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!

Tragedy in Newtown, CT

26 innocent victims killed in an elementary school shooting in Connecticut on Friday. 20 of them children. One unspeakable horror.


My earlier thoughts on this tragedy have already been published on one of the other blogs that I contribute to. I don't dare repeat them here, as my initial reaction did not strike me as particularly Christlike. Or who is to say that Jesus wouldn't have reacted even more strongly or "inappropriately" than I did?

Our President's moving eulogy and reading aloud of the 26 victims' names after the Dallas Cowboys game today was both heartfelt and heartbreaking.  It brought back to mind the devastation which many of us felt when we first heard the horrific news. Yet I doubt that our greatest bewilderment, weeping, anger, and profound sorrow could begin to compare to the affected families' grief during this time.


No amount of sympathetic words or acts of kindness will bring those families back together again. Not in this life.  But to everyone involved: You will remain in my thoughts and my prayers this Christmas season.  I believe there is hope for a brighter day.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

Note to my readers:  Tonight's "Behind the Scenes: Delta Wanderland" blog will be posted Tuesday evening, with additional photos.

Video Premiere: "Delta Wanderland"

Happy 12-12-12 12:12:12 from Delta Airlines!

We're burying the memory of last year's timely but humble Happy 11-11-11 11:11:11 From Delta Airlines blog (link) with something truly special:


Our Delta holiday e-card music video, "Delta Wanderland"!

A screen shot from our "Delta Wanderland" music video, featuring a dancing cast of all-Delta employees, including myself

Until our video hits You Tube and Facebook, there is currently no way to embed it here yet. For now, here's the link:  www.deltaholiday2012.com



The dancers in this video, including me, are actual Delta employees who flew down to L.A. in October to learn the choreography. In the final edit that I've linked to above, my opening mark is on the right side of the frame.

Enjoy!

Coming this weekend on BlogSpot...

A behind the scenes look at our dance choreography rehearsals at the International Dance Academy in L.A!

Dylan or Dermot?

Don't ask why I couldn't stop laughing through the entire Saturday Night Live skit that I've embedded below (no relation to my previous "Dylan in Charge" BlogSpot post).

There's just something side-splittingly funny about contestants not being able to tell these two actors apart during the game show, "Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney?"  I honestly never realized that these guys were two different people!

Unless you're unfortunate enough to be browsing with Internet Explorer, here's the video:




That skit is just begging for a follow-up.  How about a round of "Matthew McConaughey or Josh Lucas?"  I was certain that they were the same person until they co-starred as unacknowledged twins in "The Lincoln Lawyer."



I'm still a little skeptical... movie digital effects are pretty convincing nowadays.  Thanks to cheezburger.com for that mini-photo montage!

Thankful for Lena

DSC_0272, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Above:  Baby Lena’s television debut! Following in Daddy’s footsteps, Lena kickstarts her modest acting and modeling career by gracing the small screen. This is an actual screen shot from FOX12's Good Day Oregon show, the day after I sent it in for Lena's 1st birthday.

Note: This is the “edited for television” version of this photo, cropping out Kathy and me as we hiked the Paradise Hills trail with Lena in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Stay tuned for the full, uncensored picture in an upcoming hiking blog post.

Thanksgiving Day was last week, but why stop giving thanks? We have a long list of blessings to be thankful for this year. Yet it’s all too easy to pick a #1: Lena!


Lena may be a TV star now, but her fame hasn’t been limited to TV appearances. We’ve been showing off our 14 ½ month old daughter everywhere:


Sitting on the beach with Mommy while watching Daddy goof off while surfing at Short Sands last month



And then seeing Haystack Rock for her first time





Discovering her love of soccer at the Portland Timbers game; We hosted Warner Pacific Alumni Night at the Portland Timbers game in Jen-Weld Stadium. The Timbers ended an 8 game losing streak to beat the Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1!


Paying a visit to Daddy’s Delta Airlines workplace at PDX airport




Her first visit to the Washington County Fair... What a Daddy’s girl!





Heading out regularly with both sets of loving grandparents


And the list goes on and on.  I have many more pictures and memories to share.  We are truly blessed!

Coming in two weeks on BlogSpot…

Last month, I flew to L.A. to film and dance in a Christmas-themed video for Delta Airlines. As soon as it gets released to the public, I’ll post the music video here!

Backpacking Elk Meadows- High School Guys

Claude, Brandon, Garth, and Mike backpacked 13 miles through the Mt Hood Wilderness Area in September to kick off the fall season of student ministry at Aloha ChoG.



