This was a year of grand plans that I spent going in circles… maybe even backwards.
Here is a recap.
Happy New Year =)
This was a year of grand plans that I spent going in circles… maybe even backwards.
Here is a recap.
Happy New Year =)
Just published a few more devlogs that I've been working on for a bit:
film devlog #4 // Shooting with Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Cameras. Similar to my DaVinci Resolve: Tips, Workflows, Keyboard Shortcuts compilation, I started a running list of notes about shooting with Blackmagic cameras. I also added some notes about their new Blackmagic Camera iOS App and the native iOS Camera for good measure.
film devlog #5 // Shot Notes. Another running list — striking frames from movies I watched and what I liked about them. Not much here yet, but seems like a useful thing to have around.
I wanted to update a few of the videos thumbnails on my website to look at bit more “neat and tidy,” so I asked my old colleague Aneesh to help me out making a quick grid / template in Figma I could use to redo all the existing thumbs and copy / paste when making them in the future. Aneesh had recently done a little lunch + learn at my friend Iqram’s company that I found really valuable, so we decided to screen record our session redoing these thumbnails in case it’s valuable to others. We posted it to youtube.
I’ve done a few of these events by The 48 Hour Film Project in the past (when I lived in Oakland), but they didn’t host one I could do from NYC until earlier this month. These things are always an awesome way to manufacture a deadline and just get out there and make something end-to-end.
A few learnings from this one…
DJI Mic Audio Drift. We used our DJI Mics which I have LOVED using in the past, but experienced a weird issue with audio drift where the 2 DJI mics got out of sync with one another (and the camera audio) after a few minutes of recording. This was VERY annoying to debug in post on a tight submission deadline. I've been researching forum threads trying to find the root cause (below), but still not 100% sure I have pinpointed the issue. The only response from DJI seems to be "try a firmware update."
Pacing. The biggest takeaway from the weekend for me was a thought on pacing. The contest had a 7 min cap on submissions, and our first edit ran about 11 minutes. After editing down in a way the preserved the best stuff and watching, the film seemed to just wrap up way to quickly.
This was partly the result of where we invested in getting more interesting shots, I suppose, and also partly due to the writing (it wasn't exactly the best story I've ever written).
In any case, I'd gone into the weekend thinking mostly it would be good "technical" practice -- shooting, etc -- but it was a nice surprise to learn a bit about storytelling, too.
That’s all for now. More after Thanksgiving!
Well, last week was back for another talk at MIT, so I guess that means Another Day in Paradise was well received…
Here is the full transcript of the latest: The T-Shirt Shop at the End of the World.
And tx Nam for delivering the talk since I had lost my voice…
At the end of August, I went up to MIT to deliver this talk and I finally got around to posting it to my website today.
It’s called Another Day in Paradise.
Enjoy, and lmk what you think if you read it =)
a quick promo…
For several years, Rob and I hosted a humanities + technology seminar at MIT for IAP. This year, we're opening it to anyone / doing it virtually on Maven:
Can We Survive Technology
Five lively group discussions of film & literature exploring the economic, political, & ethical implications of technological change.
https://maven.com/quixote/can-we-survive-technology/
We’d love to have you join us.
and a devlog…
On Speed Boosters, Image Sensor Crop Factor, FOV, F-stop, and Focal Length, with a handy spreadsheet for quickly calculating 35mm equivalent focal length and FOV.
Til next time…
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