Delanie reworked the lyrics to Ke$ha’s Stephen to be a love song from Ophelia to Hamlet.

(Delanie wrote the words, directed and edited. I recorded her vocals and shot the video and final color grade.)

My sister, Delanie, made a parody music video about Frankenstein. Her and her friend, Gabby, rewrote the words to Taylor Swift’s Never Getting Back Together. Then they shot this little video and Delanie edited it with just minimal help from me! So proud.

Han’s not happy Lando borrowed his clothes.

Jar Jar’s just taunting.

I spent the last week in the DC area.

watchgroupies:

This is it.

The last hurrah for the Groupies Kickstarter campaign.

It’s been a fun run. Trying to rally the troops and build support for this little project. The first day was a rush, to see the names of our friends and family members pledge support for the project made our hearts soar. Then as…

Yesterday I shot some family stuff at 60fps. Also, the music is a little demo I’ve been working on.

My friend, Amanda, had her senior recital at Fresno State last night. I’ve known her for a very long time and it was awesome to see her perform before she graduates.

Random fact: Her boyfriend, Matt, played drums for Bazil The Great.

Thoughts on Evil Dead and Digital Projection.

I had the pleasure of seeing Evil Dead at a cinema this weekend. I think it had the right combination of suspense, gore, and respect for the original story. Out of my friends, I am not the biggest fan of the Evil Dead franchise, but I have enjoyed each of the original films. I felt this film fit in with the others, but I have yet to discuss it with my friends that are hardcore fans.

I sadly arrived late to the showing and since it was the release day the auditorium was full and I was forced to sit close to the screen. I usually prefer to sit in the middle middle of the seating. Not too close but not too far. The theater has implemented 2K digital projectors for its movies. There’s already a big debate of digital vs. film and I want to share this experience to the ongoing conversation.

Because I had to sit so close to the screen, there were occasional moments when I could distinguish the individual pixels in the projected image. When there was a bright, in focus subject, at the bottom of the frame, I could see the dots making up the image. This totally took me out of the movie.

Now I understand that I may have a heightened awareness to this sort of thing. And I may be hypercritical over the standard movie goer. But I literally thought to myself, “I could have waited to watch this at home and I would not have been subject to this.”

The whole reason I go a see a movie at a theater is to get an immersive experience that I cannot get in my home. I am less likely to get pulled out of that experience in a theater than an active environment like my living room. I pay a premium to go to a large dark room and not be distracted and stay with the story all the way through.

And sure there are uncontrollable elements that will always pull away from the story. My tiny bladder getting full, someone blowing up my phone (when it’s on silent, and I am forced to leave the auditorium before pulling it out of my pocket), etc. But I don’t want the theater and its projector to be the thing that pulls me away from the story!

This is an interesting read about how the expanded Star Wars universe may implode with the impending JJ Abrams Episode 7.

But this will not be the first time a LucasFilm timeline has potentially split. In the 90s I watched The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but the show was always a little strange to me because it featured both a very old Indy and a young Indy. The Old Indy narrated the stories of Young Indy.

When the DVDs were released in 1999, the show was retitled The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones and the segments with Old Indy were cut out. Was it amended to allow for more movies to have more control over what happens to Indy? Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I miss Old Indy and his eyepatch. The Adventures Of Young Indiana Jones is available on Netflix and most of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles can be found on YouTube as of right now (for a real treat search for the episode that Harrison Ford guest starred in).

So this split in the timeline for Star Wars isn’t a new concept for LucasFilm properties, and it may in fact thrive with this new direction. I hope it does.

This is the video I directed, shot, and edited for Boney Beezly’s Groupies Kickstarter. If the project gets funded, I’ll be working with Boney all summer to get this web series made.

Pledge here: kck.st/10D2Uci

Boney decided he wanted something to supplement his infinite white performance and recommended hand drawn text. He wanted text that would look like it was being written and amend the things he was saying (his script was written before the full kickstarter campaign and needed new information added afterward). I captured the text by having Boney write on an iPad 2 while sending out HDMI signal to an external recorder. I then overlayed the text on his performance and retimed the clips to match the speed of what he was saying. Tricky tricky.

I have know Gilbert and Emily for a very long time. Gilbert is in the Air Force and is leaving for Afghanistan later this month. I was honored when he asked me to take photos of the family before he ships out for half a year. It’s not going to be easy for this family to be separated, but I know they’re strong and going to do great things.

New video!

Greg and Roger helped me tell the story of Pastry Bros.

pokeaday:

I’m not saying that’s Turbo, and that he some how regenerated after dying in the diet cola and mentos volcano eruption and then found his way into Fix It Felix’s game…

But what do you think it could be?

I really enjoyed Wreck It Ralph. I really regret waiting so long to see it. I hope this is a sign for a future film. Although the ending did tie everything up nicely.

Nice catch, Carmen.

Today, I got to spend some time with a C100 my buddy, Enrique, rented.

It was a very nice camera package. I really liked that it had expanded focus view while recording, dual card recording (auto backups!), peaking, and that it wasn’t too much bigger than a DSLR. We recorded our audio to a separate audio unit, because we were interviewing kids and had to watch levels the entire time, so I don’t have an opinion on it’s XLR input (other than it is not easily possible to have someone else run audio). I did not like that the only directional pad/joystick was on the removable handle, the screen did not have many usable angles (a la Sony NEX5N/FS700), the codec doesn’t meet broadcast 100Mb/s standards, and load time to the media playback menu.

We did one jib shot and had to remove the handle. While on the jib, decided to change the ISO and had to remove the camera from the jib and attach the handle simply to make a usually quick adjustment.

I’m not editing the project, so I won’t know how flexible the files are unless Enrique sends me a file or two.

Overall, I like the little camera, but I’m not 100% sold on it right now. I’d like to see how the Sony FS700 does in comparison.

Last week, the Di60Y guys asked me to help them shoot some bumpers for their video about the Fresno Rogue Festival.

I shot this with Roger’s Tokina 11-16mm. It’s super wide and distortiony, but very fun to play with. On a full frame sensor, the lens is only useable on the 16mm length. The wide lens also helps cut down on the noticeability of rolling shutter which is nice for hand held stuff like this.