Today I traveled to College Station, TX to participate in the Business Professionals of America Competition. I traveled there with people from my own high school and others as well. We meet at the Administration Building in Pflugerville at 4:30 in the morning so we could make the competition on time. We arrived at A&M Consolidated High School (btw GO LONGHORNS) to set up our home base and prepare for the competition. I and my Team entered the Video Production competition. Upon entering the judging room we were faced with technical problems. The computer screen didn't work the projector was messed up, etc. But even though we still showed our video. At the awards ceremony many people from my own Connally High BPA club won placements into the state competition. Then, finally, the awards came to Video Production. Against schools like Akins, A&M Con., Hendrickson, Pflugerville, etc. we placed and gained access to the state BPA competition! Against the many problems and obstacles we faced we still managed to place! I am proud of me and my team for achieving our goal. I hope we do good at state. Wish us luck!

Well, today was the kick off of the Industry Tour Series for the Show Your Reel 2010 Portfolio Contest. We visited MediaTech Institute's Austin location in the heart of the city. MediaTech is housed in the famous Arlen Studios where music legends such as Willie Nelson, Robert Plant and Sublime have made multiplatinum records. I shot this video with my iPhone today but there were many electronic recording devices being employed today. So, we look forward to seeing what gets posted in the coming weeks.

Here is the Teaser Trailer for my film "Paradox of the Intellect". I submitted this video into a youth SXSW film contest. I made this film in 3 days. Both Production and Post-Production. Never again will I make a film in 3 days. Talk about stress and headaches. A note of advice to all future filmmakers: The earlier the better! I really what to appreciate my cast and crew for helping with this hard production. One thing I regret and dislike with a passion is the dreaded film contests Time Limits! The original script I made was a very well put together script. It explained the story better and was much more intense. But to fit the 5 minute deadline of the SXSW contest I had to take pen to paper and cut things that "wasn't that important". The story needs work, the acting could be better, and the VFX perfected but, I think this short shows how I have grown as a Cinematographer. My diversity of shots shocked me! Im proud of myself and above all my cast and crew for getting this project done. I hope you enjoy this small trailer and after SXSW I will upload the entire video so all can view it.

Part One of John Luke's discussion on the longevity of video games. Sorry about the poor video quality, since Posterous only allows posting through email I had to compress it down to 10MB. The audio is what's important anyway. I think I'll go back to just writing after part 2.

Today I read a blog about the future of the Austin public access channel, also known as channelAustin. The facility was recently upgraded to high performance broadcasting equipment. They have cameras, editing stations, a couple of fully equipped broadcasting studios, and soon to have a audio recording studio. Now, the main thing about this facility is that it's the most affordable way for people of all ages and demographics to voice their opinion and broadcast their original content.

Unfortunatly it is struggling to remain in operation. From what I understand, AT&T brought to the Austin state capital an army of lobbyists to create a statewide franchising system. Basically it's major telephone companies trying to get into the video business and franchise the industry. The main problem is that this telecommunication deregulation allows these corporate tyrants to bypass their debt to the community. What I mean by debt is that channelAustin (for example) receives 85% of it's annual budget from a "cable access fund" derived from Time Warner Cable subscriber fees.

San Antonio lost their public access facility as soon as the new franchise agreements went into effect. The current local agreements expire on August 12th, 2011. So what then? Twenty states already have been stripped of their municipal control over video franchises.

However there is still hope. Representative Tammy Baldwin introduced a bill called the Community Access Preservation Act (HR 3745). If enacted the bill will remove unfair federal restrictions on money the city receives from local providers. Currently the bill is being supported and word is San Antonio plans to take action as well. This movement might just instigate other states around the nation to take action towards recovering an re-establishing their rights to freedom of speech.

If you'd like to find out more and/or make a difference please visit channelAustin's website. Help us protect our community media. It can be as simple as spreading the word.

http://www.channelaustin.org

Last night, I could've been injured. Or even worse, I could've been dead.

Check out this video on YouTube:

As some of you may know I am of Brazilian decent. Capoeira originated in Brazil as a unique style of martial arts and today it may be considered more of a dance than a fighting style. I like this video because in a very short time it demonstraded the fluidity and grace involving a simple sparring session. The cinematography was well ecxecuted which allowed such elegant depiction. Not to mention the music track is [capoeira] official, which brings me back alot of good memories.

There comes a time in a young filmmaker's life when he or she must abide by the traditional methods, set down the camera and devise a plan. In such industry that plan is also called preproduction. I'm sure many of you knew that already. I'm also pretty sure that if your like me you don't like the early process of script writting and storyboarding. However the importance of preproduction will never be undermined in an industry that requires presicion, accuracy and efficacy in an minute to minute basis.

This is where Celtx comes along. An extremely simple, yet efficient program which allows you to write scripts as fast as your imagination can dictate. The program automatically formats the text into script format. Keyboard keys such as Enter and Tab allow you to quickly switch back and forth between scene heading, action and character dialog formats enabling some serious script writting flows. You can also storyboard and sketch set-ups in Celtx using simple graphic elements such as cameras, actors, cars, arrows and even furniture. The program is multi-platform and is free of charge.

Sounds cool right? Well here's my favorite part about Celtx. For $1 a user a month you can have a team create, share, review and edit project files through an online interface which eliminates clutters of separate files or even paper stacks. I am currently experimenting with Celtx with a team of four writters. We rarely see one another but the content we have uploaded to our network gives each of us an immediate feedback on what the other is doing.

I strongly reccomend this program to amatuers and pros alike.

For more information visit www.celtx.com

During my senior year in high school I took a music theory class in which I learned the basics of music making. It occurred to me that music theory, just like language, has a comprehensive structure of which we can easily follow or break the rules. Recently I have become more musically active and have come to realize this structure as I realized the structure of language as I grew up and learned it. Just like and essay or a story, a musical piece has a beginning, middle, and an end. Notes can be stacked in various forms to form chords. There are different types of chords such a major or a minor chord. Minor chords tend to sound sad while majors sound happier. Then there's what is called a chord progression. The way in which you progress gives the songs it's own character reflecting the overall emotion and tonality of the overall piece. The other day I was hanging out with a friend who showed me this chart. This chart helps visualize the relationship of certain chords played in sequence with others. Yes it seems very complicated, but for those who are familiar with music terminology and notation this chart is a comprehensive map for chord progression on a major scale. It really helps when you try to fuse two musical ideas together or when you get stuck and can't find you way home (home being the One chord represented by a roman numeral). My music theory teacher always told me that a musical piece requires a sense of completion. Start on Ⅰ (one) end on Ⅰ. But just like a normal map, we are not limited to a specific path. Sometimes we create our own shortcut.

(If the background on the image appears a dark color click on the image to properly view it)