DSLR

U.S. Army “Wounded Warriors” Practice Yoga–KCRA Story

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U.S. Army “Wounded Warriors” Practice Yoga–KCRA Story

This is a TV news story that I shot, reported, wrote and edited that ran on KCRA-TV’s Common Ground on Saturday May 19, 2012. In daily news we live under very strong time constraints of stories not exceeding a one minute and twenty second running length. Audience attention span is short and impatient so we have to keep our stories shorter, more to the point, and faster paced in order to hold the viewers. On the flip side of that, at KCRA we are extremely fortunate to have a once-a-month magazine program called Common Ground where we can run...

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How Much HD Do We Need?

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How Much HD Do We Need?

  Over the past few months, since the announcements of the new RED Epic and Scarlet and the Canon C300digital cinema cameras, and now with all the buzz about the 2K Digital Bolex, various people have asked me (and this is an amalgam of these conversations): “So, Mike, which one are you going to get? The Canon or the RED Scarlet?” “Neither. I’m sticking with my Canon 7D?” “Huh? But don’t you want the raw 4:4:4 files?” “What for?” “So your picture looks great up on a big screen.” “Nobody’s going to be throwing my films up on the...

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National Podcast Sends A Shout Out To Naked Filmmaking

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National Podcast Sends A Shout Out To Naked Filmmaking

I’m a podcast junky. The frustrating thing about listening to the radio in the car is that, invariably, as soon as the program gets to something good that I really want to hear, I’ve gotten to where I was driving and I have to get out of the car. Now I download the podcasts of all the shows I’m addicted to. These come in great when I’m walking the dogs, Alex and Ava & our guest foster boy Tanner, in the morning. One show I listen to every week is The Digital Convergence Podcast. It’s a filmmaking site that focuses...

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KCRA Intern Accepts The One-Man Newsman Challenge

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KCRA Intern Accepts The One-Man Newsman Challenge

Most news interns who shadow crews out in the field simply observe and shoot a stand-up or two. Their focus is entirely on reporting and writing. Some do learn the importance of editing. But none of the reporter interns ever comes out and shoots alongside us. In entry-level TV news today, and even at network level news, reporters and field produces must be able to shoot their own stories. Much of this is detailed in my very-soon-to-be-released book One-Man Newsman. So when the new semester’s brigade of interns arrived in the KCRA newsroom and started asking to come out...

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Light Is My Friend

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Light Is My Friend

I generally find harsh sunlight to be the ugliest light of all, but this morning, for some reason, it was amazing. Perhaps because it was early and there was just enough humidity in the air to allow a little filtration in the air. I shot these while walking the dogs around the neighborhood. I normally keep my Nikon Coolpix pocket camera in with me for grabbing pictures on-the-go, but for some reason I felt compelled to hang the Canon 7D around my neck with the super-wide Tokina 11-16 f2.8 lens. The distortion that the sideness of the lens creates...

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Ed Burns makes “Newlyweds” for $9,000 with a Canon 5D

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Ed Burns makes “Newlyweds” for $9,000 with a Canon 5D

How long have I been saying to aspiring & first-time independent filmmakers that theatrical distribution is not only dead, it is nonexistent? Filmmaker Ed Burns became one of the Sundance stars and indie filmmaker poster childred with his $20,000 16mm feature The Brothers McMullen — a great film with some of the best performances I’ve scene in films. The DVD has one of the...

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Jimmy Ennett – Australian Naked Filmmaker

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Jimmy Ennett – Australian Naked Filmmaker

A few months ago I was reviewing my Youtube account and saw a mile of comments left on my videos. A few of them were from a young filmmaker in Australia named Jimmy Ennett who said that he was a one-man filmmaker, too, and that he’d even bought my book Naked Filmmaking. This was very personally uplifting for me to learn that not only was Naked Filmmaking reaching beyond U.S. borders, but that it was also spreading out into new hemispheres. I quickly sent this young compatriot a thank you e-mail and we began corresponding. I wanted to know...

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Matthew Modine – KCRA Common Ground Profile – Part 2 of 3

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Matthew Modine – KCRA Common Ground Profile – Part 2 of 3

Every now and then in the business of TV news you get a chance to meet and do a story on someone who’s work you admire and who had been a part of something historic. Matthew Modine is an actor and filmmaker who has been working in films for almost the same length of time that I’ve been working in TV news. His most well-known work is quite possibly in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It was a film an an experience that left a lasting impression on Modine. Kubrick’s independent style in filmmaking went much deeper than in...

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Matthew Modine – From Joker to Jesus – Part 1 0f 3

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Matthew Modine – From Joker to Jesus – Part 1 0f 3

Several weeks ago I received an e-mail from a friend and former co-worker at KCRA asking if I could help out a filmmaker friend of hers. Her friend had a short film and wanted to know more about some of the northern California film festivals. Of course, I was glad to share my knowledge and experiences. Then I was told that her filmmaker friend was Matthew Modine. Cutting to the chase, I am a total Stanley Kubrick fan. And to learn that I was being asked to share some film festival knowledge with a lead actor who spent two...

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David duChemin – Photographing the Life Journey

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David duChemin – Photographing the Life Journey

I’m constantly following links to articles on the net and listening to podcasts in search of somebody or something new that grabs my interest. It’s rare and doesn’t come along that often. But when it does it’s like a 10K lighting up a street in the night. I had one of those eye-opening – and, more importantly, mind-opening – experiences last week. Listening to Carl Olson’s 16×9 Digital Cinema Convergence podcast, which I subscribe free on iTunes, with guest David duChemin. duChemin is a photographer, author and life traveler, who hosts and blogs at his website Pixilated Image. He...

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