I graduated!!!

I screened "Why don't we ride zebras?" yesterday, and my committee members really seemed to like it. They also said they learned a lot from my thesis and would be using it as a reference. The defense went very smooth. It was mostly a conversation. I guess I was nervous for nothing. I am so glad I finished my film and wrote the thesis. I learned a lot, and now I am off to my next big adventure...

I have left my job at Sea Studios so I can make PodclassTV a reality. I will be working on a prototype site and a business plan in the coming months. I will also apply for some grants. On top of that, I plan on shooting a lot of stock footage, volunteering at the SPCA, and start working as a freelance videographer. I am so glad to have the Masters monkey off my back!

Update

sheriff helicopter
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Heard from a few of the neighbors that there is a hostage situation in one of the homes in the Monte del Lago Park, near Castroville, California.

Incentive-based cell phones

This is an amazing idea. Cell phone usage tied to students' performance in school.

For more on this visit http://www.droga5.com/ and http://www.edlabs.harvard.edu/

Great animation with conservation message

My first cartoon strip

Today, I found a website that is the closest thing to what I have envisioned for Podclasstv. Check out www.toondoo.com
I was just telling Mark about my ideas for podclasstv a couple days ago...and here they are on toondoo, but they are customizable cartoon stips, instead of customizable documentaries. I want to create my site with documentaries without animations...Think of my zebra film without the animation. What if kids could select the animations like they select characters and backgrounds from the palettes on toondoo. I am very excited by this toodoo website and a little frustrated. I want to create a children's participatory documentary website, but I fear someone will or has beaten me to it.

But, it was fun making the comic strip.

Children's Documentary

I was doing some research today on fun kid's films, and I ran across a couple clips from a kid's doc called "The Riddle in a Bottle". I have actually met this brother/sister children's documentary duo (Sisbro Studios) a while back at one of the wildlife film festivals.


I love how they use music. Here's a clip from another of their films, "Lost in the Woods":

Thesis outline

Here's my rough thesis outline.

Moving Beyond Broadcast: Making a Children's Documentary for the New Media Landscape

I. Introduction
a. Background “Why don’t we ride zebras”
b. My Trials and Tribulations with New Media

II. New Media
a. Definition of New Media
i. History of New Media
ii. Old vs. New Media
b. New Media Today
i. Successful Sites
1. FreeRice.com
2. World Without Oil
ii. The Future of New Media
1. Interactivity
2. Virtual Reality
3. Convergent Culture

III. How Children Learn
a. School
i. History
ii. Innovations
iii. Challenges
1. Education Standards
2. No Child Left Behind
b. Children’s Television
i. History
1. Winky Dink
2. Sesame Steet
ii. Learning from TV
1. Blue’s Clues
iii. Studies on the Effect of TV on Children
c. Internet
i. Social Networks
ii. Blogging
d. Video Game
i. Traditional Video Games
ii. Online games
iii. Mobile games
iv. Educational games

IV. Moving Beyond Broadcast
a. History of Imagery
b. Traditional Documentary Model with Outreach
c. Emerging Interactive Model

V. My Ideal Vision for my Zebra Film
a. Interactive Documentary/Website
i. Children insert their own vision into the video
1. create music
2. create animation
3. add footage
4. edit online
5. green screen
ii. Combine learning with a video game that creates social awareness
1. Kid’s win animal kibble to donate to animal shelters as they answer questions correctly
b. Education
i. Lesson plans co-inside with education standards
ii. Develop supplemental materials for learning science outside of school
1. girl scouts
2. after school programs
3. pre school

VI. What the Future Could Hold for New Media and Documentary

Sorry for the lack of formatting. When I finish my masters, one of the things I want to do is learn HTML.

Other things on the top of my list:
1. Incorporate SmithWalker Productions and create a website outlining our services (videography, editing, web design, animation, still photography, new media museum/non profit consulting, and science web writing.
2. Start shooting and selling stock HD footage
3. Find programmer and educator to help make my thesis ideas a reality
4. Make my next kid's film for PodclassTV on primates
5. Make a film for CurrentTV on cell phones
6. Learn Flash Action Scripts

Predicting the next 5,000 days of the Web video

This is a video from a TED conference. Pretty mind-blowing ideas.

