Run - Hike - Climb

Back in my giant beard days (last month, that is): Taking Lena and our newborn Levi on the first hike of his life; More on that in the coming weeks!

The post below is yet another share from my other blog, originally drafted as a response to the U.S.A. athletes competing at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

But no more stalling, and no more slacking...  An original "Garth's Blog" post is finally coming here on Wednesday: A play-by-play of baby Levi's birth!

Barely 30 total miles in January. Pathetic. Recording my hiking and running miles via my preferred GPS sports tracker app last month was quite an eye opener for me. Seems I cover a fraction of the miles that I used to.

Granted, January was anything but typical. A typical month would have fewer missed hiking opportunities due to wimping out in the face of nasty weather. And then there was the minor, itsy bitsy issue of taking a couple weeks off to have a baby boy.

But it's clear that I'll need to step up my game if I'm gonna train this year, as planned, to:

• climb a couple of the Pacific Northwest's highest peaks
• run that marathon relay race with our team in Cincinnati (and maybe a mud run or two?)
• get back in shape for my TV commercial/photo shoots
• carry Lena and Levi on some backpacking trips, and do more hikes with our students
• outperform and outlast my former self on the wake board, surfboard, snow skis, bicycle, kayak, and whatever else I can find the time to ride

So much training to do, so few calories to work with. At least, after my raging metabolism has its way with those calories.  Plus, there's always the matter of hitting the free weights harder to add a bit more meat to this embarrassingly lean body frame.





But all of this is secondary to what is really important-- prioritizing time with my family, as well serving the needs of the wonderful people whom God has placed in our church and my life. I could definitely stand to spend more time training for both. Couldn't we all?


24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Video: Dance war!

1, 2, 3, 4... I declare a dance war!  Our Delta Airlines dance crew has a new challenger.

Poke the play button above to watch us dance in our 2012 "Delta Wanderland" Christmas music video.

Our choreographed dance routine for last year's "Delta Wanderland" Christmas video was a novel idea at the time: encourage actual Delta employees to audition, send the finalists (myself included) to L.A. to learn the dance moves, and shoot the music video all night on location at the LAX Airport. As an actor, it was a change of pace for me to rehearse dance moves rather than block action and memorize my lines from a script.

My blog offered a series of behind the scenes looks at shooting our music video last year. Three of the four most the popular posts from that series are listed below.  Here are the links:

Behind the Scenes in LA Pt. 1- Dancing Near the Stars
Choreographing our dance moves at L.A.'s International Dance Academy on Hollywood Boulevard

Behind the Scenes in LA Pt. 2- On Set: Delta Wanderland
Stories and production stills from our all night video shoot at LAX airport

And of course...
Bonus Documentary: "Delta Wanderland: Behind the Scenes!"
Sharing our official behind-the-scenes video, including a rare, brief clip of me busting some moves during our freestyle dance off!


We were proud of our production. Our Delta music video even beat out companies like HP to receive a trophy this year, winning an OMMA award for best Online Media, Marketing, and Advertising!

**********

But a few weeks ago, Virgin America challenged us on our own turf: the dance floor. Their creative new safety video features professional dancers (unlike us) and pizazz to spare. Clocking in at a whopping 5:00, readers may want to skim through the clip:




I'll concede, our Delta dance troupe seems to be out-sassed on this one.  But does our 2012 "Delta Wanderland" music video stand on its own merits?  And is it fair to compare our one night production using authentic, non-dancer Delta employees against a professional music video?  Personally, I think it's impressive that we pulled off "Delta Wanderland" on such a tight shooting schedule last year.  Our team did such a great job!  Readers can be the judge of that.

We may have barely lost this dance battle, but not the dance war.

Coming this weekend on Garth's Blog...

Yesterday's day trip to Noordwijk, Netherlands: An almost daddy-daughter visit!

And then....

Cold water surfing in Oregon with the fam!

From the Set: A Wedding in Sunriver- Coming Soon!

