For downloadable high-res images, prints and more check out redfitz.smugmug.com.

Fun with flying, driving, eating, hiking, and the south with friends. Asheville, NC + The Great Smokey Mountains, TN.

For downloadable high-res images, prints and more check out redfitz.smugmug.com.

Check out the video shot almost entirely on iPhones at youtube.com/redfitz

For downloadable high-res images, prints and more check out redfitz.smugmug.com.

What was your your 9/11/11?

A project for DC Serve by People’s District and redfitz productions.

Credits

Producer
Nick Fitzhugh

Director
Danny Harris

Photography
Danny Harris

Editor
Nick Fitzhugh

Music
Aaron Thompson

Does a family make a house or does a house make a family?

Two centuries + two years in the making, help me finish this film by backing the project on Kickstarter and then sharing it with everyone you know using social media AND emails. The more people doing this and the more they do it, the better our chances of meeting or even exceeding the goal. But we only have until May 4th to reach the goal or we’ll get nothing!

Also, if you have a story of your own about a family house that you’d like to share, consider sharing it as a Comment on the Kickstarter page. I’m going to choose at least one of these stories after the campaign and conduct a follow up interview to include alongside the film!

So many people have stories that parallel this one. This is just one of the ways that I hope to incorporate them into the project at large.

Thank you so much!

Synopsis

Times change. A once simple and sparse seaside town has become crowded and opulent. A family and its finances have fragmented and its two brothers and two sisters, their children and their extended family witness the disappearance of a century of family memories when they sell their parents’ magically beautiful 160 year old summer home in Cape Cod––the Starboard Light. Can they and how will they hold on to everything that this house has offered to the family?

Whether it’s a small cabin deep in the woods, a primary residence that’s been handed down generation after generation or a waterfront summer getaway, there is a Starboard Light in many of our lives that we’ve struggled to keep or had to painfully let go. Vicariously through this American family, Starboard Light helps us all to immortalize the generations of memories and values baked into these shared family homes so that we may pass them on to our own children and grandchildren.

Background

What has come to be known as the Starboard Light was built in Chatham, Massachusetts in 1860. In those years, the concept of a summer home was almost unheard of and there was certainly no interest in Cape Cod. In fact, by 1860 its population had begun to decline. A map of Cape Cod actually indicates individual dwellings by name! But thanks to train and then car travel, it quickly became possible to trade a refreshing sea breeze for the swelter of cities in summer before AC quickly enough to make second homes viable.

Cape Cod was a rough, undeveloped, simple and beautiful peninsula. Within striking distance of both Boston and New York by train, it became an attractive destination for those who wanted to escape city life and live simply in and around the beach and the sea. And Cape Cod farmers and sea captains were delighted to sell those Bostonians and New Yorkers what they considered to be worthless coastland for $30 an acre. The Forbes family literally bought Naushon Island. Secretary of State Richard Olney bought a place in Falmouth. And in 1890, ex-President Grover Cleveland settled in Wings Neck and others began to follow.

In 1925, William W. Fitzhugh bought what came to be known as the Starboard Light. It was built initially in 1860 along with two others on Stage Harbor by one of the founding fathers of Chatham for his three sons. Even by 1925 it was one of just three houses in eyesight.

Today there are fifteen houses and about fifty boats in view which parallels the sevenfold population increase on Cape Cod over the past hundred years. Tourists cram the towns, the beaches and the roads. Most newcomers love and embrace the old Cape Cod culture yet the many old Cape families, both blue collar and white, who established that culture, can’t afford to stay. They also can’t bear to leave. That old Cape Cod culture was about simplicity, modesty and stoicism. But with the natural fragmentation of familial wealth and the growing value of waterfront property, these families are increasingly forced to sell their multi-generational homes. New families with new money erect new homes whose size and cost emphasize a new value for luxury and excess that never before existed in Cape Cod.

And yet in the summer of 2010, the Starboard Light still stood as one of the few remaining icons of the previous century and its values and it was still owned by the Fitzhugh family. Particularly when compared to the newer, larger homes that increasingly surrounded it, the Starboard Light seems unchanged. The evidence of age is everywhere and enchants family and guests alike. Moss-covered sea gray shingles. Impractically small beds full of bumpy springs. A permanent odor of moth balls. Yellowed and peeling wallpaper. Warped floors speckled by hand with paint. Shelves full of dusty hardcover books. Walls lined with family photographs that look as though they belong in an American History book. A wooden wheelchair. A porcelain wash basin. A workshop crammed with tools for a hundred years of projects. And small, storm-battered windows looking out over the harbor.

