My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip...

So last weekend I spent an hour at The Dickens Festival in Medford, as organized by the Medford Historical Society.  All of Main Street was closed off for pedestrians.  Some people were dressed up as Dickensian characters and were caroling.  Other people were playing instruments.  Others were simply local vendors selling food and other merchandise.  The mayor spoke briefly, a Christmas tree was lit, and kids lined up to talk to a Santa.

Meanwhile, I was filming various things with my camera.  Truth be told, I wasn't really happy with what I shot.  Amidst the heavy crowds in cold weather, I was pretty shaky, and that's not indicative of what I'm truly capable of.  Also, my heart just wasn't into much that day overall; I was all on my lonesome amidst all of these happy families and young couples, and I foolishly parked farther away than I had to.  On the bright side, I bought some kettle corn.

So a full 5-10 minute video about the Festival is out of the question based on the footage, but I could probably squeeze out two or three quick videos that are less than a minute.  That's all based on when I get around to reviewing what I shot.  The holiday season is starting to pick up here - I still need to buy gifts - and my day job has been very busy lately.

Back to the field.

So I once again shot a high school football game, once again in Montvale for iBN Sports, once again at St. Joseph's Regional.  More or less the same kind of shoot I had back in September, only with a few changes.

- Different matchup obviously, with St. Joseph's murdering their competition from Wayne Hills.

- Also obviously, it was much colder.  The media booth has very little protection from the weather, especially since I need a large open window to shoot.

- I worked with a different broadcaster this time.  I didn't have to pick him up or anything, but he came later than expected and left even earlier.  When the St. Joseph's-Wayne Hills game winds up on iBNSports.com tomorrow, his work will speak for itself, especially if you take the time to listen to the broadcaster on the 9/19 St. Joseph's-St. Peter's game.

I do feel I did a better job shooting this game than the last game.  Things were relatively more comfortable, but I did have to work from a slightly different (and slightly more cramped) position, so coverage wasn't as good as last time.

Happy Halloween!

My video on the scarecrows of Medford, NJ - simply titled Halloween 2010: Scarecrows of Medford, NJ was wrapped up Friday night, and I linked to it through my Facebook and Twitter accounts.  Now I'll link to it HERE!  

The ten minutes of footage was trimmed down to five when all was said and done, and the video itself is immensely simple, transitioning from one scarecrow to the next.  I wasn't trying for any dynamic shots either.  The transition I used in editing is Cross Stretch, which to me gives the impression of the picture being on a rotating cube.  For music, I found covers of both "Monster Mash" and the theme to The Munsters.  I also had "Halloween" by The Misfits available, but that would have been inappropriate for the dominating goody-goody tone of the video.

I tried something new for the titles to this video.  I normally just add them in while I'm editing in Final Cut.  I noticed in the past, however, that when I uploaded a video to YouTube (and this one was going to be strictly YouTube), the titles would look a little grainy.  So instead I exported the movie from Final Cut into a Quicktime Movie, which I always do, only without any titles added to it.  I then imported it to iMovie, which I always do when I want to upload something to YouTube (one of the program's built-in sharing options, perfect for the casual filmmaker/Mac owner).  So I added titles using iMovie's functions, thinking they would come out sharper considering the strong cooperation between iMovie and YouTube.  In the end, I think they do look sharper, but the simplification of iMovie's tools are almost too simple for me.  Everything in Final Cut offers me a lot more control.  Granted, this is a 2008/2009 version of iMovie I have that was included on my computer when I bought it, so some functionality may have changed (I'm well aware of new overall features recently added to it.

So that's my video.  Hope you enjoy it HERE.  Have a fun Halloween.  Also, I wouldn't normally say such a thing, but check out tonight's episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  They're making a haunted house attraction in Oregon, and one of the guys that did the horror makeup on this episode is a 'net friend of mine.  He and his partner are very talented at what they do.

Nothing much to crow about.

I haven't written anything in quite a while because I haven't been shooting anything in quite a while.  Work and other things have occupied my time, plus the think tank for projects to dive right into has been pretty dry.

