School Day at the Apple Store

The Video Technology Department at John B. Connally High School had the great honor of showcasing their videos, for a second time, at the Apple Store. The Apple store loves to see their products put to good use and when they saw what my video technology classes and I did, they wanted to showcase our projects to the public and Apple Corporate as well. They gave us this honor once before and gladly excepted us again this year.

I personally love Apple products. I constantly verbally "advertise" for them. I jokingly say that, they should pay me for all the times I talked about how epic apple products are! But, paid or not, I enjoy working with Apple products and will continue to use them. I wouldn't have any other way. Kudos to you Apple! Keep dishing out those awesome innovative technologies!

Enjoy!

Downtown Austin

Austin, Texas is one of, if not the best city to live in! It is full of environmentally friendly establishments, great tasting restaurants, and awesome clubs. It is greatly dedicated to the arts. Holding the annual SXSW festival and many others, bringing more people and interest to the city. Austin is known as the live music capital of the world and all Austin knights keep to this name; along with our motto: "Keep Austin Weird". If you haven't visited Austin, I would advise you to come and enjoy the pleasantries that my fellow Austin knights and I enjoy everyday!

Paradox of the Intellect - Extended Edition

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I hope you all enjoyed my film "Paradox of the Intellect". While I was in Pre-Production for the sequel for my Paradox Trilogy, I was thinking to myself, 'Why don't I finish the entire Paradox of the Intellect film I planned!' So that is exactly what I'm going to do! I'm taking this chance to revise the script and make it better. Using footage from the original film, I will add the new scenes and shots from my revised materials. I plan to show more story behind the character of Alexander Ballantine and hint at the story line of Officer William Miller. More action and effects will be used to keep the audience interested. I have been learning Photoshop and After Effects so I plan to make this new extended edition more professional and way more epic.

If you noticed earlier in this blog I said something about my "Paradox Trilogy". Yes, it means what it says. More information coming about that later. Until then, look for the Extended Edition of "Paradox of the Intellect" to hit the web summer 2010

There SHOULD be an app for that!

Ineedthatfinal

With everything that keeps one busy in life, it makes us wish for the things we need. For myself, I need a vacation. This spring break has keep me busy with SXSW Mafia Day Film Festival, MediaX Show Your Reel Awards show, etc. Don't get me wrong I enjoy these events immensely, it's just I want some down time. So, I am here to tell you all about an idea I have to help change the world!

Introducing...
the NEW iNeedThat App!!

This app gets you whatever you need with a touch of your finger. Vacation? You can have it! A nap? Go ahead! Life? Why not! It will be available once the Apple Corp returns my calls... its been 7 months... they may call back.

P.S. - Congrats to all the winners and finalist of the Show Your Reel Competition! I am really proud of all the hard work and time you all put in. In the words of Mr. Carl Settles: "I see big things in your future!" Keep up the good work!

I want one... two would be nice

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via pro.jvc.com

This is the JVC GY-HM700U . Is on my wish list for a distant christmas. One of the reasons I want a camera like this is because of the solid state recording technology. I still have a lot of time and research to do before I make a decision.

Personally I hate capturing footage from miniDV tapes. Imagine you have a 2 hour show to edit. That's 2 hours to record it plus another 2 hours to capture, not including the time you'll spend editing. Now what if you have that same situation, only 3 cameras were used for the shoot. That's 2 hours to record it plus 6 hours to capture if you're doing all that yourself. Not to mention the amount of time you'll go over all that footage and edit.

With SD cards (solid state) the footage gets transfered to your computer like files on a hard drive. Now that's 2 hours to record plus 45 minutes tops to transfer all those files. It's an amazingly helpful technology in the video industry.

Taking That "Bigger" Step Forward

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As I continue to grow as a media professional, I must broaden my horizons of program use. I am skilled at Final Cut, Livetype, Garageband, etc. but, I feel as if I need more. To compete with the dangerous foes of the media world I need to be well-rounded. To start this process I have started playing around with programs like Motion, DVD Pro and After Effects. It is tough but, the feeling of achievement is so much better. Which brings to me this post. I have been working with Adobe Photoshop V.10.

I used my picture I had from the AdYouth photo shoot. Here is what I did. Tell me what you think! Also look for more work to come. 

In the Van going Live

This week we broadcasted an event at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum. Texas Parks and Wild Life wanted to connect a number of schools around the state of Texas to watch The Life of a Buffalo Soldier and ask their own questions. A video conference chain was established with schools that had the equipment necessary in class. After the Buffalo Soldiers told their stories students personally asked their own questions and received live answers. This was just a small portion of the full educational potential that such technology delivers. It was an amazing learning experience and everyone involved did a great job in delivering a great learning experience to hundreds of students in Texas.

In this Video Michael helps me become familiar with the equipment before the shoot.

The Game of Ninja @ SXSW

About three months ago, there were three students making short films to be entered in SXSW's Texas High School Short competition. Two of them were your very own AdYouth/Media Proteges, Christian Nelson, and myself, Peter Jiang.

Last week, I received an email regarded my short documentary film, The Game of Ninja. According to this particular email, The Game of Ninja has been selected to be screened at South-by-Southwest (SXSW) as part of the Texas High School Shorts competition! Although Christian's film, 'Paradox of the Intellect,' was unfortunately not selected for screening, this is exciting news for us since The Game of Ninja is 1 out of 19 short films by high schoolers across the state being screened at the huge festival. And I say 'us' because Christian composed an instrumental track that's featured in the short. In addition, I receive a complimentary film badge to attend and participate in film-related activities at SXSW.

The Game of Ninja is a short documentary film about a game we played at my school. Like the title states, the name of the game is "Ninja." The short covers how the students featured in the video came about Ninja, and how to play it.

If you're coming to SXSW and plan on seeing my film, you can see it with a lot of other great high school shorts (which I'm sure they are) at the Carver Museum at 5:00PM on Saturday, March 30th (http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/2201), and at the Alamo Drafthouse on Lamar at 11:30AM on Saturday, March 20th (http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/6521).

"Safety and peace, my friend."
Peter Jiang / 江嘉辉 from Austin, TX

Paradox of the Intellect Film

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Christian Nelson <cnelson.nelson39@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 16, 2010 at 11:42 PM
Subject: Paradox of the Intellect Film
To: post@adyouth.mediaxperiments.com


Here is the finished film that I submitted to the SXSW Youth High School Film Festival. Unfortunately, it did not get accepted but, anyways I am still proud of it. This marks the first film I have done that I have not acted in. Why because, I wanted to see how I have grown behind the camera. I am exceptionally happy with the camera work for this film. I hope you enjoy and look for the next Paradox film, coming soon.

Please comment and leave me some feedback and Ideas for the sequel!

--
Christian Nelson
    -Chance Productions

Green Screen Workshop at AMS Pictures

Well, we're halfway through February and have completed several tours in Austin and Houston. This past week, we visited MediaTech Insititute in Houston and had a hands on video workshop with AMS Pictures in Austin, TX. Shown here are students working both in front of and behind the camera as they learn how to work with green screens. Green screens are used all of the time in video and film. Local weather reports usually feature a weather person in front of a green screen so that images and video can be placed behind them.
The movie Avatar features green screen work throughout allowing the film makers to composite special visual effects with live action shots.