Reza Productions just posted on Vimeo the full short movie they shot last March with a bare-naked Canon HV30. In my opinion, it’s on the best top-5 of all the HV short films shot so far: it’s color graded well, light and photography is great, it’s cut pretty well, and the director was smart to setup his shots in a way that by zooming-in he would introduce some slight shallow depth of field. Shallow enough to make this short movie to look very “filmic”, as in “movie-like“. I am very impressed by the look he got out of his naked HV30. Download the 1080p HD version here.

This short movie proves that HV’s 1/2.7″ sensor & semi-fast lens are enough in most cases, if you know how to light & shoot properly. From all the gadgets I’ve bought over the last 2.5 years to feed my filmmaking hobby, the 35mm adapter was the most useless one. Except the initial test with it, after it arrived on my doorstep, I never used it to shoot anything. I wasn’t happy with the vignetting, the loss of resolution and stabilization, the bulkiness, the difficulty of actually shooting with it. Instead, I learned how to maximize my camera’s ability to achieve a shallow-enough-for-my-purposes DoF. Even a tiny bit of shallow DoF is enough to get rid of the “video look”. You don’t need massive amounts of it! The latest music video I shot has some pretty shallow DoF at times, and it’s shot with a bare HV20 too. Here are two snapshots from it:

I believe that most of the videographers who bought a 35mm adapter are misguided. Except maybe a handful of HV videos shot with a 35mm adapter on Vimeo (out of about 500 such videos watched so far), the majority are just shaky “tests”. Sure, there are situations that very shallow DoF looks better, but I am personally just not sold on it. There are more important things on a video than blurriness. And I am not willing to lose so much just to get blurriness. In fact, now that I have a 5D MarkII, I will do my best to keep shallow DoF under control.

Ingredients (for 2-3)
* 2 small cans of tuna
* 150 gr of noodles
* 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
* 1 can of ‘cream of mushroom’ soup
* 2/3 cup of frozen peas
* 1/3 cup chopped onion
* 1/2 cup low-fat milk
* 1/2 cup of bread crumbs

Execution
1. Cook the frozen peas and the noodles together, al dente (3-4 minutes less than what’s directed in the pasta package). Drain, and set aside. Preheat the oven at 400F.
2. On the stove, use a deep frying pan and pour the olive oil in it. Under medium heat lightly fry the onion in it. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon.
3. Add the cream of mushroom soup, milk, and stir until the mixture becomes smooth. Turn off the heat.
4. Pour the tuna can’s content into the mixture, and very gently stir 2-3 times. Add the noodles and frozen peas and stir gently again a few times.
5. Pour the whole thing into a baking dish. Spread the bread crumbs on top. Bake for ~30 minutes until the bread crumbs start to get golden brown, and there’s not a lot of liquid left in the dish. Serve hot.

Ingredients (for 2)

For the fish
* 2 fillets of tilapia (thawed)
* 1.5 cups of white flour
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup of olive oil
* 1/2 teaspoon of paprika
* Two wedges (1/4 each) of a lemon

For the rice
* 2/3 cups of Thai or Indian rice
* 1/3 cup of frozen peas
* 1 tablespoon of butter
* 1 teaspoon of turmeric
* The rest half of the lemon

Execution
1. On a pot, start boiling some water (3-4 cups) under high heat. Vigorously wash the rice with some cold water so its natural white powder substance goes away. Pour the rice into the boiling pot, along the turmeric.
2. Wash the fish with some cold water. Pour the flour on a clean surface, and coat the fish.
3. On a deeper dish, add the paprika and beat it well with the egg. Coat the fish fillets on both sides with the egg mixture, and then coat them again with the flour.
4. Bring the olive oil in a big frying pan under medium heat. When hot, add the fish and fry well on both sides for a few minutes. When done, remove them from the oil and let them rest and dry in kitchen paper towels.
5. Three-four minutes before the rice is done, add the frozen peas. When done, drain the rice/peas, and bring them back to the pot. Add the butter, and squeeze the half lemon too. Stir a few times under a medium heat, until most of the liquid is evaporated, and then remove from the stove.
6. Serve the rice and tilapia with wedges of lemon, and some toasted bread.

Last night, the new sci-fi show “V”, had a major dip in the ratings (from 13+ mil in the pilot, to 10.6 mil for the second episode). The only way from here is the bottom, just like any other genre show lately on TV: Dollhouse got canceled today too. FlashForward’s and Heroes’ ratings are a disaster too. Except Lost and BSG, no other genre shows have seen an actual return in their investment in the last few years, and a date for a natural, non-abrupt ending.

