Because my editing style is short-form, averaging 30 minutes in length, I rarely edit highlights segments. It can be a challange to edit a highlights segment and effectively tell the story of the day in a few minutes, or the length of a song but I took a crack at it.

Of course a handsom couple, a beautiful setting, and true emotions made this highlight a delight to edit.

Feel free to let me know what you think!

OK. So the new Scarlet has definitely undergone some major changes. If you remember I posted a few days ago about my anticipation of RED’s redesign of one of their proposed cameras for next year. Well I was up early this morning and thought I’d check out red.com to see if they have announced the new specs and of course, as I expected, the site was broken.

I did expect they would have difficulties. However, this afternoon I was able to view the website and what I saw, though exciting, was very different in price than what I was expecting. Red originally had planned to release the Scarlet for under $3000. Well, I guess they realized their madness.

Immediately the biggest difference in the new design is instead of having all of the features “fixed,” meaning it comes as is, nothing can be replaced, the new design is very modular. As you can see in the image above every aspect of the camera is “swappable.” You can now build your camera exactly how you want it. And RED is now erasing the lines between still cameras and video cameras.

The “brain” of the Scarlet is available in two versions, the cheaper one starting at $2500. The brain alone doesn’t make a camera so on top of that you will need to purchase a lens, a recording system of some kind, a veiwfinder/lcd, and a controller. Though there are no prices listed on any accessories (nor is there even a list of accessories yet) but I could venture a guess and say that a reasonable starting price for a Scarlet would be in the neighborhood of $7000.

Now don’t get me wrong! Even at $7000 this is an awesome camera, but this is far from the original $3000. Of course the possibilities given the new capabilities, and the ability to change out modules when some become obsolete or a new or bigger feature is needed, makes this camera very appealing to professionals from many different backgrounds, videographers, cinematographers, and photographers alike.

The release of the Scarlet is still a ways off, possibly not shipping until next Fall. When it is released it will be interesting to see how this camera will change the Event Video industry.

Below is an image of the original Scarlet design.

Original Scarlet Design

My movie posters were featured on The Wedding Chat; an informative blog choc full of resources published by the multi-talented Lea Mcintosh! Check it out here!

I have had much positive feedback on my movie posters but I really must give credit to the photographers of each of the posters I have created. If it wasn’t for their talent my posters wouldn’t be what they are.

I’m working on a new project that has to do with my movie posters. I’ll let you know more soon so check back here!

I don’t want to bore you but I was looking for directions to the Texas Roadhouse restaraunt in Tracy via Google Maps and when I was entering my home address for “directions from” I pressed enter before I had completely entered the address. To my surprise it said the distance was 22,086km and the total time was about 54 days 14 hours. WHAT??? It actually says to kayak across the pacific! This is what I got:

View Larger Map

UPDATE
So I guess Google fixed the problem or changed something because as you can see the map no longer shows a route across the pacific. Ha! Oh well.

Boy-oh-boy! I’m chomp’n at the bit waiting to see what changes RED has made to one of its proposed cameras for 2009. They are set to release the new specs for their Scarlet Camera on the 13th.

For those of you who are not familiar with RED (Red Digital Cinema Camera Company) they are a newer camera manufacturer who are revolutionizing the digital cinema world by producing amazing cinema-quality cameras at prices well below current digital cinema cameras (but still well above a small production company’s budget).

What is so exciting is in 2009 Red is expanding their product line with 3 new cameras, one of them being the sub-$3000 Scarlet camera. This camera will follow along with the other Red cameras by offering incredible features and performance for a price well below the competition.

When Red originally released the specs for the Scarlet it was listed as a “3K” camera, meaning that it was capable of recording video at roughly 4x greater resolution than current HD prosumer camcorders. It also records to Flash media as opposed to tapes. It also uses a 2/3″ CMOS sensor rather than the 1/3″ sensors most HD prosumer cameras today use. All of this for less than $3000 was just plain crazy. BUT…

A few weeks ago Red pulled the specs of the Scarlet as well as one of its other proposed cameras, the Epic, from its website and announced that it was making some changes…

“We have changed everything about Scarlet because the market has changed and we have discovered a lot of things in the process. We have a new vision. Wipe your minds of the past announced Scarlet. Forget the design and forget the price. It is all different now. We think you will be surprised…” 

Just one more week until the details for the scarlet will be revealed. I wonder what it will be?

Red Digital Cinema

I just came across this really cool device! Western Digital just stepped into the world of home entertainment with their new WD TV HD media player! For those of you who have not yet purchased a Blu-Ray disc player and weren’t thinking about it any time soon, but would like to watch your wedding video in HD (or any thing else for that matter) this may be the perfect choice for you!

