Emiliana Torrini on tour

photographed our longtime "lil buddy" Emiliana Torrini @ The Hiro Ballroom in new york this past weekend 3/28/09! the show was amazing, and it was great to see ET onstage again w/ the band with siggi on drums, and kari out managing Lay Low.

old friends

Running into old friend Neil Strauss on a promotional world tour of his new book, "Emergency". We actually had to rescue him from groupies... Ha.:



You may know him from his reporting for Rolling Stone or New York Times or his bestselling biographies of Motley Crüe "The Dirt", Jenna Jameson, or "The Game", the boook that launched him into superstardom.

March 5th DISARM DVD launch event in New York

At long last, we launched the DVD of Disarm, our documentary feature film on landmines, at at the beautiful Scandinavia House venue near the United Nations in New York this Monday, 2 March.



A massive snowfall the night before and throughout the day had us worried that the event would be a bust, but last minute RSVPs filled the room for our event convened by IndiePix and ICBL to launch the Disarm DVD and commemorate the 10th anniversary of the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines.

While the snowstorm prevented one of our star guests, Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams, from speaking at this event, and Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys and Rolling Stone political cartoonist David Rees from attending, we still had a full house of approximately 150 VIPs including diplomatic representatives from 20 countries (including several ambassadors), mine clearance and disarmament officials from the United Nations, film industry representatives, a number of artists including DJ Spooky (Paul Miller), and many members of the press.

After a brief reception and panel discussion between Disarm’s executive producer Mary Wareham, Colombia’s Ambassador Claudia Blum, Norway’s Ambassador Mona Juul and Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch, we screened Disarm, followed by a film Q&A session with Mary Wareham and director Brian Liu. Many thanks to IndiePix and ICBL, our speakers, and our audience for braving the cold weather!

ToolboxDC has designed a limited run of Disarm T-Shirts available for purchase. The film can be purchased from Amazon, rented via Netflix, and shortly it will be available from the IndiePix website for digital download from anywhere in the world. The Disarm DVD is loaded with extras: 40-minutes of deleted scenes, subtitles in 5 languages, trailers, and director's commentary. Contact us if you want to subtitle Disarm into your own language or hold a public screening of the film.



* Purchase and review & rate Disarm from Amazon
* Rent and review & rate Disarm from Netflix
* Purchase or download Disarm from IndiePix
* Join Disarm’s Facebook group

new reviews:
http://documentaries.about.com/od/revie2/fr/disarm.htm
http://www.4rfv.co.uk/industrynews.asp?id=90292
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/71075-disarm/
http://www.dvdtown.com/reviews/dvd-disarm/6788

Disarm DVD completed!!

FINALLY, after many years of work including touring numerous film festival screenings, a few awards, and distribution on various television networks, the Disarm DVD has been completed!!!

This newly mastered DVD, with new artwork, is loaded with extras including directors' commentary, trailers, and 40 minutes of deleted scenes. Our amazing friends at IndiePix will start distributing the Disarm DVD on February 24th launch event is planned in New York on March 2nd together with Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines(ICBL), and special guests.

The DVD will be available from stores in Canada, the US and UK, and online at Amazon, Netflix, Borders Books, and via digital download. PLEASE buy the film, spread the word, and PLEASE PLEASE add to your Queues and your wishlists and leave comments and star ratings on the Disarm profile on Amazon, Netflix, and IMDB sites.



Thanks to so many people who have helped us, donated time, provided resources, or kept us safe during the making of Disarm. Please support independent film and help support the bans on landmines and cluster munitions.

A big thanks to everyone involved in preparing the DVD especially Mary Wareham, Brian Liu, Guillaume Bernadeau, Amy O'Byrne, Nick Pimentel, Katy Wood, and our translators. We're grateful to IndiePix, especially Danielle DiGiacomo, Liz Ogilvie, Matt Posorske, and Ryan Harrington.

If you aren't already, please sign up to the Disarm email list at disarmfilm.com

The New York event (sold out) flyer is available here.

Thievery Corporation FIVE sold out nights at DC's 930 Club!

Our good friends, Thievery Corporation, have just finished up their five SOLD OUT shows at the legendary 9:30 Club! It was a pleasure to have everyone in town again for so long. We continued doing some still photography and video all week.

all photos below ©Brian Liu/ToolboxDC. unauthorized use prohibited.







Spin.com was at the Tuesday show and posted a review here. The band has been playing super long shows and long encores for their hometown crowd. In the audience have been some surprise friends in town and guests including DJ Spooky and U2's Larry Mullen Jr.

