DuckDuck Rogue

DuckDuck Rogue is the R&D blog of DuckDuck Collective. This is where our rogue, experimental projects live - an idea sandbox, of sorts. New posts daily. Check back to keep up with new projects or to just rock out with us during DuckDuck Radio every Thursday at noon. Thanks for stopping by! Say hi on twitter: @duckducktweets

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Meet Sarah. Not only does she look great in 3D, but she also looks great in real life. We love this one.

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Working a new batch of 3D Gifs! Party!

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DuckDuck Radio Ep. 5 - Metalcore + Dubstep

We pick different genres every week.  This week we spin up some metalcore and dubstep.  Here's our setlist, organized by key and tempo.  It's a face-melter.  Hope you like it!

John: Db - 132 - Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! - We R Who We R Cm - 132 - I See Stars - Till the World Ends Cm - 140 - Asking Alexandria - Another Bottle Down [Tomba Remix] Gm - 140 - Fast Foot - Chickens Being Torn Apart (Original Mix) Gm - 140 - Alvin Risk - Put 'Em Up (ft. Jason Aalon Butler) Gm - 140 - Static Revenger ft. Dev - Turn The World On (Kezwik and Protohype Mix) F - 135 - Woe, Is Me - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) F#m - 140 - Konec - Railgun (ft. xKore)

Simon:

A - 174 - Skrillex - San Diego VIP Fm - 174 - Dirtyphonics -  Walk In The Fire Fm - 174 - Excision, Downlink, Space Laces - Destroid Raise Your Fist Cm - 160 - Asking Alexandria - A Lesson Never Learned C - 160 - Asking Alexandria - A Lesson Never Learned (Celldweller) Cm - 140 - Woe, Is Me - O.G. Loko F# - 135 - Upon This Dawning - Call Me Maybe Dbm - 140 - Attack Attack! - Hot Grills And High Tops E - 140 - Attack Attack! - Stick Stickly Outro: Em - 130 - Ellie Goulding - Tessellate (Alt-J Cover)

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It is here and it is HOT. Stoked. Bought a pool yesterday to prove it.

Also, super fun to make this. Featuring a beautiful array of glow color phasing and camera shake, this jif aims to please.

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Summertime is here. Let the pool parties commence.

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Our buddy Kyle who is a photography student came over today to get a quick lesson in how to create multiple exposures. This one took 10 minutes to make.

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DuckDuck Radio Ep. 3 - Summer Mix!

This week we tried to push ourselves to pick from a wide range of genres and tempos to create a summer mix.  (By comparison, in episode one we just kept the tempo at 128 bpm the entire show to play it safe!)  The feedback from the show has been encouraging. Sorry about the echo during the first minute.  I (John) forgot to mute the live-stream on the computer like a dingus.

Anyway.  Here's our set list for the week, organized by key and by tempo.  Enjoy!

John: F# - 117 - Robyn - Dancing On My Own Ab - 112 - Royal Teeth - Wild Ab - 112 - Royal Teeth - Wild (High Top Kicks Remix) Ab - 104 - Postiljoenen - Supreme Eb - 118 - Tesla Boy - 1991 (Original Mix) Eb - 126 - Daughter - Medicine (The Chainsmokers Remix) Eb - 88 - Royal Teeth - Heartbeats Fm - 70 - Seven Lions - Fevers ft. Min & Mimi Page Bbm - 73 - 12th Planet - Mayhem - Whoops ft. PennyBirdRabbit Db - 81 - MVSCLES - Sweet n Sour Simon: C - 65 - The 1975 - Head Cars Bending Dbm - 85 - Com Truise - VHS Sex C - 85 - The Temper Trap - Need Your Love RAC Fm - 87 - MONSTA - Holdin' On (Skrillex and Nero Remix) Fm - 128 - Skrillex & Wolfgang Gartner - The Devils Den Bm - 140 - Ellie Goulding - Hanging On (Sound Remedy Remix) D - 145 - Omnitica - Yo! Ho! And a bottle of Bass! G - 100 - Active Child - You Are All I See

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We have been doing some remodeling over at the DuckDuck Collective studios in VA. Here is a quick timelapse we threw together of the Colony Furniture Co. guys working their magic. 

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Meeting Cinematographer Mike Collins

Simon and I recently had a chance to catch up with NYC cinematographer Mike Collins.  You may know him on twitter as @mikespins — he seems to know everyone!  He is as nice in real life as he is on twitter. 

Mike usually rolls with a few C300s and C100s.  He brought one of his C100s to our coffee meeting and we had a blast nerding out.  That’s another great thing about this industry: you never, ever have a lack of things to talk about.  Exhibit A:

This particular day the Magic Lantern hack for the 5Dmk3 had just come out so we did our own little shootout between the RAW footage from that and the C100.  (Though we had some trouble getting the C100 footage on an FTP server so we have yet to actually compare in post.) 

We also had a good time chatting about anamorphic lenses and trying out some cine Rokinons, which performed way better than I thought they would considering their price. 

Much fun was had and a friendship was born.  We’re already chatting about some other projects it’d be fun to team up on.  Check out his work here: http://vimeo.com/user451006 Love. this. city.  Onwards and upwards!

-John

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"It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

Steve Wilhite, inventor of the GIF, on how the word is properly pronounced.

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One of my favorite things about living in NYC is that you get to meet some really amazing, talented people.  This past Sunday we had a chance to work with cinematographer Ryan Booth (top photo), director Josh Berrett (middle photo) and actor Austin Pendleton on a narrative short film here in NYC.  It was awesome. 

