Legend of the Guardians TV Spot 1

Legend of the Guardians TV Spot 2

Legend of the Guardians TV Spot 3

A quick review video I shot/edited for Kevin Rose

An artsy photo of my desk @ home.

San Francisco from Above. Taken with my iPhone on a recent flight out of SFO to Las Vegas.

I discovered the music of Jónsi about a month ago, and since I was so inspired by his newest album “Go”, I decided that I definitely wanted to see him perform live. I had my chance last Thursday in Berkeley.

I was mainly there for the music. I had no idea what to expect in terms of the production. I had no idea what I was in for.

What I saw that night was easily one of the most amazing visual experiences of my life. I left inspired by all the unique ways they weaved in lighting, music, and multimedia into their show.

To get an idea of how amazing this concert was, check out the video above, it’s a behind-the-scenes look at the concepts and artistic design that went into the visual aspects of the concert and highlights the company that made it all possible: 59 Productions. I will post more of these as I can find them. It’s an incredibly interesting look into some really cutting-edge production design.

I went on AppJudgement to demo the iPhone 4.0 beta firmware. Check it out!

The best show on television starts its 6th Season tomorrow night at 9pm on Discovery. Deadliest Catch, Baby!

New York, New York, Las Vegas

One of the first videos I ever edited was a video for the Blue Angels when they came to my town while I was a freshman in high school. So with this segment that I put together for The Totally Rad show this week, my life comes full circle. Major props to Glenn McElhose for the awesome camerawork. Enjoy!

Written and Directed by: Zac Minor
Edited by: Graham Hancock

It was the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard in my life, and I grew up in the Southeast!

I’ve already had such an amazing time out here for the past month, but to have my Summer officially kicked off by seeing Gavin Rossdale perform live from what was essentially the front row, will be something that I will never forget, and something that I will probably never be able to top. Bush was (and still is) my #1 all-time favorite band, and the CD’s Sixteen Stone & Razorblade Suitcase are still my favorite albums of all time. But what made this concert extra special is that, even though Bush is history, Gavin Rossdale’s new touring group knows exactly what the audience wants.

Gavin walked out on stage to the heavily vocoded song, This Place Is On Fire from his solo CD “Wanderlust, playing over the speakers, but then interrupted it with the screaming opening riff from Machinehead! Wow! I had expected him to play a few old school Bush songs, but as the concert continued, he mixed in songs from his solo CD, his side-project band Institute, and several more Bush songs that I have always wanted to see him perform live.

The set list (as best I can remember it):

This Place Is On Fire
Machine Head (Bush)
Boom Box (Institute)
Front Line
The Chemicals Between Us (Bush)
Everything Zen (Bush)
The Trouble I’m In
Landslide (Fleetwood Mac Cover)
This Is Happiness
Love Remains The Same
The People That We Love (Bush)
Comedown (Bush)

All in all, hands down the best concert experience I’ve ever had. I’m still trying to process it, really. I never thought I’d get to see “Bush” perform live, and honestly this was close enough. To me, Gavin Rossdale is Bush, and I’ve been a fan of everything he’s done since.

Be sure to check out a few more of my pics from “Summerthing” below in the Flickr Slideshow. Be sure to full screen it for the best quality!

• @pom5 said: Chumbawumba. First cd I ever bought, still love it.
• @danielwhicks said: I have to say, august and everything after by the counting crows is the best and most timeless album of my childhood!
• @vanessa_ramirez said: Wallflowers Bringing Down The Horse
• @weezer17 said: weezer blue album. Green day dookie. Jimmy eat world clarity
• @ashleymgardner said: nickel creek “why should the fire die?” i can listen to it over and over and still love it.
• @wlfwrose said: Dire Straits “Brothers in Arms” 23 years later and it’s still perfect. Great musicians and masterful engineering.
• @rand21althor said: Simon & Garfunkel’s “Wednesday Morning, 3AM”, Billy Joel’s “The Stranger”, The Beatles’ “Abbey Road”, to name a few. :-D
• @PeterChristian said: Pearl Jam’s “Ten” and Third Eye Blind’s self-titled debut round out my top three. Good question!

I spent the weekend at my apartment in Starkville since my podcasting studio is located on the second floor of my palatial estate and we were overdue for another 10th Wonder Podcast. I was about two hours into editing the podcast when I started noticing an ominous smell: burning electronics.

This smell is usually a tell-tale sign that I’ve done something stupid, but to my knowledge I hadn’t experimented with voltages much lately so I peeled off my headphones and started to investigate. I checked around our studio but I couldn’t pinpoint the source. When I opened the door to my staircase the smell was much stronger.

The further I walked down the stairs, the stronger the smell became. When I turned the corner to my living room I could tell there was a thin haze of white smoke in the air. Something was definitely wrong.

All of the electronics in my living room are conveniently located close to my TV: The TiVo, Xbox 360, PS3, and the surround sound unit all turned on and were functional. I tried the TV and it worked fine, too. Where was the smoke coming from? It took me five more minutes, but I finally stood back and kept a close eye on the area and then I finally noticed a puff of more white smoke coming up from behind the surround sound unit underneath my television. I quickly unplugged it and yanked it out of its place.

It’s a super scary experience to walk into a room full of smoke and not know where it’s coming from. My guess is that the onboard fan on the sound unit died and the thing just started overheating. Glad I was there to stop it from melting down any further but the whole experience rattled my nerves, that’s for sure.

I sent in my resume in January, and this past week I flew to San Francisco for an interview. While I was there I was told that they had accepted me and that I’ll be a Revision3 edit intern this summer. I’ll be helping assemble some of the shows or basically helping out wherever I’m needed. It’s pretty fulfilling to set your heart on something, do the work, and achieve that goal.

Quite the opposite really, ever since the advent of the compact fluorescent bulbs, (You know, the funny looking ones that save you $50 in energy bills over 6 years!) certain types of fluorescent light are actually perfect for video, and here’s the kicker for young filmmakers and freelance video enthusiasts everywhere: It’s cheap!

Head out to your local Wal-Mart or home improvement store and pick up some of those compact fluorescent bulbs. But wait! There’s one thing you need to be careful about when buying: Look for the ones that are daylight-calibrated. Not the soft white ones. This is where color temperature comes into play.

It’s not bad. It’s just misunderstood.

Fluorescents (especially in the past) have had a bad rep with video because their inconsistent color temperatures and erratic pulsing lighting curves wreaked havoc on the white balance algorithms in most cameras. This is because most fluorescent lights are of the cool white/soft white variety. The cool white fluorescents are missing parts of the color spectrum, so you’ll tend to see the colors fluctuate in your video even after you’ve white balanced your shot.

But with daylight-calibrated fluorescent lights, you’re working with light that has been calibrated to the same color temperature of outdoor lighting conditions. Cameras like the Panasonic DVX-100 have a white balance preset called 5.6K which is approximately the color temperature of light from the Sun. So when you use the daylight-calibrated fluorescents, the camera adjusts itself to the color temperature and reproduces the colors of your subject with great results. For all other cameras, a manual white balance underneath the daylight-calibrated fluorescent lights will work just fine.

Looking for a great setup?

For those who are seriously considering getting some video lighting equipment, but don’t want to break the bank can check out Lowel’s very generous collection of fluorescent lighting systems. (http://www.lowel.com/systemsFluorescent.html) I’ve already ordered a kit and I expect it to be in on time for a shoot this weekend. I’ll report back on how the lights perform