Finding music to accompany my videos is easily the hardest part of post-production, and I feel strongly that the decision can make or break the mood of the final piece.  It can easily take hours to find what I am looking for, and I often will preview dozens of tracks against what I am working for before I find the right piece.  (I actually find it to be an agonizing and painful process at times.)  I have also had the (crushing) experience of finding a track that I think works perfectly and then have a client come back and say they want something else.  I think that is the hardest part of picking music, because it is so subjective.  I have also had clients give me music to use for a video that I felt strongly was not right for the piece, and then it’s about having a discussion with them, but ultimately the decision falls on the person with the checkbook.

I think if you look at some of my videos, you will (hopefully) feel that music plays a strong role in each of them, and that it has been carefully selected for each piece.  There is a mix of originally composed music, production music, as well as commercial (un-licensed) tracks.  (The use of un-licensed tracks is a topic of further discussion, and something I don’t use for paid client work, but will use for personal demos.)  In an ideal world I could always use original compositions for each of my videos, as there is generally no better way to get music that fits the mood, as well as the visual cues of the video, but it is often cost and time prohibitive.  The two composers who I have used most often are Jason Jordan and Russel Wolff, two very talented guys.

Which brings us to production music.  I feel we’ve come a long way since I started in this business 10 years ago, when it comes to the offerings of production music.  Back then, a production company typically purchased a library of CDs (generally for an ample cost), with a wide array of tracks.  But I always found that the selection was typically quite lacking, and among the hundreds (or thousands) of music cuts in the library there were only a small handful of tracks that did not SOUND like production music, and I found that I was always going back to the same tracks.  Searching through the CDs was generally a pain in the butt, and in general it seemed like you paid a lot for a small selection of usable material.

When I went freelance 3 and a half years ago, I thought I’d have to invest in some sort of music library but was not looking forward to doing so.  Fortunately I found a wide array of web-based libraries where you pay by the track, and the search options, as well as the quality and diversity of tracks, was much higher quality.  The cost to license an individual track ranges from site to site, and is generally more expensive than the per track cost if you own a library, but I’d rather only pay for what I want to be using.  I still find that there are a lot of tracks on these sites that sounds more like elevator music than what I’d want accompanying my videos, but for the most part there is a lot of high quality tracks.

So without further ado, here are a few of my go-to websites for production music:

Audio Network:

This site has a great interface for searching and previewing tracks.  I can play a track in the web browser and demo it against my Final Cut Pro timeline as a quick way of seeing if it fits in with the piece.  There are a few composers that contribute to this site that I go back to again and again, but I’m always finding new tracks and composers here.  Almost every track has several versions in different lengths, mixes (drums or no drums, for instance) which is super useful.  They also have different licensing costs depending on the usage, starting at around a dollar (for personal use), so I’ll download a bunch of tracks for a specific job, then buy the appropriate license once the client signs off on the video and whichever tracks we use.  I am also finding that I am hearing tracks from this site on commercials, reality shows, etc, more and more, which I think is a testament to the material that is here.

Non-Stop Music:

I recently discovered this site (thanks to someone on Twitter) and am just starting to use it.  They have a pretty deep selection, but the sound quality is all top-notch.  They have a range of licensing types, and will setup custom libraries if you want to purchase a blanket license for parts of their collection.  Their customer support is excellent and I’ve spoken with a rep from their company a few times.  As part of their service you can contact them about a project you are working on and they will (free of charge) suggest tracks for your project.  I haven’t taken advantage of that yet, but I plan to.

With Etiquette:

I haven’t used this site yet, but I like where their head is at.  They seem to be catered more to the wedding market, with mostly non-instrumental tracks, but the quality is stuff that I’d listen to on my ipod.  They only have a small selection of artists now and I think they need to expand on this (and could easily do so), but what they have is great stuff.  I imagine I’ll have a project at some point where I’ll go here for a track.

There are countless other music sites out there and I’d love to hear what you use.  Happy scoring!

Instead of sending out the typical printed birth announcements, Kate and I decided to create a video to send to our friends and family.  I am very pleased with how this turned out (but it’s not too hard when you have an adorable little baby to work with).  Enjoy!

