Douglas Thigpen's Musings

Only two more days left before the new Doc goes into the proverbial can and is done forever and flys away to the final rendering, mastering, and distribution - never to be touched by me again. No more editing this damn thing. Fortunately we've been able to pull off editing from a 4 hour cut sans niceties that would have never see the light of day to a just-under-two hour cut with snazzy animated sequences and such that help keep the viewer's attention throughout in just under three weeks.

I've lost my voice already and I'm mildly sick from exhaustion, but at least I don't have that damn Pig Flu. Marathon editing session from hell... soon to be done; and that means that I get to fly away home to my family on Saturday and actually have someone to cuddle up with when I sleep again.

Of course, a very short week after I arrive home I'll be heading off to West Virginia for the first shoot on the production of my Rock Climbing related documentary, Vertical Fever. The shooting cycle on this one is going to be about 50 times longer than the one that I'm editing now at least (given that the shooting cycle on the one that I'm editing was 5 days, 16-20 hours a day, that's not saying a whole lot though). Fortunately, this time, my family is going to be actively participating on the production end of that documentary, so hopefully it's a bonding experience... erm, I know, recipe for failure, hush.

I assisted a friend of mine, Jason Stout, in editing a rather odd short film this past week called "The Promise". You can view it by clicking "Read More" below this post.

Grinding that last two weeks away before I have to send off the master 'print' of an upcoming documentary to the distributor to get it into reproduction and distribution in June. Was doing some finishing touches and had an idea for a concept for the credits sequence that I thought was fun, so here's a sample. Whether you're editing the end credits of a documentary, or playing games on Casino.com, it's nice to share your fun experiences with other people, and as I've got an outlet for it, I shall treat you to a brief view of one of the ideas I've had whilst putting the documentary together. Each primary individual involved would have their own little clip, then it'd roll to standard crawl for technical credits, etc.

Any feedback?

Posted a quick & dirty abbreviated ceremony highlight video from a wedding I shot last week. Was my first catholic ceremony with full mass that I've shot, was definitely a different type of venue; in addition it had a fairly large crowd, both at the ceremony and reception, good experience overall though. Since it was last minute (didn't find out until after I got into San Diego that I was doing it) and didn't have the majority of my gear with me, I made due with what I did have down here, so the primary camera on the shoot was a Canon XH-A1, fortunately I had a local secondary shooter for the ceremony itself. Great footage from all cameras for the most part though, so the final edits should be great once I get a chance to start work on them.

You can see the "flash" (not refering to the animation format when I say that) highlight clip of the ceremony itself by clicking "Read More" on this post.

First off, hell no, it's not something I did. However, I found it funny and it definitely broke the norm of wedding videos; if the bride & groom loved it and wanted it that way, more power to them. Regardless if you think it's tacky or not, I thought it was interesting enough to share.

So I'm putting together a fully automated (software based) chroma keying solution that focuses on being extremely forgiving of relatively poor lighting/background setups as well as auto-matting shadows (toggleable) and poor backdrop seams while still producing a "good" final result. It still has a ways to go, it spills too much even when properly lit with the kit I'm developing for use with it and it doesn't have garbage matte ability yet, but it's coming along. Did I mention that the entire solution, including the software and the full portable kit (including light rig) is ultra-cheap? Primarily being developed for an on-the-fly Interview kit for documentarians that they can keep in their bags at all times. Sample clip below. Excuse my ugly mug.

I (as well as some colleagues) will be shooting the performances of the East County Youth Symphony on May 3rd & May 9th. The performances will be used to produce a DVD for fundraising as well as potential local broadcast. The ECYS is a great group and deserves the support of the community they've been supporting for the past couple years, so show up and pack these performances for them.

No need to elaborate on this one. Just funny stuff from a long, long time ago. It reminds me of why I'm always on the right end of the camera these days.