Indeed, where is he now? Wrapping 1000 Journals did by no means end Director of Photography Ralph Kaechele's intense travel schedule, and he remains difficult to pin down. In a discussion about public transportation, Ralph once jokingly remarked, "I'm flying to work."
Andrea: Where have you been, and what did you do there?
Ralph: Oh gosh, where and when should I start? To not be boring, let's only talk about the last 4 months. I was in NYC to chill and spent New Year's, which was great, especially as I met LindA, Brad and Someguy as well while hanging out there.
On January 3rd I had to go back to L.A. to shoot a piece of a
carreerbuilder.com commercial that actually made it into the
Super Bowl broadcast. The commercial shoot was great fun. It was another collaboration with my wonderful friends of
Screen Novelties, a Stop Motion Animation company around the corner from where I live. These guys keep the fantastic and so charming tradition of single frame stop motion animation alive while for some reason everybody else tries to do either hyper-realistic 3D animations on the computer, or spends millions and millions to alter some of the most beautiful human beings into completely sick, ugly and disgusting locking ancient Persian warriors.
After that, I went to
Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Moorea, for a shoot which was great. 90 degrees in late January, and whenever I had a break from shooting I would be jumping into the ocean and snorkel. Unfortunately my surfboard couldn't be with me, it just wouldn't fit into my luggage.
A: Despite all the time spent on these projects, you also find time to promote the films you worked on. I was thrilled you came to Berlin to support the
international premiere of 1000 Journals in the section Berlinale Special…
R: Those 6 or 7 days in Berlin have been just wonderful and insane at the same time. The screenings of 1000 Journals were amazing, the reactions more than satisfying, and especially for me it is always a bit of a coming home. To see and meet all my friends and buddies again is just great. And the parties -- my God, don't even get me started. I think I haven't slept much more than 14 hours during those 7 days.
A: Your wife Nic told me you're keeping a festival journal for 1000 Journals...
R: Well, if you call that collection of beer and drink taps a journal, yes! But seriously, no, I actually just plastered screening tickets, receipts and other fun things in and over my copy of the 1000 Journals Project book that I kept with me.
A: In what can only be described as the perfect and logical next step in your career, you started a production company, fusionfilms. What's in this name, and what has happened so far?
R: Well, an old friend and collaborator of mine approached me with a story that we thought would make a great documentary. It would have been my first time not only doing the camera work, but also directing a feature length documentary.
After prepping, investing in and founding a company for this purpose, it turned out that we couldn't get all the rights to the story at that moment. So the project is on hold, but the company is very much alive, because we have tons of ideas. As we've known and worked with each other for many, many years, it really felt like the most natural thing to finally fuse and form a company. So we went ahead and
shot 2 commercials for luxury resorts in French Polynesia, since my business partner, Martin, has a book publishing background and tons of connections in this field. He usually
produces around 30 books per year, you've seen them everywhere; nice coffee table books like "Cool Hotels," "Luxury Houses," or the really nice pocket size city travel guide called "and:guide."
Despite dedicating a lot of time towards the new company, I'm still shooting other productions as a D.P. In fact, I just finished another commercial including all kinds of tricks and animations. It's for the "
HP - Hands" commercials series that you might have seen. These clips are with
Michel Gondry,
Vera Wang,
Jerry Seinfeld and so on. Really cool and crazy stuff, especially Gondry's, I love his work, mashing all styles and techniques together is wonderful, and again, so much more charming than any perfectly rendered computer animation.
A: How do you go about soliciting work? How much is on spec?
R: We were lucky that we didn't have to do anything on spec, but the budgets weren't the biggest in the world, so far. But last month we shot and produced a mood film for a huge corporation in the UK, so we are basically pitching a whole new film concept to them and if it gets green lit we will be busy for quite some time. And I can already foresee that it will include a huge amount of travel.
A: While you and I were on the road for many, many weeks, and getting sick and tired of fast and restaurant food, we often spoke about cooking, favorite dishes, and what we would really like to eat now. Your favorite specialty at the time was a Thai Papaya salad...
R: Oh yeah, that salad is great, especially on days like this when it is still 90 degrees at 6pm. I altered my version slightly from the version that you and I had in that Thai restaurant in Chicago. Or was it Toronto? It was freezing cold, I mean extremely freezing cold! Way too cold for the surfer dude I wish I would be.
Here is the rundown: slice a Papaya and a Mango and one green Bell Pepper in thin long pieces, mince a bunch of green onions and one small regular onion, chop a good amount of cilantro and squeeze the juice from 4 limes. You also need half a small spoon of those hot and dried red chili flakes. Start with the sauce: Lime juice, onions, chillies or pepper flakes, cilantro, pepper and salt. Add the rest, mix around and have it sit for an hour in the fridge. You can always add more lime juice. The Mango and Papaya need to soak up the lime juice and the flavors will start to blend. Bon Appetit !!!! I think I'm going to make one right now. See you Later!
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