1. Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera: This pocket-sized camera shoots 1080HD and records to an SD card, so you can then immediately edit the footage on your lap top-or anywhere- all for $995.

2. Phantom Flex 4K: If you haven’t already familiarized yourself with the Phantom, check out our blog post about it here: http://videobred.com/2013/04/the-phantom-flex-making-ordinary-stuff-look-awesome-in-super-slow-mo/. The Phantom Flex 4k can do all of things its predecessor can do, except it does it at 4K resolution. It can shoot up to 1,000 frames per second at RAW 4k. It has the potential to be the most powerful camera on the market when it’s realeased later this year.

3. AutoDesk Smoke: This all-in-one program can do pretty much anything (edit, composite, color, audio, animation). And if you are still using other programs, Smoke is designed so that it can integrate well into your workflow if you’re using Avid, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, etc.

4. 4K monitors: The resolution and clarity of these monitors make the picture so clear that it’s like you’re looking at the actual scene through a window.

5. Cinema 4D/After Effects integration: With the new versions of these programs, you can drag at 3D project into After Effects and render straight from there. A light version of Cinema 4D is included with newer versions of After Effects.

We hope you get to check out some of this awesome stuff for yourselves!

1. Who do you think is going to win the Derby?

Well, no one can pick the Derby winner. I don’t have a Derby pick per se. I remember the past couple years, the people in the Courier Journal picked their horse, who are smart sports guys who watch these horses every day. But not one of them picked the winner.

2. So what’s your suggestion on how to bet this Saturday?

Pick five horses. You’re going to want to bet a Trifecta. So here’s what you do. Pick the one you like best, and bet it to place. Then bet all five of them to win, and all five of them to show. Now that’s going to cost you about $20, but it would pay off thousands.

3. If you had to pick one horse this year, which one would it be?

I’d probably pick Overanalyze because why not? His odds are pretty good, but they’re all going to be pretty good. But we haven’t gotten their post positions yet, so once we know that it’ll help a little bit, but my top five horses are Overanalyze, Orb, Java’s War, Revolutionary, and Palace Malice. I’m betting most of those horses because I did TV spots for most of their daddies at Lane’s End.

4. What about Rick Pitino’s horse, Goldencents?

Pitino, potato. I just don’t think the horse can get the distance. But I don’t know his breeding very well. I’m sure a lot of UofL fans will bet on him though, but I just don’t think he’ll pull it off.

5. What advice would you give to someone who doesn’t know anything about the horses, but just wants to place bets?

Well if you have a lot of money, you really could just throw a dart and pick whoever it lands on because you’ve got 20 horses running out of the gate, and all of them have the same chance of winning. But here’s what you do, take the numbers in your address or something, and bet those numbers in a Trifecta. You’ve got just as good of a chance betting your address or phone number to win the Derby as you do asking some expert who he’s going to pick.

6. What about betting based on the jockey instead of the horse?

If you’re going to bet a jockey, bet this kid, Rosario. He’s 28 years old and he’s winning four or five races every day. He’s on my horse, Orb. Calvin Borel is on Revolutionary. He’s a good jockey that knows how to win the Derby. But Revolutionary’s problem is he might get in trouble in the gate. He doesn’t really like all the hoopla. He’s a rebel, but he’s a tough guy. The fact that he ran really good the last time is a big deal, but I also think he could get in trouble.

7. Any other advice you’d like to share?

I think another horse a lot of people will bet is Vyjack. He’s got a good jockey on him, Gomez, but you know, pick your own loser. Don’t just bet one. Bet two or three because it’ll pay off.

So there you have it. Derby wisdom from Dave. Take it or leave it, but it’s probably not a bad idea to take it.  According to Dave, there have been two or three times when he’s gone up to the window to cash a winning ticket, and the cashier has said, “I’ll be right back. I don’t have enough money to give you.”

Thanks to our friends at the Camera Department in Cincinnati, we were able to have a few days of hands-on training with the Phantom at Videobred and have some really cool footage to show for it.

