the individuals

Paul Both

Chris Swenson

Musician, Actor, Sound Engineer, Runner

Normally when I’ve done these, they were written in the 3rd person and were very stale. For this one I said fuck it, I’ll make it a little more interesting. If I start rambling or drifting into weird places, forgive me, I’m not entirely stable.

I was born many years ago in Cincinnati, Ohio, but due to some divine intervention, the family moved to Southern California four months after my entrance, and I’ve never left. I spent the finest years of my life in the farthest reaches of So. Orange County, until I graduated from San Clemente High School in 1982. I spun my wheels for a few years drifting from meaningless job to incredibly meaningless job. Eventually I decided to go back to school, so I enrolled at Saddleback College and jumped into the one thing I always loved growing up, acting.

I soon realized I needed to move to L.A. and throw caution to the wind. I ended up in a house in North Hollywood with wannabes of like mind, and we did a hell of a lot more partying than acting. After a few years of extra work, student films and shitty low budget drek, I took some work doing swing gang for an unbelievably stupid film called Prayer of the Rollerboys. OOFA!!! That led to me working on a variety of different shows including, The Wonder Years and HBO’s First & 10. Just as things were flowing nicely, I foolishly convinced myself that I’m an actor not crew, I turned down a full time gig on Tales From the Crypt, and sunk back into abject poverty.

When I couldn’t eat anymore Top Ramen and tortillas, I took a job at a nightclub as a grunt bar-back. I quickly went on to be bartender, and ultimately, the operations manager. That club was The Hollywood Palace. I have to admit, because of, and in spite of the incredible amount of corruption I was serving up to my body, my time there was Fan-Fucking-Tastic! Just as I reached the apex of comfort and debauchery, I hooked up with the woman acting as my assistant manager, quit my job and moved to La Jolla. Great town, bad reason to go there. A few months later, no surprise to me, the relationship ended badly. That was in 1994.

Back in Orange County once again, I decide to get back into production, except this time it’s video. I got my first chance to operate a camera when I got a part time job at HBTV3, City of Huntington Beach. From there I went on to shoot and edit just about anything and everything. In 2003 I was brought in as a freelance shooter at Post Modern Edit, where I met Paul Both. Few things I’ve done since then have actually given me a feeling of pride and satisfaction. The Box, an early collaboration with Paul and others is one of them. This adventure we’re about to undertake I’m sure will be another.

This by no means is the whole story. Some know parts; no one knows it in its entirety.

And now, as they said in school….any questions?

Chris’s website

Shooter, Editor, Actor, Adventurer

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