Fortunately, there's my hometown of Medford.  Every October, they allow people and local organizations to create and present scarecrows along historic Main Street.  A nice little companion to the annual Halloween parade the township holds every year.  I'm usually shooting some cheerleading events this time of year (since 2008), but I haven't been brought on to shoot any yet for this season.  A bit of a relief considering what those events consist of, so I used this free time to take my camera to the gentler environment of Medford.  I walked up and down Main Street for good while and captured maybe thirty seconds of footage of each scarecrow, amounting to a little over ten minutes.  I can whip up something out of this, set it to some music (perhaps the theme to The Munsters if I can find it), and throw it onto the Internets in time for Halloween. 

In addition to Halloween festivities, Medford also holds an event on Main Street around Christmas called The Dickens Festival, where the township takes advantage of this historical part of town and people wander up and down the street on a cold December evening.  Provided it doesn't become a haven for Tea Party folk, that would make for a nice little project as well.

5-10-23-Skiddoo

I had a pretty exciting weekend professionally.  After shooting cheerleading competitions for the past two years, I had the chance to shoot a different, more traditional sport: football!  A guy I worked with in the past named Ed, who is based out of Philadelphia and has his hands in a lot of things, contacted me to shoot a high school football game Saturday afternoon in Montvale, NJ (a two-hour drive for me) on two days notice.  I took him up on it since I'm up for anything, especially something new.  The shoot was for iBN Sports, a Los Angeles-based company that is doing more stuff on the East Coast now.  Instructions called for me to shoot in 16:9 in standard definition, which is no problem at all on my end.


During the shoot, I worked with a New York-based broadcaster.  I had to pick him up on the way to Montvale by stopping in East Orange, subsequently getting lost in that town going to and from the shoot, but that was the only real negative on an otherwise smooth day (plus I left home early enough to give us plenty of time for error).  Using an XLR adapter I have attached to my camera at all times, he plugged in his headset mic for one channel of sound, while the other channel was for my shotgun mic picking up the game and crowd.  I was told to bring a monitor when I was brought on to do the job, so I bought a 15" monitor that same day which I would be needing down the line anyway.  It helped me make sure the picture was accurate and wouldn't actually be too dark or too light on the tape, plus the broadcaster used it on occasion for reference  We were shooting from a media booth right above the crowd that housed a couple other broadcasting representatives, including the ESPN radio station out of New York and Verizon.  The sound came out good, the picture was good (the weather was on our side), and the football game itself, between St. Joseph's Regional and St. Peter's Prep, was actually quite fun. 


After wrapping up, dropping off my broadcasting partner at the train station and getting lost in East Orange again, I met up with Ed so he could get the tapes from me and edit them.  Sure enough, as of last night, the game I shot is available for streaming on iBNSports.com.  It's free to watch, but the site requires Microsoft Silverlight (a video format free to download and trying to rival Quicktime) to view everything.

All Quiet on the Impending Autumn Eastern Front.

Short entry this time around as I'm in the middle of some downtime since I started blogging.  The most video work I've done has been making copies of Release The 7"!.  I spread the word on the DVD on the Facebook pages of the involved bands, as well as on my new Twitter account (nice to be here in 2009).  That and the YouTube trailer helped a little, as some of the band members have requested the free copies they're entitled to.  Just started getting some feedback on it today - positive no less - and that makes me feel really good.  

I also started spreading the word the old fashioned way by finally getting a newspaper ad.  Despite what I previously thought, it is indeed possible to get in contact with these people.  My only gripe with the ad, albeit a small one, is that the graphic designer manipulated the picture I've been using.  It could have been worse, as originally he had a stock photo in its place.  Otherwise, I think it came out good.  It's currently running in a weekly paper that serves my general area, and I'll possibly get it going in a larger paper.  Hopefully this will lead to new projects.

Merch Alert!

"Stick a fork in it, it's done," doesn't seem very appropriate.  Wouldn't want the discs scratched...

Bad jokes aside, Release The 7"! is 100% complete, a mere two weeks after I shot it.  If I was able to live completely off my video work, it would have been done even sooner.  Nevertheless, I'd say it would be done by the end of the weekend and the weekend isn't even over, especially with Labor Day.  Two discs covering about two-and-a-half hours of live performances by East Of The Wall, Dead Planet, So Is The Tongue, Zevious, and proud hosts A Fucking Elephant (no sense censoring it now), who's first album - a 7" vinyl with a free mp3 download - is what this project is named for.

