I have just received notification that my new App for doing Time Lapse with RED Digital Cinema cameras is now on the iTunes App Store. You can see it at the following link: RedLapse
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
New RED TimeLapse App
I have a new App that I’ve just submitted to Apple for the App store and I’ve put up a new page on my FishTalesPress site with info about it. You can visit the page at: http://www.FishTalesPress.com/RedLapse. The App is called RedLapse and it’s a Time Lapse tool designed specifically for RED digital cinema cameras. The App has been “finished” for a couple weeks and I’ve just been working on UI tweaks, cosmetics and going through Apple’s hoops. It’s now in the Review process and I will update the status as necessary both here and on the FishTalesPress blog.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Visions of Africa
Now that I have my new MacPro system running my edit suite, I can catch up on some projects that I’ve been stalling. When editing 4K footage, it’s nice to be able to see it in 4K, so no more excuses now. My first task was to select scenes from my travels of the last few months to send to my agents. As I was trimming scenes for this purpose, I decided that I should make an African Demo Reel out of some of the scenes. Here it is. It represents about 5% of what I shot during 3 months in Africa. It contains footage from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Music is “African Fields” by Bjorn Lynne. The voice over was done by The Voice Realm. You can view it in the "Shot On RED" section of my website, or directly on my Vimeo channel at: https://vimeo.com/96388993. Hope you enjoy it, wish you could see it in all it’s 4K glory:<)
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
The Beast
The Beast has arrived. It is now at my Son's house in Oregon where he will be doing some burn-in before bring it out to Hong Kong where he will meet me March 19. When I return from the Hong Kong trip on March 24th, I will finally have the ability to edit the 4K footage that I've been shooting all over the world in actual 4K resolution:<) I'm betting that this is going to be the first MacPro 4K editing suite in Indonesia!
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Above Ancient Bagan
I've just uploaded a little sample of some of the aerial scenes that I shot with my DJI Phantom and GoPro camera on my recent trip to the amazing archeological sites of Bagan, Myanmar to my Vimeo channel. Most of my shooting on the trip was with my RED, but I did 12 flights at Bagan over a period of 3 days. Each flight was about 5 minutes long, so I have about an hour of footage. This was the first test of my new Brushless Gimbal mount for the GoPro. It seems to work pretty well. All but the first three flights were with an FPV system consisting of FatShark video goggles that were monitoring a transmitted signal direct from the Phantom. It's pretty cool to see your flight from the perspective of the aircraft. I'm quite happy with these first results, but the downside is that now I want a bigger multi-rotor that can carry a larger payload:<)
You can see the video at: https://vimeo.com/86610355 or in the GoPro Album here on my website.
You can see the video at: https://vimeo.com/86610355 or in the GoPro Album here on my website.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Mandalay
Today I did some more Pagoda hopping. Mandalay is not really a tourist centric city. There isn't a lot of infrastructure like guides and drivers, or even very many taxis. In both Yangon and Bagan I was able to arrange a guide through my hotel with little trouble. Here, I asked about a guide and they looked at me like they had never heard such a request. So I plotted out where I wanted to go on my iPad, and when I left the hotel, a guy approached me and asked if I needed a taxi. I said yes, and showed him on my map where I wanted to go. He said 2000 Kyat (about $2) so I said fine. He disappears for a minute and comes back with a helmet for me. He doesn't have an actual taxi, just a motor bike. I've got my big pack on with my RED in it and a very large tripod which he says is no problem. Normally, this wouldn't be my first choice in transportation, especially in a re-incarnation based culture, but I thought, WTF, I've been riding around dirt roads in Bagan on an electric bike for a week, why not. So I hopped on and off we go. It turned out to be quite a pleasant ride. We went by Mandalay palace, the last royal residence in Burma. I had seen it on the sat map I was using and thought it reminded me of the old city of Chiang Mai, but as you pass by it, you get an idea of how huge it really is. It is square and nearly 1.5 miles on a side. It's about 4 times the size of the main Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia. It is surrounded by a moat that is about 50 yards wide. Inside the moat is a huge wall surrounding the whole site. There are massive gates in the middle of each side. There is a part that you can tour, but much of it is comprised of military installations now.
