CAP Hollywood Reflection #3

Our film is almost done. Definitely going to have to do some last minute changes and stuff, but it's looking pretty good. One thing I need to do is make sure the shots are all exposed similarly so that I can grade them similarly. Currently, many of the shots are a bit off from each other so I think it'd look a bit strange.

This week, I finished the second rough cut. But I lack a flash drive because I lent it to someone and haven't got it back. So, unfortunately, I can't bring it in on time. I worked on the credits and polished them up quite nicely from what they were previously. Added in a sound effect or two, worked on audio levels. Re-exposing each shot in post.

What needs to be done next week? The film. That's what needs to be done. That means we need to finish mixing our audio/sound, finish grading out shots,  add in any minor details, and export and upload to youtube. Then we shall be done and waiting for CAP Hollywood.

CAP Hollywood Reflection #2

Currently, our film isn't a ton farther than it was last week. We still have a bit of filming to do, just reshooting some scenes I've now realized to be not quite as good as expected. That'll be happening on Thursday. Our rough cut looked decent considering half of it was finished in about an hours time around midnight. Definitely will be better for the final product though. It's turning out nicely though. Not much too say about it currently.

This past week, I finished the rough cut with awful credits. The weekend after, I decided to make awesome credits on After Effects rather than just lots of text thrown together on one slide. Prepare yourselves. Kidding. But they are cool. For the rough cut, I added the music and trimmed a few clips up. Then I exported. The file was huge (5 gb). I brought it into After Effects, re-exported with the horrendous h.264 codec that drives DSLR users and colorists insane. Brought it down to about 600 mb. Put that on a flash drive and brought it to school. Oh. And I shot the CAP Hollywood intro with M Becks.

This upcoming week? Well, I shall create a title. I shall finish reshooting. I shall convert those clips to DNxHD and import them into Premiere Pro and start to trim them up for our final product. Maybe denoise them some, start to grade, and resharpen? Who knows. That's a lot of work for now though. I'd be done too early if I did that this week. I'll continue to work on the CAP Hollywood intro at school on the school's foreign Final Cut Pro. Meh.

Yeah. That about sums it up.

CAP Hollywood Reflection

CAP Hollywood. It's pretty cool. Currently, in my group, we're almost done filming. We have to shoot a scene or two on a bus and then we're done filming. I've put the first act into Premiere to start the rough cut. I somewhat trimmed the shots to the parts we need and put a basic color grade on all of them. Unfortunately, I recently learned that the 8-bit color depth h.264 codec that Canon DSLRs record in is just bad. When you apply color grading, it lowers the quality a bit. So now I've gone and converted each clip to 10-bit color depth DNxHD, a free file format used by the Avid software. This is what people've said to be the best besides the highly recommended Apple ProRes 422. But, that's made by Apple, so not really usable on a PC. I think I'll end up re-editing each clip, or at least put in the new clips and just copy and paste the previous color grade on. I also used Adobe Dynamic Link to connect my Premiere Pro project to an After Effects composition. This allowed me to make live changes on After Effects to each clip that will directly show up in my Premiere project. I'm using After Effects for post lighting, possibly color grading, and some other plug-in effects. I might end up exporting my Premiere Pro composition to Davinci Resolve and color grade in that program, re-export, and bring it back into Premiere. But that's a hassle. Enough rambling. I'd say one of the biggest challenges is just keeping organized. Yes, we created preproduction folders with a list of shots and what not. But I'm still constant checking that a few times before each shot, thinking if there are any others I missed or could just do on the spot. It's also difficult to keep everybody organized, not just your own shots and what not, but the people involved. I'm not expecting much more because it's a group of teens, but, still a bit of a challenge. I think I like most of our shots so far, a few glidecam shots that are looking nice. After putting together the rough cut, I'll probably find myself wanting to redo a few or missing a few shots. In which case, I probably will. I just got a slider that I might wanna incorporate somehow. Most of our actors and group have a relatively flexible schedule, it shouldn't be too much trouble. I'm not concerned. Onward.

Um. What did I do. Well. I filmed everything last weekend. I started compiling the rough cut and color grading. I've been working on finding a song or two. I've started compiling the neccessary sound effects. Our short doesn't really have much dialogue or any real noise. I didn't even record audio half the time. I'll probably regret that. But we can easily work around it. We don't really need background ambient noise anyway. If so, I can record a few minutes of it and loop it or something, splice it into a few clips here and there.