Their album was limited to three hundred copies, so I don't know the status of how many they would still have if you were to contact them through their site, but their music is readily available through there and their other portals, as well as my DVD of them and the four other bands... which can be purchased for $10 plus $2 shipping.  If you're interested, just use the Hotmail address in the top right corner (under FURTHER DETAILS) to send a Paypal payment, plus I can take any other inquiries through that address and the comments section below.  To whet your appetite, I whipped up a trailer last night that can be viewed HERE!

This is the cover of the DVD.  I pulled a shot of Liam Neeson delivering his line (you know the one) from the Clash of the Titans remake (via the trailer online) and printed it out.  Rather than risk any legal ramifications, I then did a tracing of it, scanned it in my family's computer (I don't have a printer/scanner of my own), and then added color and text via Paint (look at me go wild).

Links to the other bands' music and merchandise can be found in this earlier blog of mine.

As a quick aside, so I'm not just hustling for myself, check out Cinematic Ruminations.  It's another blog by one of my Internet friends who loves movies as much as I do, only he's taken it upon himself to write reviews on what is hoped to be a regular basis.  He's really into horror.  His first reviews are of The Last Exorcism and Big Fan (rent that one).

Update Due.

The editing on Release the 7"! is 85-90% done and should be completed by the end of this weekend.  The footage was all imported late last week (had some evening commitments last Monday through Wednesday), and as it stands, I only have one band's set to sift through and cut up.  As planned, one band's set leads into the other by way of black title cards.  I've decided to use the font Impact for all of the lettering, most of it done in red.  The red font on a black background brings to mind grindhouse movies from the 70s, and it fits well with most of the music.  I also added some other titles during performances: some to identify members of a band lending talent to another band's set (namely the F***ing Elephant crew making cameos in So Is The Tongue's set), and some for comedic effect (at least I think they're funny).  For transitions that will cut out a little bit of down time, I found a transition under the Quicktime menu called Matrix Wipe, which is divided into sub-options.  The Random Matrix Wipe in particular provides a neat, static-like effect, not as crazy as a television on the fritz, but unique all its own.  The one issue I started having, perhaps in relation to the amount of footage I'm working on combined with all of the extra stuff I'm adding, is that the project would begin dropping frames during playback.  My biggest annoyance throughout my time editing.  I just have to remember to keep the most important things open and to save the project frequently; a dropped frame alert means I'd have to then close it without saving it and reopen it as its former self.

When all is said and done, the first disc will have the first two bands and a written introduction, and it will run for an hour.  The second disc, likely running one hour and forty minutes, will have the last three bands and end credits.  Once everything is through and chapter markers have been placed, I'll export the two movie files into Quicktime files and burn them onto DVD-Rs.  My exporting method of choice, amongst the through good selections Final Cut Pro 5 offers me, is Apple Intermediate Codec, which allows the movie to fit into a 16:9 television screen.

Recharged.

My next project has been put into motion.  As I planned, I attended that band party this past Saturday.  Fun times were had.  Whole thing lasted until nearly 2 AM (and this was in Pennington, NJ, nearly an hour from home).  My cousin Lauren did a lot of work and provided some good food, including two platters of macaroni and cheese everyone was raving about.  The area these bands were playing in was a sweat box of a basement, and I was stuck down there losing a couple of pounds in liquid as I filmed the bands.  Regardless of comfort levels, the bands were a lot of fun and I was getting good vibes from filming.  I think the footage came out better than the first band party I shot and edited back in April; lighting was better, my aperture was wide open, and I got some good closeups to make for more dynamic footage than before.  The best part was that some patrons were taking notice; some band members thanked me for shooting them and asked about the project, and a pair of young women asked if I'll be selling DVDs.  It felt good to know other people were interested.

