and then there was this one

After an afternoon looking at photo exhibits, this might be the best photo I took during a clearing afternoon.

a video review

Since I was renting the camera - the Sony a7s that is - I figured I might as well record my thoughts on how well it worked with the Steadicam Pilot.

a7s on a Pilot from Man Made Wilderness on Vimeo.

ice

       

       

       

Drooping pines on this morning's walk.

testing...1, 2, 3

Not very rigorous, but I think this pretty effectively demonstrates the usefulness of the Mosaic Engineering Anti-Alias filter in the Canon 7D. Watch this fascinating video to see the difference between using the filter and NOT using the filter, with ordinary household objects.

end of an era confirmed

It wasn't enough that my local lab should stop developing E6 film materials. Now even Kodak is withdrawing from manufacturing slide films. Thanks to TOP for the heads up. Now there is no choice but to use Fuji. But I'll be damned if I'll use Velvia again, which leaves that hideous emulsion Provia. Looks like I'll be moving to negative films sometime in the future, after my preferred supply of out-of-date Astia runs out.

end of an era

Of course I knew it was coming. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. This is the last of my transparency film images to be processed by my local lab. A circuit board in the processing machine has died, and John Stubblefield has decided he doesn't do enough chrome work to justify repairing the machine. I'm assuming he's still doing negative film, since he accepted a sheet of FP4. But I've never been a fan of negative material, much preferring the immediacy of transparency. I can set them on the light table and see the image without having to scan and print a contact sheet. Looks as if I'm going to have to start shipping film out to a lab if I want to continue using my preferred Astia & Ektachrome G, in any format. But especially in 4x5 sheets.

Concurrent with this sad news is the announcement of a new Nikon camera, the D800, which I have mostly no interest in. Looks like another boring black dslr. Nonetheless, it's certain to be imminently more useable in more situations than my fifty year old Linhof Tech IV. On the other hand, I actually enjoy composing an image that is upside down and backwards.

The nails in the coffin are being driven closer to home. Bummer, dude.

back to the beginning

Continuing my complaints with the bolted together components of EOL'ed Final Cut Studio 7, now I'm on to Color 1.5. Some time has been spent with this opaque interface previously. But it took me probably another 8 - 10 hours to finally uncover the undocumented means to zoom in on the image you're working with in the geometry window so that you can magnify the edges of a vignette being applied. BTW, Vignette = PS layer = PP lens. But the controls are nowhere near as diverse as they are in those two still image manipulation packages.

Work proceeded on a shot that's on screen for 5 sec. 23 frames. There were five Secondary Vignettes applied, using five different shapes, four of which changed as actors move through the shot. About 15 hours was spent on this 6 second shot, learning the software, how to apply shapes, how to move shapes, trying to fine tune the edges.

Finally, after sending the sequence back to FCP so that I could watch the six seconds that had been modified, I'm deciding to start over again and abandon the 15 hours of work. Some of it was software learning curve, so I'll be able to use it again. But the edge detection/drawing around a moving object is a serious challenge. On a still image this is not that much of a problem with these simple tools. But for moving images, where occasionally the edges of an adjustment need to be redrawn every frame, those edges flicker and waver mercilessly, totally unacceptably when all the frames are viewed together. No doubt it's a combination of tools and technique. I'm lacking in both.

Which leads me to realize that if I'm going to use Color - which those who use it seem to feel is a fabulous piece of software - it's going to have to be in a more general manner. If I'm going to pick objects out of a scene for specific adjustment, either they need to be small, or they don't move, or they don't change shape.

I was thinking I'd figured out how this video was done, with some elements colored while everything else in the image is b&w. But after watching it again, I can see that they're using something way more sophisticated than the Vignettes in Color 1.5.

Update on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 02:15PM by KMW

Turns out the zoom control in the geometry image preview in Color 1.5 is documented. I've moments ago found it in the online help, as the first topic under the Geometry Room heading. Guess I should have looked a little closer at the results when I searched the help files. Probably could have saved myself some time & agony.

some real progress

Now that John Burns has composed some wonderful music for the film, it's time to release some of it to the world. This one's gotten the full treatment: full resolution original recaptured; color corrected; Motion created titles.

a matter of timing

The internet is a fine place for the restatement of the obvious. Obviously. Consequently, mental midgetry is given vocalism:

Video editorial technology still has me in its thrall. The ability to simply duplicate a scene - without duplicating the original media on which it is based - and then recut the material with an adjustment for pauses between reactions of performers, or a different ordering of the pieces of imagery, is a fabulous advancement. This, possibly more than any other reason, is why the world of nonlinear editing has taken over the editorial world. Only archivists still use flatbed editing machines. Even large features shot on film originals have moved away from literally cutting work print film copies. Why would you when the tools to do this electronically are so ubiquitous, so subtle, and so relatively easy to use?