New Media Book List, Thesis Titles, and Montana

I bought my plane ticket today. I do my defense in Bozeman on December 15th. I better get writing! But I have to decide on a thesis first. I need a thesis that encompasses new media, outreach, science, interactivity, documentary, the making of my zebra film, video games, and children's education. Here's a few thesis titles I have come up with:

1. "From Broadcast to Podcast: The Evolution of New Media and Documentary"

2. "New Media: Is it a new technology? Is it a new mode? Or is it the future of documentary?"

3. "Moving Beyond Broadcast, Making Outreach and Interactivity Core to Nonfiction Filmmaking"

4. "What's black and white, and interactive all over? A new media film on zebras."

5. "Moving Beyond Broadcast: Making a Children's Film for the New Media Landscape"

I am leaning towards 3 or 5.

A few books arrived today from the Amazon fairy. Hopefully they will help me hone in my thesis.

Children's Learning From Education: Sesame Street and Beyond

Good Video Games plus Good Learning

Education: The Emperor's New Clothes

The Unfinished Quest: The Plight of Progressive Science Education in the Age of Standards

Free-Choice Science Education: How We Learn Outside of School

Children, Adolescents, and the Media

Unfortunately, the more I read, the more I end up having to revise my thesis topic because I want to include yet another seemingly non-related item.

Web research

Doing a bit of research tonight.

Interesting things I have found:

1. The ASPCA
They have fabulous lesson plans for teachers on animals (I think this will come in handy for my thesis)
http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=edu_lessonplans

Fun interactive game called "Woof'
http://www.aspca.org/doghouse/main.html

They List Bad Video Games for Animals
Acclaim’s Fur Fighters
Sony’s Ape Escape 2
Sunstorm Interactive’s Deer Hunter

Questionable Animal Video Games
Microsoft’s popular Zoo Tycoon (they are worried that kids will think that animals are happy in aquariums or zoos)

2. Freepoverty.com

This website donates water as you learn geography. One thing that was odd, the water non-profit they were donating to (WaterAid), asked them to stop because the "cup of water metaphor" was not sustainable enough. That blows my mind, a nonprofit turning money down. Talk about a gift horse.

I emailed my bosses suggesting we offer to make the Freepoverty.com a "water documentary". I am sure we could embrace the "cup of water" metaphor.

New animations

For all those that demanded the return of Mark's "Eanie Meanie" song, here goes! I don't have this section perfect yet. But it is to time. Now my composer can start creating the music.

Goodnight!

Alaska Halibut Fishery film

The Catch Share film we made for the Environmental Defense Fund has been a great success. They are using it to educate policy makers about Catch Shares (a fishery management tool).

This is the first time Sea Studios has included my footage in the final product. I shot all of the non-archival halibut fishing with my Sony HDV camera. Mark and I are thinking of buying a Panasonic HD camera so I can start getting paid to shoot. Plus we can sell HD stock footage.

Why don't we ride zebras

Why don't we ride zebras
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Here's the intro to my kid's film with professional narration. I still need to have the music composed, but I am close to finishing.

MicroDocs and Comps

Wow time flies. Mark met his deadline of getting the MicroDoc website live. Go to: http://www.stanford.edu/group/microdocs/ and explore the world of corals. As for me, the week of my comps has arrived. I will be studying like mad woman this week. I have taken off from Sea Studios so I can focus. I will get three theory questions on Friday. I have until Monday to answer them in the most verbose way as possible. I will have to reference who knows how many of the 50 books, 50 articles, and 50 documentaries.