Here’s what our Director of Photography Will Cravens had to say about it:

“The first thing we did once we were comfortable with the camera was to push it to its limits.  We cranked up the framerate to its maximum of 2,500fps at 1080p HD resolution. That means for every second of recording time, we would get 1 minute and 44 seconds of video.   So when we popped a water balloon (an event that only took a fraction of a second), it still took over 30 seconds to watch it play back. The speed at which this camera records is staggering.  It’s really quite cool.

“ Once we explored the flexibility of the camera, we went into full production mode, using the camera in real shooting environments on location.  We wanted to fully test the workflow, from building the camera on set to bringing the footage into the edit suite.  With a camera of this caliber that records so much data, proper planning must be done.  The camera’s internal RAM, the attachable CineMags and even a 4TB drive will fill up quickly, so the recording time must be precisely calculated and chosen.  And as we learned, production must be scheduled to accommodate footage offload time.   It’s not as simple as popping in a new SD card every time one fills up.  This is a professional rig and should be treated as such.”

Check out some of the still shots of our time with the Phantom below. Footage coming soon!

He spent the first night in Whitesburg, Ky., which is about 220 miles outside of Louisville. He slept in his car to assure he would get up to shoot the sunrise. “If I had stayed in a hotel, I probably wouldn’t have had the motivation to get up early,” Eric said.

The next few days consisted of shooting throughout the day and night, alternating between sleeping in his car and hotels, and driving through back roads to find the shots he wanted.

“The most difficult part was either finding good areas to pull over or keeping motivated to stay out in cold and keep shooting instead of going home and playing video games,” Eric said. “I kept shooting after the second day of the trip because I didn’t want to come back with a one minute video that didn’t do any justice to the area.”

The only real bump he hit was near Pikeville while shooting an active coal tipple. One of the managers assumed he was trying to portray the profession negatively and asked him to leave, but luckily the time lapse was already pretty much finished.

Here’s Eric’s thoughts on his time lapse vacation:

“This video shows how some of the areas in eastern Kentucky look. It doesn’t really do justice to how pretty parts of it can be or how run down other parts are. To really get an idea you would need to take a trip out there and take a few days driving around the back roads.

The first time I went out to the area was in 2009 to record some things with a company called Kertis Creative. I was amazed as to how different the landscape was compared to other places I have lived throughout my life. Over the next 3 years I traveled to the region a few more times on other video shoots, most recently with Videobred and kept thinking I would like a way to show other people what the area looks like.

In 2012 I became very interested in time lapses and realized that this type of video does a decent job of making places kind of have a life, or at least make inanimate objects move so you’re more likely to watch the entire video.”

Here is a link to some of the behind the scenes photos showing various ways these shots were taken.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42197541@N03/sets/72157632902475171/

And here’s the finished time lapse:

While the new floors are shiny, and the production stills include a few familiar faces in them, it’s the murals that grab most of the attention.

“My original idea was just a simple outline of the Louisville skyline to wrap around both walls in the lobby,” Ben said.  “I asked Zach if he could photoshop that together and after he did that, I could tell that he hated it and thought it sucked, so I let him design something from scratch.  What he came up with is what is on the walls.”

Zach designed two different murals; one dedicated to the state of Kentucky, and the other dedicated to the city of Louisville. Once the designs were finished and resized to fit the wall, they were projected, traced, and colored in by hand.

Zach said that while the process was long and physical, seeing the finished product was worth it. “Most of my work is done on a computer and it was cool to tap into the older work ethic of physically putting art on a wall,” Zach said. “It’s also super rewarding to see something of that scale finished. The hardest part was probably making sure that Ben was out of the way while I Instagram-ed photos of myself filling in the mural.”

A couple of days and multiple hand cramps later, the murals were finished and now they look great.

“My favorite part is just knowing we have created something a completely original hand drawn wall mural,” Ben said. “Getting positive feedback from people about it is pretty cool too because I’ve never been involved in an art project of that scale and that public.”

Check out the photos below of the work in progress and the finished product! Thank you Ben and Zach for doing such a killer job! Also, hop over to Zach’s website to see more of his work: www.zachstewart.com.

Today I’ll be discussing Look profiles for the RED Scarlet.

As you may know, the Scarlet came with a nice bit of software called RedCine-X Pro.  We can use it to review footage, pull stills and do RAW color correction, among other things.  But it can also be used to create custom Looks that can be loaded into the camera for use during production.

