Rave Pony

This is exactly what I always wanted to do when I was spending my summers at the barn. I even bought a camcorder with my own savings and started shooting. I just never made the actual jump over to editing my footage. My friend Seana sent this to me on Twitter as a joke, and now we’re both in love.

Obviously she has a lot to learn, but please girl stick with it. Horse people are a very special breed, and we LOVE stuff like this.

She’s been a bit of an inspiration actually. Rave Pony, I like the sound of that.

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The Eagle Has Landed

If I had a finished project for all the gear I’ve bought, I’d have a lot of stuff done. Instead I’ve been building a small army of photography and video gear. I love toys, and I love good deals even more. I absolutely couldn’t let the deal slip away on this refurb 5D Mark II. Before I hit the “purchase” button I made a promise to myself that I’d stop waiting, stop putting all my ideas off. It’s time to dust off everything and get to work.

One large step for my wallet, one giant leap towards my dreams.

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Zoom Zoom Zoom!

Realizing the need for an audio solution, I ordered a Samson Zoom H1 unit to try.

It’s small, light, and super easy to take anywhere I need. Being small, it’ll be pretty easy to hide amongst things if I need to get close but don’t want it visible. The only issue with it being so light is that I am afraid to drop it. The body is plastic, the XY microphones are plastic. I feel like I need to make a little safety vest for the thing to make sure it doesn’t get banged around too much.

The backlight is nice, and I’m sure it’ll get me out of some issues shooting in low or no light. The controls take some getting used to at first, and there’s no way to lock down the buttons. There is a lock setting, but it just stops you from accidentally stopping the recording.

Weird fact about me, I’m a sucker for electronic devices that talk to you. Like when the microwave says “Done!” or the television says “Hello!” It’s totally Skynet sneaking up on us slowly, but I think it’s cute. Extra points for use of the wrong cases in the wrong places.

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Firsties!

Everyone remembers their first time.

Especially when it’s color correction, shooting a party, and that addiction-inducing first timelapse. Here are my very special firsties.

Color correction using Magic Bullet Quick Looks was and continues to be a lot of fun. I haven’t been using many of the more extreme settings lately, but I’m sure I will in the future. This was my first crack at it, right after I started using Final Cut Pro.

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Memory Lane 2.0

It happened. I preordered the T2i and not-so-patiently waited. It finally arrived and I literally had no idea what to do. I had played with my dad’s Nikon and knew the basics, but that was it. I went home and just started playing around. My first real HDSLR video was from my cousin’s birthday and I realized I had a lot to learn. I read a ton of blogs. I watched a ton of videos. My next try felt a lot warmer. Which was great since we were freezing in Mammoth.

Watching that video now I can still see places I went wrong. Working with a lot of footage, some of it mine, some of it from a friend’s Nikon, I realized I needed to upgrade. I stopped working with iMovie and moved on to Final Cut Express. A few months later, reaching some limitations there, I finallly moved up to Final Cut Pro.

And now, here I am. Still learning, still growing, still loving every minute.

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