At NAB I had zeroed in on the (similarly configured) Miller systems, but then went to the Manfrotto booth and saw the new 504HD systems. (I owned a 501 system before buying the Sachtler and was unimpressed, and generally thought Manfrotto heads were just so-so.) This new head was very impressive though. Large and beefy. It has really nice adjustments for drag and tilt and counterbalance, which seem like an upgrade over previous models, and reminded me of the Sachtler heads. The 535, and taller 536, carbon legs fit the bill for sticks that could go really tall or really low. So I finally ordered one last week. Oddly B+H had the kit (for $989), but it said 6-10 weeks delivery. Then I saw that they had the sticks and head separately and in-stock so I ordered the two, with a cheaper bag, and the total came to $850. Score. And it was about $600 cheaper than the similar Miller system. (A note on the B+H specs online: It lists the kit as weighing 8lbs. It also lists the head as weighing 6.4lbs and the sticks at 5lbs. That does not add up to 8lbs. I don’t have a scale at home but it weighs about the same as my DV8 with carbon legs.)

So let’s take a look at the system (with a sort of side by side comparison to my Sachtler DV8):

Both sets without extensions (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

Both sets at lowest height (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

Both sets at maximum height (Manfrotto and Sachtler)

As you can see, they unfold to about the same height, but the Manfrotto can go much lower and higher than the Sachtler (according to the specs the minimum height is 16″ and the maximum is 72″).  This totally fulfills my top priorities in a second set of sticks.  If you’ve used the Sachtler Speed Lock leg system, you immediately fall in love with the way that one lock on each leg adjusts both stages of the legs.  The Manfrotto does not do this, so it requires 2 latches per leg.  Not a big deal, as this is the norm on many tripods, but just something to know.

Leg locks on the Manfrotto 535 legs

Let’s move on to the head.  As I mentioned, the drag, tilt and counterbalance adjustment knobs feel top notch.  This really does seem much nicer than the price ($399 for the head), and is certainly comparable to the DV8 (now called the Sachtler FSB-8) head, which retails for almost $1600.  The whole thing feels built like a tank which is important for a piece of gear that could last decades.  I love that it has a light on the level bubble, so you can easily level it in the dark.  I know this has become a more common feature on newer tripod heads, but this is the first one that I’ve owned with that, and it will certainly come in handy.

Tilt Adjustment Knob

Drag Adjustment Knob with Light

The head seems really smooth.  Settings of “0″ on drag and tilt are as close to friction free as you could want, and the heaviest settings will help to produce nice slow tilts and pans on heavier cameras.  The stops and starts are very smooth, and the overall balance is perfect.

The only hitch is for people looking at this system for DSLR video use.  The head is certainly bigger than it needs to be for just a DSLR, although many times people kit out their DSLRs with a lot of accessories and will appreciate the heft of the 504 head.  The majority of the time I am shooting with my Canon 7D, I have it mounted on a sort-of custom rails system.  When I do that, the Manfrotto plate (which is longer than previous plates, I believe) is just short enough to not get in the way of my Zacuto Z-finder.

Rail-mounted 7D with Z-finder and Manfrotto Plate

But, if you plan to mount the DSLR directly to the tripod, then the plate extends off of the back and I cannot fully attach my Z-finder as it hits the plate.

7D mounted directly to 504HD head

I have a hunch that you could use a shorter Manfrotto plate on this head, which would remedy this problem but I don’t have one here to try.  If you are looking for a tripod head/system to ONLY use for a DSLR, this may be overkill, but I would rather have a head that is over-rated, because I assume that the next generation of cameras will be larger, more like my EX-1.  The legs, though, are great, so you could certainly pair it with a smaller 75mm ball head if you like.  I tend to find, though, that the smaller heads lack a lot of the adjustments, and are generally not as smooth as the bigger heads.  Overall, it is not the lightest tripod you can find, but it is by far the heaviest I have used, and it does feel super sturdy.

So that’s the system, in a nutshell.  I look forward to taking it into battle next week as my shooting schedule ramps up again.

