News

11.30.2022 - Small Steps

journal 1 min read

As the holidays arrive, I inch towards acceptance of my new status as an empty nester. I haven't stopped wondering when the girls will get home. I haven't begun to properly use all my newfound time. My brain still worries every week that I've forgotten some important school event or need to plan for dinner.

I'm trying to go easy on myself, but important work awaits.

The Streetlamp Media site is undergoing major updates. They'll be released soon alongside several production announcements. Short films, podcasts, etc... I'm super excited about the work and the creative people doing it.

Amulet Studios hit major delays this past year thanks mostly to character model development. Brian Dean, however, has continued to push forward with Unreal Engine. We're readying a pitch video and a new subscription model to fund the effort.

The When Insurance website recently launched. The insurance world remains a cautious beast, and so we progress slower than desired. Nevertheless, we do progress.

I've made a lot of mobile and behind-the-scenes changes to this website. I noticed traffic numbers dropped after the redesign. That's my fault for valuing my preferred layout over good SEO strategies, but whatever. I think it's all fixable. And this site remains purely a place for my thoughts and experiments, so it's not like a revenue stream vanished.

I'm working on ideas for a video blog chronicling all these adventures and projects. I've learned quite a bit via my YouTube channel, including how rewarding it is to get a comment from a stranger who says your video helped them in some way.  I'm constantly on the lookout for ways I can create content while also learning everything I can about cameras, videography, and virtual production. Startup talk is one of the few places where I actually have what might be considered valuable experience, so it's a topic I must explore on the channel.

Beyond all that, I'm forever searching for ways to combine my knowledge and passion for technology with my interest in filmmaking and other creative endeavors. Contemplating new types of software and new means of storytelling. One of these days I may find the perfect focus, but until then... experimentation.

Oh, and there's something else I'm not ready to talk about yet, but it involves airplanes.

Small steps...

New podcasts from Streetlamp Media - Pitch! and Before the Fade

news 2 min read New podcasts from Streetlamp Media - Pitch! and Before the Fade

This is an exciting week. In my previous post, I hinted at several upcoming announcements. Today we've got two of them.

Last year, I met two filmmakers working in Los Angeles. Leah Saint Marie and Angel Daahoud Murphy. Leah is a former investigative journalist. Now a screenwriter and director, she has multiple writing and filmmaking awards under her belt. Angel is a multifaceted actor, writer, and musician. Together, they're creating two great new podcasts, and my Streetlamp Media company is helping to produce and distribute.

The first podcast, Before the Fade, is a precursor to a documentary Angel plans called

A New Look for New Plans

news 3 min read A New Look for New Plans

As of today, I've got a new look for the website. It's very much a work in progress.

As someone who loves exploring design tools and development platforms, my personal website is often the guinea pig for my experimentation. (Here I'd like to register my apologies to guinea pigs for the reference and mistreatment).

My previous site was built using Webflow, which is a fantastic no-code tool that gives development control to designers. As a former developer, this felt like cheating, and I never had the control I wanted over certain styles and blah blah blah, but it reduces much

Judging LightSwitch Video's STEM-focused Filmmaking Grant

news 3 min read Lightswitch Video Film Grant

Toward the end of 2021, a friend and former coworker reached out with an interesting opportunity. His company, Lightswitch Video, had been working to create a grant for aspiring filmmakers in the city of Chicago. He and I had spoken previously about my goals with Streetlamp Media, and he asked if I wanted to be a judge for the grant contest.

The goal of the initiative was as follows:

The Full STEM Ahead Filmmaker’s Initiative is a first-year initiative launched by Lightswitch that is designed to not only encourage STEM education and careers in STEM but to also cultivate

Introducing Streetlamp Media

business 2 min read Introducing Streetlamp Media

It's no secret I have a passion for books and cameras. I first attempted to write a novel in seventh grade. I made my earliest stop motion Lego movies even younger. I've always been fascinated by the telling of a story, the emotional response of humans experiencing it, and the technology behind both.

In college, I taught myself how to write code so I could create websites and (later) applications with which people could interact.

Twenty years ago, I worked at an independent creative studio, where I learned about 3D animation, keyframing, film editing, pre-production techniques, digital workflows, script wranglers,

Introducing Amulet Studios

business 2 min read Introducing Amulet Studios

As mentioned in my introduction of Streetlamp Media, one of my other big projects is the formation of a small, indie animation studio, officially known as Amulet Studios. On day one, our primary goal is to develop an animated series using Epic Games' Unreal Engine, but we're hoping to take it much further.

I'll be partnering with long time friend Brian Dean. We've been exploring cameras and filmmaking together for twenty years. He's the creative impetus behind this idea. He's spent the last few years stressing to me Unreal Engine's potential to disrupt (or at least evolve) current animation workflows.

The End of an Office

business 2 min read The End of an Office

This is the end. The final chapter. The goodbye. Of what? An era? A company? A dream? Let’s not get melodramatic.

It was October 2011. A growing company moves into a larger office space. We’d built this company from four employees to twenty. In the next two years, we’d grow to fifty. A consulting firm had blossomed into a product company with nearly ten business products and a consumer social site with teams of engineers, salespeople, marketers and customer service ninjas. It was a wonderful thing, growing, expanding, struggling but winning. It couldn’t possibly last.

In

Old Endeavors Forged Anew

life 2 min read Old Endeavors Forged Anew

Circumstances change. Life events happen. Inevitably, we redesign our websites.

So here I am writing from San Francisco, launching a redesigned website (which still needs some polish), and preparing to embark on several new endeavors, which are basically old endeavors begun anew.

On the website front, I've abandoned Wordpress for a much more powerful solution: Webflow. I've designed and/or built dozens and dozens of websites the past 20 years. I've written simple html sites from scratch and single-handedly built complete ecommerce solutions. Most tools simplify certain tasks while restricting other controls.  Webflow gives me greater design control without the

New Ramblings for a New Year

news 5 min read New Ramblings for a New Year

A new year begins. A new slate of goals, hopes, promises. An inevitable slew of mistakes, failures, and heartbreaks. I’m in my 40s now. The routine is almost ritual.

And so we begin the search for meaning, the introspective pursuit of purpose. Or maybe just the drive to continue.

As 2018 begins, I’m not unhappy with my life or the choices I’ve made. I’ve had setbacks as well as opportunity. I’ve had privilege. I’ve had pain. I’ve been held back, at times, by circumstance but also by a reluctance to change. In such

Otherwise Optimistically Occupied

news 2 min read Otherwise Optimistically Occupied

Oh. Hello. Who are you? Have we met? I’m Kevin. Once upon a time, I tried to write here regularly. I failed. Now I’m curious why you’re still here?

To be fair, long gaps in my journaling/blogging/writing history are frequent. In some cases, the gaps have been without excuse. In other cases, the only legitimate excuse was laziness.

This most recent gap, however, possesses what I believe to be an unflimsical explanation:

I’ve been busy. But not normal busy.  For real busy. Productive busy. Gettin’ shit done busy.

As I mentioned previously, I spent

Over Grass and Over Stone and Under Mountains in the Moon

life 2 min read Over Grass and Over Stone and Under Mountains in the Moon
“Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” - Golda Meir

A new year. A new set of objectives. Well, technically, an old set of objectives refreshed in honor of the obsolete tradition of pinning a new calendar on the wall.

Everything learned and studied and pursued the past few years begins to bubble to the surface, accompanied by the ways and means to apply those hard-earned insights to creative endeavors.

I seem to finally understand what’s required to create instead of merely consume. Words. Photos. Movies. Apps. They’re