September 2010
1 post
Ghost hunting video in CT
If you have seen one spirit you have seen them all. Well, actually, we didn’t see any spirits but that doesn’t stop our clients from looking for them. Working with Veils Edge Paranormal, based in New Bedford MA, we have videod two locations in CT. The Hyland House Museum in Guilford and the Bee and Thistle Inn and Spa in Old Lyme CT. At the Hyland House Museum, built in 1690, the...
August 2010
1 post
1 tag
A Year-Long Project
The Trinity Episcopal Church (on the green in New Haven), is renowned for their choirs. Each choir sings most Sundays of the academic year at one of the morning services and in the wider community. The project goal was to create a comprehensive video of these two choirs to increase their scope of recruitment.
We began the project in the Fall of ‘07 videoing the holiday concerts, then the...
July 2010
1 post
1 tag
Spirits ... and I don't mean the ethonol varitety
Lately we seem to be getting more video gigs on spirit investigations. Or more commonly called “paranormal investigations”. These programs are prevalent on the TV and are conducted in the dark and made to look spooky. However that is not really the case. The investigators we video taped worked in normal light with their assortment of meters and detectors.
We have created a video of...
June 2010
1 post
1 tag
It happened in Old Saybrook CT ...
What a great Tom Rush concert at “The Kate” in Old Saybrook this past May. (Jonathon Moser is producing a documentary on Tom). It was a full house … great music … what’s not to love. Roberta got to watch the show from back stage, lucky her. I was invited to be part of the camera crew and was also back stage … but my eyeballs were glued to the camera view...
May 2010
1 post
1 tag
Who would have thought that ...
We would be producing a DVD about a Paranormal Investigation in New Bedford MA! Its not “Ghosts Busters” but it was the real thing. No we didn’t see any ghosts, other wise we still might be running. A team of investigators retained us to video their investigation of the Wamsutta Club which traces its roots back to 1821 when the house was built by James Arnold. We spent a day...
March 2010
3 posts
CS4 Premire Pro - Connecting an NTSC Monitor on...
When we had Premier Pro version 2, setting up a connection to our NTSC monitor was easy … Use the Matrox Parhilia card. Errr, no longer valid for CS4 Premier Pro. BUT reading through the Adobe forums, and doing some experimentation, I have found a solution … and for the nominal charge of nothing, I share the hard earned secrets of Al the tinkerer.
As you can see in the photo...
1 tag
A spooky video shoot?
We like variety in life … but to video a Paranormal Investigation? Hey, what’s not to like. Roberta and I set off for the Wamsutta Club in New Bedford MA. The house/mansion was built in 1821 by Jame Arnold of Providence RI. In 1866, after a series of owners, the building and grounds were turned into the Wamsutta Club. Thus, with the antiquity of the building, the Paranormal...
Questionable value of YouTube
I have read with interest the many articles mentioning how to get onto YouTube and similar video sharing web sites and the value of doing so. We have produced seven travel and documentary DVDs, and in our attempt to draw people to our web site to buy the DVDs, we have placed many short segments on YouTube and other video sharing web sites. We have our own web site with complete...
January 2009
2 posts
My new video workstation
I was going to wait until tomorrow to discuss the new video workstation I created. But, since I have time now, and who knows what tomorrow might bring, here it is. Apple - PC - Apple - PC … sheesh, that theme has been playing out in my mind for months as I tried to decide which platform to build. Since I needed to upgrade to CS4 and build a new workstation, the question was real. The PC...
1 tag
Thecus 5200 Network Attached Server
Okay, so I am getting ready for HiDef work. Step one is to improve my storage ability on the network. My two video workstations are on a gigabyte network which serves us quite well. I evaluated several NAS boxes and settled on the Thecus 5200. A bit more expensive than the others but it had 5 bays instead of 4 and a USB port where I could plug in some of my archival hard drives. I bought...
September 2008
1 post
1 tag
A documentary on Corfinio, Italy
I can’t believe I have been so lazy about keeping my Blog up to date. Shame on me. Well, I’ll skip right to the recent stuff which is a new documentary we are just starting.
THE BACKGROUND: My ancestral town of Corfinio Italy, in the Abruzzo region, is the location of an ancient capital (Corfinium - 90 B.C.) which was formed by the Italic tribes of central Italy to fight...
June 2007
4 posts
1 tag
Experiments with Google Earth
I have been playing with the Google Earth browser and how I could create .kmz and .kml files to show people who have bought our videos just exactly where the videos were taken. So our first experiment was to create a Google Earth tour of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento Sicily. This .kml file illustrates where we are going with this set of thoughts: Valley of Temples Tour. We also...
1 tag
Data rate versus video quality experiments
When we first started posting videos on the Internet, many moons ago, we loved Quicktime because it’s progressive downloads were of high quality and worked every time. At that time the other media players were just coming on line … slowly. But then, after a while, many people were asking for Microsoft media format uploads … thanks to MS marketing machine no doubt. So we...
1 tag
A night in a dark restaurant
We were recently asked to video a cooking demonstration, dinner and wine tasting being presented by a famous Italian Chef. While we shoot mostly out of doors, well not strictly since we have videoed churches, cathedrals and palaces in Italy, it would be interesting to shoot inside a small restaurant. A step to the left for us, but okay … let’s do it. First, like the good book...
In the beginning there was ...
Well, this being the first post and all … I judge it mandatory on my part to supply a little background as to why I’m writing … and perhaps provide insight as to why you might enjoy reading further. I am in my 7th decade of existence, and as one might expect, I have had a number of jobs and fiddled around a bit. My greatest joy has come since the Internet opened itself...