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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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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I promised you all something big, so here it is! I invite you to visit Hotcakes New Media, my new video production and design company. There is still a bit of organization left to do before I start taking contracts (getting a business bank account, setting up accounting, and awaiting delivery of my new lighting and chromakey kits) but everything is registered and well underway.

Today marks the official launch of Hotcakes New Media.

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If you would like to know more about my thoughts on the state of telecommunications, and you haven’t read part 1 of this article yet, I recommend you go read it first. It contains my analysis of the state of telecommunications, what technologies are available to us, and why these are not in use yet.

This article will deal more specifically with how to setup Skype to use as your home phone. First, let’s review the advantages of this Skype setup:

• Better call quality than VOIP
• Free long distance anywhere in North-America
• Free calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world!
• Cheap calls to normal phones anywhere in the world.
• Selectable address book to make calls
• Identify yourself and call others by nickname instead of 10-digit number
• Video conferencing and chat capabilities built-in
• “Status” options to let other Skype users know if you are available
• Digital voicemail system (no need to listen to 5 messages before getting to the sixth)
• Entire solution, including all features above AND MORE, for less than $15 a month!

Before we get started, it’s important to note the limitations of this offering. This Skype solution should NOT be used to replace your main emergency line. It does not offer 911 services, and if your internet goes down, so does your phone. With that said, we live in a world where mobile phones are so common place this is no longer really an issue. If your internet goes down, you still have your mobile phone as a backup. And your mobile phone will also make emergency 911 calls. Home phones are being used less and less, which is why it’s important to try and lower our home phone costs and bridge the gap between our technology enabled world and our communications.

So let’s dive right in to the guide and I’ll walk you through the process. First, let’s take a look at what you need.

1. A Skype account: Your initial Skype account will be free. This allows you to select your Skype ID (nickname, alias, etc… how people reach you) and make calls to other Skype users.
2. The Skype software: The software allows you to use your computer to make calls, and allows you to setup your preferences. The software is available for Mac and PC (and even the iPhone!).
3. The Skype Pro bundle: For $3 a month, you get unlimited calls in North America, Voicemail, and other features we’ll need.
4. A Skype-in number: This will be the normal phone number attached to your account. Cost is about $2.50 a month. Note that this feature isn’t available in Canada, so you will have a US number. It is required nonetheless to forward your Canadian number to the US number.
5. VOIP: In order to get your Canadian phone number, you will need to sign up with a Canadian VOIP provider. This cost varies from around $10 a month to $25 a month.
6. A Skype enabled phone: This is the most costly investment, but is perhaps the coolest, and at least, the “safest” (i.e. if your project flops, it can still be used as a really great phone with any other phone service). Cost is about $150 + $80 for each additional handset (up to 4)

That’s it! Now the tricky part is setting it all up.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve been spoiled. My iPhone has been such an enlightening experience that it has spoiled me and changed my perception of how technology should be instead of how it is. It has opened my eyes to the wonderful world of digital convergence. Unfortunately, this “digital convergence” is completely flawed on so many levels. And Apple is no exception.

Here’s the problem: Everyone wants to make money, and no one wants to play with others. That’s why digital convergence will only remain a fantasy. Apple creates the most amazing technology in existence, but it only plays nice with other Apple hardware and software. My iPhone is amazing; It automatically syncs all my contacts, music and calendars through iTunes, which is synced with my Address Book and iCal, which are all synced through dotMac which syncs my Address Book, Calendars, Bookmarks, and preferences between my home computer, my work computer and my laptop. I have my entire life organized so there is no thinking involved on my part. If I add an important event to the calendar on my laptop, it gets sent around to my other machines and iPhone automatically, so I never miss anything no matter where I am. Same with all my contacts… I never have to remember an email address or phone number, because everywhere I am I have it all with me; and if I make a change in one place, all the others pick up the change as well. Pretty amazing huh? So what’s the catch? This entire scenario only works within the Apple eco-system. As soon as I introduce a non-Apple element in the mix, the whole thing falls apart. Let say I didn’t have an iPhone; If I still had my Sony Ericsson phone, I would not have all my contacts automatically imported like that. If I was over at a friend’s house and they gave me their new phone number, I would put it into my Sony Ericsson phone, but all my computers would still have the old number. I’d have to change it there too.

Apple isn’t the only company doing this. Almost every company is doing this… the only consolation is that at least Apple is doing it right. You may be wondering where I’m going with this? It’s all about the digital convergence, baby.

What is digital convergence? Well simply put, digital convergence is about interoperability between all your digital devices, such as telephone, mobile phone, computer network, digital camera, laptop, Playstation, HDTV, cable, and so on. It’s about making all these things talk to each other in a way that allows us to spend less time thinking about how to make it all work together and more time enjoying the technology. Here’s a scenario in a perfect world:

I go on vacation to Hawaii. I take a bunch of pictures of the beach. When I get back to the hotel room, my laptop sees that I have new pictures and imports them. Now I can see the pictures on my mobile phone, and show them to other vacationers. When I get home, all my pictures are on my main computer, so I can make a video slideshow. Then when my friends come over, I can show the slideshow on my HDTV. Everyone loves one picture, so I take out my mobile phone and send them all the picture. Someone suggests we call another friend to come over, so I take the cordless phone, scroll down to their name and hit call.

Sound like something out of a science fiction movie? It’s not. I can do all that right now if I wanted to. I have all the technology to do it, but digital convergence is about doing it effortlessly. Right now, I have to plug in my camera to upload the pictures. Then I have to plug in my iPhone to sync the photos. When I get home, I have to sync my iPhoto library. When I’m done making the slideshow, I have to export in a specific format for the Playsation3 to view the video on my HDTV. And I have to use Skype to select a contact by name on my phone instead of dialing the number. It should be easier than that!

If all these companies would come together and agree on a standard protocol, then we wouldn’t need all these extra steps to make it all work. Everything should interconnect with everything else. That’s digital convergence.

So where am I going with this? Isn’t this supposed to be an article about the future of telephony? The reason I started with that long introduction is because the telecommunications sector is perhaps the worst of the bunch when it comes to ignoring or avoiding standards, and even worse, it’s modeled on ancient technology that desperately needs to be updated.

This video is live footage from the Bloor Nightlight project part of Nuit Blanche 2007, in Toronto. The Window Shopping interactive video-based work was created specifically for the Nuit Blanche show and was featured as part of Dyan Marie’s Bloor Nightlight project to revitalize the Bloor-Landsdowne community. The work was curated by Ann Homan and was subsequently on exhibit at the Ann Homan Gallery.