My first little DSLR vid.

After much himming and hawing over getting a 5D or 7D for quite sometime now I finally got lured into the world of DSLRs with the release of the new Canon T2i.

Had my first chance yesterday to go out with my friend Matthew Iha to do a little testing. I can’t pretend that I had any clue what the hell I was doing as the footage will show. It was all pretty reckless, just grabbed the camera and headed to the dog park on Town Lake here in Austin. The profile was the default and we were only using the kit’s EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens. Most of it was shot 1080 24p but did manage to work in a couple 720 shots to try slomo in post.

Would have had this online last night except that due to my noobishness ran into major headaches trying to edit the native footage. Today after downloading CineForm’s Neo Scene, transcoded the files to avi and re-editing it from scatch in Sony Vegas all is right with the world.

Hope you’ll forgive the not so great footage and hasty edit. Overall I loved it. Defiantly not the right camera for all situations but loads of fun. I think the main thing I didn’t like was the lens but today I got the Fotodiox Pro Adapter Philip Bloom mentioned in one of his blogs that’ll allow me to use some of my old Nikon lenses. think that will make a big difference. Will post some more when I get a chance to play now that I know how to edit this stuff. =)

Music : The Cult – Peace Dog

I would like to address a couple of comments made on our short film. I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, believe that children should be encouraged to fight and further take great umbrage with any who would imply that I ever would. What I do believe is that people should be encouraged to stand up for themselves and not be controlled by the bullies of the world.

As I’ve stated elsewhere, although a particular piece deals with an particular issue that does not mean that it is advocating the negative aspects of that subject. Conversely, exposing the subject allows it to be discussed, hopefully in a rational and productive manner. As an example, the film “Precious” exposes child abuse and incest. No reasonable nor responsible person could think that “Precious” advocates in favor of the topics it so couragously dealt with.

In “Drama,” the Auntie is by never meant to be a role model and is not presented as such. No one could possibly feel this film is a lesson in good parenting. At the end of the fight, Drama does not throw up her hands in victory, she is not raised upon the shoulders of her peers, they are not chanting her name in support, she doesn’t embrace her Auntie and does not look happy even with her Aunties praise. And if you missed incredible talent and nuance of the wonderful young actress Ann Woodward performance, when she looks in the mirror it’s a bittersweet recognition that she does indeed have inner strength. This was a critical and quite deliberate choice in the story. There is no smile, no gloating, there was no satisfaction in her triumph yet, perhaps for the first time in her life, Drama realizes that doesn’t need to run, doesn’t have to hide, and has the strength and courage to no longer be victim. One may argue that her path to self discovery was an unpleasant one but often in both life and art, that path is.

If you would like to voice your support by leaving a comment we would appreciate if you would do so directly on our page at the Nikon Festival here: Drama’s Nikon Festival Page

If you would like to vote for Drama and require instructions on how to do so you may find them on our site here: www.votedrama.com

A huge thanks to everyone who has been supporting our piece and who understood it without explanation.

Sincerely yours;

- Ray

Raymond J. Schlogel

Just a quick little post about a little 140 second shot film entitled “Drama” we did for the Nikon Fest. I’ll be posting the actual video here with a lot more details and a long list of credits and thanks but for right now just trying to get the word out so you good folks might go give it a peek and hopefully leave a little comment. I’m not sure but I think that right now they are going by views and comments. After that 50 will be chosen to move on to the next round. So here’s the link and feel free to spread it around! Not especially easy to tell a whole story in 140 seconds but I think we did a pretty good job if I do say-so myself! Hope you agree!

Click Here To See “Drama” And Comment!

]]> http://www.undergroundplanet.com/2009/12/16/nikon-140-second-film-festival/feed/ 0 http://www.undergroundplanet.com/2009/11/19/larissa-ness-thoughts-of-you/ http://www.undergroundplanet.com/2009/11/19/larissa-ness-thoughts-of-you/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:36:30 +0000 Ray http://www.undergroundplanet.com/?p=442 Artist : Larissa Ness Song : Thoughts of You Album: Hello Director: Raymond J. Schlogel Producer: Ruben Cantu Production Company : Underground Planet See Extended Credits Here : Extended Credits Page My first music video for a pop song! Not to mention my first with choreography! Whoot! I think I had watched too much “So You Think You Can Dance”, just enough [...]]]>

Artist : Larissa Ness
Song : Thoughts of You
Album: Hello
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Producer: Ruben Cantu
Production Company : Underground Planet
See Extended Credits Here : Extended Credits Page

My first music video for a pop song! Not to mention my first with choreography! Whoot! I think I had watched too much “So You Think You Can Dance”, just enough to want to do this and just enough to drive our Choreographer Carly Bell crazy by asking her for all sorts of dance move things as if I knew what I was talking about. Can’t even begin to say what a blast this one was.

This would be more or less a dream sequence theme part of which was inspired by two pictures of Larissa that were taken by the award winning photographer Maria Bernal. One was of Larissa in which she was wearing a black bra, another was of her feet wearing high heel shoes resting on the keyboard. Those two elements became the first building blocks of the concept.