So what’s wrong with sci-fi shows? Why are bullshit like NCIS get over 16 million viewers, and genre shows hit rock bottom within few weeks of airing? Here are the reasons why, in my opinion:

1. The writers are buffoons

Except the two main LOST writers, I have been personally disappointed with all other writing teams on TV. None of these people have the vision, drive, and money to create an epic franchise of a show, rather than going to work 9-5, sitting behind a desk, and simply rehash whatever we’ve already seen on TV the last 60 years.

Add to that their scientifically weak plots, which drives the younger generations (who actually gone to college and they know that there’s no sound in space) away. Sci-Fi has to be “hard sci-fi” in this day and age. Having Flash Gordon-type bullshit doesn’t work anymore.

I think that the networks need to employ young writers. Just like Damon Lindelof was inspired by Twin Peaks and brought LOST a step further at 31 years old, the networks should find new writers, who have been inspired from *recent* shows, like LOST, and then try to innovate and bring their own shows one step further.

In other words, sci-fi writing must have innovation in the story telling method and plot, backed with hard sci-fi. And it has to be epic. Complex stories with many characters involved. Small stories about a small group of characters that no one cares about when there are bigger fish to fry (just like in V), just won’t work anymore.

2. Young people don’t watch much TV anymore

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Americans watch more TV than EVER before. Almost 5 hours a day (God help us, although I recently read that Greece is SECOND in that list!!!). But it’s the youngsters, the important 18-49 year old demographic that advertisers are after, that actually watch less. With the booming of the Internet, people spend a lot of their free time browsing (and not necessarily YouTube), rather than watching TV. And it’s that demographic that usually watches sci-fi shows.

3. Money

There’s a reason why LOST was so successful originally. Its 2-episode pilot cost in the excess of $14 mil, more than any other TV show before, or after. But the reality is, to create an epic show, with lots of characters and elaborate sets, you need money. Normal TV shows usually get between $1 and $3 million per episode to shoot, and unless you move to the cheaper Vancouver studios to shoot, or you only get uknown actors, your budget won’t be enough to create a truly great pilot to hook your viewers up. LOST hooked people mostly with its first 4 episodes for example.

4. No space ships

The last “space”-based sci-fi show on network TV was Firefly (BSG was on cable). That was 2003. Since then, we are fed with daytime-like soaps that happen to have sci-fi elements in them (e.g. the terribly dull Dollhouse). That’s just not enough to inspire the sci-fi crowd.

See, science fiction is mostly liked by people who try to look at the big picture, the future. They are idealists, visionaries. Therefore, offering them a soap with some sci-fi elements in it, just won’t work anymore.

5. People aren’t into sci-fi anymore

The truth is that NASA hasn’t exactly inspired people in the last 20 years. Their new spaceships look like ass, and are crammy as hell. All this make people not want to have lots to do with the whole space thing. Laugh it all you want, but it’s a factor. Why do you think Apple is selling like crazy?

This is my editing desk: a 2.4 Ghz Core2Duo DELL PC, 6 GB of RAM, an nVidia card, Vista 64 bit, with Sony Vegas Pro 9 32bit (for plugin/codec compatibility reasons), and two monitors. The 28″ one runs the main Vegas interface at 1920×1200, and the secondary 22″ one previews the actual video in 1:1 ratio size at 1920×1080 (so I can see all pixels as they truly are and edit/color-grade accordingly).

Click for a larger view

The video project loaded is a music video that I am working on for a Bay Area singer/songwriter. I used 18 tracks there. The look I chose for this video is a green-ish low-contrast look. I am hoping to have the video released by Sunday, after we re-shoot a few scenes on Saturday.

On the left side you can see my Canon HV20, 120 GB iPod, and my new smartphone, the HTC Hero. I still need to use better speakers with that PC system though. We have some very good high-quality Logitech speakers in storage, we just haven’t taken them out to connect them. So I am still editing with these $10 speakers (although most of the time I am using some very good headphones, so it doesn’t really matter much).

Here are some indie bands that I believe deserve more popularity. They make beautiful music, and at least 2-3 of them break new ground. Except for one of the following bands, I found out about them through their promotional free mp3s (Malbec, I found them through the Canon HV20 community). So I decided to return the favor and spread the love. If you like their music as I do, please buy their albums to support their work too.

Disclaimer: No songs are stored on this server, and no copyright infringement is intended. The sole purpose of this article is informational. I did my best possible to make sure that the songs linked are legal, stored on official artist/label/PR sites or on music/promotional sites that have the required distribution rights. If you represent one of the labels or artists found below and would like me to stop linking to your songs for some reason, please contact me.

