Times Square with my Gh1

Shot some footage over the weekend in Times Square. Lot’s more “movies” to come, especially with snowboarding around the corner.

View on vimeo

Reel Critique by GSG!

Nick Campbell who is a motion designer at Digital Kitchen Chicago has a wonderful blog which has become a weekly bookmarked visit for me. I spoke once before about his 5 second projects and how it’s a great way to play with an open brief to experiment and learn. His new thing is reel critiques. Basically you can send him a link to your reel and he’ll do a real time critique of it. I was 1 of the 3 reels chosen for his 2nd episode. He had some nice words to say about my reel which is very encouraging and offered some insight into how I could improve it. Thanks Nick! And thanks to everyone else who’s left comments, emails, advice and everything else.

Watch the critique here.

New Toy…Panasonic Gh1

Trying to get my GH1 was impossible. Every store had it on pre-order and Panasonic decided not to roll them out until mid September. I patiently waited 3 weeks and thankfully, Crutchfield kept on their promise to send me one when they got the next shipment. I’ve read just about every forum on dvxuser and listened to all of Philip Bloom’s comments and it just made sense for me to get this now.  The compact size is what really did it for me as I can’t imagine lugging anything bigger on snowboarding trips. Also, I’m not too concerned with “MUD” as I’ll be shooting primarily at 720/60.

I’ve already purchased the Fader ND and 4/3 adapter from ebay so I’ll be up and ready come snowboarding season. Just a couple more accessories and I’ll be fully prepared for a nasty follow up to my Whistler documentary.

New site update

I’m a bit late to post this but a couple weeks ago, I decided to change my portfolio website: thewiimix.com. I grew a bit tired of it’s layout and presentation. Although my flash site was created in such a way that following simple XML and SWF naming conventions would change the contents of the site, I wanted to go down an even more efficient route. I’ve always been a fan of cargo collective and indexhibit and decided to give the latter I try. I love the simplicity and the power of the CMS and it’s actually quite refreshing to go back to an HTML/CSS website. I have some new work to post soon as well as a new reel so keep your eyes out for that.

In other big news, I’m upgrading my HD camera. Although I seriously considered the 5D Mark II and the much-anticipated 7D, I fell in love with the Lumix GH1. DSLR cinematography is the new big thing – didn’t you know? Although Panasonic has been slow to release it, I should be getting mine in 2 weeks. I’ve already jotted down numerous ideas for short movies and what I’ll do for next year’s snowboarding documentary. Going to take my amateur shoots to a whole new level. Can’t wait!

3D Compositing Test

Some test animation and compositing practice from some footage I took outside my apartment. Started off tracking in PFTrack but eventually just used 2D tracker in AE since there’s no real rotation/perspective change. Will take this and try and do something more elaborate.

View animation here.

Another edit with Jag35 adapter

Some more practice shooting with the Jag35…

http://vimeo.com/5087951

Documentary, Jag35 DOF Adapter

I finally finished my Whistler snowboarding documentary 2 weeks ago. Sorting through 14 hours of footage, editing them down, syncing music, fixing audio, and color correcting was an exhaustive process. Not to mention that it took over 13 hours to render.

I definitely took a lot of short cuts and after 3 edited versions, I finally came away with a 50 minute movie that I felt somewhat happy with. Is it the type of professional style documentary I envisioned? Definitely not. Actually, not even close. But is it a fun memory filled movie that myself and friends can always treasure? Yes, and to the reactions from my friends, they certainly enjoyed it. I world premiered it on my friends 60+ inch projector screen, complete with surround sound, and it really was rewarding to see your efforts on the “big screen”. I know my second short film/documentary/idea will be greatly improved with the added experience.

