and what are some of the significant issues facing the profession and our society. Keep an eye out for some of this footage in our trailer.

We have new pictures up on our photos page from the past two weeks of production. You'll see a few shots from our professor interviews, some of the recent studio moments, and a few detail shots of the students' work. There will be more photos coming online as we progress towards the midterm reviews March 10th and 13th, and prepare for the Trailer Debut Party.

This 24/7 live feed, aka "MomCast," of our office at the School of Architecture at Pratt, is to show the 24 hour nature of this documentary's production as we attempt to keep up with the students' schedules. The students have been joking that we have been uncomfortable when they point the handicams at us, so we thought we would level the playing field with our own documentation. David goes further into the logic behind the streaming video on his latest blog posting.

We do not know what this feed will turn into, but are open to your interpretations. I could see us setting this up occasionally in the studio space during the busy nights leading up to a major critique or scheduling live viewing sessions as the film unfolds. For now we stream to you a live feed from our filmmaking base.

We had the pleasure yesterday of interviewing Maurice Cox, the new Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts. If you have not heard of him yet, you should. The man has carved out a pretty amazing path with his architectural training. In brief, he received his degree from Cooper Union here in New York, then moved to Italy where he worked with Giovanna Galfione. He then began to teach at Syracuse University's Italian Program before joining the University of Virginia's faculty in 1993. Since he has been an elected City Counsel member and Mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia, and helped found the CP+D Workshop. The interview covered a broad range of topics from democratic design, to architecture's role in our daily lives, to the purpose of an architectural thesis project. The exciting part for us was the realization that we just shot at least a few minutes that will definitely end up in the film, due to the clarity and elegance of Maurice's powerful answers. Keep an eye out for some of these moments when our trailer is cut in mid March.

Photos from the past three weeks of production are up on our photos page. We will attempt to load a new set each week, so stay tuned. Also, be sure to click on one of the thumbnails to see the new slideshow our web master Doug has created for easier viewing.

We have begun a video blog called Archicasts on the films page. The first one is up now and begins to tell the story from the perspective of the creators, David, Ian and Pierce. Please give it a look and let us know what you think. We plan on releasing new casts about once a month. If you would like to know when new ones are posted, please send an email to our subscribe list. Once you subscribe you will be included to our newsletter list. For examples checkout our first three from the past few months.

January Newsletter03
December Newsletter02
November Newsletter01

In an attempt to open up our own process of making the film, we began a directors' blog back in October. We also recently created a blog space for both the faculty and students to write their own posts throughout the making of the film. We left the format very open for the students in an attempt to make it an exploration into their thesis experiences. We hope you check out the posts from this past week and continue to follow them through the next 13 weeks of creation. Who knows were their writings will take us.

As for the faculty blog, it will be up shortly after I get them set up.

We have shot one week of footage so far. The Undergraduate Chair, Evan Douglis, formally introduced us to the 5th year thesis students and faculty this past Thursday. Following his introduction, the three of us presented a brief outline of the history of the project and our shooting agenda. We then opened the floor for a public Q&A session for the students and faculty. Some great questions and concerns were posed about the project. We answered each to the best of our abilities and left with a very high level of support. Close to every student who attended was interested in being interviewed and will permit us to film them. Now that we have begun to establish a rapport with the students, we embark on a similar dialogue with the professors over the next couple weeks.

Beyond filmming we have been busy going to the P/A Awards, streamlining our workflow, logging footage, updating our website, blogging, planning a big trailer debut party, meeting local organizations, meeting directors Alysa Nahmias of Unfinished Spaces and Anna Holtzman of Subway Dreams, getting interviewed by the Clinton Hill Blog, nestling into our new production lives and actively pursuing new sources of funding.

The spring semester at Pratt began today and so did full blown production of Archiculture. We spent most of the afternoon capturing the School of Architecture buzzing with refreshed students and faculty in the midst of the semesterly studio selection lottery. What a stark contrast in footage between the calm and quiet halls of last night, to the energic faces that have now filled the building. We will post some still shots of the footage in the next week or so.

Also, details on the package we wrote about arriving on Sunday are available on our recent blog posting.

That's right folks. The project is getting a belated holiday gift on Sunday at JFK airport in the form of a 180 lb package. We will reveal greater details once we get it back to the school and unwrap our new toy to find out exactly what it can do. For now all we can tell you is that it will infinitely increase the potential of this film.