* Cloud Cult
Description: One of the best bands of all time, in my opinion. On their latest record they play some very accessible… experimental music. It’s a fusion of classic, rock, folk, all in one. No one else makes music like this.
Mp3s:
- The Tornado Lessons
- Everybody here is a Cloud
- When Water Comes to Life
- Journey of the Featherless
- Lucky Today
- Take your medicine
- Chemicals Collide

* Longwave
Description: A great shoegazing band. They had a contract with a major, they lost it for not selling well, and then they release independently their best album ever. Each and every song on their latest album could be a huge hit if it had the right backing.
Mp3s:
- Secrets are Sinister
- No Direction
- Theres a Fire
- Everywhere You Turn

* Portugal. The Man
Description: An Alaskan band that moved to Portland to hunt their musical dreams. Through the years they went through various experimentation stages and they often introduced brand new takes on existing genres. This is a band that can hop between genres without effort. I highly recommend you buy “The Devil”, and “How the Leopard Got Its Spots” tracks btw.
Mp3s:
- Shade
- People Say
- AKA M80 the Wolf
- And I
- Out and In and In and Out
- The Sun
- The Woods
- Ruby Magic
- Sapphire Magic

* Living Things
Description: Now, this is real rock! Hard, provocative, entertaining. You will love all three of the tracks! Their singer is my kind of guy: he says it like it is.
Mp3s:
- Oxygen
- Mercedes Marxist
- Let It Rain

* Malbec
Description: An LA band with a beautiful and very accessible electro-pop/rock sound. Their music videos (that they shoot by themselves) are wicked too!
Mp3s: (16 songs)
- The Answering Machine, EP1
- The Answering Machine, EP2
- The Answering Machine, EP3
- The Answering Machine, EP4
- The Answering Machine, EP5

* Loquat
Description: Beautiful indie pop/rock from the Bay Area. “Swingset chain” is one of my all-time favorite songs. The version linked below is not the one that ended up on their album though (the album version is a bit nicer).
Mp3s:
- Swingset Chain
- Harder Hit

* The Rosebuds
Description: Another indie pop/rock band (a husband and wife). Very atmospheric, amazing melodies.
Mp3s:
- Leaves Do Fall
- Life Like
- Get Up Get Out
- Blue Bird
- Kicks In The Schoolyard

* Wiretree
Description: Indie pop/rock with a very distinctive guitar sound. Their “Big Coat” song linked below is one of my favorite songs ever.
Mp3s:
- Big Coat
- Back in Town
- Satellite Song

* Glint
Description: A relatively young NY band with easy-listening pop/rock. Good ratio of good songs on each of their albums/EPs.
Mp3s:
- Freak

* The Rural Alberta Advantage
Description: A very nice indie folk/rock Canadian band.
Mp3s:
- Frank Ab
- Don’t Haunt This Place

* Sin Fang Bous
Description: A very interesting experimental folk singer from Iceland. I suggest you buy the “Melt Down the Knives” track from his first album, excellent track.
Mp3s:
- Catch The Light

* Black Gold
Description: A new indie pop/rock band from Brooklyn. Their latest album, “Rush”, is well worth listening to.
Mp3s:
- Detroit

Red Giant Software released yesterday a Vegas version of their brand new product, Magic Bullet Mojo. Mojo is a simpler version of Magic Bullet that only has one goal: to make your footage look like the Hollywood movies of the last few years: teal-looking, but by preserving the skin color (which can be a tricky thing to achieve without this plugin). I tried the demo, and it indeed does what it promises. The algorithm they use to auto-figure-out where the human face is in the frame, and preserve that color, works great. You can use the plugin’s UI to bleach or warm your video, punch it, change the color tint from green to teal to blue, select the way the algorithm finds the face in the frame, and finally, how much you want these settings blended with the original, ungraded look.

Talent is Dave Tsui, from the Bay Area band HIJK

The only problem I encountered is that the “mojo” slider punches up contrast and/or gamma (even with “bleach”/”punch” all the way down). I would prefer to contrast/gamma my video separately if required, with the use of another plugin, and only use Mojo for its teal/skin abilities. Finally, on Vegas, we are used to double-click the UI’s slider buttons to get them to jump back to their default values, but this doesn’t happen with the Mojo UI.

Update: One more example. Except the unwanted dark gamma change that I can’t get rid of with Mojo, the rest of the tint is as it’s supposed to be. I know that to some of you it looks weird and that the original picture looks more natural, but the point of Hollywood movies — that Mojo emulates — is to not be natural.

Litl’s super-secret product, the Webbook, that the company was working for 2 years now, was announced yesterday. It’s a netbook-style laptop, with a TV-like presentation mode when in “easel mode”, HDMI TV-out, and custom user interface — where the web browser is the interface. A lot of the information is stored in the cloud, and the laptop auto-maintains itself at night when not in use. It’s using Linux underneath, with some highly-modified Gnome technologies on top. More info and videos from here.

The reason I originally got interested about it last night was because it kind of reminded me Be’s “internet appliance” touch tablets back in 2001 which were running the BeIA operating system (based on the BeOS). Kind of reminded me that romantic era in terms of operating systems and new emerging technologies and whatnot.

