If you’re like me, you might have heard of Mitch before. At 15, Mitch started posting videos on his youtube account of acoustic versions of some of his influences like Radiohead, Jeff Buckley and U2. With view counts in the hundreds of thousands, he found an audience online. His reception helped to form a band here in town and he has been playing for almost two years now. With only the acoustic songs I had seen online, I was blown away with the mature and rocking sound of his new album. Gettman has written a solid album of mad bittersweet characters yearning after love, life, and happiness. In working on this video, we mused on the album title, a Jack Kerouac quote. We wanted to project what one does when errant love runs off. We both agreed that fireworks were a centerpiece image, exploring wonder and danger, energy and contemplation. Take a moment and let the sweet release of this video set in while fireworks make your heart grow fonder.
In shooting live music in Omaha, I’ve become a friend with Django Greenblatt-Seay of Love Drunk Studio, a purveyor of one-take live music videos. Here’s the basic approach. Put a band in a unique place. Record studio quality sound. And shoot a video of the song being recorded. Django has helped shoot Ingrained videos and I’ve shot Love Drunk videos. We are a great combo. Even better Django brought Daniel Muller (another LD and Ingrained contributor) and Andrew and Angie Norman of HearNebraska. Love Drunk has been very popular in Omaha but we wanted to spread the joy of the good life and its music. So we packed up a van and have been traveling across the country shooting videos of bands in their cities. I’m going to post the first couple here for your enjoyment.
First up is KC’s Everyday/Everynight playing in front of the Nelson-Atkins Museum
I’ve been working quite a bit without updating it all here. As I’ve settled into Omaha as homebase I’ve been going to alot of shows and started to shoot some songs of bands. After the Conduits video, I got a huge local response from other shooters who wanted to help out. And slowly I’ve built a small community of DSLR shooters who will come out to shows with me. To give this ongoing series a brand, I came up with Ingrained. Godard mused that filmmaking is a beautiful fraud for the media used to capture a moment is limited by its very structure. It’s only an approximation of reality. But somehow we look into the grain, past the pixel, and come out with something greater. So somewhere inbetween the blurry line of live music, music video, and documentary, Ingrained exists.
Progressively, I’ll be posting videos here until we’re up to date.
First up is from Kyle Harvey’s Christmas in Outer Space CD Release show. Kyle is a minimalist singer/songwriter who has been talking about this idea to make an alien-themed Christmas album. This year he actually made it and put together a show with balloons and lazer lights and dancing space babes, all completely out of character for Kyle, but so awesome.
Would it be advantageous for Omaha to have a competitive relationship with a similar art scene such as Des Moines?
I’m inspired to think about this as The Des Moines Register posted an article stating just that. And having just moved back from Des Moines to Omaha, I am very conscious of the striking similarities and shared appreciation between the two cities. And they have weathered the same large socio-economic and technological tides that covered the Midwest lands. This mutual history and environment can help both cities create better and successful businesses and art together. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve only known Mike for two months. Other than a quick meeting sharing a beer at a Young Filmmakers Meeting, my only connection to Mike has been his constant barrage of killer photos he posts on facebook. When I wanted to shoot some live music and wanted a second camera, I immediately thought of Mike. Mainly cause he is passionate about a good image. Luckily he just bought a Nikon D7000 the day of the show. I asked Mike to write his thoughts about using the Nikon D7000 for the show and he dug a little deeper and takes us back to his unusual childhood:
Sometimes it seems my brother and I are the only ones who shoot Nikon anymore. We often get puzzled expressions when people see our Nikons.“Dammit. We were raised in a Nikon household, thats why!” No one seems to take that explanation seriously, but its the truth. My dad had the F2 years before he made the mistake of impregnating mother with brother and I. Eventually we got cameras of our own and started to borrow his lenses one by one…
Soon we added our own lenses, although father’s never made their way back to his camera. Then 35mm was put on hospice care and the world barely noticed as digital became all the rage. Nikon was too attached to 35mm to say goodbye just yet. However, Canon was ready to bury the body and hop into bed with digital…. so most families began raising their families as Canon-ites.
Now, the man (me) who refuses to own a cell phone or get Netflix has the newest camera Nikon has made. This 1 camera has been available for 2 months and it took me 3 stores to get it =>The D7000. And for once, instead of looking at us with gentle disdain, the Canon-nites (Andrew) now had curiosity. Legend was, this camera could not only holds it’s own, but was maybe a little better than all Canon had to offer (with the exception of the legendary 5d markII or Andrew’s magical T2i).
