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New video posted

In March 2011, Japan experienced one of the worst disasters in modern history: an earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the Northeastern coast of Japan. One year later, a team traveled to Japan to observe the relief work that Asian Access pastors were leading. Now, another year has passed, and we are able to report on work that has been done over the past two years. This is the first of several (hopefully) videos that report on the use of funds donated to earthquake/tsunami relief through Asian Access:

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The team consisted of Loren A. Roberts from Hearken Creative on camera and editing, Joshua Clayton on camera, Jeff Johnston from Asian Access as producer, and Takeshi Takazawa as liaison, interpreter, and all-around wonderful travel leader.

Another new promotional video by HCS

My new band, Doobies Inc., walked into SIR Studios in mid-December to film and record a live demo. We tracked to ProTools and filmed 3 cameras (2 roving and 1 stationary). Then I took all of the tracks and footage back to my studio to mixdown and edit. For a one-night session, these came out really well, and we hope to get quite a bit of work from this promotional video.

http://youtu.be/hw3z7zDf2O8

I truly enjoy recording and filming live events. One of my favorites was Jennifer Robin’s CD release party for her album “The Bird and The Beatles” found here on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/K5evsOLje7k

I also have filmed live concert footage that will be found in the upcoming film “Praying the Hours” by Lauralee Farrer. These types of events are difficult to capture multitrack — so that one can mix the music later on — but ultimately exceptionally rewarding, because you get both the immediacy and thrill of the live event, as well as the incredible sound of a professionally mixed and produced recording.

Corporate Video piece

In April 2012, Hearken Creative was brought in to produce a video piece that would thank some major donors at Fuller Theological Seminary. Chris Min directed, and Loren A. Roberts produced, filmed, edited, and managed post-production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYlk3UT7rvM

Hearken Creative equipment used on the shoot and in post includes

  • Canon EOS7d camera
  • Zoom H4n field recorder
  • Sennheiser G2 100-series wireless microphones
  • Kessler Crane Pocket Dolly
  • KinoFlo Diva fluorescent lighting
  • Final Cut Pro system on multiple computers, with client preview on large-screen plasma monitors

One thing to note is that Hearken Creative has multiple back-up systems in place, so that no footage was lost, corrupted, or destroyed on this project (or any other recent projects). We use a dedicated NAS, directly-connected swappable hard drives, and cloud storage to ensure that no data is ever lost in our facility.

The client was very happy with the final product, telling us that there were “quite a few misty eyes” in the banquet hall as the piece ended. We are proud of the work we did on this video project.

Filming at JPL in June 2012

I got to head up to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here in Pasadena to shoot a few short clips for my longtime client The Planetary Society. Here is the first of two videos that I shot and edited for them.

Emily Lakdawalla and Mat Kaplan did a fantastic job with limited time (JPL is conscious that lots of news organizations want to do feeds from JPL leading up to the dramatic Mars Science Laboratory landing in August 2012), and it was exciting to get to work with them on this, first filming and then editing and delivering the finished piece for use in a Planetary Radio Live! segment that was shown at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

Another wrinkle in the NLE market

Just to make matters more confusing, Avid decides to re-align its operations away from consumer products, instead focusing on its enterprise-level offerings, specifically Media Composer for enterprise and ProTools. Is that good? I’m not sure, because I believe I don’t fit (as a micro-business) into the traditional enterprise categories.

Why does this matter?

Well, let’s review what has happened to the video editing market recently:

  1. Apple decided to ditch Final Cut Pro 7 for its new, version 1 software, entitled Final Cut X. (June 2011) One year later, I still can’t use it, because the thing simply can’t handle production-necessary audio streams and controls.
  2. Avid [edit: Blackmagic owns Da Vinci, not Avid, and Da Vinci is for color correction, not editing. Media Composer and Symphony are Avid's two video editing products.] lowered the price of its flagship video editing system, Da Vinci, in April 2010. This was a move to bring in us smaller editors, who might have been working on Final Cut Pro 7 or Adobe Premiere.
  3. Adobe brought out its newest version of its video editing system, Premiere CS6, in May 2012. Vastly improved (according to some), but still doesn’t manage media to the same degree that Da Vinci/Composer (or FCP X) does.

In some ways, the Avid announcement makes my decision-making easier: if Final Cut Pro no longer works for my office, the only viable alternative is Adobe Premiere. And I already own the Master Collection, so it would be a no-brainer (relatively speaking) to take the discounted upgrade path that Adobe has laid out for us.

But I still feel a little sad for what Avid could have become: a unified set of tools that both amateurs and professionals could have used to create/edit/record wonderful video and audio. That will not happen now.

It’s interesting that Avid believes that it cannot be profitable in the consumer marketplace. Another media/tech/hardware company, Blue Microphones, has taken a completely different approach. While they have a stable of pro mics that we studio geeks like, they have also entered into the consumer sphere, with USB mics featured at Apple Stores and elsewhere. Blue reports that the consumer marketplace has helped their bottom line immensely. What did Blue do differently than Avid?

I dunno. But I do know that I’m unsure where to go in the longer-term video editing dilemma. And I feel that today’s announcement took another viable option away from me.

Past project spotlight

I’m working on getting some new stuff onto the blog, ‘cuz I’ve been really busy lately with some beautiful projects. But I just can’t get enough of this woman’s voice, and I got to film her last Fall. Check it out!

In the next several days, I’ll post the newest issue of the magazine that I art direct, a few photo shoots that I have done, as well as some wonderful film work, in Washington, D.C., in Phoenix, and here in Los Angeles.

New short YouTube videos on the Japanese tsunami and rebuilding effort

We’re still working on the main piece — a longer video with lots of interviews in Japanese that need to be translated and subtitled in English for the North American viewers. But today (March 11) is the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in NE Japan, so we rushed to get just a few videos posted to commemorate the horrors and to point towards the hope and vision that many Japanese pastors have for their country in the new reality that is Japan.

First up is a prayer from Mori Sensei, a pastor living 30 minutes away from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. His church wants to help rebuild an entire seaside community, hopefully relocating just a half-mile off the beach up into the hills, so that they can still have their livelihood, but be protected from the possibility of another tsunami:

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The next video is a set of reflections from Eric Takamoto, an Asian Access missionary from the Kobe area who was one of the first responders up into the destroyed town of Ishinomaki. Eric’s family is going to relocate to Ishinomaki because they feel strongly that the rebuilding work is going to take time and committed effort, and they want to be part of that long-term process. Eric’s passion for the people he ministers to inspires me:

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Both of these pieces were filmed in January 2012 as part of my one-week trip to NE Japan for Hearken Creative client Asian Access. I was accompanied on the trip by Asian Access’ VP for Communications Jeff Johnston, good friend and colleague Joshua Clayton, Asian Access’ VP for Strategic Engagement Takeshi Takazawa, as well as translation and hosting and friendship by Asian Access’ Jeffrey Sonnenberg (oh, and new friend Mike McKay from Cypress Church here in California was with us for part of the week).

Video was shot with A2′s Sony HD Handycam and my Canon EOS 7D, with color correction done in Final Cut Pro with additional color work by Red Giant’s Mojo. Audio was recorded through my Zoom H4N using Sennheiser G2 wireless mics and an Audio Technica AT897. All data cards (CF for video, SD for audio) were captured onsite and backed up to multiple G-Raid Mini hard drives for redundant transport back to the U.S.