Welcome to the online portfolio of Chris Northcross - videographer, visualist, editor, and one of the former staff producers on Barack Obama's Presidential campaign.
I'm versatile; I often operate as a one man band. I shoot and edit my own footage. I specialize in short-form web documentaries but am open to corporate, narrative and experimental projects.
Please check out my RESUME or send me an e-mail: christopher.northcross@gmail.com for more info or leave a message: 773.850.1440A video I shot and edited for Detroit Public Radio’s series “Crossing The Lines.”
Edited with Final Cut Pro & Motion. Shot in 720p with a JVC GY HM100u camera.
Had some free time while visiting some friends in Chicago and came up with this fun little piece. I got a chance to explore two things that I haven’t used much historically in my work: MSG generators in Synthetik Studio Artist and Text as characters.
Not quite sure what I expected going in - I started with a blank slate, but I had fun making this and absolutely loved the music (Eclectek’s ‘Bonsai Intro’).
Second video I shot and edited for WDET’s website. This one was used to highlight the Music Head program the station puts on a few times a year.
(Edited on Final Cut Pro)
Fun little video I did for WDET following their recent pledge drive.
(edited on Final Cut Pro)
I frequently work with Synthetik Studio Artist which can best be described as a visual synthesizer (somewhat analogous to the audio synthesizers musicians work with). Its an excellent platform for just experimenting and mucking up images and videos.
This particular piece came about from playing around with a rather pedestrian shot of a fish swimming along, minding its own business somewhere in the ocean.
My Favorite Neocon
This is an excerpt from a film I’ve been editing called “My Favorite Neocon”. The director, Yael Luttwak, has been estranged from her father Edward for nearly 10 years.
They’re diametrically opposed idealogically- she is very liberal while he is noted as one of the more influential neoconservative writers during the 80’s & 90’s. Yael made the film as a way to attempt to understand and reconcile with her father and offered me a chance to work with her on my first feature.
In this scene, Edward visits a television studio to participate in an interview with Italian television (he speaks at least 6 different languages!) about the (then) upcoming American Presidential election.
This was a fun, but challenging project as it was shot in 3 different formats (1080i 29.97 HD, PAL - SD and NTSC 24p on three different cameras. Because of budget constraints, we didn’t have a assistant either. But the subject matter and the characters were really interesting and Yael was a great director to work with. Very positive learning experience for me.
(Edited on Final Cut Pro)
Luna
I’m a big fan of ‘gunked up’ video—that is video that’s been processed in some way—usually radically. Eye candy of a sort. This particularly piece came about from footage of a slightly nervous young woman that I was interviewing. The raw footage was interesting but I think its somewhat hypnotic here.
(Created with Sythetik Studio Artist and Final Cut Pro)
Barbershop
Shot during the 2007 primary season, “Barbershop” was originally supposed to be a quick re-cap of an ‘Off The Record’ visit to a supporter’s shop in South Carolina. Senator Obama stopped in, met with supporters inside and then got back into the motorcade to head to his next event.
Due to time constraints, I wasn’t able to grab all of the footage I wanted but was able to go back the next day to shoot follow ups with Emerson Hunt, the shop’s owner. He offered up nothing but gold.
(Shot on Panasonic HVX200 and edited on Final Cut Pro)
Last Days of the Harlequin
I’d worked around with the aesthetic look in Synthetik Studio Artist and when I applied it to President Bush’s farewell press conference I noticed an interesting effect—a harlequin like mask as he steps towards the podium.
Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I added music by the artist jiljax (through use of a creative commons license), played around with the timing, and arrived with this clip.
(Created with Synthetik Studio Artist and Final Cut Pro)
Wow! That’s Spooky!
Lack of sleep promises to take you to very strange places as this video helps to highlight. I made Wow! That’s Spooky! with some friends for a 24 hour film festival in Chicago. We were given a theme (slumber party), a couple of elements that we had to include in the film and 24 hours to write, shoot, edit (and in our case, composite and animate) the whole film. Fortunately, our team was made up mostly of co-workers and we’d worked before on projects together in the past.
We wound up needing every advantage we could come up with as we got started an hour late and took a bit to come up with a plan of action. Some bleary twenty hours later, Wow! That’s Spooky! as born. It was received well by the audience and the judges wound up giving it the top award at the festival.
(Edited on Final Cut Pro and composited with After Effects)
