“Sound” from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

Absolutely LOVE this little video piece!!! A fantastic brief exploration into what sound means…

                          

In the first time in a long time, I headed out and saw a flick ‘solo’… And it was great! There’s a million reviews out there already, so I won’t give some long winded tale about this movie… But let’s just say, it’s refreshing to watch an edgy comedy that pulls no punches. Raunchy good times non stop…

I will say nearly the entire cast was awesome. But Jennifer Aniston and Charlie Day steal the movie. It has to go without saying that Aniston is pretty stunning in the movie, but not just visually. With a mouth like a sailor, every scene of hers is drop dead funny. Charlie Day pulls off oddball goofs like no other and its great to finally see him get a starring role in a film… Rush out and catch this movie (unless of course you’re offended by just about anything…then steer clear and go see that horrible looking new Kevin James talking animals movie…).

On that note… Red Band Trailer (NSFW).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpjupmLhzwc

                          

Just watch…

                          

I am absolutely sucked in to all the fantastic work going on these days with DSLR photography and video and having recently purchased one of my own, am certainly looking forward to getting more and more creative with my own shooting. Philip Bloom is a London based Director and Filmmaker who has a TON of fantastic stuff online, much of it done in a learning/experimenting capacity. His tips are invaluable and there’s days of material to absorb.

His latest piece on Vimeo explores working with HDR Timelapse photography and the results are fascinating.. Everyone knows what timelapse is, but in case you don’t understand HDR photography, it’s essentially High Dynamic Range photography; (via wikipedia:”a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods.”).

The video itself is pretty stunning (I especially like all the stuff that starts around the 1:40 mark), and it’s helped by one of my favorite soundtrack pieces – ‘Moon’ by Clint Mansell… Even better, Philip has put a detailed 30 minute “commentary” track on his site about the technical stuff surrounding this undertaking, and this further enhances the piece. The shots of Vegas architecture and energy are well worth your time…

                          

A quick reflective post here… As anyone who knows me knows, the past 6 months or so have been a roller coaster of sorts… Major life changing events sprinkled with crazy bits here and there… Well, new chapters have begun that look to be quite promising, and in that hope I will also find a little more time to focus and enhance these here blogs.
Branching into new and exciting things is my new inspiration. So I again (how many posts in the past have I said this?) renew my push to get some cool stuff posted here; my own stuff and whatever else I find along the way…
I quickly want to thanks those who’ve been there helping out and continue to be there for me. Without that, my headspace might be a much different place right now…

                          

Lightworks. One word – Very cool (yes that’s two words…). The time has come for me to at least temporarily rethink some video tools and what could be more affordable than free? I’d seen some info about this tool coming for some time over the past year and finally got around to getting it up and running today. Good stuff…
Keeping in mind, I spent maybe a whole hour in it, I can give a few quick impressions of it so far…

1. First off, it feels very sturdy. Previous experience with open source stuff has always been hit or miss. In Lightworks I didn’t even feel an inkling that something wanted to crash at any point.
2. VERY different. I think in the long run this will be good, because I can already see how it’s crafted to a certain kind of workflow, but this feels nothing like Premiere, Vegas or even Final Cut Pro…
3. Tools – lots… Well, for a free piece of software. You’ve got all the basic effects you could want, and in particular, the color correcting stuff looks pretty detailed.
4. Formats – Pulled in raw video from the Canon60D with no hiccups. It appears to deal with most HD video formats pretty well. My quick install didn’t seem to have all the listed export options, but I’m guessing a quick google search or some forum browsing would rectify that.
5. Runs on an average machine – Got it working smoothly on this 3+ year old laptop with no problems…
6. Shark – Yea, there’s a tool tip thing ala Microsofts’ dreaded paper-clip.. But it’s a shark, so at least there’s that…

All in all, I’m excited to explore this more and will surely have an update once I get rolling with the Canon60D and really shoot something worth showing (so far no amount of editing will help video footage of shoes and boxes and the other various things in this room I’ve shot to just get used to the camera – but that’s for another post…)

Grab the beta ‘here‘…

                          

So first things first, I’ve no excuse for the lack of posts here (well, a small excuse, but I won’t go into that right now…). I am ashamed at my slacking… That said…

Last night was the season finale of another absolutely fantastic show, Showtime’s “Shameless”. Raw and real, based on a UK series of the same name, this show brings us deep into the lives of the Gallagher family… The trailer below sums it up pretty well, but I just want to add that if you haven’t seen it, get hopping on Showtime OnDemand while the series is still there and catch up. The acting is spectacular and every episode is filled with plenty of drama, laughs and tension that perfectly blend to keep you coming back week after week…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pg4xFJ0Jvo

                          

Thoroughly blown away… This trailer is fantastic (at least as far as zombie-based video games go…). Originally saw this via a perfectly summed up tweet from @alisonhaislip (and she just might be exactly right!) – “these 3 minutes are better than the entire series of LOST”. More info can be had at the Dead Island site…

                          

Ah, the joys of the distraction of a gaming console… And thanks to a kindly donation from a friend, I can join that world (only 3 years or so late…)… It goes a little something like this… XBOX she is broken for second time… XBOX she is given to me under the “if you can fix it you can keep it” variety… Well of course I’m gonna give it a shot to fix!

I scoured the web (for you see, I am not a “fixit” kinda guy…) I needed to find the most detailed, handholding, spoonfeeding directions ever… The more videos and pictures, the better! Luckily I was able to get together the materials I needed (a whopping $14 worth of screws, washers & some thermal paste…) and bolstered up the confidence to crack open the machine…

Now, this post isn’t about fixing the RROD (Red Ring of Death) on an xbox 360… What’s great is, this post isn’t really about anything…

See, I’ve been feeling like I’ve been slacking all the way around when it comes to my various forays into the online world (music blog/iphoneography/clevedads blog/etc)…I was sick on and off for the past few weeks (a little cold/ a little stomach bug – luckily not at the same time)… And work has picked up enough to keep me a little busier as well (a good thing for sure!)

And now I’ve created a scenario where I can already see myself distracted even more during my down time by getting even ever so slightly into gaming… I mean, the games are intense now (keeping in mind I’ve been on the journey since the Atari 2600, through various Sega & Nintendo consoles, and the original XBox).  So I guess the trick is, how can I make this a good thing?  How can I add another thing to my incredibly full plate of “hobbies and interests” and not feel even more like I’m just “not getting anything done”?

Just a few weeks ago I started researching DSLR’s! I’ve set my sights on the Canon T2i to get back to my video roots (really wanted something nice to shoot with) and figured I could explore my photography bug as well… Where will that fit in? I haven’t made a mix in a while… I’m starting to get to be multiple episodes behind on my favorite TV shows… I want to spend more time with my daughter… There’s a bass guitar sitting and staring at me untouched from across the room… I need to exercise… I want to get more involved in Cleveland-related stuff… Etc, etc, etc!

Do I keep trying to find a way to fit all this stuff I like into my life? Do I pick one (or two or three) and spend some effort getting more focused? Does it matter so much or should I just enjoy each thing along the way?