In case you didn’t know, I have a number of sites and blogs I maintain, each with different purposes. Lately I’ve been so busy building the business that I haven’t had time to update this site much, but I have been posting other items all over the place. Here’s a list of where to find me:

iMakeArt – A more general purpose site about me and my conceptual art

A7is – My portfolio site for more commercial works

Ottawa Video Production (and more) Blog – The official Hotcakes blog where I talk about business related announcements and articles

In addition to those sites, there’s also the Hotcakes twitter account @HotcakesOttawa that gets updated several times a day and the Hotcakes Facebook Fan page for major announcements.

So there you have it. Now you can follow me everywhere I digitally go.

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The one thing I didn’t do during this whole time is properly brand my own company and produce a proper website for Hotcakes New Media. Over the course of the year, I’ve had time to think about where I’d like to take Hotcakes, considering the market in Ottawa and my competition. As a result, I’ve rebranded Hotcakes as a Creative Company, first and foremost, with a production division. Part of the new branding was trying to come up with a company image that I felt reflected my personality as well as the type of work we produce. The result is a funky, brightly coloured, young and fresh company image that stands out in the dull Ottawa marketplace.

The reason for the rebranding is two-fold: First, because I just wasn’t getting the work I needed to sustain a livable income with my current branding (which was all about promoting production, yet didn’t have the work to back it up), and second, because I saw a gap in the market between marketing companies and production companies. There are NO creative agencies in Ottawa! (or none that I could find) That means searching for “Ottawa creative company” in Google puts my website on page one.

So what exactly did I do? I’ve completely redesigned the looks and the content of the main Hotcakes website (found at http://www.hotcakesnewmedia.com). The new Hotcakes site is simple, and clearly showcases us as a creative company. It’s about giving people confidence in who we are, what we’ve done, and what we can do for them. I’ve also developed a new site specific for production (found at http://www.hotcakesproduction.com). The new production website follows the same structure and looks as the main site, but clearly shows exactly what kind of production work we do, and goes into more detail on those individual work items. It’s designed mostly to catch Google keywords, optimize my ranking, and link people back to the main site. Finally, I created the Ottawa Video Production Blog (found at http://www.ottawavideoproduction.ca/blog). The blog, again, is a technique used to increase visibility within the community, as well as within Google. Search engine ranks go up dramatically when fresh content is posted on a regular basis, and a blog allows us to do that. It also adds specific keywords that might not normally show up, and increases content dramatically. It IS good to toot your own horn.

I’ve also been hard at work building a physical and electronic booklet to mail and email to potential clients. I need to spread the word about Hotcakes, and not rely entirely on people seeking me out. I will soon be actively seeking new clients, sending promotional materials, and advertising as much as possible to maximize the way people find me.

Yes, Hotcakes may have turned one… but without a BIG push and some important new clients, Hotcakes will not see year two. So I better get back to work now.

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So where does that leave us? Shopping for a new car on a tight budget and short timeline. Not a good combination.

See, the trick in buying a car is in finding a model that you can not only afford, but afford to live with for 5+ years. And I’m not just talking money… I’m talking convenience, comfort, and “joy of driving”. Let’s face it; we all spend far too much time in our cars, so we need to make the time worthwhile.

And therein lies the rub. With the auto industry struggling a little bit, it makes buying a new car easier and cheaper than ever, but at the expense of the used market. What happens when you can’t afford new? The used car market is flooded with WAY overpriced cars because people paid considerably more for their cars last year, or the year before. In order for people to not lose a ton of money, they are selling 2 year old cars for almost the same price as a you can negotiate for a new car now.

But the issue is complicated even further when you have a tight budget. We started out aiming for a $200-$250/month payment. Unfortunately, we soon found out that with used car interest rates at 8%, that meant getting an economy car that is over 4 or 5 years old (to be in the $10000 range). However, with new cars being sold with 0.9% to 3% financing, getting a $15000 new car would equal the exact same payments! Then the question becomes “what kind of car sells for $15000″? A very plain one. What happens when you want a few little perks to make your daily drive more pleasant? Like… say… a USB connection for your iPod? Or a Sunroof for those nice breezy summer days on long winding roads? Or heated seats for those frigid Canadian winters? Or leather seating so we can easily wipe off the dog’s fur after a road trip? At what point do you draw the line between convenience and greed?

What may seem like a silly perk for some can be quite meaningful for others. Purchasing our current Cougar without a moonroof has haunted me since the day I bought it. It is my single biggest regret with the ’99 Cougar. You might be thinking “it’s just a moonroof”; But for me, it takes me back to those early moments with my wife, driving the country roads to Bourget while I look up at the stars from the passenger seat, full of love and joy. For me, the moonroof feels like a symbol of love, freedom and happiness. So I’m trying everything in my power to not make the same mistake I made with the last car. I don’t want any regrets. I want to make my time in the car enjoyable and fun.