First off, Happy New Year! We have now officially been working on this project for a year and a half...

Enough reflection, now onto the fun stuff. With steady feedback from our group of filmmaking friends and online research we have decided to forego our plans to shoot the film on our Sony FX1 and instead use Panasonic's HVX200. This change in equipment means a significant upgrade to the creative options (and cost) we now have for the footage. David and I originally learned on a HVX200 with Empty Kingdom, so we are reasonably prepared for the transition but are quite excited with the new footage potential. New frame rates, recording formats, color quality, stereo XLR jacks, and the list of benefits goes on. Mostly geeky film stuff but it will have a drastic impact upon the quality of the final HD film.

Beyond that we also purchased our second on-camera light, two body rigs, and another full audio kit to complete our two one-man camera crews. The next week will be spent testing the equipment in the studio spaces before the students arrive back January 14th.

The past couple days have been filled with finalizing our equipment research with our inhouse guru Pierce Cook and physically testing pieces at B&H and at Abel Cine Tech in the city. We've also met up with Bill Menking, the co-founder of Architect's Newspaper, and Mimi Zeiger of Loud Paper to discuss the project and pick their brains on the New York Architectural community. The agenda for rest of the week is to locate an accountant, interview potential interns and spend some time with a few other local filmmakers as we prepare to head home this weekend for the holidays.

Today, we were able to check out some of the potential students for the film at Pratt during their final reviews for the fall semester. Very exciting range of interesting projects with great jurors for the students to feed off of, as they begin serious design next semester. For now we continue to prepare for production and nestle into our new home at Pratt.

We arrived this past Friday morning after about 4,000 miles (see David's blog entry) and a few brief stops in Austin, Houston, New Orleans and South Carolina. It was definitely a marathon with a packed van and just enough space for the one of us to recline in the passenger seat for sleep. We were able to meet up with our script writer and post-production guru Pierce Cook along the way to maximize the journey and take breaks from the 24 hour driving schedule.

Today is David's birthday and marks the end of our time in San Francisco. Check out our latest blog posting to see our route. We have plans to post a few time lapsed road clips and photos once we arrive in New York City. We've said our good byes and are now making the last minute preparations for production at Pratt Institute. For now 3,600 miles of road awaits.

Check out the photos page for some shots taken by Danny Lee of the AIASF fundraiser this past Wednesday.

Check out the photos page for some shots taken by Danny Lee of the AIASF fundraiser this past Wednesday. We want to sincerely thank everyone who came out and helped support the project. We hope you were able to get a glimpse of our process and the potential for this film.

Keep an eye out for another event like this in SF sometime in the spring or summer once our trailer is cut.

We are would like to invite anyone reading this to a Send Off Party. Archiculture's leaving its home of San Francisco and moving cross country to begin production. The celebration will take place at AIA San Francisco on Wednesday, November 28 from 5:30-7:30. It is a chance for the local architectural community to meet the directors, learn more about the project, and help support a grass roots documentary about our profession and our training. For those of you who know the directors of the film, this will be your last chance to send them off before they move to New York to begin production at Pratt Institute. We roll out of town with all our gear in a rental on Friday, November 30th. We will have a brief presentation midway through the party and will provide drinks and music. We look forward to meeting you and sharing this impactful project.
Please forward the info along to anyone you know who may have interest.

The article we've been mentioning is now out in this month's issue of Architect Magazine under the title, Studio Verite. We think its a great intro for people to the project and a really well written condensed piece. The photo in the printed version is a massive 2 page spread of our work station. A bit odd to see your words quoted for the first time. Braulio Agnese did a great job of conveying the grass roots effort of the project and definitely enjoyed the views out of our apartment.

We have finally unveiled our new website! This has been a massive undertaking over the past three weeks. Somehow through the help of Doug Havens, our amazing team and reduced work schedules, it is finally ready for you to explore. Please check it out and give us some feedback. We are excited for the evolved look of the project and the new content such as the demo reel, added info, press page, expanded links, etc. If you are curious, our old site is still running and can be found here (old site). We thought it would be cool to keep it alive as a frozen chapter in this project's development.

Today we met with Stacey Williams the program director of AIASF. The three of us discussed the potential outreach of the project and how we could distribute the film to organizations and user groups.