I went to the Kuthodaw Pagoda and the Sanda Muni Paya Pagoda. They are adjacent to one another at the foot of Mandalay Hill. They are similar in that they both have a large central golden pagoda surrounded by hundreds of smaller white pagodas. Inside each small pagoda is a marble slab about 3 ft wide and 4 ft tall that is inscribed with a single page of Buddha's teachings. In Sanda Muni Paya, there are 1,774 individual pagodas each with one slab of marble. It is supposedly the world's largest book.
When I was finished with my shooting, I headed back to the hotel with another motor bike taxi. It's interesting how traffic flows here. Nobody stops at intersections. Traffic streams just seems to flow through each other. It seems the only rule is to not hit something that is directly in front of you. You don't have to worry about whether something is going to be in front of you. Whoever gets to a point in space-time first, has the right of way. Traffic doesn't even seem to slow down at intersections. It's a little un-nerving at first, but with a leap of faith, it's not so bad. Of course they do believe in re-incarnation. Anyhow, we went about 10 miles through city traffic and only stopped twice for very brief periods, yet it all felt quite safe and sane at the time!
Here are some Images from today:
Kuthodaw Pagoda
These are some of the small pagodas housing Buddha's teachings on marble slabs
This is one of the marble slabs with a single page of Buddha's teachings inscribed.
A setup of my RED doing a shot.
Sanda Muni Paya Pagoda.
some of the 1,774 pagodas at Sanda Muni Paya Pagoda.
Looking through a row of small pagodas at Sanda Muni Paya with the stone tablets going off into the distance. There are row after row of these small pagodas.
I went to the Kuthodaw Pagoda and the Sanda Muni Paya Pagoda. They are adjacent to one another at the foot of Mandalay Hill. They are similar in that they both have a large central golden pagoda surrounded by hundreds of smaller white pagodas. Inside each small pagoda is a marble slab about 3 ft wide and 4 ft tall that is inscribed with a single page of Buddha's teachings. In Sanda Muni Paya, there are 1,774 individual pagodas each with one slab of marble. It is supposedly the world's largest book.
When I was finished with my shooting, I headed back to the hotel with another motor bike taxi. It's interesting how traffic flows here. Nobody stops at intersections. Traffic streams just seems to flow through each other. It seems the only rule is to not hit something that is directly in front of you. You don't have to worry about whether something is going to be in front of you. Whoever gets to a point in space-time first, has the right of way. Traffic doesn't even seem to slow down at intersections. It's a little un-nerving at first, but with a leap of faith, it's not so bad. Of course they do believe in re-incarnation. Anyhow, we went about 10 miles through city traffic and only stopped twice for very brief periods, yet it all felt quite safe and sane at the time!
Here are some Images from today:
Kuthodaw Pagoda
These are some of the small pagodas housing Buddha's teachings on marble slabs
This is one of the marble slabs with a single page of Buddha's teachings inscribed.
A setup of my RED doing a shot.
Sanda Muni Paya Pagoda.
some of the 1,774 pagodas at Sanda Muni Paya Pagoda.
Looking through a row of small pagodas at Sanda Muni Paya with the stone tablets going off into the distance. There are row after row of these small pagodas.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
More Bagan
Well, I had intended to do daily posts from Bagan since I was spending a week there, but the internet connection was so pathetic that the first post I tried took over an hour to upload after two days of failed attempts. Most of the time. there was no connection at all, but occasionally it would creep in for a bit. I don't think I ever saw it get above 15 Kbps! So plan B was to just wait until I have a better connection and do this mega-post.
As I write this, I'm traveling on a ferry boat up the Irrawaddy river from Bagan to Mandalay. Since it's a 12 hour trip, I thought I'd get the post ready in the event that I have better internet in Mandalay, it's the second biggest city in Myanmar, so I'm hopeful. The ferry is a modern boat with comfortable seats. It also has a large outside area in the stern where you can sit beneath an awning and watch river life pass by. I'm hoping to be able to shoot some Pagodas along the river this afternoon when we turn East, and again later in the afternoon as we get closer to Mandalay. We should arrive sometime around sunset. We left this morning at 0600 and had a nice sunrise over the river.
