Unforgettable: City of Lakes (HD)

I want to share something really special with you. I don’t say that lightly; this is an unforgettable piece of work. What if you were to take a planned event, like a wedding, and while documenting it, weave in a narrative storyline that expands the depth and meaning of the event, propelling it forever into the realm of a romantic feature film?

Kevin Shahinian has done it. First, I want to present the amazing trailer for the film, and next, the full feature, which runs a little more than 28 minutes. It’s got love, adventure, mystery, and just a touch of wonder…now enjoy: City of Lakes.

3-minute trailer:

28-minute feature:

See the film, photos, commentaries, bios, behind-the-scenes, etc., featured on a dedicated mini-site at ExposureRoom.com

This is a small piece of cinema history. I’m not aware of any time anything like this has ever been done: turning an actual event like a wedding into a reality-fiction narrative. And, it was all shot with DSLR cameras using traditional film cinematography. As a producer and consumer of web video, this one kind of has me stunned…

I saw the trailer several months ago, and recently found the full length feature on Exposure Room, which is a really fantastic host site for professional work. On a side note, Exposure Room actually has the best video playback quality of any web video sharing site, including Vimeo and the new YouTube HD channel. I confirmed this by watching a by Philip Bloom he had uploaded on both Vimeo and Exposure Room, and compared them in real time playback and frame-by-frame. XR has the edge for resolution clarity, just by a little. It’s that extra edge of sharpness and detail that place it above the rest, in my opinion.

After watching City of Lakes, I invite you to look at the checklist for Compelling content in the right hand sidebar of this website. Notice how many of the items you can check off? It’s got great visuals, interesting characters, a definite story arc, complications, conflict, drama, humor, a climax, and a great resolution. Plus, at the end, you get some really fun music videos as the credits roll. This is really amazing cinema.

The surprise that is revealed almost at the very end (I won’t give it away) lifts City of Lakes into a level of narrative quality you don’t often get with feature films or television network programming. It’s brilliant, and touching, and magical.

This is what short form storytelling can be. I won’t say should be, because I’m not sure I’ll ever see anything quite like this again. City of Lakes is in a category by itself for the moment.