Let's see. What needs to be done? I'd like to try and get all our shots done by the end of this week. I'd like to continue the rough cut for Act III if I don't have all of Act II finished. Maybe I'll reshoot a scene or two with a slider. I think we should start emailing various artists to see if there's any way we can use their music. Because I just don't feel like searching through hundreds of CC songs to find maybe one or two I like. Yeah. Lazy. Oh well. People are nice. You'd be surprised. I bet a few will say we can use their music because it's for educational purposes. I got a song with three million views used before so. I want to download some sound effects and put them into the project to see how they fit, etc. Oh. and the movie poster. We were practicing how we want it set up with lights and stuff last week. It looks nice. I promise.

That's about it. I'm noticing the importance of lights for sure though. I got a couple. I really want this to turn out excellent. I think I have way too high standard. That's probably a problem...

Stabilizer Innovations

So a company that works in aerial cinematography with professional camera helicopters and what not decided to make a stabilizer. It's godly. Hence the $15,000 price tag (There will be a cheaper version that's half the price). It's a complete redesign of the popular steadicam design that adds some new features to the stabilizer business. Basically, your camera is not going to move. At all. It's perfection. It's being advertised by Vincent Laforet, a popular filmmaker. (Note: we also watched one of his short films in class. He dropped an 'L' series lens in it. It was a horiffic sight.)

One thing that people seem to worry about is that I believe it requires two operators: one to move the camera remotely with a computer or some device, and one to actually move with the camera.
Either way, it's the first of its kind and nothing but good can ensue. So I look forward to when this is affordable to people, who, you know, don't have $15,000 sitting around (aka me.)





And the Behind the Scenes. Watch it, too. Let's you see how easily it's operated.

Bad Boredom Ideas

I was relatively bored after returning home after school today, so I decided to take apart a lens. I'd been wanting to for a while now, but never got around to it. The aperture was stuck wide open and the aperture ring wouldn't change it. It was an old Auto MC 28mm f/2.8 for Canon SLRs that I mounted onto my newer DSLR with an adapter. However, because the adapter had additional corretive glass in it, the quality of the lens was degraded. With that problem and a broken aperture and the cheap price, I didn't really mind taking it apart. I had no clue what I was doing whatsoever. I took apart a broken Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 previously because it was a common problem and partially, temporarily fixed it before it broke about half an hour later and the glass elements just came out of the front...but that fix was completely based off a tutorial printed off the internet. And that lens is relatively simple and cheaply made, as seen through the low price tag. Old lenses were all metal, which I really like, and apparently, have a lot of parts. Also, mad props to lens creators back then, the focus rings are smoother than butter, and to be honest, smoother than most 'L' series lenses I've felt. Even the cheap old lenses felt better. They're just built so well.

So here are some pictures from the process. Didn't feel like doing editing because it would be really light editing either way.

CAP Hollywood Preparations

So. CAP Hollywood is coming up. And I'm pretty excited. I like videos. and I've been done with this documentary project a while. Oh, and about that. My group got an honorable mention. Yeah, that's cool. Proud of that. I think I'll try next year, but who knows? So for CAP Hollywood, I'm definitely going to put in work. For once. I loaf...too much. I really should try more. I could probably do okay in school. In preparation, I bought a new lens and a mic. I previously had no audio equipment/experience. It'll be something new. Maybe I can learn a bit in terms of audio effects for a certain character in our short story. I've never explored the depths of Adobe Audition.

The lens I got was an old Russian M42 screw mount for, I believe, Pentax cameras. I've been in the need for a 50 prime for a while, but didn't want to get the popular "nifty fifty" Canon 50mm f/1.8 because my sister already has it. No need to get the exact same lens. And I like to do my research, and eventually concluded to get the Super Takumar 50mm f/1.4. Quite a nice lens I must admit. Nike bokeh and what not. Not going to get into specifics. One interesting thing about this lens is that some of the glass elements contain Thorium-232. Now, Thorium is special, because it's radioactive. Boom. Whoa. After a bit of research, I found out it's ever so slightly radioactive, though. Had my family concerned for a moment there. Apparently, you would need to be exposed to it for 100,000 hours a year for it to reach the minimum dose linked to increased risk for cancer. There are a bit under 9,000 hours in a year. So, we're fine. The half-life is 14 billion years...So Thorium over time decays, and tints the glass a bit yellow. This can be fixed by exposure to sunlight or UV light. That's all the details I'll give. But it's a fantastic lens. Mic hasn't arrived yet. So until then, here are pics from the lens.

