Help.. Police.. Murder...

• 14Sep 08

  Acquiring Additional Audio Augmentations

  I managed to get my hands on the first upgrade for Rachel, my new camera.

  

  Placed atop a small tripod in the hot shoe of my HV30 is a Rode VideoMic.
  
  I'm taking a Sound and Post cIass in school and it prompted me to gather some new equipment for a couple reasons. First, I don't like renting from the school and dealing with the extremely harsh check-out conditions. And, secondly, because I want to use this bad boy on my own stuff whenever I want to!
  
  I ordered a .45x wide angle today as well. The first thing I got for my old camera was a wide angle lens, so I figured I had to do as much for this one at least too. Next on the upgrade schedule is most likely a new tripod. The one I'm using now is actually meant for still photography and I need a good video tripod with a fluid head for smooth panning and tilting action. After that (hopefully around the holiday season) I'll try and take the plunge and get a 35mm adapter so I can get some shallow depth of field happening, as well as some radical manual focus. Then I'll probably have to get a rails system to mount it on as well as a new monitor for better focusing and perhaps a follow focus to further improve that. It's going to be an ongoing process, that's for sure.
  
  Also got the new Typography project coming up. I have a little less than three weeks to work on it, so I need to get going. I ripped the audio I'm thinking of using this weekend from the film, O Brother, Where Art Thou -- although, I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with this or not. It needs to be at least a minute and I'm sitting at 1:20 with this one.

  As far as vidya games. I've been playing Lost Odyssey a bit, as well as some Rock Band 2, which Bort_Hammer and I managed to get a few days early. Everything else has been kept pretty light in favor of school and watching movies.

  Update:
  Here's a quick rundown of what the camera is capable of. Hopefully this will improve the more I fiddle with things -- I'm still merely an amateur at this stuff.
  
  
  This is a screen cap from the video at different stages of post production. The first image is just the raw footage. As you can see it's extremely dark because I locked the aperture on the camera and didn't allow the camera to add gain to compensate for the low light. The result is underexposed but clean from noise, and it is fixable in Premiere by messing with some white input levels, as seen in the second image (which is from my initial test upload). Lastly I wasn't quite satisfied so I took the footage into After Effects and added some Film Magic Pro color grading which I messed around with to fit this clip. Typically the presets tend to have too much contrast for the stuff I've shot so far but I'm still working on it.
  
  For a first test, I'm pretty pleased. It took a lot of work to even get this up and running. I'm just glad it's so much fun!
  
  Now to finish these Backyard battles in Lost Odyssey! Just finished the Light cIass ones but I'm a little nervous about the Medium and Heavy cIasses...

  • Posted Sep 14, 2008 10:29 am PT
  • Category: Technology
  • 8 Comments
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• 21Aug 08

  I Finally Found Her.

  She's a Canon HV30 and she's stolen my heart.
  
  I still have a lot of things to figure out with it. I'll probably browse through the manual at work tomorrow and do some test shooting this weekend. Unfortunately cIasses start Monday so I have no idea when I'll be able to put something together.
  
  I also need to find a suitable name for her. I forgot what I was going to call her initially.
  
  
  Boy that sure would be fun.. Maybe someday...
  
  I have a loose plan to spend even more money on accessories as well. She might look and transform into something even more radical come the end of the year, if things go smoothly.
  
  Stoked beyond belief, I am.

  • Posted Aug 21, 2008 9:25 pm PT
  • Category: Relationships
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• 15Jul 08

  Late to the Party (Again)

  Once again I'm "late to the party". Story of my life folks! I imagine I'll be making that blog title again when the inevitable PS3 purchase arrives.

  I finally decided to take the jump into the HD realm and purchased a 32" Vizio LCD HDTV about a week and a half ago.
  

  

  To house this new piece of hardware I had to get a new piece of furniture. Which was fine with me, seeing how bulky the old entertainment center was--I much prefer the subtley of the current setup.

  Notable mentions in the above picture include my mammoth center channel from a couple seasons back. I was planning to work on building a stand to raise the TV up a bit the weekend I got it, but my father kindly and sneakily manufactured me a wooden platform while I was at work to ease the view a bit.

  Also the HD-DVD player that I got for $40 at Fry's. I've always wanted a LaserDisc player, so now I have the next-gen equivalent of one. Also, the movies are all -$10 here so I might stock up on a few. Right now I really only have a few Kubrick films and some other essentials.

  Aaaand I don't have the PS2s hooked up right now because I'm not sure if I want them sitting on top of the unit. I haven't decided on that yet either.

  Since I stacked a lot of my games on top of my old setup, I had to get some new storage as well.

  

  I was able to fit most of the "current" stuff on these twins but am lacking PSP, GBA and movie storage still. Along with all the older stuff. I imagine that will have to come later down the line, but for now this works out nicely. I decided to go alphabetically. I've never organized anything really before, so it's nice to know where everything is.

  I went on hermit mode the other week to dial in the TV and think I've got all my settings worked out for the most part. I love it. Love love love. I am currently in the process of playing Lost Odyssey (which I also absolutely love) before I head back through my 360 collection to replay all of it.

  Now to bask in the soft glow of High Definition with my buddy Kaim and his pals...

  P.S. I actually dusted for the first time in about 14 years because I have everything so exposed now. I'm nervous that I won't be able to keep it up -- but I have to, this junk depends on me!

  • Posted Jul 15, 2008 9:17 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 28 Comments
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