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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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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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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Although I am still working on building up Hotcakes New Media, I have been paying attention to the job market in Ottawa; More specifically, I am watching for the few Interaction Designer positions that pop up in this area. Since my main Hotcakes cash cow is now all but going under, business has been a little slow (which allowed me to work on finishing the basement). Since a little extra money, networking, and career advancement never hurt, I’ve recently submitted an application that required me to put together a PDF of my portfolio.

I thought it would be interesting to show the portfolio to you, my loyal readers.  So here it is!

I’ve attached the PDF version of the portfolio to this post. The file is 1.5Mb and is 4 pages long.

My portfolio

Let me know what you think.

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Since IxD is now officially my career path for the next little while, I’ve had a few ideas for some design posts. Now I have somewhere to post them.

Most of the posts will be focused on Interaction Design, and I’m hoping that this site (or specifically this section) will act as a think tank for building on design ideas and considerations. The sharing of ideas, information, and experience is an important part of the design process, so please don’t be shy to participate! The more discussion that occurs, the better the end result.

A real IxD post will be forthcoming. Enjoy the new section.

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I’ve been toying with an idea for a new video-based artwork for a while now. The work is a database-driven computerized video installation that is set up in multiple locations. In one location, people would enter a “confession booth” and record a story. In another location, a video screen randomly plays stories from the database of recorded confessions. Conceptually, the work is about bridging gaps between technology and human interaction, ideas of removing boundaries in distance, and about the anonymity of technology removing psychological barriers in open discussions.

The work has a strong conceptual base, yet I think it is very accessible. But by simply changing the setting of the work from a gallery space to a wedding reception, the context changes dramatically. In a gallery, we immediately look for meaning and concepts. There is an inherent base of theoretical underpinnings upon which people view the work, and it adds a considerable amount of depth to the piece. If it were installed at a wedding as a way for guests to record well-wishes for the bride and groom that would be immediately displayed on a screen in the dining hall as guest mingle and dinner is served, all those concepts vanish, and the work becomes nothing more than a novelty; A GOOD novelty with great potential, but a simple novelty none-the-less.

At what point does commercial success tarnish an artists reputation? Should a work’s credibility be dictated by the success of similar works with the same technology?

Let me know what you think.

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I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but my 1 month contract was yet again extended for another 3 months, until the end of April. Originally, I was asked to continue working a dual-role as IT admin (to help with generic IT requests like installing software and setting up servers) and E2 Support (supporting Artez’s main application called E2RM). Although I made it clear on a number of occasions that I did not want to continue doing IT and Support, I decided to continue the 3 month extension to help chip away at more debt, in the hopes that they would transition me into another role. Well, they unofficially transitioned me into another role.

I recently attended some quick training sessions on customizing the E2RM application with custom designs and templates for some of Artez’s bigger clients. As it turns out, a couple of days later both of their current designers decided to go on vacation for several weeks at the same time, leaving people scrambling to get some design work done in a hurry. That’s where I came in to save the day.

For the past week I’ve been working with an Australian charity to design a fancy template, graphics, and plug-ins for their custom designed site. The bad news is they had insanely tight deadlines, and working with Australia means I’m always one day late (they are a day ahead of us!). Due to the time difference, I’ve been working really weird hours. I even pulled a 16 hour day this week. Yikes! That would explain why I’m a little brain-dead this week. The good news is I haven’t felt this comfortable in a job in… well… ever. I really enjoy what I am doing, and I am having a blast creating great looking designs and tools for major sites. It’s very rewarding and everyone seems to love my work (despite it being only a fraction of what I can do… just wait until they give me more to work with…).

I wrapped up the main site design today, and just found out that they are so pleased that they’ve asked me to work on their main portal landing page as well, which will include a clickable map of Australia to select the charity events across the country. I’m booked until the end of next week with more design work, and I’m hoping it continues indefinitely!

So… while it may not be officially official yet, it looks like I’ll be doing web design and coding from now on. If I continue to impress them with my design, I’m sure I’ll have another contract extension, or better yet a permanent position, at the end of April. Wish me luck!

P.S. In case you didn’t read between the lines, doing design work affords me the option to work from home, which means I can work from Ottawa. And yes, we have contacted people about homes and mortgages already. More on that as we get further info in a few days.

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