So what is the art of buying a car? I guess it’s a bit like finding a true love.

Don’t be afraid to push your boundaries for what you truly want. Don’t be afraid to take a few risks in order to have no regrets. And make sure you’re going to enjoy every minute you spend with it.

Just choose something you can live with. Or more importantly, choose something you can’t see yourself living without.

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I have finally gotten around to importing the footage of the crime scene shoot (formerly known as the accident scene). I am completely blown away by the beautiful lighting, and the superb acting by everyone involved. Shannon and Alfredo’s scene is especially convincing, and both performed with conviction.

You all know the scenario by now. We got Jeff to come up from Toronto to help with the lighting. We got extras, PAs, grips, and makeup artists… and at the last possible instant, literally minutes before shooting, we got a call saying our lead actor was not coming in, and our props and extras were not coming either.

You can read the full story as narrated by the lovely and talented Tina, who was not only documenting the shoot, but jumped right in to fulfill a PA role and assist in the shoot. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a few stills from the actual captured footage that night.

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The second shooting weekend for To The Rescue’s new music video being produced by Hotcakes New Media can now officially be considered a successful shoot. It was, however, a rocky shoot. Want to know why? Keep reading.

Doing night shoots are tricky. Unless you are able to properly block the windows to simulate nighttime, you have to wait until it’s really dark to get your lighting set up correctly. In this case, shooting this scene at Anne and Dave’s house, it was crucial to wait until it was fully dark out before starting (past 9:30pm!) because of the HUGE windows in the space. This led to a very slow start, but ultimately, not really a issue as I had informed people that the shoot would run until midnight (which it did, almost to the minute). Instead, the main issues we faced were due to the small space we were working with, and the performance of our lead female.

First, the small space; Small spaces are always difficult to shoot in. It makes it difficult to set up lighting far enough away to avoid hot spots on the skin (completely white areas due to too much light) while providing a decent fill light to make the lighting look natural. In this case, we had to soften our lights with frosted gels because they were too harsh, and place lights in precarious positions in the stairs. For the entrance, we had to literally hang a light with a softbox over the stair railing. The good news is, Dave and I are getting better (faster?) at lighting, so everything turned out very nice. The only issue is one shot where the light is a little too bright (at the entrance, directly below the light), but I was able to fix it in post.

Second, the acting; Jay, our lead male, is a natural. His performance was very consistent and very well acted. Our female lead, Kandisse, was not as natural. It was a little more difficult to get the performance the way we wanted. In all fairness, after looking back at the original script (before the editing), the dialogue was not 100% believable to begin with, so it made matters worse than they should have been. The issue was that she was not conveying the emotion we wanted for the scene, which was hurt feelings driving to anger. Instead, she was portraying it more as self-pity and despair, with long drawn out sentences that felt completely manufactured. After taking a break from shooting and Dave going over the inflection we were looking for with the actors, we on a roll, and the performance was becoming more honest.

With all the issues we had in shooting, we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to put together a believable scene with the footage we had. But it turns out we have more than enough footage to put together a great intro scene with nice pacing and flow. The editing is now done, and it’s official; The scene works very well and Dave and I are both happy with it. I should also mention that Lorelei, the producer for Moonrise Productions, was on set to help, and provided the scene saving gels for our lighting. She has a great eye, and noticed a few glitches I didn’t catch while looking at my monitor.

So you want more pictures? Of course you do! (but crafty people will find the video on YouTube if they know how to search well enough)

Here you go:

On to July 4th for the big accident scene shoot.

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My annual “year in review” music post in January 2010 will be filled with fantastic music (and will actually be written properly this year). But before that happens, you should have time to enjoy the music now! So here’s a little breakdown on some stuff you should be listening to.

Alexisonfire. Old Crows, Young Cardinals.

These guys know how to rock, and this album is no exception. Their sound is familiar, yet new. Somehow, the screaming parts (the parts NOT sung by Dallas Green) are more controlled, and thus, not as irritating. Some songs have a bit of a punk influence to them (especially the single, Young Cardinals). This is not my favourite album ever, but it is a really solid album that will have you rockin’ all night long.

Green Day. 21st Century Breakdown.

Green Day has come back with what I believe will be a milestone album for the band. With a unique mix of old-school fast “machine gun” guitar riff songs that are pure Green Day, to softer ballads that elevate their songwriting skills to new heights, this album is my top pick for album of the year.

