at the backstage lounge

A whole bunch of my musician friends that I know through Westside played at the Backstage Lounge this last Monday, so I decided to show up with our new Sony FS-100 camera and Canon 24-70 2.8L lens (plus I had never seen any of the groups play before – what kind of friend am I!?) First of all, I really enjoyed all of there music – some skilled peeps I tell ya!

I was also blown away by the performance of this camera. Really. I had the gain set to 18dB, sometimes as high as 24dB (the camera goes up to 30dB), and it’s such a clean and beautiful picture. For those of you who who are starting to lose interest, turning up the gain that high on most cameras would turn the picture in a noisy mess of UGLY. (Not sure that regained anyone’s interest but no matter! I am PUMPED!!) The camera saw almost better than I did in some circumstances.

Here are the beautiful peoples and their beautiful musics (with more to come!)

Jeremey Zimmerman and Sarah Miller / Shout Out Loud

Marc Ross / We Are Known

Buried: Photography

Transposition Films & friends shot Buried in 60 seconds for our submission to the Virgin Radio Fake Film Festival. While we didn’t win (what, they can’t see talent when it’s right in front of them!?) we’re cutting together a longer version to present. While that’s happening, here are some photographs to enjoy from the shoot, thanks to Clint Bargen. Check them out on Facebook.

better SDHC support for the Sony PMW-EX1

A few months ago, we picked up a few Silicon Power Class 10 16GB SDHC cards to compliment the Transcend 16GB Class 6 cards we already owned.

Recently we’ve rolled some long shots on our Sony EX1 using the new Silicon Power cards in our e-Films MxR adapters, and disaster: the camera would give us media record errors consistently after recording for about ten minutes or so.  The Transcend cards were still okay though, so it couldn’t be the camera.

After poking around the internets, we found that Sony had released an firmware version 1.2 for the EX1.  We were still using 1.12.  According to Sony, SxS-1 memory card support was added, as well as official support for SDHC recording.  Perfect.  Sony now allows end users to upgrade their own firmware, so we upgraded the camera using Sony’s versionUp tool (which works on both Mac and PC), tested the Silicon Power cards – and no issue whatsoever.

What’s more, we can now reliably record 60/30fps S&Q footage to the SDHC cards!  Before this was impossible – we’d hit media record errors very quickly if we had tried doing that.

We’re very happy that Sony released this updated firmware, allowing us to reliably use low-cost SDHC cards for recording.

Find the updated firmware at Sony Canada’s e-Support site.  http://support.sonybiz.ca/esupport/eSupportHome.asp

we become three: the newest member of Transposition

As of November 1st, we’re ecstatic to announce that Josh Knepper has joined Transposition Films!

Here’s the thing about Josh.  If a problem needs solving, he’s probably done it before or knows someone who has.  He’s traveled the world shooting & editing documentaries, over a decade experience of camera hosting and episodic production, not to mention mad snake charming skills.  We’re looking forward to doing more together and enjoying life & work with you, Josh.

Veda Hille – Singing Polaris Review

Swung by with some lights & sound one afternoon to work with our buddy Josh Knepper to put this together.

Created for vancouverisawesome.com

You can find Heartland and other Owen Pallett music here: owenpalletteternal.com/

And don’t forget to go here for Veda Hille goodness: vedahille.com/

Check out the 2010 Polaris Music Prize nominees here: polarismusicprize.ca/​2010longlist/

matt & kelsey’s film

Our good friends Matt and Kelsey were married this summer, and we were asked to create their wedding film.  They’re both artistic people, so we thought we’d try something a little different for their video.  Instead of a simple montage of the day, we had such a great time full of laughter shooting an emotionally-driven story together. Thank you, Matt and Kelsey, for letting us in on the celebration of your love.

Wrong Frame Rate? No Problem.

Ever created an After Effects composition and realized well into the project (or in my case, after delivering the files) that your frame rate wasn’t what the client wanted?  This script will save your day by automatically updating your composition to a new frame rate of your choice.  Just set the composition length to the same number of frames you had used in your old composition.  To calculate number of frames, I use the handy Timecode Calculator widget.

Check out the script over at aescripts.