Moving from Final Cut – Progress or Perils? SXSW Panel

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I’ve briefly mentioned on Twitter and other social media channels that I’d be participating in a SXSW panel. Now is the time I actually get to share about that panel! Quite frankly the fact that it is a “panel” is why I was interested to participate. I don’t think it would be quite that interesting with me up there, alone. I’ll be participating on behalf of Dell and NVIDIA.

Dell is providing myself and several other filmmakers with new, top of the line workstations built with the Adobe Creative Suite in mind. Full disclosure – Dell is providing this workstation for free. Editors and creatives who are moving from a primarily Final Cut Pro 7 workflow to one based around Adobe Premiere is what they had in mind here. I was already planning on doing this, and was quite touched Dell thought I was important enough to have me on board. I’ll be testing and using the Dell Precision workstation over the next 12 weeks and sharing my thoughts on a variety of platforms. I’ll be going into more detail about this social media initiative Dell has embarked on, and my role in it. Another blog post will be out tomorrow going into more detail on how I got involved, and why.

Here are some more specific details about my SXSW panel:

Moving From Final Cut – Progress or Perils?
Monday, March 12
3:30PM – 4:30 PM CT
Austin Convention Center, Room 2

I hope to see you there! I’ve got a few friends in the Austin area and can’t wait to meet new people there. If you have any questions or comments – be they positive or negative, feel free to comment here or email: tom@theredowl.com.

Cheers!

Critical Focus and the SmallHD DP4

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I just got this bad boy in time for MLG Raleigh, and decided to share my thoughts on this new addition to my kit. If you’re unfamiliar with Major League Gaming, MLG is the governing body for eSports in North America. Now that isn’t to say there isn’t competition from smaller leagues, but I would consider them to be the NFL of competitive video games. I’ve been doing contract work at their events for about 5 years. The games on the Pro Circuit are Halo: Reach, StarCraft 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops. This event also saw a sneak peek at Gears of War 3, as well as the addition of League of Legends.

I wasn’t planning on buying the DP4 just yet, but I caught a great deal on eBay and I’m very glad I bought it. It’s changed my quality of work in several ways. I’ll be discussing those first, and then getting into the strong points of the DP4 and the ways it falls short. It’s a great piece of gear, but definitely not perfect. I leave it to you to make your own decision.

That being said, it was a dream to work with this past weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina. MLG events take up a huge convention hall, and things move pretty fast. There’s no opportunity to get the important shots more than once – getting critical focus, how you frame your shot are usually split second decisions when they really count. I shoot a variety of footage there, but it all revolves around StarCraft 2, one of the biggest games in the world for eSports. I shot on the Canon 7D, so thankfully there was no down-rezzing when I would hit record. The 5DMKII and T2i both downrez to 480p and it looks horrid. Even with the problem of down-rezzing with my T2i, I found doing some quick testing that right out of the box it was much easier for me to get critical focus. I know some people swear by the LCD and have never touched an external monitor. My vision is not 20/20 so this monitor has been a huge help to me.

I’m constantly analyzing things throughout an MLG event, how I’m doing, what I could be doing better, and what would enable me to get better shots in the future. The DP4 was absolutely invaluable when getting critical focus. We also rented different lenses this event – the Canon 24-70L and 70-200L IS II. MLG events are not brightly lit so having f/2.8 available helped me stay at lower ISO’s when in the past I’ve had to resort to as much as 3200 ISO(yuck). The lenses and the addition of the SmallHD DP4 enabled me to get my shots in a much more effective manner. At the end of the match, I’m tasked with getting reaction shots of the winner, and anything he might do after. For example, Korean pro player Nada won a very tough StarCraft match on the main stage during Raleigh. Nada’s reaction was great, and then he came out of his soundproof booth and celebrated a bit on the main stage. These type of moments are fast moving and I can’t afford to not get those shots – they happen only once. These moments tend to be extremely fast moving and I also make my best effort to stay out of our broadcast cameraman’s way. Without the DP4 I do not think I could have maintained focus as much as I did. It can look quite amateurish to have shots go in and out of focus.

One thing I was surprised at was how little I used the extra features of the DP4. The false colour, peaking, focus assist – I used none of them. The DP4 did what I needed it to do – help me maintain focus, or grab it very quickly. Another surprise for me was how heavy the DP4′s EVF loupe was – the thing was not light. Eventually it proved to be more an annoyance to me than a help. The optics were not bad, it just didn’t fit in with the environment I was tasked to shoot. The quality of the loupe was not an issue, however when I needed to do higher shots the loupe tended to fall down back onto the monitor and block my view of the shot. Honestly I don’t see myself using the EVF loupe much, if at all. Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown accustomed to the back of an LCD, but I just prefer seeing the DP4 without looking through an eyepiece.

The screen protector was great to have, and I did an unintentional drop test. The included hotshoe mount for the DP4 that I had was terrible. It felt like unless I tightened everything with all my might, the hotshoe mount would be loose. At one point, thankfully not at a critical moment, everything I had mounted on the hotshoe fell off and hit the ground. The DP4 was unaffected, as was the Rode Videomic Pro and LitePanels MicroPro I was using. I don’t recommend mounting that much stuff on a DSLR hotshoe. The build quality of the DP4 didn’t have me worried before, and after that little mishap I was even more confident in it. Battery life was good, I had 2 LP-E6 knockoff batteries from Opteka on it at all times. I got hours of use out of it, but never timed it precisely so I’m not sure exactly how much I got out of it.

Maybe if I had a shoulder rig or wanted it in a more ENG style configuration the EVF loupe would come in more handy for me – but it doesn’t. There are many different kinds of shooters, whose lenses all capture different types of stories. The types of stories I capture through my lens will not need the EVF loupe for the most part. As I said before, the build quality of it wasn’t flimsy, or bad – just not right for me. I will say the 2 second delay between shooting and reviewing shots on the DP4 is quite annoying. However, SmallHD has said that a fix is coming via firmware updates. I haven’t used Marshall or any competing monitors, so I can’t really tell you if this one is better. One thing I have heard about the DP4 is that it runs a bit hot, and I can confirm that is true. However, it was never a real issue for me. I would be more annoyed if it impeded the operation of the monitor, but it doesn’t, and therefore isn’t too much of a concern in my book.

What you see on your DP4′s screen matches what you will see on your computer pretty closely. I didn’t modify many settings on the DP4, just some slight tweaks to contrast and brightness. My need with this piece of gear was the ability to grab focus quickly and have a larger viewing screen. The SmallHD DP4 has more than met that need for me, so why not check out the SmallHD DP4 and see if it meets your needs?

No Second Take Required

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If you’ve had the chance to get your hands on a KesslerCrane Pocket Dolly, you probably already know how this review is going to turn out. I thought I would share my thoughts on this new and profoundly smooth tool. If the Pocket Dolly were transformed into a human, it would probably turn into Frank Sinatra. Not exactly a scientific fact, but you may be called upon to excuse my hyperbole throughout this post.

Full disclosure: I was able to acquire the KesslerCrane Pocket Dolly from them due to the fact I’m doing a video for their fantastic Kessler University website. I was offered payment in whatever manner I wished, but I thought it better to get gear for my work. So while I definitely am not getting it for free, I thought this something I should disclose right off the bat. I don’t have a “statement of ethics” or anything like that, but I’d like to think I behave in an honorable manner in any of my dealings, on or offline.

I must say, Eric Kessler, Chris Beller, and KesslerCrane’s reputation for good customer service is not undeserved. I knew I could probably use the Pocket Dolly for an upcoming shoot, and let them know. That shoot was a few weeks ago for MLG’s “Dr. Pepper Ultimate Gaming House.” The basic idea of the web series is to pick from user-submitted videos, and remodel the winner’s room into a gaming den of epic proportions. Eric and Chris graciously hooked me up early and sent the Pocket Dolly and needed accessories to the hotel we would be arriving at in Illinois. To say I was ecstatic to finally get my hands on this would be a bit of an understatement. My frequent collaborator Joseph Pollock and I filmed a short test film of sorts called “Firm” later that night.

The temptation to go on a slider fetish run was great, I won’t lie. If that makes you scratch your head and wonder what I mean, I mean abuse of a slider, doing moves with one “just because you can” and for no other reason than that. Thankfully my duties on the shoot prevented me from letting my mind wander to my new piece of gear. We ended up only using it for one part of the shoot, for b-roll in an old arcade. This was one area my DSLR was an absolute nightmare, trying to tweak the shutter speeds to match the refresh rates on the different arcade screens. However I was able to get some great shots regardless.

One thing that surprised me immediately was how much I disliked the hand crank. It felt very unnatural to me to use the crank, so I opted for a more hands on approach. If you choose to go the Pocket Dolly route, know that any errors on slider moves are probably your fault. The Pocket Dolly is seriously as smooth as butter. You may not be perfect at it immediately, but keep using it and practicing with it so you can use it perfectly when it does count. Joe and I’s short film “Firm” was more or less an interesting way to practice using the Pocket Dolly. The only slider I’d used before was a Glidetrack SD. I won’t say much about it other than I was not impressed with it. I’m sure I could have gotten better with it over time, but having it seize up mid-move drove me nuts. The high quality craftsmanship behind the Pocket Dolly shows. Any minute errors with the different moves you can achieve with the Pocket Dolly were definitely my fault. I had to even learn to control my breathing so as to achieve perfectly smooth motion. There are a host of different moves you can achieve with the Pocket Dolly, you are not limited to just horizontal moves.

The next gig I used it at recently was MLG Anaheim, in Anaheim, California. Major League Gaming is the governing body for eSports in North America. Our events attract thousands of spectators, competitors, and millions of viewers online. Our most recent event, in Anaheim, attracted over 20,000 spectators, over 120K in prizes, and 35 million views online. MLG’s broadcasts employ a sports type model for broadcasting on the internet. The production values are quite good – we have 4 channels on our website, one for each game and one “best of” type of channel that broadcasts all 3 games. MLG currently has Halo: Reach, StarCraft 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops on the Pro Circuit.

This was my first experience traveling with the Pocket Dolly. I got no trouble from TSA or airlines carrying on the Pocket Dolly and a Pelican 1510 case. The Pocket Dolly fits quite nicely in an overhead for travel. The Anaheim event was 3 days long – Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday I used the Pocket Dolly for strictly vertical moves. This configuration is easy and requires only one tripod with the quick release plate mounted in the middle. I used a Giotto ball head so that I could point the camera perpendicular from the vertical Pocket Dolly. This enabled me to do vertical moves with the camera pointing at whatever I was shooting. Most of my camera work on Friday was crowd shots, and shots of our players. I refrained from using the Pocket Dolly on Saturday, and used it in a horizontal configuration on Championship Sunday. In order to have it properly balanced, I used 2 tripods on either end. If you get the Philip Bloom Pocket Dolly or Pocket Dolly Traveler, you do not need to do this(or so I’m told). The PD Travel or Philip Bloom Pocket Dolly only require one tripod.

Carrying around the two tripods and Pocket Dolly rig was a bit of a workout but more than worth the trouble. It enabled me to do various moves I hadn’t been able to do before. More dramatic crowd shots, and on one occasion to do a pull-out move on a pro StarCraft player. Moving away from him with my camera accentuated the fact he had just lost and worked quite nicely. On one occasion I used the Pocket Dolly in a slightly unorthodox manner. One player had just beat his mentor on the main stage, and he immediately left his area to talk to his mentor who had just lost. It was a fast moving moment, could have been easily messed up, especially on a DSLR where a stabilized shot is key. In my current configuration I had the Pocket Dolly mounted parallel to the main stage – and I had the camera mounted to the quick release plate attached to my Giotto ball head. I slid very fast with it in a pseudo-handheld type of shot that worked well. It allowed me to follow him across the stage in a much smoother manner than just pure handheld.

If you’re looking for a “score” at the end of this to rate the Pocket Dolly you’re out of luck. I can tell you it’s a solid addition to anyone’s kit. If you’ve gotten to the end of this and are envious, you’ve missed the point. Writing this is not some elaborate ad for KesslerCrane – purely my own thoughts on how it’s already helping my own creativity. The thing about creativity is, it’s all well and good but you can’t do a jib move without a jib, or a slider shot without a slider. There are certain moves you cannot achieve without certain pieces of gear. There are so many sliders out there, I can’t tell you if KesslerCrane’s Pocket Dolly is the best one out there. All I can tell you is it’s a solid product with fantastic customer service to back it up. Would I have bought the Pocket Dolly if I wasn’t doing a video for KesslerU? The answer is most definitely yes – while I am prepared to accept some compromises on quality & price in some areas of gear purchase, this was not one of them. I’ve heard too many horror stories about a slider seizing up mid-move during an event where there are no second takes.

If you’re interested in a product that requires no second take, check out the KesslerCrane Pocket Dolly.

My Favorite 10 Photos of 2010

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#1: Expose The Train

This photo is my favorite of 2010 for a few reasons. The main one being how incredible it is that there is no shake evident in the photo. At the time, I had a terrible tripod. When I say terrible I mean TERRIBLE, like got it for $20 terrible. At the time I was excited to try out my new intervalometer on some long exposure photography. This shot was a happy accident. I set the exposure time for 45 seconds and the train happened to end up like this.

#2: Tax Dollars

If there’s one thing I enjoy about a photo, it’s when symmetry plays a large role in what makes it visually pleasing. This photo was shot at Gail’s Harley Davidson. Every year they do a motorcycle ride in honor of those who died on 9/11. In order to keep things running smoothly, the police help direct traffic and lead the ride. I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of all their motorcycles lined up.

#3: Mullets

This one’s probably one of my favorite photos shot on my iPhone. The camera itself is not very high resolution, but apps like Cross Process allow you to play with the colors and processing in very interesting ways.

#4: Starry Night

This one was one of my first shots while on vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I’ve been in the country plenty of times, far from the city life. However the view of the stars there was incomparable. The view made me painfully aware that I need faster glass. However I think this shot definitely gets the point across.

#5: Love & Hate

This one was another adventure in long exposure photography. The results of combining sparklers with long exposures has never let me down. Thankfully I had a few friends on hand who drew these shapes with a good guess!

#6: Antelope

One of my favorite trips this year was to South Dakota’s Black Hills. I was lucky enough to see an antelope near the road, which I’m told doesn’t happen very often. This one was not very jumpy – I didn’t have anything beyond a focal length of 55mm, combined with the crop factor of 1.6 on my T2i.

#7: Motorcycle Madness

This shot was also taken on the day of the 9/11 motorcycle ride at Gail’s Harley Davidson. There were so many great bikes there I could, and did, shoot photos all day. I picked this one mainly because of how I processed it in Photoshop, and the beauty of the bike. If there’s one area I’ve advanced much this year, it’s how to properly process photos taken in RAW.

#8: The best thing one can have…

I’m a bit biased here as I know the photo subject and she is wearing my favourite sunglasses…but I still think this is one of my better photos. Taken in Custer State Park. In particular, I liked the lighting of this shot.

#9: For Good Measure

This one was also taken at the 9/11 ride that started at Gail’s Harley Davidson. The military landed an Apache helicopter there, which was what attracted me to it in the first place as I was driving by. This gun is attached to one of the most amazing cameras I have ever seen. The camera is helmet-mounted and responds to the gunners head movement. This gun follows suit. While I am anti-war, one can’t help but admire the engineering effort that went into such a system.

#10: Dead Hills

This moment was one of the more surreal and reflective moments of my trip to South Dakota. This was taken from the top of Mount Moriah. On one side, there’s these hills. Lifeless and barren trees – which I found quite interesting as a new sight I had never seen. On the other side directly behind the direction I took this picture is the famous town of Deadwood. The view from the top of Mount Moriah is nothing short of majestic.