I spent my days in Bagan alternation between different activities. My first day I went out with a driver and a guide and shot mostly RED footage, but lots of stills too. The next day I went on my own on an electric bike. The hotel rents them for $10 per day and they are widely used here by tourists. They are pretty cool, actually. Wish we had them in Bali. They are silent and quite quick. The first time I took one out, I strapped my tripod on the back and carried my RED and DSLR in my Cinebag backpack. The best light is early morning and late afternoon so my strategy was to take off about 0730, shoot until 1030 or 1100, then return to the hotel. I would go back out around 1500 and shoot until I lost the light. On my third day I went with just the car and driver as the guide I used the first time was booked. It turns out the my driver was a really good assistant. He toted gear around for me and helped look for good setups.. Day 4 was bike again, but this time with the DJI Phantom and GoPro to shoot some aerials. I used the same pack, but had to take the props off each time I moved. I did 5 flights the first day and had some good success. My new gimbal mount works quite well, and I've wired in a radio controlled adjustment for camera pitch so I can tilt it up and down in flight as needed.. Bolstered by my aerial success I went out the next day with my driver again and did a mix of some aerials with the phantom, some RED footage including some with my slider. On my last day I went out again with just the Phantom for a couple final aerial scenes. I had two hard landings that day, one when a battery went out as I was landing and dropped the last 5 ft and the last one when I clipped a tree branch as I was coming in to my landing zone and it flipped the Phantom over causing it to fly straight down the last 12 feet in a split second. Fortunately, the Phantom is pretty sturdy and didn't sustain any damage except to one prop.
So, enough talk, now for some more Bagan Images:
I happened upon a couple local ceremonial processions. I was on an electric bike both times so I was able to circle around and get multiple passes.
These kids were selling sets of "postcards" that they made. I bought the set from the girl on the left. The light colored patches on their cheeks is Sandalwood. It's popular among the locals.
As I write this, I'm traveling on a ferry boat up the Irrawaddy river from Bagan to Mandalay. Since it's a 12 hour trip, I thought I'd get the post ready in the event that I have better internet in Mandalay, it's the second biggest city in Myanmar, so I'm hopeful. The ferry is a modern boat with comfortable seats. It also has a large outside area in the stern where you can sit beneath an awning and watch river life pass by. I'm hoping to be able to shoot some Pagodas along the river this afternoon when we turn East, and again later in the afternoon as we get closer to Mandalay. We should arrive sometime around sunset. We left this morning at 0600 and had a nice sunrise over the river.
I spent my days in Bagan alternation between different activities. My first day I went out with a driver and a guide and shot mostly RED footage, but lots of stills too. The next day I went on my own on an electric bike. The hotel rents them for $10 per day and they are widely used here by tourists. They are pretty cool, actually. Wish we had them in Bali. They are silent and quite quick. The first time I took one out, I strapped my tripod on the back and carried my RED and DSLR in my Cinebag backpack. The best light is early morning and late afternoon so my strategy was to take off about 0730, shoot until 1030 or 1100, then return to the hotel. I would go back out around 1500 and shoot until I lost the light. On my third day I went with just the car and driver as the guide I used the first time was booked. It turns out the my driver was a really good assistant. He toted gear around for me and helped look for good setups.. Day 4 was bike again, but this time with the DJI Phantom and GoPro to shoot some aerials. I used the same pack, but had to take the props off each time I moved. I did 5 flights the first day and had some good success. My new gimbal mount works quite well, and I've wired in a radio controlled adjustment for camera pitch so I can tilt it up and down in flight as needed.. Bolstered by my aerial success I went out the next day with my driver again and did a mix of some aerials with the phantom, some RED footage including some with my slider. On my last day I went out again with just the Phantom for a couple final aerial scenes. I had two hard landings that day, one when a battery went out as I was landing and dropped the last 5 ft and the last one when I clipped a tree branch as I was coming in to my landing zone and it flipped the Phantom over causing it to fly straight down the last 12 feet in a split second. Fortunately, the Phantom is pretty sturdy and didn't sustain any damage except to one prop.