I am looking forward to getting to watch something entertaining again. In the last couple weeks I have watched:

Primary (one of first films with portable sync sound about JFK and Hubert Humphrey's Primary)
-Why we Fight (propaganda film about Russia)
-3 Errol Morris films (one about a pet cemetery, one about bumpkins in Florida, and one about a man possibly being falsely accused of murder)
-2 films on Bob Dillon
-9/11 (shot from inside the towers)
-Man with a Movie Camera (experimental film commenting on true cinema)
-Silverlake Life (a film about two men dying of aids)
-4 Mark Lewis films (one on rat natural history and the other three on cow, cat, and ferret breeders)
-Ghosts of the Abyss (Titanic documentary)
-Microcosmos (macro cinematography of bugs)
-Winky Dink and You (first interactive TV show)
-This is Spinal Tap (mockumentary on a fake band)
-Battle of Algiers (fiction film based on the Algerian Independence shot documentary style)
-Sweetback's Baaad Assss Song (not sure why I had to watch this. It was a fiction film about a black man in the sex industry who shot a cop and was hunted by the man. Apparently, it was the first 'blaxploitation' film. It was made and distributed with wide success without the help of white Hollywood. You tell me, what does this have to do with science and natural history filmmaking?)
-Animlas: Friend of Food (film about an idealist new farmer who wants to raise, love, kill, and eat his animals. He kills a bunny, lamb, and pig. But he can't bring himself to kill the cow. So he decides that he can't give up meat, but he cannot personally kill the animals either. So he sends the cow to the slaughter house.)
-Hearts and Minds (documentary on the Vietnam War)

Don't vote.

I really like this video because of the reverse psychology and psuedo interactivity. Hopefully this video will reach a few people who thought they shouldn't bother to vote.

Governor Palin

Just watched the VP debates. I am truly frightened. Sarah Palin came across not as crazy (as she really is). I wish she would have shown her true stripes. And I wish I could have her advisors helping me study for my comps. I would absolutely ace my comps if I had a team of wanky researchers researching every possible response to possible theory questions.

I thought Biden did well enough. He's good on climate and on foreign policy. But he isn't cute enough for the average super conservative.

But tonight, I found out my neighbors, who were pro Hillary and who have alternative lifestylesare are now pro Palin/McCain. Very scary. Sorry to bring politics into my blog. But if McCain wins the election, then dies, then Sarah Palin would become president. She would bring her religion and naivety full front and center. Say goodbye to science education and to a woman's right to choose. Let's not even begin to think about the countries we would continue to alienate and countries she (we) could possibly nuke (and be nuked by). Very, very scary. Do we really want someone who has a hand on the controls who believes dinosaurs walked the earth with humans 6000 years ago? I say, HELL NO. Please, please HELL NO.

Here's a few new media clips I have enjoyed over the last weeks.

The LA Times has confirmed she believes humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, which is part of the young earth creationism belief that the planet is approximately 6,000 years old. (See Related Links for the article.) For someone who believes the planet was created 6 or even 10 thousand years ago, it wouldn't be unreasonable to also believe some dinosaurs still existed 2 to 6 thousand years later.

Quote from LA Times: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_Sarah_Palin_believe_that_dinosaurs_were_alive_4000_years_ago

Here's the Katie Couric interview:

(look at the interview about 2 minutes in).

Saturday Night Live sketch...youtube (the powers that be) won't let me imbed the clip. Please copy and paste this link below into a new window:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ) It's frightening how the Saturday Night Live sketch is almost word for word..

Here's a great clip of what a Sarah Palin sitcom would look like:
College Humor's "Head of Skate Clip"

A couple of great videos.

I saw this funny, well done video at the Web 2.0 Conference


and this is a fabulous animation and story...

StrangePods

Plastic Plague:
Far out at sea and deep in the nation's heartland, experts are discovering the disturbing consequences of a hitchhiker in our waters---plastic. On the remote islands in the Pacific, a team of researchers is trying to solve the mystery of why albatross chicks with full bellies are starving. Many miles away another team is finding more plastic than plankton in giant garbage patch of ocean called the North Pacific Gyre. Could these two events be related?