Sony EX-1 and 504HD head

]]> http://benjamineckstein.com/2010/08/a-nice-set-of-legs/feed/ 3 http://benjamineckstein.com/2010/07/expansion/ http://benjamineckstein.com/2010/07/expansion/#comments Fri, 23 Jul 2010 19:49:01 +0000 Benjamin http://benjamineckstein.com/?p=684 So this week I added a new piece of gear to my arsenal.  Unfortunately this piece of gear won’t make me much money, but it will get me from point A to point B.  I bought a new car, a minivan, in fact.  As anyone in production knows, having a good sized production vehicle can be essential.  Even though our cameras and a lot of other gear have gotten smaller, there is still a ton to take on shoots.  My previous (now second) car was a Mazda 3 wagon.  A great, fun, zippy little car.  I could pack A LOT of stuff in it.  I used to joke that this car could JUST barely fit whatever was needed. But it was often very, very tight.  If a producer asked me to rent a big dolly or jib for a shoot, I cringed as I knew it would be a tight fit.  On a recent shoot in Connecticut, where we rented a Porta-Jib, my assistant could barely fit in the passenger seat, and had to ride with bags at his feet and in his lap.  Not ideal.

I didn’t get the new car just for work, though.  As I’ve written about before, my wife and I are having our first child (any day now), and we needed to have a second car.  Since I travel a good amount for work, I didn’t want to leave her and the baby at home without a car.  It took me a while to warm up to getting a minivan, but it really is the most practical car out there.  A lot of the compact SUVs aren’t that much bigger than my Mazda and I liked having a third row of seats.  Plus, I know several people in production with minivans and they could fit so much gear in it, that I knew it was they way to go.  Really, the only thing that disappointed us when we began our search, was that currently, there are no hybrid SUVs.  When I bought my Mazda 6 years ago, I assumed my next car would be a hybrid.  Well that will have to wait, I guess.  When we began looking at the options, the only 2 minivans that seemed to be in the running were the Honda Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna.  As far as minivans go, these were the “coolest”.  And on closer inspection, the new 2011 Toyota Sienna, really took the cake.  (Thanks, in part, to their excellent marketing campaign including this great video.)

So on Wednesday, we picked up the new addition to our family.  The thing is pretty massive.  We really could probably move into it and sell our house.  I am excited to take it on a shoot and have lots of room to spare.  I also will not hesitate to rent or bring bigger production gear on shoots.  In fact, I can probably seat 4 or 5, plus the amount of gear I bring on a normal shoot, which is something I could never do with the Mazda.  I am thinking of building some sort of shelving system in the back with compartments for stands, light cases, camera bags, etc., for even better storage of the gear.  The dual sliding doors makes loading stuff in a cinch, and the way the rear seats fold flat into the floor is awesome.  Surprisingly the car, as a whole, feels more like a luxury vehicle than a family car.  Basically, I am sold on the concept of the minivan now.

It sort of bums me out that what is now the most expensive piece of gear in my “kit” won’t really make me any money, but I guess that is how it goes with automobiles.  Now my only fear is that I am going to get asked by my friends now to help them transport lots of their stuff.

So in the vein of the “unboxing” videos that are popular online (where people shoot themselves opening up new products), we decided to shoot a funny little video ourselves.  Enjoy!

So today I discovered my (likely) second case of non-payment.  It was for a company that I’ve done probably a half dozen shoots for over the last couple years.  They certainly seemed to have their act together and I knew some of the people involved there.  But I had two outstanding invoices for them (one dating about 8 months back) and over the last couple weeks I’ve made an effort to get fully up to date on any overdue payments.  After several emails and voicemails I finally got someone on the phone who informed me that, just a few weeks ago, they basically filed for bankruptcy.  Crap.  She said she’d get me in touch with someone with more details, but when I asked some more questions it basically seemed like there is little chance I will receive my payment.  In the grand scheme of things, this will not kill me or prevent me from feeding my family or paying my mortgage, but it’s still about $2K that I worked for and will likely not be receiving.  What actually annoys me the most is when I equate it to gear.  That could be a new MacBook Pro, or a nice lens or 2.  Or a 5D camera body.  (Or a whole lot of diapers for my soon to be born baby… although I really don’t think about it that way.)

