For this week, I'm writing about a shoot I did with a couple other BU graduates to attempt to win a Red Scarlet camera. We shot on 2 7D's on monopods, we actually had a boom and boom op for once, as well as  PA for the shoot. We used natural light for 99% of the shoot, along with couple room lamps to supplement.

MOGA is a company that creates video game controllers that connect to smart phones so the user can play games without having to use the phones touch screen. It also charges the users phone while they play. MOGA decided to host a contest with Freddie Wong (the youtuber) where they are going to give away 6 Red Scarlet cameras, along with a grand prize of $25,000. 

These prizes sounded pretty great to me, so I organized a group of filmmakers, and couple of actors I'm currently working with (ones a writer of a webseries I'm shooting, the other is an actor for said webseries), to attempt to make a video to submit for the contest. There are 3 weeks worth of competitions, so we decided to participate in the second weeks contest, which was to make a video about the agony of a battery dying. it had to include bacon, a musical instrument and a video game reference. 

So I started the project by asking for everyone involved to pitch ideas for the project. I wanted it to be a collaborative project, because when it came down to winning, we would have to share whatever the prize was, making it important to involve everyone in the whole process. Only two people sent in a total of 4 ideas, I hoped for more ideas, but you gotta take what you get. So after presenting the ideas to the group, we settled on the funniest and easiest to shoot given our time constraint. The ending idea was to make a sex joke about playing video games. 

After the idea was selected, one member of the group who couldn't be at the shoot volunteered to write it. When it came to the shoot we ended up only having 3 people show up to help, and one left within 15 minutes. It ended up being for the better since we were shooting in my room, which didn't have enough space to have an entire crew in it. 

Since I have worked with everyone before, the shoot went incredibly smoothly. Because of the rush, we didn't come up with a shot list, but since everyone knew what needed to be done, getting what we needed proved to be easy. We broke the shoot down into two sections, the beginning, then the dialogue. We shot all the coverage we needed to capture the intro of the two actors having fun under the covers, details, wides and even a few slides within the first 20 minutes. Then we were able to focus on the punchline of the video, which we used classical coverage to get. Shot reverse shot, with medium close-ups and a wide. All in all the shoot only took an hour and a half, including capturing wild sound. 

It was a great shoot, fast paced and fun. It was a great experience taking an idea to a script to the screen in only a matter of 2 days, and it was interesting to see how much the idea changed and evolved throughout the whole process and as it changed hands. I gotta thank the crew that helped me out, I couldn't have done it without them.

Voting for the video is still going on, while we aren't going to win with votes, we are still hoping to get a little recognition from the judges. Help us out and head to the link below to vote!

And check out the video we made below, its pretty funny.

Until next time,

-Jake

“Growing Up” by Ryan McCartan was shot on a 7D with the 24-105mm zoom lens. We also used for the first time in a video the new Black magic pocket camera using an adapter we put the 10-22mm lens on it. The 7D was mounted on the Redrock shoulder mount kit, and the Black Magic camera was mounted on a monopod.

For Ryan’s new video this week we were keeping with the most recent aesthetic of natural light and light-hearted tunes. The song was a simple composition of some beat-boxing mixed together with a looper pedal. Once Ryan built the beat with the looper pedal, he was free to kick back and sing.

With this video we wanted a really laid back and relaxed look and feel. The light was a little cloud covered which gave us a nice consistent light, but it was a little dark. We didn’t plan out the shoot as much as usual and decided to kick back with Ryan and shoot in a relaxed way, shooting loose and going with what he threw at us. 

He had a blast with the shoot and at the end we taught Ryan how to actually play a little FIFA. 

The editing was easy and the black magic footage looked great. Unfortunately color correcting got in the way of us trying to release the video when we wanted to (Thursday morning at 9am) so we had to release it Friday morning(ish). Then after the video was released, we noticed a huge issue with the footage syncing with the audio, so we had to pull the video down, change it, export and load it back up as quick as we could. All in all the video turned out to be a little more difficult than expected, but new challenges and issues present themselves when working with new equipment. 

Until next time.

-Jake

Shot on a Canon 7D, using the Canon 10-22mm zoom lens, as well as the 24-105mm zoom lens. I used a mix of monopod and handheld with the monopod as a handle or counterweight. Unfortunately I had lent out my Redrock kit to another shoot, so I had to get a little creative. Also I forgot to used the image stability control on the 24-105mm lens when shooting handheld, which was a terrible mistake. I definitely will be remembering that in the future. 

