Photos with couple: Canon T2i

Wedding Photos Shot with T2i

Here are som samples of a wedding I shot with the Canon T2i. Coming soon, I'll have a video demo up.

HDSLR and Reality web shows: Good or Bad for production ?

HD DSLRs has become a hit in the video production world and why wouldn't it. They are small, weight less cameras that have full HD quality and have cinematic depth of field. I find more media online that has been shot on these revolutionary cameras and its seem to be growing. Still there is no denying that there are a lot of limitations to the camera that might not work for all production. I even forget at times that I am not working with a traditional digital video camera but a photography camera with the bonus feature of HD video. Lets take reality shows for instance. Just last week I was part of a production that was using the Canon 7D camera and H4n Zoom sound recorder. The program was a sort of decretive designed show for the web. The host and producers came down from Los Angeles and had four day for the production. The crew was small, probably there were 5 of us in total with only two camera man and me as PA/sound man. I've worked sound department before as Boom operator and had previously worked with H4n Zoom.They used two 7D cameras to cover the action. It was run and gun at times and with some sit down interviews by the host and contest winner.
I have a lot to cover so I will start with obvious issue of sound. Although there are XLR adaptors for the DSLR you still have get around the automatic gain that is recording sound for the video. The H4n is a audio recorder with XLR input has an SD card format. Perfect portability to recored sound with as we had the talent mic with a lavalieres. At times it was hard to keep up with all the action when it came to sound. We did not slate or unitedly synced on recording at times because of the rush of get the shots and real moments. I sort of had to watch the camera men as they were doing their thing and recording when they were filming and stop when they weren't. I was able to monitor the levels on the H4n but with no mixer I couldn't bring the sound the down when it peaked or filtered out noises. One of the producers, who worked as both 2nd camera man and editor of the production, assured me sound would be alright as long as it was being recored.
Zooming in and out of different shots is common in a run and gun productions. Watch how some reality show are shot and you see what I mean. One of the things I've noticed with the DSLR cameras is the adjustment to light when going from a close up to a wide. Since these DSLR cameras work best with automatic white balance, I am guessing that is has something to do it. As an editor myself, I can see the pain it could cost in post when color correcting but I also know you can cut around it.
Another issue in filming was the camera has a limitation of recording time. 12 minutes is the maximum time to record before the camera cuts off and you have to record another clip. The constant use of the record mode tends to heat up the sensor as well, causing the camera to shut down in the middle of the take. When comes to these types of shoots, you got to be constantly rolling. Timecode is usually set up on the cameras so they can synced up in post production but the DSLRs dont have that option.
I like a light weight cameras, most major shows are shot with these heavy cams that can be a strain on a camera man. But when your shooting with DSLR you do not have a counter balance to the camera unless you had some rig. With out one you're basically just holding on to the lens and getting shaky shots. During one day production when we did a walk and talk down the Design District in downtown Miami, there were issues in getting a stable shot. We only had a mono pods and Manfrotto Fluid head tripod.
The digital card age has made uploading footage a breeze but there are more risk in losing footage if its not properly backed up. Tapes were a pain to processed but at least there were a solid source of where your media is kept. If your hard drive crashed and you need the footage back , you always have your tapes. With digital cards, if you lose it and didn't have a back up then you are screwed. This happen to our production when one producer lost an hour of a interview. We had to go back and film it again and lost time.
Are all these things worth the headaches. The final videos was going to be 8-10 minutes long and this production was intend for the web. Maybe it was just fine for web but it's still not intended for this reality kind of production. I think it's perfect for movies, music videos and commercials. Production with plenty of pre planing. Reality is a mix of planing and free styling, at least that is how I view it. I am glad to see these cameras are being used more and more and I hope the technology evolves.

Solution to Slow motion: Using Cinema Tools

I've talked about the difficulty of geting that cinematic slow motion with the DSLR cameras (I own the 550/T2i) when using Final Cut Pro. It seem that the solution would have been to get Twixtor and shell out a couple hundred bucks. For a poor filmmaker or video producer such as myself, spending more money is never a good solution to a problem but I have great news. A friend of mine told me it was possible to get that slow motion to my 60fps 720p footage by bring it in to Cinema Tools (part of the Final Cut Studio program). Now I personally hardly use Cinema Tools... Actually I've never really use it. Although I've come to learn a lot of what Final Cut Pro Studio has to offer, Cinema Tools is a complete stranger to me. But if this stranger can get me the look I want without me spending a dime, then I welcome that stranger with open arms. I searched online and found a tutorial on how to go about this, thanks to help of Creative Cow. I couldn't believe how easy it was thru Cinema Tools to get slow motion, it worked like a charm. Although you can get the great results with using Cinema Tools, Twixtor has more control over the speed of the footage, making the motion of the footage as slow or fast as you like. So If youre a Final Cut Pro user and on a budget, Cinema Tools is the way to go.

You want slow motion for your movies? Try Twixtor.

One of the reason why I bought the Canon T2i was its ability to capture frame by frame images while in video mode. When shooting in 60fps it is possible to give that cinematic slow motion movement that major motion picture do when you brought the footage to the in the editing process . Its a cool efx and makes movie moments more dramatic. Back when I was in film school, in my Full Sail days, it was a young filmmakers wet dream to do a scene in slow motion and make it look cool. Back when I was shooting with min DV tapes, this effect was hard in post and would look choppy. Tapes just didn't work for slow motion. It seemed the only way get slow motion was to shoot on film but thanks to DSLR Revolution that no longer the case...Or so I thought.
I have recently shot a wedding in which I decided to shoot moments in slow motion. I hadn't tried it before but had read about the how to shoot it and how edit it in post. Seemed simple I thought. Just shoot the footage in 60fps and bring it into 1080p sequence then change the the speed of the footage. Simple.
When I brought the wedding footing into Final Cut Pro 7 and brought the speed down, I notice the footage was still choppy.
"Damn it" I thought. "What the hell did I do wrong?" Turns out that nothing was wrong, I just needed Twixtor. I guess Final Cut just dosent cut it when it come to slow motion.
Twixtor was made by Revisionfx and is one of many plug-ins that they offer for Final Cut, Adobe,After Effects and Avid.
Twixtor is much more accurate for slow motion to see everything in detail and not choppy or rough blend of images.
I tried the demo that Revisionfx offered and it worked great. The real plug-in is quite pricey tho, for the "regular" vision its $329.95 and for the "Pro" for $595.00. I havent had the chance to fool around with the "Pro" demo vision but the "regular" is great. Still it will cost you an arm and a leg but its worth it.

Re-Vamp my Webstie: iWeb/ Adobe Photoshop

Great news, finally got my new look for my website. I made the site with IWeb and Adobe Photoshop and thanks to godaddy.com,I've got a domain name. Vid Production Group's website has only been around for about a year since I officially made it, the company, into an LLC. I think the look is better then my pervious "Dark purple" site but it still has a long way to go before its how Id really would like it to be. Cooler, slicker and with animation. Unfortunately I dont have Adobe Flash to create these buttons to be more interactive or some graphic effects that could capture more attention. But whatever..the point is that Im looking a lot more professional and Im slowly growing better in creating these site for my business. Check out the page here.

Photos made it to NBC news

Hey great news!!! My pictures got publish with an article of Flying Colors Apparel on NBC.com. So happy the clothing line is get so much popularity. If you want to see the article just click on this link.There has been talk about doing a commercial in the near future where I will be the cinematographer and my friend, Alex Alvarez, will be the director. Ideas are still being thrown around so I'll let you know when thats happen.