This the brand new editing suite we've been using for our show. Both of those monitors are about the size of my television. I'm sitting here trying to export the video so I can burn it to a DVD...but looks like it's going to take another 30 minutes. It seems like blogging has changed from something I do when I'm bored, to something I do while projects are exporting. Let me take you on a tour of this picture while we wait.
Just off the frame left is a nice little JVC minDV deck, which you use to import tapes into the computer. It has a monitor hooked up to it, so you can see the playback in higher quality. There's also a VCR, but I'm not quite sure why... maybe just for nostalgia's sake. NExt is the gigantic Mac sitting on the desk. I would tell you what model it is, but they refuse to sully their desing with any kind of identificating marks. Holy crap, I just pulled up the "About This Mac" menu and it appears that this is a Quad-Core Intel.... I didn't even know they made quad core. I'm not even sure what that means. Right in front of me are two Samsung displays that look as crisp as Santana Champagne.
We're at 28% now and the time has gone up to 38 minutes... bummer. I think I'm going to go home and nap while this finishes and come back and burn it some other time.
So it's not really a secret to anyone that I've always loved to dress up. Super heroes, knights, policemen... anything with a definite uniform. Well, a little more secretly, I've always wanted to dress up in a giant animal suit. One summer I almost applied for a character job at King's Island, but thought about it too much, and decided it was a bad idea. Well, when I heard that we had access to a bear suit for my Com312 class, I jumped all over it. Tess and I wrote a character into our story who is a bear, or more specifically: an anonymous jerk dressed up like a bear. I'll admit that part, if not the only good reason I wrote this character was so I could get my hands on that bear suit.
I'm proud to report that I can now cross "wear a giant animal costume" off my bucket list.
It takes some people 70 years, others must face terminal illness, but me? I'm fulfilling one of my life's goals on the cusp of my 22nd birthday. It's good to know when hit your peak, instead of realizing it much, much later, and being all sad and lonely about it, you know, like in Wes Anderson movies.
The ever-lovely Samantha and I just got back from Decibel, the bar above 45 East, where we were shooting a product demo for the ShotBong. It's an aptly named product that lets you take shots like a beer bong. It actually separates out the liquor and the chaser, so they don't mix.
I'm not sure I get it either, but it was a job. There was a lot of drink talk, and I'm not a big drinker, but the people who came for the shoot seemed to enjoy it. Free drinks, who doesn't enjoy that? So that's two commissioned projects "in the can" as they say in the biz. Craigslist was the best thing that ever happened to my bank account. This is like being at a hands on technical school, but getting paid to do your homework. It's turning out to be a heck of a lot of fun, too.
Today I used the sexy little Panasonic DVCpro HD. Although we weren't filming in HD, this camera makes everything else I've used look like crudely drawn cartoons. I'm uploading the footage now. Should be pretty interesting. The inventor of the ShotBong even suggested we keep in touch for future projects.
Actually, Hans just dropped by the house and gave us a $50 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory and thanked us again for the help. This has to be the nicest guy I've met in a long time... who on Earth would go through the trouble of driving over here to give up a little something extra that we didn't even agree on? Jeez.
In other news, the wedding video is pretty much done. I'm just trying to work out some glitches, and there are quite a few. I hope to get some snippets loaded on Vimeo. I won't load the whole thing because it's 45 minutes long and I'm pretty sure my free Vimeo account wont let me upload a file that big.
It's only 9 oclock and now I'm all jazzed. I wish there was something awesome to do in Oxford that wouldn't require me to spend my newly found wealth.
This Cardinal set up shop on the deck. We discovered her when grillin some foods. Sorry for the poor quality, but I was shooting through windows and screens, trying to not frighten her off.
Check this beauty out. I heard rumors about Final Cut Express being much cheaper at the bookstore than on Apple's website. For once rumors are great! Check out the price point of $69, that's $131 less than online. Still kind of expensive for my budget and the educational edition can't be upgraded when new versions come out, but it'll be worth it. Now I can work from home on all my projects, near light and food, rather than the dark, empty, sad looking editing studio in Williams Hall.
If only I had waited to upload that wedding footage. It's all saved on the computer at school. Class is starting so I gotta jet.
We started shooting "The Tie that Binds" today. For those of you out of the loop with my day to day academic career (don't worry, I'm pretty much in that category as well) "The Tie that Binds" is a soap opera I wrote with Tess Waldburger. It's a project for our studio production class, and our team of 7 is creating it from scratch. Kamal is even composing original music. It's kind of hard to explain... it's a show within a show. The soap opera follows the crew of a children's TV show named Happy Time Fun Hour, as they struggle to finish the pilot episode and their lives fall apart, all because of one mysterious force, the tie that binds them to each other. It's being heralded as "an emotional tour de force," and "the most suspenseful series since Dallas."
Today we shot a scene with Mike and Kate. Mike plays the silly dentist on the kid's show whose continuous struggle with drug addiction brings his producer and sister, Kate, to her last nerve. It went great.
I've never finished up an initial day of shooting and been excited. Everyone was really into it and we got more done than we expected. I have my fingers crossed that the next 7 days of shooting will turn out as well.