Sure, we've organized lots of hiking, trail running (here is a pic of Aloha High grad Derek and me running on some urban trails earlier this year), camping, swimming, and gaming during the summer months.  However, nothing could prepare us for the up-close views of Mt Hood's east face during our final fall backpacking trip into Elk Meadows.



On the first day, we jumped off from the Sno-Park trailhead into the Mount Hood Wildernesses Area and attacked the first 6-7 miles (including excursions) with all the speed we could muster.  This crew was hardcore!



Switchbacks and glacial stream crossings posed no problems for us, but a couple things eventually slowed us to a temporary halt: the two biggest blisters I've every observed on the same person's feet (mine). And I've dressed PLENTY of fellow hikers' blisters in my travels.

Brandon's photos of my feet have been mercifully censored from this blog, but the outcome was unexpectedly gruesome.

Pro Tip:  Double checking your backpack for extra moleskin is NOT optional.  Mooching moleskin from random wilderness dwellers can be humiliating.



Hiking through the pain, we pushed forward with an aggressive pace to reach the Elk Meadows Perimeter Trail.  Camping on the meadows is prohibited, so we picked a campsite on the edge of the surrounding forest.




With plenty of daylight to spare, we took our time exploring Elk Meadows before setting up camp.


 The tree islands scattered throughout Elk Meadows provided non-marshy resting spots to stare at the formidable face of Mt Hood. The rocky east slope of the mountain loomed right in front of us.


An evening hike up to Gnarl Ridge worked up our appetites enough to gorge on dinner at the campsite.

Stargazing, storytelling, and discussion of a particularly appropriate passage of Scripture preceded a night trek back into the meadows.  We were awed by the image of an Illuminated Mt Hood that reflected moonlight across the darkened meadow.

Being woken up during the pitch black night by an intensely focused, blinding ray of moonlight that shone through the dense forest canopy onto our isolated tent was nearly as memorable.



On the second day, morning devotions together at breakfast were eventually split off into solo encounters of reading, reflection, prayer, and meditation.
 SST grad Brandon (sitting left in frame) soaks in Scripture on the edge of the meadow.



After breaking camp, we stopped by the old wooden Elk Meadows Shelter on the edge of the meadows to secure our backpacks.


Cutting through the grassy expanse one final time, we forged our own variation of the hiking loop that gradually leads back to the Sno-Park trailhead.



This may have been our last student backpacking trip of the fall, but the story doesn't have to end there.  Snow camping, anyone?

Coming this weekend on BlogSpot...

We'll be keeping the spirit of Thanksgiving alive with a collection of recent baby Lena outings that we are particularly thankful for.

Twitterfied (Updated 11/29)

Twitter was just begging me to sign up last week to track the final day of the Presidential elections. After years of Twitter mockery, I finally caved in. My shiny new Twitter handle is @garth_hamilton.  Follow me at will.

Curious to read each candidate's tweets to their supporters on election night, I followed both President Obama and Mitt Romney. Incidentally, he with the most tweets won the election.  More power to him.

More interesting to me is the multitude of voices crying out to be heard during each Twitter millisecond. Each tweet, retweet, and reply is trying to find an audience. We have so much to say, but much of it ironically gets set adrift in a sea of selfishness and self-importance.

One of my early tweets about the new James Bond film was "favorited" by a TV personality that I really like but was not even following, and then he retweeted it to all 39,800+ (!) of his followers. Of course, some of those 39,800+ followers favorited my tweet and retweeted it to their followers as well.

As a new Twitterer, my brief but unremarkable flash of fame in the Twitterverse was unexpected and cool. Yet it did not yield a single meaningful human interaction.

Maybe that's not the point of Twitter.  I'm told it's about keeping up with current events. I'm told it's about following people you admire. Best case scenario: it's about conversation.

But in the end, perhaps we each just want to be heard.  With everyone talking, is anyone listening?

Update 11/28/12: 

Since signing up for Twitter, I've had some good times (making friends, posting concert pics from Winter Jam, getting real time score updates from my favorite sports teams) and bad times (having to change my password again after my account was hacked TWICE: on Thanksgiving, and then again yesterday).  I try to not tweet too often.

Update 11/29/12:

After that last update, I've now been hacked a 3rd time in the past week.  Google informed me that hackers attempted to access my Gmail account yesterday morning from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Hungary.  Aside from the mass PlayStation Network hack of 2011, I've never been hacked before.  Are my nonsense passwords really that guessable?

Coming this extended Thanksgiving weekend on BlogSpot...

Baby Lena makes her debut TV appearance,

and the guys go backpacking into the Mt Hood Wilderness!