Lazy Day Vlogs are exactly what they say they are: Vlogs when I have nothing better to do. The one thing I have in Japan that I never really had in America is tons and tons of free time. Even though I do have projects that I get commissioned or hired to do, as said above, I don’t have anything that’s be a long commitment. When I have a big project, I utilize this free time well… but when I don’t I feel a bit guilty and lazy. I’m use to having a 10-14 hour a day full time job with freelance on top of that. That was the reason I had a hard time making videos before I moved to Japan. When I came here it was a night and day difference and being burnt out and having time to recover was a deadly combination for laziness. It’s not as bad as I peg it to be, I just love throwing the guilt on myself. Helps keep me from staying in bad places.
Anyway, I’ve been working on a lot of personal things too. My speaking is one of them. I want to be a better speaker and work on my thought process when telling a story or idea. My goal is to have as little unnecessary edits in videos like these as possible. I almost want to start an “Edit Jar” that I have to throw a 100¥ coin in every time I have to do it. I don’t like having to re-do a video because of one mistake just so I don’t have to have an edit, so It’s best to try and do without them in the first place! Maybe I buy acting or speaking classes with the money…
That said, I’m having fun with the 8-bit theme. I have about five or six music tracks already done and some random graphics, so it won’t be going away for awhile.
I still like this blogging thing. I should do it more.
These were all shot on the Canon 50 mm f/1.8 II except the next to last shot, which was shot on the kit 18-55 mm. The sun had just set and I decided to see what the camera and lens combo could do in low light. All of these were shot in ISO 100 except the last shot of the spider which was ISO 400, I think. I don’t know about you, but I think the results are amazing. Absolutely no grain with very little light source. The spider shot has a tiny bit of grain in the render, but the raw has none. Also, that white circle is the crescent moon out of focus. There was no color correction or filters used in this video.
All the sound was recorded on my Zoom H2 in surround sound mode. Yes, the rice fields are PACKED with frogs and they are THAT loud, sometimes more. Usually the Shinkansen is the loudest thing in the area, but they almost drown it out. The song playing in the background plays every day at noon, 5 PM, and 9 PM throughout the entire city. It’s called “Nocturne for Kitakami”.
My original goal that night was to attempt to film or photograph the bats that were flying like crazy around my apartment the night before, but that night they weren’t flying in too much of a group. My goal is to somehow get a good picture of a bat before I move from this place.
So earlier this year I had decided to enter as many video, animation, and photo contests as I can. I came across the Current VCAM deal from Youtube. I had been subscribed to Current’s Youtube Channel sine it was started, but I rarely went to the website. It’s recently become one of my main landing pages and I really like most of the original content there. Back in February I did a VCAM for their Lexus contest and the final video wasn’t THAT good. I was working on one with mosaics and lot of fun imagery but my computers just couldn’t handle the massive files I was trying to use and I didn’t finish it on time. So I took the concept that I had, rehashed a old video I did in my 2008 Video Month (where I made a video every day for a month) and just sent it in. I was pretty surprised to discover I was a finalist. But I was even more surprised I was a finalist when I saw the winners. I had seen previous VCAMs in the past and some of them were pro quality. The Lexus winners were TV, pro quality. The video I made didn’t even compare. But at least then I understood what was needed to pass to have a chance at winning.
Next came the new VCAM for SunChips. I was pretty excited about this one. I had tons of ideas and concepts. The only real problems I had were that I live in Japan (No SunChips here) and the due date for the video fell on the same time I was trying to get my Japanese Drivers License. (a nightmare, will make another post about it soon) After the bags of Sunchips my friend in the States sent me arrived I sat and thought, writing down what I think I could do. I read the Current VCAM conditions and what SunChips wanted very carefully and before starting I had about 5-6 concepts penned out. I started a few, but was forced to waste more than a week of dime dealing with the Japanese License testing center. I eventually settled to work on one or two, and then combined parts of both to make the video you see above.
