Francheska's Cowgirl B-Day

For Francheska's 8th birthday, she had a cowgirl themed party at the house. Themed parties are awesome. I haven't been to many when I was younger but it's a great way to have fun and play dress up.

The kids had a ton of activities like a scavenger hunt, potato sack races, and a pin the moustache on Cheska game going on and of course with lots of prizes.

It was a bit windy that day as it has been almost all week but that didn't stop anyone from enjoying the sun and hanging out.

Here's a few pix and videos from the party.  

I should have shot more stills with the 20mm. Very fun and capable lens.

Seems like because of song choice, the vid may not be playable on a mobile device but works on a desktop/laptop. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuPbdMpanOk
https://vimeo.com/64179646

Side Notes:

Lighting was inconsistent which made it difficult to set my exposure each time before recording. Especially difficult since the GF2 doesn't have manual ISO in video which also accounts for slight flicker in some shots. Used a fixed ND filter outdoors with the SLR Magic 35mm 1.4 in order to keep aperture wide in bright conditions. A variable ND filter would have suited much better in this situations.

Focusing was a lot easier this time around with the SLR Magic since I've been using it for a while now. Even the slight focus hunting I do is smooth and natural looking. My hand held pan shots are smoother now as well. No jarring movements. all shots were hand held 

I was going to use my Zoom H1 for sound but it would have been tedious to sync audio manually. I'm thinking of getting PluralEyes to make it less daunting and so I'd be more apt to use the external recorder. Nonetheless, the in cam stereo mic was solid. 

I had a few stuttering cuts in the vid but not sure exactly why. Possibly due to too many effects in a clip or maybe the video format I used to edit. We'll see. 

I didn't really need titling for this video but for future reference, I gotta play around with creating cooler titles. 

I didn't adjust color. All I did was use RGB curves to make highlights brighter n low lights darker a bit. Also I'll try to get my hands on Magic Bullet Looks or Colorista so I'd be more inclined to color correct/grade.

2 things on my wishlist is a good 12mm and a 2nd body so I can permanently affix my 20mm onto my GF2 and another lens like the SLR Magic onto a GH3 or possibly a GX2 whenever that will be out. This will allow for quicker and more efficient shooting.

All in all, fun video to edit. 

Color Grading Practice

Even though I've taken a couple video editing courses, we didn't spend too much time on color correction and color grading. What time like the present to learn how to do it on my own. 

On YouTube I'm subscribe to http://www.youtube.com/user/OliviaTechVideos. One of her videos asks her viewers to color grade a video clip so I decided to try it out. 

I watched a couple YouTube tutorials on color correcting using RGB curves and started playing with color on Premiere CS6. I've never used it till today and it's awesome. I've edited in the past with PowerDirector(limited at color correction) at home and FCP 7 and 10 in school. 

My grading turned out how I like it, with the blacks super crushed. 

After getting more familiar with the Premiere interface, I gotta work on my cousin's GoPro clips that he took while he was on vacation!

Another New Year

I was thinking of going out out for New Year's Eve but I've been feeling a bit under the weather for the past few days but was able to hang out at my friend's parents place. Took some pics of Evelyn. She's really adorable. She had enough energy to stay past midnight!

I really like this shot even though I slightly missed focus

Few Night Shots in SF

I'm not much of a landscape shooter but yesterday I had a chance to shoot in the city for a bit. It was fun but very cold. We hit up only a few locations since it was getting late. Now I can't wait to check out a more spots in the city.

I used my Panasonic GF2 with the panny 20mm as usual. Very versatile lens. 

The last shot was with a friend's NEX 3. 

Christmas 2012

This year we spent Christmas at my aunt and uncles place. It's always good being with everyone. Here are the pix!

Evelyn's 1st B-Day

Here are pix from Evelyn's Bday. Photos are from the Sony NEX 3 with the 18-55 kit lens.

That's A Wrap! 3rd Times The Charm

3rd Times The Charm is the name of a short film I made for a film/video production class. It was an intense semester long class but very rewarding. Over the weekend we premiered everyone's films in front of our class, the acting class, anyone we wanted to invite and some judges from different parts of the industry that our instructor has worked with.

The night before the premiere I was editing it like a mad man and I'm really glad that I was satisfied with the final product, even with all it's flaws. I'll discuss those flaws at length another time but for a first film, it surpassed my expectations. 

My film received the audience choice for favorite film and also won an award called "Pitch Potential Project" which basically means that out of all the films, my film was chosen for it's potential to be something that can be made into a feature film. It doesn't necessarily mean it had the best cinematography or best art design or best whatever but something about that film is worth expanding on. 

I'll create a follow up post in the future talking about my experiences from beginning to end about creating the short film. Also in that post I'll criticize it to hell lol, mainly for my reference so I won't make the same mistakes twice!

As of now, the class is almost already filled for next term and I'm still deciding if I can go through it again. I gotta decide quick, we'll see!

Alas the film!