SixSibs

Exactly 365 days ago, I bought my D3100. Since then I’ve taken 24,249 pictures with it. When I looked it up last night in the EXIF data instead of pictures, it said shutter actuations. I like that.

Anybody can make their shutter actuate, but that doesn’t mean anyone can make great pictures.

Out of all the pictures I’ve taken this year, less than 100 were what I’d really call good. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’m happy. Last year I had no idea what an F/stop was, how to set your ISO, or how to shoot pictures on anything but Auto Mode, and now I never use Auto Mode.

I’m looking forward to learning even more this year, and looking back over my second year of serious photography!

I recently went to see “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” in HFR 3D. It was very enjoyable, but not so much so that I would never watch a movie in anything but HFR 3D. (If I did say that, I’d be out of luck- “The Hobbit” is the only HFR 3D movie out there!)

Some people (especially film critics) didn’t like HFR, but that doesn’t mean that HFR is DOA. When sound movies came out some people didn’t like them. When color movies came out some people didn’t like them either.
I don’t really know of any movie that really benefits greatly from color, or even sound for that matter. Color and sound are just things that make movies more enjoyable to watch.

You might argue and say that sound is essential. It isn’t. Directors for  the first 30+ years got along fine without it, and didn’t think they were missing out on anything. The style of film now requires it, but that’s because people have exploited the benefits of sound. The same goes for color. It’s great to have- I don’t think “The Avengers” in B&W would have the same “coolness factor”- but it’s not essential.

“The Hobbit” is the first movie ever shot in HFR 3D, so I have no idea how HFR 3D as a film technique will eventually pan out. I personally thought that some HFR shots made parts of “The Hobbit” worse, since it made lighting errors more obvious, but the first movies in color weren’t that great either, so it’s hard to tell where 3D will go.  It’s either going to be a fad, or it’ll eventually be just like sound and color- normal.

You don’t here of anyone saying their movie is “in technicolor” anymore because its understood that all movies released today will be color. We’ll know that 3D is here to stay when its no longer advertised and hyped as “3D!”.

Paul the Hero was the most effects heavy of any of our movies. It may not have been all that obvious, but I spent more time working on it’s effects than any movie beforehand, and this behind the scenes movie explains some of the effects, and gives you a little glimpse of how the SixSibs production company gets it’s actors to work.

My dad bought us 3 new miniDV tapes on Saturday (and I promptly used one of them up recording a youth recital at our church) so now I’ll have to cook up some other excuse for not starting to film! I can’t really blame the weather (although it has been windier than I would like it to be for recording audio) and I can’t blame the actors because it’s kind of hard for actors to act if they don’t have a script or someone to film them! So I guess I’ll just have to own up to the fact that it’s mainly my fault (sigh). (I forgot- I have spent about 12 hours editing the footage for our trip movie, so that gives me a pretty decent crutch (there’s nothing more maddening than having two movies in two different stages of completion going at once).
So thank you for reading and expect more great pieces of cinematic expertise to come soon!
Sincerely,

Adam

P.S. (Our blog turned 1 on June 8 )

We still haven’t started on “John the Detective 2″ yet! We have two reasons: #1(and most important) we don’t have any more tape (we burned through three mini DV tapes on our trip) and  secondly I have plenty of post-production work to do editing together said three hours of footage without throwing in another “feature” film into the mix.
So hopefully we’ll start on “JTD2″ sometime this summer (I won’t name a date because something will be sure to knock it off schedule if I do) and all of our (adoring?) fans will be able to watch it.
Thank you for reading,
Adam