Starting again from DSLR to Iphone

So it’s been 2 years since my last blog post on here (I think), and 8 months since I last picked up a camera.
Truth is I got quite stuck into making wedding videos and it sort of took all the fun out of making videos.
Now that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy making wedding videos because quite frankly I did but filming just became a means to an end and not something I was passionate about anymore. This also came right after my last year at university where I started to fall out of love with filming due to a pretty poor course, which I feel was so different to what was promised that it really missed the mark with me.

8 months ago I edited my final wedding and prepared to move from nothingness/middleofnowehere England to London. I then spent the past 6 months struggling to adapt to big city life and find my place here. Which I never really did because I was too busy waiting for something to happen for me and applying for jobs that were not really what I wanted to do, to realise that I should get out there and do something myself. So with 2018 in full swing I have decided to get off my arse and make a change.

The first change is from DSLR to Iphone 7. All my shots photography and video will be shot solely on Iphone with a little help from apps and accessories. And with the Iphone 7 I’ll be able to shoot some 4K and some slow-motion footage which I am really looking forward to.

 Firstly, lets talk accessories.
Olloclip Core Pro Lens set fro Iphone 7
This set consists of Fisheye, Super-Wide and Macro 15x lenses. Which unlike some of the other lens sets gives me much more variety for photo and video alike. Here’s the link to the website for more information on the lenses https://www.olloclip.com/shop/lenses/iphone7-core-lens-set/

There are other Lens sets from Olloclip but this one for me has the best variety. Other companies such as Moment and Exolens make some great phone based lenses and accessories but I’ve found them to be a little pricey and hard to get hold of in the UK. Here are both the links to Exolens and Moment for you to check out. Also I should note that Moment have a pretty good YouTube channel with a great Filmic Pro video on which ill link at the end.
https://exolens.com/
https://www.shopmoment.com/

For sound I’ll be using the Rode Videomic ME for now even though that means I’ll need to run a lightening to audio jack adapter. Let’s see how this goes I may end up switching to the Rode VideoMicro.
http://www.rode.com/microphones/videomicme


Next let’s talk apps.
For editing photos and shooting them I’ll be mostly using Adobe Lightroom CC for Iphone. This app offers awesome in camera controls including manual overrides for exposure, aperture and focus and the editing part of this app allows you to use things such as curves for colour correcting photos. I’ll drop the adobe link in below so you can read more about it.
http://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/photography.html?sdid=V6NZKW2K&mv=search&s_kwcid=AL!3085!3!227038550044!b!!g!!lightroom%206&ef_id=WaGk-gAAAFBDvyvG:20180116153517:s


Last app I’m going to talk about is Filmic Pro now it’s the only paid app I’ve mentioned and at £14.99 if you’re not used to buying apps it might seem like a bit of a stretch, but let me assure you that this is well worth it. It gives you so much control over your video even allowing you to do things like set two focus points and switch between them while shooting.
http://www.filmicpro.com/

Right that’s enough from me. So expect some YouTube and stock footage links being posted to this blog very soon. Here are some awesome videos that probably do a better job than I did at talking about using your phone for shooting video and photo. The Peter McKinnon video is more photo based where the Moment video focuses on using Filmic Pro to shoot on phone.

Hope you enjoy, will be back soon.

Peter McKinnon Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AywNcZL6IQQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys63jdks26E

Moments video on Filmic Pro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWSuKVRpk7I

Script Writing - Drama - Tangerine Dream

Just finished off writing the script for my upcoming drama Tangerine Dream. it took me best part of two days to get everything down and to re-edit the script. I'm going to have a couple more read throughs and then i'm going to give it to a couple of people to read and tell me what they think.

Moodboard 2 Tangerine Dream

Content inspiring upcoming drama Tangerine Dream.

Moodboard for Tangerine Dream

I've never done a mood board before so i thought i'd do one. And much to my surprise its helped me a lot with the visualization of this project.
The moodboard below is for the kind of style i want to achieve with this project and includes shots from TV shows Friday night lights and Breaking bad as well as shots from films The Place Beyond the Pines and Drive.

Editing Garden Art 2

The First thing i wanted to do was to create a cut out logo with video behind for this project. i tried various way such as using text mask in after effects which i learned how to do from this video: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/short-and-suite/making-text-masks-in-after-effects/
But after trying that i felt that the text wasn't as crisp as i would have liked so i decided to chroma key the text out and place the text on the layer on top of the video. (i created the text in photoshop to make colour keying easier).
Below are 3 different logos i tried.







The next thing i did was to colour correct the video using RGB curves. i like to colour correct using RGB curves as i feel i have more control over the colours. This meant i could make the sky bluer and the trees greener making them stand out more and look more clear as can be seen in the pictures below.













After completing the colour correction i then re watched the video changing a few minor parts and then exported and uploaded the video which you can see in a previous post.

Garden Art 2

Garden art 2 is finally edited and uploaded.
I tried to make this as different as the original as i could while keeping the same sort of style.
More posts to come shortly.

https://vimeo.com/73671924

filming garden art.....again

I am currently house sitting for my nan so i thought i would take advantage of this and film another Garden Art.
So this morning i filmed for 2 hours in the garden. i got a variety of shots of trees, garden ornaments and close ups of flies, wasps and butterflies.

i am currently transferring the footage to my laptop where i hope to edit it later.

