#40, W Cliff Rd, US Video Is Out

Phalaenopsis Orchid, Santa Clara, California, September ‘07, artistic view.

I managed to release my latest video filmed mostly in Santa Cruz, California. Everything in that video comes from a West Cliff Rd, hence the title, but I expanded it to something broader. And added a little bit of dream quality through color changes. I was cruising up and down the street, filming everything that looked interesting, and then edited the best pieces I could. The filming part is the least time consuming part and most pleasant at the same time. Editing takes much more time, many, many hours. The longest one is writing the music, however, at least several days. It sounds good in stereo, as it is mixed for stereo, but ended up only in mono – not exactly sure why that happened since I did everything to make it sound stereo. The first part of the composed piece is a piano solo, Steinway D to be exact. The second and the third parts just add more instruments but play the same melody. I limited the number of instruments here to: Steinway D piano, Stradivari violin, cello, vertical bass, double bass, string section, and timpani to close it. Not too many but the sound is already getting quite rich. There is a definite need to post my music separately in its highest quality, but this site does not let you do it easily. This becomes more and more urgent. Writing for the piano is indeed the most challenging part of all.
I think I am going to write something for Spanish guitar, finished Celino Romero’s book and listened to the CD, and liked it a lot. Why not give it a try.
Comments do not seem to be working on YouTube very well; the whole site is full of new problems.
What next? Lots of filming, lots of tape, lots of natural sounds, lots of battery recharging, but a little bit of break from editing, and submitting videos.

Lunch: cooked mixed grains of rice, buckwheat, millet, and sorghum with Marie Callender’s marinara sauce and La Mexicana mild salsa. Mint tea to drink, hot not iced. Almost no fat, just pure goodness!

Book: Celino Romero, The Art of Spanish Guitar, Amsco Publications, http://www.musicsales.com, with CD, ISBN-10: 0-8256-3461-X.

#13, Nice Round Number, I Suppose

One Day I Am Gonna Bite You, San Francisco, California, August ‘07, artistic view.

Released Beach Birds yesterday. This has been around for a while since was initially planned as a collaboration video. However, two days ago a quick decision was made to go ahead with a standard music, such that I could release it now. Some other video in the future is likely to go back to the collaboration attempt. Spent about two or three afternoons on US1, at the Pacific Coast, getting plenty of footage. After initial edits, there were over seven minutes of rather good video, but it was reduced to three minutes because of available music. Trying to write a seven minute piece of music versus a three minute piece is a rather major time involvement. Used some of the original sounds from the scenes, if they blended well with the composed music. There are only ten instruments used here, a smaller orchestra. Again a smaller, because adding several more instruments would require spending several more days on orchestration. I believe this is the very first time that a flute was used in my video music, and it sounds great! So far I was more inclined toward a clarinet but the flute may have an edge in some cases. Just in case, used both in the video music. No doubt, the next video is going to use even more flute.
Reached a milestone of some sort on YouTube, 10000 views of my videos. It is not a high number, do not get me wrong, after seven months only 10000 views. Still short of that tiny 100 subscriber goal, at least for a while. Never imagined how slow things can be on YouTube! Never before starting to make videos this would cross my mind! It is vlogging or bust, I will take the second.
Have you noticed that the number of people celebrating milestones on YouTube is down quite a bit? People used to celebrate much more, now less, my guess it got old.
Views after Thanksgiving are down, roughly by half. That is a very major slowdown, hopefully the trend reverses in January ’08.
Started to use Photoshop to add some artistry to the videos, you see it in the final shot with the video title, this trend is likely to continue since it brings something new.
Discovered that Canon’s advertised HDV 1920x1080i pixel format is more like 1440x1080!
This causes problems when you try to process frames in Photoshop, for example.
The horizontal pixels are stretched by a factor of 1.333, and a clever advertising gimmick is used to push cameras into videomakers hands! It takes a while to figure this one out, especially that you would not expect this to be happening in the first place. Is Sony doing the same? Anybody knows?
YouTube partner’s program seems to be going down the drain, as it should, since it was the worst thing that ever happened to YouTube!

#9, Slow Time, More Music and Edits

Beach Lights, Pacific Coast, California, November '07, artistic view.

After Thanksgiving things became somewhat slower, not much is happening. Days are much shorter, at 5:00 pm the Sun is gone. There is little time to shoot videos outside, and I basically shoot all of my videos outside, at the beach or very close to the Pacific Ocean. This is were I live and this is where most of my videos usually come from, except when I go on a short vacation somewhere else and manage to take my most essential video equipment with me. Should I start to vlog? This crosses my mind from time to time, and usually I put it to rest for some time. I can write a blog in 5-10 minutes, but need 2-3 days to edit a video with more or less same information. So the blog wins for now as far as time saving goes.
I am editing two videos, and writing a music piece for the second one. Since I can seldom write something in less than a week, you see why I cannot release videos faster than one per week.
Hope you stick with this blog, and I promise to get better once I figure out how it really works. Do you like my pictures? Do you see the Moon in the picture above?

#8, Beach Time is Released

Sunset at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, October '07, artistic view.

Just released my latest YouTube video Beach Time, a 2:56 HDV masterpiece shot on Oahu, Hawaii. When you drive around the Oahu island, either clockwise or counterclockwise, you will undoubtedly stop at several beaches, and other interesting places as well. When I stop, I go for a swim first, then spend some time doing nothing, and then pull my camera and start shooting whatever seems interesting at that time, no script, no preparation. Actually that is not exactly true, since before I leave the hotel, I usually look at the Oahu maps for good 20 minutes during breakfast trying to figure out which way to go for that day. Once I decide, and check if batteries are charged, and if there is at least one extra miniDV tape in my camera bag, then I go. A short drive and you are at the first beach. What do you do, do you shoot, do you swim, do you work on your suntan? Very tough choices, you must agree. After the first stop, you go to another place, and everything is more or less repeated. Pretty slowly, in no hurry whatsoever. There are plenty places to stop and look around, or grab a bite. Then the evening comes and the camera gives only grainy, noisy images, time to go back to your hotel. Tomorrow, another day very similar to today.
Have to say a word about the music. I wrote it, it took me almost a week. This time I decided to go for a simpler version with just a few instruments. Tried to keep it warm, just as I remember being there and shooting all those warm scenes. Hope you like it.

Listening to: Celine Dion's Taking Chances CD and watching her DVD in the evening.