Video

Recent Work for UW Bothell

Diversity, Education, Multimedia, My work, University of Washington, UW Bothell, Video

Last month I produced several short videos to be screened at the University of Washington Bothell commencement ceremony. Since I was also filming at commencement, it was fun to watch my work shown in front of a packed Alaska Airlines Arena. Have a look below to learn a little bit about this year’s commencement speaker and the outstanding students that UW Bothell has.

 

2013 President’s Medal winner Eleanor Marsh:

 

 

2013 Emerging Leader Award winner Ty Edwards:

 

 

Introduction of commencement speaker Dr. Oscar Arias, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president of Costa Rica:

FxFactory Pro 4 Review

Gear, Multimedia, Tech stuff, Thoughts, Video

Noise Industries was kind enough to send me a copy of the new FxFactory Pro 4.0 for review, and it’s a great toolkit for the  video editor looking for relatively easy-to-use and affordable plugins that will make a video project stand out. In this brief FxFactory 4 Review, I’ll tell you a little bit about the platform, what it has to offer, and how to use it. It is a free update for current owners of previous versions of FxFactory Pro.

(FxFactory’s introduction video is below)

 

First off, it is packed full of features. FxFactory 4 contains a variety of plugins boasting more than 170 filters, transitions, and generators. New features with this update include support for Adobe Premiere, and of course it still works with Apple Final Cut Pro and Motion, as well as Adobe After Effects.

Using FxFactory Pro 4 is a breeze, as were previous versions, at least in my experience using Final Cut Pro X with FxFactory Pro. Once you install FxFactory Pro, simply open Final Cut Pro X and find the plugins automatically installed in the Effects Browser (Command + 5 will also open the Effects Browser). See below.

 

 

All of your new plugins will be categorized by the type of effect, so if you want to find a pattern or a sun flare image, just click the Generators icon in the Effects Browser and scroll through the multitude of options. Or if you want to experiment with some new transitions, just browse through the Transitions tab, etc.

Without going into detail about every single feature, I’ll highlight what’s new with this most recent update to FxFactory Pro 4.0. Photo Montage is a quick, slick way to animate photos for a slide show with various animation style choices. Motype 1.3 by Yanobox offers some cool title effects. Callouts 1.3 has a lot of nice animations for explaining ideas with text and clean line and dot animations. PHYX Cleaner 2.0 repairs footage to make it look crisp and clean. Split Animator 1.1 has several updates for its split screen features.

 

 

Overall, I think if you read this FxFactory 4 review you’ll know that I’m quite happy with the software. I think FxFactory is a great addition to Final Cut Pro X’s built-in features, and FxFactory 4 brings a lot of easy-to-use plugin features that will keep your projects looking sharp.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.

 

 

A Dose for Dominic – Documentary Short

Multimedia, My work, Other people's work, photojournalism, Published work, Video

Our short documentary film is a finalist in the 2013 International Documentary Challenge! Many thanks to director Ruth Gregory, producer Luke Ware, producer/DP Daniel Berman, and everyone else on the long list of credits. It was a great team to be a part of. Our film will premiere at the Hot Docs film festival in Toronto on April 30. Hope to see you there. We can’t share the film with you until after the premiere, but stay tuned!

Final Cup Pro X Plug-in Review: Rolling Credits

Gear, Multimedia, Tech stuff, Thoughts, Video

Rolling Credits by SUGARfx is a Final Cut Pro X plug-in that generates some really nice credits to add at the end of your film projects. In full disclosure, I recently tried out this plug-in for a new project I’m working on thanks to a free license from SUGARfx. In this Final Cut Pro X plug-in review, I’ll be telling you a few of the quick pros and cons about the plug-in so that you can decide whether or not you’d like to drop the $49 on a new FCPX plug-in, or just continue to create credits with the built-in generators that come with FCPX. (Read more Final Cut Pro X reviews here).