Baby Julian!

We'd like to congratulate Toolbox Senior Designer Nick Pimentel and his new bride Lizzy Evelyn on the birth of their beautiful son Julian Santiago Pimentel on December 17, 2008!!!

An AWESOME day in DC and the world!

INCREDIBLE!
Today, in DC, history was made. ill complete the post when i recover from the week's festivities.











Artist of the hour Shepard Fairey stops to say hi before being mobbed by press and fans...



Two of my favorite pieces from the Inauguration Manifest Hope art show (one silkscreen, one Etch-A-Sketch):

DAMn cool photos of Mingering Mike!

Brian Liu of ToolboxDC's exclusive photos of artist and imaginary soul superstar Mingering Mike appear in in DAMn Magazine #20 (Jan/Feb 2009). DAMn is a beautiful bimonthly international review on design, architecture and art, based in Brussels.

Disarm stencil spray trailer and DVD news!

Finally! After many years, our feature documentary, DISARM, will be released on DVD by IndiePix this spring 2009. The deal is done (much thanks and love to Danielle DiGiacomo, Ryan Harrington, Liz Ogilvie, and the IndiePix crew), and we are delivering the film and DVD extras to them THIS WEEK!!!

If you aren't already, please get on the DISARM email list at disarmfilm.com.

Here's the newly completed "Disarm stencil spray trailer", edited by Amy O' Byrne and Brian Liu:

directing the new Plastilina Mosh video

This week, Brian went with Nikos down to Monterrey, Mexico to direct the new Plastilina Mosh video for "Let You Know." PMosh have been friends of ours for about 9 years, and we're super psyched to finally work with them. We also had great luck to work with Chuy as our producer, who we've known for years from our DJ sets at La Santanera in Playa Del Carmen.

Jonaz came up with a basic concept of dressing like Arabs to see what kind of reaction we would get from people in town, then asked us to write the rest. In the end, our concept was that a fictitious Arab country BUYS Mexico. They loved it, so the first thing we did is design a fictitious Arab country's flag, and manufacture and gather props. The rest will be a surprise. We'll post a clip as soon as the edit is completed!

Here's a flickr set (click for full set) of some press/production photos Brian shot on set, as well as some production photos by hot Monterrey photog La Pola. Also, here's some more production photos from Manne. Here's some kind words and nice props from our friends at Nacional Records (much love to Tomas and Natalia).






[photo by La Pola]




[photo by La Pola]

Annual Transformer Auction

This past weekend we had the pleasure of being involved in the annual Transformer Auction again at the incredible Halcyon House in Georgetown! According to DC Modern Luxury Magazine, priced at $150 a ticket, and sold out months in advance as November's #1 top listed event, the Transformer Art Auction is "DC's chicest art event".

Nick is a Transformer Gallery board member, Brian sold a photographic piece (in a bidding war!) as one of the featured artists again, and were both featured DJs again (DJs Yellow Fever) with the legendary Kid Congo Powers (Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds) and The Punani Soundsystem.

An incredible night of great art, great food and drink, and great people!

Shooting Kings Of Leon Pancake Mountain dance party!

Once again, we film a kid's dance party for Pancake Mountain. This time, hot on the tail of their Saturday Night Live appearance, about 40 kids rocked the stage with Kings Of Leon yesterday at DAR Constitution Hall. You can also see it on RollingStone.com (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/11/14/kings-of-leon-crank-it-up-for-kids-at-pancake-mountain-taping/)

photo of action & cameraman Brian Liu by Joel Didriksen/KingpinPhoto

Regime Change Starts At Home

Saturday night, we have the honor of DJing the afterparty for Irvine Contemporary Gallery's new show "Regime Change Starts At Home" featuring artists Shepard Fairey (Obey Giant), Al Farrow, and Paul Miller (DJ Spooky). Shepard's been in DC all week and wheatpasting his new pieces on buildings, newspaperboxes, alleys, and more all over town. My personal fave is the huge Obama piece on the side of the Marvin building at the corner of 14th/U St. Check out the show at Irvine. The whole show and show concept works very well. Al Farrow's scuptures are amazing, and should NOT be missed. Show's up till Dec 6. Get off your ass.





