Best Weekend EVER

This past weekend I went up to Davis to visit friends and film The Music Video. The first night Jackie and I went over the music video storyboard, then headed over to a house show. Every band was awesome. I have no pictures because I was busy having fun. But I did pick up CDs from Cat Party (s/t) and The Babs Johnson Gang (Alive At The Press Club). La Corde and Burgers also played. I know La Corde has released some material and I'm a bit bummed I didn't get ahold of any of it, but I busy helping break down some stuff between sets.

Saturday afternoon was spent doing lighting tests. Jackie and I spent hours making sure everything would run smoothly. ie, Seeing how well a guitar would fit in the hallway and testing camera angles.

Light Tests

We actually filmed Saturday evening. I had originally said filming would take an hour or two. I know better than that. I always have to multiply my time estimates by three. But it's easier to convince people to help you when it's "an hour or two". Not six hours. So yes, I suckered everyone into a 6 hour shoot. But we shot the whole video in one night, which is pretty awesome.

 More Light Tests

Now I have some serious editing to do. I really hope the video comes out well. All signs point to yes, but I'm a perfectionist... so I'll probably not be completely satisfied, but that's ok. (What artist is ever completely satisfied with their work anyways? Probably none.)

Even More Light Tests

Here's a couple "behind the scenes" shots from A.J.

I didn't even realize he was taking any pictures. But I'm glad he did. This one is of me explaining to Nat the general premise of the video.

Bokeh

Have I mentioned how much fun I'm having with my fancy-pants camera?

I've been wanting to try taking shaped Bokeh picture for awhile now but, my camera just wasn't able to do it. Things are a bit different now.

I cut out a couple shapes into card stock and away I went.

Actually, it didn't start off so good. I read a bunch of tutorials that said I didn't have the right lens. (I'm using a 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 lens. They said that I would need a lens that would do f2.8 at least.) So my first picture came out like this.

After reading a bit more about Bokeh, I found that I had to have my lens at 135mm, it was alright if it was at f5.6. Just make sure the lights are out of focus.

And tada, fun for the whole family. Me and Bokeh are going to become great friends.