I love spending time with her. Aside from hanging out with my with or family time, there is nothing I love more.

So, on a Saturday evening when Mommy was gone, what am I gonna do? Capture one the little moments I get to spend with Sophia.

Patrick Moreau of stillmotion shares some really good tips for making the most of shooting solo. Head over to stillmotion’s blog to check it out! It’s worth the read if you ever shoot by yourself.

Link: [Q OF WEEK] – SHOOTING SOLO

On Monday, I decided I wanted to shoot something during my lunch. My goal was to produce something just for practice. I had no script and shot it in two takes (aside from b-roll).

One of the things I was rather pleased with was the audio… kinda. I filmed the piece with a Rode VideoMic Pro mounted on the camera. I wouldn’t normally shot an interview this way. If I had more time, I would have a more proper setup with a microphone right overhead. But lunch breaks are pretty short.

For what it was worth, it picked up the sound well and with auto gain control off on my T2i, it was really clean (thanks Magic Lantern!). This would be a decent setup for a run-n-gun situation.

So the video above is what I made. It turned out to be good practice in both shooting and editing. Hope you enjoy it!

However, I struggle with spending my time behind the camera instead of engaging in the moment.

During the Christmas holiday this year, I made a conscious effort to let that photo or video clip I wanted fall to the wayside if it came between me enjoying my family. That also meant spending less time editing the photos/video as well. My family got my attention.

What was the cost? Well, for the price of enjoying my family and giving them the love and attention they deserve, I didn’t have all the shots I wanted or a well edited piece from the holidays. BUT, I have some great memories shared with people I love. And that’s worth it!

Sound is one of the most important and often overlooked aspects of a video project for those learning and getting started in film. And one thing that kills a moment is a big “Uhh…” in the middle of the monologue or speech.

Larry Jordan posted a great quick tip for using Soundtrack Pro to replace sections of audio with ambient noise. It’s definitely worth the read if you’ve never used it before!

LINK: Replace Ambient Noise in Soundtrack Pro

This year, I’ve done two things that have helped me not get lost in the busyness as much.

The first thing we did was take my 15 month old daughter to the mall and pick up a tag to get a child in need a Christmas gift. There was something special about explaining to my daughter that we are helping someone just because we can and it would be special for them, even though we will never meet this person.

The other thing that helped me focus on the Christmas season was shooting a short piece with preschool kids talking about Christmas. It was kinda a last minute project that I rushed through. After it was done, I watched it through and remembered the magic of the season as the kids told the Christmas story.

Check out what the kids had to say!

And don’t forget the reason for this crazy season!

Over the past couple months, I’ve been kept really busy with projects and my family. I mean, a 15 month old darling daughter comes before sharing with you. Sorry! But in all seriousness, I love writing and sharing with you.

However, I have shot and edited two weddings over the last few months as well; and both with Final Cut Pro X. I learned a ton about how it works and it’s quirks. It’s definitely not the right tool for every project, but great for some.

For the second wedding, I just completed the montage. I had a ton of fun and learned a ton from this one. I’d say it’s not too bad for the second wedding I’ve done with a DSLR!

Check it out and tell me what you think!

However, I figure it’s time I share my experience. I bought Final Cut Pro X the week it came out—I think a couple days after the release. I had a corporate interview project to do, so I decided to take FCPX for a spin.

First off, the ability to import footage from my Canon T2i/550D and start working without transcoding or rendering was phenomenal! Also, I was able to apply a little color correction and played it back smoothly without rendering. The rendering and transcode time alone saved me almost the cost of the software. Seriously. I know… You could already do that with Premiere Pro. But that’s not in my price range.

The second time-saving feature that I loved was the synchronization feature. It basically analyzes the waveforms and syncs the files (here’s a tutorial to sync audio in FCPX). Super nice when you are using a dual audio system (in camera and external recorder) and have a ton of takes to sync. Before, I’ve used Singular Software’s DualEyes to sync files, but I never wanted to pay $150 for that feature. Now, that’s half the price of Final Cut.

There are quite a few other nice features, but a whole lot of weird & things to get used to. The magnetic timeline takes some getting used to. The color correction tool is both powerful, but not your traditional 3-way color corrector wheel (a website with a 15-part set of free FCPX color grading tutorials). The inability to “save” projects unless you duplicate the project feels really dumb. And I really miss the ability to send projects to Soundtrack Pro to clean up the audio.

And it’s really buggy. There have been several times that a title I added to the project lost the text I had input. It would replace it with “Title.” Which is just annoying. Also, moving or adjusting the in-points on audio tracks would cause the in-point to jump all over the place. But it would only happen occasionally.

So… what does this mean? Will I continue to use Final Cut Pro X?

Sometimes. Since I have simple workflow needs, most of the time FCPX will be fine. For projects that don’t need much audio help or complicated color correcting, I’ll probably use X. However, if it needs the extra help and care, I’ll take the extra time to transcode/render and make sure I get it right.

There are a ton of great tutorials and information out there, so in the next few weeks I’ll post a roundup of some that I find particularly useful (like the links post above).

Red Giant Software recently released Colorista Free, a free multi platform tool for color correction (I heard about it from Stu Maschwitz—I great guy to follow on twitter, @5tu). It’s basically a repackaging of their original Magic Bullet Colorista 3-way color corrector minus a few features. It’s incredibly easy to use and it’s something that can be used on a Mac or PC with Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, and Final Cut Pro (Mac only).

I used decided to give it a whirl with a little quick personal video I did a week ago with my T2i/550D. I had a shot that I completely messed up my settings (notably, white balance) but wanted to throw into the piece. SO… I fired up Final Cut and compared it’s default 3-way Color Correction plugin with Colorista Free.

As you can see from the original shot, it’s not pretty. To start with, I fired up Final Cut Pro’s 3-way Color Correction plugin and did a quick pass without looking at my histogram or vector scope. It was still a bit too magenta and lacking in depth of color field, but it was about as good as I felt I could do (click on the image for a larger view).

After giving it a try with Final Cut’s 3-way, I expected to get similar results from Colorista Free. And I was pleasantly surprised. It seemed a lot easier for me to get a look that I liked. I felt like I had a lot more control of the highlights/midtones/shadows individually. I read somewhere because it uses the same lift/gamma/gain philosophy that professional grading tools. I’m learning this stuff, but in a laymen’s opinion it gives you more control and gives the footage more color depth. Here is the edit I ended up with.

Anyway, I will be switching to Colorista Free for my basic color correction needs. My guess is that you will find similar results if you tried to compare it to Premiere’s basic 3-way color correction plugin.

For fun, here is the project that I used this on. It’s just a few shots (frankly, it was all the shots) I got during the downtime of a little vacation with some other couples.

About a year ago, I read about the Magic Lantern firmware for Canon’s DSLRs. Originally, it was to add functionality to the 5D that Canon left out, like controlling audio levels. Recently, they’ve ported Magic Lantern to the T2i/550D.

I decided to install it and now I can’t imagine not having Magic Lantern. It let’s me dial in my white balance & select whatever ISO I want; it gives me a histogram, false color, peaking, and gain controls in video mode. I LOVE IT! You need to download it and give it a try.

Another feature that I didn’t expect to see was an intervalometer (they let you setup the camera to take photos every X seconds). It’s perfect for doing creating timelapse videos. Anyway, I thought I would have to pay $60 for a remote control for the Canon T2i/550D to do this.

I tested the intervalometer yesterday and this is the product that I came up with.