DSLR Video - first takes

I've been too busy shooting and editing to write, so maybe some pictures can take the place of a few words?

Rough Edit of an Industrial Piece, my first work with the Canon T1i.

Some Studio test shots with the T1i and kit lens.

Spots

My spots from the days when this was all I did. Good times...

Color Grade #1

Since I haven't had time/energy/motivation to write anything for this blog in four months (thanks, Twitter!)I'm going to start posting some before/after pix of color grades I'm working on. This is an area where I have very little practical expertise and am hoping to increase my skillset via practice, practice, practice. So, without further blah bleh blah, here's #1:

Before:


After:


Shot in MiniDV (NTSC) with natural light.

Here's the list of ingredients (all in Final Cut Pro), in order:
1. Color Corrector 3-Way: Slightly crushed black and brought the whites into line via Mid and White adjustment. Pushed everything in the to Reds/Mg ever so slightly, trying to remember the adage that slight adjustments are the best ones.

2. TMTS Custom Diffusion: This is also very subtle, really more noticeable in the motion than in this softer, de-interlaced JPEG.

3. Vignette: This one is less subtle and I might back it off a bit, or opt for two instances, one for focus and another for true lens vignette.

All in all, this was about 20 minutes, maybe less. If I go back for tweaks I'll update the post to track the progression.

the price and the promise of citizenship

I did not trek to D.C. this week for what turned out to be the most historic event that city may ever witness, but watching the inauguration from Mr. Jefferson's University was a pretty good second option. It's fairly difficult to elucidate how any of us feel at this moment, but one thing I know is this: in almost 40 years on this planet, up until a year ago I was convinced that my generation had blown it, that the great challenges and responses of Americans who had Come Before Us would be examples which we could look up to, but would never live up to. I think perhaps that more than anything I feel a sense of relief that, given the opportunity and the challenge, we have in this election been able to surpass our fears and our prejudice to do what we need, for the sake of all of us.

There's a long road ahead, but the record shows that with strong leadership, anything is possible. I was asked yesterday if I felt proud that I had "contributed" to the victory (I spent a few days canvassing, a small effort at most) and that's when it hit me: I'm excited about this leadership because it inspires me to action. It inspires we, the people, to do the work that no single person can, or can be expected, to do. It is what makes this a great country and despite all our flaws, all our bitter history, focuses us, in the President's words, "on what you can build, not what you destroy".

And then of course, there is what needs to be said. Despite growing up wrapped in the shroud of white privilege, nothing has scared me more in my life than seeing both the immediate and long-term effects of racism. Reflecting on his society's treatment of black men and women, Jefferson feared that "a just, vengeful God could not sleep forever"; I've often feared for our future because of the way we handled race relations in this country, and I think we've made a major step here by selecting leadership based on ability, vision, and education, putting anything aside that doesn't matter - in the interest of, well, a healthy self interest.

When I woke up this morning, without warning or prompt Reagan's campaign catchphrase popped into my head: "It's morning again in America", and I really believe it is. I'll close by adding that with this promising new leadership I'm really glad I won't have to tell people I'm Canadian when I travel abroad. That was just painful. Things are looking up.

Making the Case

So here's a piece I've been working on for nearly a year that's not so phenomenal for its production value or editorial finesse, but simply in value-to-client. We've had this on YouTube for a few days, and we're averaging 200+ views daily. Nice!

There are a few reasons I'll never forget this one. First being that I spent a week doing the multicam edit (it was a three camera shoot with backup audio on another system) on an older Avid before that system died completly, taking the project files and all the media along with it. The second memorable "event" in this piece was a client management situation I learned SO much from. Months into the project, a second producer came in from the marketing side, essentially speaking a different language than the rest of us. Had I sat everyone down in a room and said "let's get on the same page" from the get-go, it would have been fine. Truth was, the new producer had a completly different concept in mind(with the same "name" we had been throwing around months prior to her arrival), and the poor dear couldn't figure out why on earth we didn't "get it". Lesson learned: New person comes on, you sit down with the entire team and MAKE SURE you're on the same page, speaking the same language.

That being said, there were two realy shining moments to this project for me:

1. Amazing Talent: Professor Rodriguez is a wonderful person and teacher, on and off camera.

2. Putting the Learning to work: I spent a good deal of time this summer formally re-educating myself on the mechanics of creative, specifically through Apple's Certified Professional program. I thought I knew a lot - and I did - but I had no idea how much I didn't know before I started taking these classes. The best part is that now, I'm hooked. I'll never let 12 months go by again, let alone a week, without making sure I'm learning something, either formally or informally. Having invested the time makes my work better, richer, and more rewarding, and that's a trend I'm looking to continue in the new year.

