What I learned: Thinking back and rewatching the video, it’s obvious that in one interview the colour was way off. It ain’t purdy.

There were a few issues that I faced.

Mixed colour temperature. I was dealing with three different temperatures (daylight from the window, overhead fluorescents and a tungsten keylight) and without proper gels I really didn’t know the best course of action to take.

I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have suitable gels or flags and I flew blind into the location.

I dun goofed. Lastly, I made a mistake in setting the white balance.

Mixed colour temperature is a beast that can only be slain one way: Unifying all light sources to one temperature. As Alex Buono (SNL and Documentary Now! DP) says, there’s no tricks around it, you just have to get all light to be the same temperature the old fashioned way. It seems obvious and is relatively straightforward to do, if albeit time consuming. A quick flick of the switch killed the overhead fluorescents, which left the two mixed sources shining. Altering light sources isn’t so bad in a small room, if you have the tools.

But I didn’t have the tools.

Logistically this was the only room we could shoot in. There were no blinds on the window and no rod or frame to clip a blanket too, even if I did have clips. You think a guy without clips is going to have a flag (fabric designed to cut light that can be easily positioned)? Hell no. I also didn’t have large enough gels to cover the window (known as CTO or colour temperature orange, alters daylight to tungsten) or the keylight (CTB or colour temperature blue, which alters tungsten light to daylight). I just wasn’t prepared.

Lastly I made an M. A mmmm-m-m-m... A mistake. Yes. A big fat one. Juicy and all tender-like.

I didn’t change the white balance on the cameras to tungsten (3200K) from daylight (5500/5600K) prior to shooting. To add insult to amateruish injury, the walls were painted in what I swear to be Tungsten Yellow, which just compounded the problem.

You’d think someone who worked for a company as a corporate videographer with a few years under their belt wouldn’t make mistakes like this. But it happens. Or at least it happened to me. The trick is to learn from your mistakes and try not to retread the same territory again.

So how did I learn from my mistakes?

The colour temperature issue may have been avoided if I was able to scout the location beforehand. Short timelines can be hard to avoid, but one thing I would’ve insisted on for this interview would’ve been requesting some pictures

of potential shooting locations. Now they may not be able to accommodate the request in time, but you have nothing to lose by asking. I assumed, falsely, that shooting in houses are all relatively the same which wasn’t the case.

Furthermore, since this shoot, my kit has grown in size to hopefully avoid a similar issue in the future.

The white balance gaffe spurred me to make a consistent mental checklist and run through it prior to every shoot since. The checklist I will share in a future post! A simple flash of my Gray Card or using a Colour Passport also would’ve saved me a headache. Over the past year I’ve learned a lot more about colour correcting and grading.

(Top) Last year I was trying to counter the yellow and orange and then glazed it with magenta maybe as a feeble attempt to make it a bit stylized? I couldn’t tell ya. With knowing what I know now, I could salvage it somewhat (Bottom) but it’s best to not make those mistakes in the first place.

That’s also not the worst of it. To add to the stress of the shoot, embarrassingly I may or may not have forgot to bring the quick release plate for the B cam, rendering its tripod useless...

                                      1/4"-20 on a lightstand is there for this reason, right?

I’m not proud.

Yeah I could’ve balanced it on the tripod head. But I did have the sense to know that gravity wins every time.

Tip: Always check your kit before you leave. Another tip: I didn’t get bogged down and give up with the amateur-hour move, I looked at what I had and used it to jerry-rig a solution. If it’s stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid. Even if it still looks stupid.

2. PONOS Apparel

Had a good time shooting this one: a web commercial for a local athletic apparel company. Shot it in a day and overall it went smoothly. Had a quick and dirty shot list that was flexible so it was fun improvising sequences and putting it together in the edit. Loved working with the director, who made shooting it a breeze.

I believe a student who attends at a local highschool created the music.

Challenges were some of the shots such as running nearly full tilt with a Glidecam but I think they worked for what it is. This is where a gimbal or Steadicam or even a vest and arm attachment would’ve made light work of it.