This adjustment to the timing of images is something that can't be attended to with still images, unless you're working with a slide show. But certainly not within the realm of a book or a gallery of online images. These media have their own aesthetic appeal, and rarely depend upon the performances of actors to impart their power of expression. Many recognize the importance of captions for still images, which becomes something of a narrative device. But there is still no way of shaping the meaning of a sequence of images through the prominence given by their timing, meaning the specific amount of time that each image is presented, and the pauses between vocal interactions.

As this pertains to my current editorial activity, as I create alternative versions of scenes, the earliest are the most leisurely, the most contemplative. The later versions are faster, more to the narrative point. But I feel nonetheless that I'm falling victim to the ever increasing insistence upon the need to sharpen and propel the narrative, something I'm decidedly conflicted about. The question becomes at what point to leave alone the awkward pauses and mispronunciations in order to impart a feeling of awkwardness.

The quest continues for the correct balance between the non linear animal brain gut feeling of here and now, and the delineation of a thematic concept. Wish me luck.

no easy way out

To those who believe there are easy fixes to life's problems, I offer these photos of a project that has been put aside for months, maybe even years. No big deal. Nothing some money and a little time can't solve.

Just jack it up, the optomists suggested. It's been sinking for ten years. What's to keep it from sinking again? Which is why we end up with this bathtub sized slab of concrete:

"Just jack it up!"

the contrarian

When I can't, that's when I want to. When I can, that's when I want to procrastinate.

meanwhile, back at the ranch

Several days later, and we seem to have reboarded the roller coaster ride.

The final scene of "Roscoe" - who is going to get his named changed - was a brief period of agony at the completion of shooting. Instead of really relying upon my imagination, I got lost in details. Thinking that it could be saved in the edit, I stumbled through the performance hang-ups, and focused on a need to finish. As it turns out, the battle cry of editors 'round the world: Coverage! was not heeded, and I'm now left with limited options.

So from Thursday's peak of excitement, I'm now screaming down the steep slope of depression at my limited imagination. How noticeable is a forty-one second shot on one character in a thirteen minute piece? This is why I've been dreading working on this scene. All the words are covered, but in such a limited manner that the static nature of the scene really becomes obvious.

In fact I can make a case for leaving the scene as now cut: something about a need to see the uninterrupted emotionalism of the Professor, unmediated by editorial caprice. If only the visual wasn't so fucking static! Dare I leave it alone, in all its barren awkwardness? This would certainly be a bold decision - that still smacks of making pathetic excuses for what is lacking. OTOH, there are always little pieces of unused takes that can be dropped in at judicious moments to distract from the inherent awkwardness of this lengthy shot. Door #1 or Door #3? Or Door #2: get a few people together and reshoot the closeup of Roscoe. I need to make a decision about this fairly soon, before the leaves change and drop off.

What else is there to do at 4am, when sleep is nowhere to be found, other than obsess about the defective nature of the current work?

in which some excellent progress is made

Amazing how much can be done when one applies seat of pants to seat of chair. After a rather considerable period of reading too much news and going hither and yon such that I didn't apply myself to the task of editing "Roscoe" footage until 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon, finally in the last 15 hours I've knocked out pretty complete versions of three scenes. Admittedly they are simple, short scenes. But having all the material there, with a variety of alternatives to work through, is a wonderful thing. It truly is possible to have the picture mostly edited by the end of this week. Only one scene to go: the killer Eighth Scene, in which the Truth is revealed, but Nothing is known for Certain.

The wonders of computer video editing. It is possible to have several working clips, or shots, open in windows called Viewers, at the same time. So the master shot gets loaded into the Timeline, and then all that I have to do is go back and forth between the close up inserts and drop pieces of my two actors  into the master shot that's already on the Timeline. With a little tweaking to the sound to drop out any cue lines that might appear from off screen, add some ambient "room tone", and the thing is pretty much assembled. So much simpler than agonizing over what pieces to use in a documentary. This is feeling pretty good right now, and I'm looking to do this fictional short thing again. Let's not wait another twenty-five years this time.

a feature - not a bug

homage to Shepard

When was the last time you used a piece of software that had a feature that the documentation described as doing exactly what you needed to do? And then when you used the feature it did EXACTLY what you expected and wanted?

