Music Video: "Cognito"

I shot a music video over the weekend.

The artist was “Cognito” and the song was “Shift Kits”

http://www.cognitomusic.com/home.htm

It was a crazy production with crowds and motorcycle stunts and lots of off speed shooting. I volunteered to cut the video as I did a lot of in-camera stuff that needs to be treated a certain way, and I would be nervous about turning it over to an editor I was not in close contact with, so we shall see how it turns out. I’ve got just under 2 weeks to get a finished cut as the new album is out now and they want the video to go out with the promo kits. Below are some raw, uncorrected screen grabs from the first location. I will post a production journal in the “projects” section of my website soon.

Emmy Nominations

The :30 promo "busy people" got nominated for an Emmy! It's up against 2 other nominations from Bay Area stations, so wish me luck... The awards are in SF on May 20, it should be a gala evening and great chance to dress up and have a night on the town. Should be fun no matter who wins, but wouldn't it be a gas...

http://emrl.com/j/downloads/amnews.wmv

Skateboard Dolly

Just finished my DIY skateboard dolly. It measures 29.5" x 36".



It rides on 12 skateboard wheels that are built to run on standard 24.4" wide track.The frame is two 3/4" plywood sheets screwed together to make a robust 1.5" base. It's stained with IKEA black stain.


I originally used walmart skateboard wheels (4 for $5, cheap!) but they were just too bumpy. Even on the track it was just unusable. These things are so sensitive, that a blade of grass on the track can ruin a shot...Real skateboard wheels are expensive, so I saved my favor for a secret santa who just happens to own a skateboard shop in Louisville. (woohoo!) Real wheels and bearings make *such* a difference! I had to add like 60 spacers to make the newer, bigger wheels fit, but now it's smooth as glass.


It's also much lighter than the MSE Doorway dolly I have access to. (try lugging that thing up a hillside or getting it on a roof top!)
Since these photos were taken I have added black handles inline with the wheels, it makes carrying much easier.

The Space Shuttle

Elaine Dickinson: "There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?"

This past weekend I had a rare opportunity to pilot the space shuttle simulator in the NASA vertical motion simulator at the Ames Research facility at Moffett Field

http://www.simlabs.arc.nasa.gov/vms/vms.html

I was expecting to pilot one of those motion simulators that you see on TV, but what they had was way cooler… It was one of those simulators mounted on track 40’ wide and on a pistons 75’ tall. This thing was designed to MOVE! Picture something the size of your living room that can pitch and yaw, and move 40’ side to side and six stories up and down…

The simulator was designed to have interchangeable cabs, so while one is simulating a B2, another can be prepped for and SR71.

This time it was set up in the Space Shuttle configuration. I got to try out landing the thing 7 different landing sites, form SoCal, to Florida, to Madrid, and France. They could also change the landing conditions to include fog, wind and night landings.

How did I do? Well the first landing the computer kicked me out of the simulation. Not good. Luckily this wasn’t real life. I was able to land every other time except one – they gave me a strong side wind, and the first time I attempted it I couldn’t get used to the plane “Crabbing” in- coming in straight in approach, but pointed in another direction. I felt like I was skidding on highway ice. I also had a couple of blown tires, but managed to stay on the runway.

All in all – Totally fun! And thanks Tom, I know I married into the right family!
This is a scale model of the VMS. Imagine the red and white box in the center is the size of yoru living room.


Here's me and my co-pilot Duke, without whom I would have *never* made it down alive...













...I hear next time they are rigging the simulator in lunar lander configuration for mission in 2017 – I’d love to try that one out!

Addy Awards

Congratulations to Erik Espera for winning a gold Addy award for directing the Echopheen music video! Way to go Erik, recognition well deserved.
At the awrds dinner: Erik Espera, my wife and I and Chris Stone, post production supervisor at Pacsat, where the video was posted in HD.

Tile Outlet - Done!

The Tile Outlet spot is done and on the air! Everyone seems happy, now it’s just time to burn DVD copies for everyone involved

Here is a 9 meg version:http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_u...l%20Medium.mov

Here is a 2.5 meg version:http://www.stickypod.com/stickypod_u...et%20Final.mov


...and of course, here is your moment of zen!

Tile Outlet - Shoot Day!

Whew! We just completed production on the Tile Outlet "Tile Obsession" spot, and I'm looking forward to cutting it. The day went very well, thanks to the efforts of the client and efforts on the part of the actors. A lot of planning went into this one, and it paid off. Here are some uncorrected screen grabs:

The Patient (Laura Moore) in the Psychologist's office (My Livingroom). This was lit by a shinyboard thru a CTO'd window, and a couple of 650s pumped into the ceiling for fill. There is also a 650 flooded out on the psychologist and patient. (no diffusion: either very bold, or in a hurry...)
MS on the Psychologist (Actor Brian Quigley). Pop-up factoid: Some of the books on the shelf are "Rockets, Satellites and Space Travel" "Michael Gets the Measles" and "Survive the Coming Nuclear War: How to do it."

