Another advantage to shooting with the 5D on this story was that I could customize my rig to work in each situation. In the clubs I often had very little room to work, so I mounted my camera on some short 15mm rods and handles. When working outside, I mounted the shoulder pad back on to my rig for more stability. I love this camera more and more each time I go out to shoot. I’m feeling really comfortable now that I’ve got a rig that I’m somewhat happy with and I can customize to the situation.

Trailers for Toxic Waters:

Vows:

Misc:

I explain how to sync the audio to the 5DMKII footage after the jump.

We interviewed about 50 people for the piece but could only use a fraction of them in the end for several reasons. Once we synced up the audio to the footage in Final Cut, you really have to transcode to start editing, because every cut you make, you run the risk of de-syncing the audio, plus h264 is not very nice for native editing.

I had a deadline of 5pm EST the next day which meant 2pm PST. Just enough time to slam out an edit… BUT the transcoding was going to take 16hrs!! I had to ditch most of the footage, and pick a couple people to transcode in order to get the piece up.

Also, the piece that is up was compressed for transmission and then re-encoded in NYC for the NYTimes website. I assure you the original footage looks amazing.

Originally Published: “Fan Memories” a Michael Jackson memorial video on NYTimes.com

How to sync audio with 5D Mark II footage

Got some advice on syncing audio up with the 5D Mark II? Share the love in the comments.

The Thirst in the Mojave piece is my attempt at making video interactive and contextualizing its content. Video on the web is great but it lacks many web-centric features or enhancements.

The advantage of web video over traditional video has typically revolved around the ability to share with friends and time-shift watching content. Thirst in the Mojave tries to bring a little more web mentality to video but still utilize the linear narrative strengths that make video such a great storytelling tool.

I completed the project before I left the Las Vegas Sun back in August and for reasons I’m not sure of, it finally launched.

Features of Mojave

Transparency is a great tool of truth.

Another use of the more info box in this project was transparency. An example of this is a scene in part 3 where Pat Mulroy is talking about the pipeline project on Face to Face with Jon Ralston. In the narrative you see several clips from the program but in the more info box you can watch the entire Face to Face show that those clips came from. Any viewers who might be skeptical that those clips were taken out of context can watch the program and see that the clips were selected appropriately.

All together, about 20 hours of footage were shot and edited down to 22 minutes for the main narrative.

The main narrative video content is divided into 5 parts for the web. The piece was also edited for TV by cutting it into 4 parts for commercial breaks with a total run time of 22 minutes.

Interactive Water Use Map

We thought this topic was strong enough to go even further. We built a database of water usage from public water records for over 1/2 a million single family homes in the valley. We then built a “water use app” to allows viewers to search a map of the Las Vegas Valley to find out how much water they’ve used in the last year. They can then compare their usage to their neighbors. On top of the search functionality we also visualized water usage density and swimming pool density on the map. Approximately 70% of the water problem falls on outdoor residential water use, I think this app is a real asset towards understanding that problem and hopefully doing something about it.

2008 demo reel showcasing my work as a Producer, Editor, Videographer and Animator.

I left the Las Vegas Sun after completing two large projects I felt very passionate about. This is one of them. Reckless Willie is a short documentary on a boxer who is arguably at the end of his career.

Willie Chapman has 10 children in 3 states and he’s 40 years old. Professional boxing matches are still his main source of income and also the only way he can pay child support to see his kids. Because of his age and losing record, Nevada may not license him to fight anymore. Willie also shows signs of dementia, most likely caused from continued brain trauma caused by boxing.

View the Story

• Reckless Willie Pt 1 Download: HDTV/720p
• Reckless Willie Pt 2 Download: HDTV/720p

All together, about 10 hours of footage were shot and edited down to 14 minutes.

Believing in the Story

I can’t say enough about how great it was to work with reporter Coolican on this project. He told me about the story soon after we both got back from Burning Man last year. He had been following Willie for months and I’m sure he felt a great deal of ownership of the story. Most reporters would. I would. But Patrick shared. He thought the story would really benefit from video, maybe even told best using video. From then on, I was with him every step of the way.

Narration and breaking the rules

When it came time to add narration, we sat down in the recording booth and worked over what he had written several times. I was nervous about how he would deliver the narration since he has had no voice coaching or training on delivery. It takes a lot of skill to paint pictures with your voice. I was totally surprised! Once Coolican read through the script a couple of times, he broke all the rules highlighting with inflection and tonal variation. It sounded great! It sounded like Ira Glass. He’s a natural and I expect to hear his voice on more and more videos at the Sun.

Five miles south of Boulder City, right off US-95, you’ll find a dry lake bed. On Independence Day, the dry lake bed fills with campers, trucks, cars, families and fireworks. Lots of fireworks.

How I spent the 4th of July this year.

“Remember Last Night” is a short film I did as an undergrad for class.

“Remember Last Night” is a short film I did way back as an undergrad for a class. This was one of the first pieces I ever shot and edited. I think it was done about eight years ago, and DV was fairly new to the market (yeah, it’s that old). I thought someone might get a kick out of it.

Test footage of the Letus35 Extreme on my Canon XH-A1.

The Letus35 Extreme is a 35mm lens adapter system for video cameras. By using 35mm lenses you have the opportunity to use a wide variety of lenses previously unavailable on prosumer video cameras. The biggest advantage to using a lens adapter system is the DOF (depth of field) control it gives you. By getting the back of the lens further from the sensor you can avoid the “everything in focus” look and start getting creative and selective with the video frame just like still photography.

My Letus35 Extreme arrived earlier this week, and I’ve had the chance to really start to love this thing. I’ve used it on all my shoots this week, and I think it is worth every penny I spent on it after looking at some of the footage from this week.

Seminar related links

• Website: http://www.multimediaimmersion.org
• Live streaming: http://www.mogulus.com/nppa
• Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/765293@N23/