Well…. I have been quite absent on the web these days. Good for me, bad for the one or two of you. A bit of what I have been working on lately. For now this will do, some teasers:

Diddy - Coming Home Uncut (Teaser Trailer)


No Path To Follow - A Nicaragua Surf Film and Documentary (Early Teaser)


Diddy The Last Days - Chapter 1, The Intro to the Craziness.

I do not have a whole lot to reveal about this project as of now. Just that I have had the pleasure to work with some very dynamic people in the last couple of weeks. The result of which is a very raw and intimate look into the process of creation and collaboration in the form of visual artistry.

The videos will surface soon. Courtesy of Interscope, BadBoy and BET.

My love to Diddy, Dirty Money, James Fauntleroy, Matt Testa, Rob Holladay and D’Mile for letting me go where no man has gone before!

I find it very hard to believe that this is only year 2 of this very young and very promising music and community celebration. My bay area based pal Lauren Stocker and I, tired and groggy from a long day of travel were shuttled from Managua airport 2 hours in to San Juan and dropped into the lions den of pre festival celebration time. The tone was set for a 4 day rally of non-stop action. Festival kickoff, 2 days of prep, Los Popitos School for the handicap outreach, TheFestival, a surf recovery day, and Flying straight into cold snowy nashville. Only on my flight back into the states did I grasp the fact that I was only in San Juan Del Sur for 4 days. ahhhmazing.

The vision for the Earthship Pitaya Festival is to connect the local population with visiting tourists through art and music. The festival is a platform to feature local artists and inspire the children, while raising awareness for sustainable living and education within the Carizal. Through the volunteer programs and community outreach projects, we hope to cultivate a disarming mutual respect between visitors and locals thus providing the foundation for lasting friendships within the local community. The Festival is home to Central America’s premier Earthship, a completely off grid home made from nearly 100% recycled materials.

Below is a video I put together documenting the day in a very linear order of how things organically took place. Photo credit for these amazing photo’s goes to SF Bay Area Photog: Lauren Stocker

The Official 2010 Pitaya Festival Video:

An 18k single track off road bike race through grueling dirt roads, river beds, and untouched raw landscape. Only the toughest survive. Am i man enough to race it? Nope! I am however man enough to film it. And that I did. While the real men gutted it out in scorching nica heat, I followed on my off road quad, which I must say was almost as equally exhausting. The race brought in some of Central America’s finest riders, as well as some adventurous Canadiens and West Coast Californians. Along with the elite riders was a series of local San Juan riders, who held their own, and received a ton of support from the elite riders. Loads of racing equipment was given out to the local kids, along with 2 mighty fine racing bikes that were donated by a Canadian race couple. The looks on the faces of the well deserved local winners was by far the highlight of this two day funventure!

South By Southwest Film, Music, and Interactive Festival, Austin TX. This was much cooler than I had anticipated. From past Austin visits I knew that it would be a fun week. Add in my best of friends, film premiers, actor/director panels, endless parties and receptions, all nighters, tech geek madness, and all the good music you can muster….. exhaustingly killer fun!

We were there supporting the cleverly titled “Jimmy Tupper Vs. The Goatman Of Bowie”. JTVTGOB literally came out of nowhere for me. One of my best friends, and production partners Andrew Bowser was temp living on the opposite side of the country as me. I was in town for a few days on a commercial photo shoot, when Bowser asks if I can DP a film project he is working on. Our conversation in a nutshell: “Will you help me shoot a new feature while you are in town”? “I am only here for a few days”. “that is all it will take”. “For a feature length”!!?? I wasn’t sure what to expect. In the past we have worked arm in arm from start to finish on projects, but this was not the case. He had an idea. A “gimmicky” type of idea. Truth is I had always looked at this as a “fun” personal project of Bowsers. Never gave too much of a serious look to the project. Many many talented people lent a hand, and now it is Jimmy Tupper VS. the world!!

My last update? 9 MONTHS AGO.