 

Real Life Typography

About a week ago I saw this really cool video that was pretty much typography in real life. They stacked up boxes with cut outs and put lights behind them. They then flipped the switches to time it correctly with the song. I thought this was an incredible idea. Definitely time consuming, but then again, so is regular typography. And I think this is a lot more creative and unique. Thought I'd share it. It's tempting to try something with this concept or something derived from it, but it seems unrealistic for me at the moment.

And here's the making of:

Documentary Results

So. Our documentary received an Honorable Mention in the C-SPAN StudentCam. A few others in our program did, as well. I think I'll do it again next year, and I definitely know a few things I'll change. I'm proud of the outcome, but I feel maybe we could've done better with a few minor changes to our entire process.

                                                                    Here are the results:

Extracting Quality Stills from Video

So, recently enough, Canon released the newest 1D camera, their most professional grade camera line. It's the Canon EOS 1D-C. Now, this is something new, because the C stands for Cinema. It's the first DSLR to be able to shoot 4k video, which is 4 times the size/quality of 1080p.This camera is basically a replica of the Canon 1D-X, except its video capabilities. Something itneresting about it being able to take 4k video is that you can actually extract frames from the video to use as pictures. This wasnt possible previously because the quality of video was less than half the quality of a "medium" size picture file. The details in the picture would be much less, and colors more easily blown out. Now, with this camera, one frame is about the same size as an 8 MP shot on my much cheaper T2i. Yet, at the same time, you get video, and the ability to choose from 24 frames each second for the one perfect shot, compared to the about 3.7 on my cheaper DSLR. However, there is a slight downside to this 4k video on the 1D-C: it's compressed, not RAW. Many photographers shoot in RAW uncompressed files so that they can be more easily manipulated in post, however, video is almost always always compressed, as is the case with the 1D-C. I mean, it'll still look incredible and be quite usable, but it's still not quite there. Currently, to get RAW 4k footage, you'd need an actual cinema camera that would likely cost upwards of $20,000 such as the RED Epic (about $35,000 to get up and running) or Sony Cinealta F65 (More than that).

Check out a investigation done by cinematographers (including the famous Phillip Bloom) here:




If you're interested in buying it, look here, and then give up.

Documentary Update

Also. We posted our documentary that we entered a while ago into the C-SPAN Student documentary contest. Here it is. The winner and other prize-winners are being announced in March 6th.

This Blog is So Dull Now, sorry for the lack of anything original. Maybe I'll actually make a video soon.

Haven't been doing much video-wise recently except for extensively looking for things I can't afford and won't be able to for a while. What else is to be expected?

So here are two videos. The first is pretty interesting to me because it's similar to a lifestyle I might want to live, not exactly, but close. I currently think that in the future, I'd really just like to do freelance photography and videography. It lets you have so many unique experiences and meet so many unique people. Kirill seems like he mostly wants to live, and only uses photography to stay afloat more than to have a job. I generally think that I could make a career out of this...which makes me quite uninspired to do much in terms of work not any bit related to it. Sorry school, but I just don't find you relevant or necessary all to often. Yes, it's important, but not always, plenty often, nowadays, do I find myself thinking that what I'm learning is just not important to living a quality life as a quality, intelligent person. I also think that intelligence isn't that relevant, but rather wisdom. Also, props to that outro animation. *Contains plenty of explicit language, not that that should matter*





Alright, this other video is simply amazing. Hint the "Original" quality on YouTube, for those of you who can watch it in 4k, do so. Yes, Red Bull and other energy drinks have somewhat taken over the industry of extreme/street sports videos, possibly for the worse, but at least they're ridiculously well made. I reall appreciate good editing and cinematography, obviously.

Silver Chips Photography Portfolio Pics

So, I want to try and be a photographer for the school newspaper Silver Chips next year. Photography is getting more and more itneresting to me. However, to be on the staff, you need to submit a portfolio to the head photographer, which happens to be my sister. I didn't know it needed to be done within a week or two (and aparently she didn't either), so I've kinda been scrambling for photos the last few days. I still need more action shots, but it only needs to be between 8 and 12 photos, so it's not that bad.

