Kari Davis, one of the fabulous students from the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program, sat down with me and recorded a few covers (as well as a few of her own original tunes). This is her take on an old Johnny (and June) Cash song, It Ain’t Me, Babe.
Nice.
I had forgotten how much fun this little shoot was, from back in April 2011. But people keep coming and watching this piece (with almost 700 views on YouTube), even thought the concert that this short advertised is long-over. I think Zach is a fantastic ambassador for new and unique music, because his passion and deep understanding of the music is clearly evident when he starts talking about the Berio piece.
I filmed this in a quick two-hour session; approximately one hour of simply letting Zach play while I shot from different angles, and then another hour (probably less) of Zach and Young Riddle talking about the piece. The awesome sound comes from mics set up both on the stage and out in the middle of Zipper Hall picking up the great acoustics of that room.
Happy that so many people are enjoying this simple piece. I wonder if I could do something similar for your business or project…what are you passionate about?
Totally cool:
While this was taken from the International Space Station, the timelapse was conceived and assembled by a guy simply requesting still images that we all have access to, and stitching them together. Awesome.
credits: Loren A. Roberts, producer, ProTools recordist and editor, film editor, b-camera operator; Jordan McMahon, a-camera operator
Jennifer Robin is a fantastic jazz artist that I have known for almost 20 years, but have never gotten to work with before. That opportunity finally came when she announced a CD release party for August 2011. I stepped in to both run sound for the show and assemble some live footage for an electronic press kit. All mics were mine — we ran 12 channels directly into my ProTools rig, and then straight out to the board for live mixing. Jordan and I both brought cameras, and later I mixed down the live recording and married it up with the footage as well as some interview clips that I filmed a few days after the concert.
I love how much of her personality I was able to capture, both in the concert and in the interviews. Jennifer deals with life with a thoughtful but in-the-moment grace that is hard to find in artists, and I believe that comes through loud and clear here. And she surrounds herself with wonderful people, too: the whole band was game for trying things, but gracious and helpful as well.
In all, a good time putting together a powerful package that I hope helps her sell some more albums. And a good piece showing what Hearken Creative can do on short notice…
So I’m on the board of the Pasadena Musical Theatre program, and we get to do all sorts of fun and cool stuff. In addition to year-round programs, we put on two big musicals every summer — one for 4th-6th graders, and one for 7th-12 graders. So here’s what I get to do:
ADVERTISING DESIGN
All postcards and posters and such are developed by me, in concert with the directors. Here is the keyart for the two shows this summer:
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The Jasper in Deadland keyart was developed with strong direction from the composer/conductor, Ryan Scott Oliver, because this is his baby. I’m very excited to be helping him bring this original musical to life.
PRODUCT & BRAND DESIGN
As part of the story for Jasper in Deadland, the protagonist crosses the river Lethe (get out your mythology books!) and keeps getting offered Lethe™ Brand water, so we decided that we needed to offer Lethe™ Brand products as well.
It’s a clever, simple brand, but people are loving it, and I expect that we’ll see tote bags and water bottles with this logo all around campus in a week or two…
VIDEO
I have found a way to use the Canon 7D for quick, news-gathering-style video: 1) simply accept the limitations of the on-board microphone, and 2) stop the iris down a little so things don’t go out of focus so quickly. And so, every day of the program, we have posted a 2-minute recap, showing warmups, rehearsals, discussions, and antics of the kids in the program. It’s a win-win for the families in the program: parents get to see what’s going on, students get to show their day off to their friends, and PMTP gets added exposure through the hundreds of views we have gotten on Youtube. Here are two of the most popular recaps so far:
Filming these giving me a chance to understand how to choose shots quickly and follow the action. Everything is handheld except for performance video.
IN OTHER NEWS
Tomorrow (I hope) I’m going to roll out a press release announcing one of the newest projects that I have been working on. We’re very proud of the design work that Hearken Creative is doing these days, and I can’t wait to update my portfolio. It’s just a busy time of year for us!
This is looking down on the stage from the catwalk where my speakers are hidden
It pays to have a kid who loves classical music, and love classical music myself. Los Angeles Children’s Chorus asked me to help out with adding surround sound to the Ambassador Auditorium for a new piece, composed for the Children’s Chorus by Caroline Park, entitled Motion. So I took a bunch of powered speakers and climbed up into the catwalks above the audience. And it sounds fantastic. Ms. Park has written a challenging piece for the kids, but the payoff is huge — being enveloped in sound in a way that only someone with an understanding of children’s voices could create.
