This was another music video that I did with my Capstone film class from Madonna. The Fabulous Miss Wendy is an up-and-coming musician, and this was a great opportunity for the Capstone class to get even more experience in video production. I was the DP for the music video, and a fellow Madonna student was the steadicam op. In her role, she got some great footage of Wendy skating around the rink, while she was on skateboard holding the camera.
The music video was shot on location in downtown Detroit, the Masonic Temple, as well as a house in Novi. It was a two day shoot, and one of the shoot days involved the crew attending a Detroit Derby Girls game at night at the Masonic Temple to get footage for the music video.
The music video was shot on a Canon 5D, with two different lenses as well as a shoulder mount. The scene where the band plays in the middle of the rink, two Canon 5Ds and a Canon 6DD were used. For the scenes where Wendy is in the car, a car windshield mount for a camera was used. It really provided great visual eye candy for the scene.
In another video for EDSI, I wanted to showcase the mission statement and what EDSI means to their clients. EDSI CEO, Kevin Schienders, talks about what it means to see through their client's eyes, understand their needs, and deliver more than they expect.
I filmed Kevin outside of the EDSI headquarters, where is standing next to the EDSI building sign. I originally used two cameras for this, the Canon T3i and an iPhone 4S. The iPhone was the wide shot, and the Canon was the closeup, but during post, I felt the wide wasn't very personal and decided not to use it at all.
Like in the "Show Up, Smile, and Support" video, I used more b-roll footage from the office as well as interviews from EDSI team members as they say the mission statement halfway through the video.
This was the first video I did for my summer internship at EDSI. EDSI operates by many values, and one of the main values is to show up, smile, and support. In the video, the CEO of EDSI, Kevin Schnieders, talks about what it means to show up, smile, and support.
I filmed interviews prior to Kevin, and I incorporated different EDSI team members in the video as they say "show up, smile, and support" at the beginning. I also used b-roll that I shot at the office to provide great content to carry the video.
The video was shot on a Canon T3i, and Kevin's statement was filmed outside of the EDSI headquarters in Dearborn, MI. I used the camera to record the video, and a separate audio recorder to record Kevin's dialogue.
Being an intern at Madonna during the Winter semester, part of my job was to help the ASL students create a music video that uses sign language for the lyrics. I have seen the past projects and was excited to help produce one with a group.
I met with my group, and they picked Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror". We had some brainstorming sessions, from the storyline to locations. For practical purposes, we decided to shoot on Madonna's campus.
The music video was shot with a Canon T3i. The opening of the music video was done in the Madonna TV studio, with a green screen used to project the images. I created a custom dolly by putting the camera on a tripod, and it put it on a rolling cart. I used this creative approach a few times in the video, and it really worked out well.
This was the final video I did for my post production class. I really wanted to try some new stuff, and basically just wanted to have a fun time making the video. One of the things that I definitely wanted to do was to some kind-of bullet time technique, as seen in the Matrix films.
I set up ten cameras in the Madonna TV studio, and covered the back wall and floor with green screen. I also covered a rolling cart with more green screen, and I basically just jumped over the cart. Without having a real idea in mind yet, a fellow student joked that I should add in a pineapple in post as the item that I jumped over. Well, I decided that was a great idea and went with it!
The second part of the video showcases Destructoid, which is a website that combines a video stream along with a gamer talking and interacting with a live chat while they play a video game. I always enjoy watching it, and decided to incorporate myself in it as a dream sequence. I used footage of another student as whom I was talking with, which was recorded well over a year prior. With a lot editing, it came out great!
Machinima has become a popular art form on the Internet. Machinima can be anything from a video or a piece of art that uses in-game graphics from a computer game to tell a personal story. Being a huge fan of the World of Warcraft, I made a tie-in from the game for Valentine's Day.
To successfully capture footage from the video, I ran Warcraft on my Macbook which allowed me to record video from the game. It's a feature that is only available to the Mac, not the PC. From the recording, I had to convert the footage to the MOV format, so I could edit it in Final Cut. I used MPEG Streamclip, a shareware program, to do the necessary conversion.
