Photo Scanning

Around the time of the rodeo that was in my last post, I got a new job. This one was for a friend’s 50th wedding anniversary, and I have been busy with it for the past few days, ever since I got finished with the rodeo project.

I’m taking a few hundred picture printouts that have been sorted and singled out (not sure how many there were before) and scanning them with a 3-in-one printer. The process becomes tedious after a few dozen photos are processed, but I am still always surprised how fast it goes. I put several photos on the scanning bed at one time, then use Photoshop to scan them. Once scanned, I can import them and divide them into individual files. It is hard to watch all the edges of all the pictures to make sure none of them have part of the scanner background in them,  but that is an important step as it shows brightly against the dark background whenever I use it in a slideshow.

I just got some scanning all the photos, which is what I consider the hard part. Now,  I just need to put them into a slideshow and burn it all to a DVD. After that,  I should be done, and I get more money hopefully to pay for more equipment!

Royal Ranger Rodeo

The day of the rodeo was a great day to be outside. It was almost hot, but the sky had just enough clouds to cool things down, which made for great filming conditions.
I made an order sheet so people Volvo buy DVDs of the rodeo, which I would mail out as soon as I had it done. I put this sheet at the sign up table and hoped I would get a lot of sales.

The rodeo took a little longer to begin than I thought it would,  but when it was started I got in the ring as soon as I could.
I did most of my shooting on a monopod.  I’ve been a little hesitant to use a monopod before,  as they are not as stable as a normal tripod and still are pretty bulky to carry around all day.  But it really helped me out this time.

I had an unexpected problem when I started shooting.  With the new camera,  I would start a new recordings, but 4 seconds through, it would freeze up and stop the recording.  I found put this was because of the memory card I was using.   I hadn’t anticipated my memory cards might not be high enough quality to stand the new camera’s footage. Luckily I found that this only happened right after turning on the camera, so I was able to work around the problem with relatively few problems.

We went through several events–bull riding, rabbit chasing, bucking horse during, mutton-busting, trick riding and a lot more. For most of the potentially hazardous events, I got out of the arena and found a high spot to film at.

The event went on for hours. When I thought it had ended, I started to put my camera away, but the I found out awards were just beginning, so I had to get back in and film the rest of that, too.

When it all really was over, I checked back on my DVD sign-up sheet. I only had a few sales, not as many as I had hoped. But I’m getting calls now from people who heard about the DVD, so there may be more than I thought.

I have now been editing the footage and am finally getting close to finishing the DVD. Just looking through the footage, creating the DVD menus, making all sorts of cuts and fades and stuff has taken a lot of work, and thee is still more to go,  but I’m glad to be so close to done. I’ve made a trailer that you can watch here:

Royal Ranger Rodeo DVD Trailer from Zachary Hubbell on Vimeo.

Also,  feel free to buy one of the DVDs of you want. Its looking like it may be over an hour long.  I’ll also put the trailer on it.  If you want to buy one,  send me a letter with ten dollars in it and tell me you’re buying a Royal Ranger Rodeo DVD (or you can E-mail me and well figure something out of that doesn’t work for you).

Zachary Hubbell
PO Box 146
Boone, CO 81025

Or E-mail at:
spideyclick@live.com

Camera Repairs, Resolved

Finally got my camera fixed after almost two months of maintenance.  It took a little fighting from my part, but finally Best Buy fixed my problem.

 

I had made it clear I would need my camera ready by April 28, the day of the Royal Ranger Rodeo.  Finally, after a repair and a rework, it was two days before the rodeo and the camera was in worse condition still than when I had originally sent it in.  I called customer service and reached someone who called the Pueblo store and was able to set up an exchange.

 

When I got in store, they also told me I could upgrade my camera and pay the difference of price.  I chose to go up one step and get the Canon Rebel T2i, which does video a lot better than my previous camera.  As a bonus, they let me upgrade for free.  I was pretty frustrated with them when this all started, but I think they righted themselves, so I’m happy now, and really glad for the new upgrade!