With that said, I recently purchased a 35mm DOF adapter for my HF100. I finally got to play around with it last weekend and so far I am very pleased with the early results. Having shallow depth of field opens up a whole new possibility for my footage and I feel like it really separates it away from your typical video look to a more cinematic ‘film’ look. There are definitely some issues I’ll need to work around or get used to. Shooting a flipped image, focusing precisely, and getting maximum light are just a few. There’s a lot of good reviews and resources floating around on the web for anyone interested in learning more. And by the way, Jehu Garcia (creator) offers exceptional customer service and is really a helpful person.

Stills:

Snowboarding season begins

I’ve been counting down the days until snowboarding season probably since my last trip to Utah in April. By the time September came around, I was becoming very inpatient. When we finally headed up to Vermont in November for the first day of the new season, I felt like I was 10 years old waking up on Christmas day.

The Farmer’s Almanac had predicted this winter to be one of the coldest/longest in recent memory and boy have they been right so far. The summit of Stratton Mountain felt like mid-season which was pretty remarkable since it was only Nov 29. I took full advantage of the great early season conditions and wasted no time in shooting some footage. I was a bit nervous with handling my camcorder in the winter snow but came prepared with a UV Filter and an extra padded backpack.

As I’ve said before, the Canon HF100 shoots amazing picture quality but I ran into a number of challenges shooting on the mountain. The snowboarding footage you see in movies are generally shot from the back of a snowmobile. Trying to shoot while riding a snowboard is a disaster waiting to happen. Trying to minimize camera-shake while dodging people/obstacles, keeping one eye on the LCD, all while breaking/carving is flat out impossible! Even on flats, the camera shake was just too much.

Some of the HF100’s manual settings are also just too clumsy when you want to shoot something quickly. I tried my best switching between settings such as shutter speeds and manual focusing but ultimately left most of the settings on auto. My biggest mistake was probably forgetting to switch up to 1/2000 for fast shots. Regardless, I found that the movement was still very smooth.

Another challenge was just getting into position. My friends would fly down the mountain and it was tough figuring out how I wanted the shot to develop. In the end, I was happy with how everything turned out but there’s definitely faulty areas and much room for improvement. These are lessons I can take back with me for my next trip. I’m excited to bring my camcorder out more in the future. My girlfriend asked me, “How come there aren’t any tricks in the video?” My response was “Because we didn’t do any tricks.” Until next time…

You can view the video here:

Facebook Video

Vimeo

Screenshots:

On a random side note, YouTube has FINALLY updated to show HD video. Even so, I will stick to Vimeo as I feel it has a better community. Surprisingly, the quality of Facebook is also very good. The days of SD are definitely coming to an end…

Central Park in Autumn

There is nothing quite like Central Park during the fall season. The beautiful, vivid colors are the perfect backdrop to the wandering tourists, runners, strollers and performers that flood the paths and walkways. It’s also the perfect excuse to carry along my HF100 and capture some footage. Central Park is one of the many reasons I love new york city. (I also have a hate list that’s just as long.) Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my battery which meant I only shot about 10 minutes worth of footage. An extra battery, along with a UV filter and 2 more SDHC cards, are on my list of things to buy. I also wouldn’t mind a 35mm DOF adapter either. In any case, it’s been quite some time since my last Canon HF100 post and my last video creation. I have a family reunion in Japan during December and I’m definitely going to take advantage of shooting in Tokyo. Can’t wait for that…

Screen grabs from the footage I shot in Central Park this past weekend. Video to come…

Canon HF100…finally!

I recently purchased a new Canon HF100 and can now cross off at least one item from my “toys to buy” list. I did some tests over the weekend to try and learn more about the different settings. I used my willing girlfriend as my test subject. From first tests I’ve learned that: a) picture quality is pretty darn amazing b) manual settings are a little clumsy and c) AVCHD files are hard to work with and eat up A LOT of space after converting. Regardless, I LOVE the camcorder and will have a lot of fun playing around with it.

Below are some screen grabs from the shots I took over the weekend. You can view the full video here:

http://vimeo.com/1640367