Also, on Nov 15, 2008, we will be DJing the Transformer Gallery's legendary annual auction again at the incredible Halcyon House in Georgetown. This party ranks as one of our favorite parties in DC and is well worth the $150 donation (not even including the open bar and food by sponsors like Mandu, Paisley Fig, & more!). Nick also sits on Transformer's board of director's, and Brian will have a piece in the show for the 2nd year (his autographed portrait of Chuck Brown created a ton of excitement last year!).

More Branchage Festival Trailers posted!

here's a couple more trailers we directed and shot earlier this summer on the English island of Jersey for a UK film festival:

Branchage Trailer 2008 No.4

Branchage Trailer 2008 No. 7

THREE other trailers for Branchage Film Festival, if you did not see them before, are HERE.
hope ya dig! leave comments!

Help me name my boring car...

so, after many many years of adventures and photo shoots (Thievery Corp seen photographed in back seat for 12" below), everyone knows my legendary beat-up '87 Volvo finally had to be put down early this year... only to be replaced by a sensible, reliable, functional, clean, perfectly working grey '97 Toyota Camry, slightly void of any character.




well, i've often named our busses on tour ("The Ring Stinger", "The Future", etc), so felt like i needed to name this car as well to finally give it some personality.

here are the two choices. PLEASE CAST YOUR VOTE:



thanks a bunch,
brian

just a teaser...

And so it begins.....



due to film festival entry rules and fundraising politics, im not sure im actually supposed to make this video teaser public. anyways, if it doesnt work, go to our account here: [http://www.youtube.com/user/toolboxdc] and add us as your friend.

email us for more info.

R.I.P. trusty old lamination machine

not that im proud to have been a lawbreaking young man, but many many moons before the Mother's Against Drunk Driving were kicking ass, or the War On Terror was the scourge of our nation, and waaaaaaay before computer design (probably around 1987), a buddy and i were making a variety of fake ids by hand out of the one-hour photo i worked part-time at.

despite enabling some underage drinkers and concert-goers in the late 80s (read my file when i was under investigation by the secret service), i do know that i pretty much became a graphic designer at that exact moment without even realizing it. funny how this strange little endeavor help make me the artist that i am today...

anyways, i bring this all up because the lamination machine i was using way back then in 1988 died today (R.I.P) just after laminating my hunter's safety license (no, i dont hunt... it's a long story). well, that little machine helped get some kids into College Park MD bars in the 80s, myself into a ton of shows and raves, and more recently, produced years of tour passes for Thievery Corporation, Dust Galaxy, art pieces for the Art Director's Club, IDs and bagtags for all the filmcrews i've worked with, and countless other random projects ive worked on.






Rest in peace, my lil trusty old lamination machine.... you were the best!

Branchage Trailers are up!!!

Check out these trailers we wrote, directed, and shot for this new UK Film Festival!!! (more info here in our earlier post)

Please do leave comments and tell us your faves! These are the first three, the last four will be up shortly.

Cork identity

Longtime friends of ours, Diane Gross & Khalid Pitts, opened their long anticipated wine bar, Cork, earlier this year on 14th/S Streets, NW in the old Sparky's space. Toolbox was responsible for the logo and identity (yaay!), Eric Gronning was the architect, Ron Tanaka (formerly of City Zen) is the chef, Lizzy from Paisley Fig is the dessert genius, and if you can actually get into the place, you'll have some great food and drink. Congrads guys!

Hutchy "Gas Prices" video

Nick & I had some fun shooting Hutchy's music video for "Gas Prices" & working with Robin Bell for the first time. Hot hot DC summer day, crazy wardrobe on Nick, our in-house pole dancer and babe magnet.

all available on itunes, of course! also limited pressing 7" vinyl and cds.



also, Dub Prices video:

The Solitary Life of Cranes

This week, we are working on our original score for Eva Weber & Samantha Zarzosa's 27 minute film, The Solitary Life of Cranes. Jerry Busher and I are currently putting the finishing touches on the filmscore, and are very much looking forward to seeing this beautiful piece on the big screen, and hearing our score combined with the sound design in luscious 5.1 surround! Also, much thanks to Winston Yu for the violin/viola session and Will Rast for the keyboards.

Silverdocs this week!

It's that time of the year again in suburban Silver Spring, MD!!! Silverdocs Film Festival is full on again this year. Last year i had the honor of serving on the jury, while this year, i'm attending... mostly in hopes of inspiring myself to have a completed film ready for next year's fest. For anyone that doesn't know, Silverdocs is the Discovery Channel/AFI Documentary Film Festival that is currently in it's fifth year now, and kicking ass. This is by far the most cerebral of all the doc fests i have attended, with an always amazing film programming schedule.