Grilled, Baked, Boiled, Fried?
While some scientists work to conserve massive tracts of ocean, others, like Brian O'Hanlon, hope to reduce fishing pressures by tending fish like ranchers tend livestock. O'Hanlon is creating space-age aquapods in Puerto Rico--raising fish offshore where waste is easily diluted by strong currents, unlike many inshore fish farms. In the foggy reaches of New Brunswick Canada, another biologist, Thierry Chopin, is conducting a novel experiment--building ecosystems of salmon, mussels and kelp in hopes of creating a lucrative, environmentally friendly fish farm. Can we reduce fishing pressures, restore fish stocks and protect ocean habitats in time to safeguard the health of life in the sea, on land, and ultimately, ourselves?


Dangerous Catch:
It's become increasingly clear that our massive demands on the ocean are impacting life far beyond the shoreline including Earth's own life support systems. In the West African nation of Ghana, olive baboons are ransacking crops and terrorizing villagers. Biologist Justin Brashares and his team have come to survey antelope, and find that antelope numbers have plummeted along with large animals like lions and leopards that used to keep olive baboon numbers in check. Brashares discovers a shocking link—the month to month hunting pressures on Ghana's bushmeat increases in direct proportion to fish supplies. Could overfishing and bushmeat trading be related?


Poisoned Waters:
Our insatiable demand for seafood affects more than just life in the ocean. Bizarre and often unpredictable effects are rippling out far beyond the shoreline; off the coast of Namibia, a once vibrant fishing community is struggling to recover while putrid fumes rise from the ocean depths, causing townspeople to gag and carpeting the beaches in dead fish. Ecologist Bronwen Currie is working with satellite oceanographer Scarla Weeks and biologist Andrew Bakun to understand what's behind these phenomena. Through dogged sleuthing, the team reveals these stench events are orders of magnitude larger than ever imagined, and may be influenced by the over-fishing of a small silver fish. Could these events really be caused by a massive shortage of sardines?

Web 2.0 Experience

Well I just finished a week of wall to wall technology sessions. Much of it was way over my head. But I was able to gleam a lot of useful information. I also led a group talk on interactivity and education. And one of people that came for the talk started a wiki for all of us to add to in the coming months. Here's a link to the wiki: kidslearning2.0 Wiki

I am pretty exhausted. I don't recommend staying in a hostel dorm with 5 other people if you are expected to stay awake through hours of talks on different coding technologies like Java, CSS, and APEX.

I wrote out a quick list of some of the things I learned. I need to add to it when I have some of my mental capacities back.

1. video games are happening in the browser...soon won't need to download or buy console games
- Instant Action
- Maple Story
- Club Penguin
- webkinz
- sodaplay
2. forget about downloading, there's technology to edit online
- jumpcut
- adobe premiere express
3. make podclasstv a game with a clear objective
- make it so kids get to show how clever they are
- make it so they can "level up"
4. Web 2.0 is way over my head
5. there are multiple layers of coding/systems that go into creating webpages
a. html, java, ajex, c++, actionscripts, sdk, linux, perl, css, api’s, open source
6. I might be able to learn Flash action scripts without getting a degree in programming, but should probably start with html
7. Good New Media content providers
- revision3
- nextnewnetworks
- collegehumor
8. cloud computing is the future
9. Korea has great broadband infrastructure but America's is terrible
10. the Maori are getting a piece of the New Zealand spectrum
11. the spectrum in the US will probably free up once TV’s go digital
12. video needs massive amounts of bandwidth
13. iphone doesn’t do flash
14. Ubiquitous is the word of the day at Web2.0
15. Mark is a "content strategist"
16. people are making scaled down websites to work on mobile phones
17. TechCrunch
18. technology-user bell curve starts with "technophiles" and "early adopters"
19. never stay in a hostel

Great stop-motion

http://www.animalssavetheplanet.com/

Web 2.0 Conference

I leave on Monday for the Web 2.0 Conference in New York. I hope to learn more about new media and interactivity. I will be writing my thesis on audience interactivity in new media. I am looking forward to talking with people about my ideas.