I went out with a few friends to the local city and decided to take some pictures. I borrowed my sister's trusty 50mm f/1.8 and that is what resulted:

Find more photos/my portfolio on my Flickr
They're also higher resolution...

It's Been a While.

I haven't really done much on this in a while. Had midterms and what not, so I've not had the time to do much with videos, but now I have time once again...-ish. A friend of mine recently hooked me up with a job to make a typography music video for a rapper in Baltimore. He wants to present it to a record label and hopefully get signed. I'm definitely excited about this project because, well, it's legit, getting paid, it's experience, and it's a start to what can hopefully become a more frequent job. I'd really like to be able to do video and photography (maybe...interested, but have a ways to go) for a career. I enjoy it and I think it's definitely a job that is and will be valued in the future. It's so versatile. Videos or photos can be done for nearly anything: weddings, conferences, sports, parties, concerts, etc.

For me, this project is a three step process.
1. I'm making a 25-30 second preview to show him so he knows what it's looking like, can give input, etc. (Done in a day or two)
2. Then a 1:30-2:30 version for the record label because he'd like it relatively soon and it's a really long, time-consuming process. (Let's give it 2-3 weeks?)
3. Finally, the full 7 minute version for YouTube and other pages. (A good month)

I'm estimating it'll end up taking around 75 hours based on my current pacing.

Check him out here: http://www.facebook.com/ParkerKill
http://www.myspace.com/peterparkermusic
http://www.reverbnation.com/parkerkills

This is a video that he sent me for some inspiration and is, ideally, similar to the final product.

City Timelapse

NightFall from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

Needed to post this. These timelapses are incredible. Simply. Alright. I'm done here.
Maybe, one day, I'll make a decent timelapse. Maybe.

Brief Experimentation

Just an experiment on Cinema 4D. One of the few things I've done without a tutorial recently...
The program is so complex so I figured the more time I spend messing around on it figuring out bits and pieces, the easier and more familiar it'll become. Tutorials practically move your mouse for you and therefore don't always actually help you learn the ins and outs of a program very efficiently.
This was basically just different shapes and textures and lighting. Nothing too complex. Some shapes glow, some are transparent, some reflect, some rough, etc.

365 Art

This is the most interesting thing I've seen in a while. Really creative. Just felt like sharing.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Make-Something-Cool-Every-Day-2009/171640

That Rare Occassion

I don't skate, but I hang out with a fair amount of skaters. I generally don't like skate videos because I find them to be repetitive. They're usually filmed on a handycam. With an over the top fisheye. Possibly even the horendous circular fisheye, not even aspherical. Nastayy. And they're rarely edited beyond the simple cuts. No effects. No color correction. This goes with parkour videos too, but more people that aren't proffessional put in the work,  at least I'd say. For me to enjoy a video, it either usually needs to make me want to be that person, or admire the work put into it. That's difficult to do with videos without as much care and work put into them.

THIS video though. Absolutely perfect. A unique style to the skating as well. Color corrected, not a bunch of skaters in the background yelling. (Sorry, not a fan of unnecessary background people)

They used some archival footage, color corrected it with the seeming atmosphere of the location. A retro-ish yellow purple because it was in the desert and abandoned. I usually think of a slight purple tint as either hipster, instagram-y, or retro. Hipsters and Instagram just trying to be vintage anyways so...

This video also makes me want to learn to skate. He makes it look like such an art.
#wishfulthinkings

After Effects: Kinetic Typography - Choose Not to Fall

I wanted to try something new with After Effects, so I decided to give kinetic typography a go. It's incredibly tedious. A total time consumer. I've spent a while on this on and off. Came back to it yesterday to finish it up. This is just a minute of the original 3 minute video. I chose this video because, well, you have to use words or lyrics (usually) and because it involves parkour. I also think what Daniel Ilabaca is saying is relatively true and agree with his ideas and mindset.

