When Lisa and I began shooting Beyond Naked last year, we wondered if anything was happening at the exact opposite celestial time of year from that other Solstice, which would become the climax of our film. We got wind of a strange bunch of people who ride all night long on that darkest of evenings, and we knew we had to meet them.

Ride organizer Joe Platzner graciously allowed us to follow him and his posse though the night. It was a great adventure, and we met some amazing people. Two of them, Greg Cox and Andy Speier, later joined our filmmaking team on June 18 and made a big contribution to our successful event coverage. Some of the footage we shot during this ride will likely also appear in the film, which we’re currently editing.

I cut this video to help promote this year’s ride (although I can’t imagine why they’d have any trouble finding people to join them!) If you’re interested in learning more, check out their site at http://www.seattlerandonneur.org.

Popularity: 3% [?]

This is a seriously smart project. The more I think about it, there are a lot of situations where this would obviate my need to haul around a 3-foot long cineslider. And just a little controlled movement can really go a long way to adding polish to footage of all kinds, from quick iPhone grabs to carefully rehearsed DSLR shoots. I’m in!

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’m happy to announce the launch of a commercial piece we have completed for the Seattle Interactive Conference. For this video, Lisa and I interviewed 6 leaders in the local interactive scene, all of whom will be speaking at the first-ever conference in November. Since we had no footage from past events on which to draw, we went straight to the people who will be speaking at the event, and had a wide-ranging conversation about interactivity. Here’s the results:

Special thanks to Adam Sheppard of 8Ninths and Jamie Monberg of Hornall Anderson, who provided us with a substantial amount of the footage we used in cutting the video. And to the rest of the very busy people – Ed Fries, Vanessa Fox, and Shauna Causey – who made time for us and our equipment.

Tech details: We shot all the interviews on location with a two-person crew, myself (camera and editing) and Lisa (sound and production). I shot with Canon 60D, using a CN-900 LED as key light (a great light for traveling with, which I’ll blog about soon). I cut the piece on Final Cut Pro X 10.1, which is definitely more stable than the previous version. The biggest gripe I have about FCPX in the wake of finishing this piece, is a minor one: it’s tedious to color correct similar clips, because I found that cutting and pasting effects such as color corrections is unreliable when I had complex masks, audio filters, and third-party filters such as Magic Bullet Mojo, which I used to squeeze skin tones.

The opening shot I grabbed with my Canon S95 last Christmas on a family trip, as we were landing in Kito, Ecquador. Proving once again that the best camera is the one you have with you. After today’s big Apple announcement, I’m sure I’m not the only filmmaker lusting to have that be an iPhone 4s.

Popularity: 3% [?]

My friend Tiberio Simone performed at Vermillion art gallery last Thursday. The place was packed. In Seattle at least, Tiberio’s art clearly has legs!

I shot this short video with help from Lisa Cooper, who recorded audio. I cut it over the weekend with Final Cut Pro X. Music is from “Postcards in Full Color” CD by Max Richter, available on iTunes.

Popularity: 4% [?]

This is a fantastic interview, which answers a lot of the questions I had after watching what is my favorite documentary of the year, Exit Through the Gift Shop. I was particularly interested in how the film went from concept to completion structurally, and Chris goes a long way to answering that question in this excellent interview.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’m pleased to announce that my first film is now watchable online. I made this film with co-director Ben Medina, from whom I learned much of what I know about filmmaking. It’s a talkumentary about the elation, fears, dreams, and tears that accompany anyone on the entrepreneur’s path.

We had a nice review of shine today on AllBusiness.com, who sent a reporter to our premier of the film which happened Sunday evening at a small theater in Seattle.

Through intimate interviews with entrepreneurs, experts, and educators, the journey of entrepreneurship unfolds revealing the challenges, pitfalls, rewards and successes of self employment. SHINE encourages you to ask yourself what kind of entrepreneur you are, and inspires you to think about what kind of entrepreneur you want to be.

The film includes interviews with typical entrepreneurs as well as a handful of high-profile entrepreneurs including iStockphoto founder Bruce Livingstone and Scott Shane, a professor at Case Western Reserve and author of 13 books about entrepreneurship.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’ve been using Colorista II for pretty much all my color grading ever since it was released a few months ago. Why? Because it’s awesome, and I know it’s awesome because of Stu Maschwitz’s killer video tutorials. He posted an unusually long clip earlier this week: a full hour color correcting session with a client. To watch the tutorial is to be right there in the room, listening in on their conversations, learning the steps to get perfect color. Thanks Stu!

I had a chance to put everything I learned to work on Thursday, when I shot a series of series of brief interviews, called 619 Stories, for a Seattle startup called Intersect (which has posted many of the finished clips in the 619 Building Timeline). The lighting was abysmal in the venerable artists building (which I myself once briefly lived in nearly a decade ago). I knew I was going to need to augment the light with something on-camera at least for fill, and I found a decent way to configure my custom shoulder rig with LitePanels Micro Pro just to the side of the camera, off one of the rails:

What I like about this is that it’s true quick release. I can instantly remove the LitePanel just by squeezing the clamp, which grips it with plenty enough force that I don’t have to worry about it coming loose accidentally.

I used Colorista II to do the grade, and Magic Bullet Looks to drop in a vignette and spot exposure. I could have done all of this in Colorista II by stacking additional Colorista filters, but Looks and Colorista work fine in tandem.

Here’s what I started with:

And here’s what I finished with:

I shot this interview with one knee down, which gives her the hero pose, with the lens angled slightly up at her. Shooting with a shoulder rig off one knee pretty much gives the same perspective you’d get holding a camcorder football-carry style, which was my preferred method of carry before DSLRs made me never want to touch a camcorder again.

And finally, here’s the finished video:

While editing this piece I accidentally discovered a (possibly gimmicky) solution to the dreaded jump cut problem: I inserted a cross dissolve between questions, and in Final Cut’s Motion tab, I set the clip to scale 100 percent at beginning of transition; and 200 percent at completion of it. The result: The old clip flies up at you, revealing the new clip underneath. It wouldn’t work in every interview, but I kinda like the effect.

Popularity: 5% [?]

I finished editing this film last week, and it’s now public. It’s the third of four short films I am making that promote Eton School, a Montessori School in Bellevue. The kids and staff at this school made creating this piece a real pleasure.

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When you’re an indie filmmaker, you have good days, bad days, and just days. I would call this one of the good days.

I’m currently working on a project featuring James Beard award-winning chef Tiberio Simone, who uses the human body as a playground for his culinary imagination.

Thanks to La Figa Project photographer Matt Freedman for sharing this photo, and to Stella, our beautiful and tireless model.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Love my Glidetrack. But is tracking past something as powerful as gliding over it? I often find myself wanting to aim the camera parallel with the track rather than at right angles. Can’t do it, though, because the end of the track gets into frame when the camera is angled more than about 45 degrees (with any wideish lens).

I tried mounting the camera on a Manfrotto magic arm, and quickly learned that balance really matters with these lightweight rigs: as soon as you move the camera off center of the Glidetrack, smooth moves become impossible. However, with a few parts and attention to balance, I’ve found a way to turn my Glidetrack into a Sidetrack.

To illustrate the difference, here’s two short clips filmed on my desk using Canon 60D (above) and Glidetrack. The first is shot with the camera mounted on the track conventionally, at a 45 degree angle. The second was made using my sidetrack rig, shown in the stills below.

There’s probably a simpler way to do this, and if some third party made it (affordably), I’d probably buy it. I love this kind of flyover shot.

(Note: the metal piece in middle is a speed ring for a soft box).

Popularity: 6% [?]