I feel like, in a small way, I have myself to blame.  I really should not have let an invoice go unpaid that long.  I use (and highly recommend that everyone working for themselves use) some type of accounting software that monitors things like overdue invoices.  I use Quicken Home and Business, and it tells me every time I launch it any outstanding invoices.  (Clearly I will be paying more attention to that in the future.)  While this program is quite deep, and probably took as long to setup and learn as Final Cut Pro, it links to every one of my accounts, and makes it nearly impossible to be “off” on your books.  In my case, I find the only drawback to Quicken Home and Business is that it is PC only, so I have to run it on Parallels (a Windows emulator) on my Mac, and I find it to be somewhat buggy.

Some people will minimize any losses by getting deposits up front, but I rarely do that on small one or two day shoots, or with repeat customers.  On big, ongoing jobs, though, I definitely break things up into 3 or 4 payments with some of it coming up front.  Clients will probably not be thrilled if you seem overly demanding of immediate payment or receiving a deposit (as most companies pay out in 30 or 60 days), so it’s good to be trusting but also to be cautious.  And definitely continue to monitor any payments that seem later than normal.  In most cases a friendly reminder is all it takes to get a check out the door to you.

So I’ll pursue this a little further, but it may not lead anywhere.  I’d be curious to hear other people’s stories on this issue, and if people figured out ways of receiving payment after a company files for bankruptcy.

I believe that expression was coined by photographer Chase Jarvis.  At least, he has a book with that title, which features photos taken with a mobile device and discusses the idea of creating art without getting hung up on the technical things like resolution, dynamic range, lens selection, etc.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love gear, tech, and obsessing over all of that stuff.  I like to be near the forefront of technology and find that I often get more creative when I have great tools in my hands.  That said, I have been finding more and more that I am creating images I am really proud of with the camera I ALWAYS have with me, my iPhone.  Now I don’t have the brand spanking new iPhone 4, or even the 3Gs, but just the lowly 3G with it’s 2-megapixel camera.  But for a camera that I can also talk on the phone with, it’s pretty damn good.  And quite freeing to know that I can whip it out at almost any point and take an interesting photo.  (In fact, I’d say the upgraded camera is the only feature of the new iPhone that really entices me, but I am going to wait it out a bit, as I am becoming more intrigued by some of the Droid phones, and moving back to Verizon has its advantages.)

I don’t market myself as a photographer, but I have loved taking pictures for years.  When I invested in my Canon 7D last year (for it’s video capabilities), I got reacquainted with having a great stills camera and all that offered.  But I don’t always have my Canon with me, and even sometimes when I do, I’d rather shoot with my iPhone.  Largely because of the amazing photo apps that I have on my phone, and more importantly the ability to share my “art” almost immediately through sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I can take a “better” picture on my Canon, but I find that I share those pictures less, because by the time I’ve loaded them into Lightroom and edited them, I just don’t feel like putting them online.  I think it’s partly that they no longer seem timely or relevant.  And I LOVE the fact that the immediacy that I have with iPhone uploads is allowing me to create a gallery of sorts of my work.  Certainly these are not all frameable, sellable prints, but they show a point of view.  And they get seen.  Prior to sites like Twitter or Facebook, it was much harder to get a large audience to view your work.

So here is a collection of some of my favorite iPhone shots.  A lot have been processed with some of my favorite photo apps including Shake-It, TiltShiftGen, and the AMAZING Plastic Bullet (which I cannot get enough of).

I will leave you all with a link to a really cool video of photographer Lee Morris using an iPhone 3Gs for a fashion shoot.  This sort of ties in to what I am writing about here and it is an interesting experiment with a very impressive output.

http://gizmodo.com/5580276/professional-fashion-shootwith-an-iphone-3gs

I bought my first tapeless camera in January 2008 (my Sony EX-1) which is when I first created my storage system.  I had been freelance for one year prior, and was shooting almost all tape-based cameras during that time.  Interestingly, when I (and many others) began using tapeless cameras a lot of naysayers talked about the security issues of storing all this data, as opposed to the “fool-proof” solution that tape-based cameras offered.  I quickly realized that, at least in my case, it was quite the opposite solution.  In my years of shooting on tape-based cameras (as a freelancer and the company I worked for prior), very rarely were these tapes cloned, or backed up.  Sure they got digitized at the time of editing, but what if we didn’t edit for a while and something happened to the tapes.  I’ve certainly had decks eat tapes before and that could be disaster.  But with the tapeless solutions, backing up is an easy part of the process.

