Assembling Some Shots

Here's some initial footage and photos from my work (with Nico) on a music documentary on The King Bucks. I'm excited to work on this project, and I look forward to when we can have enough footage and other materials together to make a story.

Starting a New Project

I'm helping Nico with a music documentary project. I'm not sure where it's heading, but I'm sure we will come up with some great material in the end.

Here's some audio I recorded last night. This is The King Bucks covering Buck Owens (right click, save as to download).

And here's a snippet of video.

Happy Holidays!

BEScavenger: A Photo Scavenger Hunt and Pub Crawl

Erin and I co-hosted a birthday party on Saturday night. Since we didn't have any experience with a mobile + tech event, I was worried about how it would come together. However, I was surprised to see how many people participated. And it was fun!

Here's how to roll your own mobile, real-time photo scavenger hunt:

• We bought several yards of fabric (one per team) and fashioned our own makeshift scarfs (this is an important if you want to be able to tell which team shot which photo, because that person or object could be shot with scarf in the frame)
  
  
• Before the event, we informed the guests to make sure they had the Flickr mobile application (and had an account ready to go)
  
  
• When guests arrived, we ate some appetizers and had a drink... then provided instructions on how to upload scavenger hunt photos to Flickr, and which tag to use (so we can aggregate the photos more easily)
  
  
• Once we assigned teams, we set off down Henderson Avenue, stopping by various bars
  
  
• At the end, we all met up at the same location to hang out and compare photos

Check out the results from our scavenger hunt, tagged BEScavenger. I shot some photos that night with my other camera and added them later.

You'll also notice that there are a few crazy ones that ended up in the pool, like Colleen and Tony's cat, who did not attend the scavenger hunt in real-time, but was later given honorary "red team" status.

Art Conspiracy 5

Art Conspiracy was neat. This was my first year to attend, and I was blown away at how many people contributed and how fun this event was. This even gets a strong recommendation from me!

Here's my first piece made with my new Canon 7D. Audio recorded with a Zoom H2.

Lessons Learned:

• Recording live audio in a warehouse is difficult. Don't move around because the location change picks up on the recording
• Stabilization is important. Waiting on help from Santa for some reinforcements
• Shooting with a DSLR is a little bit easier than the Canon HF10
• Don't buy memory for your camera from an overseas vendor. It's harder to return if you get a crappy dud (shame on you, flahsmemorymall and SanDisk!)
• Zoom H2 doesn't play nice with final cut. Conversion to AAC format required
  

Apple Tart

Serious Eats has a seriously easy version of an apple tart. I made it for the second time last night and it was even better than the first time. I served it with vanilla bean ice cream. The verdict: it's a cheater-easy way to get that apple pie flavor. De-lish!

Imogen Heap - Granada Theater - Dallas TX

Imogen Heap's concert bordered near-magic status last night. Even though she played to a sold-out crowd at the Granada Theater, her performance was peppered with moments of direct address that helped her achieve a playful, friendly level of intimacy with the audience. Her setup was incredible, and her backing band provided extra "mmph" to her performance. I was amazed to see her mic setup. From what I could see, she had at least three lavalier mic kits on: one for her vocals and two mounted on wrist bands. These wrist mics here helpful for when she played other instruments; they picked up sound directly from the instrument itself.

I included one of the crappy iPhone photos I took at the show. After reading the tour's camera policy, I decided against taking my nicer camera. In my opinion, artists should be open and welcome to any and all publicity from amateur photographers and video makers.

Here's a recording I made on my phone. I used the voice memo application, and then pieced the bits together in GarageBand and plopped it in to one file.

Imogen Heap: The Moment I Said It (Live @ Granada Theater, Dallas, TX, November 17, 2009)

This was the last song she did in her encore... you will notice some funky beer bottle noise and talkin'... I was in the back. Yeah, like right next to a trash can.

UPDATE: here's a nice video from @Got80s of her song "Just for Now" from the Granada show.