SilverKottage

I stumbled upon Shane Hurlbut’s blog when I was on DSLRShooter as they wrote an article about his insights in HDDSLR technology.

Shane’s other hobbies are to make gadgets, such as the Canon 5D helmet.

Going to Shane’s website, it was a plethora of information and advice on how HDDSLR can and should be used for film. Philip Bloom is all good with announcing all the latest gadgets and his timelapse films but Shane goes more in depth about which gear to use and why… suddenly, I want to start saving up for Zeiss lenses!

Ah, the life of a pro filmaker…

It was also interesting to find out that Shane was the DP of Terminator Salvation and shot webisodes on the Canon 5D for that film. Oh, and he was the person that Christian Bale went crazy at… now I see two passionate people about their work that were at the wrong spot at the wrong time…

Hhmmm, all these cinematographer blogs and gear blogs I’m reading… I should be finding me some Director and Writer blogs too! So that instead of getting inspired to buy new gear, I should be writing and shooting…

Imagine shooting a wedding with that.

Haven’t had a chance to post up some wedding films that I shot with Paper Cranes last year, so here they are.
We’re flat out at the moment, well mostly Santo and Dewi, since they got married in December 2009 so there haven’t been much trailers up…

But here are some that are. Enjoy

Kelvin and Tania Cinematic Wedding Trailer (Same Day Edit)
We were given a day of sunshine and wind, but for Kelvin and Tania, thank you for choosing us as your videographer. We are glad that they were happy with the SDE and the evening celebrations were full of heat and entertainment.

THIS MUCH – a prewedding film of James and Thao
James and Thao are a very cute and sweet couple. They are the type of people who appreciate and respect others very much. They wanted their prewedding film to tell the story of how they met each other and how James proposed for Thao’s hand in marriage. We are so proud to tell such a lovely true story and to show the finished film on their reception night 31st October 2009.

Samantha and Dalvin Cinematic Wedding Trailer
Sam and Dalvin are very cute couple. One sentence to describe them “They love their dog COCO so MUCH!!!” ok maybe that’s not a good description, but thats my take on it anyway

Coco is a very gorgeous dog by the way. She barked at our team when we arrived for shooting but got very friendly afterwards. Anyway, back at Sam and Dalvin. They had their wedding ceremony at the beautiful Little Bay Chapel and had their reception at the WatersEdge, The Rocks.

There was two very unique things on their wedding day. The dog, coco was the ring bearer, and they used the Superman theme song as their grand entrance song.. how good is that????

Anyhow, I hope you’ll enjoy this cute and fun clip

To really push a shoot to the extreme, try not eating or drinking for 24 hours and then film an event at the beach. Make sure that the event is running 30 mins late and you have to stand in the hot sand for that whole time.

Zappa zappa zappa!

Good thing I sat down before I had to shoot, or else I really would’ve collapsed with thousands of people watching… lol.

A couple of days ago, a client of mine asked me to make a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation for them that would play videos that I have edited.

Steve Jobs does not use this… but everyone else does.

Using a Mac, my workflow was edit in Final Cut Pro and out put as the project’s setting. Then recode it to H.264 in MPEG Streamclip for playing.

MPEG Streamclip, the video convertor of choice

Everything was good, my Powerpoint presentation was done and I inserted the videos into the presentation. Tested the presentation out and the videos played.

I then transfered presentation and the video files to a USB key and gave it to my client…

That’s when the problem occurred. My client’s computers uses Windows as it’s OS… and with Microsoft being anti Apple, Powerpoint in Windows OS does not play .mov files! The player that Powerpoint uses is Windows Media Player.

So, I had to figure out what format to use. I used MPEG Streamclip to convert the video files to AVI. But the quality was so bad and there was no sound for some reason. Also, converting a short clip would take AGES.

I then saw an option to convert to WMV, Windows Media Video. Surely, this would work on a Windows OS Powerpoint! But because Apple is anti Microsoft, I had to purchase a 3rd party plug in, Flip4Mac to allow me to re-encode .mov to .wmv for clips over 30 seconds.

Something that should be FREE!

So, if you want to convert .MOV to .WMV on a Mac, you will need to buy Flip4Mac Studio (AUS $58) and then use either MPEG Streamclip (free) or Quicktime Pro ($$) to convert to a preset WMV file.

In the end, I got the embedded video playing on my client’s computer. But at $58 just to make a Quicktime file into a Windows Media Video file? Seriously… that just shouldn’t be. Please love each other, Apple and Microsoft.

Love is in the air.

Guess you won’t mistake this for a teenage girl’s film.

Daybreakers has been building momentum over the past few months as a film that brings back the traditional Vampire genre instead of the sparkly Twilight vampire mytho. Following the footstep of Blade and 30 Days and Nights, we have a vampire film that stuck to it’s roots.

Surprisingly, this is an Australian film with a handful of Australian actors playing supporting roles with Ethan Hawke as the lead and Sam Neal as the corporate villian.

Something something something BLOOOOODDD MEEEE

Set in 2019, the film is basically about 90%+ of the world population opting to be the walking undead. But like all living things (well, they’re not exactly alive), they need to eat and their main source of food is human blood. Just like in Blade, the Vampires are harvesting humans so that supply doesn’t run out.

Have you had a dream that was so real…. and when you wake up, you’re drowned in your own blood? (How do these people shit? oh wait… I think that’s what the other tube is for…)

But unlike The Matrix, there’s no Zion to capture humans to replenish the cattle that’s died from old age. So, the Vampires need to find a new source via science and synthetic blood that doesn’t have side effects.

The film is dark and bleak with actually very little action but the pacing is fine as we follow Edward (Ethan) on his quest to make his heart beat again and see himself in a mirror instead of a video screen.

Maybe if we look into each other’s eyes long enough, we won’t get hungry.

Thumbs up to brother Directors, Michael and Peter Spierig for making a commercial viable film in Australia. I think the film will sell okay for overseas and not actually having it set in Australia (everyone has American accents) is a good thing… Screen Australia, you backed a good horse here.

Remember the time we went hunting and we shot a bunny with a bow and arrow? Well, this will hurt a lot more.

There’s nothing revolutionary here and maybe I would’ve liked the 3rd act to be not so rushed and better character development/conflict. But overall, I enjoyed the film and sci fi and vampires do mix well.

Ra ra oo la la! I want a sequel!

Oh, and Isabel Lucas of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen plays a small role too. Although it’s small, I’m sure enough Tranny fan boys will watch Daybreakers for her. Which is a good thing for Aussie films.

 
Now I’ve been in a Robot and a Vampire movie!