So, only out of the box a few hours, I put it through its photo and video paces. Having only really logged any major DSLR time in the almost forgotten D80, this camera was already a few steps beyond it (where Canon had been hanging out for a few years). While it didn’t exactly see in the dark, it saw better in low light than I did. The continuous shutter was so fast I had to pick a slower setting lest I sneeze and shoot up an entire card. Its video is as sharp as the lens you have on it. Sure there was some noise at the higher ISO, but way less than any video camera I’ve ever used under those lighting conditions. And the depth of field…….that is why you shoot video with a DLSR…for that (shallow) depth of field.
Finally, we no longer have to justify ourselves to those beige barrel bastard Canon-ites.
Thanks Mike! So this wasn’t the point of the video but guess which is Mike’s Nikon D7000 and which is my Canon T2i in this killer live music video of “Delerium Tantrums” by Tim Kasher backed by Conduits:
Sound is mix of a slightly blown out board feed and live stereo recorded on a Zoom H4N, synced by Pluraleyes and edited in Final Cut 7.
Coming to a conference late normally sucks for you. But coming late to a BarCamp sucks for both you and the BarCamp. Because it’s really an unconference, where the attendees are really the speakers, and the topics discussed aren’t announced til that morning; making Barcamp fresh, local, and relevant. And in terms of topics, Barcamp had a three track focus of Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Technology, all interest of mine.
Insomnia sucks. I probably have a sleepless night once a month. And in those dark, fuzzy nights I can barely do anything but stare at a computer or TV screen. My last episode happened after attending a show at the Slowdown. The bands were all great but my shooting was way off. And I returned home kinda bummed in my effort. After spending a good hour tossing in bed, I got up and determined to spend the night editing something out of this jumbled mess. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been bumming around the Barley Street Tavern meeting great folks like bartender Kyle Harvey and uke songstress Rebecca Lowry aka All Young Girls Are Machine Guns. I had my T2i from a shoot earlier in the day and thought it would be nice to shoot a bit to test out the quality of the high ISO (I generally try to stay under 800 to keep away from the noise). There is a point with noise and you need to embrace it instead of avoid it. Stop trying to hide it with filters and even up the gain to make it more noisy. So I shot Kyle first at ISO 3200 F5.0 and then AYGAMG at ISO 6400 F5.0. Here are the results:
Rather suprised how I didn’t get distracted by the noise. Good audio makes it worthwhile, which was a mix of board feed and stereo room audio recorded on a Zooom H4N in 4CH mode. I did up the mids, brights, and a little saturation. Overall I’m pretty impressed. What do you think?
Our documentary, Welcome to Daytrotter has a long time to go before its screening but we’re posting moments called Raw Footage that inspire us to continue filming and editing. We caught Local Natives in studio playing a catchy and cinematic song Wide Eyes. Again Dan Welk and I caught it all on Canon DSLRs and Lisa caught the sound in the room on the H4N. I synced it with Plualeyes and edited in Final Cut. No color correction or audio sweetening. Honestly its hard to tell the difference between what we got and the recording that is posted on daytrotter here. Both are beautiful and elegant.
This is a big announcement for me. It’s a project that has been in the works for a long time. May I introduce “Welcome to Daytrotter” a kickass documentary that I’m helping shoot and edit. Here’s the description from our website
Welcome to Daytrotter is a documentary film about the people behind the music blog and recording studio Daytrotter. Since opening its doors in 2006, more than 1000 sessions have been recorded in the little studio in Rock Island, Il and given away for free.
The roster of artists is impressive, from Death Cab for Cutie and Spoon, to legends like Kris Kristoffersen, to many bands out on the road to make a name for themselves. The story of how a dedicated group of people took an idea and built it into one of the most important tastemakers in indie rock is even more impressive.
This feature documentary is currently on-schedule to premiere sometime in early 2012. It is being shot entirely in 1080p HD with Canon DSLR cameras.
Connect with us online and through social media to stay informed on the progress of the film, and please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us tell the story. You can also help us show there is an audience for the film by liking us on Facebook.
The last part is real important, this is a film we’ve been paying out of our pockets for. We could really use any donations and there are some sweet thank you gifts that you could recieve.
Expect to see plenty of updates on the making of the film and all the nerdy tech stuff you expect from me.
