Saturday, December 31, 2011
One Question
Here it is! Pete proposed in the middle of a carefully planned jam circle. This was an incredible evening. Congrats to the amazing couple!
Friday, December 23, 2011
[I'm so excited!]
I have four projects in post-production right now, one of which is almost finished. Here's a sneak peek of what I'm working on:
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Mopping, 3D, and Woes of Anaglyph
I arrived at The Governor's Office of Film and Television Annual Meeting early. I'd been told to arrive an hour early to check on the set up of my student presentation (see http://bit.ly/thLBga for more information about the program). The memory is a bit foggy, but I believe that upon walking in, I may have offered my services in whatever capacity necessary. A sweet OMPA friend eagerly sent me to the "kitchen" (a bare white room with a cement floor and two industrial sinks) to find a washcloth to wipe tables, then gave me the swiveling dust mop to prepare the marble floors.
After I helped the caterers set out food, more guests began to arrive. I met a handful of fascinating people: the caterers (they epitomized the term "Friendly Skater Dudes") a writer who knew a lot about graphic design, an advisor from the Art Institute, a coffee vendor, numerous intellectual people affiliated with the OMPA and Intel, a woman who works at a 3D museum, and the Executive Director of the Oregon Film Office. I got to talk to really cool people I met earlier in the program like Tawny Schlieski and Tom McFadden. Overall, I had a great experience.
Four out of eight scholarship winners had been selected to bring their video presentations to the Governor's Office Meeting. This summer, the scholarship winners were nominated by their teachers, and given a series of assignments for Intel and the OMPA. We were shown technology that is still in development, and were given digital tools to experiment with. I got the Fujifilm W3 3D camera. It is equipped with two 10-megapixel sensors, and creates AVI video files. Sweet deal, eh? We were told to explore possible future applications for personal media data, and come up with something interesting to show for it. Through most of the program I suffered from varying levels of confusion.
Recording 3D video on the W3 wasn't too challenging, but post-production processing just about killed me. At first I couldn't get my computer to recognize the camera (there isn't much 3D media compatibility for Mac yet), and the PC software I received didn't help. I spent hours researching and trying out programs, figuring out what I needed to do. My goal seemed simple: edit the 3D video into a multi-clip movie in Final Cut Pro, and output a 3D video. After months of frustration, I finally discovered a process to complete my goal.
First, I saved the AVI files directly from the SD card to my computer hard drive. I downloaded the free program Stereo Splicer, renamed the files to DSCF followed by four numbers (i.e. DSCF0132.avi), and split the videos in to left and right files. I still didn't have what I needed to output a 3D video composition. I found Stereo3D Toolbox LE, a plugin that works in different NLE programs, including FCP. This plugin saved my bacon. I used it to tweak the parallaxes with ease, and output both an anaglyph Quicktime movie (check it out at http://youtu.be/BcZh-C0DiWM, especially if you have red/cyan glasses!) and a side-by-side version for Youtube's conversion set up (I uploaded my video with my own conversion to anaglyph because I had more control). The options and features in this plugin are incredible. I created a 3D video with only one lingering frustration: I didn't want to create anaglyph video. I wanted to output a 3D video in realD 3D. I'm still working on that one...
For my final presentation, I ditched the 3D presentation plan and created the assigned presentation with a 5D Mk II: My Ideas. Along with three other student videos, my video played looped on one of two plasma screens during the Governor's Office Meeting. Each video lasted 2-3 minutes, and communicated visually without the necessity of audio, due to the nature of the venue and event. The whole OMPA/Intel Digital Media Commission scholarship program this summer/fall/winter has been an incredible adventure, but I am thankful that it's over. I'm enjoying three weeks of winter break before I begin 18 credits of wonderful classes.
(photo credit: Jeffrey Babcock)
After I helped the caterers set out food, more guests began to arrive. I met a handful of fascinating people: the caterers (they epitomized the term "Friendly Skater Dudes") a writer who knew a lot about graphic design, an advisor from the Art Institute, a coffee vendor, numerous intellectual people affiliated with the OMPA and Intel, a woman who works at a 3D museum, and the Executive Director of the Oregon Film Office. I got to talk to really cool people I met earlier in the program like Tawny Schlieski and Tom McFadden. Overall, I had a great experience.