Like my new Facebook Page

https://www.facebook.com/gfoxvideoproductions

Today i set up a new email account gfoxvideoproductions@gmail.com for Gfox Productions.


Along with this i set up a

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gfoxvideoproductions
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GfoxPro
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/gfoxvideoproductions

This is where i will now be putting mostly corporate videos.

Reviewing Past Projects/learning

I recently made a video for GTA V. i have watched the video quite a few time and until yesterday i had never seen an out of place frame in the middle of the video.

The frame i have left is an in between frame where i have seperated 2 pieces of footage. I am annoyed i havent noticed this before but will be on high alert for such mistakes in future.

Banshee New Sheriff Trailer

i decided to do another trailer for the Cinemax TV show Banshee.
This time i took every episode cutting them up scene by scene and deleting the scenes i did not wish to use. i then chopped up my favourite bits and put them over a 2 minute clip of the sheriff being sworn in.

the trailer can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDKrl48kHfo&feature=youtu.be

Editing Secret Scenes from Banshee

It has recently come to my attention that every episode of the Cinemax series Banshee has a secret scene after the credits. Sometimes these scenes reveal future plot lines. I think this is a really good idea as it gets the viewers to watch the credits and rewards them for doing so. It is also something i am contemplating doing for future projects of my own.
After searching for these scenes on the internet i found that the odd one can be found but not a compilation of them all so i decided to edit all of the secret scenes together and upload it which i have done.
The video can be seen below.

Planning for Gfox Productions

I've decided that now i have a logo and an Ident for Gfox Productions the next steps I will take will be to set up an email account specifically for this branding hoping to expand my audience and maybe gain some more work experience.
Future plans for the brand if setting up an email and facebook turn out to be beneficial include setting up a website probably one i can edit myself and designing business cards.

Creating Gfox Logo/Ident

Today i decided to create a Logo and an Ident for Gfox Productions the name i am hoping to use for video production.
I started by choosing a font in photoshop and adding a fox tail to the end of the logo. I then took the same gradient used on the tail to the text to make it look like one object instead of 2 separate objects.

The image below shows the text part done and shows me testing to see what the logo looks like.

I then finished applying the gradient to the text and removed the background.

I then merged all the graphics that make up the text part of the logo and then did the same for the tail leaving me with 2 layers. this is so that i can manipulate both the text and the tail in after effects.
I then imported the layers separately into after effects. here i added an effect as if the tail was growing from the text. I then added the word 'productions' under the Logo and added an effect as if the text was being typed.
After completing the animation in after effects i then exported (via adobe dynamic link) the footage to premiere pro where i then faded the ident in for 2 seconds and out for 2 seconds (I could have done this in after effects but found it easier and less time consuming to do it in premiere pro). I then added sound effects for the tail growing from the text and then a typing sound for the productions part (again something i could have done in after effects but found it easier in premiere pro)

A link to the final animated ident can be seen below.

https://vimeo.com/71835211

GTA V Tralier Finished

Finished colour correcting and made all the final adjustments to the video i started yesterday.
See the finished video below.

Learning While Editing

Today while editing in Adobe Premiere Pro i stumbled across a short cut for razoring clips.
My normal way to do this would be to place the guide on the point of the clip that i wish to razor and then select the razor tool and click on top of the guide. Well today i found that i can simply place the guide on the desired point and press cmd + k (Mac) cntrl +k (windows), this simply razors the clip at that point and when using the razor tool a lot as i have been today you save a lot of time using this method.

GTA V Trailer

Today i decided to edit an extended version of the upcoming Rockstar game GTA V.
I took all of the existing trailers and mixed them together to make an extended trailer, i swapped out footage from different sections of trailers with other footage. I then extended the soundtrack to the trailers by identifying the track used and replacing it with a long version of the clip.
I split the trailer into 3 sections to focus on the 3 main characters, each with an individual song used in a previous trailer.
The trailer is currently 8 minutes long and i am currently colour correcting it.
Below is a screen shot of me editing footage in Adobe Premiere Pro.

TopBoy Channel 4 Trailer

Yesterday i edited a video for a competition for Channel 4's drama TopBoy.
I edited together a 36 second video consisting of the stock footage provided and added a backing track from the tracks provided.
I submitted the video to Channel 4 for processing and today they uploaded it to their Youtube channel.
Below is a link to the video.

Garden Art Video (editing)

Yesterday i edited and uploaded the garden art video i did.
i found that the sound of the video on a whole was good and needed very little editing, that said some of the sound clips had  a lorry in the background so i simply changed the sound of said clip with the sound from another clip.
Some of the shots I had to crop, trim, change the speed of and colour correct.
I achieved what i wanted with this project which looks arty and abstract which is exactly what i aimed for.
you can view the video in full HD on the link below.
https://vimeo.com/70286684

Filming Garden Art

Today I decided that i would get my camera out and film with no real objective.
As it was a nice day i took my camera outside and decided that i would concentrate on plants and flowers. My focus was on getting arty close up shots with pulling focus or zooming in. i also used a lot of shots where i locked the camera off as there was movement in the plant due to a slight breeze.
I am going to edit together all the footage later in sort of a montage of clips style and possibly edited the sound where needed.