The bright side of filming these late night/all night TV projects is the free time that piles up during the additional lighting setup, etc. that is required for shooting night scenes.  The downside is that I'm now officially out of excuses for not finalizing the terrific blog post that Kathy wrote last month about Brent and Cheryl's February wedding.

It's hard to predict how late we'll be here filming on set, but I'll keep plugging away at that post from my Galaxy Note 2 in between takes and scene rehearsals until it gets done. It will be easier to add the photos from my laptop later, after we wrap filming for the night.  Check back here soon for Kathy's "A Wedding in Sunriver" post!

April update:

My break from "Garth's Blog" is lasting longer than planned.  There is only so much mobile editing that I can do while working, filming, and doing photo shoots.  New content is still be posted to my other blogs.

Garth's Blog will return on the 2nd week of April!

Bonus Documentary: "Delta Wanderland- Behind the Scenes!"

Our new “Delta Wanderland- Behind the Scenes” video is here!  A brief clip of my Soul Train dance moves is buried at 1:15.

Before watching the short documentary video above, I would recommend first checking out the finalized version of our “Delta Wanderland” holiday music video. My two previous posts highlighted our choreography rehearsals at the International Dance Academy in L.A. and the all-night filming of the video at LAX airport (links).

The all-new behind the scenes video above finally dropped last weekend!  This short, fun documentary features never before seen footage of us creating “Delta Wanderland.”

A deleted “Soul Train” dance scene from the “Delta Wanderland” script was rehearsed but never filmed.  Most of raw footage will probably remain private, but we’re all ecstatic to see a few clips surface here.  Check out a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of my contribution to our dance-off at 1:15!

Thanks for reliving the magic with us!!

Behind the Scenes in L.A. Pt 2- On Set: Delta Wanderland

As seen in our “Delta Wanderland” holiday video above, our hard work at the International Dance Academy paid off!  Check out my last BlogSpot post for what went down during our choreography rehearsals earlier that week in L.A.

We dancers relished the 24 hour rest period between the final dance studio rehearsal and the all-night video shoot the following evening. Visiting friends, hanging out together at the Hilton pool, light choreography practicing, working out at the gym, jogging, relaxing… we all had different methods of recovery and preparation for the video shoot.

Tuesday night at LAX airport, a special security line at CTX was set up for the production crew, actors, dancers, and anyone else displaying a “Shilo, Inc.” security badge.  Inside the concourse, the documentary crew and hair & makeup station worked in the background as principal filming began.

The director watched the monitor intently as the interior scenes were shot.

The production crew set up the lighting and camera cranes on the airport ramp outside…

…While choreographers Tamarra and Nick fine-tuned and finalized our various dance setups inside a cramped rehearsal room.

The Delta ramp dancers found our marks on the ground outside for glow wand lighting tests.  (“Delta Wanderland.” See what we did there?)

The camera cranes were adjusted to keep us in frame as we performed our core dance routine.  When everything was lighted and framed just right, the whole dance crew joined us in front of the cameras to get their groove on.

We danced through the night, leaping, marching, spinning, running, and even dodging a speeding camera during the “The Wave” setup.  Thanks to our dance choreographer Nick Drago for these photos!

A mishmash of dancing styles was shoehorned into the various setups, including the Busby Berkeley-style aerial shot and closing Delta widget formation (both included in the final cut).

As with any film or TV shoot, the takes were repeated over and over again from different angles.  At 5 a.m. Wednesday morning, we wrapped for the night and said our goodbyes.

But filming continued on Wednesday night.

Roberto, a Delta employee AND dance instructor, shot some additional footage with Tamarra and Nick on Wednesday night for the “dance generator” bonus feature.

Click on this link and “Make Your Own Dance” with Roberto!

As for myself, I followed up our all-night video shoot with a short nap at the LAX Hilton and a couple of connecting flights back home to Portland.  I arrived in PDX with just enough time to catch our Wednesday night youth meeting and afterwards make a cameo in a "Star Trek" parody film at church.

 “Brace for impact!”

Those four days in L.A. were more than just a welcome change of pace for me.  Making new friends, learning from motivational dance choreographers, and working with a fantastic production crew made this an unforgettable experience for all of us.  