Even though Austin is sort of a big deal, it was Ryan I was most excited to meet.  I've followed his work with interest for a long time.  I am a big fan.  I didn't realize how similar our stories were: we both started in the music/audio world, moved to photography, and ultimately landed in video/film.  When he was telling me his story, we both laughed when he said, "and then the Mark II came out," because that really was the moment everything changed. It's interesting how every set has its own "vibe" and how influential the director and cinematographer are in setting that vibe. This shoot's vibe was wonderful. I appreciated how Josh and Ryan created a safe, calm, creative space for Austin to do his thing.  Ryan was relaxed and thoughtful as he walked around looking at the light.  He thought out loud, which I appreciated.  He selected lenses and compositions that supported the script and coordinated with Josh often about timing and blocking.  I got chills at a couple of the more dramatic moments of the performance.  There is something holy and mystical about seeing many people work together to create.

Ryan and Josh also worked on a film called This Is Where We Live that is beauuuutiful and worth checking out: www.thisiswherewelive.com

Even now, I'm still figuring out more about what I want to "do" when I grow up... and this, narrative filmmaking, is what I want to do. Despite waking up at 5:00AM and trudging through the rain, Simon and my spirits couldn't have been higher. There's such an electricity to narrative work! More! Life is so good and so exciting.  Onwards and upwards... -John

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DuckDuck Radio - Ep. 2

DuckDuck Radio Ep. 2 Recap: This week Simon started it off at 70bpm with some Dubstep before double-timing up to 140bpm for a brain-melting dose of Hardstyle before dropping it back to 70 bpm for some dirty Trap.  John punched up the tempo to 110 for a few top 40 Dubstep remixes then ramped up to good ol' 128bpm for some gnarly, fist-pumping Electro-House.  Really fun week.  We learned a lot.  Thanks for tuning in! Here's our setlist, organized by key and by tempo:

Simon: Ebm - 70 - Kill The Noise - Kill The Noise (Part 1) Ebm - 70 - Knife Party - Centipede Ebm - 70 - Nari & Milani - Atom (Spenca & AFK Trap Remix) FINAL Fm - 140 - Showtek & Noisecontrollers - Get Loose (Original Mix) Gm - 70 - Doctor P - Watch Out Gm - 70 - Dirtyphonics -  Hanging On Me  (feat  Liela Moss) Dm - 70 - Ellie Goulding - Explosions (Gemini Remix) John: Am - 72 - Kimbra - Settle Down (Nightmare! Bootleg) Em - 71 - Macklemore- Can't hold us (Dance Floor J... F#m - 70 - Trap - Fei-Fei - Safety Off [Dim Mak Records] Gm - 110 - Drake - Started From The Bottom (Spaveech Remix) Gm - 110 - Feed Me - One Click Headshot Abm - 108 - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Thrift Shop (Crizzly Remix) Em - 110 - Dubstep - Pegboard Nerds   Tristam - Razor Sharp Fm - 128 - Knife Party -  LRAD Fm - 128 - Neon Stereo Feat. Aaradhna - Blow My Mind (Hirshee Remix) Fm - 128 - Knife Party -  Internet Friends VIP Cm - 126 - Arno Cost - Head Up (Original Mix) Cm - 128 - Zedd - Stars Come Out (Lazy Rich Remix) Gm - 128 - Carnage & Borgore - Incredible (Original Mix)

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[wiederkehra]

Took ten minutes on break for the boys over at DuckDuck Collective to make a quick gif in light of the launch of their new blog DuckDuck Rogue. If you follow the link, you’ll find plenty of things (no more mystery behind what they do in their off-hours) but what I’m most psyched for is their weekly radio show on Thursday afternoons. Tune in tomorrow at noon (link on their blog) for live streaming of the show.

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Working on a little redesign for the Keep Colony website. 

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Shooting RAW on the 5Dm3

Today it was announced that, with a hack, you can shoot continuous RAW video on a Canon 5D Mark III.  This includes the ability to shoot at 1920 x 1280, which is great for anamorphic, which is great for us.  I haven't had a chance to experiment with the new firmware yet but tomorrow we'll be doing just that and posting the results here.  The initial reports are saying, "the raw images from the 5D Mark III exceed the quality you get from Canon’s much more expensive cameras, like the C300."  If so, this could mean we'll really regret purchasing our Blackmagic Cinema Cameras.  But that's OK.  If it means we get a better image, so be it.  Frankly, I like the form factor of the Canon cameras better anyway.  These are very exciting times.  More soon...

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In our quest for new looks we recently purchased an Isco-Gottingen 2x anamorphic lens. The aspect ratio this lens creates is so wide: 3.55:1! For our short film we will probably crop this back down to a 2.66:1 or 2.35:1 ratio. Here we're posting it in all its anamorphic glory since it IS a lens test after all. We actually like this lens better than the Iscorama for night shots despite the fact that it's bigger, heavier and more of a pain to focus due to the fact that it flares so much more blatantly. We are smitten.

Gear: Camera: Canon 5d Mark III (at an absurdly high ISO) Lens: Canon 70-200 2.8L IS + Isco-Gottingen 2x (poorly hand held in front of the 70-200 w/ no adapter)

We have since gotten an adapter to attach it to the taking lens (a 70-200 in this case) so we'd like to do a proper lens test again soon where the focus isn't so dodgy. But even hand-held, we love the aesthetic of this lens. It will definitely find its way into our next film.

What do you think?