The Sunday before Labor day….the challenge was to capture a beautiful, sunny day in Virginia Beach.
Two cameras, two viewpoints, and a day in the sun.
Shot with a Nikon D7000 & Nikon D5100.
- Len and Christian Incognito
Music By:
Ray Canaria
Notes:
For Labor day weekend, my Dad and I went down to Virginia Beach to visit my Grandparents. I wanted to make a short video with my Dad and this idea came to mind. The idea behind “A Day in the Sun” was that we both shoot around 15 minutes of footage with “The Beach” as our subject. We didn’t follow each other and we tried to get different footage however, there is only so much you can get at the beach. As you can see, we did capture some of the same elements.
After the day was over we imported our footage and edited our pieces into separate 2 minute reels. We didn’t see each others edits and both did ours away from each other. Then, after rendering down our videos, I imported both of our pieces and edited them so they played side-by-side. I turned down the volume and called Ray to make a music track over the piece.
The two viewpoints are two separate works of art, but together create one collective piece.
I really like how it turned out and the music really rounds out and completes the piece. I hope you enjoy it.
Also I asked Ray to write a little paragraph about his music. Here is what he had to say….
A Note on the Music:
A great composer runs on inspiration when envisioning musical art… I am no great composer so I run on inspiration alone. The consistency of the piano riff in the background reflects the “big picture” or for right now, the present. We are always constantly moving and so is everything around us. There are four different instruments that have it’s own solo during the song and these four represent the different kinds of people that we know and don’t know. Two instruments were inspired by the short movie alone. The horns were played because of the speakers on the beach and the guitar solo was influenced by the rock band. All four sound different and are played different just as how all people aren’t the same. Each instrument does not play the same melody just as how people live their lives individually. And since there are two different screens, you might miss something but it keeps going just like how the heavy beat keeps playing.
This is a collage of things I recorded with my DSLR and FLIP. I was about to delete all these clips but made this instead. Fun.
Music by: Ray Canaria
Notes:
On my computer, I was looking at footage that I haven’t touched and saw I had all these video files. Some are from my FLIP video camera and some are from my Nikon D5100.
I was about to delete them but decided I haven’t made a YouTube video in awhile AND I might as well put these memories up instead of trashing them. I recorded all this footage……might as well use it for something. So this idea of a collage was born.
I shot the longboarding footage at Sherrill Drive back in June 26th. [That’s the oldest footage in this collage.] The Molly Malone’s and Adams Morgan footage is also old but I am not sure if that predates the others……huh
Anyways, I also had some day shoots with my boss on the C&O Canal, Rehoboth Bay, Dewey Beach, and Annapolis. I brought my own camera along and got to capture a couple random shots. The weekend of August 19th I went up to Ocean City for a surprise birthday celebration for Tony’s 23rd. I brought my FLIP camera and recorded a little up there. That footage was us celebrating at the house and a little bit at Seacrets.
I want to also thank Ray for making the music track to this collage. He made it months ago for a quick short I wanted to do titled, “Smile” - but I never got to shoot it. I still asked him if I could get the track (which was now on his old laptop) and use it for this project. He sent it over and I laid it over the video. It works well. Thanks again man.
That’s about it. Here is my first collage video.
PS - Another little video project coming out later this week!
My Grandparents had their 50th Anniversary last year. A couple weeks ago I was able to get my hands on the footage my Uncle took. Here is a short video of them renewing their vows. Enjoy.
Music: Train - Marry Me
Notes:
My Grandparents are an AMAZING exception to the majority of the marriages out there. One, they are not divorced; and two, they made it to 50 years of being together!
To be honest, while editing this video I got a little choked up. Not only because my Tito Rey (He walked my Grandma down the aisle in the beginning) passed away but also because it’s an amazing thing to watch a couple renew their vows after 50 years….
Ok enough sappy stuff, I got a hold of this footage a couple weeks ago from my Uncle. I have been going through it on and off (a total of 2 hours and 10 minutes of footage) and finally narrowed it down to these select clips.
I took away the sound for the majority of the video and just let the song play out. I let the sound come back just a little for the vows and at the end when my Grandparents were walking back up the aisle and everyone was clapping. I also did some color correcting because the footage was pretty yellow. Over all I think it flows pretty well.
Also I did have a lot of footage from the reception to work with but I thought highlighting the actual ceremony would be better. I really like how it turned out.
Hula Heist: The 48 Hour Film Project - Baltimore, 2011:
My first time doing the 48 Hour Film Project: Baltimore, 2011.
Genre: Detective/Cop
Requirements: Character: Wayne or Wanda Hooper, Collector Prop: A Hula Hoop Line of Dialog: “That’s not how I would’ve handled it”
Cast & Crew: Joseph Maher Daryl Jacob Martin Colbert Christian Incognito Christa Lomuntad Thuy Tran Sam Janesko Mark Valle Ian Jurlano
Notes:
For a while I have been wanting to do The 48 Hour Film Project. However, when they came to Washington, D.C. I didn’t have the equipment or the team to go into it.
A couple months later, my friend Daryl emailed me and said that it was coming to Baltimore. He wanted to put together a team and I told him I was in.
The competition started on Friday, June 10th and the film had to be completed and handed in by 7pm on June 12th.
The way we handled everything was Friday night we put together the story and the script. We completed it by Saturday morning and by that afternoon, around 11, we started shooting. We only really shot in two locations. The first was in Joe Maher’s house (Hansel in the beginning of the film) and the second was at UMBC.
Shooting took until late Saturday night and then we used all of Sunday (Sam woke up at 4 am to start) was dedicated to editing. We finished by 5 pm and then traveled back to Baltimore to hand it in by 7.
It was an amazing experience and I can’t wait to do another one. Enjoy.
I didn’t level the audio and this footage isn’t color corrected, so it’s going to be very yellow compared to the finished product. All together I took 47 minutes and 49 seconds of footage and narrowed it down to 1 minute for the final. It took hours to go through, to categorize, and to edit but it was worth it; plus I had a lot of fun looking through all the takes. Here is 6 minutes and 18 seconds of some outtakes and behind the scenes.
I wrote this poem about a month ago. I finally filmed it.
Here it is:
All I need is my voice to be happy To make me believe in myself To see things that I can’t even imagine To learn how to live To learn how to love To learn how to be
My voice speaks verses It’s the melody in your favorite song It echos through the night It keeps me awake It helps me sleep It warms me when I am cold
My voice is strong My voice is meek My voice thunders from the rooftops proclaiming love My voice shouts into pillows out of anger My voice is a part of me My voice is my own
All I need Is my voice to be heard
Thank you for watching.
Notes:
Thank you to (in order of appearance): Jess, Brian, Dallas, Mike, Andrea, Ray, Marie, and Tony for taking the time to read what I wrote. I hope you guys had fun and enjoyed the process as much as I did.
I wrote this poem over a month ago with the intent of having different people read it out loud while I film it. At first I was just going to have people read it in different rooms, maybe one person in a car, one walking, — pretty much anything that was different.
That video inspired me to give filming against a white background another try (the first time I tried, it turned out really bad and I trashed the project). Now, I have a different camera (my new Nikon D5100) and an external mic.
I couldn’t figure out how to white balance with my camera and when I imported the footage it was really yellow. Gross. So I had to do a lot of color balancing in Final Cut. I am happy with how it looks now. After filming I played around with my camera and now I finally figured out how to white balance “in camera.” Yes!
I hope you like what I wrote and filmed. It makes me smile. Enjoy.