When I bought my EX-1, I also upgraded my computer to a new MacPro, so I needed to come up with a storage system for editing, as well as archive.  I briefly looked into some of the bigger RAID systems (things like the Drobo, which I am not even sure were around then) but most were very pricey or slow.  Also while a lot of these systems offered redundancy, by storing data to separate drives, they did not allow for separating these drives easily for offsite storage (which is high priority to me).  It’s great to have all your data on 2 or 3 different “things” but if they are in the same place, you are not protected against theft, fire, or water damage.

I did make the decision on basing my system around hard drives.  There exist a lot of naysayers to this approach, especially, because of the risks that exist with hard drive failure, but they are cheap and fast.  I knew that I needed my system to be something easy to implement, or else I just was not going to keep up with it.  (While systems like data discs and tape drives have lower risk they take a long time to manage.)

So here is what I came up with:

For archive I decided on building external drives by purchasing internal hard drives and external cases.  My reason for this was that the warranty on most of the internal drives is 3-5 years, whereas most of the all-in-one external systems had a 1-year warranty on the drive.  Initially I was buying 500 GB drives, but have gone to 750GB, 1TB, and now 2TB drives.  I always buy 2 separate brands of drives (typically Hitachi, Seagate, or Samsung) and create a storage pair with one of each brand.  This helps to protect against a (unlikely) bad run of drives in the manufacturing.  I store these in inexpensive external cases by Eagle Tech (which I get for about $22 from NewEgg).  They have USB 2.0 and eSATA connections.  I just bought an eSATA card so that will help with transfer speeds, but I didn’t care too much because these were just for archive storage.  I keep one set of drives in my office and one set at home for added security.  There are similar solutions that involve bare internal drives, with a drive docking device but I really like the ability to take my drives and be able to plug them in and use them without a separate device.

When I finish a shoot all my footage goes to a pair of these drives, and when I am ready to edit I bring the footage over to my edit system.  I edit probably 60% of what I shoot, so in cases that I am not editing, after a shoot I dump the footage to a drive for the producer or client.  I still will archive all my footage on my own drives as a backup for them.  I have had a few occasions where a client called me because they lost or screwed up their footage and I could come in and save the day with my copy.  That is a major plus that didn’t easily exist when shooting on tape.  Clients REALLY like the idea that they get that security.

For editing, I am using all 4 drive bays in my MacPro.  One is for the system drive (applications), one is a “library” drive (photos, music, and the Final Cut cache), and two are configured through the MacOS in a RAID 0 configuration (which is for speed, not redundancy).  I built the machine with 2-500GB drives to make a 1TB RAID, but am about to upgrade to create a 3TB RAID.  Since this is my “active” projects, I try to offload projects to the archive drives as they get finished, but as I have more and more active and ongoing projects I have needed a bigger system for editing.  For each of these 3 drives in the MacPro (system, library, and RAID) I have an external drive as backup.  I use Synk (by Decimus Software) as my backup system.  I imagine Time Machine would work well for many, but at the time I set this up I had heard of some issues between Time Machine and Final Cut, so I avoided it.  The other benefit of Synk is that you can backup the system drive to a create a bootable backup.  That way if your computer dies for some reason, you can plug that backup into another computer and boot off of it, so that the other computer appears as your computer.  I keep my backup drives of the computer and RAID offsite as well.

I imagine that some might find some holes in the system and there is a little bit more manual labor involved than some other all-in-one systems, but this solution works well for me, is economical and (knock on wood) secure.  Between all my drives, I have close to 20TB of storage at this point, a number that not too long ago, seemed astronomical.

If you have any questions about my storage workflow, don’t hesitate to ask.

All the info can be seen on Planet5D.com.

At 7pm Friday night, my buddy Keith texted me: “Sci-fi”.  I responded: “Ick”.  He wrote back: “I’m sorta thinking ick also”.

