location lighting

i just returned from a couple weeks of filmmaking. the first week was a workshop at the maine media workshops where matt seigel, cinematographer, led fourteen of us on a most excellent journey exploring the world of location lighting for film and video. we explored about ten different locations around rockport and camden, maine, where the media workshops are located, lit and shot film and video at six of them. the learning curve was steep for all of us in the workshop, i think, but i came out of it feeling like i'd been through half of film school. matt is a great teacher and i know because right after the class i found myself on the set of a fan-produced star trek episode in upstate new york where i not only discovered everything matt taught us in the workshop came true on set but also got to act with star trek original series actress barbara luna who played marlena moreau, kirk's girlfriend, in the episode, "mirror mirror." it was a great follow up to the workshop because i felt awfully proud when the director of photography told me to "get a 650, drop a single into it with a party red" and i knew what he was talking about. the episode in which i appear (for about five seconds) will be delivered on the internet next year.

new camera

i've been learning my new hi-def camera. this is a short little movie i made from shots i took yesterday, taken without the intention on making a movie, but cut together pretty nicely i thought. the subject: things that are still juxtaposed with things that move, with a brief into and outro from main street museum curator, david ford, who graciously divulged his inspiration just before heading off to a hartford historical society meeting on his bicycle (that shot got cut i'm afraid, though it was nice). i'm using a 35mm lens adapter which allows me to mount my nikon SLR lenses on my video camera. it makes for wonderful shallow depth of field and a look that usually doesn't come from a video camera. while i think the movie falls apart about halfway through, my intention was to run all the way through the production process to see how it worked, from shooting, to editing, to color correcting, to sound editing and finally compressing for the web, a process that took me through five different pieces of software. i'm happy with the result. it even sounds good on crappy little speakers!

energy

with all the hype and fear about energy lately, it's interesting to take an objective look at it. i found this chart, produced by the government. it sheds some interesting light on our current energy use (2004). the most astounding fact is that of all the energy we consume, only 38% of it gets used, the rest is wasted. for instance, of the power an electrical plant produces, only 31% is useful energy, the rest is lost in the system. compare this to nature, specifically plants, which use photosynthesis to capture the sun's energy. they do this at near 100% efficiency, wasting almost nothing, and they contribute to the ecosystem. the human habit of consuming fossil fuels contributes little beneficial to the environment (excess heat, excess carbon dioxide, chemical waste, poor air quality, etc). vehicles are particularly dismal at around 20% efficient (the other 80% is lost to friction, so perhaps in the winter they're a bit more "useful" because the heat generated by the friction is used to warm the passenger compartment!). clearly, if we're all going to survive without immense decreases in quality of life, we have to become more efficient. the easiest way is not to participate in activities that use lots of energy, and the second easiest way is to, if one has to use energy, use it efficiently. incandescent light bulbs are among the most energy inefficient devices in existence, between 2% and 13% depending on the bulb. just a tiny fraction of the energy consumed by a light bulb produces visible light! the rest of the energy produces heat. when you consider that the electricity reaching one's home is just 31% of the energy consumed and multiply that by an incadescent bulb's efficiency of 8.5% on average, we get an overall efficiency of just 2.6%. that's 3800% less efficient than your average house plant, which happens to be the most efficient energy "appliance" in your house.

mini update

i had a fun birthday a couple days ago, spread out over a weekend, in white river junction and at faerie camp destiny. my friend jon showed up in ghoulish attire for our green screen shoot that gabriel and jade arranged. otherwise, life is very busy for me right now. i really need to clean my office. it has reached levels of chaos unparalleled!