It's been a long night of editing...

And we're pretty tuckered out. A is putting the final touches on our latest Citybeat vid. This video was interview and rehearsal footage with the band Lights On, and as can happen, we had some audio issues. Mainly a lot of distortion and hot levels from our XHA1. Thankfully with our second camera, the S11 we were able to grab some decent audio for the vid. It seemed pretty strange to us that the higher-end camera (and professional boom) did a worse job catching the audio than the "consumer" level S11. But normally the XHA1 does a great job with audio, so I'm guessing it was just the small room we recorded in coupled with the strange bounce off the walls of the space. Either way we ended up with solid audio and were able to make a decent cut of the footage. We should have it up tomorrow. I found an interesting article you can read here that has some great tips for reducing audio distortion.

That's it for us tonight. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, as we're going to do some spring cleaning on our Imac. It's funny-now that we're using two HD cams on our shoots, we really didn't realize the space hog it was until a message popped up on our computer that we only had 1GB of space left! Geez. So, we need to clear up some space. Fun, Fun, Fun!!! Ciao for tonight :)

.WMV Hell

It started simply enough. I'd created a corporate health video for my company as one of our goals for the year. It was finished in a few weeks, looked great, and was well-received by my team. All that was left was uploading it to the company site, at which point El Roberto officially became a victim of the Mac vs. PC deathmatch. You see my company like most runs with Windows. And their system only plays windows media files or Mpeg 2 quicktime. It was also required for the vids to be compressed to under 50 mb(ha!). Our first issue was conversion. It is almost impossible to convert a mac-based video file into a decent-looking windows media file without plunking down almost $200 for a Flip4Mac program. We downloaded several converter programs from download.com, but the compression on all of them was crappy. If the audio wasn't muffled, then the video was ridiculously pixelated. This has been going on for almost two weeks now. Sleepless nights attempting to convert .mov files to .wmv and getting crap. Scouring endless Mac forums on converting files to .wmv and coming up with nothing. I could go on, but you get the point. Finally, after talking with some co-workers, I found out I could finangle myself some extra room on the network and did not have to necessarily post the vid on the website at 50mb or under. I could actually link to the vid at a much higher size. So tonight, we finally were able to create a slick .avi file that works in windows media player and is a decent size. Hallelujah!!! (Angels cry)

So some tips for you people out there attempting to convert Mac files to Windows Media compatible format: Don't do it!! Jk, but make sure you use a decent converter like FLV Crunch, and DON'T attempt to compress to anything under 100MB or you'll end up like us-hairless with high blood pressure..

The Kelsey Brookes video...

is our latest for Citybeat. It was a lot fun and interesting interviewing local Sd artist Kelsey Brookes. We are definitely fans of his work now and are looking forward to seeing his show later this month at the Quint Gallery.

Tonight, we are working on our video for Artepolitik.com. And we should have the video posted soon if we can finish entering subtitles in Final Cut...which is a tedious thing to do btw...

Anyway, last night I watched an interesting documentary called The Revolution Will Not be Televised. Its a documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Its a great doc and you can watch it online for free which is a good thing. In a few days, I will be posting a short version of an article I am contributing to Artepolitik.com about it.

The weekend!!!!

Ok, so for our movie blitz this weekend, we are finally going to checkout Where the Wild Things Are, and hopefully a bunch of other flicks...

We have been waiting till the crowds die down before seeing it and will post a proper review soon.
Besides seeing a bunch of movies this weekend, we are working on a number of projects and will have a new Citybeat video posted on Tuesday and later in the week, an interview that we produced for ArtePolitik.com. Plus we are finally going to take a day and organize our studio a bit to setup some additional workstations, setup a network, and a Green screen!!!. We are looking forward to having some additional space to create projects.

10:44pm and ready for bed

It's been a long night of editing and were pretty tired. We're going to wrap up our work for tonight. We'll have a Citybeat new video posted tomorrow that we're excited for everyone to see. Have a great night!

Its a beautiful Sunday in San Diego...

and we are stuck in doors editing some wedding footage. Its ok, we are finishing that up today and focusing on some other projects that we really want to do..(music video, short film...etc). But anyway its been a decent weekend. We saw Inglourious Basterds last night and throughly enjoyed it. We will post a proper review this week...

We are back...

and have lots of editing to do. We will have some new videos posted this week for your viewing enjoyment...but for now check this out...

Not sure what we think about it....I was among the few who liked Tim Burtons adaptation of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and of course liked the original but admit that I am skeptical about his latest effort.

Happy Sunday

Today we are working on finishing the SD Wax Queen commercial. Also we are preparing for a couple of upcoming shoots this next week. We promise to have some new videos posted in the over next couple of weeks.

Anyway I saw Bruno last night and we promise to have a review posted in a day or two....

Oy...

It's been a long night of editing and we are anxious to get a good nights rest. We'll be back Tuesday afternoon, with a proper post-ciao till then!

Camera..Check! Mic... Check! Rubber Chicken...Check!

Hey Ya'll

Hope you're having a good Thursday. One more day till the weekend, yeay! We're busy editing footage right now and preparing ourselves for two shoots this weekend (sigh). It'll be a a crazy busy weekend, but a fun one that will greatly improve our portfolio. I like to make elaborate list containing all the equipment we'll possibly need for a shoot, but inevitably, we always forget something minor. So here's to hoping we forget absolutely nothing this weekend! Our new mic came in today and we've been cooing over it all night. We'll be testing it out this weekend, so we're anxious to see how it operates. That's it for tonight-adios!

