ASTRO BLOG

Behind the scenes at the Astro Limited Picture Company.

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San Francisco Aerials

Drones are all the rage these days. When the City of San Francisco requested aerials for their video, we went with the DJI Inspire drone.

Lies! We rented a helicopter! And took up three strong men with real cameras.

Here is our brave pilot Kelton Porter, posing with the helicopter:

So excited to go up in the helicopter:

Going up in the helicopter is an easy way to nuke the photography game and make your friends jealous.

Flying right over the Golden Gate bridge is super awesome

The new Bay Bridge and the old Bay Bridge.

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“It’s a Small World” — In English and German

Sometimes when we shoot videos, we shoot AMAZING content that for some reason we never end up using. Then later we dig it up, and realize it has to be posted. We shot this last fall while shooting for Yodel. It features yodeling legend Arthur Brogli performing "It's a Small World" in English, German, and also the yodeling version on the accordian.

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Shooting for the City of San Francisco

The City of San Francisco hired us to make a video for the Smart City Challenge. A very exciting opportunity for us — getting hired by the CITY of San Francisco! All the way on the other side of America! Got to hand it to the City of San Francisco. They did a great job making us feel welcome. We got to meet SF Mayor Ed Lee! And head to UC Berkeley to interview legendary transportation researcher Susan Shaheen, and also UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks. And of course SFMTA's own Tim Papandreou.

Our prolific film crew came up from Los Angeles. Representing South and North Carolina respectively, Jeremy Peele and Eric Ugland:

San Francisco Mayor Lee!

The Crew with the Mayor

Our hosts, Bradley Dunn and John Cote on the roof of the SFMTA office

The influence of our film crew on Bradley’s Badge

Professor Susan Shaheen.

And Nicholas Dirks, Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley

Jeremy

Saying goodbye to Bob Sanders at UC Berkley

And SFMTA's legendary Tim Papandreou

The camera casually left on the counter at a Mexican restaurant

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TransportationCamp 2016

It’s back! Transportation Camp. What sounds like a really boring day to most people on the cruise ship, is actually so exciting to transportation nerds and wonks, that this thing sells out incredibly fast! Fortunately Mobility Lab paid us to go, and gave us some Transportation Camp 2016 soccer scarfs. 

Mauricio Venture is working for us today. He’s got shoulders of steel, lugging that RED around.

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Editing the Capital Bikeshare Video

We’ve been deep underground in a bunker editing the Capital Bikeshare video.

Jeffrey Flitter, editing really hard.

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Shooting with Shane Battier in Miami

Camera: check. Lights: check. Pink skates: check. We are all ready for our Yodel launch video shoot in Miami with Miami Heat Champion Shane Battier!

Shane Battier and our local DP Julian Diaz, and his crew from Merge Studios

Shane never complained about the outfit we asked him to wear.

Seth Forsgren, proud CEO of the Yodel Video Messenger app. 

Shane brought his Championship Rings!

Shane sporting Miami Heat socks.

And we’re rolling.

We did a decent job hiding it in the video, but we were actually fighting a storm during the entire shoot. The crew took shelter under this overpass when it got too rainy for the RED.

Will, Shane, Seth, and Evan Knight in Miami.

These skates are US size 14.

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Yodel in San Francisco

Shooting for Yodel in San Francisco! Harrison Barnes was supposed to shoot with us, but he got injured in the game the night before and the NBA has sent him to the doctor. So he can’t come on our shoot. Now the video just features Yodeling master Arthur Brogli, which is fine because he is so talented.

Arthur and the crew take a moment to rest in between takes.

Our crew is setting up to shoot our favorite yodeler, Arthur.

Our legendary sound recordist, straight from Los Angeles, Johnny Kubelka!

Everyone is getting setup to shoot Arthur yodeling on the rooftops of San Francisco for our Yodel launch video.

The (un)official group shot with the founders of Yodel, Seth Forsgren and Evan Knight, our yodeler, Arthur, and Astro’s own Will Chilton.

You can never have too much equipment in a San Francisco home.

Seth and Will, taking themselves too seriously:

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Filming for Capital Bikeshare in Arlington!

A U-Haul van pulls up next to a bikeshare station. It loads 5 bikeshare bikes into the van and drives off. The van is taking the bikes to a chop shop.

False! They’re filming for Capital Bikeshare. Capital Bikeshare gave us a “tech key” which allows to check out all the bikes you want, and return them whenever you decide you want to! 

Cousin John (primitiemachine.net) with our bike van.

Cousin John is a workhorse. 

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Mobility Lab – Washington D.C.

Back in DC and interviewing more smarties for Mobility Lab. Here is Chris Hamilton:

At Uber’s DC office

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San Francisco

Mobility Lab sent us to San Francisco to interview smart people on camera. 

We got to go to Lyft headquarters. Lyft had us talk to their Director of Transportation Policy, Emily Castor.

We got to film in the Yeti room for the shoot.

We drove to Palo Alto and shot Stefan Heck at NAUTO headquarters where he is the CEO. 

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Filming with People’s TV & Veteran Affairs Crisis Line in NY

Shooting with the People’s TV at the VA Crisis Hotline headquarters in Canandaigua, NY

A DIT’s Life is never dull:

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Mobility Lab – Baltimore

Mobility Lab booked a hotel room with a great view of the Baltimore Harbor for us to shoot our interviews in. We wanted to make sure we nailed the exposure, so we taped an ND gel to the window. You can see the tape on the window:

The last time we made a video for Mobility Lab we did such a good job that the Association for Commuter Transportation gave Paul Mackie this award for exceptional advocacy. Here we are — so proud:

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Stills from Astro's recent video for Design Exchange Boston (DxB)

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Astro’s work for the Orangutan Foundation International is in! Astro designed the folders and inserts for the OFI's Foster Kits to adopt an Orangutan.

In addition to payment, they also gave us a certificate of adoption for an adorable baby Orangutan, Bayat.