Rehearsing the new piece "Motion." Composer Caroline Park's laptop with MaxDSP running can be seen in the lower left of the photo.
The concert is Saturday, May 14, at 7:00 p.m. You should come if at all possible — these kids are pros. They have sung with the L.A. Phil, Hollywood Bowl, L.A. Master Chorale, tons of recordings, and all sorts of other stuff. More importantly, they love music, and are learning to love the work that goes into doing something well — doing something right. I’m proud of all of the hard work that they have put into this.
And I love getting to play with sound, too.
LACC's Concert Choir rehearsing for this week's concert
Shane Hurlbut mentions a new set of “camera styles” that Technicolor just released for the Canon DSLRs (specifically the Canon EOS 5D Mark III, but they mention that the camera styles will work on any of the current EOS cameras). These new picture styles allow the camera to more closely approximate the color and f-stop latitude of traditional film, allowing for more color-correction options in the post-production process.
These are not the first “custom” picture styles to come out; in fact, people have been playing around with (and distributing/sharing on the internet) various picture styles — SuperFlat, Marvel, Velvia, Genesis, and many more. What makes this one impressive is that it has the Technicolor name on it, and, apparently, has tons of Technicolor research behind it. So this picture style is a research-based, powerful tool for making a gorgeous picture on the Canon DSLR cameras.
But remember, adding a custom picture style like this is going to mean that the image coming out of the camera is not at all ready for prime time. These picture styles make your footage ready for post-production, not ready out-of-camera. You must take these in and do color-correction before they will begin to look like what you want. The Technicolor picture style only gives you the latitude to make some wonderful images in post-production.
We filmed another short promo for Nimbus Ensemble this past week:
I tried some things on this shoot that I ultimately regretted, but on other elements of the shoot I’m extremely happy. Running four-channel audio recording through the Zoom H4N is a breeze, and gave me lots of options for incredible audio. I’m finding that I like wireless mics less and less, so I used only studio-quality mics and shotgun mics for this shoot (all wired directly to the Zoom). The viola sounds superb, and the interview worked beautifully with a shotgun on a boom stand.
The things I’m less happy about are in the video; specifically two things:
We’ll be filming the real concert coming up this weekend. I’ll be excited to show you footage from that. Or, you could just come and listen to some great (and very unique) music: here’s the information page at Nimbus’ website (which Hearken Creative also designed).
The Tribute Band isn’t part of my day job, but we’re starting to book gigs for money [!], so it is tangentially part of my business. In addition, I got to use the Canon 7D and the Zoom H4N on this wonderful gig we did out in Van Nuys a few weeks ago.
And boy is it loads of fun to play great rock music with a bunch of awesome people.
Two quick video projects that I had the pleasure of working on over the last week.
ASIAN ACCESS
First up was a quick web video post for the president of Asian Access. He wanted to say “thank you” to the many people who have already donated money to the relief efforts going on in northern Japan after the Sendai earthquake in March 2011. So I raced out to his office and filmed him:
TECHNICAL DETAILS: This was filmed with the Canon EOS 7D, using the “kit lens” — an 28-135mm. Sound was handled using a Zoom H4n with an Audio Technica AT897 microphone. Footage was transcoded to ProRes LT using the wonderful 5DtoRGB app with a command-line batch processor provided by French video production company NoSide. The whole thing was sync’d and edited in Final Cut Pro, and exported to H.264 via Compressor.
NIMBUS ENSEMBLE
I did a 12-part videolog series with Nimbus and this same composer back in 2008, and they are back with a new composition that Nimbus will premiere. We’re in a rush, so there’s only one video, and I shot a rehearsal for a few hours this week, followed by a very brief interview. But the piece will be instrumental in advertising the concert:
TECHNICAL DETAILS: Much the same as the previous piece, except I used a host of lenses: a 50mm f1.4 prime (I used this a lot because the room was pretty dark, but I didn’t want to raise my ISO too much and get grainy footage), a Canon EF-S 18-55mm, and a Canon EF-S 55-250mm. Sound was captured 4-channel using the Zoom’s onboard mics plus the AT897 and a Sennheiser lav (but the interview was done with the AT897 — I love the sound of that mic compared to a lav).
All-in-all, a pretty busy but fun week of budget-conscious filmmaking. Every project that we do gets easier, more fun, and give us invaluable experience for the next one.
Today I’ll be taking my equipment and doing an outdoor photoshoot for a band I’m in (stills, not video). Can’t wait to share those…
Flickr Photos
