The slow matriculation of older projects

While my short film is uploading on Vimeo, it has got me thinking. One of the catch 22 of my business is that having been doing what i've been doing (T.V., Sports TV., Movies, etc...) for over the past 10 yrs is the fact how much time can pass without having anywork to show. Getting copies is truly hard if copies are even made. Or how do you show your skills if your one camera out of 13 !

Finally i'm starting to get the momentum here and gather older projects and post them on yours truly Vimeo account.

I'm almost dreading the day I find my old work on VHS I did WAY BACK in the day for my college classes. All I remember is one of them I made a Dr. Kevorkian parody commercial.Other then gig badges, a fair amount of gig photos have been saved so here are some of them.

This is half of my collage I made during my Intern year with Giants back in the wind tunnel days of Candlestick park. I do not miss the days of swapping out old panels on Jumbotron. We were convinced it was a known shrine where rats would die in honor. And it wouldn't be a small strech to say thats when the rodent world outnumbered paying fans.


This is me on camera during the 2002 World Series Game. Going from Candlestick to then Pac Bell is like you getting your first car, which you're happy has 4 wheels and runs to a BMW. What it's like to have working power windows, AC., a stereo thats not a boom box in the passenger seat. I think you get the feeling. It was that good.

In the middle of a week

Haven't had much of a chance this week to work on my own projects as i'm working a crazy long week for a TV show. Working with some of the top camera guys in the industry ( like trying to learn all the tips and tricks from the Steadicam OP who works on American Idol!).

Will be fun and i'll be posting some new updates shortly!

2 legged Tripod

Answering how I did the movement in my video "Water" (below this entry)

Whoever said that 3 legs are better then 2 clearly didn't realize the epic cinematic style and movement created by merely amputating and removing one of the legs. Using tripods regularly over the past 10yrs, not once did I realize that this type of movement is possible on a tripod, it can look really good too. I recently saw a guy doing this move and it blew me away; got me thinking of a new possibilities and moves. By dumb luck I found this cool place to practice it on.

Heres the BTS video:

http://www.vimeo.com/9152533

starting inside the statue. This move was also utilized with the sky tree branch to benches shot (legs at max height), shallow DoF tree shot, and a couple more.

I first tried this with my el cheapo tripod and the results were absolutely crap. Nothing was usable. Even with a good tripod this move is hard (especially in the rain with dirt that wants nothing more then to consume your tripod!). I probably tried about 10-15x til I got finally to the apex of the move (or my limit for patience); even then it gitters at the end because i'm moving a good couple feet with it!

But the results can be impressive; Hollywood style movement and quality with gear you already own, it's like finding a 20 bucks in your jeans! Why didn't someone share this with me 10yrs ago?!?

Also, did you catch it in the video? Inside the statue? The first part of the statue movement is a still. I felt the longer I could stay in there the greater the change would be. So I froze the image and did a zoom out in post, timed it with the live movement and it should feel like one consecutive shot (but you can tell when it shift from a still to live movement by the gain fluctuating).

New short film, "WATER" is online :)

Heres the link

http://www.vimeo.com/8916528




After a week of wind and rain, my next short film is online. Shot almost all in Golden Gate Park this one introduces the wide-angle lens to my camera.

Birds eating are all shot at 60 f/s and slowed down to 24 in Cinema tools. The first couple shots with the birds I just wasn't getting close enough and the payoff wasn't that good (example is near the end the four shot of the black birds on the wide). A great look for landscapes, but not for detail. I was going to switch back to my long lens then I thought what would happen if I took my camera off the tripod and put it on the ground (left the plate on) and brought the birds to me; pleasantly surprised with the results. With some bribes to entice the birds to eat in front of the lens the only problem was I didn't bring enough bread!

All movement is actually done on the tripod. It's this new trick I learned using two legs. I took a behind the scene video and I'll show you guys later how I did it. All with two lenses. At this stage I wouldn't want to bring out more because it would take me away from focusing on what is truly important, a good shot!

My next one will be back with people but lets not rush ourselves, enjoy this piece and hopefully I'll inspire you to take out your camera this weekend :)

Three new steps before transfer

As much as I dislike pigeons and do believe they're rats with wings, I'm grateful for how camera friendly they are (IE - The Godfather Pigeons in my film "City Life"). They were great practice today with the Tokina 11mm and excited about the footage I got for my new short. On top of that I put that sucker really low and shot most of it in 60p. Below is a screen grab from FCP (no altering)



Problem is that I also shot a bunch of 24p. So when I batch render to 422 via MPEG STREAM, I'll mess up the transfers on half them. Today I'm starting to go through every clip on my CF card and do three things BEFORE transferring to my computer: Label, ID & Delete

The latter will save me HD space with junk thats out of foucs (yes, it happens to me too). Figured I deleted about 20% on this card. While watching and labeling I'll note if it's 60p & tag that on the end, if not just a clip description. Run MPEG with the right settings for each group and you're in business!

Not only that but once you get the files into FCP ( or any other NLE ) they're nicely organized and logged.

Exclusive trailer - "Voro"

If you gave this man a camera and told him to film a pile of dirt & throw a soundtrack behind it, academy & other award conciderations wouldn't be far behind! Illustrating my point is his new trailer he just release, shot the RED camera.

http://www.infinitemirror.com/trailer.html

Keep an eye on him as he's a rising star in Hollywood. I'll keep you guys posted when the film is released.

How to stop the Rain:

Be prepared! This week, weather forecasters have called for some of the biggest storms of the season. Some descriptions will have you believe the Almighty himself is poised above us with a giant bucket of water, ready at any moment let it out! Awesome, rain is fun. Rains cool. And makes great video.

If this camera can survive Antarctica,

http://www.canonrumors.com/2009/12/7d-antarctica/

it can survive some measly Bay Area rain. But I've discovered how to make it stop, prepare for it! Out of the two storms i've managed to bring out only the sunshine! Theres two more this week and i'm begging you person/enity in charge, make it rain as hard as you can. This camera can capture cool rain shots. So how well prepared am I? Like a true D.I.Y'er. What little drops it did do today my shower cap + rubberband DIY set up worked. Got beat up in the wind but no biggie. It will only last a day before being tossed. I did discover that for tomorrow I'll need to make one for each lens - on location changing the bags becomes a pain . But I find that this set-up works well for a quick solution to the elements. It also allows variable lens (like the kit one) to expand/retract freely.