One of the hottest film series on Vimeo is a set of short documentaries about interesting people in California. California is a Place looks at the lives of a wide variety of characters: from a washed up used car salesman, to a couple of die-hard patriots risking life and limb to protect our borders from drug smugglers, to a guy who makes high-end sex dolls for a living. Their latest film, “Uppercut,” is about a real-life gentleman’s fight club in Silicon Valley. Collectively the films have over 1.6 million views on Vimeo. The brain children behind it are photographer Zackary Canepari, and today’s guest, filmmaker Drea (pronounced “dray”) Cooper. If I may quote that rhythmical orator, “I’m going back to Cali, to Cali, to Cali. I’m going back to Cali…I don’t think so.” (Actually, I do think so.)
Today Drea talks about how we went from shooting videos at high school to his progression as successful commercial filmmaker shooting videos for such companies as K-Swiss and Ray Ban. You’ll be inspired by his “Freedom Writers” style story teaching urban kids in Hunter’s Point in the San Fran Bay Area. And the amazing success with the CIAP series is sure to make you get up off your butt and make that opus you’ve been putting off for so long. And of course, he answers the “Inception” question.
Bumper music for this show is “Tater City” by Glenn Shambroom, part of the TRUE ROMANCE collection, courtesy of Triple Scoop Music.
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“California is a Place – Cannonball” by Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari
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Thanks. Enjoyed the show