Teaching Schedule

 

Two classes that I’m teaching in 2009 for Boulder Digital Arts:

Getting Started with Outdoor Filmmaking

http://www.boulderdigitalarts.com/training/details.asp?offering=195

Getting Started with RED Digital Cinema

http://www.boulderdigitalarts.com/training/details.asp?offering=218

Both subjects that I love! 

I taught the outdoor filmmaking class last year, once at the BDA facility and twice in the REI multimedia center. These classes are loaded with all that I have learned, not only from my own experiences, but also from the mother lode of wisdom that the Under Water, Over Land players have shared with me. If you’ve been thinking about making short films of your own — or even if you already have a strong background — I’ll give you plenty to think about. Since I’m a big gearhead, there will be plenty of new gear tips and tricks for everybody.

Boulder Adventure Film Festival – Outdoor Video Producer’s Workshop

This is our 2nd annual event, and we will have a RED underwater shooter on the panel this year…

The Boulder Adventure Film Festival (www.adventurefilm.org) presents….

Under Water and Over Land: An Outdoor Video Producer’s Workshop

The only community conversation of its kind — producers talking directly with producers!
Join some of our area’s most talented adventure and outdoors shooter, directors, and producers for the only conversation that puts all of us together in one room.

This year’s speaker panel will include Zachary Fink & Alyssa Fedele from Soul Fabric Films, who have been working on a documentary about outrigger canoeing in Hawaii, Ed Sauer from Watering Life Productions & Design LLC, who shoots underwater footage with a RED Digital cinema camera for major broadcasters, and Brendan Kiernan from Futuristic Films, who has produced projects on the Himalayas, El Salvador, and regional mountain town culture.

The panel has shot all over the world, in all kinds of fast and extreme environments, both underwater and over land. Each panelist will give a short presentation with clips from recent projects and then be available to talk with you about gear advice, developing your own productions, and marketing your masterpiece. This is an opportunity for you to ask local pros questions about how to hone your craft and take it to the next level.

The panel will be moderated by Meryem Ersoz from Red Pine Studios, who also runs the planet’s largest nature and outdoors video contest, and will be handing out information on other resources that you can use to improve your production skills.

There will also be a free gear raffle/giveaway after the presentation. This is your chance to score some new toys.

Date: Thursday, Nov. 6
Time: 6-8 pm
Location: The B-Side Lounge theater (the b.side lounge | restaurant and music venue in boulder colorado | 2017 13th street | boulder, co 80302)
Cost: You can buy a festival pass, or $20 at the door

The Boulder Peak Triathlon on TV – Watch it August 26

We just put the finishing touches on our first national television broadcast, the Boulder Peak Triathlon, which we shot on July 20th. Air date is August 26 on Versus, 4-5 pm.

Here is the complete listing (note that it re-plays on September 5, if the August date doesn’t work for you): 

http://www.versus.com/nw/article/view/72558/?UserDef=true&catID=76

The same folks who bring you the Tour de France and the NHL games are broadcasting our show. That’s Channel 73 in Boulder. Shooting, editing, and delivering an eight-camera production (while making it look like twice as many cameras…) in three weeks’ time is no small feat! Not to even mention all of the pre-production and pre-roll that goes into telling the story of a triathlon and its athletes. We had our cameras out on 18 different shoots before July 20 even rolled around….

The mastering for a national broadcast is a ton of work. Four separate Digibeta tapes, with 3 different sets of specs, run sheets, cue sheets, closed captioning, scripts. The mastering alone is a week’s worth of work and cost around $1400 just for materials and transfers. These shows are not cheap to produce. Now I really have my arms around what it costs to make a good broadcast happen and hope that I can turn this opportunity into even greater opportunities for our studio and for the planet. I have a few amazing ideas, and if anyone is reading this and wants to be part of a truly special and inspiring project, shoot me an email at Meryem@redpinestudios.com

My thanks to Barry and Jodee Siff at 5430 Sports for giving us this opportunity to break on through to the other side of our craft. These are exciting times.