What I learned: I would’ve made some different editing choices now. The part that really sticks out to me now is in the deadlift scene I’d remove the ‘jump cut + crash zooms’ on the kick beat. They’re unnecessary! Sometimes I get an idea in my head and I want to run with it, but it’s easy to trap yourself in a tunnel. So ideally I should’ve taken a step back and let the edit breathe a bit before committing. Also I need to watch my exposure and ratios. The final shot (which is also the thumbnail above) the highlights are too hot and it’ll bug me forever.

3. John’s Tongue is Not Long

I had a strong urge to shoot a short so I whipped up a poem and a video idea about one of my roommates at the time, John, and his short tongue. After shooting it, I thought that the poem idea lent itself better to a song. So I enlisted the help of Chris Koehler to help put this song idea in motion. I was hoping he would take one look at the lyrics and jump at the chance to sing such glory. But alas he encouraged me to. I love singing. Alone in my car. The sing-songy genes of my ancestors were weeded out long ago. Perhaps it’s the reason why they emigrated? But I had fun and I think Chris did too. I’m stoked with how the song turned out, he killed it.

Challenges were I didn’t storyboard this or even really shot list this, just kind of went through the lyrics and shot what I thought fit. This made for a bit of problem solving in the edit but it actually wasn’t bad at all and I enjoyed making it fit.

What I learned: The idea was to shoot the first half before John went in for surgery (his wee tongue was causing him discomfort) and finish it off once he has a glorious normal length tongue. I realize now however that this doesn’t come across in the lyrics or the video. My talented director and animator buddy, Jarett Sitter provided some indispensable feedback with just one constructive comment, “I wish he had a ridiculous over-the-top tongue in the last scene.” As soon as he said it I knew I dun goofed.

One of my screenwriting profs said the ending has to be worth the price of admission. (paraphrased, he actually said the ending has to be the best part of the story to make it worth it. i.e. shit ending = shit story). Rewatching my own work is tough but it’s the best way to learn, and when I watch this I realize there’s no click at the end, no spice that holds the rest of it together. Adding in something over-the-top like that would’ve made it a lot more effective as a whole and would’ve fit with the style of the video no problem. So the lesson here, no matter how silly your project you set out to make, consult with friends and revise the script a few times before setting it in stone, you’ll get a better product at the end.

4. GRIT

GRIT is a non-prof that educates kindergarten-age children with disabilities. They requested a slideshow be created so it could be played at their annual gala. Me not settling for just an average slideshow decided to give it a little flair.

Challenges were the flair. I used a fairly common plugin for After Effects (AE) called SureTarget, and needless to say I ran into some problems. I love Video Copilot. They’re a fantastic resource and their plugins are great. So I’m not going to complain about a free, 7 year old plugin. But I will tell you of my tribulations. I’ve used the plugin with success a few times before, but it was used on older versions of AE. It was also used with fewer pictures. This video required about 80 photos/clips to be used, which was also another challenge to try and fit that within the allotted time. I believe the combination of debatable-compatibility with the newer version of AE and the sheer amount of assets proved a nightmare. I don’t even want to look back at how many hours I spent trying to fix the weirdest issues both in animating and rendering. It was too many for what should’ve been a relatively straightforward project.

What I learned: Sometimes you just learn in the middle of production that something just doesn’t work. Due to my stubbornness I refused to demote the slideshow to a generic (worse) program to deliver something. I problem solved and problem solved to find a solution that worked. However, I have put the plugin to rest for good now. It was a good sendoff as I was tired of using it anyway.

5. Phantasmagoria

I got the chance to work with Tia Halliday, a local artist, in capturing video of her project, Phantasmagoria. The idea behind it was to explore the relationship of the body to sculpture and painting. The scope of the project was impressive: using dancers from Alberta Ballet to contort their bodies and hold positions inside fabric sacks to be photographed digitally and with a medium format film camera, both in studio and on location outside.

