Better Audio for Voice Overs

I asked the ESC's resident audio geek what he recommended for capturing better audio for voice-over type stuff like I did in my second project.  He recommends the Audio Technica AT2020 USB mic.  My lav mic was horrible, so I had my son record using my built-in mic on my laptop, but I wish I had this.  I'm sharing an image and a link to the manufacturer's site, but google it to find it cheaper.
http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wired_mics/c75c5918ed57a8d0/index.html

Poster Ideas

My first idea was to do a poster for the IMAX show: Vikings: Journey to New Worlds playing at the Cosmosphere. I am of Viking and Celtic stock and I love Viking design. They were great artists, so designing a poster using these distinct designs would be fun. I searched for some cool backgrounds and images, but found very little that coincided with my ideas, so I will throw this bone out tomorrow in class.

I have found an alternative that works better. I am going to design a poster for World Hemophilia Day (April 17th - my daughter's birthday). There will be a fundraiser walk in Wichita that day. They provided a set of materials, including a logo graphic, for use in designing promotional materials, so it works out great for me and hopefully I can help out the local organizers.

Making the Final Cut

I like to upload my first cut before deadline and share it with several people to get feedback. I always get good feedback on how to make it better. I make the changes and decide which cut I like best and then upload the final cut. Vimeo makes it easy to replace a first cut I uploaded with a final cut, without losing any comments or likes stats.

In My Life With Hemophilia: Brandston I scrapped my original outline after I filmed all the shots I wanted. When I reviewed my video, I decided that my son showed enough personality on film to carry a much more focused portrait of his infusion, rather than a collection of shots from many aspects of his life. I decided not to use the interview with Amber, his mom, and to let him narrate instead. The video and his narration added an emotional aspect that was far greater than anything I had planned, so I was very pleased and became excited about the project (see earlier post on Poop Project when I was frustrated).

After getting feedback on the first cut, I took some advice and ended the video with a close-up of my son saying the last line: "This is my life with hemophilia." Many people also asked questions about hemophilia after watching it, so I added a graphic at the end of the video pointing viewers to www.hemophilia.org for more information.

Although I have a process, sometimes the project takes its own course and it winds up better than I planned. It is important for me to be flexible and open to ideas, because ultimately it is the viewers' response that tells me if I achieved my objective. If I need to make changes to do so, it just makes my video more effective and me more successful.

My Life With Hemophilia Video

I uploaded a video portrait of my 5-year-old son, Brandston.  He has severe hemophilia with inhibitors and receives infusions at least every other day.  This past week he received an infusion every six hours.  It was a rough week.  Besides the stress associated with my kid going through all this and not being able to play, I got real sick and didn't get to do something special with my valentine, Amber.  I had originally planned to tell a story from Amber's perspective as a caregiver, but when I reviewed my footage I didn't like the way the interview footage looked.  It was typical and boring, so I decided to let Brandston tell his story about getting infusions.


My Life With Hemophilia: Brandston (Enhanced Audio) from Mark Kenny on Vimeo.
This is a video portrait of my 5-year-old son, Brandston. He has severe hemophilia A with inhibitors and this is just a glimpse of what life is like for him.
The music featured is "Ceremony" by New Order, and is available for download from iTunes.
The audio has been enhanced for the comfort of your ears.
I was inspired by the videos I watched for our silent film projects.  I particularly wanted to use the Joelseph "interior POV" shot.  I liked the way he put the camera in the luggage (and trunk) in his first video.  I decided to do that in this video when Amber was pulling meds out of the drawer.  I also liked the way Jake mixed up his shots in his video, so I used that as inspiration when shooting this project and I ended up with some good options.  I couldn't resist the Rik Dubiel "over the coffee mug" shot that he showed the class in his coffee video, so I used it to look down over the drawer of meds.  As I mentioned, I shot an interview with Amber, but decided that I wanted to depart from the interview-style video and just show Brandston's infusion and let him narrate it.  It is a portrait of his life that gives a good overview of how having hemophilia impacts his life in his (every-other-) daily routine.