Info That Should Be Readily Accessible About RED (But Isn’t…)

I have started a list of many of the things that I think users should know — this is information that’s obvious once you know it, but since the camera does not come with a manual, you can spend hours figuring it out. Or possibly never figure it out at all. It’s a little bit like mining for gold. So I thought that I would start collating these, to centralize the information. I’ll add to these as I learn new things:

Important info that should be easily accessible but isn’t -

1) The location of Redcine tutorials are pretty well buried on Red’s support page, here’s the quick link – (http://www.red.com/support/release_history/6)

2) In your Quicktime Player preferences, you must check “Use high quality video settings when available” or else your video playback using the proxies will be soft and will freak you out

3) Shooting the maximum overcrank options will drop frames – for instance, shooting 2K at 113 fps (the max you can shoot using CF cards) resulted in the inconsistent dropping of frames and some glitchiness – switch to, say, 107 fps, and this will cease

4) It is very difficult to get information on the delivery status of the 50-150mm lens, even though the RED store quotes it as available and shipping

5) 4K 16:9 proxy playback is not enabled…this should change in Build 16, also 16:9 is generally glitchy and crashes RedCine – so you’re really better off shooting in 2:1 and cropping because the files handle more smoothly

6) Audio needs to be extracted either from FCP or compressor directly from the proxies – there’s no way to pull audio from R3D files (the RAW files) in RedCine or RedAlert

7) The most up-to-date shipping and delivery info is available at Big Jon’s FAQ – see http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7464

This is a little bit of a mysterious placement for this info, but ok…it seems like something which should be prominently displayed at the red.com site, but it isn’t….

8 – RED’s replacement camera policy – they can and will turn camera repairs around in 24 hours, but if you are on a critical shoot, you should have a back-up available. In the early days, when they had 50 cameras in the field, the impression was given that replacement cameras were easily obtained, but with the numbers approaching 2,000 delivered cameras, RED has a different replacement camera policy which is not openly advertised – so you should know about it in advance and plan accordingly.

9) There’s been changes in the PL mounts – PL mounts are mounted with Torx Plus screws (switched over from Allan screws, which are more easily stripped) which require an IP10 or TP10 screwdriver. Screws for the PL mount are Torx Plus M3 x 18mm. You will need this information if you are swapping PL mounts for other mounts. Instructional video for swapping PL to Nikon mount is on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhmolBMtDzg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRicc…eature=related

10) Hanns-G makes a 17” 720p monitor which allows you to see the same data that is available on the RED LCD, in addition to the image itself – there are only a couple of monitors which support this feature — as a corollary, your cheapest solid LCD monitor stand to accompany the Hanns-G is manufactured by Delvcam, the only decent one that I found for under $100.

11) 48v phantom power is not yet enabled in-camera – it creates a hiss or squeal in the audio, this should be fixed in future builds, but for now you need an external 48v power source to power your mics.

12) To eject compact flash cards without having to run through the menu system, hold down undo button and exit button at the same time – this will save you crucial time between swapping cards

14) Periodically pushing the power-up button without the battery connected will help to release residual voltage which can interfere with the function of the camera

14) Don’t mix formats on cards

15) Don’t ever separate R3D and proxies from their original file folders – if you need to muck around with them, make copies and save the originals

16) All kinds of challenges have occurred by not seating batteries properly and carefully, both on the charger and on the camera’s battery-holding accessories – you have to push the battery down on the connectors first and listen for the click, and then give it a slight tug away from the connecting device and it will click again. Two clicks are better than one! Watch the lights on the battery charger to make sure that the are blinking properly – don’t think that just because you got the right clicks that the deal is done, you still may need to re-apply them to the charger if the indicator lights are not flashing properly.

17) The battery charger has a little pull-out foot on the bottom that allows it to stand upright on its own – I saw a well-known and respected camera owner being shown this pull-out foot at NAB, and it was the first he had heard of it – so if you think you’re the only one who is not “in the know” on all of these little tips n tricks — you’re not! Little light bulbs are popping on all over the place….

Hope this helps a few folks out…I’ll add to it as I go.

Script Writer’s Guidelines

We have had a very nice response to our video production checklist.

http://redpinestudios.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/video-production-checklist/

(or look at the “Recent Entries” box on your right and click on the “Video Production Checklist” link….

So I thought that I would post these guidelines for script writers who have never written a script. We put this together to help one of our corporate clients, who is attempting to do their own scripting. We figured these guidelines could help them to jump-start the process. It can be challenging to get your thoughts organized.

These guidelines can be freely used and distributed, but please don’t forget proper credit and attribution (listed at the bottom of the page).

——————————————————-

Some Script-Writing Guidelines

Before you Begin:

Questions to consider before you begin writing your script

Describe your target audience(s). If you have more than one, list them in the order of highest priority to your company.

List the top 3-5 points that you need your video to make. Try to narrow this down to no more than five.

What is your audience’s current perception of your company?

