The John Lennon Education Tour Bus

November 01, 2011

Beam Me Up - Video Light Painting in Motion

A really cool looking visual effect is light painting.

 

 

In photography, the effect is achieved by using a slow shutter speed, but recently, I wanted to obtain the same effect in video. Turns out it’s a bit more complex than changing your camera’s shutter speed, but if you use Apple’s Motion, the effect can be done quite easily, in just a few steps.

 

STEP 1
Import the footage that you want to use for you video light painting and title the group subject.

 

 

STEP 2
Create a new group and title it null object. Create a new shape, I’ve chosen a rectangle, but it really doesn’t matter. What does matter, though, is to make sure that it has no fill and no outline, basically making it a ghost shape.

 

 

STEP 3
Track your ghost shape to whatever you are going to use to do the light painting with. In this case, I’ve decided to use my subject’s fingertip.

 

 

STEP 4
Wherever you want your subject to start light painting, add a particle emitter, the one that I’ve decided to use is the Magic Dust emitter as I have found that it gives you a pretty good place to start.

 

 

STEP 5
Add a match move behavior to your particle emitter and use the ghost shape as its source.

 

 

STEP 6
In the inspector for the particle emitter, change the life parameter to 10 and the speed parameter to 0.

 

 

STEP 7
Under the particle, change the random motion amount to 0.

 

 

STEP 8
Change the gravity parameter to 2.

 

 

STEP 9
This is personal preference in terms of what thickness of light you are going for, but for this, I’ve changed the scale over life to about -55 for the scale at start of life and -25 for scale at end of life.

 

 

STEP 10
This is also a preference depending on what color you want your light to be, but here I’ve changed my light to a blue-ish gradient in my inspector.

 

 

STEP 11
Add a gaussian blur to your light, making it look more natural.  The amount should be either a 1 or 2.

 

 

THAT’S PRETTY MUCH IT!!!
YOU SHOULD NOW HAVE SOMETHING THAT LOOKS A BIT LIKE THIS:

August 22, 2011

A Bokeh (BOH-Kay) for You to Behold

All right all you video and photography buffs, let’s talk Bokeh (which is pronounced BOH-kay).

What is it? 
Why is it there?
How can we manipulate it?

 

First off Bokeh is pretty darn cool.

 

Essentially, Bokeh is the area of a video or photographic image that is out of focus. It is generally associated with the highlighted regions, or light sources, that are out of focus.
When you are shooting (either video or still images) and you have a low aperture setting (which allows more light into your camera), you get a shallow depth of field, meaning you get a very selective focal region. That shallow depth of field will then cause bokeh to occur everywhere that is not in focus.

This is what I’m talking about:

 

 

 

Using our array of Sony video and still cameras on the Lennon Bus, such as the Sony EX-3 and Sony Alpha-900, we can achieve some pretty cool effects with bokeh.Sometimes, lens aberrations or aperture can change the way the out-of-focus area of the image is perceived, creating either good bokeh or bad bokeh.
The shape of the aperture is directly related to the shape of the bokeh.  Most lenses have a sort of polygonal aperture opening, thus, unless the aperture is all the way open, the defocused areas will be made up of a bunch of polygons.

 

Like This:

 

 

 

When the aperture is all the way open, the shape of the aperture is then a circle, creating the clean, circular shapes (shown in the first image) that bokeh is most typically associated with.

 

Let’s take this a step further.

 

Since bokeh shapes are just created by the shape of the aperture, you can actually manipulate the shape of bokeh, if you desire to do so.
By simply using black construction paper and some scissors, you can turn your camera’s bokeh into whatever shape you want.

 

Here is a really cool video that demonstrates what I am talking about:

 

 

So, since you now know about bokeh and how to mess with is, go out and get creative.  Now.

 

April 19, 2011

The Lennon Bus visits the Big Easy

When we awoke yesterday, we found ourselves in New Orleans, LA! Since we’ve never been there before, we figured we might as well head out and explore the city a little bit. Hans breaks things down on Bourbon Street.

February 18, 2011

The Lennon Bus/NAMM Recap!

To kick off the 2011 year, the Lennon Bus visited NAMM in Anaheim, CA.  We made a video documenting all the different things that took place while we were there.  This year, we worked closely with Avid, creating many different media projects.  Avid brought out some students from the Los Angeles Recording and Film School to assist in the different projects that we were making.  We worked with a number of different recording artists including Natasha Bedingfield, Emily Elbert, Tara Priya, Grand Vanity, Katie Costello, and The Orange Effect.  John Lennon Songwriting Contest Grand Prize Winners, Madison Violet, stopped by to receive their award of $20,000 and perform their winning song. In the tents, NAMM attendees were able to work with Pro Tools 9 and the new MBOX Pro. We also held a press conference about music education that featured appearances from Bernie williams, Governor Mike Huckabee and a performance from Natasha Bedingfield. As always, NAMM was a blast and we look forward to next year!

February 09, 2011

It’s a Grammy Double Whammy

You wanna know what I am excited for?
Ok Ok, I’ll tell you.  It’s the Grammy’s.
You know, the annual Gramophone Awards.
Music.
Awards.
Glitz.
Glamour.
Gaga. 
That’s right.
Only happens once a year.  This year, it happens on February 13th.
That’s this coming sunday, in case you didn’t want to have to check your Calendar.
Wanna know why else I’m excited?
Well, it’s because there happen to be some pretty talented acts that have been nominated this year.
Ok, now I am going to break it down for you and tell you who is going to win.