Then, after the 2 minutes of day dreaming, I flash-forwarded myself back to 2009. And I realized what a stupid idea this is.

From the get go, the Webbook is simply over-priced at $699. It has no additional hardware that a $300 netbook doesn’t already have, and I am willing to pay an extra $100 for the special software that did cost money to develop. But 700 bucks? No freaking way. Especially for a non-touchscreen device like this (touchscreen that you would expect in this day and age), this is an overpriced item. Given the kind of homes shown in the marketing pictures on their web site, this feels like it’s geared towards the kids and grandmas of filthy rich people who try novelties like this for the fun of it (“oh honey, daddy can’t be in your birthday party tomorrow, he’s got work to do [see: whoring in Vegas]. But I bought for you a lovely present, your friends will be so jealous of your new toy computer!“).

Then, you will have to think about how *useful* this computer is. Interestingly, not much. It does WAY LESS than what an iPhone can do for once (both in terms of third party apps and basic functionality). And at least in the Bay Area (which is where most of the potential rich suckers for the Webbook live), everyone and their dog has a freaking iPhone (in fact, yesterday at Google’s headquarters I saw a lot of people using an iPhone, even if Google gave a free Android phone to all of its employees last year). And then there’s the AppleTV for the HD TV-out abilities, and even the PS3 and XBoX360 can show movies and pictures. Not good enough? Think that a REGULAR netbook, one that costs $300, can do everything that the Webbook can, and then some! In other words, the functionality offered by the Webbook is commoditized today, and easy to come by with cheap — or better understood — alternatives.

The only thing that the Webbook has for it, is its “easy to use” custom interface, but I think that custom interfaces that don’t offer a real (non-HTML) platform underneath for developers to really tap in, can simply not sustain themselves in the big picture. And heck, what is wrong with LiTL not offering a 3G connection? I mean, these devices are home-bound without a 3G connection, and given that they use the cloud so much (much more so than normal computers), it makes them utterly useless when wanting to take them with you. Or are we to believe that this webbook is supposed to be home-bound, and act as a middle ground between your stationary normal PC and your mobile cellphone? Because honestly, I don’t think there’s a market for that since a regular laptop can do most of that. And if not, Apple’s upcoming tablet will, in 3 months time.

So basically, my opinion is that LiTL has spent money on a product that simply can’t sustain itself. It couldn’t in 2001, and it can’t in 2009. Maybe if the netbook explosion hadn’t had happen 1.5 years ago, maybe — just maybe — there was some glimpse of hope for the Webbook. But the way things are now, it’s a lost endeavor. And it’s sad really. Especially for the engineers who worked on the software of this device.

And don’t get me started about that remote control (optional addon). Instead of really breaking new technological ground and creating a system like Natal (or at least a Bluetooth-based battery-powered touchpad device), users have to use that butt-ugly right-out-of-the-’60s remote control with its cumbersome “I am feeling blue” wheel-button. I honestly don’t know what the hell these people were thinking.

We watched the remake of “V” tonight on ABC. I’ve only watched bits and pieces from the original TV series, but this is besides the point, since this is supposed to be a full reboot of the show.

So basically, “V” is mediocre at best.

The problem is that the episode felt rushed and disconnected. It felt like a 2 hour pilot, cut into 1 hour. Things just go too fast and we don’t have the time to really see the reactions of the world on this new major situation.

Adding to that is the unbelievable behavior of people towards the aliens. When the original message off of the spaceship is done, everyone claps their hands and welcomes the new world order. If that was a real life scenario, people would just panic and loot everything in front of them. No one in their right mind would believe that message of peace. Or when that anti-V terrorist finds out that his old friend is actually alien he seems to accept it and go on by his business instead of showing even a small shred of disapproval.

And, oh, did I say “aliens”? Sorry about that. It’s “Vs” (pronounced vees), or “Visitors”. No one is calling them what they really are, aliens that is. Apparently ABC had a problem making it an alien show, of fear of alienating housewives (get it?).

Finally, there was very little mystery left in the series after the first 45 minutes. Two guys already getting revealed as aliens instead of one of them, or none. The show feels like it’s a cold-told tale of things happening to a few people we care nothing about rather than adding mystery, and making it a high-impact plot to the whole of the planet (we need to SEE it rather than just brush it off like nothing happened and accept the new world order out of thin air). Where is the UN and US government and military of the world in all this? UN got referenced but we see nothing that went on in that building.

Overall, just like “Flash Forward”, and “Heroes” before that, “V” is a good idea with a bad implementation. I don’t understand how some people can screw up a production so much. I wonder if the only talented TV writers left in the world are Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. At least these two guys can only screw up romantic plots, but when it comes to action/mystery/thrill, they know their shit.

Update: New York Times’ review got it right too.