How is this different from the perceptions that you want them to have after viewing the video?

What feelings, emotions, and sensations do you want to leave your audience with after the video is over?

What action would you like them to take after they have viewed the video?

List the people who will appear in the program.

List the people who will be involved in generating content for the program.

Who has the final script approval?

What is the deadline for completion of the video?

1. The “Hook”

You will want to start your project with a hook – something that will want to make them watch more. It can be visual or audio-based and it should happen with the first 30 seconds – 1 minute of your program.

Some suggestions for a hook: a visual montage of images of your company, someone saying something striking to illustrate a sample of what your company has achieved, an audio testimonial under images.

2. What thread is going to take you from the beginning to the end?

What is the narrative trajectory for your project and where are you embedding this?

Some suggestions: following the experiences of one person, the repetition of a visual motif, the repetition of an audio motif, the conventional story with a beginning, middle, climax, end

3. Structure

It may help you to break down the storyline into more manageable chapters – think of the DVD selection menu on movies that you watch at home and try to make one of these for your project. Organize it according to your 3-5 main ideas.

Do you want to tell one story with a beginning, middle, end?

Do you want to weave other stories into that main story? Where would these sub-stories appear?

Do you want your project to consist of various testimonials or sub-stories? If so, how will you tie these together? Will your story be linear or non-linear?

4. The “Ah-ha” Moment

Is there one? What does it look like? Where/when would it be appropriate for your video? An “ah-ha” moment is a moment that grabs your viewer’s attention. It is the moment that either pulls it all together, or transforms your viewer’s perception, or just a moment that grabs them and pulls them back into the narrative after you have given them a lot of information. It typically appeals to raw emotion. You can have one, more than one, or sprinkle them throughout the various chapters. In the conventional sense, it is a climax or mini-climax.

5. End

Ways to think about ending your video:

Consider what action you want your audience to take.

Add something new, or a promise of a future development or service.

End with your one of your best testimonials.

End with a major achievement.

End with a visual montage/music.

© 2008 Red Pine Studios – may be freely distributed with attribution

Lots Going On…

RED camera testing and preparation has not left much time for blogging. We are winding down our testing phase. What am I saying, winding down?? DJ has just left for France, where she is spending the next two months shooting an indie feature film with our camera gear. The director is a French landscape photographer whose film is inspired by Jacques-Henri Lartigue – esque aethestics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Henri_Lartigue

Lartigue completely inspired my dissertation back in the doctorate days, so I am completely jealous, from an artistic standpoint. But someone has to stay home and keep the studio fires burning. C’est moi….

In other news, you can see results of our testing and playing with the RED camera and also my trip to NAB to check out the array of RED accessories. We have been chatting with other video producers at various video info sites about some of the results.

Warning: this is only for gearheads who can appreciate and enjoy a lot of techie camera analysis. That’s why I didn’t post any of it here, to prevent boring our client base who may be reading this, to death.

Chris Hurd from DVinfo gave me a press pass to NAB, so that I could investigate RED accessories, and I posted a bunch of footage from the RED booth and of RED accessories…

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=119334

We had a test day with another RED owner and Jim Arthurs, our cinema expert, who does VFX work for Hollywood films. He wanted to test his own recent purchase, an EX-1, against the RED, and here is a thread that he started with some of the results:

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=133445

And lastly, a link to my DVinfo tech-head blog:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=117586

So we haven’t abandoned blogging these past few weeks, we have just been blogging our fool brains out all over the web. Bringing it all home now….

Livin’ the 4K Digital Cinema Dream – RED is here!

We just started testing the new RED camera.

It is a work of art and a work of genius.

A new era in imaging is dawning. We’re thrilled to be part of it.

(If you click on these thumbnails, they’ll grow into big pictures!)

Adventures in Ventures

Busy, busy, busy.

Our new RED cameras are winging their way to our studios. I can’t wait to dig into the new cameras and make some pretty pictures! It is pretty exciting to be working with one of the most revolutionary imaging machines in the history of motion pictures. We are one of only two studios in Boulder to have these cameras available–also pretty exciting. More gear! Feed the addiction!

We are building a new audio room in our studio for voice-over work. We have a lot of VO work coming up for the projects that we have on tap for this year, so it was time to dedicate a space. It should be quite nice when it’s completed.

Next stop, a 2K video screening room! (Hey, I can dream, can’t I?)