Actually, I’m not.
BUT, what I can do is tell you is who I would choose as winners (in the first ten categories) based on the current pool of nominees.

Here it be:

RECORD OF THE YEAR
“F*** You”
Cee Lo Green
Catchiest song of the year.  Done.

*I wont post the song here, cuz it has the f-word in it, but go listen to it. You won’t be able to get it out of your head.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
“The Suburbs”
Arcade Fire
It’s about time.

SONG OF THE YEAR
“F*** You”
Cee Lo Green
Again. Yup.

BEST NEW ARTIST
Bieber.
Oh, come on. You think so, too.

BEST FEMALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE
“King Of Anything”
Sara Bareilles
I likes the video too.

BEST MALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE
“This is it”
Michael Jackson
Still the King of Pop

BEST POP PERFORMANCE FROM A DUO OR GROUP WITH VOCALS
“Don’t Stop Believin’”
Glee Cast
I’m no fan. In fact, I’ve only seen the show once. But all other nominees are lackluster. Plus, current pop culture goes bananas for this stuff.

BEST POP COLLABORATION WITH VOCALS
“If it Wasn’t for Bad”
Elton John and Leon Russell
Leon Russell should win a Grammy for his facial hair alone.

BEST POP INSTRUMENTAL PERFORMANCE
“Orchestral Intro”
Gorrilaz (from Plastic Beach album)
Magnificent intro to a phenomenal album.

BEST POP INSTRUMENTAL ALBUM
“Heart and Soul”
Kenny G
He’s the original G.

 

So that is that.  We shall see how clairvoyant I actually am when Sunday rolls around.

In the meantime, I’ve gotta get ready.
For what?
Oh, nothing much…just a GRAMMY PRE-PARTY ON FRIDAY!
ON THE PARAMOUNT STUDIOS LOT!!!

That’s right.
The Lennon Bus is heading to a Grammy pre-party on Friday, where we will be rubbing elbows with the hottest celebs this side of the Mississippi. Or Atlantic. We’ll see.
We will be giving VIP tours and showing people just what we do onboard the Lennon Bus.
You wanna go too?
Well you can’t.
BUT, I will be posting a recap blog of the event next week, so stay tuned for that.
Until then, adieu.

February 01, 2011

Learning Media Composer with Brian Castle and Avid Screencast

I think it’s official. We are rabid for Avid.

This week has been knowledge filled!! We’ve been at training in Burbank, CA learning Avid Media Composer 5. Our teacher Brain Castle, I mean Brian Castle has been our amazing instructor leaving no question unanswered. We are excited to continue polishing our Media Composer chops for the rest of the week and then let the Lennon Bus hit the road ready to go get our Avid on.

Brian also put us on to these cool video tutorials. If you’re trying to polish up your Media Composer skills too then check these out.

October 29, 2010

I Found Out: Young Rappers, Movies, and Ant Hills

This week, the Lennon Bus combatted a flurry of activity, all of which have been accumulated in this week’s “I Found Out.”  Some were painful, some were hilarious, and some were just down right throwed!  Check out the video for details.  Peace!

October 28, 2010

Goin’ Old School in San Francisco

Recently, the Lennon Bus was in California for a number of different events.  One of those events happened to take place in San Francisco.  The next day, we had some down time.  We decided to take that opportunity and shoot a video…old school style.  We wanted to make a short film in the same vein as an old Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton film.  Basically we wanted it to look old.  Oh yea, we wanted it to be French, too.  The French part was easy.  We went down to the local costume shop and procured a couple of striped shirts and berets.  The first part (making it look old), was a bit more difficult.  See, out on the Lennon Bus, we shoot with some VERY MODERN and pretty high tech cameras, like the Sony EX-1 and the Sony EX-3.  We didn’t really have a budget (none at all, in fact) to purchase an old camera, let alone all the film stock and processing fees, so we had to figure out a way to make the footage that our cameras captured look very old.

Luckily, we have a very good friend in Apple’s Final Cut Studio. By utilizing just a few filters in this fantastic program, we were easily able to attain the look we were shooting (camera pun, get it???) for.

Our footage originally looked like this:

 

The first thing we did, was use the 3-way color Corrector to adjust the colors levels just a bit:

 

 

 

 

Next, we applied a sepia filter to the clips to give them that old-timey look

 

 

 

 

Next, we used the strobe filter to give the footage that “dropped frame” look.
Finally, we used the Bad Film filter to make our already old looking footage look even older.
Basically, this is the breakdown of our filters:

 

 

After all of that, this was the outcome. Enjoy!
*******VIDEO COMING SOON*********

October 21, 2010

Mont Blanc: Providing Peace, Love, and Little Z to the Lennon Bus

Mont Blanc has spared no expense in assuring The Peace and Love Tour is a success. Yesterday the Lennon Bus was parked outside Grady Middle School in Houston, Texas to work with a group of students. The students knew the Lennon Bus was coming that day, however they were unaware that Mont Blanc had flown out Little Z to drop a verse on the students track. I was fortunate enough to be in the front studio with a camera when Little Z first arrived and was able to knock out a quick interview with him. We covered all the typical talking points for a young, up and coming rapper such as rap style, facial expressions, and of course Mont Blanc.

Thanks to Mont Blanc for making the magic possible. Check out Little Z’s interview here and be sure to stay tuned to lennonbus.org for the final video.

October 07, 2010

Our Day at SAE in San Francisco!

On October Sixth, the Lennon Bus spent the day at SAE San Fransisco, visiting with students and giving public tours. Also, there was a BBQ and dancing.