I didn’t know what to expect.
As one who has edited his own videos to create short, mostly watchable productions, I have become increasingly intrigued by the filmmaking process.
My recent (and first) experience as a stills photographer on a movie set showed me just how meticulous the filming alone can get, especially when using only one camera. It also showed me just how much fun these people have doing their jobs.
Benjamin enjoyed yogurt Tuesday while finishing up two sick days home from school. I was playing around with my cameras and lenses to see which combinations would work best for the shoot I volunteered to do on Wednesday night. More on that later.
Sitting next to him on the couch, I asked Benjamin to look over at me. It’s the informal pictures like this, capturing a moment in a good composition, that serve as the random rewards that keep me clicking the shutter. For this shot I used an old manual focus 28mm lens on my Nikon D100 DSLR. A lens that came with a used Nikon FG body I bought used several years ago, it is more versatile when using existing light. It is more difficult, however, when photographing a wriggling child, because even the exposure is manual.
Good thing he was lethargic that day.
I venture tonight to an area called Deep Ellum, an entertainment district in Dallas featuring bars and musical venues (often all-in-one).
A co-worker is a video enthusiast and amateur filmmaker. Tonight, in a bar, he and the rest of a film cast and crew shoot the final scene of a movie, and they need someone to shoot stills for the press kit. He knows I am into photography and has seen some of my work, so he hit me up for the volunteer gig.
I jumped at the opportunity. I never have been on the set of a movie, so was thrilled later as my co-worker described the director, male and female actors, studio lighting, and scripted lines. He copied me on a final e-mail he sent to the participants to show them the lighting scheme and blocking he had envisioned for the final shoot.
Last night I toyed around a bit with shots in existing light, bounce flash, and various lenses. It’s been a while since I’ve shot an event under any kind of pressure, but having been a photojournalist and the sole photographer at several weddings, I should get back in the groove fairly quickly.
I look at his crudely drawn lighting scheme and see industry terms like 650 Fresnel and 1000 hotbox, and realize that while I will be doing work in many ways familiar to me, it is a different ball game.
As a video and audio enthusiast, however, perhaps my biggest fear is developing unhealthy boom envy. Whatever happens, it will be fun, and it will be another first that I gladly will report here.
These sound clips should take some of you back to your childhood. Sadly, they may take some of you nowhere because you weren’t born yet. Or, and this might be sadder still, you just aren’t geeky enough.
Naming the clip is encouraged.
I wrote this in anticipation of a movie slated for a 2010 release. For extra phantom bonus points, name it.
I’m a huge fan of a young woman I’ve never met, and never heard of until Thursday night. Not because she’s a celebrity; not because she’s beautiful (which she definitely is); not because she’s ranked sixth in the world in her sport; not because she’s (almost) famous.
I like Caroline Wozniacki, 19, because she made one of the classiest moves in the history of sports. It’s too bad there’s a sad part to this story.
While up 7-5, 5-0 over opponent Ann Kremer on Thursday, the young Dane simply stopped playing. Why? Caroline had injured her hamstring and, sure she would not be able to compete beyond that match, felt that winning served no purpose. Kremer, who was playing before a home crowd, would have a chance to advance.
What makes this story even better is that her father, Piotr, suggested at 3-0 in the second set that she forfeit the match.
The sad part? When her father spoke to her, microphones overheard their conversation, and gamblers started betting on Kremer for the win. As of Thursday afternoon, the World Tennis Association’s Tennis Integrity Unit was investigating Caroline for betting fraud.
Admittedly, her decision could be looked at as a practical move as much as a selfless one. Regardless, I hope all of this is over by the time you read this and that Caroline Wozniacki will be remembered for her sporting attitude instead of a controversy that never should have been.
Have a nice weekend, all.
During our New Mexico trip, after everyone else was asleep, I drove each night from our cabin to a parking lot in town to get Internet access. I huddled over my laptop and typed out the day’s events, re-sized photos for the Web, and posted all for the whole world to read.
I just couldn’t resist the immediacy. Like nothing before, it scratched my writing itch, and the blog added the rush of being published and being read. Actual feedback from real people was like one of those stiff-fingered wooden back-scratchers getting the really tough spots. Sure, I could ignore the itch, but it felt oh so good to scratch it.
Years before the blog was invented, I relished any content I could mine to put words on paper. Just like now, vacations were perfect fodder, and the technology I used to chronicle them evolved from ancient to present day.
This dates all the way back to a handwritten account of a trip my father, brother, and I took to Destin, Florida when I was 15. Awash in hormones, I hung out on the beach and got to know a beautiful Georgia girl who thought Arkansas was “somewhere up there by Montana.” I haven’t tackled typing that one yet, for fear I might actually put it out here.
After a long hiatus from trip journaling, in spring 2001 I returned to painstaking form. During a week-long trip to San Francisco and surrounding areas, I kept a spiral notebook with me everywhere we went. Each time we all piled back into the rented van, I opened up the notebook and wrote what I could remember. Back at the big house on the hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay Bridge, I borrowed a fellow traveler’s laptop and copied my scrawl into digital format. Despite that, it remains unseen by the public, languishing somewhere on a floppy disk.
Later that same year, we celebrated Christmas with a week in Key West. Only a few months after the September 11 hijacking attacks, getting there was more interesting than we had hoped. For that trip I carried around a tiny micro-cassette recorder and dictated my thoughts to it periodically, including our first time snorkeling, when a barracuda scared me back to the boat. I still have not transcribed that tape.
The following summer, prior to our 10th anniversary trip to western Wyoming, I dragged my writing into the 21st century. I created a page on Blogger and an opt-in form for those who wished to receive an e-mail each time I updated the journal (this was before most people knew about RSS feeds and other fancy blog-related features). I kept the photos separate, in an online photo album on Fotki.com. Warning: it reads more like a personal journal than a polished piece of travel writing.
Reader Simon converted one of his old trip journals to a series of blog posts covering his teen-aged trip to China. His writing at that age was much farther along than mine, in some ways rivaling the prose in my 2002 anniversary trip journal (after all, how many times in one paragraph should a writer use the word “stuff?”).
When I was a newspaper reporter/photographer, I never wanted for content. Now, I find myself considering resurrecting those old trip journals (and possibly photos) for filler between new inspirations.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
We had a great weekend visiting my family in Arkansas. Shannon and her mother, who already had plans with other family in the area, joined in for part of the festivities. That’s why she wasn’t in the above picture.
I included a couple more pictures for this teaser post, after the jump.
My six-year-old son sketched four frames to tell the story of the Cloud City battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. I had him narrate it after I grabbed my recorder, and later I mixed it with the scanned drawings to create a video. (sorry if you’re at work and this is blocked — I had to use YouTube this time around)
(cropped to respect others’ privacy)
To see other Wordless Wednesday participants, please go to:
http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/
With an unlikely first crop, our son has proven to have quite the green thumb.
Our six-year-old has told us for years now that he wants to be a farmer when he grows up. Just when we started worrying about what that would entail, he added, “and a veterinarian.” So, at least he has something to fall back on when the harvest goes bad.
One day while enjoying fresh cantaloupe at his local grandparents’ house, Benjamin said that he would like to plant one of the seeds. Encouraging any effort to learn by doing, G helped by providing a small ceramic pot that she probably had used for seasonal flowers. They buried the seed and, with the summer sun still beating down, set the pot on a baker’s rack on the back patio.
(click any pic to enlarge)
