New things!

Why hello there.  I just got home from my successful trip in Bangladesh and thought I would give an update on some things.  In the past few months I've had about 4 music videos released (say what?!) and one commercial I created through Red Stallion Media.

Spose - Gee Willikers

Spose came to be wanting a video that was his own creation and something that wasn't created by committee.  He sent me over the song and a basic story outline and from there he and I collaborated to create his vision.

Spose - Swagless

Spose sent me this song with the idea of having a bunch of people with a lack of swag partying in a barn. Right up my alley.

Whitcomb - An Assassin

This video was a bit different for me.  Whitcomb met up with me and told me about this basic idea they had for their song, An Assassin.  I knew I wanted some extra hands for shooting and for post production, so I ask my good friend Michael Gagne.

Cam Groves - Diamond in the Rough

Cam and I have been talking for a while about doing a video and when he sent me this track, I could already see the visuals.  Cam did a lot of location scouting for the video and found the perfect spot to shoot at, Congdon's Doughnuts in Wells, Maine.

And last, but not least, is the commercial I shot and cut through Red Stallion Media for Baxter Brewing Company's summer ale, Celsius.  This commercial was created in basically a week.  We had a basic idea for a while, but due to time constraints, we had to move quick on it.  Topher, of Red Stallion, was able to secure the perfect location, get a bunch of actors together and all the props within a few days.  We shot over the course of a full day and then cut a 60 second and a 30 second spot in 4 days.  This includes all original music by Andrew Mead of The Other Bones. (Which reminds me, I did a video for them I didn't add here)

Once I figure out what I am going to do with all my photos from Bangladesh, I'll do another post with those.

Final Cut Pro - 23.98 & 23.976

Yesterday I spent 6 hours trying to figure out why an animation I created in After Effects looked stutter-y or jumpy when it was added to my Final Cut sequence and exported.  Well, I finally figured it out and now I kind of want to scream at Final Cut.

Apparently, Final Cut Pro (I'm using FCP 7) rounds up 23.976 to 23.98 (or more confusingly know as 24). This is usually not a problem if you just add your 23.976 footage into FCP and start cutting.  My issue was that I created an animation in After Effects, check my sequence settings in FCP to see that it said 23.98 and then used 23.98 as my comp settings in After Effects.  Since After Effects is really exporting 23.98, FCP was adding frames and taking out frames in order to make up the .004 difference.  This doesn't seem like a lot, but it wrecked the animations.  They looked like they were having trouble playing back and it was just ugly.

So, if this has happened to you and you don't want to go in and re-export every project you did in After Effects, what you can do is open up Cinema Tools, (comes with FCP 7) and batch conform every clip to 23.98.  Yes, 23.98.  It's confusing, but Cinema Tools is really doing 23.976, but since all this Apple software, including Quicktime, wants to round up, you'll end up with the "correct" 23.98.

Ugh.  Maybe it's time to open Premiere.

Here is some more info on the issue. 

I'M A FAILURE! The mistakes I made.

This past year, I've pushed myself to search out more freelance work and not just sit around and wait for it to come to my greedy little hands.  Since then, my plate has been pretty full and I've been trying my best to book and manage editing gigs, photo assignments, video productions, etc.  While doing all this, I've managed to make my fair share of mistakes and since the internet world loves top 5 list for some reason, here is my top 5 mistakes I've made during my journey to become a better creative.

1. "It's not about the gear!" You'll hear this from every blog about photography or video.  This statement is only somewhat true.  I've spent way too much on junk lenses, lights or trying to build my own stuff when I should have been saving and getting something that would last.  Also, you cannot show up to a shoot with a homemade light stand made out of PVC pipe.  I mean, you can, but a client will judge a book by it's cover.  There is a lot more to this statement than I want to write down, but in the end, use what you can to learn your craft and shape your style, but good gear is called good gear for a reason.
2. "Can you shoot this for, say, 70 bucks?" No, sir, I cannot.  I used to take any job I could get, just to have some extra money and maybe even build my portfolio.  I would take a music video job where payment was never discussed beforehand and I end up getting $40 after a shoot.  Because I did that, my name got spread around in certain circles as the guy who can do great work for almost nothing.  So then the emails and Facebook messages start to show up.  
   
   "Hey how much can u do this for?"
   "Well, you haven't given me enough details to give you a proper quote, but I'd say it would be between $400 and $600"
   "Nah, that's too much.  My friend said you did his video a few years ago for 40 bucks. Can you do that?"
   
