portland area

hi guys an gals :)
new user here to this forum..
i posted something after i registered, but i didnt see it come up so,,,im posting again.
im in milwaukie, oregon, i have a dv500 card,
any users in portland area?

[Steve McDonald]

Now, it's confirmed, there are two of us in Oregon with digital camcorders. I have lots of relatives in Milwaukie and even know that it's spelled differently than the beer place. Wenger's Electronics, over towards Beaverton, is run by family members. But, I have never seen a single news story about anything that happened in that town??

How is your DV500 working? There's been lots of comment and criticism about Pinnacle products on rec.video.production, with amazing appearances there by a Pinnacle rep.

Have you been to Camera World in Portland lately? It sold out to Ritz Camera not long ago, along with Wolf Camera and I'm wondering how much of their dependability will survive that misfortune.

Steve McDonald
The Beaver State
Who wouldn't want to live in a place where the Beaver is the offical animal?

wow! small world,,,hehe

my dv500 is working great FINALLY!
got all the bugs worked out, then did a drive image, so i'm set :).
well any video editing card you install yourself is gonna be a nightmare!! look at all the manufacturers web boards.
once you get em workin though, it's awesome!

no, havent been to any of those places yet, although may be soon,
my g/f needs a new camera, i'm trying to talk her into a good digital one, she's still stuck in 35mm land,,,

well thanks for replying steve!
i find it hard to imagine there aren't more out there,,,

[Matt Hawley]

Hey y'all,
I'm a transplanted Southerner that lives in Portland. I have a Sony trv30 camera and Premier and Vegas Video to edit on. If any of y'all want to talk about collaborating let me know. I have a music film I'm working on now. There are some rough clips up at http://www.railroadearth.com/media/
-Matt
matt@ponzu.net

[Brian M. Dickman]

woo, then now we're up to 4.

I'm over in Hillsboro, OR (silicon forest), but spend alot of time over on the eastside too (church and family). Happy to hear from some other PDX'ers.

I have a little sony trv120 camcorder, but I'm looking to get a new camera, likely a GL2, real soon. I do video editing on Vegas Video, and like to promote SoFo products whenever possible. So far I do mostly trailers and teasers for church events, but I'm hoping to do some of my own projects soon.

Hey, what do you know...a 5th Oregon DV user. I am in Southern Oregon (Medford). I am pretty much a hobbyist when it comes to editing and film-making, my main focus is the harware side of things. I own a local computer business and build quite a few high-end Consumer and semi-pro workstations. I am not very creative but I love to play around with DV editing. I have seen markinoregon post on the Pinnacle website in the past and am glad to hear he got everything worked out. I can sympathize with you regarding the difficulties in setting up a solid workstation. I don't think I have ever built a system that didn't require significant "Tweaking" before it worked flawlessly.

From the threads I have looked at, this DVinfo.net forum has some very knowledgable and friendly people in it. I look forward to learning as much as possible and hopefully sharing some ideas.

Thanks for a great forum...

[Bruce A. Christenson]

Hey everyone. I'm just finishing up my first short film experiment here in Forest Grove, Oregon (near Portland). We actually shot at a house in North Portland. I'm using a Sony TRV-900 camera, and Sonic Foundry Video Vegas software.

My goal is to learn more about making movies by making a series of 'really bad' short movies. That way, when I make a full length movie, it won't be completely unwatchable.

My first short is a mystery/comedy, sort of like 'the twilight zone' crossed with 'dude, where's my car?'.

So, what's everyone up to in the Northwest?

[bac]

[Robert Poulton]

Lol. Here I am thinking I was the only person in the state of Oregon. Oh well I guess im not alone. Anyways, I studied art for several years and been interested in films even longer. I'm gearing up to shoot a short film this summer which has taken me 3 years to get everything I need for it. Sort of a big step. Then I will go and enter it into film festivals. Other than that my friends and I have always made short films and animations.
I know just about every computer program out there and can pick up on the ones I dont know just as quick. That is unless the program sucks.

Gear:
XL1s, Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere.