Tuesday

Happy Tuesday Y'all,

Hope everyone had a glorious and refreshing day. We were busy editing all night, but we are finally done and ready for the weekend to be here already.

Speaking of the weekend, we saw "The Hangover" last sunday night at AMC Mission Valley. Now to tell the truth, we initially had no plans to see this movie. The trailer just looked kind of cliche and obvious; a bachelor party movie where guys get wasted, bad things happen, and hilarity ensues. Seen it a thousand times. But the positive movie critic reviews filled with over the top superlatives kept streaming in. That, coupled with a thumbs up from a few well-movied friends sealed the deal. Se we plunked down our hard-earned $10 and watched the flick. The movie was worth it. Really funny, in an over-the-top kind of way. The actors do a great job portraying the blinding vacuum of pain, confusion, and dry heaves that is a severe hangover. And they're constantly assaulting your eyeballs with increasingly shocking antics and storylines, that culminate in a final credits scene that is scream-worthy in its gross out hilarity. Seriously. I won't give the story away but the ending involves digital pictures from the bachelor party they can't remember, and it was so bad I can't even understand how they were able to get an R rating. Some may find it a little to wild a movie for their taste, but it really was funny and good-hearted, and Zach Gilafanakalakalis or whatever, is the funniest thing in the movie-A plus!

It's been one of those Mondays..

And were pretty exhausted. We are in the final throes of finishing a project and looking forward to having tomorrow afternoon off, free to kickback, relax and completely ignore our Macs (for a couple of hours that is, until we scurry back home and hug them tight to our chests, stroking their LED screens and whispering pledges of eternal love). Have a great Tuesday!

Editing...

can be a fickle mistress. And although it's not as messy a job today as it was for the blokes in the picture, it can be just as exhausting. We are currently editing footage from the Art around Adams event that took place on Saturday June 6th. It was an interesting festival, with cool bands, artists, and quirky performers floating about. But there's a lot of footage to dig through and it's been a bit of a task determining which were the best clips to go with. However, we got some great soundbites from some of the musical acts which we're excited about highlighting. Anywho, we're thinking of taking a break to see Will Ferrell's new movie Land of the Lost that just came out. I don't know why. The trailer was corny, we didn't really laugh during it, and the reviews are less than complimentary . So like any good ol' Fruedian subject, we are going to plunk down $10 and see it, because every mental and social gauge says not to. We'll be sure to pass on our grumpy and unsatisfied review of the flick for you to ignore also. That's it for today. Have a great night!

He's back....

and we are not sure if its a good thing....





Regardless if the film is good or not...we will probably be in line to see Coppolla's latest effort Tetro. Anyway....we took a break from editing tonight to meet with actors for our next shoot this weekend to and checkout some films for inspiration. Have a good night and we will talk to you soon.

Editing..

Not much going on here today. We're busy editing footage for the Che Bella commercial. This shop had a breathtaking range of exotic flowers, and the colors really pop on our camera, so its a very appropriate setting to see the color depth of our Canon XHA1. Anyways, we have a lot of work to do this weekend: planning for a commercial shoot as well as moving-whew! But for now we are going to focus on the project at hand and get some well needed rest. Have a good night :)

Oy

Hey everyone,

Hope you survived Monday with all your dignity and at least some of your teeth. We've had a very busy day working on projects, on top of our normal 9-5 gigs, so not much to post today. However we did find an interesting site related to the Cannes Film Festival. The blog author, Chris Jones is a filmmaker who had a short film accepted into Cannes. He does a lot to debunk the myths related to how impenetrable the Cannes social scene. He is doing a lot of blogging from the Festival, so its nice to see someone relatively "normal" enjoying Cannes. On that subject, check out some current footage from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Monday is approaching....

So its Sunday night and I am surfing the web again....when I noticed on that some users are posting feature films on youtube. I am not sure how they are able to keep these films posted without them getting taken down. Anyway, as I found out, you pretty much find any film out on video on youtube.
Camera shake:Enemy#1!..Read about it here
and how to avoid it....of course you can always try to clean it up in Final Cut Pro but why waste the time.

Good Friday....

Its been a busy Friday for the El Roberto production crew. We spent the afternoon putting some finishing touches on the Cafe Eleven commercial and started planning some future projects. In between visiting with family this weekend we plan to sneak some work in when possible. We have a lot of upcoming projects to focus on the next couple of weeks.

Before you go, check out this trailer for the Limits of Control directed by Jim Jarmusch.

So happy its almost Friday...

What's up everyone,

So we basically have the commercial edit completed. It was the first time Candice edited one of our projects, and we are both mentally exhausted from the experience. Just kidding....it was easy. Right now we just have to record the voice-over and insert some text and its done.

Next up... we are in pre-production for a music video and are honing the God with a Gun script. Hope you guys are having a great Thursday and are exercising your drinking muscles in preparation for the Easter Holiday weekend.

Go hifreann leat!

Happy St.Patrick's day!

Hopefully you are able to go out drink some green beer, pinch people who aren't wearing green, and be merry...if you have to stay in tonight, pop open a can of Guinness and rent the movie Once




Tonight we stayed in, drank Guinness, and tried to edit some HD test footage on our old G5 that we shot a couple of weeks back. After spending an hour logging footage, the trusty old G5 decided to freeze up and render the footage we captured useless....good thing we bought a new computer that we will start using as soon as we have it setup. Anyway have a good night and we will talk to you later...