First off, I like Rolling Credits because the credits look sharp. Aside from price, user interface, etc., the credits simply look good. See below for more detailed pros and cons:

Pros:

  • 12 layouts offer a diversity of visual options.
  • Each layout is highly customizable, allowing for changes to motion, color, gradient, motion blur, etc.
  • As I mentioned, these Final Cut Pro X credits just look good.

Cons:

  • The interface is a little bit more complicated than it needs to be.
  • Importing your credits text also seems more complicated than it needs to be, although this may be the fault of Final Cut Pro X and its limitations. I have to type [TTL] before the title, for instance, which isn’t a huge pain, but seems a little bit old school for a 2012 version of a Final Cut Pro X plug-in.
  • For what you get as a user, I think a $29 price point would be a little better than the $49 sticker price.

 

 

 

Below is the video tutorial for the plug-in, produced by SUGARfx themselves:

Video: UW Bothell Commencement 2012

Multimedia, My work, Seattle, University of Washington, UW Bothell, Video


I filmed the University of Washington Bothell Commencement for the third year in a row and am really happy with the short film I was able to produce. This is always a massive event with lots of emotion, and as a UW Bothell graduate school alum myself, it’s always cool for me to see each new group of students graduate from this campus. Of course, the student body is growing so rapidly that commencement is now at Alaska Airlines Arena on the Seattle campus, and soon will be too large for even that venue …

 

New video: UW Bothell’s Admitted Freshmen Reception

Multimedia, My work, University of Washington, UW Bothell, Video

Another recent project that I produced for the University of Washington Bothell was a short wrap-up of a big annual event held for all of the new freshmen that have been admitted for the fall. Not all of them have chosen to accept their admittance yet, so the event is a chance for the prospective students to learn more about the campus, meet each other, and decide if UW Bothell is the place for them. It was a beautiful day and a fun event so have a look at the video above.

Video: The Burke Museum in Seattle

Multimedia, My work, Nature, Seattle, Sustainability, University of Washington, Video


 
Have a look at the latest of my video work – a short film produced for the Burke Museum in Seattle. The museum wanted something that represented the institution as a whole but was geared enough toward the curators that it would be appropriate to screen at the museum’s main yearly fundraising event, the Curators’ Dinner. This was really a fascinating piece to produce and I was lucky to be able to explore the museum and meet so many talented individuals.
 

 

Video Series: Student Award Winners

Multimedia, My work, Seattle, University of Washington, UW Bothell, Video

 

I recently produced a series of short videos about three outstanding graduating seniors at the University of Washington Bothell, each of whom was to receive a big award at the commencement ceremony. Jeb Pavleas and Chris McRae each won a Chancellor’s Medal and Chris Duong won the President’s Medal. They all have fascinating stories and are, of course, very very talented. For each student, after a short introduction on stage at the ceremony, my video was shown and the student was presented with their award. It was humbling to work with these three talented individuals and it was also cool to see my work on a big screen in front of thousands of people at the UW’s Alaska Airlines Arena on the Seattle campus. Have a look the the final pieces below:

 

Seattle’s Urban Forest – New Gallery

My work, photojournalism, Seattle, Still photography, Sustainability, Video

I’ve added a new gallery to the website, “A City’s Emerald,” which is a story about Seattle’s dying urban forest and the restoration efforts that aim to keep it alive. It’s an ongoing project, so check back soon for updates. A short film is also in the works. Click on the picture to see more.

Research shows a multitude of benefits that come along with trees in an urban setting – decreased crime, fewer auto accidents, slower and safer drivers, increased property values, cooler city temperatures, cleaner air, natural storm water runoff management, more birds … the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, invasive species such as ivy and blackberries are slowly killing the forest. Development of new building projects is also an obvious constant threat to urban trees. The dimmest projections show that almost none of the forest will be left this century if no action is taken. The good news is that the City of Seattle is taking an innovative approach to restoring the urban forest through the Green Seattle Partnership, which is a collaborative effort of public, non-profit, and private groups.