Because the Scarlet shoots in RAW (basically digital ones and zeros), the camera must analyze the data (footage) and apply a development curve to get a viewable image.  So the camera is applying a default Look that is more or less a starting point.  But if we use RedCine to alter the metadata and create a custom Look, we can essentially tone the image WHILE we shoot.   That means that the image the camera sends to the monitor would look more like toned, color-corrected footage.

Below are some images that demonstrate this.  The first image is the default RAW image the camera without a development curve (Look) applied.

The second image is with a custom Look I’ve created called Monitor Look that has boosted contrast and some small adjustments to the development curve that make the image less flat.  Remember, this is RAW footage so these adjustments can be changed later…this Look is just to give us a better idea of what the final image will look like while we’re on set looking at the monitors.

The third photo is the final image after it has been color-corrected, toned and sharpened.

So what does this mean for us?

First, it helps both producers and clients visualize the final image a little better during production.  It can sometimes be difficult to do so with a muddy, flat image.  This also helps the DP and Gaffer to create a lighting design that will compliment the image after toning and color timing.  It takes some of the guess-work out of it, making production faster and easier.

It also helps in the editing process.  The footage that comes into the edit bay will already have a Look applied, so less time will have to be spent toning and color correcting (especially in Premiere).  Also, images that the editors are sifting through will be much more pleasing to look at.  And again, these pre-toned images will help with visualizing the final product before the color correction stage.

Lastly, Looks can be used to streamline the process for subjects that we shoot a lot. Let’s say we’re shooting talent on Green Screen…it’s a situation with a light design that we use often.  I can load a Look into the camera that is designed for this scene: boosted contrast, a nice curve and maybe a little green chroma boost that facilitates easy keying.  We see a nice image on set and then we take it into the edit, ready to be keyed without much color-correction needed.  This saved time will certainly add up.

1. When were you at Videobred, and what did you do here?

During the infamous summer of 2011, I was a videobred intern-ite

2. What is your job now, and what do you love about it?

Currently, I work in production for the ABC/Lionsgate drama, “Nashville.” I act sort of like the middle man or mob boss who gets all the other departments what they want–hopefully when they want it. That can mean anticipating needs throughout the entire crew or bartering between the different departments to make everyone “happy.” I love pleasing people and it’s just so gosh-darn satisfying when everything falls into place. But what I love most about my gig right now is how busy I am. I loathe being idle and there’s no chance for that in the television world.

3. What is the most important thing you learned while working at VB?

VB gave me a chance to see how a non-corporate production company operated but more importantly—I discovered how awesome it is to be able to have fun and enjoy life while quote-unquote working. Videobred pretty much made me want to stick with TV/film when I was starting to deter from it.

4. What is your drink of choice now, and what was it then?

I liked straight Castillo rum and Jack back in the day. Now, however, I’ve switched over to Dunkin Donuts Iced Coffee injections in the mornings, afternoon, and evenings. Double shot of espresso preferred.

5. What movies have you seen lately?

“The Dark Knight Rises” & “Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead” are the new ones. But I just revisited “Surf Ninjas” (a  90s bildungroman masterpiece that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone. Not only are there surfing ninjas but there’s also “motosurfing” and such classic hits as “Baba Ram.”)

6. Your favorite piece of technology?

Ever? The Gutenberg Printing Press followed by the Internet followed by the Hubble Space Telescope. One I own? Ugh… I hate to say it but my iPad.

7. What is your biggest Louisville guilty pleasure?

LITs at Cahoots. Darn things are so freaking cheap—they’re dangerous. Beware.

8. Craziest thing that happened on a shoot or in an edit?

The entire VB staff telling their deepest, darkest secrets to Steve’s dog, Archie. Strange bunch—totally wasn’t scripted or anything.

9. Advice to incoming interns or anyone who wants to work at VB?

Be prepared to enjoy the heck out of it.

And with that, we’ll leave you with the coolest picture of Gina ever taken:

On an otherwise forgettable December day at Videobred, the phone rang.

“Good morning, Videobred,” I answered. I expected to hear a familiar voice of one of our clients, but I was way off. I instead I heard the pre-recorded voice of Louisville quarterback Teddy Bridgewater with “Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard playing in the background.