Tomorrow we will host an event titled, Cultivated, which coincides with this years ASLA conference in San Francisco. The event celebrates peoples interpretations of landscape architecture through various mediums of art. Cultivated will be held at Mars Bar in Soma and will feature artists from all over the country. After two months of legwork and a team comprised of two other San Francisco artists, the event is ready to debut. Please try to make it if you are in the Bay Area. Proceeds will go to the SF Parks Trusts a local non-profit organization devoted to enhancing our open spaces.

Today we returned from our intense East Coast tour. We visited four different institutions starting with Philadelphia University. We drove from NY to Philly for a two day visit. We spent most of the time touring the campus and studios with two of the architecture faculty members, Carole Hermann and Susan Frosten. The staff was very welcoming and the campus had a nice open feel to it. We returned to New York for a one day meeting with Evan Douglis and Tom Hanrahan at Pratt Institute. Evan gave us a great tour of the architecture studios and campus. The next day was spend at CCNY with George Renali who offered up some great insight to the project. Our final school visit was with NYIT. We met with the director of the program, Frank Mruk, who was giving a speech at a solar decathalon ceremony. He spent the rest of the day showing us both the urban and rural studios at NYIT.

David returned yesterday from a business trip to Tanzania. He spent a week and a half working on a large conservation project in the Serengeti.

Today we had the photographer for Architect magazine come to our apartment to shoot photos for the upcoming article. The photographer was quite a character and found our career change to be amusing.

Today also marks the start of our East Coast trip. We are scheduled to catch the red-eye tonight to New York where we will start our tour of the final four potential schools for the documentary.

Today we met with Braulio Agnese, an editor with Architect magazine. Braulio approached us a few weeks ago with interest in covering an article about our film in the November issue of the magazine. We met up with him at Union Square and briefly spoke over some coffee. We showed him our think-tank of an apartment, where he conducted most of the interview. He turned out to be a really cool guy and ensured us that a photographer would be sent to get shots of us in the apartment in the next couple weeks.

We've got a substantial back log of interesting architectural articles and visuals to share.

First is an article by the LA Times discussing the push of "architects" into more powerful positions.

The Herald Tribune had an article discussing the rapidly approaching need for architects to be prepared for the increasingly urbanized planet. This following the recently revealed statistical research showing that over half the world's human population is now living in urban environments. Tipping point?

On a lighter note, we find an article by the New York Times showing the hunger and collaborative drive of a group of recent RISD grads in their first significant design commission. Of course this is by mom and pops but none the less this article explores the nature of design ownership versus collaboration and the necessity of post-grad exposure.

Last but not least is a collection of Charlie Rose (personally a bit obsessed with the man's work) interviews with prominent architects - Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Santiago Calatrava, Peter Eisenman, Renzo Piano, Philip Johnson, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and many more.

Caught up with Eric Corey Freed this past week to discuss the documentary film and some of our sustainable initiatives for the project. Eric is better known around these parts for his work as the organic architect and provided a very invigorating conversation for the project.

His work can be described from the caption on the organicARCHITECT's website:
"Promoting both an organic and individual approach to design, architect, author & educator Eric Corey Freed sculpts innovative buildings that embody ecological & social responsibility. organicARCHITECT creates designs to question, innovate and delight our clients."

We had a great discussion with many inspiring concepts bounced around. We shall see how they develop as we move towards full production. For more on the organic architect, check up on his blog to see more of his insightful findings.

After listening through a bunch of the mixes on Designer Mixtapes, we have decided to make our own mix. A little different from what Mixtapes has constructed, we would like to post our top 10 "Architectural" songs... Our songs are everything from specific lines on architecture, as in The Hexx by Pavement, to figurative lyrics such as Squares by The Beta Band. OK so here they are:

Aesop Rock - How to be a Carpenter lyrics
The Beta Band - Squares lyrics
Bloc Party - Like Eating Glass lyrics
Erland Oye - Sheltered Life
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - Ghost lyrics
LCD Soundsystem - Yr City's A Sucker
Pavement - The Hexx lyrics
Pinback - Fortress lyrics
Postal Service - District Sleeps Alone Tonight lyrics
Shout Out Louds - Oh, Sweetheart lyrics

So there they are. Let us know what you think via our myspace comments or on our new forum thread (old site). We want to hear your "architecture" favorites.

A few interesting links we would like to post up.