Sustainability, Recycling Footage, and YouTube Annotations

One of the frustrating aspects of my job is that I often walk away from a series of interviews with HOURS of good material. People who are passionate, knowledgable, and know how to speak intelligently about their area of expertise are what make my job fun and easy. I always feel as if I'm betraying them a bit by having to cut their thoughtful comments down to sound bites, and that our conversation together is somewhat wasted if I can't publish it to the world.

Last week I did a piece that had great interviews but the total amount of material was far too much for a showcase piece, so I tried YouTube's new "Annotations" feature to link from within our showcase news piece to the more in-depth interviews from the guests. My yield, as it were, went up from 4 minutes of video to about 25 minutes of really good material, and it is, in a sense, self-editing. If you're interested in learning more, great. If not, it doesn't get forced on you or take away from the snappy promo. 

This is going to be a fantastic feature for the kind of work I do at the University – I'll be interested in seeing what other assuredly more creative ways YouTube producers put it to work. For now, here's the finished piece - feel free to interact!

  
Click Here to Watch in Higher Quality.

D.I.Y.

Sometimes things break fast, all at once. More often though, they degrade, and then, seemingly all of a sudden, they don't work at all. It sneaks up on you. Such was the case with my car stereo last week.

If you take a look at this blog you'll note I'm a big fan of podcasts. I also spend a good deal of time in my car, either commuting to work or heading up to D.C. once or twice a month, which can be a 3+ hour drive, depending on the traffic. This is why I really, REALLY love being able to run my iPod into my car stereo; hours and hours of audio books, podcasts, and of course, music. If you're in the same boat, you've no doubt explored the numerous solutions for connecting your mp3 player - expensive interfaces that work really well (but only for newer cars), FM Transmitters (they never work well), and then the good old line-out-line-in solution. This works best for me in my '97 Accord, but has one weak point: a one-inch connector that juts out the front of the stereo and is easy to hit when tossing bags in the front seat, when dogs are jumping around the car, etc. This is bad because the only thing that's holding that connector to the rest of the car is a few points of solder - not really designed for "strain relief".

So, as I anticipated, it finally happened; something knocked the connector and one day, seemingly all at once, no more iPod in the car. Tragic, no? In truth, I had felt this coming on. The whole thing felt dodgy from day one, and about a month ago I had lost the Left Channel. I wasn't sure this was my input jack but was too lazy to pull the stereo all the way out to check the harness and had a gut feeling it was probably that faceplate jack, which I didn't know if I could fix anyway.

With nothing to lose (except a half-hour of time and about $100 on a new stereo) I decided to take the damn thing apart to see if I could make lemonade out of these lemons. I'd often thought this could all be put together in a more secure way, and if I just bought a new stereo, well, I'd be starting over with the same weaknesses.

30 minutes later it was all put back together, plugged into the car, and sounding better than it had in months.




It's often billed as a "guy" thing but I find an inherent pleasure in taking things apart, even better when I can find the success (rare in my case, I'm no mechanical genius to be sure) of actually fixing something. It was a Zen moment to be on the bench with this silly little stereo, and it got me thinking about the process, and what can be learned by trying something you don't know you can finish:


1. Have the confidence to try things: Success breeds confidence, breeds success, and so on.

2. Go back to the foundation: whether it's mechanical or creative, such as a piece of writing, a musical composition, or a graphic design, we often find ourselves going down roads where things just aren't working anymore. I often find the prospect of "undoing" work daunting, it seems so inefficient, to just throw away all that effort. More often than not though, it's this thinking, and all that non-functioning, interfering material that is getting in the way. Trash it, go back to the bones, and start again, at the start. Many times this is the only way to get where you really wanted to go.

3. Have the right tools for the job, the most important one being patience. I started with a well-lit workspace, magnifying lamp, forcep tweezers, a variety of small screwdrivers, and a good soldering iron. Most importantly, not rushing and enjoying the process allowed me to put the tools to use in an efficient and effective fashion.

4. Anticipate that the results might be better than you expected, or worse: I could afford to lose this stereo (I considered it lost anyway at this point), and my first instinct was to just go buy another one. As mentioned, I'm no mechanical genius, but I've had limited and rewarding success in the past with these kinds of projects. At the outset of this project I had in fact forgotten that half the stereo wasn't working anymore, so when I fired it up I was shocked to hear it sounding better than it had in months - giving me the full stereo signal instead of just half. Again, the major lesson here for me was that when you try things you're not sure of, you may be truly surprised by what you can accomplish

5. See point #1. Wash, rinse, repeat.

So, there you have it. A small project with big life lessons. And I've got my iPod back in my car for the next trip to D.C.