Finished up some engagement photos for one of my friends!

I went to the wedding of James and Vanessa a couple months ago and just got around to editing the footage. I really enjoy these quick, small videos. I feel like the emotions/feel I wanted to get across come out better this way. Mostly it was an exercise is creating tighter, faster edits with the music. Also I enjoy cutting video together when the music is already in my head. I was thinking about how I wanted to edit this for a couple weeks until I heard this song. Then I finished the whole thing in two nights. Sometimes you just have to wait until the pieces all come together.

   Hello all! I’ve been so busy, so I’ll be making quick updates in the next few days. First off that at the end of summer, I’ve decided that I needed to narrow down the focus of my projects strictly to game development. So there should be more of that and less videos in the next coming weeks. I’ve made a lot of progress already and will share my ideas soon.

   The Ninja Gaiden short film has now turned into a three part Youtube series! While I’m officially done with the project, there are still a few more weekends of shooting to gather the final shots. It is already looking amazing, and I hope that the first episode is out soon! If you think this will be an awesome series, please share! We put a lot of hard work in over a very hot and grueling summer. In the end, we will have an awesome series that really captures the Ninja Gaiden feel.

   The only reason this teaser would not pump you up for the project is because there is a ninja behind you that has killed you, and you did not even realize it.

   Hello all! I have almost finished doing a ton of video work over the summer. One project is still pretty much under wraps until it’s finished or a trailer is released. So before I can talk about that one, take a look at this fan film that director Gabe Miller and I have been shooting.

   We planned for the end result to be a live-action trailer about the story from the original game Ninja Gaiden. While filming the necessary scenes and fights, Gabe decided early on to go ahead and film those scenes in their entirety. So the expected end result now is to have a short film that we may release onto the masses if the actual trailer gains some popularity.

   We have one more day of shooting with a few pick-up shots needed. After that, all the hard work is left to Gabe to create the visual effects, edit, color grade, and release it! I’m excited about the short, and I’m not just saying that because I shot 90% of the video :) I think it looks great and captures the feel of Ninja Gaiden!

   Hopefully fans of the original game will appreciate our hard work (shot mostly in 100+ degree heat!). Once the trailer is finished, I will post it here! Thanks for checking it out!

   So recently I have been trying my hand at more director of photography roles. This is the first official video where I am the guy behind the film camera. I helped to establish shots, angles, and some of the action. While this project was a fun shoot for an afternoon, it was all test footage for an upcoming project (involving Gabe, myself, and ninjas).

   Director of photography is a fun role for me. Whenever someone describes an event or situation to me, I automatically envision the story in my head as a film. This comes in handy when reading novels also :D So the film that play out in my head is ultimately the film that I shoot. While the editing may change what I had in my head, it is up to the director to bring out his vision. On a similar note, it is up to me to not only inject my style into the filming, but to adhere to what the director wants to create. It’s a very collaborative process.

   We actually shot this a few weeks ago in preparation of the short that we are currently filming. I was also 1st cameraman on another short film that was shot a couple weeks ago. Once these projects are edited and fed to the masses, I will post my thoughts on those here. For now, enjoy this fun video and leave any comments below!

   So I know that I have been gone… well I’ve been here but quite busy! So I’m going to try to post updates as soon as I can. Also these posts will be in order, but perhaps a couple months old XD. I’m hoping to make the posts smaller and less complex in order to convince myself that I need to get in gear and write more often.  So here we go!

   So after I received my new Nikon D7000, I had a couple weeks to get familiar with the camera before I visited New Orleans for five days. New Orleans is an amazing city and has been different from any other city that I have visited! It ceases to amaze me how much of the world I need to see while I still can. I truly wish the photos I took of New Orleans could express my thoughts and emotions about this city bursting with culture and atmosphere. Perhaps that’s why I still need to grow as a photographer and artist. I really want to capture my thoughts in artistic expression and disperse them from my being.

   Even though I went during Mardi Gras, I still feel like I had a firm grasp on what the city has to offer. I only saw it peeking out through the parades, laughter, and debauchery, but I knew that it was so full of life that it could not contain itself from my eyes. The people were extremely friendly (even to tourists!) and the food was equally as pleasing. I do plan on returning sometime in the near future to embrace more of what New Orleans has to offer.

   So I brought along my new Nikon D7000 to better understand the camera before the wedding I had to shoot. The camera performed exceptionally well! Unfortunately Nikon itself is still a new beast to me, therefore the photos are not quite up to snuff to my standards. Despite this, some of the more impressive feats of the camera involved its wide dynamic range. I was able to capture highlight and shadow detail unlike before. This truly brings out the textures that surround the city and people.