It seems to be pretty easy to use: plug it into your HD television via HDMI or your standard television via an RCA cable and then plug into its USB port an external hard drive with your videos on it and youre ready to go!

I think I may offer this as an alternative to Blu-Ray when a bride/groom upgrades to High Definition.

Update: I just found a sweepstakes for the WD TV. Enter for a chance to win a 52″ HDTV or one of 8 WD TV + 500GB drive from Western Digital!

Google never fails to impress me. (What does that say about me? No matter…) Google has this cool gadget that updates the election poll results real-time.

I just upgraded my blog version and am testing out a new plug-in for my blog. It allows me to create photo-blog entries.

I was reading up on the propositions so as to make informed decisions when I vote tomorrow and I came accross a blog post by Matthew Krell on Street Prophets that I wish I had read earlier. I had a friend ask me not why I was voting no on prop 8 but rather why I felt it was wrong to vote yes on 8. I don’t think I explained myself properly because I ended up just confusing my friend. After reading this post I immediately forwarded it to my friend telling him that this was what I really meant…

It’s slightly obvious that the people of California have the authority to overturn the California Supreme Court.  The initiative process is specifically designed to permit The People to overturn The Government.  But should it?

What exactly do we mean when we say “rule of law?”  Are we talking about the  legal system?  Or something more fundamental?

Let’s go back to first principles, for just a moment.  Hobbes (am I really invoking Hobbes?) says that the state of nature is all against all, in constant striving that can very easily become violent.  Hobbes’ answer to that is the subordination of each person’s personal sovereignty to a tyrant, the Leviathan.

This is, in a nutshell, the initiative process theorized.  Every person has their own personal sovereignty, which they give away to the Leviathan of The Majority.  Thus, is violence curbed, because we all submit to the will of The Majority.

But this is not rule of law.  This is rule of majority.  The majority may make the law, but the law is subordinated to the majority.  To the extent that you prefer rule of majority, this is a good thing.

But the rule of law requires that the supreme entity not be a vote, but rather some principle to which all may look.  In other words, rule of law is not (in theory) subject to the vicissitudes of men, but rather is subject only to its own processes of change.

Prop 8 turns that principle on its head.  It says that if the processes by which law changes result in a law that we don’t like - we just change the law.  That particular power of the initiative process destroys the rule of law.

So, what are we to take from this?  Initiatives that direct the spending of the public fisc are probably not undermining the rule of law, because someone has to decide how money is to be spent, and it makes as much sense for it to be The People as The Legislature.

But initiatives that actually destroy the power of courts to say what the law is are destructive to the law.  If we are permitted to change the law by our own political whims, our laws become meaningless.  There is no predictability, and without predictability, no law.

So vote no on Prop 8, because it’s the right thing to do for people.  And it’s the right thing for the law.

 

So I received my first copyright infringement notice from facebook today and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Commercial music is used in most wedding videos today but as far as I know not once has a videographer been sued for using copyrighted music.

It has always been reasoned that producing a video using copyrighted music for a very small audience is OK under the “Fair Use” doctrine in US Copyright law but the case has never been argued. The notice I received from Facebook calls it an “Alleged  Copyright Violation” but it doesn’t explain any specifics, instead issuing a generic form-letter. I can only assume it is referring to the music in the piece. I wonder whether they are using some intellegent software to search through all of the posted videos for copyrighted music or did someone have to specifically flag and report my video to facebook?

In the form-letter from facebook they warn against banning repeat offendors from their video service as well as facebook altogether! Wow. That’s harsh. Why would they do that? Other online social websites claim no liability for others copyright infringement and simply state that the offending media will be removed once the copyright holder requests it be removed, nothing about banning users.

The internet is forcing a change in what is acceptable in society and it will be interesting to find out exactly how this will affect wedding videography in the near future.

Hello,

We have removed your video entitled “Bride Preparations - Frianeza/Rios Wedding” uploaded at 1:38am July 31st, 2008. We did this because we learned that your video might include copyrighted material owned by a third party, such as a video clip or background audio.

If you are the copyright owner, or have permission from the rights holder to upload and distribute this material on Facebook, you may file a counter notice of alleged infringement by following the link below.

Please note that if you re-upload this video without filing a counter notice, or if you upload another video that infringes on the rights of a third party, our system will again remove the content. This could cause your access to the Facebook Video application to be disabled, or your Facebook account to be disabled.

To file a counter notice:
File a Counter Notification

For any other questions, view our Help page.

The Facebook Team