Just the other week a friend of mine send me a link to a video contest for Wright-Patt Credit Union. Myself, Matt Mulchahey & Alex Mangen made an entry. Turn around was really fast and the film isn’t as polished as I’d like it to be but at least we made it in on time. The video stars the great Charlie Clark.

We shot the video in the North River Coffee House in Dayton and all the green screen of Charlie in my condo. We used some Kino lights and a small Arri kit to light everything. We used an HDV workflow that I converted to Apple Pro Res 422 HQ on ingestion and it seemed to work just fine between Final Cut Pro and After Effects.

Watch the video then follow this link and vote for the video “Web Banners.” Vote everyday until Feb. 15th!!

vimeo password is “de-oh_wpcu”

YouTube version

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Recently I had the pleasure to work with a great group of producers, camera ops, grip & electric crew, countless PA’s and other crew members from all over the country on The Style Newtwork’s hit show Clean House.  The show’s cross country tour landed them in the city of Westwood, Ohio just outside downtown Cincinnati. The Baglien home was the last stop for this season and boy was it a stop. This house took us twice as long as house a “normal” show (keep in mind this was the messiest house in America and we did the entire house, not just a few rooms) and the house had so many possesions/clutter in it that we had to get an out of business Steve & Barry’s retail location to house, sort and sell everything from the Baglien’s home.

Though the neighbors enjoyed us helping out the Baglien family, I’m sure they will not miss our three giant tour buses (one of which was used as John McCain’s Straight Talk Express), the grip truck, the generators, the merch truck, the many pass vans, the giant dumpsters etc. etc.

There was some drama on set as well a couple of times… remember this is a “reality show”… so I can’t wait to see how the show will be cut together in post. The 2 hour special should air around the 4th of July so check your local listings.

Just as an FYI for those that might be wondering… the show was shot on XDCAM. The lighting in the house is all Kino Flo w/daylight lamps… there was also a great deal of ND filters used on the windows at the house as well as at the yard sale location. Outside of the house it was all HMI.

Here are a few photos and a video from the shoot (excuse the quality, they are all off my cell phone):

This is just a cell phone video of a mouse in the basement

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Alien Workshop‘s Mind Field is out after about five years in the making. I made it to the Dayton, Ohio premiere the Wednesday before its worldwide release and I was blown away. Once again Chris Carter and Mike Hill have put out a film second to none. Props have to be given to the director, Greg Hunt, as well as to Hill and Bowers for all the motion graphics. If you’re into J Mascis you’ll love the soundtrack as well.

If you’re unsure what tilt-shift photography is click here. Then read about tilt-shift miniature faking.

I’m a big fan of time-lapse and tilt-shift photography so when I came across Keith Loutit, an Aussie, needless to say I was impressed. It’s hard to believe that some of these shots aren’t models. Watch this video then check out his vimeo page for more videos, like Metal Heart, and watch them a little bigger as well.

* after watching this video I had to download the music. Check out the Headless Heroes here.

Writer/Director Trevor Hollen has recently finished two music videos, one for Atomic Johnny‘s “Galaxy Girl” and the other for Captain of Industry‘s “Healthy Spines.” csDM did the effects on both videos… the film effects, both video and audio, on Galaxy Girl as well as all the effects and editing for Healthy Spines.

Both videos were edited in Final Cut Pro and all effects were completed using After Effects CS3 and other 3rd party plugins and/or presets.

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YouTube Version

*NOTES*
The CoI video had a bunch of those “invisible” effects in it. One of them was the elevator door. Since Trevor needed to watch the band perform, the door had to be open. This forced us to add the door in post. Since the elevator was shaking all around while they were performing during filming, I had to motion track the elevator door to the performance shot as well.

The elevator shot is a cropped letterbox and used a Sony PD-170 and the Century Optics .3X Ultra Fisheye Adapter.

The VHS look was added after the film was shot on a Panasonic AG-DVX100B. We added some bad video effects to the raw footage after we had a picture lock, then exported it to a VHS tape. We then dubbed it back and forth to another tape then sucked it back in the computer. FYI… a dub of a dub 10x looks terrible.

Good times.
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YouTube Version

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CAST/CREW

Healthy Spines___________________________________

Captain of Industry is:
Nathan Peters – boards, guitar and vocals
John Lakes – percussion and vocals
Kevin Oldfield – guitar, percussion and electronics
Ian Sperry – bass and vocals
Tommy Cooper – guitar

Cast:
Man – Nathan
Saddeste Robotte – Kelsey Hopkins

Crew:
Writer/Director – Trevor Hollen
Cinematographer – Joe Telich
Editor/Effects – Chris “biZo” Stevens
Producer – Christa Bloede

Galaxy Girl______________________________________

Atomic Johnny is:
NAPALM 69: Vocals & Farfisa
MISSION 13: Guitar & Vocals
RAYGUNN 138: Expresso Drums

Cast:
The Galaxy Girls were The Gem City Roller Girls & The Ohio Roller Girls as themselves.

Crew:
Writer/Director/Editor – Trevor Hollen
Effects – Chris “biZo” Stevens
Cinematography/Camera – Joe Telich & Chance Madison