Rodeo Madness

My newest object of interest: a local rodeo put on by a church in Pueblo and some missionaries, Paul and Linda Scholtz, who are practically neighbors to us. In our area, “neighbor” just means they’re within five miles of us, but we know them well.  I was planning on coming and shooting some footage on my own (who wouldn’t want to film people getting thrown off horses and steers all day?) but I also was asked by Linda, who wanted to see if I could sell some DVD’s of the event, too.

Filming sports and possibly making money out of it?  Sounds like something I want to do…

The event takes place April 28 from 9:30 AM to 3 PM.  For more information, click here for the church’s events page, then look for the “Western Play Day.”  I also found the sign up sheet, if you want it.  Hope to see you there!

Parkour (Free Running)

My friend, Ryan, and I have been trying for months now to schedule a day to make a video of him “Free Running” also known as “Parkour.”  I’ve been hoping for a good day to do it, and just a few days ago I finally got the chance!

His birthday party came up, and as soon as he invited me I knew this could be one of my only chances in the near future to meet up with him and shoot some stunts!  So we worked out a ride (I’m starting to wonder if I always mention I can’t wait for my driver’s license in every post I write…) and I got there just a little late.  We headed out to the La Junta Skate park then.  I had fixed up an old bicycle using parts from a couple others, so I spent some time in the skate park on my own, having a great time.

I got really excited when we started filming.  Ryan would do a trick and I would film it (in 720p HD 60 frames per second, which gave me some slow-motion flexibility).  It was easy for me–all I had to do was tell him what looked best in the camera and tell him how many takes we needed for all the angles I needed.  But doing stunts like he was takes a lot of energy, so we had to plan ahead and take breaks often.

When we finished, I was glad with the footage I had and couldn’t wait to edit it into something that I was sure would be awesome.  You can judge for yourself in the video below.

Free Running from Zachary Hubbell on Vimeo.

This is a video me and my friend Ryan worked on together–he does all the hard running, I sit back and record it all! Recorded it at 60fps for a little slow-motion to play around with. This is a practice shoot and hopefully I will be able to do more in the future…

The Choice

This is the film we submitted to the 168 Film Festival. Teams from all around the world compete, taking one week (168 hours) to shoot, edit and submit their films to be shown in Hollywood. This film screened in Hollywood after a week of hard work from the whole team. I shot and edited the film. Almost all of the film was edited in Premiere Elements 8, except at the end when we had to export it with some very specific settings we couldn’t use in Elements, so I had to finish up in Premiere Pro. Dianne Butts Wrote, Directed and Produced the film. Filmed on a Canon Rebel T3i. Enjoy!

The Choice from Zachary Hubbell on Vimeo.

I have been planning to be on this project for almost a year now. Dianne Butts talked to me about being on the team the day before Easter last year, asking if I wanted to try to help this year with the 168 Film project.  I was enthusiastic, especially after doing slate and helping with editing last year.  I wanted to do more in film making, but I wasn’t really sure how…this was the best way I could see.  Now I am really glad I took the opportunity.

We had many pre-production meetings, preparing for what we thought would be an incredibly hectic week (which, in the end, I guess it kind of was).  As we progressed, it became clear that I would have to not  only shoot the film (using Dianne’s T3i, which is incredible compared to my Canon Rebel T1i as it is newer) but I also had to edit the film.  It was a lot more of a challenge, but I wanted to try and at least see how far I could get.

Production week started at Dianne’s house, where I stayed the whole week (not to mention while eating her food and stuff…they were very patient with me staying there).  We had to get an early start filming in a bookstore the next day to finish up before they opened, but with some rushing, we were able to get it done on time.  We went to a couple locations after that.  Then, after only two days of production, we started editing.

