Blackout
Veteran
Well it's been a few weeks now and I have started going through the MOUNTAINS of footage I have from Sundance 11. I have so many stories, such amazing footage, such tales... deals, steals, and wheels... that I don't even know WHERE the hell to begin... so I figure I'd start with this little clip that is a rarity - a shot of me actually working Trumpet Dinopup, and a great musical artist and fellow New Yorker as well as a cutie pie - Natalie Gelman http://www.nataliegelman.com doing "Living on a Prayer" in-between film panel discussions. You can hear Trumpet kick in on the chorus if you pay attention.
I usually don't like to ever let stuff like this be seen because it breaks the reality of the character as his own living entity, but since none of my fans who actually follow Trumpet or some of my stuff religiously don't know about my secret alter geek life here on the dvxuser forums or on vimeo, I will pull back the curtain and reveal some of the wizardry behind my Oz that is http://blackout.com :
There is a short clip to start things off. That's my magic A cam GH13 set up next to me, and my manservant Quan (Jay Chen) is shooting with my B or C cam GH13, which as you can see from this clip is just not as good. Even in this light it's getting some fpn and noise. That might be user error though as he is my gaffer (an AWESOME gaffer) and not really a DP but he came from the still photography world so he is picking up very fast. I better not rank on him too much because he lurks on these forums and he knows tia kwan doe (I wish I was kidding.... but I have gone too far in some of my pranks on him and he attacks me randomly like Cato from the Pink Panther as revenge - and yes, he HATES that I call him my manservant, which is why I do it).
I am in the New York lounge, an area for New York film makers to network with each other. They were absolutely fantastic and let me and Quan in and let me set up a super base camp without spending ridiculous money on the pass that is normally required to get in. I met some awesome artists and business people from every spectrum of film making and can't even start to touch on how incredible the experience was in terms of fun and also in terms of actual connections to help me get further along in actually making and getting funding and distribution for my own stuff.
My gear here is:
A super powerful quadcore I7 laptop with 12 gigs of ram and 2 320 gig internal 7200 rpm drives set to raid 0 for speed and usb 3.0 external ports and esata for when I need to dump to external drives, and an ati 5870 mobility graphics card which is currently one of the best on the market - I mean I can throw ANYTHING at that laptop.. anything... it's almost more powerful than my desktop. Then I am broadcasting a top of the line logitech c910 webcam (1920 x 1080p capable with a carl zeiss lens - but I usually broadcast live in iphone HQ mode which is like 854 x something and sometimes I can get 1280 by 720 live to work) via the livestream network directly into my website with integrated chat on http://blackout.com
For audio I use a modded zoom h4n with the latest firmware in audio interface mode connected to a sanken cs3e boom or if I am going ultra portable and don't have the boom I use the h4ns built in mics with the pattern set to 90 degrees. Way better than the built in web cam mics. The webcam video quality is stellar for $80 bucks but the audio is lacking and oddly enough, much better on the cheaper c310 model - but that model does not have anywhere near as good video - but can be had for a paltry $29 dollars and is more than adequate for skype hd and things like that. I have about 4 of them laying around for when I do live broadcasts - I can do live switching between my 'crew' on laptops no matter where they are - I see everyone's laptop on my control panel and can cut to it. Pretty insane.
Well, that's it for now - I shall slowly but surely be uploading more clips and telling more of my Sundance 11 adventures with Trumpet, manservant Quan, and oh, yeah.. I almost got arrested the first night when I turned on the GH1 to tape myself in the credits.. a big NO NO at Sundance even if you are IN the movie, and I should have known better but I was drunk and excited to see myself on the big screen so I stupidly taped one of our short films, then a police task force literally gang yanked me bugs bunny style right off the stage during the director Q&A. That was a fun way to start the week, but it was all uphill from there. Literally - you better be in shape to go to Sundance cause you walk up and down hills all day.
More to come soon,
- Blackout
I usually don't like to ever let stuff like this be seen because it breaks the reality of the character as his own living entity, but since none of my fans who actually follow Trumpet or some of my stuff religiously don't know about my secret alter geek life here on the dvxuser forums or on vimeo, I will pull back the curtain and reveal some of the wizardry behind my Oz that is http://blackout.com :
There is a short clip to start things off. That's my magic A cam GH13 set up next to me, and my manservant Quan (Jay Chen) is shooting with my B or C cam GH13, which as you can see from this clip is just not as good. Even in this light it's getting some fpn and noise. That might be user error though as he is my gaffer (an AWESOME gaffer) and not really a DP but he came from the still photography world so he is picking up very fast. I better not rank on him too much because he lurks on these forums and he knows tia kwan doe (I wish I was kidding.... but I have gone too far in some of my pranks on him and he attacks me randomly like Cato from the Pink Panther as revenge - and yes, he HATES that I call him my manservant, which is why I do it).
I am in the New York lounge, an area for New York film makers to network with each other. They were absolutely fantastic and let me and Quan in and let me set up a super base camp without spending ridiculous money on the pass that is normally required to get in. I met some awesome artists and business people from every spectrum of film making and can't even start to touch on how incredible the experience was in terms of fun and also in terms of actual connections to help me get further along in actually making and getting funding and distribution for my own stuff.
My gear here is:
A super powerful quadcore I7 laptop with 12 gigs of ram and 2 320 gig internal 7200 rpm drives set to raid 0 for speed and usb 3.0 external ports and esata for when I need to dump to external drives, and an ati 5870 mobility graphics card which is currently one of the best on the market - I mean I can throw ANYTHING at that laptop.. anything... it's almost more powerful than my desktop. Then I am broadcasting a top of the line logitech c910 webcam (1920 x 1080p capable with a carl zeiss lens - but I usually broadcast live in iphone HQ mode which is like 854 x something and sometimes I can get 1280 by 720 live to work) via the livestream network directly into my website with integrated chat on http://blackout.com
For audio I use a modded zoom h4n with the latest firmware in audio interface mode connected to a sanken cs3e boom or if I am going ultra portable and don't have the boom I use the h4ns built in mics with the pattern set to 90 degrees. Way better than the built in web cam mics. The webcam video quality is stellar for $80 bucks but the audio is lacking and oddly enough, much better on the cheaper c310 model - but that model does not have anywhere near as good video - but can be had for a paltry $29 dollars and is more than adequate for skype hd and things like that. I have about 4 of them laying around for when I do live broadcasts - I can do live switching between my 'crew' on laptops no matter where they are - I see everyone's laptop on my control panel and can cut to it. Pretty insane.
Well, that's it for now - I shall slowly but surely be uploading more clips and telling more of my Sundance 11 adventures with Trumpet, manservant Quan, and oh, yeah.. I almost got arrested the first night when I turned on the GH1 to tape myself in the credits.. a big NO NO at Sundance even if you are IN the movie, and I should have known better but I was drunk and excited to see myself on the big screen so I stupidly taped one of our short films, then a police task force literally gang yanked me bugs bunny style right off the stage during the director Q&A. That was a fun way to start the week, but it was all uphill from there. Literally - you better be in shape to go to Sundance cause you walk up and down hills all day.
More to come soon,
- Blackout
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