Video Portrait: Living With Hemophilia

I have two boys with severe hemophilia A with inhibitors. This means that their bodies do not produce enough Factor VIII clotting factor in their blood. Inhibitors make it hard to treat because they combat the medicine used to treat hemophilia. In short, they bleed and bleed... and their bodies try to reject the medical treatment. This affects their joints regularly... their ankles and knees especially. They swell and become very painful. As you can imagine, this affects their lifestyle. They cannot play hard-contact sports like football. Their options in life are limited. Hemophilia affects not only the patient, but also the caregivers. I plan to get footage of the differences that hemophiliacs and their providers experience on a daily basis. I have flexibility: I can tell this from the patient's perspective, from the caregiver's perspective, from the treatment provider's perspective, or from any combination of the three.

Obstacles to this project are: bad lighting/environment (my messy home), legalities (home health agency's permission), learning the features of a new camera (borrowed a Panasonic DVX from KPTS)

Using interviews and B-roll, I hope to get a good testimonial that can be used by the hemophilia community (ex: Hemophilia Federation of America's Voices campaign: http://voices.hemophiliafed.org)

Here is an outline of info I plan to gather (or draw out of subjects):

1. Diagnosis/Finding Out (first thoughts/feelings...)
2. How it changed life (career, finances, priorities...)
3. Treatment
• What did they need? (medicine, doctors/nurses...)
• Obstacles (cost/money, insurance, geographic location/resources...)
• Who helped? (non-profits, state...) How? (support, education, healthcare...)
4. Home Health Care (frequency of treatments/visits, relationships...)
5. Hemophilia Treatment Center (burden, services, experiences...)
6. Expand on Education (summits, conferences...)
7. What Would You Change
• If you could change anything, would you? What? How? Why?
• What needs to be done? What can be done? (dreams and reality)
• How can legislators help? (what powers do they have? what can they change?)
• How can you help? (how to advocate for change)

Tilt-Shift Video

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

©2009 COPYRIGHT - All Rights reserved

Project info @ http://vimeo.com/channels/keithloutitssydney

This is a personal project that would not have been possible without the support of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service. Thanks to the entire team for their generous access during training exercises and patrols this Summer. Since the Service began in 1973, it has carried out more than 21,000 missions ranging from urgent patient transfers to dangerous search and rescue missions.

The Service depends entirely on the generous support of sponsors and the community to stay flying. Donations can be made here:
http://www.lifesaver.org.au/funding_challenge/donate.html

This film is 100% 'real', but there are some new techniques for me here, such as using time lapse to create the illusion of forward movement for the helicopter ocean scenes. These flight sequences would not be possible without the skill and patience of Chief Pilot Peter Yates. Thanks also to Trevor Cracknell (for getting wet!) and Family.

Music:
“CLEMENTINE” (Megan Washington)
Performed by Washington
© 2008 J Albert & Son Pty Limited
Used with permission
www.myspace.com/meganwashington

Artist Info @ www.keithloutit.com
Project info @ http://vimeo.com/channels/keithloutitssydney

Thank you,
Keith.

More Royalty-Free Music Sources

As posted by Karen Abad ♥s Dinosaurs on Vimeo's Community Forums / Vimeo Projects / Great resources for finding music for your films:

Here are a couple places that you may want to check out that have royalty-free music that you can use:

freemusicarchive.org/ - The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. Check out "10 Tracks to Sync" highlighting instrumental music that works well with video! - bit.ly/bugm0N

ccmixter.org/ - ccMixter is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.

freesound.org/ - The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Freesound focusses only on sound, not songs.

audiofarm.org/ - Audiofarm is an audio website for helping people explore, share, and enjoy Creative Commons Audio from around the world.

incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/
At this website Kevin MacLeod offers his royalty free music creations under the Creative Commons License. There are many different types of instrumental music at this site.

pacdv.com/sounds/free-music.html
pacdv offers a few instrumentals for you to use royalty free. They just ask that you mention "Music by pacdv.com/sounds/" in your credits.

sonnyboo.com/music/music.htm
Offers a few songs that you can use in your productions as long as you credit the songwriter - Peter John Ross.

loganlproductions.com/pmp.html
Offers a few royalty free instrumental songs under the Creative Commons License. Just credit the musicians.

taylorhayward.org/freemusic.htm
Taylor Hayward offers a few piano songs that are copyright free so you are free to use them in any way, commercial or non-commercial.