   The Nikon D7000 has quick focusing and quite shutter clicks. It’s well made, and feels solid in my hands. So far I’m thoroughly pleased with my decision to switch to Nikon. While this small sample from New Orleans doesn’t show how much I’ve grown in the past two months with the camera, I can say that it can produce stunning results. I don’t know if I should even give the camera that much credit. Perhaps it is my own growth with photography but my photos have definitely raised a bar that I intend to keep raising.

   My next posts will be extremely photo/video heavy, but I promise that I want to grow equally as much as an artist in the video game industry. I believe that I can better spread out my projects so that I can work on my 3D modeling at home. After all, improving one artistic skill/ability really helps the overall talent of that person.

   Ok, I have been a little slow with the updates lately, but I’ve been busy! Here is a quick run down of all that has gone on in the past month. This will also serve as an overview for the next couple of posts. Well first off the Dodge Challenger calendar was finished, printed, and handed to me. I’ll post photos of it next time! After that, I received my new Nikon D7000… more on that later :) I visited New Orleans for a week. Again more on that later…. See the trend? :) I did game art for a friend on his thesis project. I then worked on the set for Home Creations and took set photography.

   I’ll condense my next post down into a more detailed update on some past projects I finished up. The Home Creations set photography will probably be it’s own post. I should have time this week to make the appropriate posts :) Again I apologize for being a bit late in my updates! More to come soon!

   As the title suggests, these are the two cameras that have caught my eye. Roughly the same price, with similar features. So if I had a Canon before, why not just buy another Canon and be done with it? Well there are some things about the 60D that I did not like, and there are very tempting features of the D7000 that caused my thoughts to stray into Nikon territory.

   Well the first reason why I started looking into the Nikon was that I was starting from fresh. A blank slate if you will. I sold my Canon 30D along with everything I had with it. Why would I do such a thing? Well first of all, I did not have any lenses other than the kit (I borrowed all the cool lenses from freinds). None of the cameras that I was looking at purchasing used the same batteries or even the same memory cards! So whether I bought a Canon or a Nikon, I would be starting from scratch. This created options for me when deciding upon a brand new camera.

   The second reason why Nikon became more tempting was the direction Canon decided to take with the XXD series of cameras. My 30D (and 40D and 50D) was considered a prosumer model consisting of features found on the pro models. With the 60D, Canon decided to switch gears and make the XXD a prosumer model with more advanced features from the Rebel line. So instead of making an inexpensive pro model, they made an expensive consumer model. Canon created a Super-Rebel.
   I do not like the feel of the Rebels. Their smaller, plastic bodies produce no good feelings in my hands. Unfortunately the 60D inherited these smaller, plastic bodies. I love the feel of the more pro models such as the 7D and 5DII. This is why I enjoyed my 30D and it’s all metal body for so long. Fortunately for Canon, they did add new features into the 60D that continued to hold my interest. They extended the movie shooting capabilities, added an articulating screen, and tightened up the functionality of what the T2i was able do. So even though the change in the XXD series was disappointing to me, it still held sway.

   The final reason why Nikon caught my eye was the newly created D7000 series. They created a new line that took the many features of the D300 and D700 and produced an inexpensive pro model. This was very similar to why the XXD series in Canon was created. Some of the features that hit me over the 60D is the new 39 point auto-focusing system, more advanced metering options, 100% viewfinder coverage, dual SD card slots, and weather-sealed metal body. With all these features tugging at the photographer in me, Nikon could not help but sparkle just a little bit brighter than Canon.

   In the end, these are two very good cameras. I would be very happy with either one. If the major emphasis of purchasing a new camera was to shoot video, the Canon would be a no brainer. With the advanced video options and articulating screen, it would have been the envy of other DSLR video shooters in the area :D Incidentally, I am more concerned with photography than I am with video. I feel like the Nikon did a fantastic job appealing to the photographer in me. So that is why two days ago I purchased the D7000, and I am anxiously waiting for it to arrive. After about a week of use, I will make sure to update the ole’ blog with my impressions. I’m not a fanboy in any sense of the word when discussing Canon or Nikon, and I hope that it did not come across as that. I just wanted to state my thought process as to why I chose one camera over another. It is not a purchase but an investment.
   So I will continue waiting…. anxiously…. excitedly…. for my new investment!