This week I finished up a video I had been working on for a couple weeks now. I started this project with Jimmy from Hella Longboards, a start up longboard company in LA. Hella Longboards sponsors Amanda, hooking her up with new and unique boards. The video I made with them is a sponsor video, or a "reel" for Amanda to send to other longboarding associated companies to find additional sponsorship, such as wheels or sliding gloves. 

Working with Amanda and the crew from Hella Longboards has been a great experience. The first day of shooting with them was during the first week in November, we start the shoot on Franklin hill in Santa Monica, where Jimmy and Amanda did some sliding on their boards. That was a tricky shoot with Amanda and Jimmy having to worry about oncoming traffic on the hills and trying not to run into parked cars, while I tried find the perfect spot to capture the action.

We next went to another hill south of Franklin, Im not entirely sure where, but It was pretty awesome. There was less traffic than Franklin hill, and it was a shorter hill, so Jimmy and Amanda were able to take a few more runs, giving me more of an opportunity to capture their riding. 

At the end of the day, we found ourselves at the beach in Santa Monica, about a mile south of the pier (we weren't far from the pier long). Along with downhill riding and sliding, Amanda is great with longboard dancing, so we used the long sidewalk stretching from Santa Monica beach down to Venice to capture her great dancing skills without to much interruption. That was probably the most enjoyable part of the shoot for be, since I was finally able to jump on my own board and do some riding along with her. 

The second day of shooting I did with Hella Boards and Amanda was in Malibu a week later. We went up into the mountains to find some gnarly downhill roads from the top of the mountain to the bottom. These routes were 4-5 miles long of pure downhill bliss. The road overlooked the mountain range as well as the ocean, it was unbelievable to be shooting here with Hellaboards.  We found a way, using a suction cup and some rope, to strap my camera (Canon 7D) to the hood of my car with a 10-22mm zoom lens. 

For the first ride down the mountain, I set the focal length of the camera to 22mm and went down the hill following the group of 4 riders, including Jimmy and Amanda. I found that, while with the lens set at 22mm, I had a great shot when the riders were directly in front of me, but with the crazy winding roads down the mountain, it was tough keeping a safe distance to the riders while keeping them in frame. So the second time down the mountain, I set the lens to 10mm, giving me full view of the road and a peek around the corner to keep the riders in frame without running them over.  

The second time down the mountain, I followed the rider Clay, who was a young kid who was insane on a longboard. He rode down the road at top speed, sliding around corners at almost 20 mph, I even had a hard time keeping up with him in my car. We got some great high speed footage of him speeding down the mountain. 

The second ride down, we stopped half way down to capture some more detailed riding of them sliding around turns and to try out some new wheels Amanda and Jimmy were given to test. Unfortunately, during the short stop, Jimmy ended up getting thrown into the rock wall lining the road while attempting a high speed slide around a corner. He got pretty hurt and ended up having to go to the hospital. It was ok though, we were able to get another downhill session with Clay before getting Jimmy to the hospital. He's fine now, no worries. He burst both of hi his Bursa? Im not sure how bad that is, but apparently it hurts. Luckily I also go it on camera, so check it out below. 

Thanks for reading, and look out for another video with Hella Longboards, which will include Jimmy along with Amanda and their friends. 

Until next week

-Jake

For this shoot with Ryan, we used 3 7D's on sticks (well one was on a box on a table), we used a 10-22mm lens, 24-105mm lens and a 17-55mm lens. The lighting was just short of magic hour. 

This week with Ryan, the video is a simple song called "Told You So", we shot it on Sunday and wanted to try and new release date and time (we're still trying to figure out the best time to release his videos). So it gave us a short time to get it done, as well as made it tough to keep up with the rest of the projects. But luckily for us, we shot it live and on sticks, so after syncing the sound and footage, it was just a matter of cutting with the right flow and shots.

Yong and I loved doing this shoot, it was simple and beautiful. Since we shoot with Ryan almost exclusively in Yong's and my apartment, it is tough to find new textures and looks for the videos, but as soon as we set up here, we got excited. The light was shining through some trees across the street, causing the light to do some cool things on our wall, as well as our blinds created nice strips of light across Ryan's guitar. 

The shoot with Ryan went quick and we were able to upload the footage and get going on editing after Ryan and I got a little writing done. 

Look for my weekly updates and new projects being released!, and look for Ryan's weekly videos here or on his youtube page.

Until next time.

-Jake