I was about to embark on my sixth effort in a 48 Hour Film Project and Keith had pulled Sci-fi as our genre.  I didn’t really want to make a Sci-fi film.  Neither did he.  We had the opportunity to throw it back and go for the “wild card” genre, but that could have been worse. As I continued driving to the studio that was going to be our home base for the weekend, I thought that maybe we could make it work and do something cool.  So I wrote back (yes I was driving, but I wrote back at a stoplight) that maybe it could work.  At this point, Micah, the director of our team who was with Keith, had started to generate some good Sci-fi ideas, so we figured we could make it work.  I just had a couple rules that I wanted us to apply: no spaceships, no pointy ears, and no tin foil.

For the uninformed, the 48 Hour Film Project is a filmmaking contest in 76 cities around the world, where you have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a 4-7 minute film.  They give you a genre, character, line of dialogue and prop that you must include in your film.  I always find it to be a good exercise in producing something quickly and my past films have ranged from decent to quite good (you can read here about the film I did last year).  I like to use the opportunity as a chance to shoot something different than what I normally do day to day and this year was no exception.  In fact, this was the first time in doing the 48 HFP that any of our pre-production ideas actually got incorporated into the film.  In years past, any time we’ve come up with story lines or production ideas ahead of time, they were thrown aside after getting our genre and required elements.  But this year after location scouting in the week leading up to the film we came up with some shots and ideas for the visual palette that actually worked in the film.

I think the key to success in the 48 is to think small.  Small crew, small cast, small story, etc.  We had a core team of just a few members who helped work on the concept and story Friday night and then let the writer and director go off and storyboard and script the whole thing.  We planned for something with just one main cast member and minimal dialogue.  I see so many teams get bogged down in dialogue-heavy films and on such a tight time-frame, and often with casts with questionable acting abilities, that can be a disaster in the making.  On Saturday we came together and with the help of a handful of additional crew members shot the bulk of our film in one apartment (loaned to us by our art director/photographer Liz Linder).  The biggest challenge initially was building our main set piece.  Keith and Micah went to Home Depot early that morning and came back with a car full of tubes and paint and plants and such to create our character’s growing station.

The Tech Stuff

We shot the whole film on the Canon 7D (with the exception of some of the stills in the film that Liz shot on her Nikon D700).  I hadn’t been using the camera too much for my day to day work so I was excited to use it for the 48, and I think it helped create the look we were going for.  I wanted to shoot with prime lenses as much as possible (as they do tend to be sharper than my zooms) and I succeeded in doing that for probably 7% of the film (mostly my Sigma 30 1.4 and a Nikon 60mm macro).  For some of the shooting we were able to solve the annoying monitoring issue by tethering the camera to a Macbook Pro running the Canon EOS Remote Shooting software.  This allowed Micah to see the image on that screen and did not shut off the LCD that I was using on the camera.  The display on the laptop was not 100% smooth and there were times we did not get it to run at all, but I think this is a viable dual monitoring solution (until I get my SmallHD monitor with HDMI splitter).

We shot very little of the film with sync sound, which made our lives much easier while shooting.  Really only 2 short scenes had sync sound, and even the one scene with dialogue was done as ADR.  Our production sound op, Colin Gallagher, recorded a lot of foley sounds on set and our composer and sound designer Jason Jordan and Jeremy Creamer created the soundscape in post.  While it made things easier on set, it was definitely more time intensive in post.  I think we could have made our lives a little easier by recording a little more location sync sound, but we also ended up with a super clean sound in the end which I think sounds great.

We did minimal lighting, and relied a lot on natural light and practicals.  In the grow station, gaffer/animator Will Cavanagh came up with the idea to tape bare KinoFlo bulbs to the bottom of the glass table.  This worked out very well and made the whole table look like a giant lightbox.  In the kitchen we had a large window which we put a big piece of diffusion over and that was all we needed.  I really am blown away more and more by what these cameras deliver with minimal light, even shooting at low ISOs, we were able to achieve a clean and dramatic look without much additional light.  I got a chance to use my Kessler Pocket Dolly quite a bit.  These “slider” type dollies are very cool and require little time to setup and I think can add quite a bit to certain shots.  I definitely did not want to overdo it though as I’ve seen lots of films on line where every shot is a dolly left or a dolly right; it get’s quite redundant.

