Winter Walk February 14th, 2010
Yesterday it dawned on me that I hadn’t shot any video with my Canon 7D yet. I’ve shot a few timelapses and plenty of pictures, but no actual video that I process, edit, and render. We had decent weather here in NE Indiana yesterday, so I headed out into to the woods to shoot some snowy video. I attached a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens to my 7D body, and placed the camera setup on a monopod for stability. The 7D was set to record video in HD at 23.976 frames per second. I edited the shots in Premiere Pro, and finished in After Effects. I did some color correcting with the Magic Bullet Mojo plugin in After Effects. The music comes from incompetech.com. Read the rest of this entry »
VFX Work for Rothon December 16th, 2009
One of the great things about the Internet age is having the ability to network with other like minded individuals throughout the world. Through the visual effects (VFX) training website fxphd.com, I’ve made many new friends interested in filmmaking and VFX. One such individual is Brannon Shiflett who is currently working on a short film titled Rothon with the production company Take 29 Productions. Recently Brannon asked via twitter if anyone would be interested in helping with a few VFX shots. Knowing that Brannon and company are serious filmmakers, I thought it might be fun to give a try.
Zone Project Shot with a Canon 5D Mark II December 11th, 2009
I just finished a project that involved creating 20 one minute video clips. This project, titled Zone Manufacturing by the creators, is to be an educational role playing game designed to teach students how a modern manufacturing facility operates. As the game progresses, players are encouraged to view short videos that reflect the current state of the factory. Unfortunately at the time of this blog post, there is no public website available so I am unable to share a link. Below is one of the assembly videos created for the Zone Manufacturing project. Read the rest of this entry »
Walkway of Lights 2009 December 3rd, 2009
Recently I took advantage of decent weather and traveled to Marion, Indiana, to shoot photos and video at the Walkway of Lights. Located at Matter Park on the north side of this small Indiana town, the event showcases a large number of animated Christmas displays.
Leaf Colors October 27th, 2009
In the spirit of ‘get out there and shoot something’, I went out and shot something yesterday. I was inspired by Philip Bloom’s blog post where he made a short film out of stills. Using my Canon 5D Mark II, with the camera set to manual, I turned on LiveView so that the mirror is in up position. I then selected various fall color subjects and held down the shutter button for 30-40 pictures. I had set the image size to 2784×1856. At this low quality setting, the camera was able to keep up and store the images, at least for the durations I attempted. Even though the quality setting is low, it’s still larger then HD resolution. In the end one ends up with a short burst of stop motion images that can scaled to create a 1920×1080 HD video. Read the rest of this entry »
Antique Tractors on the Mackinac Bridge September 21st, 2009
Last weekend I headed up to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for another weekend of hiking in Tahquamenon Falls State Park. When driving north in Michigan, I always look forward to passing the town of Clare. Once north of Clare, the landscape changes from farmland to thick woods of white pine. This transformation of scenery marks the beginning of Michigan’s North Woods. A few hours later at the Mackinac Bridge, I did not expect to find that the farmland had followed me into the North Woods.
Audio Tests with a Canon 5D Mark II August 26th, 2009
Today I ran some simple audio tests with a Canon 5D Mark II. My plan was to record audio with the onboard microphone and with an external microphone. Recording audio with the onboard microphone is simple. One just points the camera at a subject and presses the ‘Set’ button to initiate video recording. The 5D Mark II doesn’t provide much in the way of manual audio controls. For example, there is no way to turn off the automatic gain control (AGC) which can lead to sound booming in the recording. Also there are no balanced inputs, so an XLR adapter is required to connect professional microphones.
Fishtown Experimental Video August 10th, 2009
In the last year, a number of camera manufacturers have released DSLR models with video capabilities. This has spurred excitement amongst indie filmmakers, and a new field (at least for me) has emerged titled DSLR Cinematography. Compared to similarly priced video cameras, DSLR cameras have superior low-light and depth of field capabilities. Add in HD video acquisition, and suddenly DSLR camera models become an attractive alternative to video cameras in low budget filmmaking.
48 Hour Film Project Entry: Sourween July 29th, 2009
Our team’s entry for the Detroit 48 Hour Film Project is called Sourween. We drew a holiday film genre. The assigned character was a painter, the prop a book, and the line of dialog, “Why don’t you explain it to me.” We chose to create a Halloween themed movie, and since the plot involved the sour stomach of a dog, we went with the title Sourween. After toiling away for 48 hours, we came up with this: Read the rest of this entry »
Sights and Sounds from NAB 2009 April 23rd, 2009
NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters, has its annual convention in Las Vegas, NV, in mid April. This is a large international event with close to 85,000 attendees this year. This venue provides companies with a platform from which to announce and demonstrate their latest exciting new products. Here you’ll find the latest film, video, and audio production equipment. There is also a good showing of post production software, which is my main draw to the event.