Carpe PM

I had a wonderful afternoon yesterday. We were almost finished with all the shearing of the week. So, I asked the guys if they would mind if I brought my camera in to film them. The end results are absolutely beautiful. Every shot looks like it had cinema lighting. You can see the outside is over exposed. It was fairly dark inside, but this is clear evidence of how well the hvx camera performs. It’s times like these where you fully appreciate the big decisions you made only months before. I have enough coverage of this to be able to cut together a fairly good short documentary. Someone asked why I don’t most times show faces in the shot when people are in the frame. The reason for this is that it makes footage much easier to sell. So, I do have shots with their faces, but I would most likely need to get a release form signed by those involved for some of those shots. There you have. And that’s how the cookie crumbles.

I actually have a pretty cool timelapse of this foggy shot as well as a 1080p short clip. The time lapse is in 720p, which is actually a requirement of the camera I have. You have to use 720p to get a good selection of variable frame rates. I also got some great time lapse of the clouds out and about. It’ll probably rain tonight. I hope it doesn’t tomorrow, but they gave me a coat if it does. Wish me luck on the wombats and kangaroos. I only saw them in one area, but it wasn’t nearby. If all else fails, I can go to some places over near the coast when I get over there.

One of Charlie’s friends helped shear today. He picked up one of the pups after we got back to the house. The pups are quite fun to visit in their shed. I’m just glad I don’t have to take care of them. No, I’m not planning on bringing one back. Although, it would be quite cute to have a pup in a sock on the plane home. There’s another mental image for ya. I finally have spent enough time again with manual transmission to say that I’ve got it down. The first car I buy will probably be one. I may even change the transmission for my rental at the end of April. I had requested an automatic. It should be fine either way though.

After shearing lambs all day today, Charlie did what is called drenching the shornies. This means that he fed all the lambs their medicine before calling it quits for the day. We actually ended work fairly early. The reason for this started with a brown out in the morning. If you don’t know, a brown out is when the electricity is still there but at a rate much less than normal, hence a weak power source. The power company came down and fixed it. We ended up starting up an hour and a half late. Then, the electricity went crazy in the shed around 3:00. The circuit breakers started smoking. So, that’s what ended our day.

I have to keep reminding myself to check all the settings on my camera before I shoot something. I forgot to set something for the footage I shot this evening. It isn’t the focus, that has to be checked. This probably won’t be noticeable to the usual viewer. It’s a problem that people like me notice. A lot of times I notice only after the fact. I just forgot to look for it and correct it before progressing. The footage with the mistake is too good to just delete. I’ll just have to live with the minor mistake. To some people, the problem is actually a stylistic choice. All future footage should be okay because I’ll remember next time. The image above is of the chickens the Bailey’s have. They only have two now because one of the dogs had killed all the others some time before I arrived last week. The little buggers aren’t scared of anyone. It’s rather funny to watch them follow you around the pen.

I had my camera out again. The image above is of the new Kelpie pups. You can click on it to see a small version of the video. Oh how they howl. It’s Saturday and golden hour was rather lovely. I have decided to continue capturing in 1080p. The shots I got last night were quite nice. I have a few sheep images now, but they are so hard to capture because they run away as soon as you get too close. I hope to get some closeups of them in golden hour sometime soon. I know I can go over and get some shots of chickens. There are also roos, wallabees, and wombats out in the scrub. So, I may go out soon to see if I can find them some evening. The shot I want the most is a closeup of a Kookaburra making a ruckus.

I ran out of things to do after the morning. So, I took my camera out for a stroll. When I came back everyone was still out and about. I then quick filmed the image you see above. I decided to shoot everything here in 1080p (except for slow motion, if there is going to be any). So far, I’m not too sure about using 1080. I will know for sure after my second round of shooting, which will happen tomorrow, most likely. The reason for this is that focus is more difficult for wide shots. I may end up shooting with the stock lens for my wide shots. However, I really want to get close ups of things. So, I need my long 35mm lens. The only problem is that I tried ti use it and the tripod was shaking way too much. Oh well. It’ll all work out. It’s extremely fun to be working hard and experimenting with my camera all at the same time.

I’ve set up my camera rig out here in the middle of nowhere. I made it in yesterday. It started raining in the afternoon. I’ve been helping my hosts out wherever I can. I intended to put together my new film project while here. However, I don’t think it will work out. I’ll let you know if it goes green. In the mean time the project is on hold. What am I doing with my camera gear in the middle of nowhere then? I am making an archive of footage. It should get fairly large by the time I leave here. Of course that depends on how much time I have to shoot footage. I know it will start to explode when I get to my other two places I intend to reside on this trip. When I get back to the states, the job hunt begins. When that time comes, I hope to have a good selection of footage to perhaps use to get jobs from nature based television companies. I like to keep my options open. So, I am trying to do a lot of things before I get back. I can promise that I will have a few more interesting things ready to share soon.

This blog’s traffic has increased a decent amount over the last year. Recently, the stats page has stated that the hits are mostly coming from the Google Images web site. I’m even the first image if you search for “at&t death star wallpaper” since I quick threw together a 1680×1050 image based on the silly wallpaper intended for the iphone. This is not important because I want to get hits with the stories I am working on. In the mean time, I have a job until Wednesday. Time seems to be moving more slowly before the end of this week. I will be off the map, out in the middle of nowhere, in just a few days. Just wait until you see what I bring back from the internet dead zone.

Below are some stills of video tests I shot in Arizona during Christmas. The next films I’m making will have the look of 35mm lenses. That’s because I’m going to be shooting through a 35mm lens set I bought. I have some 1970 era nikon lenses that I had to track down since the camera companies in my city carry pretty much only new stuff. These lenses are absolute gems. They’re still sharp and don’t breathe too much, if at all. The bokeh is not necessarily stellar, but I can live with that because story is more important and I can’t afford zeiss lenses with all I’m doing. Keep in mind the only overt bokeh in the tests is from shooting directly into the sun. I bet most lenses don’t look completely pretty when shooting into the sun. Also, the light streak shot on the highway is with the camera’s stock lens and was shot with the shutter wide open.

I am learning many new things that film and computer science professors didn’t think to tell me or didn’t know before I graduated. It’s rather exciting to still learn when I am no longer a “student.” We are all students of the things we have a passion for. One of the most talked about things I’ve run across in the last week is a talk by JJ Abrams. He is the producer of the TV show Lost and the recent film Cloverfield, the upcoming Star Trek, etc. When JJ explains his concept of the mystery box, it gave me a fresh way of looking at story creation. I hope I can work with this guy some day. Until that time, I have plenty of things to think about and create. There aare plenty of other things I’ve been reading or run across, but I can’t share all my secrets. Can I? Well in that case….