Red Epic Stolen - $100,000.00 Reward

Here is one reason not to be rich. Mark L. Pederson, CTO of OffHollywood, had his RED EPIC stolen from his French chalet while he and his family were sleeping. Oops. EPIC #0006, was the first RED EPIC to be delivered to a paying customer. Mark payed the princely sum of $58,000.00 for the privilege of being the first guy with the new RED.

Here's a list of all that was stolen.

EPIC camera body #00006
EPIC side-handle
EPIC Redmote
5" TOUCHSCREEN LCD for EPIC
Angenieux Optimo 15-40mm
50mm RED Pro Prime - this lens is from the first set shipped - the lens is marked as T1.9 - with engraved text that reads "tested at T1.8"
Prototype of Schneider clip on circular ND filter holder ring w/ND
2 x 128 G SSD (filled with EPIC footage)
REDSTATION REDMAG 1.8"
500G GDrive mini - filled with a back up of EPIC footage)
RED Quick Plate
2 x RED Brick batteries
LCD lemo cable
Lemo adapter power cable
Black Oakley bag

Jim Jannard, founder of Oakley and the top dog at RED, has offered a $100,000.00 reward.

Same thing happened to me, except it was an apartment in Van Nuys, and the camera was a Fisher Price PXL-2000:)

Bobble Personal Water Filtration

If you live in Los Angeles you can almost get a ticket for not carrying around a bottle of water. Just as small dogs have become fashion accessories, so has the requisite water bottle. Nothing says "Hey, I work out..." more than carrying your own water supply.

If you really want to one up those other douche-bags, then go ecologically-friendly with the Karim Rashid (speaking of douche-bags) designed "bobble".

The bobble has a simple activated carbon filter built into the bottom of its drinking spout. As water passes through the carbon, chlorine and various organic contaminants are removed. The filter is good for at least 300 bottlefuls, which should work out to about two months.

13 oz - $8.95

18.5 oz - $9.95

34 oz - $12.95

All kidding aside it's a pretty cool idea and is very well designed and executed. You might even see me carrying one around if somebody would just hold my dog for me:)

Agloves - Touch Screen Gloves

It's winter time, and it's cold outside. Have you ever tried to dial your "capacitive" phone with your gloves on? Doesn't work too well does it? Maybe what you need is a pair of Agloves. These conductive gloves feature silver-coated nylon fibers knitted into a comfortable fabric that puts the conductivity back in your touch. That's #47 on the periodic table for all you geeks out there.

They come in three different unisex sizes and only cost $17.99 a pair.

Can also be used as jumper cables for your car:)

Top Ten Cheap Mac Apps

Here is my Top Ten List of cheap or free mac apps. Listed in no particular order, since they are all equally great.

Voltaic HD $39.99 - AVCHD converter for those pesky MTS and M2TS files.

WhatSize $12.99 - Find out what files are hogging your hard-drive space.

Transmit $34.00 - Super fast FTP client with simple interface.

Transmission Free! - BitTorrent client for all your software pirating needs.

Monolingual Free! - Strip away unnecessary language packs and free up some hard-drive space.

Nicecast $40.00 - Turn your mac into a internet streaming radio station.

AppZaper $12.95 - The fastest and coolest way to uninstall an app.

Handbrake Free! - You've got DVD's, and you want to convert them for your mobile device.

MPEG Streamclip Free! - The video encoder that is faster than Apple's Compressor.

Super Duper Free! - Make a cloned backup of your hard-drive, protect yourself.

You're welcome America.

Face Off Debuts on Syfy

Face Off is a competition/elimination series exploring the world of special-effects make-up artists and the unlimited imagination that allows them to create amazing works of living art. The contestants are tasked with elaborate feature challenges including executing full body paint make up on models and creating their own horror villain. Not only will the show incorporate effects make-up, it will include a wide range of skill sets including prosthetics, 3-D design, sculpting, eye enhancers, casting and molding. Each episode involves incredible reveals of the competitors' finished work, and the drama of one contestant being sent home by the panel of expert and celebrity judges. It all culminates in one winner and one grand prize that will launch a career.

To determine who emerges victorious, Syfy has signed three-time Academy Award winner Ve Neill (Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands) and Hollywood veterans Glenn Hetrick (Heroes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files) and Patrick Tatopoulos (Underworld, Independence Day, Resident Evil: Extinction) as Face Off's judges. Actress McKenzie Westmore hosts the series, bringing poise and a rich history to her role as part of the Westmore family, whose name is synonymous with the makeup effects field.

