Running some errands.
RMH
🪼
occasionally subtle

⁂

Product Placement
Jules of Nature

blake kathryn
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
taylor price
Three Goblin Art
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Claire Keane

#extradirty

Andulka

Origami Around
Misplaced Lens Cap
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

tannertan36

Kaledo Art

PR's Tumblrdome
seen from Türkiye

seen from France

seen from Malaysia
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia

seen from Indonesia

seen from Malaysia
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@natums-blog
Running some errands.
Be a Professional Amateur
What is a professional? In order to be a professional at a trade you just need to perform that trade for a living. Not a difficult concept, but we also assume that person is trained and experienced. When you hire a professional to perform their trade you are expecting a knowledgeable and career oriented person to come and perform the task admirably.
But what is an amateur? If you hired an amateur to perform something you wouldn’t expect the same craftsmanship you would get from a professional right? This is notion that is true in society, and for good reason. An amateur according to the societal definition is untrained at best, or someone who does not merit pay for their work at worst. Why would we expect the professional level work from an amateur then?
Because the word amateur does not mean what society has turned it into. Amateur translates roughly from French as “Lover of”. So calling yourself an amateur photographer, while yes, does not deem you a credible hire, should speak volumes for your passion in that field. But to call yourself an amateur photographer should not rule out that you are also a professional photographer.That doesn’t sound right though, does it?
Why would you call yourself an amateur if you are a professional? This is something that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Society puts little to no value on passion. You can get things done without passion, people perform jobs and functions in the average workplace.
If you put greater value on doing something because you love it over the pursuit of money, you will fall into a minority in society. But in that minority group have some of the greatest peers.
But what happens when people are passionate about their work? Society doesn’t see this as a normal function for work so it must be difficult to work outside the norm. But in fact, these people are generally the first ones that come to mind when we think of successful professionals. People like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney, both passionate entrepreneurs who forged ahead to CREATE industries in fields where there was none before.
An amateur’s passion is not what prevents them being a professional, it’s the inexperience that the word carries. Being passionate should only open doors. Being an amateur shouldn’t mean you can’t be a professional, it just means you don’t hate your job.
Natums - Professional Amateur Filmmaker
Feathered cropping tricks for Premiere CS6! Those of us from FCP7 find these features far less intuitive and easy to find, so I'll probably need to reference this often.
Amazingly entertaining and very creative. Hula Cam at Burning Man.
Best TedTalks about Copyright and Patents
With Apple's victory in the courts today, I remember some of my favorite TedTalks in relation to copyright and patents.
Larry Lessig: Creativity is being strangled by the law. Larry speaks on the nature of culture returning to a "read write" culture.
Kirby Ferguson, creator of the Everything in the Remix series. Talks about the culture of embracing fair use.
These may not directly apply in the case of Apple v Samsung, but copyright is something creators on all level have to deal with. It's there to protect investment and creativity. As filmmakers we license music for our use and as filmmakers we don't want people stealing our films.
We need to appreciate the work of others and respect it as we hope our work is respected. It's a two way street.
On a similar note, Chase Jarvis is hosting a cjLive episode with Larry Lessig talking about creative rights and creative commons, this Wednesday, August 29th.
Robert Rodrigues talks digital filmmaking in Side By Side
Robert Rodrigues talks about speaking to other directors about shooting digital.
Rob Legato: The Art of Creating Awe
A masterful visual effects artist shares his way of using smoke and mirrors to create what the audience wants to see.
I remember seeing Titanic submarine scene as a kid and being blown away and convinced it had to be fake just because it couldn't possibly be real. I'm twice as blown away seeing how the illusion and reality were intercut.
Nice example of how a polarizer can change your image straight out of the camera by Christian Mairitsch. No photoshop, same settings in-camera. Click image for non-GIF high resolution version.
You can see the polarization falling off on the right side of the sky very suddenly, caused by a combination of the rotating element in polarizers, and the angle of the sun in relation to the photograph. This example shows how it creates that vibrancy of color and reflections, but also how it can add distracting graduated appearance on skies and other elements.