A hysterical article published in PIDGIN, has been shooting around the architectural world of emails and blogs like wildfire. Here is a good link to the open letter by Annie Choi.

Here is a good music link to Designer Mixtapes, which has 7 song mixes of the most inspiring songs from designers around the world. Great range of inspiration.

For anyone who can name all 10 architects on our Starchitect tshirt you will receive a free tshirt through the competition going on at our myspace site. Please post your answers on our myspace comments so we can keep track of submissions. Good luck!

Many more exciting things happening behind the scenes on the film and will be posted soon...

We have recently reorganized and added some new content to the site. We would like to invite you to check out the new buttons for info, shop and support on the website. Briefly the info page provides the mission of the film, a synopsis of the story, where the concept originated, background of the team and some of our initiatives/goals for the project. The shop page is an area were we can display some of the products for sale. Tshirts are available now, with more to come online in the near future. The support page is the area were we accept and give support to the individuals and groups which are helping make this project a reality.

Look around and let us know what you think.

We would like to post up some of the recent blogging about the project.

Edgar Gonzalez
Arkitekturbloggen
Land + Living
A is for Architecture
Future Feeder
Rockitecture
Hippoblog
The Lighthouse Diaries
7dv
derive
Living Well in Westchester

Thanks to all for the interest and comments. It helps us stay energized when we see the architectural community react to the project.

Jennifer's is now up on our films page. This interview brings a whole new level to the confessionals due to Jennifer's background as both a professor at the California College of Arts and practitioner through her design firm, Landscape Office. In this interview, the dynamics of the architectural studio setting are candidly discussed along with descriptions of the thesis process based upon her extensive professorial and academic experience. Give it a look and let us know how you respond.

We have some new photos up from our all night shoot two weeks ago and from our trip down to L.A. to meet Carole Dean. We have decided to use this footage for a different short film than the original version for the Thinksync Competition. More details to follow.

On another note, a new confessional is close to being posted and should be showing up this weekend on the website. This interview showcases an architect who blurs the lines between the professional and academic sides of architecture daily. A very animated and thought provoking conversation which will add a new level of background to the confessionals.

Our trip to LA has turned into a very intense injection of resolve for the project. The meeting with Carole Dean was a phenomenal asset to the current evolution our film and will prove to be invaluable as we move towards the shoot.

We also just finished shooting with our friends at Empty Kingdom Media, for a short film we are submitting to the ThinkSync Film Competition. "The premise behind the competition being to highlight and encourage the use of independent music within film and the resulting event an exciting, innovative fusion of independent music and film." Basically they provide 30+ songs to choose from for the shorts to utilize in their three to ten minute story submissions.

We are extremely excited with how our shots turned out and thrilled to see how the final cut turns out once we edit over the next two weeks. It due on June 30th, so keep a look out for it on our films page.

We are driving down to LA tonight for a meeting with the amazingly talented and experienced Carole Dean tomorrow. "As president and CEO of From the Heart Productions, Carole (has) created the Roy W. Dean Grant Foundation in honor of her late father. To date Carole’s grant and mentorship programs have provided filmmakers with millions of dollars in goods and services and have played an instrumental role in establishing the careers of some of the industry’s most promising filmmakers."

Our purpose for meeting Carole is two fold, one is to get someone with such a depth of film experience to discuss the current and future development of our project, and secondly to discuss our submission to her LA Film grant which is due June 30th. We are extremely excited for this chance to evolve our project's funding strategies with someone of such achievements.

We will post comments and some new exciting footage shortly after we return.

There are some new photos up from our recent shoot for the full length documentary Art Symphony No.1. This film being produced by our friends at Empty Kingdom Media "represents the first volume in a multi-part series of documentary anthologies taking an introspective look into the world of art & culture," specifically the L.A. and Bay areas. The film "follow(s) the lives of a variety of artists, from the most respected industry professionals with cult fan-followings to the classically struggling artists, and even the perspectives of students just entering the world of art."

The shoot took place at both The Shooting Gallery and White Walls Gallery in San Francisco showcasing the talents of Shawn Barber and Kim Cogan respectively. All the photos were taken and credited to the talented Jane Kim.

