&fmt=18

Apparently YouTube is experimenting with playback in higher resolution, and the excitement is driving me bananas. If you add &fmt=18 to the end of an existing YouTube video URL, the quality is much improved (although it does vary depending on the original source file).

For an example, compare

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDibWPJgLPU

to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDibWPJgLPU&fmt=18

These improvements, once officially rolled out, should allow YouTube to keep up with the superior technology found on video sites like Veoh.com and Vimeo.com. I will be linking to these higher quality versions for all of my work from now on.

Sk8 Jam

On Saturday afternoon I shot some footage at Wilmington's Skate Jam for a promotional video Gordon is putting together. The group of skateboarders holding the event is trying to raise money to build a skate park in the city so they were happy to have me there to help get the word out. Plus, I think they enjoyed showing off for the camera, especially the younger kids. They were always checking to see if I caught the wicked move they just pulled off. The challenge was to get close to the action without getting hit by it. It was a fun shoot.

Friday night we went to the play 12 Angry Men at DuPont Theatre. I recognized one of the actors in it, Richard Thomas, from the movie Wonderboys and the Stephen King mini-series It. It was a good show, although sometimes I wonder if plays are worth the money since, in this case, we didn't have the greatest seats in the house and since I prefer the composition of movies. And if we did have good seats at a play or some other live show, they'd probably call me up on stage and embarrass me the best they can. It's happened before. Anyway, I don't regret attending the play because it was fun to have a night on the town with my lovely wife and it's good to vary the intake of culture once in a while. Plus, it was an entertaining story with good performances and writing. I wouldn't mind seeing the movie adapation from 1957 to compare.

Not much else to report, at least not that I can disclose at this time. We have something major brewing in the background that I'm anxious to write about, but I'm going to keep quiet a while longer. Keep checking back for updates.

Restaurant Week ad

One of the more lucrative video editing assignments I've taken also happens to have the shortest final runtime of any of them. I was given a bunch of still photos and asked to make a 30-second commercial to air on local cable and online (see www.CityRestaurantWeek.com). That sounds simple enough. The first cut came together relatively quickly and painlessly. The tweaking stage is where it was drawn out. First we had to re-record the voice over after shortening the script and I had to re-synch up the video with the new audio. Then I had to add some sponsors, swap out a few photos, and slow down the ending. I was still happy with the results up to that point, but I should have known the changes wouldn't stop coming until the video was ruined. It was last week when I was away for work when I received the kicker: one of the restaurants dropped out and I'd have to do some late night editing when I returned from my trip in order to make the new deadline and get this thing on TV. Removing the restaurant from the list of names wasn't the problem. It was the line that says "Serving you from a price-fixed menu are ELEVEN downtown and riverfront restaurants." Ideally, the revised line would say "ten" instead of "eleven," but there was no way to do that short of re-recording the entire voice over. So I made the decision to just remove the word "eleven." On paper the line makes sense without it. However, performing the actual cut in the recording was not so seamless. It's an obvious blemish in a final product that I was otherwise proud of. Give the video a play, and let me know if you notice the problem.

There's something fiche-y about this sandwich

I shot another 20-second, goof-off video last weekend with the pictured sandwich, but I don't think this one is going to make it online. It was meant to be the second part of a loosely planned "fish trilogy" (the first part of which you witnessed here), but the results just didn't do it for me. Maybe if part 3 turns out well I'll go back and re-shoot part 2. Or maybe I'll just move on to something more ambitious. I'm antsy to get behind the camera again. My upcoming music video shoot, which is proving hard to schedule, should be what I need. It's definitely more "meaty" than these little tests I've been playing with.

I'm in Madison for work this week. Things are starting to feel more comfortable out here. I was really on edge during my first few business trips. Being surrounded by strangers all day, being under pressure to get some serious work done, re-learning how to sleep alone, and eating way too much at every meal all did a number on my sleep habits. Now the biggest downside is just being away from home. I miss my time with R. I was also informed today that there's a change that needs to be made to my Restaurant Week commercial because one of the restaurants dropped out at the last minute. I can't make the change right now -- and it's eating me up inside -- because I don't have the resources on my work laptop. The 30-second spot was supposed to start airing on local cable tomorrow, but now it will be delayed. It will be online eventually as well. That's another link I will owe you.

The weekend was fun, although not terribly eventful. Having enjoyed this year's Oscar nominees so much we decided to dig into past to catch others we missed the first time around. On Friday it was Amadeus, the winner of best picture in 1985. It proved to be an absorbing epic that demands a good home theater. We caught the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon on Saturday night, which kind of put the moon landings in better perspective for me. The rest of the weekend involved the usual things (not that watching movies is unusual). Oh, and I mowed the lawn for the first time of the year.

I better get to bed. There are some long days left in this week. I get back home around midnight on Thursday... and then I need to make that editing change so I can deliver the tape before work on Friday morning. There are four words that need to be removed from the voice over (in addition to the corresponding video), and I'm really hoping it doesn't need to be completely re-recorded in order to get rid of them. Excising a word from mid-sentence doesn't always work.

