The Wizarding World of Long Lines

Yesterday, I decided to brave the record crowds, heat and turbulent weather to take the family to the grand opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. If there were any doubts to my insanity, you can now cast them aside. I truly am a madman...and we all had a BLAST! Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

Here's a couple views of the lines.



There were choppers aplenty.


Some pics taken while we stood in line to enter The Wizarding World...for 6 hours!




Jemara tried her hand at photography and actually took some really good pics. Here's one of my favorites, because I didn't have to teach her depth-of-field...she just knew how to do it.


More pics taken during the wait.




Finally, we traversed the entrance and made it to The Promised Land!


















Of course I'd stand in line for 6 hours just for this smile on her face.


More shots from within Universal's new cash cow.




A few pics taken on the way out.




We had a great (and exhausting) time and Jemara is looking forward to return trips so she can get some more Chocolate Frogs.

Busy Like a Bee With a Vuvuzela

Been doing a lot of learning lately. Trying to step up my game so I can grow up and do this kind of stuff for a living, finally. Before I get started, I want to publicly convey congratulations to my bro, Ken Lowrie, for getting the gig as the Orlando Producer for the 2010 48 Hour Film Festival!!! It is well deserved and I KNOW he's going to do a kick ass job in the position. Ken, we've got to get together soon and have some celebratory grub and libations.

As far as what I've been learning. Well, last weekend we shot some night footage with the 7D. It is a lot of fun playing with that camera and learning the best way to get the shots we want. You have SO MANY options when you shoot stuff at night. Especially, when you're using Zeiss Primes! Viva la f/1.4! Anyway, I wanted to shoot myself driving, but it was easier to just shoot someone else doing it. I gave Enrique the keys and I took the 7D with the 50mm and we went for a ride around the block. Here's the result:


Ken shot some great footage while out at the beach a few weeks ago, but he had to stand in knee deep, very turbulent waters in order to get the shot. Oh, and he did it handheld, so the footage was kind of shaky. Thanks to one of Andrew Kramer's lessons, I was able to steady that footage and make it look kind of cool:


Here's a side-by-side so you can see what the original looked like compared to the final:


Finally, Ken and Brenda shot a bunch of nature related footage several months ago and I've just been sitting on it. I finally got around to putting together a demo reel with some of it. There was SO MUCH great stuff to choose from and I did the edit so it would flow from one shot to the next. You'd never think it was shot in three different locations in two different states:


Oh...and P.S. Check out this cool pic I took outside my house the other night of a spider making a BIG ASS web. Seriously, one of the anchor points was halfway up a 30 foot tall tree that's at least 20 feet away from the house:

I shot him/her with Ken's other Canon SLR with a 300mm telephoto lens, but I had it set to macro so the depth of field was probably less than half an inch. Look at the pic. His leg is out of focus. Crazy. Click here for the rest of them.

PEACE!!!

Trying to Get Caught Up

I took a week and a half off from my day job just so I can crank stuff out, and I've been doing just that. Unfortunately, I've neglected the blog in the process. Don't worry, I'm going to knock out a few posts here in the next few days, starting with this one.

A buddy of mine, Vadinne, sent a few cool things my way. One is this vid done by the same dude who did the Chrono Trigger: Short Action Scene, I blogged about a couple weeks ago (the vid had only 15,000 views when I posted my blog...now it's almost to 1.2 mil!). I would love to do a stop motion film sometime, but they're very time consuming. Still though, I love seeing stuff this good out there:


She also sent me this link which shows that Hollywood obviously like to use this particular prop.

And this link which shows what movie posters would look like if they went with their original casting.

And this pretty cool pic:

Jemara, being her father's daughter, wanted to show me something she caught on one of the vlogs her big brother shared with her. The vloggers got a new camera and it's a Canon 7D. The video is pretty long, so skip ahead to the 2:00 mark and watch some of the shots he got the first time he took the camera out (ends around the 8:20 point):

When Jemara watched it with me she said, "Dad, I know you guys can shoot better, but it is still pretty cool they got those shots." Yes it is baby girl, yes it is.

I used to be a pretty big fan of M. Night Shyamalan, until he started to put out crap. Hate him or not, he still gets to edit his films at Skywalker Ranch:


These two commercials entertain the hell out of me:



That's all I got for today. I've cleaned off some of the things I wanted to blog about. The next blog will cover some of the things I've been working on to help CLP get a bit more visibility.

2 Down. 13 To Go.

When I paid a visit to NJ to hang out with my sis and her hubby, she cooked for me. As unassuming as this may sound, take note this was the first time, in my near 40 years of existence, she's cooked a real meal for me. This blog isn't supposed to talk about my personal side, but let's just say it was the best roast chicken I've ever had in my life. That really was a great trip. Thanks again Angie and CMo for hosting me.

Trust me, there's something film making related to this blog.

My sister ordered me the cookbook with the roast chicken recipe in it. I kept raving about this chicken and finally, today, Jemara and I took our shot at it. I took some pictures of the event. I did all my post-production using Magic Bullet Looks. It's a GREAT easy-to-use utility for some really quick and effective looks/effects. I used it extensively in Cutty Lue's "Just a Thought" music video. I've only used it one other time for playing with pictures. If Photoshop got busay with Picnik, their spawn would be MB Looks. Check it out.

The new usual suspect:


The plan:


Prep. If you know me and my kids, you know this isn't the first time Jemara's been in the kitchen.






Frown if you must. A few years ago, Jemara asked me how to use the wine bottle opener, so I taught her.


See. Not all of it was for drinking.



Giving the bird it's last rites and final baptism.


I didn't really do much color correction on this pic. I just opened it up about half a stop. I wanted ya'll to see this for it's natural beauty.


Enjoying the fruits of her labor.


Order Jacques Pepin's More Fast Food My Way and try out some of his delicious recipes. Jemara said that this summer, while she's out of school, she wants to cook 15 dishes out of his book. We did two tonight and the house couldn't smell more delightfully yummy.

The light was really pretty on our back patio, so I took a pic of it.


And finally, to keep the fans happy. Here's a couple of sky pics. ;-)


No, I didn't put that rainbow there in post. Seriously, I didn't. It was in the sky, hence why I took a pic of it.

Keep smiling people.