This year's highly anticipated symposium special guest speaker was Spike Lee, who was vacantly inspiring, speaking about his documentary work in particular. Unfortunately, most of us felt that the discussion fell flat, partially due to the disappointing performance of the moderator/interviewer, a reporter from The Denver Post.

In any case, i've been running around with festival regulars/doc gurus Ryan Harrington, Danielle DiGiacomo from IndiePix, Liz Ogilvy from Docurama, Simon Kilmurry from POV, Andrew Mer, Mark Rabinowitz from Cinelan, Sadie & Jill from Full Frame FF, etc having an inspired week full of films, parties, discussions with Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) about his new hi def art film project about the "sound of ice" in Antarctica, checking out Oscar winner Alex Gibney's panel discussion, and more...

So far, my year's pick is "The English Surgeon" by Geoffery Smith, an unflinching look at a friendship between two doctors tied through brain surgury (bonus: music score by Nick Cave).

Judging at Jackson Hole Film Festival

This year, i was honored to be asked to return to the fifth annual Jackson Hole Film Festival as a judge for the 2nd year in a row.

This year i also had the pleasure of DJing the filmmaker's party, helping bring Big Sky Award winner "Class C" to also win in it's category at JHFF, and also participating in the Q&A for Virginia Williams' film "Frontrunner," which we happened to help shoot, designed graphics, and handled the music supervision/score for.

It was a pleasure to spend time with the JHFF crew again (Mel, Cevin, Jason, Audrey, Diane, Eben, Noam, Todd, Erika...), as well as HBOs Greg Rhem, "Frontrunner's" Virginia Williams, "Volcanic Sprint's" Steve & Angie Dorst, actor Bill Pullman, and the whole "Class C" crew!

Outside of seeing some amazing films (don't miss "Man On Wire"!!), and being set in one of the most beautiful towns in America, this festival has grown exponentially over the three years i've attended. Despite being a festival for both narrative as well as documentary, they have put an enormous focus on their "Global Insight" category, and making the festival as conscious and green as possible. This year, they even managed to get United Nations Secretary General Moon to attend and make remarks and meet filmmakers. I've been hearing people mention that this year's JHFF is much like Sundance was 15 years ago! Great programming, great staff, great sponsors, great parties...

Branchage and the UK island of Jersey

In efforts to promote the upcoming inaugural Branchage Film Festival on the UK Channel Island of Jersey, taking place this September 25-28, we directed a series of 7 trailer spots. These spots will be online, local TV, and running before every film screening in the festival. We wrote them in 3 days, and within another 2.5 days (on NO budget), travelled to Jersey, crewed, cast, and shot them all. Many thanks to Jerry for help with the music and Nikos for help with the animation.

Im pretty happy with the way they turned out as well. Please feel free to comment on what you think about them. Watch them here.

Shooting Kate Pierson of The B-52's for Pancake Mountain!

The Mountain continues onward...
Too bad the other band members backed out at the last minute. Thanks for being a trooper, Kate!

London cans

DSC_8316
Originally uploaded by toolboxdc

This week, while in London, i had the privilege of checking out Banksy's "The Cans Festival" underpass "exhibition" on Leake Street near Waterloo station in South London. Amazing. This one of a kid with a weapons mobile is my fave, but check out the rest of my photos by clicking here to link to my flickr page.

Some interesting blogs regarding design "appropriation"...

Check it out....
Im NOT taking sides at all, but here's some interesting design critique....

Fuct design vs Obey design:
http://www.brghtnghts.com/blog/?page_id=46

story: "Shepard Fairey Threatens To Sue Artist for OBEY Giant Parody":
http://animalnewyork.com/news/2008/04/shepard-fairey-threatens-to-su.php

story: "Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey":
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/2007/11/obey-plagiarist-shepard-fairey.html

story: "The Art of Appropriation" (thanks to Robert Wagner for the link)
http://www.supertouchart.com/2009/02/02/editorial-the-medium-is-the-message-shepard-fairey-and-the-art-of-appropriation/

story: Shepard is right, and the photog is cool:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/57787/the-colbert-report-obama-poster-debate---david-ross-and-ed-colbert

story: "AP alleges copyright infringement of Obama image"
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9652OD01&show_article=1&catnum=8

story: "Obey Saks Fifth Avenue?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/fashion/08ROW.html?_r=2

Flight of The Conchords in DC

nuff said....

[photo from DC Lisner Auditorium show by Brian Liu]