soundclick.com/business/license_list.cfm
I recommend that you sign up with a free account at soundclick.com to take full advantage of its many differnent music artsists and genres. To find royalty free music at no charge under the Creative Commons License click on the soundclick link above and then change License Type to Creative Commons (Free), select the Genre and click go.

jamendo.com/
This site includes many different genre's of music by many different artists under the Creative Commons License. The difficult part at this site is just downloading one song. When you go to an artist's page and click on an album it wants you to download the whole album. But if you are listening to the album with the jamplayerweb there is an option at the bottom to Export this playlist: M3U. If you pause the music and click on M3U then the songs should open up in your Media Player and you can click the next and previous buttons in your Media Player and also click on File -> Save As... to save the song you are listening to.

derekaudette.ottawaarts.com/music.php
Derek Audette offers his royalty free music under the Creative Commons License. Most of these are instrumental pieces that are either dark, moody, or hard driving.

publicdomain4u.com/
This site contains recordings of songs that were published prior to 1922 and are now in the public domain which means the public is free to copy and use the works in any way.

opsound.org/
This website offers a collection of music from a variety of artists and genres under the Creative Commons License. In the left hand menu click on artists or genres.

openmusicarchive.org/
Open Music Archive offers recordings of songs that are over 50 years old so their copyright has expired in the UK so the recordings have become Public Domain. However, if you are from another country other than the UK then the recordings may not be Public Domain yet. See the FAQ for more information.

archive.org/details/audio
This Audio Archive contains free recordings of many popular bands. These are usually recordings of live performances. The bands that allow their live concerts to be recorded and traded are known as Trade Friendly Bands. For a list of bands that are Trade Friendly and to view their policies see Trade-Friendly Band Information and Furthurnet.org Band List. The FAQ page and the details page make it clear that these recordings can only be used for non-commercial purposes.

freeproductiontracks.com/
Free Production Tracks has a few styles of music that can be downloaded for free and can be used for anything, commercial or personal, without any royalty fees.
Royalty Free Music royaltyfreemusic.com/free-music-resources.html
royaltyfreemusic.com mainly offers royalty free tracks for a price, but they do offer some 30 second music clips, beats and loops that can be used for personal or non-commercial productions. You must credit RoyaltyFreeMusic.com as the source of the music.

internetaudioguy.com/iag/freemusic/freemusic.htm
InernetAudioGuy.com usually sells royalty free audio tracks for a price but they also offer a few instrumental 30 second samples that you can use for free for anything you want.

Using Non-Royalty Free Music
If you already found a piece of music from a professional artist that you want to use in your film or other production then go to ascap.com/filmtv/faq.html to find out how to contact the copyright owner (usually the publisher) and acquire the appropriate license.

Midnight Blog Re-Design and Webmonkey

I made some significant improvements to my blog's design. I googled free templates for blogger (my blog is through Blogger, but you can put tumblr or wordpress... whichever you use). I found several good designs and downloaded them. I chose this design, because I wanted a darker background. It makes videos and photos stand out better. I had to alter the xml slightly, so if you don't know html or xml, if your template doesn't work, you may need help tweaking a few settings. It is simple enough you can probably even google enough info to get it done yourself.

I went to btemplates.com and found hundreds of templates. Check it out, or search google. I did all this in a few hours, so it wasn't too bad.

When you're adding a color to your Web page with HTML (or XML), sometimes you can just type in the name of the color. But more often than not, you'll need to use what's called the hex code, which is something that the browser will be able to understand. Webmonkey provides an easy to use Color Chart that allows you to search for colors and get the hex code. The bonus is that because it is a Web site, you can see what the colors actually look like on the Web (as opposed to books or printed charts, which don't look the same as they do online).

Triste (The Final Cut)

I tried to add a white vignette and some filters to give my dream sequence a whimsical feel, but without success. I even created a white vignette as a graphic in photoshop, but even though I matched the pixel resolution, FCExpress cut the top and bottom of it (ruining the blur). The effects were freezing up during playback, so I ditched them. I finally gave up and used a black vignette over a desaturation filter during the dream sequence. I also grouped those shots and cut the guitar, so hopefully it communicates my concept better.
Here is the final cut:

Triste (Final Cut) from Mark Kenny on Vimeo.

