Recreating Oregon in North Carolina: A Quick TV Show Update

In a little over two weeks I'll be flying out to Charlotte, NC to film all the introductory and in-between bits for the Un-Road Trip TV show. We're recreating my house in Portland, OR in a studio in Charlotte, NC where I'll be hosting the show from. Pretty crazy! They've hired DPs and set dressers and gaffers- this is going to be the biggest production I've ever been involved in. I'm collecting various Oregon mementos and souvenirs to place around the set to make it look a little more authentic. And I'm trying to include some fun details on the set and in my outfits since I always like catching that stuff when I watch TV shows. If anyone has any ideas let me know. I'll be taking a ton of photos and video to put up here and also to create some behind-the-scenes featurette for the eventual DVD. Who knows when I'll have my next TV show so I've got to make the most of this!

New & Slightly Improved Trailer

Remember the original trailer for the Un-Road Trip? The one with Matt Lauer? Well, in anticipation of the upcoming series the trailer has been re-edited with real Un-Road Trip footage! Check it out:

The Un-Road Trip: Coming soon to TV! from Boaz Frankel on Vimeo.

So go ahead and click play and listen to Lauer's familiar timbre as action-packed vehicularly-exhilarating footage plays!

Seattle TV still loves me!

One of my favorite local pieces covering the Un-Road Trip was produced by Evening Magazine, a nightly magazine show on Seattle's King 5. A few weeks back they called me for an update (I told them about the upcoming TV show) so they could write a new intro for a re-airing of the segment. They really covered the whole trip pretty thoroughly and were even there to cover my rib-shattering fall! Take a look:

The Kazoo Museum Comes Home!

After over a year of living in boxes in my parents' house the Kazoo Museum has gone out into the world and is once again educating people about the wonders and history of my favorite instrument. A few months back I got an email from Rick Hubbard (aka The King of Kazoos) about the possibility of moving the museum to South Carolina. His company Kazoobie Kazoos had just relocated there themselves and now had a larger space to house a gift shop and visitor center. So a few weeks ago I re-packed and mailed a few boxes from Portland, OR and last week I opened up those boxes in Beaufort, SC. The space is pretty awesome. The building used to be a lighting showroom so it's already an inviting space with more overhead power outlets than you know what to do with.

Rick and Stephen Murray (president of Kazoobie Kazoos) had already purchased six glass cases and arranged them in a cozy nook of the front room. I spent a week with them laying out a chronological exhibit outlining the history of the instrument with antique kazoos, patents, and a lot of new text I wrote up for the occasion.




In addition I also set up a few side exhibits. I really like this mini exhibit about the kazoo as one of the few instruments invented in the USA:


We also did some thrift store shopping to put together this recreation of Thaddeus Von Clegg's workshop where the first kazoo was supposedly built in the 1840s:


The Kazoo Museum is already open for business, though we're in the early stages of planning an epic grand opening celebration in October. So keep you calendar clear and start planning that trip to Beaufort!

Livin' La Vida Un-Road

Even though I finished the Un-Road Trip about a year ago I still haven't been spending much time in cars. Now I'm on a sort of mini-car-free vacation in South Carolina. Before the trip I bought a folding bike that I'd been eying for a while and it's pretty awesome. As soon as the train arrived in Charleston around 5:30AM I unfolded my bike, hopped on it, and rode into town as I watched the sun rise. I hadn't done a ton of research before I got to Charleston so I was pretty much exploring the town with my bike and iPhone.

Downtown Charleston is fun to bike around- small streets, slow traffic, friendly drivers- though it's a little trickier once you get out of the center of town. Apparently South Carolina is ranked 33rd in the list of bike-friendly states and while some other SC cities (Columbia, Greenville, Spartanburg) are working on building some infrastructure to promote cycling it doesn't seem like Charleston has started on that task. In my few days of riding I've seen two small stretches of bike lanes and a couple of "Share the Road" signs with a picture of a bicycle. Otherwise I've been doing my best to wear bright colors find wide shoulders and ward off reckless drivers. I've had to change a few of my plans after a man at one of the bike shops strongly recommend I stay off some roads, though I've been able to find plenty to do in the area.

