Author: gravitystix

Carrier/Tripod-videomaker


If you were just walking down an aisle, and saw this bag, you wouldn’t think anything of this bag. But if you wait a minute, and let the owner show you, you would be utterly amazed. This normal looking bag turns from a luggage carrier into a 52 inch tripod. Inside the bag has all the things that a camera should have. It includes dividers, external pockets, and rolls easily on large wheels. This would be so cool to have and use in our class. I don’t really know what we would use the luggage space for but it would be cool looking.

Keith


The first time I saw the movie Keith, its a bit of an understatement to say that I was skeptical. Although I had seen Elisabeth Harinos in another film, I didn’t have any faith in Jesse McCartney’s ability to act or act well at that.
I can now say I’ve seen the movie thirty plus times, and is actually my all time favorite movie. Its one of those films that has such a simple story you can’t possibly expect much of it, but it hits you so hard in the end you can’t stop thinking about it for days.
Keith begins with Natalie (Elisabeth Harinos) sitting in the bed of a truck that appears to be about to roll the edge of a cliff. Right as the truck begins to reach the edge, it cuts to her waking up and beginning her morning as a high achieving Duke bound student who has a full ride on a tennis scholarship. Her life almost seems to perfect when she meets the hot new foreign transfer student Rafael- but that all changes when she is partnered with Keith (Jesse McCartney) for chemistry.
At first, Natalie is annoyed with Keith as he receptively asks her out on non dates, and slacks a considerable amount for taking an AP class. However, as she is determined to figure him out, she begins to hang out with him more, and becomes friends with him. This puts a strain on her relationship with Rafael and causes her to question what she really wants to do.
Once Natalie figures Keith out, she also realizes a lot about herself. While I wont give away exactly what happens, I honestly never saw it coming and had to re-watch the movie the second I finished it, because it completely changes the characters.
I would highly recommend this movie, and give it a five out of five stars.

The Last Airbender


I recently watched The Last Airbender. I have watched The Last Airbender cartoon since it came out so I had high expectations for the movie. In the world of The Last Airbender, there are four nations, each one represented by a particular element—water, earth, fire, and air—and there are special individuals in each nation who have a telekinetic power to “bend” a particular element. The world also has one “Avatar”, one person who has the power to bend all four elements and bring peace between all the nations. Well, that’s the idea anyway. After the last Avatar disappeared a boy named Aang was the new avatar. He didn’t want to be so powerful so he ran away and was frozen into an iceberg. 100 years later Katara (Nicola Peltz) a (waterbender) and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) find Aang (Noah Ringer) and free him. Aang has to come to terms that his people are gone and he has to save the world. Watch the movie to see what happens. In the movie almost all the characters names where not pronounced correctly. All of the effects where very over done. In the end they don’t even finished the story. Over all a real disappointment to Last Airbender fans. I give this movie a 2/5 stars. Keep on rambling

3 Ways to Edit Video Online (Videomaker)

Videomaker reviewed 3 different online video editing sites. The first was called JayCut.com (http://jaycut.com) This is a very “professional” lay out to the site. They think this site would be better for the more professional crowd of editors. They said by far that JayCut was the best online video editor. Next up is the editor for the more novice crowd. Pixorial.com (http://www.pixorial.com/#home) is very user friendly. Not as many transitions and effects as JayCut but better suited towards novice editors (Like our class). A very simple layout and great for when you want to upload your finished video to Facebook or Twitter. They also give you a special email address so you can upload your mobile videos straight from your mobile devise. The last editor and by far worse editor is Youtube.com. Google’s Youtube is now not only a place to host videos but to edit them as well. They said that it is a pain to try to edit from Youtube. The only thing good about the editing is the cut feature. With next to no transitions or effects to use Youtube is and I quote YouTube: The 800-pound Gorilla. We maybe able to fool around with these sites (with Shaw’s permission).