   And I still recieve these messages to this day.  To paraphrase Nick Cambell, work for free or full price, but never for cheap.
3. This is a good segue to my next point.  Get a deposit, sign a contract. Here are some contract examples. Do it.  Nothing more needs to be said.  Unless you want to get strung along for months, get a deposit. Nobody wants to give someone money and then never get something in return.
4. Stop competing with others.  So, yeah, I did this.  I'm ashamed of it.  I don't need to be better than anyone else, I just need to create content that my client is blown away by.  Don't spend your time critiquing others work and pointing out all the flaws, spend it doing this to your own work.  If you do good work, it'll show and it will be known.
5. Plan and stick to your plan.  I've had a few video shoots completely fail because there was no planning. Pre-production didn't exists.  I showed up to a shoot with no idea what I was going to do and had to figure out how to block my scene, what angles, etc on the go.  This sucks.  Location scout, storyboard, write out a shot list.  Do whatever you can to help make the day of your shoot go as smooth as it can. Figure out ways how you can simplify the idea, so it is actually doable.  The worst situation you can be in, is to have an amazing idea, but the logistics to do it are impossible.  You need to work within your budget and your time.
   Also, put your foot down when it comes to this.  There is always a client who goes, just try it and see what happens.  While this is a great excercise and will teach you new things, doing this when you are on a time and budget crunch will just make everything else more difficult. Especially if this experiment doesn't work.  In some cases, you can say, "Well, let's shoot everything on our shot list first and then if we have time, we will shoot this idea".  It's a great compromise without ruining the original plan. 

I'm almost positive there will be an update to this because I make mistakes all the time.  If you want to hear about failures from one of my biggest infulences, check out this speech by Adam Savage on FORA.tv.

What's in my Lowepro Pro Roller x300?

I had a few recent additions to my bag and wanted to share.  The photo above is pretty much all the gear I bring iwth my with the exception of a few peices.  This is what's missing:

• Canon 50mm 1.8
• Tamron 17-50mm 2.8
• Canon 28 2.8 (Actually attached to the Canon 5D Mark III)
• Canon 40D
• Canon 430ex
• Lumopro LP160 Flash

That is pretty much all the gear that I would carry in my bag.  Speaking of this bag, it's incredible.  My favorite features, besides how much gear I can pack into it, is that it has a stand so it can be propped up on it's own.  

It also has a 1/4 in thread in the handle, so you can screw on a flash, light, camera or even a mic.

If the bag doesn't carry enough gear already, you can unzip the entire mid section (where the gear is) and it turns into a backback, allowing you to have the entire open suitcase to put more stuff in.  This comes in handy if you need to drag around a battery for monolights or you are coming home from a trip with more stuff.

Images by Greta Rybus Photography

If you have any question about the gear, feel free to ask.

Canon 5D Mark III - It's the little things.

A few weeks ago, I sat in front of my computer screen for hours staring at the 5D Mark III on Adorama.  I knew it was time to jump to a full frame camera, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to make the jump to the Mark II or go all the way.  Well, my wife finally came down stairs, hit "Add to Cart" and the decisioin was made.

Everyone has been putting out reviews, but it seems there are a few points people haven't spoken about that I think are important.  They are small features (or lack of) that I believe are a big deal.

• Live histogram. This is HUGE for me. As far as I know my 7D couldn't do this.  I used to take a photo of the scene I'm about to shoot video for to make sure my histogram looks good.  It's hard to tell sometimes with the LCD if you're under or over exposed and the histogram helps.  With the Mark III, I am able to have a histogram pop up while I'm shoot to see how it looks.  Now I can pan and tilt around my scene to make sure everything looks good.  
• Horiztonal to vertical focus point change.  This was something that I noticed while playing around, but when you turn the camera from a landscape postion to a portrait position the focus point either jumps to the middle point or to your last saved vertical point and then will go back to your horiztonal point when you turn it back.  Huge time saver.  I usually pick my own focus points and being able to quickly move from horitonal position to vertical and having the focus point be in the right area, is awesome.
• Lock on the settings knob thingy. The dial that lets you set your camera to manual, auto, time value, aperture value, etc now has a lock.  No more pulling my camera out of the bag and seeing it on bulb.
• The loupe button is moved.  People are throwing a fit about this, such as the guys over at Cinema 5D.  I'm having a hard time believing if this is an actual issue or more of a "I'm-not-use-to-this-so-it-makes-me-angry" issue.  Sure, while shooting I had to think twice about it, but this will not be an issue in a month.
• No crop factor. Apparently, people would like this camera to have the option to push into a crop factor to use APS-C lenses and to make it more "versitile" for your lens. You kidding me? This is not an issue.
• Sharpness. The only reason I want to bring this up is because Cinema 5D said that this camera isn't as sharp as the Alexa, RED Scarlet or C300.  The ARRI Alexa's MSRP is ~$90,000,  the RED Scarlet is ~$10,000 and the Canon C300 is $16,000.  On top of this major price difference, all of these cameras where built ONLY for video.  It's pretty unfair comparison. 

I'm going to post an update soon with more and possibly a video to test some stuff out.  These are just a few of the things I've noticed or read so far.