The Film

One of the highlights of the weekend was having Will send us his awesome visual effects.  He is a 20 year old genius, in my opinion, and we’ve been joking that Steve Jobs has already hired him (because of this film) to design the next iPad.  What he did blew us away and brought the film to a whole new level.  While editing went pretty smoothly it was sort of a race to the finish.  Even though we had picture lock by around 2pm on Sunday, Jason and Jeremy had a lot to do to get the whole score and sound design together (because they couldn’t do a lot prior to getting the final picture), and we didn’t receive the final mix until around 5:30pm.  We had watched the film many times, but virtually silent so we were nervous and excited to download the final mix and see the finished film with sound.  At this point we had no time for feedback, but what they sent us rocked, so we were thrilled.  There was a lesson for us though, as this was the first time we were not editing in the same place as the composing team and that was a struggle, especially on a film like this.  (We had opted to edit at Liz’s studio, close to her apartment where we were filming, but in hindsight we should have based our editing out of Jason’s studio.)

When it was all finished we realized that some elements of the story were pretty subtle, but I think it still works, and I think this is is the best 48 Hour film I’ve worked on.

So here it is.  Enjoy!

(Photo Credits: Liz Linder Photography)

Click here to view the embedded video.

I intercut footage from two “beauty” stock shoots for Image Souce. Shot on the Sony EX-1 and the Canon 5DMk2, I think this shows the interesting similarities and differences between these two cameras, in fairly similar setups.  You can read more about it on my blog here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are some shot selections from my first shoot for Image Source, a stock footage company.  This was part of their cross-media collections, and I was working alongside photographer Jack Hollingsworth who was shooting “matched” stills to the video I was shooting.  You can read more about it here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is one of the recap videos I put together for the Blogs With Balls conference that I shot at in Las Vegas.  I assure you, this was as much hard work as it looks.  Read more about this trip here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I put together a little selection of shots from my first project with the Canon 7D. This shoot was for a web series called “The Romeo Files” for the non-profit Our Spirit.  All footage was shot 1080/24p and the primary lens was the Canon 17-55 2.8 and a few were shot with the Canon 70-200 2.8. You can read more about the shoot here.

All-In Film

This definitely had to be the highlight of the whole trip for me.  This event was about two months in the making and I was excited and nervous to see it all come together.  I put the event together with two Twitter friends (now real life friends too!) Rob Imbs and Justin Carlson.  We didn’t meet in person until this trip and it was so great to meet them, and I could not have pulled off the event without them.  We had some awesome headliners at the show including Rodney Charters, Shane Hurlbut, Vincent Laforet and Kevin Shahinian.  Philip Bloom was the first to sign on but got very sick and sadly could not attend.  In addition we had close to 150 people play in the event.  Some I knew through Twitter, and it was awesome to meet everyone in person.  We held the event at the Hard Rock Poker Lounge which is probably the most beautiful poker room in Vegas.  Very swanky.  I found the whole event to be somewhat chaotic for me, in terms of getting everyone in, dealing with prizes and such, but from what I could tell everyone had an awesome time and we look forward to doing it next year.  I certainly did not play my best game of poker as my head was in another place, but I was seated with some good people and we had a lot of fun.  In addition we gave away about $18,000 in prizes, generously donated by over a dozen sponsors, and (the biggest highlight) we raised $7500 for the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund.  This was much more than I expected and I couldn’t be more thrilled.  I saw lots of people taking video and pictures at the event and I hope to see and post some of them as they appear online.  But thank you everyone who helped make the event a success.

Before the cards started flying

Rodney Charters and Vincent Laforet

The winning hand

All-In Film winner Tom Eberts

Meetups

The general theme of NAB for most people was making connections and meeting people, and this was one of the biggest highlights.  I started using Twitter about a year ago, and there were probably 50 people that I “know” on Twitter who were attending NAB.  Several of them I have gotten to know pretty well online.  So having the opportunity to meet up in person was phenomenal.  It’s definitely funny to go up to people or have people approach you and start chatting like you’ve known each other for years.  People asked about my wife’s pregnancy and other stuff that I share online, which I think is pretty cool.  I imagine that pre-Twitter (or other social media) the NAB Show would have been quite different in terms of meeting people.  It sort of makes it easier to connect when you already know quite a few of the names and details about the people.  On my last night there 7 of us went out to a great dinner at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grille and had an amazing meal (the coffee rubbed filet mignon was like a religious experience).  I already can’t wait to see you all again next year, but am glad we have formats like Twitter to keep in touch.