Here's the website's address:
http://en.oreilly.com/webexny2008/public/content/home


I submitted a "Birds of a Feather" proposal to the conference entitled: Creating Interactive Educational Content: Who, What, When, Where, and How?

If my proposal is approved, then it will be advertised at the conference and like-minded individuals should show up. I think the chance for this was worth the price of the conference alone.

StrangePods

The Strange Days on Planet Earth podcasts are now available on iTunes for free. Go to:
http://seastudios.org/strangepods.php

Web 2.0 and interactivity links

Great video explaining Web 2.0


I am off to the New York Web 2.0 Conference on September 16th. Check it out: http://en.oreilly.com/webexny2008/public/content/home

Spore, a much anticipated video game has just been released. The game is loosely based on theories of evolution, but it's a huge step towards creating interactive science media for the masses.
Spore's official website: http://www.spore.com/

Interactive Social Media Game about the World Without Oil

Stock Footage Research Links

Best Online Science and Natural History Stock Footage Databases: *based on user-friendly interfaces and the ability to download and view offline clips

BBC Motion Gallery includes CBS, NHK

Footage Search

Oxford Scientific 

Framepool

Getty

Thought Equity

FootageBankHD

Corbis Motion

Absolutely Wild Visuals

ArtBeats

All-Stock

CBC

Silverman Stock Footage

Stormstock

AlwaysHD

Other Fabulous Science and Natural History Sources:

National Geographic Digital Motion

NHNZ

Habitat Media

WGBH Stock Sales

America By Air

MammothHD

Howard Hall Productions

Landis Wildlife Films


Best Budget Stock Footage Sources:

iStockPhoto

FotoSearch

ShutterStock

Pond5

News/Hollywood Stock Sources:

ABC News Source includes APTN, WTN and British MovieTone

CNN Image Source

ITN Source includes Reuters, FOX News, Channel 4, Granada Wild, Survival Anglia, Partridge

Sony Pictures

Ina Media Pro

Archive Film Stock Sources:

F.I.L.M Archives

American Museum of Natural History Archive

Journeyman Pictures

Historic Films

Misc. Stock Footage Houses:

AM Stock

Best Shot

BlackLight Films

BlackStone

Budget Films

BuyoutFootage

Classic Images

Conus

Creatas

eFootage

First Light

Fish Film Footage World

Footagefinders

Greg Hensley Productions

Nautilus Productions

Oddball Films

Prairie Pictures

Producers Library

RevoStock

RSPB Film Collection

Stock Footage

Streamline Films

TimeImage

Third Millennium Films

Video Tape Library LTD

News and Information for the Stock and Archival Footage Industry:

footage.info


I would love to get feedback about this list. Please let me know if you think I have left out any good stock vendors. And tell me your favorite stock house.

As for my favorite, for general searches I like the BBC the best. They have the widest range of downloadable footage and the best quality. Unfortunately they are the most expensive and don't bend much on clip minimums.

As for customer service and price breaks, I prefer going straight to the production companies themselves.

Wow, what a couple of weeks

Lots of good news...I am back in the MFA program. I had a huge epiphany, and finally came up with my thesis idea. The idea was so right on, that my previous committee chair agreed to stay on as my chair. That was huge! And the EDF fishery film for Sea Studios came in on time and under budget.

It is going to be one hell of a semester. I have to work full time (for most of the semester), finish my film, my thesis, my defense, and my comps by the middle of December. I have scheduled out my time to the T. There will be no time for procrastination. But, the good part of that is that I will have this master monkey off my back sooner than I thought.

This weekend I am auditioning voice over actors and composers. Then I will have a couple weeks to turn in my fine cut. Then I move on to my thesis paper. I am proposing a new mode of documentary called Audience Interactivity. This mode won't be perfected until interactive media technology can catch up (ie. video games, interactive tv, etc). But I am going to write about what is being tried. I am also going to use the zebra film as an experiment at interactivity for school kids. I will probably film the kids acting out scenes or moving the toys around to make their own film. Then edit something together for them to be able to download and show their parents how they interacted with a Zebra documentary.

