Speaking of film-making, here’s a little something Flossie and I shot while we were in America a few months ago. It’s not very good, but it’s ours.
Deathly Pressure from Jonathan Sanderson on Vimeo.
Shot with a Panasonic GF1 stills camera (unhacked), with 20mm ƒ/1.7 & 17-45 ƒ/3.5–5.6 OIS lenses. Graded with… er… the 3-way colour corrector in Final Cut Pro. A couple of layers of it in places, though. So that’s like secondaries, right?
When the camera sees more than my light meter does, it’s time to acknowledge that the game has truly changed.
(from ProVideo Coalition | Cinematography.)
Fascinating article, as much for how the shoot was done as for the footage.
Alexa (or RED, for that matter) are way out of my league, but at least they give me something to dream about while I’m waiting for the Panasonic AF100 and hoping it’s cheaper than the reported $6000. There’s always a fancier camera…
“If you must meet, start the meeting by remembering the definition of a successful meeting is that when the meeting is done, it need never occur again.”
(from Rands in Repose.)
This evening’s ISS pass, as seen from the park outside our house in Tynemouth.
Panasonic GF1, 20mm ƒ/1.7. 1 minute exposure @ ƒ/11, ISO 400.
Wireframing a website? No?
Then you won’t need this terrific set of wireframe stencils for OmniGraffle.
That is all.
Want a nine-minute briefing in media law? Here you go.
This is a recording of a 16 year-old rather clearly stating his rights as a photographer working in a public place, to a police officer attempting to detain him for… actually, it’s not clear what. There’s a rather good article (and comments) about this specific incident on the British Journal of Photography website. See also the photographer’s own blog.
For those keeping track, there have been numerous recent incidents of photographers being detained, questioned, or searched while working in public places. So many, in fact, that the next issue of Amateur Photographer magazine will include a free gift: a lens cloth handily pre-printed with the advice issued to MPS officers by their own head of ‘Specialist Operations.’
Meanwhile, if you want a more complete briefing on what you can and can’t photograph, this presents a somewhat more comprehensive and nuanced interpretation of the law.
So, the banks made unwise lending decisions that exposed them to unwarranted risk in the credit markets. Loans defaulted to an extent that enough damage was spread through an important ecosystem for the government to have to step in to prop up the industry.
A year or so later, an oil company is revealed to have made unwise engineering decisions that exposed them to unwarranted risk in the offshore drilling industry. Well-heads ruptured, spreading enough damage through an important ecosystem that the government had to step in and demand $20bn in…
…wait, hang on. Remind me why we bailed out the banks, again?
Meh. Drat. Ugh.
I’ve broken my blog again, I fear. Eventually I’ll roll my sleeves up and get it sorted, but I’m too busy right now.
Meh. Blech.
[edit: unborked now, just ugly. Ah well.]
Here’s a very useful overview of different microphone types and how they react in a noisy room environment:
For what it’s worth, I usually shoot interviews with a Sennheiser lavalier mic/radio kit. Since I rarely have anyone with me who knows how to handle a shotgun on a pole, my Røde shotgun’s audio is rarely heard beyond the first rough-cut. That’s the NTG-2 model used in the video. It’s terrific value and a decent mic, but I’m not often in a situation where I can get usable audio out of it.
However, on occasion it’s a complete lifesaver — for run-and-gun interviews in a really noisy room, for example, you need a long shotgun, ideally a handheld cardiod if you’ve an on-camera reporter.
At the other end of the production scale, I’ve been known to strap a £30 wired lavalier to a broom handle and use it like a (boomed) shotgun mic. It’s laughable, until you realise how much better it sounds than the in-camera mic. Cruddy-but-listenable sound is better than no sound at all.
The film made with the aforementioned chickens:
It should, I think, be obvious that we were mucking about.
[edit:] Huh. That's the smallest embed size YouTube now offer for widescreen. Template-mangling in my future, I fear.
Is it wrong that, when I watched this, I had the theme to Thunderbirds going round in my head?
The entrance to the Dalek part of the Doctor Who exhibition, opening tomorrow at the Centre for Life, Newcastle.
More in my Flickr set, and Elin’s.
Morning: We visited some chickens, for filming purposes.
Lunch: poached eggs from said chickens, on toast, with young asparagus and a parmesan/parsley sauce.
Early afternoon: Visit to an astonishing robotic dairy. Wonderful, wonderful place, thinking of offering visits to schools, who would love it.
Mid afternoon: visit to Re, Corbridge. Brilliantly eclectic refound objects shop, lots of mad French bits & pieces. Lots of plain mad stuff too. Highly recommended.
Late afternoon: the extremely well-stocked North Acomb Farm Shop.
Then home for a nap. Quality.
Taken with a Panasonic GF1, 20mm ƒ/1.7. Mug by Matt Jones, tea by Clipper.
“Tea—unless one is drinking it in the Russian style—should be drunk WITHOUT SUGAR. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.”
Recent Comments