Four out of eight scholarship winners had been selected to bring their video presentations to the Governor's Office Meeting. This summer, the scholarship winners were nominated by their teachers, and given a series of assignments for Intel and the OMPA. We were shown technology that is still in development, and were given digital tools to experiment with. I got the Fujifilm W3 3D camera. It is equipped with two 10-megapixel sensors, and creates AVI video files. Sweet deal, eh? We were told to explore possible future applications for personal media data, and come up with something interesting to show for it. Through most of the program I suffered from varying levels of confusion.
Recording 3D video on the W3 wasn't too challenging, but post-production processing just about killed me. At first I couldn't get my computer to recognize the camera (there isn't much 3D media compatibility for Mac yet), and the PC software I received didn't help. I spent hours researching and trying out programs, figuring out what I needed to do. My goal seemed simple: edit the 3D video into a multi-clip movie in Final Cut Pro, and output a 3D video. After months of frustration, I finally discovered a process to complete my goal.
First, I saved the AVI files directly from the SD card to my computer hard drive. I downloaded the free program Stereo Splicer, renamed the files to DSCF followed by four numbers (i.e. DSCF0132.avi), and split the videos in to left and right files. I still didn't have what I needed to output a 3D video composition. I found Stereo3D Toolbox LE, a plugin that works in different NLE programs, including FCP. This plugin saved my bacon. I used it to tweak the parallaxes with ease, and output both an anaglyph Quicktime movie (check it out at http://youtu.be/BcZh-C0DiWM, especially if you have red/cyan glasses!) and a side-by-side version for Youtube's conversion set up (I uploaded my video with my own conversion to anaglyph because I had more control). The options and features in this plugin are incredible. I created a 3D video with only one lingering frustration: I didn't want to create anaglyph video. I wanted to output a 3D video in realD 3D. I'm still working on that one...
For my final presentation, I ditched the 3D presentation plan and created the assigned presentation with a 5D Mk II: My Ideas. Along with three other student videos, my video played looped on one of two plasma screens during the Governor's Office Meeting. Each video lasted 2-3 minutes, and communicated visually without the necessity of audio, due to the nature of the venue and event. The whole OMPA/Intel Digital Media Commission scholarship program this summer/fall/winter has been an incredible adventure, but I am thankful that it's over. I'm enjoying three weeks of winter break before I begin 18 credits of wonderful classes.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
I Love Weddings!
Did I mention that I love weddings? This summer I had the incredible privilege to go to California and film my cousin's wedding! The trip as a whole was the highlight of my summer. Southern California is gorgeous, and the people I met there were awesome.
After years of working with at least one assistant, I stepped out of my comfort zone on this video. I shot solo with a Canon 5D Mk II on a monopod (baggage limits on the flight...), equipped with 4GB CFs that I bought long ago (before I knew better). The 12-hour wedding day was a blast; I found myself running with as much dignity as I could muster between capturing special moments and dumping footage to my computer. At the end of the day, my computer held ~150GBs of transcoded treasure. What a privilege to capture this incredible wedding on video!
After years of working with at least one assistant, I stepped out of my comfort zone on this video. I shot solo with a Canon 5D Mk II on a monopod (baggage limits on the flight...), equipped with 4GB CFs that I bought long ago (before I knew better). The 12-hour wedding day was a blast; I found myself running with as much dignity as I could muster between capturing special moments and dumping footage to my computer. At the end of the day, my computer held ~150GBs of transcoded treasure. What a privilege to capture this incredible wedding on video!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Music and My Videography Role Model
Joe Simon's wedding films are incredible. Actually, I think his films are a huge part of why I'm so excited about wedding videography. When I hit a wall in editing, get nervous before a shoot, or second-guess my choice to pursue wedding videography, I watch his films. Just ask my family. They've been subject to watching his films over and over as I analyze them and get way more excited than they will ever understand. Joe Simon is my wedding filmmaker hero. His site and video playlist changed a while back, and I'd wondered what happened until I stumbled onto this article today. Props to him for this interview! http://bit.ly/sx9zmY
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