Face Off is a production of Mission Control Media with Michael Agbabian and Dwight D. Smith serving as executive producers.

Series premiere Wednesday January 26 10/9C.

Tascam Portastudio for iPad

Way, way, way back in the day, I had a Tascam Portastudio 4 Track Recorder. It looked cool, but the sound quality was s%@t due to using analog cassettes. Fast forward to 2010, and we can now relive our 4 Track dreams, or nightmares, with the iPad version of the iconic Portastudio.

I gave my old Portastudio to Rebecca. I wonder if she still has it?

Pros: Retro Design, No Tape Noise.

Cons: No Bouncing Capability, Only Records One Track at a Time.

List Price: $9.99

Airgrade - Coolest App Ever!

If you thought that the vWave-Lite app was cool, then you are going to love this. Airgrade, from the wizards at the Pixel Farm, lets you wirelessly control the Lift, Gamma and Gain of an image on your computer directly from your iPhone.

The resulting look can be saved in the ASC format developed by the American Society of Cinematographers.

And best of all, it's FREE!!!

Lightworks Public Beta

Lightworks, the old dinosaur of video editing, has made it's first step to relevancy with it's public beta of it's updated software. Long forgotten, but not yet dead, Lightworks was used to edit hundreds of Hollywood movies. It recently fell out of favor, having been replaced by Avid and Final Cut Pro. Hopefully this new version will spark some new interest in this old industry favorite.

Currently it is available only on the PC. Things will get really interesting in late 2011, when it will also support Linux and OSX.

Click here to download Lightworks Public Beta.

Open source is good:)

a Christmas Tree

A short film about my Mom's lovely Christmas Tree. Featuring a custom built IGUS camera slider. Filmed during the Thanksgiving Holidays, 2010. A Very Special Holiday Bokeh:)

Music by: Vince Guaraldi

No color correction or post processing.

Shot on a hacked Panasonic GH1 at ISO 100 to 640, 23.976 fps, with a Canon FL 55 f1.2, Canon FL 50mm f3.5 Macro with Life Size Adapter, Rainbow Imaging FL/FD Adapter.

IGUS 660mm Camera Slider, Bogen 3026 Double Action Ball Joint Head, 717AH Fluid Head, Benro C-298M8 Carbon HVC Flexpod.

Sansdisk Extreme Class 10 SDHC Card.

Edited in Final Cut Pro.

See it in HD on Vimeo.

See it in HD on YouTube.

P.S. If you look real close you can see me in the reflections, but at least I had my pants on, unlike these guys:)

Steve Weiss of Zacuto

Steve Weiss, Emmy Award winning director, and the main man behind Zacuto, took the time to critique my Doritos commercial, "Catch?"

Here is what he said.

"Michael,

You asked for my critique it, here you go:

Concept:
good, cute/funny

Shots, framing and screen direction
Excellent, good use of the 16x9 aspect ratio

Picture:
great

Lighting:
nice, nothing exceptional. I understand you made this all by yourself for no money so in that case you are limited with what you can do lighting wise. You got a nice day or may have called it off on previous days, regardless, it worked.

Editing:
Extremely well done, you did an excellent job of condensing time. I didn't feel rushed through the story which I do often in spots.

Sound:
The woman's response seems off to me, she sounds like she is ADR'd and the sync doesn't match. Plus I'm not in love with her performance. I would have probably liked it better if she said, "Now that's cool" but this is a directors choice and I respect the choice you made.

Overall, I really liked it, especially considering that you were a one man band. Well done.

Steve"

Not too shabby:) Thanks Steve.

vWave-Lite iPad Control Surface

Okay, I never really wanted an iPad until now. Tangent Devices have just come out with a super cool free iPad app that simulates the touch and feel of it's $1,500.00 Wave panel. vWave-Lite is an amazing app that gives you the real time feedback and interface that colorists have been enjoying for years in their million dollar color grading suites.

The fact that this works at all is amazing, the fact that it is free is incredible.

Control Apple Color from your iPad

• vWave-Lite allows you to control Color as distributed in Apple's Final Cut Studio suite of tools.
• The three "virtual" trackerballs allow you to control the colour differential and masters in the Primary In, Secondaries and Primary Out rooms in Color, just like you would with our CP200 or Wave panels.
• You can use vWave-Lite at the same time as your CP200 or Wave but you do not need either of these panels for it to work.
• All the controls on vWave-Lite can be used simultaneously.
• Connection to Color is via wireless network.
• vWave-Lite is FREE to download and use from the Apple iTunes store!