Starving Artistry

Killing Me

// July 9th, 2012 // No Comments » // Video

Throughout June, I wrote, directed, and edited a music video for the DC area band Rites of Ash.

It was a great experience and I’m proud of the product. Even so, I learned so much on this shoot that I can’t wait for a new project. Back when I shot my music video for Ben Powell Sketchbook, it was a very fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type shoot. Plus, I couldn’t be behind the camera for any of the performance shots. This time, I was armed with my new camera (5D mk III) a complete story board and shot list, and Taylor as my trusty PA!

Me working with my text-based storyboard

Actually, since Taylor accompanied me on all the shoots, she kind of chronicled the process.

Photo by Taylor
Back on June 11th we were in studio shooting the band on the white screen. It was at Union 206 in Alexandria, VA. It was incidentally, one of the first very hot days of the summer, and unfortunately due to the large studio’s proximity to the outer doors, hot as balls in that room! The studio lights didn’t help.

Photo Courtesy Jackie Garcia Photography

After we shot the band, we threw up the green screen to shoot Alex, taking advantage of the large open space we had at the studio. I threw on some green gaff tape to help with tracking points so we could get some motion into the green screen shots. Adobe After Effects CS6 has an amazing new 3D camera tracker. It was a risk, never having done a shot like that before, but it was worth it!

Photos Courtesy Jackie Garcia Photography

Pic by Taylor
Day 2 of shooting was supposed to be in a large warehouse-esque space. Somehow we wound up shooting it in weird looking closet type space because at the last minute we were denied access to the warehouse. Unfortunately that meant I had to recompose all the shots I had planned and work around a room that was only like 5 x 12. At least it looked sufficiently seedy!

Day 3 of shooting took place on the streets of Falls Church, right outside of where that Hoang’s Asian Fusion restaurant is (or outside the old hollywood video if you prefer). We were nearly running out of shade by the end of that shoot, but fortunately we made it!

Day 4 actually took place in Taylor’s parent’s basement. It basically looks like an apartment, so it worked for just about every shot we needed. Too bad the A/C upstairs was busted, so once again we had to film the final shots with Alex dying in 85 degree heat, WITH studio lights on! Blech.

Catch the video up top if you haven’t seen it yet, and please leave me some comment love on this post, if you’re reading this!

Blow Cover

// October 15th, 2011 // 3 Comments » // Video

Has it taken me nearly 5 months to record and edit? Yep.

Is this song culturally relevant anymore? Probably not.

Day 260

// September 20th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Photo, Project 365

Dry Ice

So today I got my box of Omaha steaks in the mail. It came in a styrofoam chest, and by far the best part was the dry ice it came packed with. I of course dropped what i was doing (editing that wedding video) and immediately started playing around with the dry ice. Don’t worry, I wore gloves. It was definitely challenging to capture a picture of it, but I managed. I should have scrounged around for my remote, but it’s lost somewhere in the mess that is my basement.

Anyway, it was easier to do a quick video, so I did that in addition to my pic. It’s fun to watch the fog!

Acoustic Vids

// July 29th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Music, Video

So now that I have a decent amount of youtube subscribers, i’d love to get more videos uploaded but they all take forever. So I’m thinking about doing the acoustic song thing… no frills, just webcam, acoustic, and singing. That way I can get videos uploaded way more often.

Opinions?

Want You Gone Cover

// April 27th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Music, Video

This was actually a pretty quick video to put together! I finished Portal2 a couple nights ago, and thought the ending song was really well written… I love how Coulton changes keys from verse to chorus. I thought I’d take advantage of the catchy tune and lack-of-youtube-covers to try to cover it. I decided to do it on piano, and since I had my camera, Tay’s camera, and Troy’s camera, I was able to film three angles all at once.

Here is the original version, but I do have to warn you, the lyrics are slight spoilers, so if you are hyper-sensitive, i guess you shouldn’t listen.

But you should.

Cee Lo iPad Cover

// April 1st, 2011 // 2 Comments » // Music, Video

Well, I started this within 4 or 5 days of my Katy Perry iPad video, and it took my until now to finish it. Honestly, i was like 85% finished about 3 1/2 weeks ago, but I just couldn’t find the spare time to get that last little bit in… until this morning.

This song is way more intricately arranged than the Katy Perry song. Significantly more time went into figuring out how to replicate all the instruments I heard, especially in regards to figuring out what sounds to use for each one. Turned out that the best sound for that one shaker part was the salt-shaker app.

I ended up splitting up the piano part into two different apps, as it was too difficult to try to squeeze all my fingers onto one and play it the way that was needed to play. And the guitar strum, well… there is no good way to strum a guitar on the iPad, so I put some delay on the fake guitar sound and played it as you see in the video. The delay kind of makes for a good “strum” sound. Kinda.

I was really stumped regarding what sounds to use for the vocals. I ended up settling on the NES video game sound, and decided to play it on the game-pad instead of the keyboard (which the App offers). But since I couldn’t switch octaves fast enough, I split the melody into three parts which I played separately. You see, the Cat piano doesn’t have the option to change octaves, so luckily all of Katy Perry’s song stayed in the same octave. Cee lo… not quite the same.