Five years ago they did open the massive Ravenel suspension bridge that does accommodate a roomy bike lane:


One of the days I ditched the bike altogether and joined a bike tour to check out one of the many plantations in the area. It's pretty wild to see these places in person after reading about them in my elementary, middle, and high school history books. I love Oregon, but it certainly doesn't have the same sort of colonial, revolutionary, and civil war history that the Carolinas do. And there I was on the Magnolia Plantation looking at former rice paddies and rustic cabins that slaves used to live in. Pretty wild.



Coincidentally I planned my trip during the Spoleta Festival, an annual arts festival that's been going on for over thirty years and is somehow linked to an Italian arts festival. There were literally hundreds of performances happening throughout the week- from blues to jazz to plays to dance pieces to marionette operas. It was tough to decide what to check out, so I ended up seeing five concerts and a one-man-show. A few of the shows were free, so I didn't even have to shell out that much cash.



And after a sweaty nine mile bike ride through the hot and humid streets of Charleston I'm drying off at the Amtrak Station getting ready to board a train to my next desitination- Beaufort, SC- where I'll be reinstalling the Kazoo Museum after a few year hiatus. Stay tuned...

The Un-Road Trip: Coming to a TV near you!

It looks like it's really happening. The Un-Road Trip is going to be a television show. These things never move very quickly, though this process has been pretty darn speedy. It all started in October when I happened to meet a voice over artist who told me about some spots she had just recorded for Halogen, a new cable channel. The network sounded pretty cool- as they say on their website:

Halogen is a television network featuring empowering entertainment that targets and activates a generation that is willing and ready to give back. With shows, documentaries and short-form films, Halogen offers a variety of lifestyle programming that aims to motivate viewers to leave their mark and make the world a better place.

It sounded like a good fit for the Un-Road Trip so I emailed the head of programming and after a few months of emails and phone calls we decided to make a deal. A few weeks ago we really got things moving when I spent a week at their offices right outside Charlotte, NC. I worked side by side with my newest buddy Todd who will be producing the show (with my assistance, of course). We started the week by digitizing all my footage from the Un-Road Trip and importing it into the Halogen mega-computer. Then we went through every single clip- and there were a lot of them- and I talked Todd through every city, vehicle, person, and mishap on the journey.



That part took a long time. About three and a half days to get through the nearly thirty hours of video. And then on Thursday afternoon it was time to get creative. We started filling up the white board in Todd's office with every city and major mode of transportation on the trip. And then we started talking about them in terms of episodes so we could break them up into bite-size 30 minute chunks. Although in television 30 minutes really means 22 minutes. And 22 minutes actually means four separate 5 minute segments. Which isn't a lot of time to squeeze in a 12,000 mile journey. We broke the trip into 10 separate episodes- which is more than I initially expected- and suddenly it started to feel pretty real.



And it got more exciting from there. Todd and I spent Friday discussing the framework of the individuals episodes. How would they be introduced? What would the graphics look like? How would the narration work? What kind of music would we use? I wanted to make some interesting choices and create something that would look/sound/feel unique and incredibly Todd was thinking the same thing. One of my primary goals was to figure out a way to host the show without talking to camera and doing cheesy introductions and segues. We talked over a lot of options and I think we found a solution that seems more casual, genuine, and hopefully funnier. I'm not going to go into our scheme quite yet as we're still figuring out details, but hopefully it will turn out cool. And if not I might have to blame it on Todd.

The week flew by and I was back in DC before I knew it. I've been emailing and talking with the folks at Halogen and everything seems to be moving along amazingly well. It's hard to believe that this TV show is really happening. I'll be meeting up with Todd again soon to film some of the introductory pieces and record some narration and hopefully I'll find out our premiere date soon.

I always hoped the Un-Road Trip would have a second life after the journey and it's beyond exciting to be able to share the story with a wider audience with help from Halogen. I have no doubt that we're going to create something that's engaging, unique, and fun. Hopefully it'll be good too.

I Still Love Alternative Transportation

I can't seem to get over my love of unusual vehicles and transportation, so when I got the opportunity to produce a video for the Smithsonian's website it didn't take me long to decide on a topic...

Check it out: