Archives for category: Video Tips

Behind the Scenes

April 30, 2012

In between rendering and exporting footage, it’s a good idea to get some inspiration. So I decided to spend a few quick minutes watching these behind the scenes videos below. Can you imagine filming any of the Planet Earth episodes? The camera crews spent weeks to months trying to capture those perfectly authentic moments. One crew spent over a month deep in the darkness of caves crawling through bug villages. Another crew went face to face with a Polar Bear! Watch more of Planet Earth’s Behind the Scenes videos. Then there’s some lovely backstage comedy from SNL, video number two below. I’m trying to laugh more every day …a lot more! Lastly I found some behind the scenes footage from The Royal Tenenbaums, one of my favorite films. How dreamy would that be, to make a Making of a Wes Anderson film!?!? We can learn a lot from what others do.

The Making of Forests.

SNL Backstage

The Royal Tenenbaums

Tags documentary, What I learned

Categories Just For Fun, Random Inspirations, Video Tips

Notes on Stacy Peralta

March 27, 2012

Yesterday I went to Auraria Campus  in Denver & listened to Stacy Paralta speak about his films and his process. Peralta has made several documentary films such as Dogtown & Z-boys & Riding Giants. Here are some notes I took on what he said that stood out in my mind. Some of the things Peralta spoke about I can really relate to and were super helpful, hope they are also beneficial for you.

It’s alllllll about the story and try to make it universal.
Stacy Peralta has been asked a few times “what is your secret to success”? He says he has learned how to fail. There’s many paths to success, find your own personal path and figure it out. It’s not easy.
He really doesn’t make much money from his documentary films, he also works as a commercial director. (Thought this was interesting coming from such a well-known talented documentary filmmaker)
Peralta uses somewhere between 1,000 to 2,000 photos per film.
Peralta is interviewed about 600x’s per film.
He makes films about what he wants to see, it’s just so much work and so intense to make a film about something you aren’t interested in.
For Lords of Dogtown, there were a few people Stacy Peralta wanted to interview but couldn’t find them. On his way to work on his film noticed a detective’s office. So he hired a detective to find some of his interviewees.
A great tip when interviewing, start a conversation, don’t lose eye contact, have your camera person tap you on the back when rolling rather than saying action.
Sometimes the first thing he does is pick his soundtrack to get a feel for the film (I do that too!)
Creativity is tender, be sensitive & positive. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed with over 30 hours of footage to attack. It’s ok if you’re shy. All you need are your ideas and the ability to execute them.
Peralta paddles when he feels stressed or overwhelmed. What do you do?
If you’re looking to save money on a film, make sure to spend money on good DP’s, editors and food!
Be who you want to work with… let people rise to their best.
Stacy Peralta also mentioned this book as a recommendation, The Genius in all of us.

Dogtown & Z Boys Trailer

Tags documentary, What I learned

Categories Video Tips

Crested Butte Videos

June 27, 2011

Like every couple expecting a baby should do and deserves one last mini adventure before their lives change forever.. take a trip. Brian and I chose Crested Butte and stayed in some adorable cabins outside town.

I experimented a bit using an app on my iPhone, Super 8 inspired by the movie, to make a short montage of our trip as you will see in [video 01]. The quality isn’t great but perhaps you’ll be able to get an update of the app soon. We also shot with my nice camera, a Panasonic HPX, and created another short video for fun [video 02]. Compare the two and let me know what you think. For these family videos, I prefer to shoot in higher quality and if we want to add an 8mm effect after go for it. I’ve also used the Bad Film effect in Final Cut and adjusted the settings. The nice thing about shooting HD footage with something like your iPhone is you really can bring a small recording device anywhere and have your random adventures documented. Sometimes that’s the most important thing.

Crested Butte Adventure [video 01]

Crested Butte Adventure [video 02]

Tags Colorado

Categories Family & Friends, Just For Fun, Travel, Video Tips

The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing

May 20, 2011

Let’s go back to the summer of 2004. This brings us to Los Angeles, California in USC’s Cinema production division. I decided to take a summer documentary course taught by Wendy Apple. It was a lot of fun, meeting students from all over the world, and I ended up with this video on a 6’7″ German surfer, The Alchemy Hour. It was definitely a video I created many years ago as its hopefully obvious.

I remember our professor mentioning how she was directing a documentary on editing. I’ve always had an interest in editing, ever since the beginning. From in-camera editing when I was probably 10 years old to being able to edit in high school in our TV production class, taught by the wonderful Mr. Profeta, a.k.a. Pro. I love editing. It’s magic, that simple. Why? Just by the choices you make when cutting, where you place various shots & audio, for how long… you have the control to create completely different worlds. I wish I could edit life!

Wendy Apple’s documentary on editing always stuck in the back of my mind, curious how I could watch it. Thanks to another student in the class, I recently found it! The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing can be bought or rented! It’s rather intriguing and enjoyable to hear directors, actors, and other successful people in the film industry talking about editing.

Believe it or not, in the early days editors were mostly women as cutting film could be compared to sewing. Today, as I’ve read here, only 18% of movie editors are women. I believe we were the last class at USC to be able to edit our 16mm black & white shorts using a flatbed. Quite the experience! It helps put things in perspective. Thank goodness for non-linear editing. I hope you can check out this documentary, I definitely recommend it.

Tags California, documentary, USC

Categories Random Inspirations, Video Tips

Milk Run

January 16, 2011

Over five years ago Brian and I moved from Los Angeles to Denver. It was a huge move and we decided to turn the move into an gigantic road trip which we documented and called Milk Run. Once we officially moved, our road trip started in Denver and ended a month later traveling through 9 states and Canada. We camped the majority of the time and saw gorgeous places such as Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Yosemite. I thought it would be clever to stop at every state sign along the way wearing our American Apparel outfits and dance. It seemed obvious of course. The trip was a blast and I can’t believe how much time has passed since then. It’s time for another road trip…

I was just reminded of this music video I made years ago featuring our bad dance moves when my brother recently posted it on reddit.com. Thanks to Douglas my videos get more plays because he posts them to reddit, which is user-generated news links where votes promote stories to the front page. Another site like this is Digg. So take that as a marketing tip from my brother: a free way to try and get more views, post & share your work. Just be prepared for positive and negative comments. The public will always decide if it’s interesting.

Milk Run Music Video

Categories Family & Friends, Just For Fun, Random Inspirations, Travel, Video Tips

Music & Tools

January 14, 2011

Two exciting sites that may help you in your productions…

Music:
A huge thanks to Jen Myronuk for introducing to me, Free Music Archive (FMA) an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. The Free Music Archive is directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. So if you’re looking to get your music out there or to find music for your video projects, check out FMA. FMA artists give their permission through licenses. Each song has different copyright rules so make sure to see what license the artist allows and of course always give credit.

Doing a lot with a little:
Last night I attended my first Filmmaking incubator session at Boulder Digital Arts and two of the guys from DV Rebellion were there. This is where I learned about their website, an incredible resource on how to accomplish your vision with video regardless of your budget. I’m excited to see more of your posts!

Here is a video DV Rebellion made on building a 10-foot jib

Categories Music, Video Tips

YouTube!

January 12, 2011

I’ve finally made the jump and am uploading some of my videos to YouTube as well as Vimeo. So you can find my work in those two places or here on my website. Hope something in there makes you smile.

Here are a few videos I’ve uploaded there.

Categories My Projects, Video Tips

Moo

November 12, 2010

Caitlin Shey introduced me to Moo.com this summer. We printed mini cards for TechStars “The Founders” web series. I recently printed mini business cards for myself using different color headsets (below). Moo allows you to upload several images or you can use Moo designs. You can also make postcards, sticker books, greeting cards, & more. For the next 72 hours Moo is offering 30% off printed products! I love Moo & think you will too. Check out more on Moo Printfinity.

Logo designed by Anthony Dimitre

Tags Design

Categories Random Inspirations, Video Tips

Happy Birthday Schmexa!

October 26, 2010

This is my sister, Alexa, on the right. I’m the one on the left. Today is Alexa’s 12th birthday so Happy happy happy Birthday! I love these two photos because it shows us both swinging around the same age but in different generations. It doesn’t matter that we are 17 years apart, I’m the luckiest sister in the world! One thing that remains the same in these photos, besides the swings, is that both photographs were taken with film, not digital. Doesn’t seem like much but I like it.

Over the many years of filming anything I can, I’ve acquired some pretty priceless footage. My recommendation is to take some time each month and film/photograph something, anything, don’t worry if you don’t think it’s important enough. You will most likely appreciate having it years later. A huge thank you to my family for letting me film. I know it can be annoying.

This video is for Alexa
Love Megan, Brian, & Owen

Happy Birthday Alexa! This video contains footage from 2005-2008

Categories Family & Friends, Video Tips

French Dance Footage

October 22, 2010

Face A Face

This past July Brian and I found ourselves in Avignon, France. We were invited to film our friends’ wedding in Annecy and traveled a bit after to Cannes, Avignon, & Geneva. In Avignon every July, we discovered that there is a massive theatre festival, Festival d’Avignon. There were hundreds of people wondering around Avignon performing and promoting their groups for the evening shows. We spotted a French dance group, Face A Face, from our hotel window and so I filmed some of their dance moves.

I’m starting to make more of an effort to archive any footage I shoot, meaning I do something with even the small random stuff I capture. This video is a good example of “archiving”. It took me a hour to put it together and now I have a fun video from our week in France. Please note that this does not replace the process of really archiving your footage by backing it up. The ironic part of this video is while we were exploring Avignon & filming wild French theatre enthusiasts, our plane was leaving Switzerland back for the U.S. We missed our flight, thinking it departed on a different day! Five days later and a good chunk of money we finally got home with a story to tell.

Please share any random travel videos and stories you have!

Tags France

Categories Travel, Video Tips