REI and Boulder Digital Arts have invited me to teach some classes on “Getting Started With Outdoor Filmmaking.” You can register at www.boulderdigitalarts.com – these classes will culminate in a short film festival of the producers’ work, which should be a lot of fun to attend. I love to see people getting started doing this sort of work. I love the way that it transforms the way they see their world.

The UWOL Challenge kicked off its first video challenge with the theme ADVENTURE…for me, that meant taking my camera for an experimental glider ride. I received a gift certificate for a glider ride for Christmas, so this seemed like a fun way to acquire some aerial footage of Boulder. You can view the films at www.uwolchallenge.com

And yesterday, I participated in a most interesting event locally, called Techstars-for-a-Day. The Techstars program is an incubator or accelerator or boot camp, which allows participants to build new tech-based businesses over the course of one summer, while providing the team mentorship with a group of 50 venture capitalists, with an eye towards pitching VCs on the project at the end of the summer. It sounds intense and transformative.

I submitted an application for the UWOL Challenge to the program. I figured that it might help me find a way to monetize the Challenge, since I currently fund it out of pocket and have not had time to find good sponsorship. Although that may be about to change, stay tuned.

But the Techstars program requires that the founders (me, Mat, and Kevin) basically quit our jobs and live here in Boulder together for the 3-month intensive program. How weird would that be?? We’ve never even met face to face! We’ve built this international phenomenon completely through e-mail and now Skype. Speaking of Skype, wow, that technology has certainly improved. It’s crystal clear. I remember using it in its initial release and having to yell at my computer, to be heard. We live in most interesting times. Mat and I still can’t bring ourselves to activate the video feature though, even though we are video producers–it’s too much to integrate at once. Too freaky to move from the imaginary to the real.

To return to the Techstars experience, I admit that I find the idea of running UWOL through the VC mill oddly appealing and, dare I say it, a little seductive. I like intense challenges. I enjoy transformative experiences. I could feel my competitive spirit rising to meet the idea of re-structuring UWOL from a fun little game into a global media empire! Woo-hoo.

My big fear is that UWOL would not look like UWOL on the other side of the experience. My big fear is that our one-big-happy global family vibe would suffer. Maybe not. But that is my fear. Right now, UWOL is built on a foundation of love and inspiration–I would hate to muck around with that model and re-tool the foundation towards the pursuit of cha-ching bling bling…money and ego. I don’t know if that would be the inevitable outcome. But that’s where the anxiety lands.

Still and all, it was a most interesting day. I would recommend to any aspiring business builder that they attend the event next year. It was a little portal into a whole new realm of how to go about building a business through the convergence of putting the right product in front of the right set of eyeballs, mostly seemed to happen through a happy convergence of convergence of the right circumstances and hard work and the right mentorship. Coincidence seems to play its part, for sure….

The most interesting moment of the day:

I met a guy, a VC, named Ryan who was actually one of the founders of Excite, an internet search engine company back in the 90s. Those were some amazingly bubblicious days, when Yahoo would jump 50 points a day, and AOL was red-hot. That was back in the strange days when I was financing graduate school by day-trading AOL and Cisco stock. Eventually, Excite was merged with the @Home broadband company (purchased by AT & T and eventually landed as Comcast, in its current incarnation). Excite squandered its opportunity in the public markets by purchasing an online greeting card company for cash and stock and eventually became an excellent short-selling opportunity. It was picked over by a vulture fund with some shady dealings–they re-financed the company using convertible debt, knowing full well that it was in its death throes, which pumped up the stock price artifically, and then allowed them to make a killing by shorting its stock…and thus a class-action suit was borne, which is still, I believe being swept up today.

It was quite a trip down memory lane for me. I had a bit of a flashback adrenaline rush from recalling those days of trading my way through graduate school. Those were some heady trading days all right. Empires built and fell in a matter of months, and riding that bull was the experience of a lifetime. I will probably never see trading days like that again.

The whole Excite story is so archetypal of that era. It would make a great movie, come to think of it! And we will shortly have the Hollywood tools, here in Boulder, to do it.

RED cameras, anyone?

The Under Water, Over Land Challenge

Sometimes you find good ideas. And sometimes good ideas find you.

The Under Water, Over Land Challenge found me.

I had this vague glimmer of an idea that there was no online video contest (or offline, for that matter) specific to nature and outdoors shooters. So I threw up a thread on DVinfo.net, my favorite video info-site, which asked if anyone would be interested in participating in one…

That was one year ago.

The contest exploded.