It went smoothly for the most part, but we had complications toward the end on exporting the film.  The 168 Film Festival had strict submission specifications for the file format, codec and more, and my video editor wasn’t doing it right.  I called Tim Sparks up and he helped me get it finished on time.  We were able to submit it a little early,and then we just had to wait…

It went to Hollywood and screened on March 30, but we didn’t get any awards.  However it was very fulfilling to know it had premiered in Hollywood!

Tonight Dianne came to Biker Church and, after we showed the film, she had me get in front of everybody and thanked me again for all my help, then gave me a book on cinematography and told me she would help me to buy some better software we had to get a trial of in order to complete the film.  She gave me a certificate of completion, then Hal Butts spoke and thanked me.  I was very glad to have been a part of it and hope to do more projects on a scale like this in the future!

By the way, please share with anyone you can!  Thanks!

The Spring Fling Film Festival, 2012

I almost completely forgot the 4th Annual Spring Fling Film Festival, what with the 168 project going on. I wasn’t able to make a film for it in time, but I went anyway to se what was going on.

It took place at the Union Depot here in Pueblo. I got a ride with my mom (still can’t wait to get my full driver’s licence!) and we arrived there a little early. I only recognised a few people, but I am starting to know a few more of the local filmmakers here in town.

I was disappointed to see Tim Sparks wasn’t there and hadn’t made a film, but then again, he’s been in all the other local film festivals I can think of this year, and I guess you can’t always do every one…if you don’t know who I’m talking about, you can check out his website here. He helped out with the 168 Film Project last year (he was the cinematographer) and has let me help out with most of his films, not to mention that he helps me out every now and then when I’m stuck…

There were, I think, seven films, one of which was in cartoon format, which I had never seen before. It was an intiresting show, even if it was probably the smallest film festival I have been to so far.

I like to see what the others are making, and felt pretty informed when it was over about what they were doing and on what level they were doing it. I had a fun night, but when I watched the films, I couldn’t help but wish I had made something for the competition. Maybe next time…

168 Film Festival in Hollywood—with my film showing!

On March 30, I have a film showing in Hollywood.  I think that’s a pretty cool thing to be able to say at sixteen!

That’s when the 168 Film Festival starts, playing dozens of Christian films in Hollywood.  The films are based on a theme (Promises, Promises was the theme this year) and each team gets a verse they have to incorporate into their picture.  The whole film is made in one week—shooting, editing, exporting and finally shipping it in the mail to Hollywood.

I know already that the film didn’t make it to the top 20, but we may still get a people’s choice award.  I can’t wait to see what happens!

Anyway, now that the film has premiered in Hollywood, I can poat it all over the web.  Looks like I’ll be able to get it uploaded by Thursday evening, so keep an eye out for it!  Hope you all enjoy it!

Camera Problems

There comes a time when equipment starts to get old.  I don’t consider my camera to be old, but it is starting to show some signs of age.  I noticed a small, bright red dot in the upper-left corner of the frame, small enough not to get noticed on the camera screen, yet large enough that it shows up noticably on the conputer monitor.

I googled what the problem could be and found out it was a “burnt pixel,” or rather a group of them.  After a time of using a camera, sometimes the image sensor van get damaged or overworked, and some of the individual sensors get overwhelmed and turn bright red, making that bright red spot in every image or video.  I found a solution that got the camera to automatically blot the red spot out on the pictures, but it still shows up on video footage.

So, without being able to fix the video problem on my own, I had to rely on my camera’s insurance (which I have suddenly become very greatful that my parents talked me into getting so my $1200 camera had some protection).  I took it to Best Buy, filled out the paperwork and would have sent it in, but apparently there whole computer system crashed right before they printed out my verification receopt or something—so, a few days later, when I came back and they had it fixed, then I was able to send it in.  So, now, it’s going to be 2-4 weeks without my camera…I think I’ll live…as long as I don’t have any video shoots come up until I have it back.

The Choice Trailer

This is the trailer I mentioned earlier…had a fun time making it! Pass it on to anyone you can!