A short, silent film (no dialogue) inspired by the lyrics:
My life is endless burning
on a thousand dead desires.
It is about how people dream of becoming many great things in life, but usually end up doing something quite different. I decided to tell it from the perspective of a tree. He wanted to be a bat, or a fence, or even a bench... but he was cut down and burned to ashes instead.
I grouped the dream shots and put a vignette over desaturated video to make this footage distinct from "reality." I also cut 14 seconds... including the beautiful guitar.
The music featured is titled "Love Theme" by Daniel Bautista, courtesy of jamendo.com.

Creative Commons Files

Besides jamendo.com, I used beatpick.com for creative commons audio files. You have to provide an email, because they send a link to the file download (and direction for attribution), but they do not send spam mail and it was quick and painless downloading the track.

I googled creative commons to find other sources and other types of files (photo, video...).
Rather than post the many sources I discovered, I will just provide a few searching tips:
Search creative commons and add the words audio or video or photo to find other sources

If you will be doing many projects and want unlimited choices, contact ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. They are the three largest music publishing companies in the world. Most of what we hear on radio, TV, film, commercials... is licensed through these companies. It will cost an annual subscription fee (for non-commercial purposes, I think it starts at around $300). I personally would love this freedom of choice, however I do not produce enough video to justify it.

Inspiration: Color and Class

I like this video. I just wish I had seen it before I shot my takes. I like how he caught the reflection of trees in the water. The color is amazing in his video.

Wood from John Hope on Vimeo.

Behind the Scenes of Triste

I wanted to tell a sad story. I also wanted to challenge myself to include the basic elements of a drama: a protagonist (a tree), an antagonist (a man), conflict (the tension between the tree and man, building to a climax) and resolution (however sad it may be).

My original idea was to tell a story of someone (representing many people) who had many dreams that never materialized, leaving him feeling rather unfulfilled and haunted by his sad reality. I visualized a man being tied to a post over a pyre, reflecting on his dreams from childhood on through adulthood... each one taking the form of the individual pieces of wood that comprise the pyre. The fire would burn him, but never destroy him... just cause endless suffering. Even death would fail to save him. In effect, his abandoned dreams were the source of his endless burning and suffering.

When nobody stepped up to be the star of that production, I tried to think of this story in more abstract terms. I began to envision this story from a tree's perspective. I used trees and objects to create an obvious link between visual elements: wood. I begin the story with a variety of shots of trees, then begin to show objects made of wood.

I shot this with a Sanyo FH1 in 1080i (although I thought I had set it to 1080p). I created a list of collection requirements (see earlier posts) based on a storyboard I sketched out. I collected my shots and found others "on location" that I liked. I only had troubles trying to collect a few shots chopping down a tree. I zoomed in on a piece of cut wood to get a shot of my axe striking the bark. I also had to get shots of the pieces burning in a fire, so I had to shoot a fireplace (which I don't have). I went to my in-laws' home (where I shot most of the other footage). First, I shot ashes... then the fire.

I had most of my footage early on, so I began placing shots in a sequence that I felt provided a variety of compositions, motions and vectors. In addition to the soundtrack, I used simple techniques to add texture and drama to the video. I used shots with cast shadows to add drama, zoom-ins to increase tension, slow-motion to build tension and jump cuts to jolt the viewer... all in hopes of building tension and reaching a climax (when the tree got axed). I also used my focus settings (although I could not adjust while I was recording) to add texture to some otherwise boring shots. I did a few different things, most of which I mention in the tips post from a few days ago.

My favorite sequence is the build-up when the camera shows 1st-person POV picking up the axe, then the tree's POV watching him approach. I wanted to use slow-motion to draw out the fear and jump cuts to jolt the viewer (and shorten the sequence). The axe swings in front of the camera as he walks by, then it returns to the 1st person POV (walking through the woods to a tree). I used slow motion again for the axe chop.

I ended with a POV shot of the man walking toward the fireplace to place cut wood onto the fire, shots of the fire burning (jump cuts to wider angle shots), burning embers and ashes. I used an audio clip (suspense accent) and black screen in the final shot to jolt the viewer one last time, making them both sad and uneasy at how life can play out so much uglier than we dream it will.

I hope the viewer understands the main concept and experiences a short emotional ride, ranging from relaxation and serenity to (minor) anxiety to sadness and uneasiness.

Click on the Vimeo button to the right to watch Triste in HD.