videos

There are 168 posts filed in videos (this is page 21 of 21).

Dance, My Esmeralda

As I mentioned in my discussion of my new Beyerdynamic headphones, I’ve recently been diving back into my old music to re-experience it again under better circumstances. Here’s something that I just unearthed:

One of the most significant things I got out of my high school education was getting introduced to the French musical Notre Dame De Paris (thanks Mme. Girondel!) . I don’t think I fully appreciated at the time, but the production featured top-notch production values, spectacular choreography, and most importantly, beautiful music.

The musical concludes with Quasimodo crouching over his precious dead Esmeralda, imploring her to dance and sing once more, insisting that he’ll join her once more in the after life. To me, the musical presents a stunning meditation on the whims of fate. The deformed Quasimodo is forced to watch as his love is destroyed by forces beyond his control. None of us get to choose the hands we’re dealt and sometimes we can’t even control how they’re played. That’s the ultimate tragedy.

The English translation just doesn’t do this song justice. It’s times like this when only the beauty of French can fully convey the splendor of emotion that is being felt here. Even back then, I grasped how achingly beautiful this song is. Give it a few whirls. Maybe you’ll feel the same way.

If you’re interested in checking out the musical, I would recommend this version of the MP3 album. Every song in this thing is spectacular.

Dan and Priscilla’s Wedding

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles. While there, I worked with Stephen Tobolowsky to put the finishing touches on our upcoming live show. I also had the opportunity to photograph Dan Trachtenberg’s wedding.

Dan and I have been friends for a couple years now (he’s guested on the /Filmcast a few times, always to great effect). It was an honor to capture images from his big day with his bride Priscilla, who looked absolutely stunning in her wedding dress. The wedding took place at Marvimon in Los Angeles. Beautiful location, great food, amazing people. I could not have asked for a better wedding to shoot!

Here is a video I put together of the festivities. It is my first attempt at assembling a video slideshow out of my photos. Hope y’all enjoy it:

The Wedding of Dan Trachtenberg and Priscilla Hernandez from David Chen on Vimeo.

My Grandfather’s Watch

While Stephen Tobolowsky was in town recently, I shot this video with him using my Canon 5D Mark 2 on a tripod, my Rode Videomic, and natural lighting in Stephen’s hotel room.

I realize there are problems with this video. Specifically, Stephen’s face is overexposed, he is ever-so-slightly out of focus, the other half of his face needs a little bit more illumination, the sound suffers from some bad automatic gain control, etc. etc. etc. But above all that, Stephen’s storytelling is still able to shine through.

Making Videos with the Canon 7D

I was recently approached by a band to record a musical performance using my dSLRs. I acquired a Rode Videomic and a 32 GB CF card to prepare for the opportunity.

While that gig ended up falling through, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try out the mic anyway. The  5D Mark 2 is a capable video recorder, but I preferred my 7D simply because it seemed to be conceived and built with the possibility of video in mind (e.g. it has a dedicated video/photo switch and a dedicated video record button).

Local musician Grace Van’t Hof was gracious enough to allow me to sit in on one of her rehearsals. I used my 24-70mm L lens and the Videomic to make the following recording – her rousing rendition of a bluegrass version of “House of the Rising Sun”:

Overall, I think this video looks great (recorded at f/7.1 and ISO 640) and the sound is of an acceptable quality, albeit not quite professional. You might see in the video that I also used a Zoom H4n to record sound separately. The sound quality was indeed superior on the Zoom, but I was too lazy to sync them, so the sound on this video represents only what was recorded directly onto the 7D.

A few other thoughts:

  • I used a camera tripod for this video, but I’d recommend a video tripod. It is difficult to perform the movements required for such a video using only a camera tripod.
  • Speaking of movements, zooming in and out by turning the focal length ring on the Canon 7D was extremely challenging. Not only is it awkward to have my hand positioned there, but my L lens also didn’t have much “give.” I’m considering getting a Redrock Micro rig (which allows neat things like follow focus), but that is prohibitively expensive at this stage for me.
  • The sound controls on the Canon 7D are pretty lacking/nonexistent. More irritatingly, the Canon 7D employs automatic gain control (and a crappy one at that) which is impossible to turn off. Nonetheless, hacks have emerged to resolve this.

For those looking for more resources on this subject, I quite enjoyed Engadget’s EOS 7D impressions for filmmaker wannabees.