Challenges were I haven’t done much in the way of abstract video or at least capturing abstract art. So getting myself well-versed and acquainted with the project was the first step. The rest fell into place in the weeks leading up and on the day.

What I learned: this was a combination of behind the scenes videography and capturing the imagery first-hand so it was good experience being able to shoot both.

6. Cancer Crusher Flash Mob

This was a short social-media-focused piece. It was relatively straightforward, and fun since I didn’t know exactly what to expect until it was happening.

Challenges the lens I used is not my favourite but it’s versatile for fast-paced shoots like this, it’s just a pain in the ass to pull focus on, and my hope is to invest in a better zoom eventually. During this shoot I felt like a hummingbird with all the people and action going on, that for a couple shots I cursed at myself in the edit because I didn’t hold frame long enough and missed context because of it.

What I learned: For fast fly-by-seat-of-pants shoots, just need to remember to breathe a beat or two longer on shots.

7. Cancer Crusher 2016 Main Event Recap

This was the main event for Cancer Crusher where you could win prizes, eat, drink, listen to music, and smash fruit! This was a blast to shoot and I had a great time putting it together.

Challenges were not much different from other event videography gigs. Smaller venues can be a little more challenging to get the shot but there was time to get everything I felt I needed to. As always music is a challenge to find. I think I found something that captured the fun spirit with it hopefully not being too stock music-y.

What I learned: it’s always great to stretch the videography muscles so just getting more experience is always welcome.

8. Sally Shapiro - If You Ever Wanna Change Your Mind

Directed by the aforementioned Jarett Sitter, this music video was fun and a very rewarding challenge to work on. It combined 3D assets - both still and animated, and 2D illustration and animation. My job was editing the video and combining those two sources to make them come alive.

Challenges were obvious. It was a fairly large-scale project in terms of scope (3D animation combined with illustration) and size (it’s a long song). 3D animation is a very time intensive process on the back-end especially, so if there are any changes, you have to prepare for hours (days) of rendering time. Due to the size of the project, the 3D guru, Evan, Jarett and I had to work simultaneously (picture us sprinting across a canyon, where one person is laying down slats and the other two are tying rope, trying to build the bridge as we go). So while consultations were frequent, the nature of it was generally only the big picture could really get nailed down. Figuring out an efficient workflow was key to the success of this project.

What I learned: I love compositing so getting a chance to get some more experience doing it was great. It was very rewarding coming up with solutions to the challenges some parts offered.

9, 10, 11, 12, 13. Lost Twentysomething Series

Last year I finished shooting five shorts that have been an absolutely labour of love. These have consumed my headspace for the past year, but it has been such an invaluable experience both personally and educationally. I’m pumped to see them coming together. Braden Paes along with my friends and family have helped me immensely in getting them produced. There have been challenges and tons of learning opportunities and in the coming weeks/months I’ll post more about them. In the meantime, I am steadily chipping away at them in post, hoping to have something to show in the early summer.

BONUS 14, 15, 16. Escape, Trillium, and Shasta Keychains

My dad’s little business, Camping Treasures is growing in inventory every month! The past year he needed me to draw out the dieline for three different trailers, the Escape, Trillium, and Shasta, so they could be made into 2-sided keychains.The designs have even been shrunk for wine glass charms and earrings. Take a look!

Conclusion

I haven’t written something this long since graduating university, but aside from shaking the rust off, my motivation for writing these is mainly self-serving. Overall I think I’m a patient guy but I often catch myself feeling like I’m in a rush, that I’m not progressing as much or as fast as I’d like, so I like looking back to reassure myself that I have been staying on track, learning, and applying what I’ve learned previously.

If you managed to get through it all, I sincerely hope that it maybe helped you do that thing you want to do or allowed you time to reflect on your own progress over the past year. What are you proud of? What challenges have you overcome and what have you learned from those challenges? Post in the comments or keep them in mind as you crush 2017!