Here’s are Asher’s 6th birthday questions. I kind of had some lighting issues with the main camera in that it was a little blown out and I didn’t have the color profile for the 2nd camera set correctly, but I tried to correct for those issues as much as possible in post. Also, there was a pretty heavy wiggle factor to contend with to I had to really stay on top of the close-up shot and constantly be on the focus, but I think it turned out okay. Enjoy.
So, for some crazy reason that I still don’t understand, a bunch of posts from Jana’s blog (which subsequently gets re-posted to Raising Heller) were duplicated, thus sending updates to anyone that’s subscribed to Raising Heller updates. I have no idea what caused this, though I’m looking into it, but it doesn’t look like it should be a problem anymore. Sorry for blowing up your inbox. 🙄
Some of you may remember the short film that I shot with a couple friends last year. Well, we have been working with another team of filmmakers to develop that short, Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, into a full length film. I’m happy to report that we’re in the final stretches of making that a reality. We’re working on completing the script and getting ready to begin shooting next month. Needless to say, it’s been a lot of work but we’re really excited about all that we’ve accomplished over the last 6+ months.
WE STILL NEED SOME HELP
Even with all that we’ve accomplished, we’re not quite there yet. We’re shooting this thing on a shoestring budget and to avoid going broke, we’re trying to raise money via a Kickstarter campaign. For those unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it’s a website that allows budding entrepreneurs to post a project and seek funding from the public. In return for their support, we’re offering them some really cool rewards that range from a digital download of the completed movie to a supporting role and much more. Please check it out (and feel free to back our project if you feel so inclined) here:Â http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/222189841/shakespeare-in-the-parking-lot
Here’s a video that we created for the Kickstarter campaign.
You heard me. You can pay your tithing online. Since we’ve started paying our tithing online, it’s made the process so much easier. It’s literally the first thing I do after I get paid (well, since I’m self-employed, I pay myself but it’s the same idea. To clarify you need to have online bill pay through your bank, but if you have that, you should be good to go. I’ve explained to many people how to do it, but I figured I’d just do a blog post on it this once and then direct everyone here.
It’s pretty simple. First download the following documents:
The Bill Pay Description form will give you the exact instructions of what you need to do. I searched long and hard through church forums before I found out just exactly how to do this. We’ve been doing it for over a year now and it’s been awesome. And for those of you thinking about saying that the physical act of handing in the check is part of the sacrifice, you can save it. 10% is 10%.
I should also note, that you can pay fast offerings and just about anything else church related with this same method as well.
So, a few days ago, Jack and Lily came to me and told me that they wanted to learn to ride their bikes without training wheels. I quickly realized that the only thing harder than learning to ride a bike without training wheels, is teaching someone to ride a bike without training wheels. Turns out though, kids are pretty smart and can mostly figure this stuff out on their own. The next day, they were riding around like pros without any of my help (they did have some kind help from grandpa, however). Eager to document these things, I threw together a short film of their new-found skills. While it was filmed here in the cold northwest, I wanted it to feel as if we were back in SoCal filming an O.P. commercial.
So, I FINALLY got around to editing the video of Violet’s birth. The quadrilogy is complete. On a side note, in a boneheaded move, I accidentally shot this in 1080p at 20fps (frames per second). For the uninitiated, pretty much all video or film is shot at either 24fps or 30fps (unless you’re doing slow-mo in which case you would speed that up). Why the Canon T1i shoots 1080p at 20fps I have no clue. 20fps make the video choppy and really annoying (to me at least) to watch. Let’s just call it an artistic decision on my part. Here’s to hoping I can get around to getting that Canon 7D.
so, our friend carrie stroud came by our house a week or so ago and shot a bunch of pictures of the newly minted violet mae. we’re REALLY stoked about how they turned out and we hope you enjoy them too.
so, here’s the song for week two. i’m not normally one to explain a song ahead of time, but for the sake of simplicity i’m going to do it here. our protagonist finds himself high on a mountain excursion with his significant other. in the course of the relationship he hasn’t been as good to her as he should have and he knows this. an accident on the mountain leaves them in a position where he chooses to sacrifice his life in order to save hers, and all he hopes is that in the end she’ll remember this last act of sacrifice rather than his harsh words. enjoy. or not.
p.s. – as with the last song, it was recorded entirely on my iPhone (which will most likely be the case with all of these songs) so i make no apologies for the quality.
a lot has happened since i posted last. we had a baby, so… there’s that… (there will be some separate posts on that, so i won’t go into too much detail here). yeah, it’s been eventful. one of the undertakings that i’ve recently… undertaken, is a 90 day goals group. there 15 or so of us that have all set personal goals in 5 different categories. physical, mental, financial, spiritual, and personal. we have a partner that we check in with twice a day and talk to about our progress. it’s been really rad and i’ve already seen some killer things come out of it in the 2 weeks that we’ve been doing it. my personal goal is to write one new song per week. i’m not that consistent with picking up my guitar an actually trying to write stuff, so i figure that this will force me into being creative. if they don’t suck too bad, i’ll post the songs here for your listening (dis)pleasure. i’ve finished 2 songs so far. the first one is posted below. word of warning: it was recorded on my iphone so the quality is about what you’d expect. well, to be fair, i think the sound quality is actually pretty good for a phone. i haven’t recorded the 2nd song yet as i want to properly record it with some real gear, so hopefully i’ll have that one up in a few days. anyway, here’s the song for week #1.
this is one of the funniest scenes from “The Other Guys”. i walked in not knowing what to expect and i walked out not sure of what i saw. take that however you want.