So, enough talk, now for some more Bagan Images:
I happened upon a couple local ceremonial processions. I was on an electric bike both times so I was able to circle around and get multiple passes.
These kids were selling sets of "postcards" that they made. I bought the set from the girl on the left. The light colored patches on their cheeks is Sandalwood. It's popular among the locals.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Bagan
I arrived in Bagan early this morning. This region is really the focus of my trip, I've wanted to see the thousands of thousand year old temples and pagodas since I saw photos of them several years ago. Bagan has never been an easy place to get to. The first couple times I tried to get a tourist visa for Myanmar, there was just too much red tape, and most of the time they weren't granting visas at all. It's much better now, a visa is relatively easy to obtain, and there are frequent international flights into Myanmar now. This all means that tourism in the area is going to boom soon and it seems like now is the time to visit before it gets as overloaded with group tours as Angkor Wat in Cambodia. That's not to say that there isn't any tourism here. On the flight in this morning, we arrived just after sunrise and in addition to seeing temples and pagodas dotting the landscape, I also counted 11 hot air balloons doing their sunrise flight!
Though I arrived fairly early at my hotel, I couldn't get into my room to unpack and set my camera up until about 1030. I also couldn't get a guide arranged for today, but the hotel has bicycle rentals for $1 per day, so I decided to go out on my own just with a DSLR to catch some afternoon light. Below are a few imaged from this little expedition. Everything was within about a 15 minute ride from the hotel. I have a guide and driver scheduled for tomorrow morning at 0730 so I will start shooting RED footage then and go to some of the bigger sites farther away.
Though the land around the temples and pagodas is farmed and cultivated, the temples are not abandoned. Every one I saw today was still an active temple even though most of them are over a thousand years old.
The Irrawaddy river flows from t he Himalayas to the Andaman sea. It is still the main route for commerce through the center of Myanmar.
Sunset on the Irrawaddy River which flows along the edge of Bagan. Some of the sites are built on the banks of the river.
A fisherman on the river at dusk.
Though I arrived fairly early at my hotel, I couldn't get into my room to unpack and set my camera up until about 1030. I also couldn't get a guide arranged for today, but the hotel has bicycle rentals for $1 per day, so I decided to go out on my own just with a DSLR to catch some afternoon light. Below are a few imaged from this little expedition. Everything was within about a 15 minute ride from the hotel. I have a guide and driver scheduled for tomorrow morning at 0730 so I will start shooting RED footage then and go to some of the bigger sites farther away.
Though the land around the temples and pagodas is farmed and cultivated, the temples are not abandoned. Every one I saw today was still an active temple even though most of them are over a thousand years old.
The Irrawaddy river flows from t he Himalayas to the Andaman sea. It is still the main route for commerce through the center of Myanmar.
Sunset on the Irrawaddy River which flows along the edge of Bagan. Some of the sites are built on the banks of the river.
A fisherman on the river at dusk.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Burma Bound
I arrived yesterday in Yangon, Myanmar after a week of being “Shutdown in Bangkok”. It didn’t have anything to do with the current Shutdown Bangkok political protests. That was no bother at all, really more like a huge street party with a few political speeches that nobody was paying much attention to. No, my problems were more of the “acquiring visa” kind. The Myanmar embassy wasn’t the main problem, it was the Indonesian embassy that took a day longer than planned to do my 1 year visa. When that happened, I couldn’t get my passport to the Myanmar embassy in time for a visa before my scheduled Friday departure, and at that point pretty much everything came off the rails. The domino effect rippled through every flight and hotel reservation that I had meticulously arranged. Over the weekend I rebooked flights and hotels, and Monday I got my Myanmar visa in time to make it to the airport for my rebooked 2015 flight to Yangon. Except that there is no longer a 2015 flight to Yangon. The last one was the Friday flight I was supposed to be on. So I rebooked again for a 0715 flight the next morning and found a hotel close to the airport for another night in Bangkok. So yesterday morning, I left my hotel at 0500, checked in for my flight, went to the gate, got on the plane, took off on time, flew about halfway to Yangon and the plane turned around and went back to Bangkok! They were never really clear why, I suspect it was some sort of instrument problem and if they went on to Yangon they would be grounded there until it was repaired and there are no parts available. When we landed back in Bangkok, they kept us on the plane sitting out on the tarmac while some mechanics came out to look things over. The they loaded us on a couple buses and headed back for the terminal. About the time we got to the terminal, the buses did a U-Turn and headed back out on the tarmac and we re-boarded a plane. I’m not sure if it was the one we got off. Maybe that’s why the drove us around in circles for awhile. At any rate, that plane made it all the way to Yangon. If getting there is really half the fun, I’ve got a whole lot more fun in store for me for the remainder of the trip.
