Video rig

At my day job, we have been doing a lot of video lately and the majority has been done with my iPhone. Seriously. With plenty more video projects coming that will require sound better audio, we picked up a Canon Rebel T2i and a Rode microphone.
Playing with it so far, it's been great. We recorded some video over the weekend and with the exception of poor image stabilization, it's what we needed. So far it's provides pro level video without the pro price.
As far as the still picture quality, I'm loving the High ISO capabilities! No noticeable noise at ISO 800, something unheard of on my Canon 1D MK II.

-Trent
Posted from my iPhone

New Site!

Here it is folks, a site that's been on the drawing board for quite awhile, but just barely coming to fruition. You may/may not remember Yom's Random Stats. Well Yom and I decided to expand the site a little and do apology videos. Turns out the apology videos were more fun, so I introduce to you, YomApologizes.Com. We'll have a new video every week where Yom apologizes to someone or something. The videos are actually pretty funny and you should check them out at the site.

The future

Unfortunately, it came to this. We are no longer producing the videos for Would You Rather Daily. There's only one simple explanation for this, and that's a lack of commitment from those who are supposed to be involved in the site. So rather than set up the expectation for a new video every day, I'm changing the format quite a bit. There will still be a daily would you rather question posted, but in the future it will be accompanied by a Pros and Cons list usually written by myself. This way, I'll be the only one to blame if something doesn't get done and I won't have to rely on others. I think this will work, although I do plan to go back to the daily format once I can get a committed team back on board. Expect to see some changes to the site soon to reflect our future goals. I would like to thank everyone though for the videos we did do, because they were fun to make and fun to watch and a lot of work did go into them.

-TFAM

Epic Fail

A rare occurrence happened last night...twice. The first rarity, I got Asti, Yom, and I all together to film something. The reason I show up in so many videos is because I can usually only get one other person to film. Second very frustrating rarity: After filming several videos that night and getting lots of great b-roll material, I went to download the videos to my computer. Nothing. Notta. No videos to be found on the memory card. So, I try a different computer and get the same result. I put the memory card back in the camera and find the old videos to be on there, but none of the new ones. Obviously freaking out at this point, I try a couple different data recovery programs just in case the files were on there but they just didn't show up. I got nothing again. I try putting the same memory card back in the same camera and film a little test clip. Works fine, transfers to the computer just fine. I always check to make sure it says it's recording before we start the intro and I know the memory card was inserted right(doesn't let you put it in wrong anyway). I'm just baffled and also upset because it's hard to get a couple people together to film. I'll see if I can pull it off again.
/rant

-TFAM

Pic courtesy of icanhascheezburger

It came to this...

Sometimes in life you're put in a pinch and you are forced to make a decision. Here was my dilemma. Asti is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Spyder was in Canada for a bit and had to dive back into work, and Yom has been unavailable recently. What am I saying? I was out of footage to use except for one video I didn't really feel comfortable with seeing the light of day. Mainly because it gives you an insight into me...an insight that outside of the FNM guys and my wife should not see. But to keep the website rolling, it got posted. TFAM vs. TFAM 2000.Yup, it's me arguing against myself and the only winner is the viewer. It's on a whole new level of...interestingness. This was filmed back in March and is one of a kind. If you dare, check it out here.
Soon, everyone should be available again so I can stockpile some footage. We're also planning to do some filming at the upcoming Salt Lake Bees game I'm taking everyone to.

-TFAM

Upgrade

So the major thing that has been lacking in our video has to be sound quality. We improved the lighting by adding some lights which helped our video quality. And if you click the HQ link on the YouTube videos it helps out a lot. Well, without powerful speakers, the videos tend to be too quiet. Our previous filming set up consisted of a few Flip Video cameras. Hey, we're on a limited budget. Anyway, it was time for an upgrade. So, we purchased a Canon FS100 flash memory video camera with one very important feature. A mic input! This way we can get better sound quality and bring the mic just a little bit closer to us. For this we picked up an Azden ECZ-990 shotgun microphone. You can see the whole setup above. This will undoubtedly increase the quality of our videos for you. Since we film in advance, don't expect to see this in action on YouTube until probably middle of next week.

-TFAM

Hazardous filming environment?

So Yom and I were doing some filming for Yom's Random Stats the other day and I had just purchased some shop lights for some fill light on our videos. Well, I was greeted with a lovely warning label. This label informed me that after un-packing it, setting it up, realizing it emits a horrible smell, and getting burned by how hot it is. So to say the least, I felt a bit sketcky about using these lights. I did wash my hands after handling though. And I'm still alive today, so that's the good news. Filming was good though and you can check out Yom's 5 You Tube Stats here that were filmed in my humble basement.

-TFAM