I will be taking a little over 6 weeks off total from work. My bosses are pretty supportive. I will take one week of in Sept and one in October to get most of my thesis ideas flushed out. I will be working on it nights and weekends as well. Then, come the middle of Nov, I will take a month off to finish the paper and to dive in to intensive study for my comps. I bought about $500 worth of books last night off of Amazon. The book list is huge! Luckily, I already had about half the books. If I fail the comps once, I get one more chance. If I were to fail twice, then all of my work would have been in vane. They don't let you graduate if you fail more than twice. The same criteria goes for the Defense. So I need to study my ass off!

But, you wouldn't believe how wanky and verbose these books are. They are one of the only things that can cure insomnia.

But anyway, I will have to use close pins to keep my eyes open and make sure I have several solid weeks to write mock essays. Won't that be a hoot!

I will fly to Montana early December to take my Comps and sit for my defense. By then my film and thesis will have to completely done and approved.

Wish me luck!

Blog entry about my Sitka trip

I wrote this a few weeks ago for the Sea Studios blog:
We just returned from a week shoot in Alaska. We went up there to tell a success story about the halibut fishery. It was quite an amazing trip. The landscape and people were wonderful. I went up a few days early before our director and camera/sound crew arrived to do some scouting and to meet the fishermen/women and fish processors in person.

Prior to our arrival, we had a hard time getting fishermen and fisherwomen to commit to interviews and fishing trips over the phone. So I hit the ground running. My job was to find as many halibut fishers as possible. But I also needed to find someone to take us out on a boat so we could film halibut fishing. This was not so easy. It was salmon season, and the majority of boats were focusing on salmon. Plus the weather looked like it was going to get really bad by the time the crew arrived. So I lucked out and found a boat called the Kathleen Jo heading out for a two-day halibut trip. I did some fast-talking, and within an hour I was on board heading out to sea with two kind fishermen.
I had brought my HDV video camera and a tripod. I am not sure why I bothered to bring the tripod. It was completely useless on a boat. I ended up getting some nice footage of the fishermen setting three sets of long-line gear. I got a little nauseous, but managed to keep all my cookies to myself. It’s hard to keep your balance, look through a viewfinder, and not get seasick. By the second day I had my sea legs and filmed the fishermen catching halibut without feeling like I might need to find the leeward side of the boat. They only caught about 30 halibut, but that was plenty for me to film. They said it was the worst catch they had ever had. But 30 halibut ended up being over 600 pounds. They caught twice the pounds of yelloweye. It’s a kind of orange rockfish. The fishermen said yelloweye is actually tastier than halibut.


By the middle of the second day, the weather report was calling for gale force winds, so we headed back to Sitka. The director, Rob Whittlesey and the cameraman, Harry Dawson, met me at the dock. Later we met up with our sound mixer, Phillip Powell and went out for the first of many fabulous seafood meals.

The next day we went to a fish processor and filmed several boats offloading their halibut catches.

Since the weather turned bad, it had chased all the fishing boats back to port. So we had lots to film. And what’s more, the weather was going to stay bad, which meant we were able to interview the fishermen/women of Sitka. If the sun had come out, we would have been out of luck.

All in all, the shoot went very smooth and we got the footage we hoped for! Click HERE to see all the photos from the shoot.

Great Animated Song about Galapagos

A friend of Mark's sent me this the other day. This is exactly the kind of stuff I think works great for very young kids. It's fun, short, and repetitive.
Here's the website for the company that made this: http://www.biggreenrabbit.com/bgrvideos.html

Pebble Beach Car Shot Shoot

Well, I didn't get any of the greenscreening done this weekend. You see, a friend of mine made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He asked me to AC and do sound for him at a car show. He had a client that needed a crew last minute, so needless to say...the day rate was very good. Oh, and a quick disclaimer...I didn't have my real camera with me, so all these pictures are were taken with my iPhone. I am not much for car shows or cars in general. I usually only think of cars as tools to get you from A to B. But these people loved their cars probably more than anything else on the planet. They were selling anywhere from $100,000 to $8 million. Most were very old, extremely rare, and expertly restored. This was not a car show for the average Jo. Only people who could afford the $250 ticket could get in. Plus you had to be a bidder to be invited to the auctions. We were hired by a man named Simon Kidston. He is an antique car collector/dealer/expert/auctioneer. He owns a company in Switzerland that helps the elite make wise choices when it comes to buying fine collectible cars. He bid 4 million dollars for one of his clients our first night. But someone ended up outbidding his client. I can't imagine what Simon's commission would have been.