This recording was calling all of the University of Louisville’s season ticket holders to encourage them to buy tickets to the Sugar Bowl, in which the Cards would be taking on No. 3 Florida.

“That was cute,” I thought as I hung up the phone and got on with my day. As much as I love the Cards, I didn’t think we would beat Florida. I was just hoping we didn’t get spanked.

Fast forward to Jan. 2, the day of the Sugar Bowl and two days into the New Year. I was tired, battling a cold, and was not in the New Year spirit or game time mode at all. I first started feeling sick on New Year’s Eve, so I had been hating on 2013 pretty hard the past couple of days. My cynicism about the upcoming year was about to be hit by a big, red train driven by Teddy Bridgewater.

Four hours and 33 Louisville points later, the headline on espn.com read “Louisville upsets Florida in Sugar Bowl stunner.” And it wasn’t just an upset. There was a UofL interception and touchdown in the first drive of the game, Teddy throwing bombs, Florida’s quarterback getting sacked while attempting a 2-point conversion, Charlie Strong being Charlie Strong….it was madness. Then when Charlie hoisted the Sugar Bowl trophy over his head as red and black confetti rained down all over the place, I got overly excited about the New Year. Cards just won the Sugar Bowl, the basketball team has a legitimate shot at winning a national championship, and I remembered that I work at Videobred with some of the most talented and creative people I’ve ever met.

I’m looking forward to my first full calendar year at VB, and couldn’t be more psyched about it. This is a pretty fantastic place full of fantastic people. So thank you, Teddy. Call Videobred anytime. Bring on 2013.

Earlier this month, Videobred completed a project for DLA Piper, one of the largest law firms in the world. Yes, you read that correctly. That says “world.” They have 77 offices in 31 countries spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Videobred team members were on the phone with people across the United States, Great Britain, and Germany throughout the project.

“At What Cost” is a drama to be used for discussions with global clients. Alan Manias produced and directed it, and Tim Sanford wrote the script. Freelance producer and friend of Videobred Joanna Hay served as executive producer.

“I chose to partner with Videobred because of the quality, the consistency and the great people at 1000 Hamilton Ave.,” Joanna said. “My goal was to prove to this global company that we could produce a stunning film that would blow their socks off from right here in Louisville, Ky.”

According to Alan, almost everyone at Videobred worked on the project at some point because of its importance. “We definitely utilized all of our resources,” Alan said.  “I thought it was a pretty big opportunity to showcase some abilities we have. I’ve never produced anything like it.”

Tim Sanford wrote the script, which was going to be based off of an original script produced in England. However, the version ended up having a completely different story line in order to include issues that were more relevant to an American audience.

“Ultimately the goal was for the content to be broad enough in scope that it could be used for an international audience,” Tim said.

The project began in April, and after several drafts and phone meetings with DLA Piper attorneys, the script was finally approved in late August and production began in September.

A cast of 19 actors was hired for the film. Alan said one of the most rewarding things about shooting was the talent telling him that it was the best shoot they had ever been on.

“That came from people who are full-time actors and do it everyday,” Alan said. “I thought it was a big compliment. They enjoyed it because it was something different.”

Tim said it’s pretty humbling to know that directors at some of the world’s largest companies are getting an opportunity to view “At What Cost.”

“It was very rewarding to be involved with a project of this magnitude,” Tim said. “DLA Piper puts a lot of energy and resources into creating a high end product that really transcends a typical training video.”

So high fives all around to everyone who contributed to another successful project! To see the finished trailer, check it out on our Vimeo page: http://vimeo.com/53537054

Atkinson’s previous documentary work has received national exposure. PBS, KET and several festivals have shown his films. Some of his other award-winning and critically praised documentaries include Live Music, about Louisville musician Tim Krekel; and A Way of Life, which documents the state of Kentucky’s intense love for college basketball.  Other notable documentaries produced by Atkinson include Soul Searching, which highlights the personality and influence of Trappist monk Thomas Merton; and Uncommon Vision, about Black Like Me author John Howard Griffin, a white man who disguised himself as a black man and traveled the American South during the Civil Rights era.

So congrats to Morgan and be sure to check out Wonder!