Paper Plane

Sat, 16 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

About

This is a short video of me making a delicious whiskey-based cocktail called the Paper Plane. You can watch it here.

This is the first video I made with the Canon C70. It’s also the first video I made using a camera that shoots a log profile (C-Log3, but I’ll call it “log”). This resulted in a bit of a learning curve since I had to figure out how to color my footage. Once I got the hang of using Davinci Resolve, I was stunned by the colors that could be pulled from the default, greyish log footage. I also love the narrow depth of field that was possible with the C70 and the lens I used, the RF 35mm F1.8 Macro. Close-ups of equipment such as the glass I poured the drink into and the liquor bottles had an isolated, crisp look, which I am a fan of.

All in all, I’m happy with this video, but there are things I would do differently.

Lessons Learned

Remember to check your profile before shooting

Since I was so new to shooting in log, I would switch back and forth from it to Rec. 709 to see how my colors look. Several times I would forget to switch back to log and record a whole section of the video in the wrong profile. Sometimes only realizing it when I got to editing, which sucked.

One solution to this is to not be an idiot and switch back to log, Blake. Another is to get a field monitor that you can program a LUT into so that the camera still records in log, but you see nice colors in the monitor. This costs money though, which I didn’t feel like spending.

In the end, I reshot stuff, which was a hassle, but necessary.

Plan Plan Plan your shots

I can’t overstate how crucial it is to plan out your shot schedule before the day that shooting takes place. I can’t. It saves so many resources. It saves everyone’s time and energy, and it also saves your credibility as a director.

For this video, in particular, I scheduled about half of the shots beforehand, the ones I predicted to be more difficult, and left the others to be improvised. When the time came to shoot the unplanned ones, I had to pivot from my more technical “lights go here,” “this lens on,” “pull focus here” mode, to a more relaxed, creative mode in order to see what shot would fit well both logically and artistically (eye-roll) around the others that were already set in stone.

Unfortunately for me, I was the only one working on this video, so I didn’t have to pleasure of wasting other people’s time, only my own. But moving forward, and planning on working with others, I can’t afford to stop and plan a shot with this level of heads-down focus after everything was just go, go, go. It interrupts the inertia of everyone working on the set, and it takes away from your focus as a director to execute what was already planned and fix unexpected problems that pop up. And they will pop up.

Plan every shot, at least at a minimum, before the day of shooting.

Conclusion

This was a fun video to plan, shoot, and edit. While my primary passion lies in narrative filmmaking, drinking is my secondary passion, which made this production enjoyable, along with exploring a new camera, lens, and editing software. Although I made some mistakes, I’ve learned from them and will take that knowledge to my next project.

Equipment Used

Canon C70
RF 35mm F1.8 Macro

Software Used

Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro
Coloring: DaVinci Resolve

Development Docs

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

About

This post has details of how I made this website. You can follow the instructions below to make your own.

Getting Started

Install Jekyll
Fork/Clone/Download this portfolio’s repo
Configure _config.yml
Add posts in _posts, add projects in _data/projects.yml and, customize the main page index.html
Run bundle exec jekyll serve to test out the site at localhost:4000

Settings in _config.yml

This is the file where configurations affecting the whole site live.

_config.yml

title: Blake Howard's Portfolio # Shown in header on pages with full_logo: true
short_logo: P. # Shown in header on all pages by default unless full_logo: true is set
description: > # The description for your site
  A minimal yet feature-rich Jekyll theme made for personal websites and blogs.
url: "https://blakehoward.github.io/portfolio" # The base hostname & protocol for your site

author:
  name: Blake Howard
  github: blakehoward/portfolio # GitHub username, used for GitHub icon on the top right
  email: example@example.com # Used for email icon on the top right
  homepage: https://blake.how # This links to your name in post meta
  twitter: # Twitter username, used for Twitter Card Analytics

disqus_name: # Setting this will turn on Disqus comments
g_track_id: # Google Analytics tracking ID (e.g. UA-000000-2), setting this will turn on Google Analytics
rss: false # RSS feed icon on or off
dark_mode: true # Dark mode icon
project_card_style: modal # Choose from masonry, modal, and flat

Posts

Create posts under _posts/
Posts should include front matter in this format:

_posts/<YYYY-MM-DD-short-title.md>

# Required front matter
layout: post # Posts should use the post layout
title: Content Styles # Post title
date: 2022-03-20 # Publish date in YYYY-MM-DD format

# Recommended front matter
tags: [tag2, tag4] # A list of tags
splash_img_source: /assets/img/photo-1556075798-4825dfaaf498.jpeg # Splash image source, high resolution images with an aspect ratio close to 4:3 recommended
splash_img_caption: A sample splash image with a sample caption. Image by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@yancymin">Yancy Min</a> on Unsplash. # Splash image caption

Projects

Projects are generated using data stored in _data/projects.yml.
This file contains a list of projects, each of which has key value pairs describing the project in this format:

_data/projects.yml

- name: Project One # Project name, also used as heading
  id: p1 # Project id, must be unique amongst the projects
  img_src: /assets/img/connectpie-page.png # Optional image
  description_less: > # Description shown at all times
    <p>This part of the project description is visible at all times.</p> 
  description_more: > # Description shown only when the project card is expanded
    <p>This part is only seen when you click on the project card.</p> 

    <a href="#" target="_blank" class="btn btn-dark mb-1"><i class="fas fa-code-branch"></i> &nbsp Repository</a>
    <a href="#" target="_blank" class="btn btn-dark mb-1"><i class="fas fa-align-right"></i> &nbsp Blog Post</a>

  tags: [tag1, tag2] # A list of tags

Tags and Tag Pages

Tags can be added to both posts and projects as a list of tag names
Tags always link to their corresponding tag page /tags/<tag name>.
Tag pages must be manually created under pages/tags. Each tag page should include front matter in this format:

pages/tags/<tag name>

title: "Tag: tag1" # This is the page title, could be anything of your choosing
subtitle: "Posts and projects filtered by tag: tag1." # This is the page subtitle, could be anything of your choosing
permalink: /tags/tag1 # This is the page permalink, this should be exactly in this format: /tags/<tag name>
tag: tag1 # Tag name should be consistent across tag page, posts, and projects
tag_style: rgba( 144, 106, 207, 100%) # Tag background color, recommended to use RGBA value

Redirect Pages

Redirect pages can bre created under _pages/redirects.
They should include front matter in this format:

pages/redirects/<name>.md

permalink: /roll # redirect origin link
redirect_link: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" # redirect destination link

Change the content on the footer in _includes/page/about.html.

Markdown Components

Refer to markdown guide basic syntax to learn how to render elements using markdown. It is also possible to directly include HTML components in markdown files.

Deployment

Jekyll sites are just like any other static websites.

GitHub Pages and Netlify are popular options. Both have a free tier of service.

Development

Current development status is active. If resources allow, fixes will be made as soon as they are found and features will be added as soon as they are deemed fit. Feel free to contribute to this portfolio by opening a pull request on GitHub.

Questions and Comments

Feel free to open a new issue on GitHub for questions and comments regarding this portfolio.

Paper Plane

About

Lessons Learned

Remember to check your profile before shooting

Plan Plan Plan your shots

Conclusion

Equipment Used

Software Used

Development Docs

About

Getting Started

Settings in _config.yml

Posts

Projects

Tags and Tag Pages

Redirect Pages

Footer

Markdown Components

Deployment

Development

Questions and Comments