An example of the patient's tile obsession: the tiled dog-house.
Even worse: the tiled automobile! Pop-up Factoid: the cover to the gas tank was left open, but the hood was sealed shut... good luck changing the oil!
A slow dolly 2-shot on location at a Tile Outlet retail store. This was a little more complicated than imagined, but at it turned out, the lighting was not that complicated. I just had to watch the color temps. We had a wall of windows pumping in slightly blue tinted soft sunlight (we scheduled this for afternoon as the windows are east facing). The overheads are some form of metal halide (6k kelvin?). For fill I used a 650 w/ full blue bounced off of a 4' shiny board to soften it.

It's a wrap! Left to right: Myself, Laura Moore, Brian Quigley, and Jamie Duckworth in beautiful Manteca, California!

Tile Outlet - Building the Obsession...

Things are coming along swimmingly. We have the two actors locked in I was hoping to get.

The locations and props all look great

And now for your moment of zen...

Tile Outlet - "Tile Obsession"

I just got client approval for a commercial spot I am a little excited about. It's for "Tile Outlet", and they wanted a commercial that was a little more creative than the usual commercial... hearing something like that is always music to my ears! I pitched to them a 4 commercial campaign based upon a jingle theme, but that got turned down due to budget concerns (I'm still holding on that idea though...) The second option is a spot about a man (or woman) who is obsessed with tile, so much so that they tile everything in sight and have to see a shrink. Anyways, the client loved the idea, and the storyboards and is really excited about the project. So much so that they are in the process right now of building props. Below is a shot of the tile dog house. After that they are going to tile a refrigerator, then an automobile! Cool huh. The shoot is scheduled for next week, I will post more as we get closer...

Makes me wish I had a dog...

On The Mountain - Finished!

The editing and post work are done on the "On The Mountain" spot. The whites cleaned up great, and the post effects turned out Very, Very good, thanks to Rey Jaraba in A.E. Here are some images.

The Scene starts off with the talent in a white CYC, as blue squiggles are drawn in the background. Note: her eyes have been subtly changed to match the background palate (After Effects, or Spice?)


We cut to a wider shot to reveal the talent in front of a playful rendition of a snow covered mountain.
This is a dolly shot to the left. Note that the talent walks inbetween the "video screens", which are semi-transparent in appearance. Also, there are subtle snowflakes falling throughout the spot.


After watching some of the snow footage, we dolly back out of a frame, then lead the talent back into a wide shot with multiple screens.

On The Mountain

We finally were able to shoot a spot I have been wanting to do for a long time. This is a promotional spot for a series reporting on snow and ski conditions in the Sierra. The concept was to shoot the talent in all white winter clothes against a white cyc, sort of inspired by the overstock.com spots. In this spot there are 2 variations. The first is a pure white cyc set, but in post we will add playful stylized icons of mountains, trees, and skiers. In the second variation, we hung sheetmetal frames from the grid. Inside which clips from the show will be treated with a look and inserted in post. The camera dollied out, and the talent did a walk and talk in between the frames. Should look great, I will post clips once it is finished.

A test shot with the floor almost painted. Note the homemade softboxes on the 2ks.

Rey Jaraba standing in for our talent. Rey is doing all the post work on the spot. That's a lot of work considering each of the frames will have different semi-transparent video as the talent walks behind some and in front of others. Oh yeah, did I mention this is a dolly shot too? He just rolled his eyes, but I have faith he can pull it off.

The Bathroom is Done!

Well, it took almost 12 months, but the bathroom remodel is finished!!!



The old toilet. That was the first to go.
Next was the sink and cabinet. I hate particle board, the thing was just falling apart.

The old shower/tub enclosure, with the brass trim and smoked glass sliding door.









The pink and peach "Cultured Marble" tub. It's odd, but I find very little culture in cultured marble.











My favorite phase: demolition! It was a pain having to hand carry the shower enclosure fragments thru the house and into the dumpster, until about the 5th trip when I looked up and noticed the open window.... duh.


Our shiny new toilet on our shiny new tile floor!!!








We had to strip the old bathroom down to 2x4s and the concrete slab foundation, then build it back up. We did everything ourselves, from laying the tile floor and walls, to soldering in new copper pipes.


We were going for a 1920's style bathroom. Lots of porcelain fixtures, wite trim and wainscotting.

We installed a white tile bath enclosure and an octagonal wite tile floor.

A nice detail shot of the tile enclosure. I recycled some of the extra border and floor tile to make a pattern across the middle of the tile wall.

This is my favorite feature, the overhead shower. My wife and I always are annoyed by low shower heads, so when installing ours I wanted to raise it up higher than normal, and since I had not only the walls, but also the ceiling removed I thought: Why not bring it all the way over? It makes for the best shower I've ever taken. Guests describe it as "warm rain" or a "warm waterfall".

My wife painting the finishing touches on the bath cabinets. The wall cabinets were designed to be mounted onto the wall, but by recessing them in about 4", they seem to open up the room a lot, and not dominate as they would otherwise.