So, the concept, in case you missed it, is that Larissa is missing her guy. In her dream she wakes up and is living in this amazing mansion, she goes down stairs wearing only the bra and slip that she woke up in and finds that there is a party going on. Everyone at the party is formal, cordial if not a bit pretentious and putting on airs as they exchange frivolous banter. No one really notices her nor her lack of appropriate attire.

Her love interest is one of the hired help, a waiter who she makes eyes at after she makes her way to the piano and begins performing. The guests begin to dance, but even in their dance they are stiff, formal, lackluster. The waiter is seen, essentially going to her level, as Larissa is only wearing her undergarments he removes his uniform just before the breakdown in the song. He climbs atop the piano and extends his hand, she accepts and joins him. Whether its the music or in response to Larissa and the waiters chemistry or just because its a dream the rest of the guests follow suit and disrobe, shedding the formality, we see them more as individuals, they smile more, and the dance changes from the formal ballroom-esque style that they had been doing earlier to something more fun, sensual and free flowing. Larissa and the Waiter make their way back to the piano, they lay down and he covers her with his red jacket. We see a close up of Larissa singing the last few lines as the camera pulls back and we notice that the jacket is actually a blanket and she is in bed, alone, and thinking of him.

Didn’t get all that from watching it? No worries, I’m a fan of abstract and not being to literal and at the end of the day hopefully even those that don’t necessarily understand the concept will enjoy the visuals nonetheless.

This one truly was a blast, from Larissa’s willingness to learn to play the piano with her toes to the two months of practice and choreography not to mention shooting at one of the most amazing homes I’ve ever seen making this one was an incredible experience on every level.

“Before he has a chance to think too much, struggling filmmaker Michael Davis throws himself wholeheartedly into crafting a celluloid valentine for Stacie, his very recent ex-girlfreind and soul mate. What could go wrong? Even Michael couldn’t have predicted the unbelievable twists and turns he would capture on his camera in the following days, which would eventually evolve into the feature “For Love & Stacie” – at once a courageous, cathartic, hopelessly romantic testament to the lengths to which we will go for love, and a darkly comic, almost-too-honest, painfully familiar odyssey through the kind of misery and psychological debasement that only a loved on is capable of inflicting”

So it’s been quite awhile since I made my feature doc For Love & Stacie, though it’s won a handful of awards it’s yet to make me rich … or even buy me a taco. With that in mind like most “artists” it’s become more important to me for it to be seen than for it to make me money. Of course it would be nice to have both but as the latter hasn’t happened I’ll just have to push for the former. Basically I’d rather give it away and hope its seen by many rather than continue to try and sell it and have it only seen by a few. All that said, here it is, free on the internet for the world, or at least a couple people with too much time on their hands, to see in all it’s original glory. Well, not “all” it’s original glory, had to compress it quite a bit to get it online but you get what I mean. I only have two favors to ask if you watch it:

1) Post something about it! Somewhere! Anywhere! Even if you hate it and want to dog it that’s fine with me. If you love it tell the world. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, your blog, message boards, whatever. Since it seems impossible for a little indi filmmaker to make a dime doing this (at least for this little indie filmmaker) it would mean everything to me and I’d be ever grateful just to know it’s been seen by many and hopefully liked by a few. So give it a mention and share the link.

2) No SPOILERS! Again, you can crap all over it if you want to when you post but do me the one honor of not giving anything away to those who haven’t seen it.

That’s it, if ya really REALLY like it you can find it for sale on DVD or a much higher res download on bside.com but honestly at this point it would actually mean more to me for people to post about it than to buy it.

DVD : http://www.bside.com/films/forloveandstacie

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/loveandstacie

MySpace : http://www.myspace.com/loveandstacie

Look forward to hearing what you think. There are some tidbits about the film on it’s MySpace page but in here I’ll only say that For Love & Stacie went from concept to completion, by that meaning literally from the day I had the idea till the day it was shot and completely edited in six months. The total budget was 3k. It was filmed on Canon XL2’s (oh how I wish I had my EX1 back then!) and edited in Sony Vegas. Any questions just ask, but if your question has spoilers I won’t be able to answer! For full cast and crew visit it’s IMDB page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0773284/

Thanks a bunch and hope you like it.

- Ray

P.S. Okay, a friend of mine nicely pointed out that since my electricity is about to get cut off because it’s two months behind and I don’t have rent, mayhaps it wouldn’t hurt to put up a donations page for those who enjoyed it and would be willing to make a little donation. I can’t imagine anyone would but if you do well God bless ya, a penny would make me smirk, a buck would make me smile, 5-10 and I’ll do a happy dance, and anything more I think I’ll just spontaneously wet my pants. Know that anything I manage to get back from this will go to rent and the pile of bills I’m behind on. If it ever gets more than I need (like that’ll happen) it will help me payoff some equipment. So if your feel so inclined just click the link below to PayPal and pick a number! I seriously find the quality of my life is just so much better when I have the lights on!