I am the Video Project Manager at BPOC (Balboa Park Online Collaborative) in San Diego, California. Our organization collaborates with about 27 institutions (and counting) within and beyond Balboa Park. Being a small and young organization with very newly offered video services I take care of every element of video production with one part time assistant and the occasional supplemental intern while also managing many of our media projects.
I am also a video installation artist working with various display technologies and production approaches, my artist site. I really enjoy working with dancers and performance artists as these types of collaborations give me space to rethink the ways in which we represent an experience through experimental modes of documentation and the use of consumer technology.
At BPOC we work with a Panasonic HMC150 and Canon 5D with a Zoom h4n recorder, switching between these two cameras depending upon the demands of the job. We edit primarily in Premiere, occasionally in AVID, and I am a long time Final Cut fan up until the collapse last year (I still run it on my home system). I love geeking out about equipment and software.
I am also very engaged in applications of consumer video technology like iPhones, flip cams, handicams in the museum context. I like getting cameras into the hands of the subjects to reconsider how to gather good content. I am doing a lot of training in these methods with one of my current projects at BPOC, Conservation Reel. I will be doing a workshop at MW on using consumer technology to produce content for Conservation Reel.
And finally, I am very excited to meet more people in our field to create an awesome community of media producers!
@annachiaretta / annachiaretta@gmail / annachiaretta@skype / aclavatelli@bpoc.org
Andy inspired a little more equipment geek out : We have the Manfrotto HD504 on 546b legs, it is awesome to shoot with and we also just got a glidecam to play with for walking tours, difficult to balance, but we are working on getting it functional (sans brace so small cameras only).
ReplyDelete#museumvideonerds!
ReplyDeleteAnna, that's ambitious to use a Glidecam for tours! Do you have any examples yet? I imagine your arms might get pretty tired. They're also very tricky to balance and use for long takes. I use a wheeled dolly for tours, but that is out of convenience, not to capture movement. Also, we don't make our tours public (yet). They're just for tour guide training purposes. Anyone have good luck producing long-form exhibition tours for public consumption?
ReplyDeleteI got the idea from watching some guys footage who used a glidecam on a camping trip, amazing footage in vancouver, so i am thinking not long takes but little jaunts around objects and things, like I said we are still messing around with it to see what we can get it to do. Unfortunately I have been swamped and haven't had playtime for it, but occasionally I sick interns on it to see what they manage to pull off.. haha.
DeleteOn a side note, I am really impressed with the steadicam function on a little handheld that we used on shoots with the Conservation Labs at IMA, the conservators did handheld casual lab tours that turned out pretty great. Panasonic HDC-HS900, it is a super cool little camera.
Anna, your org structure sounds very similar to mine. I've got two production assistants working with me and I'm handling everything soup to nuts. Are you new to Premiere/Avid - I'm getting ready to move BAM from FCP 7.0 to one of those (likely Premiere) and I'd love it if you would write sometime about your thoughts on switching over to Premiere versus Avid in light of FCPocalypse.
ReplyDeleteBen, I would love to share the experience of switching over. My first dive into the digital from analog tape to tape editing was with Final Cut and I was a loyal user up until the FCPocalypse last year. I am working on a comprehensive post about the pros and cons I experienced in working with both softwares from the perspective of a tiny org. It was a great experience to have both softwares and no Final Cut 7 in house so I was forced to move on rather early in the game (at that point Final Cut 7 had been pulled from the shelves for about a month) and happened to have both Media Composer 6 and Premiere Pro 5 sitting on the table when I started at the position, after a year of troubleshooting and self training... I have some opinions on the matter.
ReplyDeleteIn short after discussing my experience with freelance colleagues we generally agree on Premiere as the more logical option, but it does really depend on your current workflow and what your post production habits are. So count on some more on this soon!
Will really look forward to exploring this topic with you. I'm leaning towards Premiere (which looks like Final Cut 8.0 to me). Considered installing both... but Premiere just seems more friendly for our work environment. I'm concerned about what appears to be a steeper learning curve in regards to upkeep of an Avid system and putting that burdon on our IT group. On the other hand, Premiere seems as easy as Photoshop and After Effects to get up and running. By the way, I think I made up the word FCPocalypse - can we trademark that for this blog?
DeleteWe should definitely trademark FCPocolypse, let's get a wiki article going! I am under the gun on a script at the moment, hour and a half of amazing interviews to be cut to 5-7 minutes. I promise much more in the coming weeks and can't wait to dive into your recent post when I finish this up.
DeleteAs others have posted examples, I thought I would post a video I did with the San Diego Museum of Art when I was a freelancer and a promo video we produced for one of their series this past summer at BPOC (with my fantastic assistant, Andrew Mandinach).
ReplyDeleteSummer Salon Series 2011
Summer Salon Series 2012: 36 Hours Non-Stop