At the end of the day, I had everyone put their hand in for a classic "dugout" moment, like you see in emotional sports movies... didn't turn out quite how I expected.
Another video, this time Samantha taking pictures in Buckwheat Park. I've also joined Vimeo and will be uploading all of my future videos there as well. It's much more artsy than Youtube... better quality too.
Today, I went to a wedding that had less than 15 people in attendance. I wasn't even aware that was an option, I just assumed you had to invite everyone you knew. It was actually refreshingly simple. No music, no fan fare. Heck, the matron of honor, the mother of the groom and the flowers didn't show up until after everything was over.
The bride hired me to do some videography of the ceremony and the reception. Luckily there were a few photographers, because I was still messing around, trying to figure out what I was going to do when the bride rolled up in a car, hopped out and marched directly down the aisle. They started snapping pictures which served as my cue to turn my camera on. I was still waiting for music...or at least 1 person to sign as witness.
But it actually was really well done. The festivities were at the reception, instead of at the church. There were some great performers, a singer and keyboard player, a good DJ and a fantastic solo lyrical dance. I hope to god that footage turns out because she was great. Also because I got paid and if it doesn't turn out, we've got problems. To those of you who are planning weddings and want them video taped, remember: if there are no lights, there is no film.
I actually had fun. It took a few minutes to get used to the idea of being basically invisible while drawing an inordinate amount of attention to myself. There are two basic reactions to a video camera: a) attempt to play it cool, as if you are unaware of being taped, while smiling a little more than usual, ceasing conversation, and periodically glancing out of the corner of your eye to check if the camera is gone yet; or b) engaging with the camera as if it got you thumbing through your collection of unopened, mint condition Phantom Menace action figures (or some other guilty pleasure). I got more of the former, less of the latter. One lady, when her friend brought me to her attention, immediately stopped dancing and turned to look at me in a way not unlike the dramatic chipmunk.
Everyone seemed to have a good time, and no one got belligerently drunk. I think that should be the mark of a successful wedding: no one getting goners. Drunk, sure, but still sober enough to know the limits of the dollar dance. There are limits. I'm not making this stuff up. I figured they were just understood by all. I've been wrong before...
I'm kind of dreading and looking forward to editing at the same time. It should be interesting, if nothing else. If I had Final Cut at home, I wouldn't care, but having to spend 10 hours in the dark, windowless belly of William's Hall, trying to avoid Steve who specifically told me not to use university equipment to make money... it just wears on one's psyche.
I'll try and put up some snippets for your viewing pleasure in the coming days, or more likely weeks... maybe next month, but definitely by 2010.
After nearly a decade, my glasses have broken. They've been faithful, useful and relatively stylish this entire time, which is more than you can ask for from a pair of glasses. I took them off my face and the left ear stick (for lack of a better term) just dangled from my ear. I thought "Oh I'll have to get a new screw" but the problem is more complicated. See the little silvery piece jutting off to the left, near the lens? That is supposed to be inside the ear stick, but the two have come loose. I just stuck it back together and am wearing them anyways. I'll just have to let them be all flimsy and fall off my face until I can get some white tape. What kind of tape are you supposed to use to fix glasses, anyway? It always looked like that medical tape to me.
Very official looking, complete with stags holding a shield and shiny metallic watermarks. The next step is to get to Hamilton and pay some fees to get this transfered to my name, and then the scooter will be ready to hit Kroger every night for the next 6 months. That is, of course, if I can get her running again. I made the mistake of being lazy and not winterizing properly (read: at all). I had lost faith in getting a title completely and had decided to hawk it this spring. But my lovely wife is tricky, and knows how to put together a bitchin' Christmas present. Sooooo, if anyone wants to take a motorcycle safety class with me, let me know your availability. Don't worry, they provide the motorcycles.
In other news Sam's gallery show in Covington is practically here! I can't believe it. It just came out of no where and BOOM, big time placement in a prime location. I mean, they call this place "the art district" which sounds just snooty enough to be awesome. I'm not sure what to expect once we get there, but I'm sure it's going to be delicious... erm, I mean artistic.
In other other news (today has been a good day) my Craigslist posting just turned to pure gold. Last night I was hired to produce a baseball scouting video for a high school student. His mom has hired me to shoot, edit and publish his techniques and skills for a kind of sports portfolio. It's something athletes have done to show to prospective college coaches and professional talent scouts. Not only that, but she wants photographs done as well, how convenient, so Sam has a job, too. We're even going to carpool. I'm pretty excited about my first real (read: paid) gig in video production. The team is a "select" team, which is for especially talented athletes and word in the dugout is that all the players are going to need similar reels produced. Guess who just got their feet in the door? That's right, we did. God I love the internet. Baseball teams have , what?, at least 9 players? Plus, she's already courting Sam to shoot her other son's football games, and let me know that, over the next few years she is going to need 4 to 6 of these types of projects done for her various children and their various sports. I don't want to count my eggs before they hatch or anything but....
This the brand new editing suite we've been using for our show. Both of those monitors are about the size of my television. I'm sitting here trying to export the video so I can burn it to a DVD...but looks like it's going to take another 30 minutes. It seems like blogging has changed from something I do when I'm bored, to something I do while projects are exporting. Let me take you on a tour of this picture while we wait.