The idea attracted an excellent team of volunteers, Mat and Kevin, who donate a ton time of time and energy to help me run the thing, as well as donating web hosting and their design skills. Players from all over the world have put up a breath-taking 144 films from every corner of the world: Canada, UK, Australia, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Taiwan, the Arctic Circle, South America, the US, and more! The regular players have developed strong ties and an excellent, supportive community.

Now I have new friends all over the world, people who love shooting the planet just as much as I do.

One of our players, who finished all six rounds last year, has fulfilled his dream of becoming a professional wildlife shooter. Films that grew out of UWOL have been in local film festivals. It’s great to see the players succeed.

The players are chomping at the bit to have a face-to-face meet-up. Our first will probably take place in Norway or maybe at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. That would be huge fun, to see those films with that group of people.

The best part of the whole thing for me, as a baked-in educator, is seeing how much everyone improves in craft while having so much fun doing it. The players inspire me, every round, with how much love they have for the planet and how they express this with their creativity.

Now I just have to see about getting those T-shirts printed! And find a few really excellent sponsors, I know they are out there!

To join the fun and check out the films, visit the UWOL website: www.uwolchallenge.com

We kick off a new season beginning January 24. Check the website for details, grab your camera, and get ready to start shooting stuff!

I have uploaded a still from one of my UWOL entries, which I shot last April in Bhutan, on a trip. It’s a picture of an animal called a takin which is native to Bhutan and parts of China. I was lucky enough to catch images of a baby takin. It is considered a magical animal in Bhutan. Everything in Bhutan is magical.

Video Production Checklist

In the age of Youtube, where video images are seemingly abundant, many people don’t realize what a complex craft video production is. Once they engage a new project, however, they soon grow to understand the many moving parts that they need to consider.

So I thought I should put together a checklist of things to think about, if you are considering a video production at all. I’m putting this together for our clients, but I think it can be useful for anyone even thinking about making a video. The more you can consider these issues before beginning, the more smoothly your project will advance.

Concept and Development:

Will your video be scripted, storyboarded, or spontaneous (event-driven)? Do you plan to script it yourself, or will you need technical and creative assistance from us, beyond the initial consultation?

Video Acquisition:

Does your project require need standard definition video, high definition video, or Digital Cinema? Do you prefer cinema-quality images?

Do you prefer a widescreen (16:9 rectangle) image or a standard-def (4:3 square) image format for your video? How will your viewers be viewing your video? New technology or backwards-compatible?

Will your viewers prefer a progressive image (film-like) or an interlaced (video-ish) look? Do you prefer a warmer or a cooler look?

Do you have a site in mind for your shoot? Will you need any additional off-site work (interviews, greenscreen, etc.) that might need to be shot in-studio?

How is the audio set-up in the location you have selected? Is it “live” and reverberant or relatively non-reverberant? Is there competing noise from other nearby rooms or events?

How is the lighting in your location? Are there lots of big windows? Where is the sun positioned relative to the time of day that you have scheduled your shoot? Is there video-unfriendly fluorescent lighting in the location (which can cause video flicker)?

Can we obtain the necessary location releases?

The Talent

This may seem obvious, but do you have talent for your video, or will you need help finding it? Do we have a signed release for every person who will appear in the video?

Have you advised the talent of best video practices? Clothing: Neutral solids and patterns are best. Avoid reds and stripes which send high-vibrational signals that can cause artifacts in your video.

Post-Production and Editing

Do you have a logo or animation or other existing material that you want to incorporate into your video?

What is your deadline for a rough cut?

Sound Design

Will you need voice-over work done in the studio? Do you have someone in mind to do VO, or will you need to include this additionally in your budget?

We own a library of pre-licensed music with hundreds of titles. Will you need any additional, custom audio?

Delivery

What is the primary form of delivery for your project? Will you need multiple edits for multiple systems of delivery?

Will your DVD authoring require multiple, complex menu systems or additional complex graphics?

Will you need multiple compression schemes for your final delivery? (Especially applies to web delivery).

If you are delivering to television, what kind of final master is required? Have you requested producer’s specs?

If you are delivering to DVD, will you need a DVD cover design? How do you plan to package your DVD?

Do you want to carry extra inventory of your DVD or not?

I’ve typed this out in a very linear fashion, from beginning to middle to end, but one thing to consider is that the delivery is probably the most important thing to consider first, and not the last thing to consider! For instance, if you are shooting for the web, then we will want to design your video with more close-up work because long shots don’t translate as well. Et cetera.

The more we know about the final delivery, the better we will be able to advise you and serve you throughout the entire process.