This ended up sounding a little pretentious, but I'm posting it anyway

On our way to the Philly Film Festival last Friday night, our friend Q said something that I could relate to. She said she's been enjoying movies and books more than usual lately. At first I attributed my own increased enjoyment and heightened sense of discernment to our HDTV and a slew of Oscar-caliber films recently out on DVD and also that I've simply been reading more, trying to keep up with the book club. But maybe that doesn't explain it. Why have I been enjoying listening the early work of R.E.M. so much lately? Or laughing so heartily at episodes of How I Met Your Mother? And why do I feel so inspired to film something beautiful, even though I can't quite put my finger on what exactly that would be yet? Maybe I'm only going through a phase. Sometimes I look through my CD collection and nothing sounds appealing. Other times, I can't narrow down what to listen to because it all sounds good. I suppose it's possible my appreciation of art is deepening. Maybe I just crossed a threshold where I've examined enough media so that I can better recognize what is good and what is bad.

We saw a bad movie at the festival. The title was The Art of Travel, and I suggest you avoid it. I honestly can't believe a movie of this low quality was accepted into the festival... not only that but it actually seems to be receiving some praise (!). It was billed as Into The Wild meets The Motorcycle Diaries, but it was instead a poorly done rip-off of both of those movies. I've seen better acting on Saved by the Bell. The script had to have been written by a 13-year-old. It was filled with meaningless, gratuitous scenes leading to out-of-nowhere, forced "revelations." The dialogue was worse than cliché. If the editing were any good, there wouldn't have been a film because it would have all ended up on the cutting room floor. I don't think they can blame any of these problems on the budget, as I've seen much better movies made with much less.

To top it off, the presentation was awful. They announced ahead of time that they had the wrong lens for the projector, so the frame was squeezed to 4:3. But even the right lens wouldn't have helped the pixelated, DV resolution or the mono sound that was continuously peaking out of only one side of the theater! Oh yeah, and it took a while for the projectionist to get the DVD player figured out. First they accidentally showed us a trailer of the movie we were about to see, and then they started the movie at the end of it and "rewound" it to the beginning. Good thing there wasn't anything to spoil.

I expected more out of a large, respected film festival like this one. Maybe I need to see another movie to give the festival a chance to redeem itself. At least I have renewed hope that I could one day get my own film accepted. And it's good to see a bad movie once in a while, if for no other than reason than so that I can appreciate the good ones.

29

Ah, my birthday today... it was nice. Got home from work relatively on time. Grilled a steak and ate it with a glass of dark red shiraz. Had molten chocolate cake and perfectly ripened Royal Riviera pear for dessert (part of my gift from R was an 8-pack of these puppies). Next I opened more gifts from R. She bought me some cool new clothes from Banana Republic. Then we watched -- you guessed it -- an episode of Twin Peaks. And now I'm wrapping up the evening on my computer. Tonight was a celebration of all things Jeff. Kudos to R for arranging things and sharing in the party. Who says you need to go out on your birthday to have a good time?

We did do a pseudo-birthday dinner out on Friday night at a Spanish tapas restaurant called Amada in Philly. We tried octopus for the first time, which was pretty close to calamari, only grilled instead of deep fried. We also had some ultra-yummy clams, seared tuna, crab-stuffed peppers, and a few other non-seafood choices. We followed up the meal with There Will Be Blood at the Ritz. Very interesting movie -- the production design was done by Jack Fisk, an associate of Lynch's, and the score was composed by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. Those personnel, combined with a visionary director, make me wonder how I managed to not see this movie sooner. It was another challenging one, primarily a character piece. In the end I preferred No Country For Old Men out of the two, but this one was still a worthy investment of time. Further continuing our catch-up on the Oscar season we watched the DVD of Atonement on Saturday. I'm worried watching all of these great films are going to spoil us. Can we really watch something like Dan in Real Life after this? We'll find out soon because it's coming up on the Netflix list. Atonement was well done, but my sleepiness got a little in the way of my enjoyment of it. By refusing to become horizontal, I managed to make it to the end of the movie, but I did have some problems balancing my head on my neck for a few moments here and there.

Speaking of sleep, it's spots time for me (ask my dad about the origin of "spots" because I don't know it). Age 30 is coming. Maybe I'll have more to reflect on then.

Bud Light Film Crew #16

This video is a step forward in the evolution of the series. I'm considering it the first official Bug Light video recorded with my new camera. I used it for the January video too but that was before I knew what I was doing, so it doesn't count. No shooting was required for the February video since it was just a re-edit of earlier footage (although I do consider it my crowning achievement of Bud Light work done with the old camera). And I wasn't involved with the March video, other than to lend out the camera, so that doesn't count either. Now, finally, we have the April video. The quality -- the detail, the color -- is outstanding, even at the lower, web-friendly resolution. The camera is capable of so much more; I'm not even shooting in HD yet.

Okay, that's enough about my love affair with the camera. Check out the video:

www.BudLightFilmCrew.com

It came together relatively quickly and easily. Most of my effort went into trying to accurately capture the personality of the eight host candidates in a matter of only a few minutes so viewers can vote for the best person for the job. With the exception of the opening sequence, I kept the editing unobtrusive, which is important in a video where the content takes priority over style. The opposite will likely be the case in my upcoming music video, where the plot is beside the point.