Outstanding in-camera bullet time effects

The finest example of in-camera wirework and matrix style bullet time effects can be seen here:

http://www.extremefunnyhumor.com/vids/matrixpong.wmv

Winning Attitude II

I just finished editing the second Winning Attitude PSA.

These are for the Positive Coaching Alliance, and this one features Sports Anchor Jim Crandell. We shot it in a basketball practice facility, with overhead mercury vapor/metal halide lights. Our tungsten units seemed to match with a 1/2 CTB. The shot went well, four set-ups in 3 hours, including a dolly shot.


Here is the opening shot. I wanted to have this framing, but had to fight the sunlight coming in from behind the talent. I had a minimal light kit and time to set up, so i just used one light, focused in tight from far away.
I had the talent track towards the light, so he never went in and out of the light. also, placing the light far back (30-40') helped keep the light gain as he neared the lamp (5' travel) to a minimum. In addition to the fluorescents in the background, there were Metal Halide lamps above and sunlight coming in the windows. I covered the 650 with opal and half blue, that in combination with reducing the chroma in the matrix helped to bring the color mix to a useable level.

This is a comparison between the raw image and the post affected image.
Our graphics guy (Rey Jaraba) took out some of the distracting electrical boxes and conduit, and posted a photorealistic logo mural in after effects. The shot slowly zooms in, and the mural tracks with it to make the image look believable.

For this shot, I re-arranged the bleacher seating to give a sense of depth perspective in this shot. We also defocused the background in post to isolate the foreground image.


For the final shot I took advantage of a loft/snack area above the courts to get this perspective. Moving a couple of tables together gave me a higher perch to give me the angle I needed. It only took a couple of takes to get the right "Swoosh"

Grand Stone USA

Ah the one man band… interesting to stop and listen, but never what you would want to listen to while relaxing at home.

I just finished editing a spot I shot for a marble and granite company. The spot turned out great, but the shoot was… hard. I was just on the cusp of coming down with Bird Flu/SARS/West Nile Virus, when my assistant called in sick. Well we already rented the gear and made arrangements, so the show must go on. Luckily I was able to pull it off because all the shots were MOS, no sound. Also, the location had decent ambient lighting. I was able to get through the whole thing without setting a single light or stringing a single stinger, so the whole shoot was about composition and movement.

This shoot was scheduled for two locations, a warehouse in Sacramento, and a factory showroom in Stockton, about an hour away. In total I got off 16 shots at 2 locations in about 9 hours, half those being dolly or jib. The one thing that did work out was the jib we rented. I originally asked for a portajib, but got talked into a less complicated cobra crane by the rental house. The Cobra crane mounts right on to the tripod head (as opposed to the sticks). The idea is that you would remotely tilt the camera by tilting the tripod head. I never did this. That always seemed to be putting too much stress on the head, so I just locked it down. (the porta jib would have acted in the same way). After this, I am a big fan of the Cobra crane. Once I put a Sony quick release plate on it, it took under a minute to set up/break down. Easy. Well, the design inspired me enough to build my own jib. I used to have one built out of 4” square aluminum tubing that could fly an Arri BL4, but that thing was just too bulky to carry around. This new design should be lighter and possibly modular. I will post more once it is built. At any rate, here are some screen grabs from the shoot:


This first shot is the warehouse. I climbed on a palate of 4x8 plywood sheets about 5 feet off the ground and set up the jib. Total travel for the camera was from about 6’ off the ground to 12’ up. Not much, but combined with the height, it felt like a larger crane was used.



This shot was a dolly into the showroom. It had good movement, but was a bit sterile. As there were no actors budgeted, I grabbed everyone in sight, and even sent out employees to grab more people. Notice the employee in the grey sweatshirt. His job was to walk into the scene purely to motivate the camera movement. Unmotivated movement always feels creepy or uneasy to me, but just by adding a foreground element to motivate the movement or “lead the camera in”, it feels a lot more natural. The viewer accepts the movement instead of being distracted by it.

Montreal!

Earlier this month, my wife and I had opportunity to visit an old High School friend in Montreal for his wedding. We made the journey with another long time friend, Jeff O'Toole. Here are some images...


Justin and Adina, the happy bride and groom...






Although the ceremony was in french, I was able to figure out what was going on...






Siobhan and I at the base of the Funicular. This structure was built for the 1976 olympics, however due to labor disputes, it wasn't finished until afterwards... D'oh!








Entrance to the funicular.
(foo-nick-you-lahr)





So what do you do with a city full of olympic-sized structures, but no olympics? Well you could make one a high-concept zoo and call it the "Biodome" Here is an image of me filming a fish.




Jeff O'Toole in the subway station.








We also visited the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Sure they had VanGoghs and Monets and all, but we knew what we came to see. Here is a pic of myself with a display featuring a 1970s era JVC model 3241 Videosphere television.






And now for your moment of zen (tm E.G. Petersen)...