Jon - REAP Media

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Jon,
on February 29, 2012 -
Educational
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Creating Slow Motion Effects in Post Production

Slow motion video is cool, there’s no doubting that. But slow motion cameras are often prohibitively expensive, even to rent.

High frame-rate cameras designed specifically for playing back images in slow motion, like the Phantom Flex camera featured below, can cost upwards of $150,000

So what’s a budding young cinematographer to do?

As it turns out, there are some neat ways to create the effect of slow motion footage in post production. Twixtor, a third party software pluggin for Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro, is one option; however, if you have a camera that shoots even 60 frames per second, you’ll be able to do a fair bit using included Final Cut Studio applications such as Motion and Cinema Tools.

As part of our on-going guide to DSLR cinematography, I’ll be making a couple of video tutorials on some of these techniques sometime in the coming weeks.

For now though, here’s a video I did last year with my friend Flavius (a true athlete) from the University of Waterloo’s parkour club. All of the slow motion effects demonstrated in this experimental video were made using footage from the Canon T2i, a DSLR camera retailing at about $600 (a far cry from $150,000).

Stay tuned!

by
Jon,
on February 14, 2012 -
Educational
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1 comment

Jon’s DSLR Video Guide – Part 6: Shutter Speed & FPS

Part 6 of an ongoing series of short tutorials covering the basics of shooting HD video with DSLR cameras.

Part 6 considers shutter speed and frames per second; how they differ, how they relate, and how to use them to get the amount of motion blur/sharpness you’re looking for.

Be sure to also check out:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Lens Assembly
Part 3: On/off & Recording in Movie Mode
Part 4: Focal Length & Prime VS Zoom>
Part 5: Perspective

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Jon,
on February 1, 2012 -
Educational
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Jon’s DSLR Video Guide – Part 5: Perspective

Part 5 of an ongoing series of short tutorials covering the basics of shooting HD video with DSLR cameras.

Part 5 looks at perspective, and demonstrates how it can be used to get different shots without moving your subject or background.

Be sure to also check out:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Lens Assembly
Part 3: On/off & Recording in Movie Mode
Part 4: Focal Length & Prime VS Zoom>

by
Jon,
on February 1, 2012 -
Behind the Scenes
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The new Mac is here!

We’ve upgraded our editing suite!

Our latest edition is a 27″ iMac running with an Intel 3.4GHz Quad-Core i7 processor, a 256GB internal solid state drive, a second internal 2TB serial ATA drive, 2GB of dedicated GDDR5 video memory, 16 GB of random access memory, and a second cinema display unit.

Best of all, we’ve set up a Pegasus 12TB R6 RAID System with a Thunderbolt connection.

So far everything runs like a dream!

by
Jon,
on January 27, 2012 -
Educational
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Jon’s DLSR Video Guide – Part 4: Focal Length & Prime VS Zoom

Part 4 of an ongoing series of short tutorial videos covering the basics of shooting with DSLR cameras.

Part 4 explains focal length as well as the differences between prime and zoom lenses.

Also check out:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Lens Assembly
Part 3: On/off & Recording in Movie Mode

by
Jon,
on January 25, 2012 -
Behind the Scenes
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1 comment

Helicopter Shoot for Seguin Valley Golf Club

This past August, Andrew and I had the opportunity to work with Seguin Valley Golf Club and Central Helicopters, both based out of Parry Sound Ontario.

We produced 2 sets of aerial flyovers (one low, one high) for the entire 18 hole golf course (check out Seguin Valley’s YouTube Channel to see them). The idea was to give people viewing Seguin Valley’s website a chance to preview each hole on the course.

We also made a brief promo video, which can be seen in Our Work section of reap-media.com.

Here’s a quick little behind-the-scenes segment from our day at Seguin Valley Golf:

by
Jon,
on January 24, 2012 -
Educational
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Jon’s DSLR Video Guide – Part 3: On/Off & Recording in Movie Mode

Part 3 of an ongoing series of short tutorials covering the basics of shooting video with DSLR cameras.

This segment covers basic functions like power and movie recording with the Canon T2i.

Also check out:

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Lens Assembly

by
Jon,
on January 20, 2012 -
Behind the Scenes
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Go Home & Dream by Trap Tiger

Last year, Tallen and I were introduced to the talented boys of Trap Tiger.

Together, we took an ultra-low budget (guitarist Kevin Suess paid 1$ for a garbage basket which he then transformed into a head made of leaves) and made a music video for their song “Go Home & Dream”.

The video won the People’s Choice Award for Best Music Video at last year’s Local Focus 4 Film Festival in Kitchener, Ontario.

Many thanks are owed to Matt Paterson, for being the Man behind the leaves (a role that often required running full-speed down neighbourhood streets without being able to see) as well as to the rest of Trap Tiger – Ryan Dugal, Andre Furlong, and Ceilidh Shipley.

But a special thanks is owed to Kevin Suess for approaching us with a unique and insightful idea, and then letting us share in its realization.

As the band get’s ready to record their latest album since “Twisted Shapes” talks are already underway as to what sort of collaboration we can bang out next!

For more info on Trap Tiger visit:

www.traptiger.com
www.myspace.com/traptiger
www.youtube.com/traptiger
www.last.fm/music/Trap+Tiger

Update: It’s also worth mentioning (and giving proper thanks to) Buckley from youtube account: dolt009 for making his Australian homage to Go Home & Dream!