Like many middle-schoolers, I had the opportunity to choose an instrument and join the school band. My parents vetoed my drumming dreams, so I ended up trying the clarinet. (It wasn’t the same.) As part of the agreement for participating in band, I was required to practice for half an hour every day. So every…
10 Lessons from a Beginner’s DSLR Course
In June 2019, I attended a DSLR boot camp presented by Tom Dunn, a commercial and art photographer based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He presented this workshop through Film North, a film arts organization also based in the Twin Cities. This course is my seventh through this group. While I have taken digital still photographs…
11 Lessons from an Augmented Reality Course
I recently completed a short course on augmented reality and ARCore, Google’s augmented reality engine. Basically, augmented reality offers a layer of information between the user and the world through a device such as a smartphone or headset. That information might include environmental data, biometric data, visual representations, user instructions, and much more. While AR…
Results from a 30-Day Cell Phone Cinematography Project
In trying to learn more about cinematography on a smart phone, I devised a project: Create 60 seconds of motion footage each day for 30 days. To keep the bar low, I set no restrictions on numbers of shots, their durations, or their content — just one minute for 30 days. The Plan The basic…
Unboxing a Vuze XR Camera
In further exploring new gear, I purchased a Vuze XR camera. The camera does both 360-degree video and 180-degree 3D video. I was particularly curious how this camera might handle footage for an Oculus Go or other VR headset. The Vuze XR looks quite different from other 360-degree video cameras. Two cameras sit atop a…
Seven Final Lessons in 360-Degree Video
I finally finished the 360-degree video short course. The first weeks offered an overview of virtual reality and 360-degree video and the following weeks moved into pre-production and gear. The final weeks covered editing and other considerations. I found this module the least helpful of the three as it relied on external videos and offered…
11 More Lessons in 360-Degree Video
I am continuing my way through a 360-degree video short course. While the first lessons offered more of an overview about virtual reality and 360-degree video, these more recent lessons moved into pre-production and gear possibilities (which is the best part, right?). Here are 11 more takeaways from the recent lessons. 1. The audience must…
On the Scent of a New Virtual Reality Experience
Some creative innovations have attempted to lure audiences away from their televisions and into movie theaters over the decades. Many of these innovations related to image. Widescreen was a big one (pun intended) as it expanded the image well beyond the 4:3 Academy ratio of early televisions and older films, bringing the view into people’s…
11 Early Lessons in 360-Degree Video
I recently started taking a short course on 360-degree video and how that kind of video fits within virtual reality production. While some argue that the two don’t belong in the same conversation, it’s better to think of them and other interactive experiences as degrees on a spectrum. The following post brings together 11 takeaways…
Learning How to Play Again in Multi-Media Production
When it comes to apps, programs, and hardware, no one seems to play anymore. Instead, we look up information on websites to learn exactly what we need to do in order to solve whatever question or problem we might have. WikiHow guides us with step-by-step instructions. YouTube hosts both professional and amateur tutorials on just…