Interview With Photographer Susana Victoria Clark

Had an excellent interview with Susana Victoria Clark of Vestige
Photography about her style of Pin-Up and Hot Rod photography. This will be a nice addition to Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. Some very nice insight into her work and world. She was a complete sweetheart and looks like she could be a Pin-Up Model herself!

Brightened up my otherwise dreary day...more on the dreary day part in another post...

Occupy- The New Civil Rights Movement

Listening to Inside Job Director Charles Ferguson talk about the Occupy Movement against corporate greed and uncontrolled power as a struggle on par with the Woman's or Civil Rights Movements, really struck a chord with me. This is how it may play out. 

Fixing My Carvin Speakers

Took apart one of my horns from one of two 1987 Carvin 15" 400 watt speakers. Man Carvin stuff lasts. These speakers have been with me on two US tours, did club gigs for countless bands that I did sound mixing for and recently retired in my wife's Arts School doing children's song and dance class duty. Talked to a tech today who said he may be able to get me the part to get the HF Driver working again. Never say die...


Just got an email from the tech. They have the part in stock! Only $19.99! 

Rats & Gassers Stills & Timelines

Going through each interview section and sizing pictures imported to the timeline. These pics were taken with my fairly decent Fuji Film Digital Camera and some will also be used in the Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride Companion Book. Working with high resolution stills is a different process than moving video images.  Obviously the Ken Burns style zoom in / out and pan up / down / left / right movements can be extremely useful and compelling in making still images come to life on the big screen. Finding a balance between moving and still images can take some thought and practice. This is the first step.

James Foster Foundation Charity Cruise

We went out to the James Foster Foundation Charity Cruise and Get Together in Kent to film for a DVD we are doing for the family and to show James how many people came together to show support for this young man. He was brutally beaten into a coma by some thugs and is slowly making a recovery. He has a long way to go and the stress on his family is extreme. KIRO and KING News came out and filmed as well. I will post more stills and clips later. It was so amazing to see Low Riders, Hot Rodders, Bikers and Tuners all coming together to show James and his family their support. Inspiring!

Rats & Gassers Picture Animation

Did some picture adjustment and animations (still picture zooms in or pans up/down)  for the Trevor Robinson interview section of Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. 

Timelines Done!!!

Finally after weeks of reformatting and small issues with file conversion, I got it all under control for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride.  The final hurdle was getting a split audio signal from the Panasonic AG-DVX100 footage. The problem was that when I used Cinema Tools to remove pulldown and convert the files to 23.98 fps (shot in 24p) they wouldn't get recognized in the new Apple Pro Res 422 (HQ) timelines. So I created a new intermediate timeline and exported in FCP as a .mov file. This worked excellent, except the new audio files were not split stereo but a mixed stereo (something about default setting). So after a few days of experimentation I found that if I went back to the intermediate timeline files and split the audio tracks apart, panned hard left and right then exported, I would get a new .mov file that had left and right audio channels completely split and not panned center. The reason this is important is because I was using a mic off camera to ask the interviewees questions and if the audio is mixed, I cannot separate points where I may have made mic noise from the answers of the interviewees. Now I can. Finally ready to edit hardcore!

The other issue I was having is that DVShade's Easylooks 2.5 (a great FCP plugin program for instant coloring styles and color correction) would add strange flashing lines to the rendered files. After contacting their Tech Support via e-mail, they explained that I had to set the output render to an 8bit setting. This not only fixed the line issue when using Easylooks, but also made the resized Panasonic AG-DVX100 footage "render free" on the timeline! Two birds with one stone.

Started Looking At Publishers For Rats & Gassers Companion Book

Made a few calls today and actually had some immediate interest for the Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride film companion book. Now I need to solidify a pitch and package to send out to potential publishers. What might be really cool is offering a Book/DVD Combo with the DVD in an inner sleeve of the book. 

RIP Carroll Shelby

Heard that automotive legend Carroll Shelby passed today. He was a solid 89 years old. What a life- race car driver, automobile designer and chili connoisseur (get one of his Chili Kits at the grocery store if you wanna make some great Texas Chili). Shelby will be most remembered for his work with Ford's racing efforts and his much modified, race bred Mustangs and iconic Cobras. The man was one of a kind.

Timelines Timelines Timelines

Setting more Final Cut Pro 7 timelines. Getting each interview section set for cuts. 

More Interview Footage On Timelines

Working on more interviews and setting them up in Final Cut Pro. This is still pre-editing. You would think that I would actually have some of these scenes edited, but I trashed many of the old timelines to move everything onto HD timelines. The Panasonic AG-DVX10 footage actually looks decent in HD! Not as sharp as the Canon HF-G10 footage, but not as grainy as I originally thought it would look. 

Final Cut Pro Timelines

Adjusting timelines for each interview in Final Cut Pro 7. The current interview on my computer is Matt Sawdon of Sunken Ship Tattoo. Lots to render and edit. Soooo much footage to go through. Still better too much than not enough :) 

MPEG Streamclip Conversions

Still converting files for Rats & Gassers: Kustom Kulture Takes A Ride. The GoPro HERO HD clips convert into massive sized .mov files for use in Final Cut Pro. Takes half a day for the computer to convert a longer file. Once these are all done I can place in my FCP timelines and begin editing them down to size. 

Final Cut Pro Timeline

Yikes! These timelines are beasts. GoPro footage (resized & sped up), Canon HD footage, DVX100 footage (enlarged x2), pics (cropped and enlarged) ... I have to do this for each interview subject. Thank God for external hard drives!

May Day

Meanwhile in Cleveland.

Happy May Day...fighting in the street...Occupy Everything and all that...is it time we made the big change? 

Whistle why you work...Seattle in action.