The first band party was set up so that each band's set could be viewed individually.  With this one, I plan to keep them all together in one movie file (north of two hours), with each set leading into the other through titles and transitions to tell a semblance of a story of the night.  It'll likely require two discs.  The first step, of course, is dumping the three tapes' worth of footage into my computer and taking it from there.  Considering the party was held in honor of my cousin's boyfriend's band releasing their first record - a split 7" vinyl with another band from Chicago, I'm tentatively titling this project Release the 7"!  Why yes, I had Liam Neeson as Zeus in my mind, why do you ask?  The bands included on the release will be:

A F***ing Elephant, the hosting band celebrating their first record

Zevious

So Is The Tongue
Dead Planet
East Of The Wall

'Cause it's my cousin.

I plan to go to another band party this week and film it again, but I'm debating on the format.  The last one was simply a mini-concert on video, simply the performances.  This one is a little more special in that one of the bands from the last time and this time - A F***ing Elephant - will finally release an album.  This two-piece band essentially hosts these parties as both members live there, plus one of them is my cousin's boyfriend who will be going off to Europe for two months after this and a couple other shows this weekend.  All of the performances will be taped, but I think I'll present them in a more narrative fashion, with smoother editing and titles.  I could try for some talking head footage as well, but then again, this is a somewhat informal party, not a wedding reception or anything.  People would likely rather socialize than have a camera in their face, plus I'd rather socialize myself. 

Also, I want to make mention of my cousin herself, Lauren Smith.  She's become quite the artist and will be showing off her work personally next weekend at the New York City studio she's been a resident at.  A lot of her work involves architecture and is worth checking out at the links below.  The eventual plan is to do a video project with her and other artists she associates with to promote their work, but the whens, wheres, and what-nots still need to be hammered out.

Lauren's own page

ARTcamp 2010

At the Feet of the Rabbit Hole.

Finding the right project can be pretty hard.  It's not just the responsibility of the subject to hold an audience's interest, but mine as well as to make it enticing.  Look at any number of documentaries.  Ninety minutes of an elderly gentleman talking about the war can get pretty boring.  If the interview is interspersed with photos of him during wartime, some well-timed music, and other footage (medals, family, home), you get the sense of a more fully realized story, and in turn a better movie.  I was given some advice back in June by a vastly more experienced editor that a project that can tell a story, and tell it in an entertaining fashion through editing, would draw people in and open the doors to new projects.  Simple enough, but now I needed to find the project in which to utilize this formula, and I've already been searching for months and months with little luck.  Then I just looked next door.  It was the kick in the butt I needed.

14-year-old Lauren Morrill and her family has lived next door to me all my life.  I had remembered hearing from my dad that she raised rabbits through the local 4H club.  What I didn't know until I started doing the project on her was that Lauren and her mother Colleen have essentially built a rabbit dynasty right in their back porch and back yard.  They raise and breed a few different breeds, have shown them off at shows in a third of the country, won numerous awards, and have even sold them to other people.  Their back porch is lined with dozens of floppy-eared beings of which I had no knowledge, and their living room is littered with rabbit show accolades.  There was a lot of great fodder here. 

So in the middle of July, I went next door with my camera for two afternoons.  One spent getting footage of the majority of their rabbits, the other for a sit-down interview Lauren, footage of her prizes and magazines she's been in, and more rabbit B-roll.  Over an hour of footage in all that, in the finished project, amounted to a little over ten minutes.

I decided to shoot it in 4:3 aspect ratio.  I always prefer widescreen, but because my version of Final Cut Pro is a little outdated, the exporting codec that would offer the widescreen format still lead to black bars on the top and bottom and stretches the picture just a little.  I wanted this footage to be in the best possible condition when exported into a Quicktime movie, plus I was playing around with some new editing tricks and didn't want them screwed up by the aspect ratio.  Such editing tricks included using new kinds of titles (the ones I've done in the past have been really basic) and cutting to still shots with some motion to them.  It all went really well and led to some nice montages within the project.  These tricks combined with the usual transitions and B-roll played over the main interview definitely spiced things up.