A Touch of Beauty #1

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The premise of this featurette is quite simple: I combed through some of my recent “Likes” on Vimeo to round up a few of the more inspiring videos I’ve seen lately. For me personally, the types of videos I’m embedding below are the ones I enjoy the most – the Earth’s beauty on display in various forms. Not all of this is expressed in timelapse, but I think you will get the idea. These are in no particular order.

Timelapse Montage by Mike Flores

November Mist from Paramotor by David Perry

Sacred Lands – Eastern California – Mindrelic Timelapse by Mindrelic

Yellowstone National Park by Sylvain Dardenne

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The Blue Ocean in RED by Howard Hall

TimeScapes: Rapture by Tom Lowe

Jonsi: Concert Timelapse at the Wiltern Theatre by Henry Jun Wah Lee

IRIDIUM by Murray Fredericks

Landscapes: Volume One by Dustin Farrell

Hope you enjoyed this! I wouldn’t expect this featurette on the blog to happen more than a few times a year. However, that depends on how many awesome videos come out, so who knows.

Cheers!

Love The Earth

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For those in the dark, “Love The Earth” is a film collaboration between musical artist Imogen Heap and filmmaker Thomas Ermacora. The video below explains the project in Imogen’s own words.

I first heard of Imogen Heap in Zach Braff’s first film, Garden State. At that time she was recording as Frou Frou. She’s continued to make incredible music and continues this with her latest record, “Ellipse.” As she stated in the video, she’ll be performing at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow, November 5th. She’ll be conducting the orchestra live to accompany a nature film, “Love The Earth.” This project was “crowdsourced.” Thomas Ermacora and Imogen put out a call for footage. Submit footage of why you love the earth, and then the best footage will be edited into a half hour film. Imogen will provide the score for the film. The call for footage ran until September 26th.

The funny thing about this whole affair is my friend Joe Pollock and myself did not discover the project until the last day of submissions. Joe and I freelance together a lot so I told him about the project and suggested we submit footage. It was sort of on a lark. We’re still very “new” to the art of timelapse, but we still submitted our best timelapse clips we had on our hard drives. For me it was almost a joke, I had no time to prepare or shoot anything I thought worth submitting. Perhaps that is just the self-critic in me but that is how I felt.

As you may guess it was something of a shock to me when I got the e-mail from Patrick, the project coordinator, notifying me that my footage had been selected and the instructions on the next phase in the project. To my delight, Joe’s footage had been selected as well. Since we had been selected we were allowed to submit more footage. I had just got back from a trip to South Dakota’s Black Hills visiting a friend. While I was there I shot a lot, to say the least. So if you do see any footage resembling the Black Hills it’s probably mine. I am not sure what clips they chose, so I’ll probably update this blog when I watch the broadcast tomorrow.

For me it was an honor just to be selected. I thought, oh, I’ve been shortlisted but my footage will probably not make the final cut of the film. I got an email a few days ago letting me know my footage is in the final film and I’ll be credited. They are paying for my footage, too, so it’s not like they are using filmmakers. Many, including myself, tend to think of “crowdsourcing” as a dirty word. A fancy term for using the talented and not-so-talented. In this case, that is not true.

I’ve been a fan of Imogen and her music for a long time so making the final cut of the film is quite an honor. If you’d like to watch the live broadcast, it happens tomorrow, November 5th, at 7PM GMT. There is a 5 hour time difference so 7PM GMT is 2PM CST. I’ll be credited as “Thomas Baurain.” You can watch it on resounde.com. I highly recommend checking it out. Imogen will be conducting while the film plays behind her on a large projector. The other footage I’ve seen from the project is leaps and bounds better than mine. Many talented people have contributed to this film. I do hope you tune in for this global event.

Cheers!

UPDATE:
Just watched the final film, and to say it’s humbling to be included in “Love The Earth” is an understatement. It also gave me a sense of pride to see my buddy Joseph Pollock’s clips in there as well. We freelance together a lot, and have similar shooting styles. I loved so many clips in the film I can’t even list them all. Congratulations to the team that edited and made the film. There was definitely a story being told and a coherence throughout, not just a string of random nature clips in there. Watching it I actually recalled clips I should have submitted. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 as usual.