Follow Updates

Be sure to visit the official “Starboard Light” website. For updates, click on the Facebook “Like” button or visit the Starboard Light Facebook Page.

Become Part of the Film

I’m searching for finishing financing to complete STARBOARD LIGHT. If you’re interested in becoming an investor or patron, please email the Producer/Director, Nick Fitzhugh, at redfitz@gmail.com for the complete prospectus.

Credits

Director/Producer:
Nick Fitzhugh

Photography:
Nick Fitzhugh

Starring:
Brooke Andrews
Cornelia Atkins
Curtis Dozier
Deborah Ecker
Eliza Fitzhugh
Emily Dozier
Ernie Eldredge
Hoyt Ecker
Josh Fitzhugh
Joshua Fitzhugh
Laurie Andrews
Michael Westgate
Naina Fitzhugh
Nick Fitzhugh
Peter Andrews
Rebecca Andrews
Ryland Andrews

The guy with the suit who gets things done.

Ian Fay has been in the intelligent entertainment business since he was five.  With roots in music, both classical and rock n’ roll, his ultimate instrument was his computer.  Falling into the Internet craze in 1995, web, media, and video has been at the forefront of his creative endeavors.  Since moving to Washington, DC in 2006, the immersion of communication and information visualization became the niche.  Saint Gorilla was formed to envelop these ambitions and has since entered the market as a leader in video infographics and viral narratives within the social media space.

Sign
Capricorn/Snake

Resume

Primary Equipment

• Cameras: Canon 7D, Zoom H4N
• Software: Final Cut Suite, Adobe CS5 Master Collection

Contact
Saint Gorilla
ianfay@saintgorilla.com
615.293.6081
920 U Street NW
Washington, DC 20001

Website
www.saintgorilla.com

Human stories for a small world.

My story is and always has been about storytelling. I’ve been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I’ve found them and invented them. Sometimes they’re words on a page, sometimes images and sometimes motion pictures. Sometimes they’re my own and sometimes I’m helping others to share theirs.

As an undergraduate student at Brown University, I founded The Glimpse Foundation––a nonprofit company devoted to inspiring young people to care about the world by providing them with multimedia platforms to share their own stories from abroad. In 2007 it was acquired by the National Geographic Society and became National Geographic Glimpse, a division I ran with co-founder Kerala Taylor. After spinning out the division as a 501(c)3 nonprofit once again, we sold it to San Francisco, California based independent travel company Matador Network which continues to operate Glimpse.org.

In the spring of 2010, I launched redfitz productions and turned my full-time attention to filmmaking as a director, producer, dp and writer. I also perform client work as a DP, photographer, and producer. Check out my DP reel here.

Primary Equipment

• Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Canon EOS 7D, GoPro Hero2
• Lenses: 11-16mm f2.8, 18-50mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4, 70-200mm f2.8
• Sound: Zoom H4N Audio Recorder, RODE NTG-3 Shotgun Microphone, Sennheiser ew 100 Wireless Lavs, RODE Video Mic, boom pole
• Stabilization: Edelkrone Modula 5 rig, Professional grade Manfrotto tripod with fluid head, GlideCam, Philip Bloom Pocket Dolly from Kessler Crane
• Focus Assist/Monitoring: SmallHD DP4 Monitor
• Lighting: MicroLED Pro, LumoPro LP160 Quad Synch Flash
• Editing: Final Cut Pro Studio and Final Cut Pro X on a MacPro

Sign
Aquarius

Resumé

Getting the story, telling the tale.

Chris Keener, aquarius, and principal of Goldenbear, has been producing and directing broadcast quality films in the DC area for the past 5 years, and working in the industry bi-coastally for a lucky 13.

Chris and the Goldenbear specialize in short-form online and viral video. People-centric storytelling is the target for all their projects. Humor, heart, musicality, and top-notch aesthetic make up the quiver.  Clients have included National Geographic Channel, Discovery Production Group, Travel Channel, TMG Custom Media, Pulsar Advertising, The Woodrow Wilson Center, The Corcoran Art Museum, DC Arts Commission, and then some.

They’ve worked on everything from feature film, to ad campaigns, museum promotions, fine art collaborations, broadcast television, narrative films, feature documentaries, pitch reels, and corporate identities.

www.goldenbear.tv

 www.vimeo.com/goldenbear 

For downloadable high-res images, prints and more check out redfitz.smugmug.com.

For downloadable high-res images, prints and more check out redfitz.smugmug.com.