Unfortunately it’s been so long that I’ve even forgotten one or two of the apps I used to make it. Except for, obviously, the panda piano…

NESynth – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nesynth/id323362982?mt=8
Salt Shaker – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/salt-shaker/id303186136?mt=8
Music Studio – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/music-studio/id328608539?mt=8
Drums! – http://itunes.apple.com/app/drums/id311549739?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2
Synth – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/synth/id364905862?mt=8
Magic Piano – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magic-piano/id356416346?mt=8
Tambourine! – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tambourine/id343819796?mt=8
Dog Piano – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dog-piano/id322005897?mt=8
Panda Piano – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/panda-piano/id368328295?mt=8

Please Please Me Cover

// February 2nd, 2011 // 6 Comments » // Music, Video

Well, I finally finished it. As I said in an earlier post, adding video to this whole recording business makes everything take 3x as long… and THEN you have to edit the video. Although I learned a couple things.

I set up two cameras for each take, which added to the length of recording ’cause i had to mess with two cameras the whole time. I pretty much only used one angle for each instrument… pretty much. So next time I do something like this, I may not do as much with the cameras. One angle is probably fine.

I didn’t do much to the song. You’ll notice it’s a couple of clicks slower and has a modern spin on the sound, but it’s pretty much the same ol’ beatles track. I actually started working on this song before the Teenage Dream ipad cover was even an idea in my head, but due to it being a pain in the butt to record I put it off until now.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy, and for reference, here is a link to the original song: YouTube

Teenage Dream

// December 29th, 2010 // 14 Comments » // Music, Video

So what do I do with my time off? Make stupid youtube videos apparently! Actually, it was pretty fun, and it’s good to just try to be creative. I’ve been trying to write the next batch of songs for the next Ben Powell Sketchbook album, but I’m kind of stuck. So maybe doing this for a little bit will get me back on track (I still have to finish that Beatles one as well).

I have accumulated a few music apps in the year i’ve owned my iPad, and the Gorillaz apparently recorded their entire album on an ipad, so why not try to do a cover of my own? What took the longest was figuring out which sounds to use. Way back when I first got my iPad, I downloaded the cat piano app mostly as a novelty for Tay. I don’t think it was actually meant to be used to record anything, as there was a noticeable delay between when i pushed the key and the note came out, so it was incredibly hard to stay on rhythm. I ended up having to mute the track and just play along by sight (hoping I hit the correct notes).

Chronicling Ben Powell Sketchbook — Music

// October 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Music

Well, it’s finally finished. Last Thursday, October 21st, I uploaded my album to iTunes, uploaded my video to YouTube, and my facebook page went live.

I started this project a looong time ago. I wrote some of the songs over a year ago today. Here you can see me jamming with my drum track to “So You Say” on November 24, 2009.

I tracked all the drums to my initial 6 songs I was going to include on the album, which were the two Orange Line songs “Grace” and “Runaway,” one cover of the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” and 3 originals. I actually had finished an initial mix of “Never Let Go” which I blogged about a while ago. But then my hard drive crashed and I lost everything. Goes to show the importance of backing stuff up.

I’d say I lost a solid 30 hours of work due to that hard drive crash. Needless to say, I took a little break from recording the EP, during which time I wrote “Do You Know.” Writing “Do You Know” encouraged me to get back on the ball with recording the album, but I wasn’t wasting time with recording a cover this time. The revised track listing was:

1. Do You Know
2. Grace
3. So You Say
4. Without You
5. Runaway
6. Never Let Go

From about March through July I was very busy recording everything (some things for the 2nd time!), and wrapped up recording sometime in the middle of July, at which point I scheduled the video shoot for early August (which I will detail in a later post). When I finally wrapped up editing the video and whatnot, it was already mid September. Then it was just a matter of getting all the artwork in order and get my websites ready. In the end, I ended up cutting “Runaway” because as far as the flow of the album went, I couldn’t find a good place to put it. But I’m definitely planning on releasing it on Vol. 2, which I’m in the process of writing.

I was originally planning on releasing on November 1, but iTunes got my tracks up in 24 hours… much faster than I had anticipated. So, on October 21st Ben Powell Sketchbook’s first EP was officially launched.

Check out the music video below, and for serious, like me on facebook!

West VA

// October 11th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Photo, Video

This past weekend, Tay and I took a trip out to West VA for an apple butter festival. It was pretty neat, very small town… and lots of white people. Actually, upon the first 5 minutes of walking around, I saw a booth selling Confederate paraphernalia, a dude wearing a shirt with a confederate flag that said “Don’t Apologize For Being Right!” and then another dude with a shirt that said: “Press 1 for english, press 2 to be deported”

But, aside from that, it was very pleasant. I worked up the nerve to take pictures of random people and stuff using Troy’s borrowed 70-200mm f/4 IS lens. It definitely makes you think about framing your shots differently since you’re always zoomed so far. I did like that since it was so bright out, I got some shots that were pretty low-key looking just because of the extreme contrast between light and shadow. For example:

Some Corn from a vendor’s stand.

A Vendor making some Jewelry

I didn’t get a chance to upload all my favorites to Flickr ’cause of the stupid size limitations… but, they’re on facebook. Check ‘em out.

Here’s a timelapse video of the sky from the deck at Tay’s grandparents cabin. For some reason my camera wasn’t automatically setting the exposure to be super long to see the stars, so I had to manually change the camera to take 25 second exposures. That’s when you see all the stars pop up. Make sure you watch it in HD, otherwise it’s hard to see the stars!

Meanwhile, I’m gearing up for a big baby-photoshoot this coming saturday, so expect pictures from that!