Intermission – 5/23/20

After posting episode 3 and marketing it over the past few days, I’m feeling much better than I did during my last post. I’ve gathered over 180 views on it, which for me is a remarkable feat. If you’ve been following me for a bit, you’d remember that I ordered all my equipment, built a camera, and started learning about filmmaking earlier this year. So I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for each new youtue subscriber I have gotten.

Since episode 3 is wrapped up, I’m taking a short break before I begin writing and organizing for episode 4. A major reason for that is me and my girlfriend are looking for a new apartment to rent. Unbeknowst to her, that apartment is going to be used as the “cult” headquarters in my future videos.

I also did some amazon shopping in preparation for episode 4. I’ve purchased a bb gun that looks so damn real I’m afraid to bring it out into public. I also got a second a hard drive, which I finally installed today. Yet to be opened is my new lavalier microphone, which will allow me to record a back up audio track and record audio in shots where it is difficult to hide my current condenser mic. I also purchased a second lens – a sigma 30mm. It’s in the box and I can’t wait to try it out.

There are a couple decisions weighing me down currently. For one thing, my current hard drive and NVME card is nearly full. I’d like to delete all my stored footage, but once I do that I will lose the ability to edit my past projects. Because the story is loosely adhering to a feature length screenplay structure, I’m hesitant to lose that ability. If I go back to my first two episodes, I will be able to improve the coloring and clean up the audio. I can then edit out a few of the credits and combine the clips to create the first 20 minutes of a feature length movie. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to market it for distribution at some point.

Anyways, these are my thoughts. Hope you have a great weekend and stays tuned for more updates.

Gear Ready – 2/29/20

This is me drinking a beer

I built the computer. It took blood, sweat, tears, and an absolute certainty that I destroyed $1000 in computer parts but I did it. Along with that, I received my Tascam DR 100 mk II in the mail. It sounds phenomenal paired with my audio-technica microphone.

So I built the computer on Tuesday, using a step-by-step guide on youtube (the best how-to service in the history of man, btw). After it was completed, I plugged it into an old monitor, took a deep breath, and powered that son-of-bitch up. Got the good old “no signal” message and was bummed, but not devastated. I chalked it up to old parts not gemming with the new parts.

A quick trip to walmart the next day and I was all set to pay $50 on a new computer monitor. Upon arrival I discovered the monitors I was searching for were available for shipping, but were not actually stocked in the store. No way in hell I was waiting.

So I purchased a $130 32 inch tv and an HDMI chord. I didn’t anticipate keeping it. I got home, hooked it up, and got the same message – no signal. I was actually convinced that I had broken the graphics card during my build, or possibly shorted something with static electricity during set-up(don’t use latex gloves when you’re building a computer). Sure enough, my Ram wasn’t pushed all the way in. It’s a terrifying feeling using elbow grease on something so expensive and delicate.

About 1/4 of the mess I created

Long story short, my new video-editing machine is working as good as expected. It took another entire day to figure out how to import footage from my sony a6300 (its a codec XVAC-S that you can import with a MP4 wrapper simply by switching USB connection to MTP on the 4th page of the 6th suitcase tab in the menu options). I still haven’t been able to import any aduio, but I think one final purchase of an SD card reader should do the trick.

I’m hoping to write a 5 page script this week that I’ll be able to film this weekend. In the meantime, I’ll attach some of the images from my camera. Keep in mind I know less than nothing about photography. Any pictures that do look good are in thanks to the camera. Hopefully you can see how great a film quality they have to them, and why I’m so excited to begin bringing my stories to life through its lens.

A perfect set if only I could use it

Beautiful shot, mostly because of the firefighter

I love the movable focus option. Draws your eye straight to the subject.

If I wasn’t lazy I would have made this the first picture since it shows the scope of the response.