I should be ashamed. I should be banned. I should just shut this page down? Or should I?? For a minute or two I scared myself into thinking I needed to back track and post all the fun and work the last year has handed over. Then I remembered the days when all we had was a memory.. a story, no blogs, no archives, just the memory that was it. So no backtracking. Well not too much backtracking. I am very pleased to have entered the ’10 on somewhat of a rollercoaster ride. A good coaster. The one’s that give just enough of that puke feeling, but not too much. 2010 thus far:

• -Delta Platinum Medallion Status achieved.
• -18 segments flown.
• -1 successful music festival thrown.
• -double international travel.
• -a SXSW film fest premier announced.
• -new clients, new projects, new friends.
• -the formation and partnering in a new branding and marketing agency.
• -surfing and sailing galore.
• -cinematic boutique, hihellomedia, reactobid.
• -equal parts nicaragua/LA
• -french and israeli immersion

Here it is, the OFFICIAL trailer for the film “The Mother of Invention”.

Co Producer and Cinematography: David Kalani Larkins
Directed By: Joseph Petrick and Andrew Bowser

Starring Andrew Bowser, Jimmi Simpson, Kevin Corrigan, Dee Wallace and more!

CENTRAL AMERICA GARBAGE DUMP TOUR - HONDURAS, DAY 2 from david kalani larkins on Vimeo.

8 days in london was a success. The Mother of Invention had it’s UK premier, which seemed as good a time as any to scratch the UK off of the list of “places to go”. previous to the visit London was never very high on that list. now that my eyes have seen, i am a believer. my expectations were exceeded and the chances of a future relationship with the city in the near future is highly probable.

Highlights:
The film festival was a hospitable success. London has a great fashion sense, I only regret not bringing more shopping money! the pubs were fantastic. many tastes to choose from accompanied by an always eclectic crowd made it a daily routine during our wholesome 8 days.

i love being in such international cities. the array of accents, the food choices, the stylistic differences, cultural barriers. love it all. and yes, the british, eastern european, and australian accents that were so prevalent added a next level of hotness to the lady friends :)

It seems a small organization called MTV has taken a liking to some past collaborative work of Andrew Bowser, Joseph Petrick, and myself. A series of phone calls, mixed with a series of meetings, resulted in an offer to develop a comedic TV show for the network. Joseph and Andrew went to work writing a clever series titled The Underground. We recently completed a presentation pilot for the network and are in a weird development pattern of hearing opinion after opinion from this guy, and that guy, and his superior and so on…. not sure if this series will ever see the light of day with MTV, but there has recently been some positive developments. with that said, in this career i have learned to take “positive developments” with a grain of salt, and to keep on pressing towards new goals, while completed goals sometimes lay in limbo, and in the hands of those less visionary.

ENJOY SOME PRODUCTION STILLS

A LITTLE BEHIND THE SCENES WITH BABY GOAT

This post is a bit dated, but I was just sent these great photo’s and video fromThe Bamboozle Left festival in Irvine, CA at the verizon amphitheatre. The fest was great. We played an hour long set of the Razia’s Shadow musical from start to finish. The 2 day fest included the likes of 50 Cent, Taking Back Sunday, The Used, Thrice, Fallout Boy and more. Pretty amazing to play in the company of such names.

one of the first artists i ever had the pleasure of being part of a music video with was Copeland(pin your wings), that was some time ago. I shot this video with friend and director Joseph Petrick for a song on their new album out on Tooth and Nail Records.

we shot this on pretty much $0.00 budget. Copeland shot one video for each song on their new album. This was one of them. In total our production company shot 3 video’s for the album, the other 2, one including the single were shot by Andrew Boswer. One Small Instrument ftw!

this was shot in the mojave desert. it was hot, dry, and quite lovely at the same time. the simpleness of wide open spaces like that, translate into a thing of beauty on film.

we should have an HD version up soon…. sorry for the low quality!


Copeland - “To Be Happy Now” from david kalani larkins on Vimeo.