Such is the joy of the first usage of a filter in Final Cut Pro 7 called "SmoothCam." Admittedly, it took ten minutes to analyse a piece of video 3 seconds 19 frames long - apparently it has to look at the entire clip from which those ninety-one frames come. I didn't ask the software to do much - simply smooth out a camera that bounced a little from actors walking across the floor.

This is going to be my excuse for why there isn't much movement during this interior scene: if I'd had them walk around, the floor would have been bouncing the camera in a totally uncontrolled manner. The 7D should probably have been mounted on the Steadicam instead of a tripod - or some mount attached to the ceiling instead of the floor. (Which reminds me of a stereo installation from the recesses of my past where I suspended the turntable from the ceiling of the room, since I knew that walking across the room would make the tone arm bounce unacceptably. I don't think the landlord was too keen on the holes left in the ceiling when I departed.) Or maybe several thousand pounds spread around the floor to dampen out the movement. You would think that the several thousand pounds of machinery already in the shop would have done the trick, along with the massive shop bench included in the master shot.

Rarely does a filter work the way I want it to. Nice to see that software can come to the rescue of a shot that would have been eliminated without the filter.

& then there was 1: roscoe day 6

 photo by Alex Morgan

Even though the work had proceeded fairly steadily and without any major difficulties, I was still ready for it to be over and done with. But there was one more scene to finish off - the major revelation of the story. We had been rained out the day previous when attempting this scene. Cast and crew assembled one final time, on a Thursday morning.

Once again I decided that there was no reason to drive ten minutes away and subject ourselves to the unknowns of an open field location. It's not substantially different than what was planned, and the edit will expand the field of view to include the original concept. But I still feel as if I took the easy way out, and probably should have pushed myself a little harder. Second guessing now has me wondering if this was the right decision to make. OTOH, the "finished product" will not feel significantly different than if we had taken the trouble to troop into the field and get a location with "views".

The image maker in me was at a loss as to how to simply conclude our experimental "trip." I told myself that the editor was going to have to rely upon the power of the performances to make the piece work. With that directorial abdication of responsibility, I was able to push onward and continue in the vein that already had been worked steadily: the master shot/medium close up/close up progression.

I must have been anxious enough to get done with this portion of the enterprise that I called a wrap before we had completed the final shot - which is numbered differently, and encompasses a slightly different set of actions. Fortunately my collaborator C. MacDonald returned within minutes to remind me that we lacked the final scene. This is why I need someone watching over what I do, to remind me to finish all the parts in a timely fashion, so that bits aren't left out with the need to gather everyone again at a later date.

As with anything, practice. It's disappointing that these kinds of short gatherings can't be done on a more regular basis. It's only through frequency that techniques can improve. Time to get moving on plans for the next one.

A huge thanks to cast & crew. This stuff definitely can't be done alone. Upward and onward with editing.

roscoe day 5, pt 2

Studio

Green screen

Unknown talent

A new sound recordist

Swing Dance class next door

15 minutes of passing coal train

Don't forget to turn off the air conditioning

Be sure to turn the air conditioning back on

5 hrs - more or less - start to finish

But does it fit in the film?

The editor will decide.

roscoe day 5

 

By this point we had completed everything in the script except for three scenes. It looked to be a long, complicated day of exteriors, followed by four or five hours in a studio where I'd never worked before. Realizing that there was a good chance of not being able to finish on what was scheduled to be our final day before the camera, the producer in me decided to change locations to somewhere eminently more manageable: our back yard.

The scene in which the Professor balks at going any farther went from getting his coat snagged on a branch to jumping through some tall grass across a hidden trickle of water. A better solution, and much simpler to execute, was to use the small channel on our side yard. It's one of my favorite locations anyway, and have been photographing it off and on for the past four months.

This compromise was an improvement I feel good about. The scene was completed with no wasted time or undue effort, no need to drive to another location, and set up multiple times in an inaccessible field. The equipment then got transfered to a new location a minute away and 100 feet from the back door of the house. As I was considering where to set the camera again, the precipitation that had held off so far began. We moved everything to the breezeway and waited. Ralph and I have been through this waiting game many times before, so this was nothing unusual. After 30 or 40 minutes of steady rain, and checking with everyone present that they could return the following morning, I cancelled our afternoon schedule. It's still a wrenching call to make, especially since I knew the rain would probably cease within an hour.