To be honest, I really like it. I originally wanted to do some slick transitions and a few more layers… but I watched it a few times in it’s current state and decided that it was fine on it’s own. The only thing I don’t like is my voice. I hate using my voice, but I was working too fast and wasn’t really close enough to anybody who I knew could do it at the time. At least I have thousands of hours of recording and training people to do voiceovers under my belt. I may not have a good voice, but I can at least make it sound like a voiceover. In the end, I was proud that I did what I thought they wanted and I did almost everything myself. (Chip bags are from my friend Chris in America and the music is from APM. Everything else is me!)
Now, I had looked around on Youtube and Vimeo to see if anybody had uploaded their progress or completed commercials. It was pretty shocking to see that so many people had completely missed the point of what SunChips wanted and didn’t follow some of the simplest rules. But I had only seen maybe 20 of the 100+ VCAMs that were eventually done. When Current announced that the videos were going to go live before the winners were announced, was was pretty shocked. I thought they didn’t do this. The thing I loved about the Current TV VCAM deal was that it was between me and the sponsor, not a popularity contest. There are too many people out there with crappy videos that have huge networks. I mean, I have a pretty good network myself, but most of them are college kids who have nothing better to do but upvote and refresh their buddy’s videos. That aside, it was a HUGE eye-opener to see the competition. What little confidence I had was almost completely gone. There was some real professional productions, some shot on a RED, some with beyond amazing design, and a few with great graphics. After I saw the 5th or 6th one that I knew was amazing I almost stopped watching, but I went and finished them all.
To be honest, if they want a slick commercial that looks exactly like one they would have paid a production crew to do in the past, that they wrote and fits their current design scheme, they’re set. There are 5-6 that they can choose from. To be honest, from what I got in the write-up and conference calls, a lot of people just made a basic SunChips commercial, not something that follows what they’re trying to say. They don’t give the message. Some people even highlighted the bag noise (which was specifically hinted NOT to do) and didn’t mention the website at all. Everybody knows what to do to recycle and make our planet better, or at least that they should. Preaching the same stuff that every other company and website says gets old. I guess I wanted to give something that was at least relating to the main audience and hopefully made the “click” to understand how easy it is to change things for the better.
I don’t know what the people at SunChips actually want. I’ve already picked the four I think they’re gonna pick, but we’ll see. I’ll keep you guys updated as the process goes along. Maybe Al Gore (a judge for this as well) likes sqiggly line animation. I guess it’s not as much depressing as it is… well… what it is. I still have really far to go as far as improvement. But that’s one of the main reasons I moved to Japan and that I’m making videos again… I now have the time to do it. So let’s go, and hope for the best!
So here’s a quick unboxing and a few test pics. I am working on some more serious tests this week and will have them up soon. So far I’m very pleased! Some of the photos are a td blurry as I was a bit to excited. Enjoy.
So I finally decided to wait and buy the new Canon. Once I was sure I wanted a video DSLR I had planned on getting either the Pentax K-x or the popular Panasonic GH-1. I was just about to put in my order for the Panasonic when one of my buddies showed me the announcement for the new Canon. After a few days of agonizing over the thought of waiting weeks to get a new camera and starting on my planned projects I decided that the T2i was worth the wait. Now, I live in Japan so it took me awhile to find the name for this thing here. From here on out, I’m going to refer to all three models of the camera when I can, as they are the same thing. I will have the Japanese version, the Canon EOS Kiss X4. But trust me, it’s going to be exactly the same as your T2i or 550D.
My goal is to review the hell out of this camera.
I have a background in video but I love taking photos as well. I have never owned a DSLR, but I have had many SLRs in my life. I’ve shot with almost every pro and prosumer video camera there is, but I’m interested and excited about the new video DSLR revolution.
I’m going to document this entire process on this site. From the unboxing, testing, reviews, real world opinions, and my experience of owning my first DSLR. Tell me what you want to see or know and I’ll give it to ya!