Moneen. Hold That Sound EP (full album due in a few months)

It’s no secret that Moneen is at the top of my band list. They have such a complex and deep songwriting style that is unmatched in a market full of “sound-alikes”. If this EP is any indication of what the album will be like, I expect Moneen to do quite well for themselves. Their songs are finely crafted in true Moneen fashion, and they are sure to please long-time fans as well as garner a few new fans along the way. I bought the EP instantly on iTunes. Have a listen if you get a moment. You have my personal guarantee that it is worth listening to over and over again.

Till next time.

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Notable updates to this version include a proper full 15 second animation, updated mountains, more “shine”, and a fade out at the end to reveal just the company name. Note that the music is just a temporary filler until the proper music is written.

(Original post)
I put together a rough (yet completely polished) draft of the intro video for Moonrise Productions (the company Dave is releasing his short film under). It is actually a 15 second intro, just like the Hotcakes “chomp” intro, but it got sped up a bit when I exported, and the YouTube version loses a lot of detail (like the sparkling letters). The final High Definition version will be a full 15 seconds. Let me know what you think, and if you have any ideas for improvement!

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After a long wait, and large amount of planning, Hotcakes New Media‘s first weekend of shooting was finally started this past weekend. Dave and I just wrapped the “bar scene” and all the live band footage. Keep reading to see more pictures and find out how it went.

The video shoot was spread out over 2 days. Saturday night was filming the crowd, live band performances, and the final acting scene (cop chases criminal into the bar, criminal tried to get lost in the crowd, gets taken down by the cop). We started the night with the live performances of the band. We needed to run the song 5 times, each from a different camera angle (middle of the crowd, back/left, behind the band, and two roving steadicam shots of the band and the crowd). Those shots went amazingly well, though incredibly slow. The “crowd” was not made up of paid extras, just the band’s friends. So in between shots, they all left to get drinks and go party upstairs. It took forever to get everyone back in place each time. Of course, since that extended everything, it meant that people were getting increasingly more drunk as the night went on. We ended the night by attempting to film the acting scenes. By then, the crowd was drunk, rowdy and belligerent. Things were getting out of hand, so we had very little time to shoot. We gathered all the crowd we could and just shot everything as fast and as furious as we could, hoping that we got what we needed. It was hectic, and messy, and I had all kinds of alcohol spilled on me, but I think we got most of what we needed.

As a result of the drunken partying, people were stepping on the camera’s cords. The camera was unplugged abruptly on a couple of occasions, which caused us to lose some good footage. We also had a number of people in the crowd looking directly into the camera (which made those shots unusable). But as I said… there was enough footage to put the scene together (but just barely).

Now we are on to planning and shooting the final 4 acted scenes of the video, including one huge scene with police cruisers, bloody bodies, smoke machines and a cast of 10-15 actors. So far everything has gone relatively well, and the footage we have is unbelievable. I forgot just how amazing my camera is. Doing this video shoot has reminded me how much I love it. And Dave did a fantastic job of working the camera in question. I think we work well as a team… I was like the director watching the monitor to ensure the footage and shots were clean and we got the shots we needed, and he was co-director and camera operator. Judging from the footage, it looks like that setup worked quite nicely.

A few more pictures of the footage we captured are below. For more information on Hotcakes New Media, visit our site at http://www.hotcakesnewmedia.com .

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EDIT: More pictures from Day 2!

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I’ve set up a new domain and website for posting all my artwork. I needed a centralized place that had a visual impact and an image based navigation system, yet also allowed me to post the artwork’s concept and details. And most importantly, I wanted all that to be RSS trackable, and have comments to boot. The new site is up and running, and I encourage you to view my portfolio at the link above.

So what did I do? I created a whole new blogging platform that allows me to post images of my work and view my portfolio in a chronological timeline. The new site is live now, but I am still working on the final touches (I will be adding a “recent comments” section to the main page soon, so I know when you people show me some love).

This new site will act as a portfolio for all my “marketable” artwork… that includes paintings, illustrations and of course, t-shirts. Please visit the site: http://www.A7is.com and be sure to bookmark it and visit it for all my latest art. This site will remain in place as a general blog with a variety of topics, and will still feature my more conceptual work. As soon as things settle down here, I’ll look into ways to merge the two blogs so the information is centralized in some way. (But first, I have tons of work to catch up on… my mexican client’s new website is a big project, as is my friend Jeff’s portfolio site… plus work for MC’s mom, working on Real with Dave, and shooting the To The Rescue music video)

So please visit the site at http://www.A7is.com and take a look at some of my art. Let me know what you think.

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All is well in hackintosh land. Back to work for me.

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