I did not really have a storyboard in mind, I just basically logged into the game and worked on the fly.
I made this simple video using my iPhone 4S. I really wanted to try out the video capabilities with the iPhone, and I was really happy with the final results. I was able to play with depth of field, and being how small the iPhone is, it was great at getting some interesting angles.
I filmed the water drain outside of the Broadcast department at Madonna. During post, I did color corrections on each clip, to bring out more Fall colors and add some brown tones, too. The title, Aellae, came from the name of the music piece that accompanies the video.
This was a Pay It Forward project that I did as a group project with two classmates from my Field Production and Editing II class at Madonna. We picked this group to do a video that tells a story about what this nonprofit organization does - helping others. Based in Farmington, S.O.U.L. helps those in need in a number of ways from food and clothing donations, or just being there for those who need support in their lives.
My group and I spent a number of days at the S.O.U.L. cafe doing interviews with their donors, as well as filming a luncheon they had. We also visited their donation shop just down the street, and talked with the kind volunteers there. We filmed some of the interviews in the upstairs area of the cafe, but had to do some rearranging of furniture to accomodate good shooting angles.
We shot the project using a Sony AX-2000. We had a lot of footage from interviews and b-roll, so it took some time to edit the project into a compelling story. We had to watch the entire interviews, and compile the best bites from them. We spent time choosing the right music to give a great pace to the video, and a team member designed the opening credit to the video.
This is the first video I did for Hillcrest Sod Farm, based in Romulus, Michigan. Seen in the video is the owner of Hillcrest Sod Farm, Mike Thompson. For our first video, Mike wanted to inform the viewers of the importance of preparing your lawn for the Spring, by starting in the Fall, as well as prevention of crabgrass during the summer.
The video was shot outside of Mike's home, and we used locations in the front of his property, as well as the backyard. Surprisingly, air traffic was at a minimum and only a few times we stopped briefly because of usual residential noise.
The video was shot with a Canon T3i, and Mike was mic'd to a Zoom Recorder that he had in his back pocket. I used the internal mic on the Canon for reference, and sync'd it with the Zoom Recorder's audio in Final Cut, and removed the Canon's audio once both were sync'd. The music was from Killer Tracks, entitled "Just Blooming".
The entire video was color corrected to balance the whites, greys, and blacks, and the contrast was boosted slightly to make the colors pop a little more.
I was the DP on this music video for the Detroit-based band, the Infatuations. We shot this music video in downtown Detroit back in December of 2011, with the primary location at Centaur Bar. The music video was shot all in one day, and it was definitely an achievement in so many areas.
One of the interesting scenes in the music video was the hot rod making its way through traffic to reach the bar. When we were shooting the music video, the Detroit Lions football game ended, so the streets of Detroit were very crowded. We were stopped at a crosswalk outside the Fox Theater, waiting for people to cross, when I decided to do a rack focus from the Fox Theater sign to the driver inside the car. It was a spur of the moment shot that the editor decided made the cut!
I shot the primary part of the music video with the Canon 7D. It was a fantastic camera, which provided an extreme shallow depth of field, along with a vibrant picture. My fellow camera ops used cameras that ranged from a Canon 5D to a Canon T3i. Towards the end of the music video, we had at least four cameras going when the Infatuations were playing at the bar.
I did a documentary piece on the Madonna University Women's basketball as my final project for my Field Production and Editing II class, and it was the most fun I had ever had working on a project.
I knew the assistant coach personally on the team, and he was more than thrilled about me pursuing the project. He mentioned the theme of the team was the "positive train", and making a video about it could be inspirational. After the coach was on board, I knew I wanted a talented announcer to introduce the piece. I spoke with a fellow Madonna student, Kyle, and he was also happy to come on board and do the open and close for the video.
One of my early goals was to be creative with my shot selection. I wanted to use two cameras during the interview, one a safe shot and one a "risky" shot. I wanted to go outside the box and try something new. What little did I know that during the editing process I found out, I could cut between the two cameras during any "uhs" or "ums" that may be said, and it would look seamless.
