Scott Thrift and Ari Kushnir run an online video production company called
m ss ng p eces. In the past they've worked with Counts Media, Ghostly International, Treehugger, Cool Hunting, Flavorpill and thehappycorp global. They were the only video crew permitted to film the 2007 TED conference in California; the video series they produce for Cool Hunting won a Webby this year in the music/variety category.

In part one of the m ss ng p eces interview, Settlement Heart talks with Scott Thrift via email about how m ss ng p eces got started filming in New York, what the future of online video looks like, and what Scott would do if the moving image had never been invented.

Settlement Heart: How did you get started producing video for online distribution? Did it start with one big hit, or did you see a void you thought m ss ng p eces could fill?

Scott Thrift: In 1999 I posted a short film I directed called 1011 to ifilm.com. Having a film online was an anomaly back then and a producer contacted me while I was living in LA to discuss the potential of online video. We talked a lot about what to both us was a totally new medium.

How can you capture New York in a single photograph or short film? You can't, it's impossible. So I was looking for a way to use the web to communicate with video and in my notebooks I was calling it emergent cinema (whatever the hell that means) until I read an article in Time Out about LVHRD where a guy named Jacob Lodwick was calling video online Vimeo.

A year later (2005) Ari moved to New York and began to write an article for the now defunct LOFT magazine. We basically used the LOFT name to get ”˜m ss ng p eces' in the door and see what these types of New Yorkers were up to. We interviewed Surface to Air, Counts Media, Active Air, Treehugger, Cool Hunting and Flavorpill. After spending time with Flavorpill we asked them to suggest one more company and they told us to talk to thehappycorp. We interviewed Doug (Jaeger) and Matt (Spangler) and started an exciting creative bond with them as well as many of the other companies we met with.

In 2006 m ss ng p eces shot the Long Tail launch party for Flavorpill.

SH: Ami Kealoha says that “the lyricism and artistry of Cool Hunting Video has everything to do with the talents of the production company m ss ng p eces.” What kind of limitations do you encounter with video as a medium?

ST: The limitation in online video is and probably always will be a lack of realistic funding for what we understand as traditional film production. There is a beautiful methodology to film production that has been honed for over a 100 years which is completely disregarded when it comes to online video. We have no other choice but to rely on creativity when working without a budget. Not including our own equipment, transportation and lodging, we have made the entire series of Cool Hunting Video with about $180.00 and a bunch of editing and camera tricks.

SH: How did the opportunity to cover TED come about? Were they fans of a particular video you shot? What was the experience at TED like?

ST: We met the video producer of TED, Jason Wishnow, at the Move3 conference over lunch with (now defunct) RES magazine editor Jonathan Welles. Jason is a joy to be around and we quickly became obsessed with his TED video series. He's one of the few people I've spoken with who has seen at least half of everything we've done and one day he mentioned to Ari and I that he was going to try to get us to make a documentary about TED 2007.

I am still suffering withdrawals, experiencing moments of clarity and having flashbacks of professional terror (i.e. How do I possibly make sense of all this with a video camera?) from TED 2007, so you can put me down as saying that the TED experience is still happening. (watch the TED video)

SH: The London episode of Cool Hunting was very much like a music video, have you ever worked in that format?

ST: Sure, back in 2001 I made a music video for a dirty dirty dirty south hip hop collective that went by the name of Swamp Soldiers or Thug Pimp depending on their daily intake of drugs. I like music videos but I also think they are antiquated and perhaps artistically doomed. The thing about music video production is that once you get caught up in it you may find yourself shooting the next PINK video and having some song of hers stuck in your head for two months because you hear it 400 times on the shoot and 1200 times in the editing room. No amount of Dave Meyers style of cash flow could compensate me for that type of mental torture.

LVHRD NTRVW: M SS NG P ECES, Part 2.