Imogen’s score was as breathtaking and beautiful as I thought it would be. I would love to see her compose more classical music. Love The Earth 2, perhaps? It would definitely be a good idea. I can’t even put into words how much I enjoyed her score. She’s always been one of my favorite artists but this definitely lets me appreciate her in a new and amazing way. I truly hope there’s going to be an archived broadcast for people to watch it again. I’ll post it if such a rebroadcast or archive does come online.

UPDATE 2:

Imogen tweeted this out just a short time ago: “There is a DVD in the making of @loveearthfilm with footage from the night, backstage, interviews etc + official soundtrack + film. xx” I am definitely thrilled not just because my own work will be on the DVD, but I am always a hound for behind the scenes type stuff. I’d also love to learn more about the making of the film from interviews and such. Yay!

Selling Digital Wares on VideoHive

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Envato is an Australian company I’ve been watching with interest for some time. I first heard of them back when PSDTUTS was the only website they had open. Now they are a large family of websites, some of which I’ve learned a great deal about design. They have a great marketplace for folk to sell their digital wares – VideoHive. Now, keep in mind this is coming from someone who’s never sold stock footage before, nor has any knowledge about what potential profit there is in it.

I recently made the decision to start selling stock footage on VideoHive for a few reasons. One, for me, was the aesthetically pleasing design. Envato websites are always laid out well and look good. The second was the commission rates. Their tiered system only rewards those who keep uploading and sell more clips. They also just don’t accept anyone with a camera and an internet connection – they review your submission and may reject it if it’s not up to their standards. Another HUGE selling point for me is that though they reward you for being an exclusive author, it’s not TOTAL exclusivity. You can upload and sell footage anywhere you want, just don’t try and sell the same clip on VideoHive. Very cool in my opinion, as it allows you to sell your footage elsewhere if you’d like.

That being said, I’m basically saying you can buy some of my timelapses on VideoHive. Some of you have already chosen to do so, and I thank you for that. Won’t you head on over and have a look?

Lift Your Eyes

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So, I’ve been pretty mum on blogging, and even doing daily photos. This little side project is the reason for that. I would entitle this “a vast learning experience” if I was trying to be more truthful than clever. The art of timelapse is something I have yet to master, but love learning more and more about. Newcomers to timelapse should definitely head over to the timescapes forum. You can check out my first timelapse video below.

Lift Your Eyes from Tom Baurain on Vimeo.

All of these locations were in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The only recognizable locations are the ones shot downtown. I didn’t set out with a certain “goal” or subject in mind- I just wanted to capture interesting scenery in timelapse form. When was the last time you sat out and just watched the sunset? Yeah, I’m with you there. A big part of my love of timelapse is it makes me feel productive while I’m watching a sunset, or just watching interesting clouds.

I’d say one of the biggest learning curves for me was just setting the right settings on Manual mode. A few of my first ones were complete throwaways. One huge eye-opener for me was how much of a difference using great glass really makes. Granted, I’ve heard and believed many much more experienced than me on this, but it’s not until you do it yourself that you truly have that “a-ha” moment.

I used a variety of lenses on this, including the infamous 18-55 kit lens, 24-105L, and Tokina 11-16. It’s painfully obvious to me which is which.

I rented the 24-105L and 11-16 from LensRentals.com, an online camera/lens rental service that I’ve been recommended on Twitter before. I had a commercial shoot this weekend I needed gear for, so I decided to try out LensRentals. I must say it was exactly as advertised. The gear arrived fast, and cost of rental was less than local camera rental shops here in Kansas City. I’m all for supporting local business, but if an online service gives me everything I’m looking to rent, plus great customer service, then I’m not going to support mediocrity and higher prices. If you read this and you’re a local camera rental shop in Kansas City, please, don’t be offended – you’re just not advertising in the right places because I haven’t found you.

That being said, I hope you enjoyed the video. Please comment even if you did not- if you’re seeing a newbie error or have good constructive criticism, chime in! Cheers.