Most of the show took place at Pebble Beach, so it was quite a site to see so many beautiful cars lined up all over the green. There were a few stars there as well...Jay Leno, Jerry Sienfeld, Stirling Moss (famous race car driver from the 40's and 50's), and Leslie Keno (one of the furniture expert twins from Antique Roadshow). There was one more star that I recognized, but couldn't figure out who he was. It was driving me crazy. But I just looked him up...his name is Edward Herrmann. He's been in lots of shows and movies. He's usually a co-star. I remember him best as the drunk, rich husband in "Overboard".

(I didn't take the picture of Edward Hermann and Jay Leno is in the photo with the blue car)

On the second day, I came down with a bad cold with fever, but I had to suck it up. The shoot itself wasn't that difficult, but the shoot days were very long (14 hour days). Fortunately, the client was nice so that made it easier. I am still not entirely sure what he is using the video for. I think it's for marketing and maybe for his company's website. I found one video he did on his website. Go to: http://www.kidston.com/kidston-movies/kidston-sa-video-presentation

Here's the winner of 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

Oregon Road Trip

Jessie and I drove 10 hours to Portland the other night to see our college friends, Nicole and Cara. We've had a lot of fun catching up. Normally we do a girl's weekend and hit the bars pretty hard, but I think we are finally growing up. We actually did a few more productive activities than usual and even let a boy tag along. Nicole's husband Rick has been great. I wish Mark could have come.




Yesterday we hiked in Mt Hood National Forest and went to Oak's Park amusement park. I can't believe how much fun we had riding rides and playing games. Then we went out to eat at the Delta Cafe. We all had great meals, but I was in absolute heaven. It was all southern food. I had an entire plate of fried okra and garlic cheese grits.

Sunday

On Friday, I borrowed a bunch of equipment from a friend from work. He set me up with green screen cloth, lights, stands, clamps, and a gobo arm. It was a bit of an overkill for my small toys. But the lighting gear should provide the even light I need to pull a good key. I was hoping to have all the green screening done this weekend...but it didn't happen.

Yesterday was a no go, but today I managed to find the motivation to move my furniture around, set up all the lights, lay out the green screen fabric, and get the camera ready. Unfortunately, I was missing one key piece of equipment...a cable release. All that effort for nothing. Just pushing the shutter button added a slight motion blur and changed each shot slightly, so the stop motion looked terrible.
I ended up calling my dad. He also has a digital Canon SLR. He loaned me his macro lens last time I came to visit, and now he is going to loan me his cable release. I will make sure he gets a big special thanks in the film! I am lucky to have two parents who are photographers. Even my step-mom is picking up the photo bug...especially since she has a new grand baby to photograph.

I was a little bummed that the green screen effort didn't pay off, but my cat, Lolly helped cheer me up. She let me harass her with my camera. I took a bunch of weird angle shots of her under my hammock. Some came out pretty cool. This is the longest time she has let me photograph her since I used her for my senior photography project at Evergreen about 7 years ago. Usually, I only get a few shots off before she gets annoyed and leaves. So it was nice of her to put up with me today.

Mark pretty much entertained himself today, with his new gi-normous chop saw.

Sitka Russian Church

The Russians colonized Sitka, then sold to the USA after they killed all the sea otters and other furry animals.

Sitka Russian Church2
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Sitka scenery

Sitka scenery2
Originally uploaded by smihan13

bald eagle

bald eagle
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Halibut Net

Halibut Net
Originally uploaded by smihan13

a couple hundred pounds of halibut