Which of course it did. But by then everyone was long gone. It would have been too long a wait to ask everyone to sit through. Instead it gave Craig and me some time to search for props and pick up the wheel chair for our evening interior.

roscoe day 4

Already the inevitable "When's it going to be done?" rears its head.

Merely another step along the way, the production phase, or "shooting" if you will, is the most obvious manifestation of one's intent to proceed towards a goal. But the goal - my goal - is not to have an end product, despite the desires and needs of the consumer culture. As Mike Chisholm has pointed out here (scroll down the comments), viewers may not care one jot how much trouble someone went to to obtain an image. All they care about is the power of the final product, whether it be a print in a gallery/museum, or a book, or online. Or more specifically, a finished film to watch. Because really, who cares about my process of becoming a more accomplished image maker? That's something internal to me, of no consequence, except what products I create along the way that are evidence of my process.

My goal is to find out what combinations of talent, personnel, and technology I am capable of.

"Roscoe" will probably be done when I finish working on it. Sharing will come slowly.

roscoe day 2

Another great day shooting "Walking With Roscoe" yesterday. As always, lighting interiors goes on and on and on. Even I ran out of patience. Eventually we had to get moving. I'm very proud to report that I had told people we'd be done by 4 pm, and we got in the van and pulled away from the location - Barratt Woodworking - at 4:02 pm.

The initial nervousness has calmed somewhat, but it seems as if every day it starts over again. I'm running on only four or five hours of sleep every night (last night I awoke and the power was still off from the previous evening, so what have I got to worry about but not being able to get in touch with the crew and Gary about the oversight of calling all to the wrong location for Tuesday), and am still not familiar enough with this kind of work that each day's challenges don't throw me into a state of anxiety. Many variables that are mostly new. Despite that, once we get going, it's much like running a construction job where there are people coming at you all day long. Which lends a certain degree of familiarity, enough so that I eventually am able to get moderately comfortable in the environment.

What I am truly thankful for is the assistance. There really is no way of doing this sort of thing by yourself. My three previous artists videos were done completely as solo efforts - other than the artist subjects - but anything scripted really benefits from having others contribute their unique knowledge. It's wonderful to be able to ask people to work on a task and have them go to it while I go check on something else.

less than 1 week to go

During the summer solstice of 2006, good friend and collaborator Craig MacDonald and I travelled to Scotland for geneological reasons. He wanted to find information about family who had emegrated from the island of South Uist to the New World in the 19th century. Along the way we sampled the cuisine - if you consider haggis and neeps & tatties as such - the landscapes (seen here and here), and the inhabitants - many of whom seemed to be transplanted Brits. On the beach in Skye one morning, the midgies sampled us. At times I felt like the expedition photographer, occasionally straining for something other than a tag along role.

Upon returning to our respective homes, Mr. MacDonald graciously offered to permit me to generate the itinerary for the next trip we would take together. Becoming something of a homebody who has an increasingly difficult time justifying using aircraft to jet from location to location for the sole purposes of vacationing, I briefly toyed with and proposed a trip starting in Trieste and heading north through Eastern Europe, maybe encountering Zizek somewhere along the way. That trip didn't happen.

In its stead, I proposed that we take the funding required to travel to some indeterminate point on the globe and apply that to the production of a fictional movie to be shot at home in Central Virginia. A script is in hand, and it seems as if the majority of the pieces have come together. Which leaves me with the primary question: can two men who have never met convince us that they are longtime friends? At the moment, not my department. And in fact not necessarily pertinent to the enterprise. The endeavor is a trip through our artistic sensibilities, and an anthem to the glory of process. It's the journey, not the destination, despite the overwhelming evidence that no one out there cares about the difficulty of the process. They only care about what they can see in front of their faces, which is the end result.

Every day is a new roller coaster ride. Such is the life of a "no budget", no name, movie producer/writer/assitant director/production manager/cinematographer/Steadicam operator. I'm calling this venture - while it's working title is "Walking With Roscoe" - our 2011 trip to find the lost dream. Every day I veer from terror about what I've gotten myself into, to contentment that whatever we capture will have to be good enough. It's now down to less than a week before we begin working with cameras, lights, and actors. People seem to like the script, so at least the worry about the value of the material is being held at bay for now. No doubt I could still extricate myself, but by now it's pretty much got me in its grip and the production is headed forward without too much input from me. There are still many details to define, but the beast is nearly breathing on its own.