I was planning on taking the overnight train to Bagan this afternoon. I went to the train station yesterday afternoon to buy my ticket. The gentleman in the office said yes, there were berths available in the sleeping car for US$40.00. I pulled out two 20’s and gave them to him. He looked them over and handed one of them back to me and said that it was not in good enough condition to accept. It had been folded, so there was a crease in it. So I pulled out 4 more 20’s and told him to pick one. Nope, none were good enough for him. So I asked him if I could just pay in Myanmar Kyat since I had a nice stack of mint bills straight out of an ATM. Oh no, he said, you can’t buy a train ticket with Kyat, only dollars. So tomorrow morning I’m flying to Bagan instead because you can but a plane ticket with Kyat, no problem.
Today I hired a very nice young guide who took me all over Yangon to shoot temples. We would taxi to a temple, spend some time there then grab another cab to the next. Taxis are cheap here, the most expensive was about 4 bucks for a 30 minute ride. It helps to have a savvy local negotiate the fares though as there are no meters in the taxis.
Here are a few images from the day’s touring:
A 216 foot reclining Buddha (I only saw 2 feet).
Lots of bells at the temples.
These are two of Yangon's famous Pink Elephants. They really do look pink, and you don't have to be inebriated to see them.
The Buddha's LEDs add a modern touch.
The North Gate to Shwedagon temple.
The Shwedagon Pagoda is 99 meters high and covered in 60 tons of gold. It also has a 30 carat diamond on the top. You can see Shwedagon form miles away, even at night. It's the most impressive Buddhist temple I've ever seen.
I was planning on taking the overnight train to Bagan this afternoon. I went to the train station yesterday afternoon to buy my ticket. The gentleman in the office said yes, there were berths available in the sleeping car for US$40.00. I pulled out two 20’s and gave them to him. He looked them over and handed one of them back to me and said that it was not in good enough condition to accept. It had been folded, so there was a crease in it. So I pulled out 4 more 20’s and told him to pick one. Nope, none were good enough for him. So I asked him if I could just pay in Myanmar Kyat since I had a nice stack of mint bills straight out of an ATM. Oh no, he said, you can’t buy a train ticket with Kyat, only dollars. So tomorrow morning I’m flying to Bagan instead because you can but a plane ticket with Kyat, no problem.
Today I hired a very nice young guide who took me all over Yangon to shoot temples. We would taxi to a temple, spend some time there then grab another cab to the next. Taxis are cheap here, the most expensive was about 4 bucks for a 30 minute ride. It helps to have a savvy local negotiate the fares though as there are no meters in the taxis.
Here are a few images from the day’s touring:
A 216 foot reclining Buddha (I only saw 2 feet).
Lots of bells at the temples.
These are two of Yangon's famous Pink Elephants. They really do look pink, and you don't have to be inebriated to see them.
The Buddha's LEDs add a modern touch.
The North Gate to Shwedagon temple.
The Shwedagon Pagoda is 99 meters high and covered in 60 tons of gold. It also has a 30 carat diamond on the top. You can see Shwedagon form miles away, even at night. It's the most impressive Buddhist temple I've ever seen.
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