Rob

[Bruce A. Christenson]

Hey Rob, if you need a 2nd camera w/ cameraman for some of the sessions in your short this summer, let me know. I'm planning on filming my 2nd short this summer as well, but there are always a lot of idle weekends between my sessions, because it is tough to get everyone together on the same weekend. It would be fun to shoot some alternative angles for someone else's project! I use a TRV-900, which wouldn't produce footage that much different than the XL1S (with a little work).

Cheers
[bac]

[Robert Poulton]

Thanks. Right now im in the middle securing a location. Since I already have a company it makes somethings easier to do. I am waiting on the insurance and that will determine if i can even use the location. The film will only be 15 to 30mins. Which this film takes place in real-time or close to it. So its only one location. So if i cant secure the location I might just make it up on the computer. I can do greenscreen extraction on my computer and my friend has a big enough room to shoot in. So im hopeful. Hey Bruce I will let you know if I need another camera/man for the shoot.


Rob

PS- I have been working on educational material that deals with ecology and land management. Then from time to time I have taped seminars for use with school peace program.

[Bruce A. Christenson]

Oh, I also have done some filming of Dog Agility classes and trials (one of my dogs has been in a few trials), mostly the Columbia Agility Team (CAT) here in the greater Portland area.

I must say, once you have worked on framing shots and tracking action and picking locations for a Dog Agility trial (fast fast action, unscripted!) doing a regular film seems just a bit easier :)

Cheers
[bac]

PS - A 74 MB Windows Media Player version of my 20 minute short is up at my website, but because so many folks have downloaded it, I've run out of bandwidth for now! When it comes back on, it's at www.brucix.com/dvd02.html.

[Robert Poulton]

Bruce,
Nice work. I enjoyed the movie. It looked good. Some of the sound like the wind was alittle bad, when it was blowing into the main mic. Also I would of liked to see alittle more about the roommates. Maybe some cuts to them practicing spells. There were some shots in the movie that I think would of benifited from acouple closeups or quick cuts. Like the scene with Matt pulling out the little box from the shelf.
Lol just one funny side note is that the box Matt was in. Then you cut open the lock, but there were srews that were exposed to just unscrew the latch.
Even if you didnt plan it I love it when little things like that happen. It just adds to the characters and environment.

Do you have After Effects? Just wondering if you did you could of done some cool little shots. Say the shot when Matt was talking to you outside once you opened the box. It would of been nice to see alittle composite with Matt in the background, acting out his lines. Then you and the box in the other shot with Matt in the box. That way you can pick up "Dead Matt" and take him to your car or wherever as Matt is acting in the background. Granted you might have to rehurse the lines and actions but it would be a nice twist.

It didnt take to long to download. How is your new one coming?

Rob

[Bruce A. Christenson]

Those are some great ideas. The part where Matt is walking around being bored was tough, because there was no way to do any exposition on it to speed it up. I guess I'm more of a fan of long shots, and having stuff go on inside the frame. But then it helps if it is interesting stuff ;)

I don't have after effects but I agree it would be interesting to do some compositing. I think with Vegas Video you can do green screen stuff, but I haven't tried it yet.

Yeah the wind was a little rough because that was the camera mic, not the shotgun mic with the windscreen. Just one of the many problems/mistakes we made ;)

We kind of ran out of time shooting the roommate scenes, and didn't know how to do anything that would look like voodoo or spells or anything like that. Maybe next time.

I'm starting to write the next script now, for shooting this summer. I'm bringing back Matt in two bit parts (bit, to minimize his acting requirements, heh): Twins, actually, so maybe I can do some compositing of him in two roles at once.

Cheers
[bac]

[Bruce A. Christenson]

Oh, and about the lock - we wanted to cut it open with a dremel and create a whole lot of sparks. But the locks we used were too cheap and didn't create any sparks ! We shot a quick take where "JR" says "dude, do you have a screwdriver?" and "Matt" says "No..." and we figured that would get us out of that plot hole (as if there weren't a dozen other plot holes, anyway...!)

[bac]

[Robert Poulton]

lol cool. Yah If you need some help with compositing I know how to do it..alittle. Im at least getting better at it. That will be cool with twin Matt.
Is this new one going to be another horror episode or something completely different?


Rob