This was how it was made:
-Choose a video (Choose Not to Fall -  Daniel Ilabaca)
-Create a background (I chose a white background with a slight vignette)
-Choose a font
-Type EVERY word of the part you're doing as individual Text Layers
-Position, re-size them, etc.
-Set them to appear as they say each word
-Add an effect to the more important words
-Create any interesting graphics etc. in other compositions
-Add other graphics, position them
-Create Null Object Layers and make them the parent layer of sets of words/graphics
-Animate Null Object Layers to move into the frame etc. bit by bit
-Add credits

So yeah. I think that was everything. This is what it came out to be:





The original video:

Graffiti

After watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, I was interested in looking at some other artwork by a few of the main artists. I've come to conclude that graffiti is much more interesting than any Picasso or other old painter.
Here are a few:

• Banksy and Official Website
• Borf (A DC Local)
• Space Invader
• Mister Brainwash
• Shepard Fairey

Documentary Review - Exit Through the Gift Shop

                                     

Documentary Review – Exit Through the Gift Shop

                Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary about the life and ideas of street artists around the world from a firsthand point of view. It starts with a man, Thierry Guetta, being introduced to street art by his cousin. He films everything. He eventually claims he’s going to make a documentary on street art and starts to make some connections. He meets popular artists around the world and helps them with their adventures. He’s grown to be a friend of many. He has hundreds of tapes filled with everything he’s ever filmed, but he still lacks meeting or having any footage of Banksy, one of the most famous street artists from Britain. By complete luck, Banksy ends up staying with Thierry in Los Angeles. Banksy allows Thierry to follow him around anywhere he goes and invites him back to Britain with him. This starts Thierry’s new life. He starts working on the documentary, but it ends up being awful. Banksy tells him to try some of his own art. Thierry Guetta creates his own styling and goes by the name of Mister Brainwash. He eventually produces one of the largest, most advertised showcases ever before he’s developed a name for himself with help of a large staff. He loses some respect due to this (including mine). He makes millions and attracts the attention of thousands.

                Exit Through the Gift Shop is a strange and unique documentary. It has all the normal aspects of film: literary, dramatic, and cinematic, but not in the usual way.
Literary: Exit Through the Gift Shop was not a scripted documentary. The characters were themselves. It was shot by Thierry Guetta, and artist himself. It was set wherever the artists went (mostly California). The movie had the intentions to inform viewers about street art and its motives. However, these motives weren’t exactly conveyed by the main character himself. The main mood of the film is curious.
Dramatic: The actors in this documentary were nothing out of the norm. They wore normal street wear and didn’t have any make-up on other than unintentional paint. The actors were the artists, so they were mostly a bit secretive, but layed-back. This film was shot mostly in Los Angelees with footage in a few other countries as well as some archival footage.
Cinematic: Nearly the entire documentary was shot handheld with a normal video camera, not some $50,000 cinema camera that shoots at 4k. It was shot by just an average man from Los Angeles. Most angles are from below or behind due to the artists wanting to remain mostly anonymous or the art being on a roof. There wasn’t much in the ways of editing: not much color correction, etc. The lighting was pretty much what was provided throughout the shot. The music and sound effects are mostly what’s given in the background of the shot. It was a pretty basic film that wanted to communicate an idea, not be a work of art (get it?).

                I enjoyed this documentary somewhat. I’m interested in street art and graffiti: I like the way it expresses yourself, but forces you to express yourself in a risky way. It shows that they truly care about what they’re communicating. I think most of the people were doing it for this reason and not do be some rebel and anarchist, or a looked-down-upon figure of society. I actually respect them for what they do now. However, the main character, Thierry or Mr. Brainwash, started to bother me in the second half of the film. He became to full of himself. I would recommend this documentary to anyone. I feel it expresses the perspective of these frowned-upon figures, and I think most people would probably even be able to relate to them. Many people are quick to judge, and this documentary makes you pause and think. This film is powerful for viewers. It’s one of the few films about the subject of street art and really tells the viewer what these artists truly mean.

Exit Through the Gift Shop, 87 minutes, Rated R, 8.1/10 (IMDB)

                      

*As you can see, this wasn't really written for the sake of being well written. I don't entirely feel a review is the most effective way to learn about media. Experiencing it, I'd say, is simpler, and likely achieves the objective. I watched this documentary, formed my own opinions, learned about street art, and paid attention to how the film was made. So basically, I think I learned what I needed to. I also think I have a general knowledge of how to make a video at this point, as well. Often times, video-making can be quite formulaic, especially a documentary. The ones that aren't, I've found, are usually some of the most interesting, however.