The Show

Oh yeah, there was the show as well.  The NAB Show is beyond huge.  I walked into one of the several rooms on the first day and it was cameras and gear as far as the eye can see.  Truly a techno-geeks heaven.  It took me 2 days just to see what I wanted to see and I still didn’t see everything.  By the end, everything was kind of a blur of cameras and toys and such.  The two biggest themes at the show were 3-D and DSLR video.  I really didn’t care that much about 3-D (as I have discussed here) but there were some interesting demos and setups.  I think 3-D is here to stay so I am sure I will be shooting it soon enough for some projects, but I really hate those darn glasses, and while certain shots are quite cool I find it still a little blurry and not nearly as sharp as 2-D.  I am not sure if that is my vision or the technology, but I would take some good 2-D most of the time over 3-D.

Panasonic's 3-D setup

DSLRs were reigning supreme and almost every booth featured some sort of accessory for the DSLR filmmaker.  Having started shooting with the Canon 7D late last year, I am excited to see the growth of this market and think that companies like Canon will have to (and have begun to) start addressing some of the weaknesses of the cameras when it comes to filmmaking.  I watched some presentations by Laforet, Hurlbut and Bruce Dorn at the Canon booth where they showed the creme de la creme of what these cameras can do.  I drooled over the new Zeiss Compact Primes specifically designed for Canon DSLRs.  These slick lenses will have a price tag out of the range of what I am looking to spend now, but I know my local rental houses will carry these, which will be great for certain projects.

Prototype Zeiss zoom for Canon DSLRs

Having the chance to get hands on with virtually every manufacturer’s gear was great for helping to make informed purchasing decisions.  I really want a new field monitor for both my EX-1 and 7D and checked out Marshall, Ikan and SmallHD.  I ultimately decided on the new SmallHD DP-SLR.  Great image, lots of features and includes HDMI and HD-SDI.  I also wanted to check out a second tripod.  Something smaller than my Sachtler DV8 which could also go lower and higher.  I found a good Manfrotto combo that fit the bill.  I spent some time looking at the new Litepanels offerings.  Seriously considering adding one their 1×1 panels to my kit.  Very cool product.  They have some more expensive lights that will compete with bigger HMI lights and run quite cool in temperature.  I just think the whole LED lighting technology is quite amazing and look forward to the day of never having to overheat my set or talent with hot lights.

My buddy Bill Parker checking out a Litepanel Ring Lite

Fujinon/RED setup. Lots of pretty girls posing at the show.

Joseph Stunzi working the crowded Zacuto booth

A disheveled self-portrait

Vegas

I love Vegas.  It is great for about 48 hours until the ringing of the slot machines starts to get to you.  I wanted to go around and do some shooting on the strip and in nearby Red Rock Canyon but really didn’t get a chance.  It was fun to hang out with new friends though at the poker and blackjack tables and some of the cool bars and restaurants and talk shop.  I am definitely planning to return to NAB next year and will hopefully be running the 2nd Annual All-In Film!

In addition to cash prizes to be won by the winners of this 150-person event we have literally thousands of dollars of prizes donated to us by companies such as Redrock Micro, Zacuto, Tiffen, SmallHD, Jag35, Schneider Optics, and Letus.  Like seriously amazing prizes like a new Steadicam Merlin or 4 HD monitors.  And we are going to have MANY opportunities to win these prizes, so it will really give people of all skill levels an opportunity to win.  And on top of that, some of the proceeds from this event are going to the American Red Cross’ efforts in the Haiti earthquake relief!

Can you tell I am excited?  I am.  So if you are going to NAB this year, I highly suggest you signup for this event.  All details can be found at www.allinfilm.org.

Thanks!