Sony NEX-EA50 - Cold Hard Facts & Rumor Mill
Concerns, Rumors, Peanut Gallery: - If it's same/similar sensor to NEX5n, it's probably going to lack the low light capability of the FS100 or 700. - If it encodes/scales similar to NEX5n & VG20, it's going have less moire and aliasing than 5D2 and 7D, but probably more than FS100/700. - The Sony HXR-FMU128 only lists up to 24mbps recording. I have no first hand knowledge of the recorder, but does this mean you should use the other 3 options for highest recording quality? Or will 28mbps be possible on the FMU128? - I assume LCD is comparable to FS100/700 offering, but placed in a rational location finally. (Confirmed, same LCD, similar EVF) - The lens hood is gunna be a pain in the ass with a variND filter, so it looks like that will be removed readily. - Price is preliminary around £2700-3000, or $3350 USD. With the 18-200. So far, US market is being charged a bit of a premium, at $4500!
Obligatory marketing video with some nasty frame-blending...
Sources: ProKit HDWarrior DSLRNewsShooter
Free split screen effect for Premiere Pro by FLASHBANGFX. (Download mirror w/o email sign-up)
Handy free tool for editing, tons of different easy to use templates all in one project file.
There are a lot of artists out there willing to license their songs for productions. Most of us rely on the same resources though due to time/money constraints of licensing tracks from artists individually.
I'm gunna keep pooling individual artists/resources I find that have either Creative Commons or have expressed willingness to license in some other way.
First up is Aperire. Great atmospheric rock with lots of moody elements, long tracks with slow builds and epic instrumentals. The musician has expressed willingness to offer it free to filmmakers on reddit. It is currently licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.
More to come.
Matt Jeppsen over at FreshDV is starting a series of blog posts on the Ziess Contax lenses. I highly recommend reading it, even if you decide you don’t need Zeiss Contax, it’s still good insight on the ramification on lens choices.
Part 1 is online now, I’ll update when the rest come online.
Professional Photography - A Distinct Step Towards Reinvention
I want to premise this post with recap of historical events.
1825 - Nicéphore Niépce invents the 'modern' camera and takes the first known photograph.
1861 - Patent for the first internal single-lens reflex camera filed in the UK
1884 - George Eastman replaces photographic plates with film
1897 - First folding pocket camera introduced.
1908 - Gabriel Lippman introduces color film
1908 - Olympics are held in London for the first time.
1936 - First 35mm SLR becomes available
1970s - Auto-focus becomes available
1990 - First commercially available digital camera.
1997 - Camera phones come into existance.
2007 - iPhone released
2012 - London Olympics photography coverage is done via an iPhone 4S.
Maybe a little melodramatic, but I have been passionate about the way tools are changing how we work, and how they are also becoming less of a consideration. 20 years ago, if you asked any cinematographer or photographer if they thought they'd be shooting digital professionally, they would have laughed.
Dan Chung is at the Olympics as a photographer and journalist, his tools include an iPhone, a clip-on lens, and Canon binoculars. With that he is shooting and liveblogging the games for the Guardian. And the cheeky '@DSLRinformer' is doing a damn good job showing that talent and experience outweighs the benefits of an 800mm lens and a DSLR.
In-Camera VFX from Lord of the Rings
FStoppers found this fantastic BTS for the original Lord of the Rings film. Here's what they had to say:
In Lord Of The Rings the Hobbits, who are supposed to be very small, are required to interact with much larger humans. I always assumed they did this by recording each actor separately and then combining them in post but I was very wrong. By using a telephoto lens and very small aperture that produced a long depth of field, they could place the actors on different focal planes and keep them both sharp. With some incredible set design they could fool the viewer even while the camera was in motion.
While incredibly creative, these moving forced perspective shots were part of why I really didn’t enjoy Lord of the Rings. It’s like watching a funhouse mirror trying to be a normal mirror, it seems just slightly off as the space around the characters seems warped and dream-like.
But the technical feat of accomplishing this is awesome and shows how much that film was 'engineered' to create the reality that was in the original books.
source: youtube via fstoppers
Why I don't buy Thunderbolt Hard Drives
This is a beginner-to-intermediate look at Thunderbolt storage options. If you are a Mac user and looking to get into high capacity and performance storage, there are some things you need to know.
The VHS Effects Vol. 1
Quietly adding 3 new effects to my archive.
You have VHS-style scratches/wear marks, VHS hot color bars, and a dirty vignette from a VHS tape.
The Dark Knight Falls
Fantastic stop-motion fan film teaser!