My one big self-criticism is the sound quality.  Lauren is very soft-spoken, so I used my camera's regular mic so I could pick up her voice in full two-channel audio.  Unfortunately, I did not take into account how loud the air conditioning would be picked up.  Live and learn, so I worked with the sound enough to make Lauren's voice much more audible.  The other option would have been to use my XLR shotgun mic, which would only pick up one channel of sound, and then fill the other channel with the background music.  The other drawback, related to the sound in general, was that I was interviewing Lauren on my own while the camera, positioned in front of her while she faced me at an angle, just ran on its own, so I wouldn't be able to check the sound while in the middle of talking to her.  Plus it just felt a little better to rely on the built-in mic as opposed to a battery-powered mic I need to keep an eye on.  Nevertheless, the sound is passible and Lauren is easy to understand in the finished project.  The music I used was a mix version of Train's "Hey Soul Sister," chosen because it was one of Lauren's favorite songs and had purely instrumental sections I could isolate and repeat in the track.

I'm very happy with the finished short and feel I can hang my hat on it.  It can lead to some good word-of-mouth as more people see it.  I've already received extremely positive feedback on it from Lauren and her family as well as my own.  The full project is available upon request - for a good price (to make up for used resources) - but for now I put the opening moments of it on YouTube.  Just a note that I imported the finished Quicktime movie into iMovie for the benefit of that program's easy YouTube sharing capability, but iMovie enhanced its 4:3 ratio to 16:9.  It still looks fine but isn't reflective of the finished project.  Check it out HERE and let me know what you think.

More information on Lauren and her rabbits can be found at her own web site.

The Water's Warm: An Introduction

Hello everybody kind enough to visit my site.  My name is Brian.  I was born, raised, and currently reside in southern New Jersey (around 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia, PA).  I've had a strong interest in film and television production and wanted to get involved.  I graduated from Rowan University in 2006 (which has a very good communication college), and - among other things after graduation - interned at the Philadelphia-based production company Backseat Conceptions in 2007.  It was around this time I decided that I would get the most opportunities by honing specific skills as opposed to trying to be a jack of all trades and toiling as a production assistant nobody wanted.  What better skill to hone than working with a camera?  So I received a professional grade camera as a gift, hooked up with fine gentleman - through my dad - responsible for his own production company, and I took to it quite quickly.  For the past two years, I've been shooting and sometimes editing what have largely been cheerleading events and dance recitals up and down from New Jersey to Virginia.  Now I'm looking to break out on my own.  

So now, I've joined the blogging ranks for the sake of publicly detailing my work and making contacts for the sake of creative and artistic collaborations.  The infinite quest for an unbelievable reel, artistic achievement, and the almighty dollar.  I won't be using this site to talk about this person or that show - that's what I have Facebook for - unless it ties into a project, be it related to subject or is inspiration for it.  I'm pretty much open to anything outside of the obscene and pornographic.  The types of projects I'm looking to do more of include:

Fictional Narratives:  It's hard enough to come up with an idea, but it gets even harder to put it to paper in detail and bring it to life in front of a camera.  This kind of thing is a group effort, and I'm always open to contributing to such a group, from the idea stage to the practicalities.

Non-Fictional Narratives: Documentaries on what a real person does, telling a story about a portion of his/her life.  A good example of this would be the project I recently finished.  I'll share details on it sooner than later, as it shows what I'm capable of, and myself and others are very happy with it.

Sports: Capturing a good athletic performance for posterity and/or a recruitment video.

Parties/Special Events: The two other personal projects I've completed fall under this category: my cousin's wedding in Ocean City, NJ last year (a thankfully simple affair), and a party showcasing independent bands at the residence of one of my other cousins.  The editing on these was very basic, with simple transitions from one moment to the other, but each capture the moods well and greatly pleased the subjects.  The wedding could have used flashier editing in spots had I found more footage, while the band party speaks for itself going from song to song. 

This leads to the fact that, while I'm very pleased with what I'm capable of now, I'm still in a few feet off the coast as I explore the vast open waters of video production.  My camera is a Sony DCR-VX2100, standard definition and capable of shooting in 4:3 and 16:9.  I edit on a MacBook Pro using Final Cut Pro.  Sure, my equipment could be better; my camera isn't HD and my Final Cut program is only at Version 5.  My equipment has still done very well by me, and it can always change in the future... just like anything in life.