We all are grateful to work for Delta Airlines, appreciate our customers, and are thrilled to have been part of this video project.

Merry Christmas, and have a “wanderful” (cringe) holiday season!!

Coming next week on BlogSpot…

A Hamilton family Christmas

Followed by… 

A high flying weekend of adventure for all of you adrenaline junkies out there!

Behind the Scenes in L.A. Pt 1- Dancing Near the Stars

Delta music video shoot in L.A.:  Day 2 of choreography rehearsals at the International Dance Academy on Hollywood Blvd

Holiday E-Card Video Shoot in L.A.… Nationwide Casting Call for Delta Employees... Send in your video auditions by 5 p.m. EST...

I hastily responded to this notice by emailing my most recent Fred Meyer commercial (with on-camera acting and narrating credit) to the Digitas producer before leaving work for the weekend.  It came in handy that my smartphone was already stocked with a variety of samples from my acting/stunt work/modeling portfolio.

Congratulations on joining us for the shoot!  I am so glad you will be joining us in Los Angeles!

After reading this, I expected to receive a script containing my lines of dialog, I instead got an email on Saturday afternoon explaining that the role would “require a good amount of dancing." That seems random, I thought.  Indeed, the first day of choreography rehearsals would begin the next morning in Los Angeles, leading up to our Christmas-themed all-night video shoot on Tuesday evening.

At 3 a.m. on Sunday, I began my eight hour travel marathon from Portland consisting of Jeep driving, airport hopping, and taxis. The earliest connecting flight from Salt Lake City into L.A. forced me to miss the first two hours of dance choreography.  As a result, I had plenty of catching up to do after schlepping four days’ worth of luggage into the street level door of the L.A. International Dance Academy.

The Hollywood Boulevard "Walk of Fame" was right outside of our L.A. dance studio at the International Dance Academy.

Tamarra and Nick, our enthusiastic dance choreographers, explained that I was flown in to L.A. a day early because the Delta ramp dancers had more dance steps to learn than the rest of the performers.  They quickly caught me up to speed as they taught everyone the remaining dance setups.

The ramp dancers hit Hollywood Boulevard after we wrapped the first day of rehearsals at the International Dance Academy.

On Monday morning, Delta flew in the remaining dancers: pilots, flight attendants, and passenger service agents.  

We added dance solos and blended together the various routines.  It got sweaty and crowded inside our dance studio, especially later in the day when the production crew arrived.

Amidst the chaos, Tamarra and Nick (standing over Tamarra, who is laughing on the floor in the photo below) kept us riff raff under cool control.

By the time the director and co. showed up to observe our collective dance routines that afternoon, we had put together a show that everyone could be proud of!

The video shoot was only one day away.  Would sore, rarely used muscles recover in time?  Would everyone remember their dance moves after taking the morning and afternoon off?  Could the entire cast and crew even stay awake all night on Tuesday?

Check back here on BlogSpot in two days for the answers to these pressing questions, and more!


In the meantime, here are a few bonus freebies from the first two days of our L.A. dance rehearsals:




Choreographer Tamarra gets intense with the in-flight dancers on Day 2 of rehearsals at the International Dance Academy.

No known photos exist of the crazy night at Champions after Day 1 of rehearsals.  However, here is a photo from the following evening’s visit to the Hollywood Hills house of one of my favorite college buddies Joseph and his family, Candace and Liam.

While I was in town for the dance rehearsals, I dropped in on old friends Joseph, Candace, Liam, Angus, Liz, and Jacob.  The highlight of making the rounds was catching up with Joseph over dinner at Alcove.

And finally…our choreography rehearsals start to gel.

Click “Play” on the video above for a couple of rough run-throughs of one of our dance setups. I start out center frame wearing a striped v-neck, and then move to the right and back to center.  This was the second day of rehearsals at the International Dance Academy in L.A.

Coming Thursday on BlogSpot…

A peek behind the scenes of our all-night video shoot at the LAX airport!