Courtroom Video-video maker magazine


This article talks about the job offerings and openings in the courtroom as a legal videographer. Law suits are on the rise right now with people suing bankers, investment brokers, insurance companies, and lenders. As of now, wedding and special event videographers are out of work and are trying to find a better use for their equipment. People think that they don’t get paid that much money but they are wrong. Legal videographers making video documentaries can get paid $500 to $3,000 per finished minute! Not only do people need to be trained properly but they also need to know how the law works inside the court room. For example, you cannot film pain and agony to show to the jury because it can be deemed a deliberate attempt to play the emotions of the jury. Legal video is not a new thing. It has been around since the 1970’s in Pennsylvania. In conclusion, if you are interested in being a legal videographer and know the law, then apply to become a legal videographer and start earning some good money. No “certification” is needed for this job as of now but soon a certification will be needed.

VP update

This week, Derek and I started to film our 30 second commercial. We ended up getting a lot done and will hopefully finish filming and start on the editing the week we get back from our wonderful April vacation.

Green Screen Directing

Written by Marshal M. Rosenthal, March 2011 The article gave an insight on how over time green screens have become more common. Not only that but how much easier it is to use them. From the article it gave lots of tips on how light the set, and what types of light to use. Marking the floor of the stage so that actors can know their spacial limits, and what happens if they don’t. But most of all the green screen is only limited by our imaginations. This article is usefull to class if we use a green screen, and for other students to refer back to for useful tips. Link to article http://www.videomaker.com/article/14933/

New Nikon Camera

Nikon Releases D5100 HDSLR With Autofocus, Articulating Screen

by Daniel Bruns on http://www.videomaker.com/community/videonews/2011/04/10284-nikon-releases-d5100-hdslr-with-autofocus-articulating-screen/

This article was about companies that are excited to come out with the newest and latest forms of their best products. Some companies such as Nikon, releases their products a bit earlier than other companies. This year, Nikon released their new HDSLR or the D5100. One of the newest features they have on the new Nikon is a 3 inch articulating screen. This enables both high and low angle shots should be much easier and has the ability to rotate 180 degrees. This puts Nikon in the same ball park as the Canon’s 60D and Sony’s Alpha. Like the Sony Alpha, the Nikon has the ability to auto-focus so shooting on the run is easier. Not only has Nikon come out with a new camera, but they came out with a new microphone called the Nikon ME-1 stereo microphone. Since Nikon has released this new camera and microphone, they seem to be taking bigger strides towards making a camera for every amateur and prosumer videographer’s needs.

I learned a lot in this article. My dad has this camera and I can relate a lot to what they are talking about. The auto-focus they talk about works really well and makes taking shots easy of moving objects to take the best photo possible. I knew that Nikon was a good camera but I didn’t know they were in the same ball park as Canon who is an amazing camera and video camera company. I can apply this to this class because our class bought new audio equipment too that is top of the line and should sound a lot better than the audio equipment that we had.

Video Maker Article


I read “Selling Your Green Screen Shots to Your Audience”, By Mike Sullivan, March 2011.
I learned that in order to make green screen shots look real the lighting, the background color, and the editing must all be planned and correct. First make sure that all the lighting in your scene is going to match your graphics in the fore and background. After you have the lighting right focus on what color your backdrop will be. Green screen or blue screen. Use a green screen if you actor has blond hair. Use blue if the color blue is noticeably absent from your actor, (no blue jeans). I could use this information for my commercial or my music video. http://www.videomaker.com/article/14949/

Meanwhile in Awesome Land…..

This semester I am in an independent study video production class. My big focus for this semester is to become better at After Effects, Adobe’s composting, special effects, and advanced titling software. I had dabbled in it a bit last year, ( http://vimeo.com/8764122 ) , I wanted to continue to learn the program, as well as improve my overall proficiency at producing videos.
I am heavily utilizing the tutorials from Video Copilot, http://videocopilot.net/ , and have used some of them for various tests of effects ( http://vimeo.com/20926593 and http://vimeo.com/21063373 ) as well as titling for the elective video. ( http://vimeo.com/20921288 )
I also spent some time taking this ordinary shot of the hallway:

and turning it into this:

Now I am working on a kinetic typography project. Something like this: http://vimeo.com/15412319

After Effects is an awesome program and anyone who is involved in video production should at least look into using it occasionally. It’s incredibly diverse and I look forward to continue learning it and applying it to video projects.