The head coach of the team gave me footage of the team at various vacation spots that they went on, and I used as the closing segment in the documentary. It really gave the piece a heartfelt moment, and I loved how it turned out.
I shot the documentary with three cameras. I used a Canon 7D, Canon T3i, and a Sony AX-2000. When it came to editing, I had to do quite the data conversion between the Canons shot in H.264, while the Sony shot in AVCHD, so I had to render all my footage to Apple ProRes to make the editing a smooth process. It took some time, but it was time well-spent.
I directed and edited this commercial for the Livonia Bakery and Cafe. The bakery donated food to our student film shoot earlier in the season, so we gave back to them a commercial.
After an initial meeting with the client, I sat down and storyboarded a concept on how the commercial should flow. The time limit of the commercial was 30 seconds, so I wanted to convey a quick but powerful message in the time allotted.
The commercial was shot all in one day, and it was about a 5 hour shoot. It was filmed with a Canon T3i, and some of the shots were achieved with a tripod on a track. I had a great crew for the shoot, and it went extremely well. The client was very helpful, and my storyboard helped him understand the concept of the commercial and how he had to prepare for the shots I wanted.
This is a commercial spot that I did for my Broadcast and Cinema Arts program at Madonna University. The commercial appeared during local telecasts of the Plymouth Whalers games.
I shot a lot of the footage in the studio of the students at work. I had them operating a camera and stage managing. With editing, it made it appear that they were working on the TV show that is displayed with the video. The TV show is Celebrate Michigan, which airs at 6:30 AM on local channel 20 in Metro Detroit.
I used footage taken during the Capstone Film Class production of "Clayman".
The main thing that I wanted to accomplish with this video was speed. I wanted to see the video naturally flow from one clip to another, almost like it's one big puzzle of connected pieces.
I have a minor cameo in the video around the 13 second mark as the student with the RED One camera.
A documentary that I always wanted to do was to film a lighthouse. Just something about them screams "film me". So, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do a historical video for my Field Production and Editing class. Knowing that I wanted to shoot a lighthouse, I Googled the nearby lighthouses where I lived. I found the closet one, so I e-mailed them and mentioned that I was a student and wanted to do a video about their lighthouse. Luckily, they replied back quickly and said yes!
I drove about 45 minutes East to the island of Grosse Ile. I met up with a couple people from the historical society who let me onto the lighthouse property and into it as well. It unfortunately rained when I was there, so I did my best to film with what I could. After I was done shooting the lighthouse, I drove around the island to shoot b-roll that I wanted to use as the introduction in the video to the city.
The older gentleman in my video, William, had a lot of old photographs that he let me film, as he told the stories behind the photographs. The historical society also had their own photographs, which I also shot. I strived to do keyframing with each photograph to have that "moving image", which kept the pacing in the video.
Fun fact - the narrator in the video is me. I used Soundtrack Pro and my Lifechat headset to record my voiceover. I was surprised how well, to me at least, how my voice sounds in the video and how it just naturally fit.
This is a dramatic video that I did for my Field Production and Editing class. I did a Christmas themed video before, and I wanted to do another holiday video - and Halloween was around the corner so it was a perfect fit. The idea behind the video was about a boy who wanted to go trick or treating, but he was just too old. I recruited my 13 year old brother to play the role, and he did a good job! My Dad also has a cameo as the masked parent in the last scene.
I shot the majority of the video on Halloween. I followed my brother and his friends around, and pulled my brother or his friends aside whenever I could to shoot scenes for the video. I hadn't gone trick or treating in years, so it was fun to be in the neighborhood when the kids were out.
But, being that my brother was 13, he didn't like me tagging along the entire time so I went out alone and shot b-roll that I would use as cutaways and transitions in the video. I went up to some of the houses and politely asked if I could shoot on the front lawn, and all of them were more than happy to allow me to.
I had no lighting in the video, so I had to use a flashlight in the last scene to give some light on my brother. But, I wanted to keep with the dark tones since it was Halloween.