Another massive bit of news for the project, the film has been accepted by Film Arts and is now fiscally sponsored! This is big because we can now start to seek funds besides our own incomes to support this thing. Little paypal-esque shopping carts will soon pop up all over the site so you can donate at any moment. But joking aside, this is an extremely crucial step in the evolution of this project with our continued association and collaboration with such a respected foundation.

So check out the links and look forward to more posts regarding our new found friends in Film Arts.

We are very excited to announce that our short film Released won a prize from the nice folks at Youthnoise.com for their Reducing Energy Consumption category. Check out the winners of the other categories: Conserving Resources, Reducing Toxic Chemical Consumption, and Reforestation. Congrats to all.

This is a little bitter sweet since the original competition on treehugger.com that we created this short had an upload error at the deadline and were unable to submit. Its always nice to receive any form of recognition for creative efforts. Check back often to see other creative vents as we evolve towards Archiculture.

Confessionals have arrived! We quickly realized that there needed to be a way to give others the chance to explain what Architecture is about. We decided short and simple interviews with Architects was the best way to communicate this complicated issue. We have three of them up now on the films page. Give them a look.

The first interview is of a young architect on her pending return to grad school in the fall and her decision to continue pursuing the profession.

The second finds a young architect 5+ years into the profession reflecting upon the memories and aspirations of his student years while discussing his current career path.

The third follows a grad student on her journey from home to studio while discussing the origin of her interest for architecture, previous professional experience and her pending review the next day.

So the confessionals are coming, I promise. They are edited and getting qued for the web. For now check out some of the bios of the team and other informational links we feel crucial to comprehending the thesis environment. The team will undoubtedly grow in the near future but from these few the concept has evolved. We continue to look for collaboration.

Check out the image on the front of this month's Architect magazine. The cover is about an article called "The $34,000 Question" regarding the pay of young "interns" and comparisons to related fields. But please put trust into our profession for it does have the potential for future bags of cash! So where is the pay for the next generation? Is it worth it all. There is also an article related to an architectural salary survey. Bias? Check it out.

Look Architects are happy! Rated 6th over such amazing professions as mechanics, special education teachers, and actors. We did lose out to #1 Clergy.

Just a little stimulation from the 2006 General Social Survey based on interviews with randomly selected people who collectively represent a cross section of Americans.

Confessionals are coming!!! We are currently editing the first batch to post up hopefully next week. Keep an eye out for these intimate windows into the field.

We have also been shooting interviews and capturing footage for a short film regarding Landscape Architecture to be submitted for an event outside of this year's ASLA conference. A trailor will be up in May.

Check out the discussion forum (old site)! We are attempting to make it a bit more user friendly, but at least now we have adapted it to our layout and linked it up. Give it a look and post away. We know you all are looking. Post something, anything. Vent if you like. We love the stories and as do others. Help us explain what the studio environment is/was like.

Since the submission of our first short film Released a month ago, we have been hard at work on some crucial pre-production documents. From today forward we will be posting information regularly in this area of the website to keep our audience updated. A few things in the short future will be more graphics, a revamped discussions board and a confessionals page with interviews of undergrad and masters' students, and a wide range of professionals. We are extremely excited about the confessionals aspect of the website and have already shot a few with a bunch more scheduled.

We have also begun working on our next significant short film, Cultivated. This short film will attempt to bring clarity to the current state of the profession of landscape architecture. A more in depth description will be posted soon as will details of the event which this short will be showcased.

In progress is a short film for the Convenient Truth Contest. By the time this short is submitted it will have been conceived, shot, and edited in one months time. Check back with us at the beginning of March to see its debut and if we meet the tight deadline.

We are actively seeking grant money to help assist with the pre-production phase of Archiculture.

The team has recently expanded to include the musical talent of Mike Perry as well as technical writing support from Eric Krantz, Jacob Richardson and Linda Oeding.

The original idea for Archiculture was conceived, by David as a student in the back of a classroom at Clemson University in 2005. The idea turned into a collaborative effort in January of 2006 when the two of us, David and Ian, met in an architectural office in San Francisco. The next big relationship occurred at a gallery opening in August of 2006, where we met Henry Kim of Empty Kingdom Media during a shoot for one of his many works. Since then, Henry has taken us under his wing and shed all of his film knowledge. Through the many shoots and time spent with the Empty Kingdom crew we have gained the experience to put our hands into the field of film. We are currently working on a hand full of short films to strengthen our knowledge and formalize our concepts. Look for them in the near future on the films page.