Pine Mountain Club, CA!

Katie and I just finished a fantastic weekend with Ryan and Becca Robins. We relaxed over the labor day weekend in a small little community, Pine Mountain Club. They had a beautiful golf course surrounded by little cabins and houses.
We had a great time and look forward to a return visit maybe sometime in early Spring. I would love to see this place with snow all around.

Here are some photos from the weekend:


Here is a video I did of Becca and Ryan's beautiful baby boy:
"Clayton"

I love me some vintage old stuff.

Growing up with avid antiquers I have developed quite a fondness for the old and unique. I also have a love for gadgets and gizmos which means that I love old electronics. I recently purchased my first antique television just last Thanksgiving in Wrightwood, CA. Its a 1949 Philco! It works but I can't seem to get a good picture... other then the electronic static noise or snow. I hope to repair it someday and then have a christmas party at our place where we all sit around and watch It's a Wonderful Life on our 7" B/W Philco! How awesome would that be.

Anyways, I am becoming distracted. Recently, my dad has been in the market for a bicycle to bike to work on. He loves the vintage as well and has found Bowery Lane Bicycle Company which hand makes bikes in New York.

Extraordinary Paths Series - Albert Pereta from Share the Path on Vimeo.

They currently have three different models with the Bronks Raw being my father and my favorite. Its made from steel and instead of painting it a solid color they leave it bear. They weld marks are clearly seen. Its really a great looking bike. I hope he buys one soon because I would love to test it before I take the plunge and buy one myself.

BOWERY LANE BIKE ASSEMBLY from Joe Tomcho on Vimeo.

Curious Bird Media presents: Gorda Springs Resort

Wow.

Just realized I never poster our Gorda Springs Resort video. I am very proud of this one and was helped greatly by my Brother-n-Law, Will Riggs. He helped me with the music and graphics.

We are hoping to start a little business together, Curious Bird Media, and I believe that this might be, technically, our very first piece!

Lots of fun.

Pretty shots.

Great timelapses.

Our Big Sur / Gorda Springs Resort Adventure

Me and my beautiful Wife in Big Sur

Katie and I were able to get out of town over the President's Day weekend and shot a resort commercial film. We traded a free stay at Gorda Springs Resort for a web video showcasing the beauties of this resort located on the PCH with a wonderful view of the Pacific!

Throughout the weekend we shot several timelapses with varying success. My last timelapse I shot Sunday night at 2:00am and it finished around 11:00am. My camera took a picture every 45 seconds and afterwards I stiched the over 800 photos together to create my best timelapse yet.
This video has not been color corrected or even really touched up yet. Its pretty much straight from the camera and I already think it looks amazing. What do you think?


I am sure that this will look even better after some color correction and added to the rest of the film.

Katie and I had a great time eating out and simply enjoying the beauty that surprises us around every twist, bend, and curve that makes up the PCH.

Capturing my first timelapse for the weekend

the prius provides the perfect shelter 

iphone photo 1

iPhone stitched photo using photo stitcher app

Film: Maxwell Christmas Decorations 2010

Here is a little film I did over the holidays of a portion of my parent's house. Every year they go all out for Christmas and I love everything they do.
This video provides only a small slice of what they do each year.

Wrightwood Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time sharing Thanksgiving with some of our closest Cali' friends. We were lucky enough to stay in a beautiful little cabin which was just a few blocks away from the Wrightwood town center.
Friday night, Katie and I visited the town and took part in the annual Wrightwood Christmas Tree Lighting event. It was filled with family fun and joyous people. I made a little video montage of that night:

Lighting of the Christmas Tree - Wrightwood, CA

Film: Silver City Mountain Resort Timelapse

This is my latest timelapse project.

I have realized that my camera, a Canon T2i with kit lens, seems to give me a better picture on the LCD then it really captures. I think it is partly due to the fact that I test all my shots in the middle of pitch darkness and every little light (star) just pops on that LCD screen. I assume that it is all properly exposed and then realize after I download the hundreds of photos that the pictures are always very underexposed. This creates a huge problem because I then have to go into my editing programs and push the photos to their limits to gain exposure. This highly degrades the images and creates a multitude of digital noise. I need to try and always overexpose what I am actually seeing from the camera, however they still look really cool.

I am always fine tuning my expertise. :)

A Quick Film for a Friend.

Doug and Brynn Holzapels are two of our very good friends here in Los Angeles. They are the couple that have the beautiful baby, Lyla, who you would have seen in my reel and other videos I have posted on this blog.
Doug is an incredibly talented musician who teaches lessons on the side. One of his students, Paulina, has quite a following on YouTube and she and Doug post their duets all the time. Recently I pursuaded them to allow me to shoot one of their videos to provide some better camera footage. It was a very simple setup and I am very pleased with the outcome.
Doug also used some of his high end music recording equipment to record a live session that sounded as if it were in a studio. The combination of the better camera and audio really make these two artists stand out.
Anyways, I hope the best for the both of them.

Here is their latest video:

Director of Photography: U Smile by Rochelle Diamante

My great friend, Aaron Huisman, and myself DP'd this music video. We did all the beach footage and I am very happy to see how it came out.
The artist was very friendly and very talented.
I loved this project because all I had to do was film it and didn't have to worry about editing it or anything else. Since filming is my passion I loved this because I didn't have to worry about all the other parts of production.
Here is the Music Video:


Here are some photos of Rochelle I took in between shots on the beach at Santa Monica:

A Look into the Future

I am in love with all things technological.
My mother tells stories of me as a baby sleeping not with a teddy bear but with the families hair dryer. I loved taking things apart and figure out how stuff works and have a box somewhere at my parents house filled with broken speakers... walkmen.. cd players... and other mechanical things all in a state of disarray.
I also have a serious problem hoarding wires and cables. Katie knows this all too well. I just can't throw away old speaker cables, usb cords, or my plethora of fire wire cables because I have this fear of one day needing them and the knowledge that I once had the item of need but threw it away is just too hard to bear.


All this to say... I love technology and when people write or create pictures of the future and how we might one day live and interact with technology just makes me giddy! I love movies and books that deal with a possible look into our a future.


Here are a couple of videos that give you a peek of what the future might hold.
One is from Apple in the 80s, one is from a new company, and the last is a video I made for my University depicting a possible future for the iPhone and educational integration. We developed this film knowing nothing of a future "app store" nor "face-time."


Enjoy.

 


ACU's Connected

Part I

Part II

Another Day in LA: A Water Main Waterfall

My New REEL

Here is my current Reel. I just finished yesterday and if you have any comments I would love to hear them.

It is a little long but I just love the song so much and didn't want to cut it up. Maybe I can request a new version from the help of my BIL (brother-in-law).

Anyways,
Here is a montage of my favorite films.

Abilene: A Timelapse Film

I recently traveled back home to Abilene to see my family. Even though my beautiful wife wasn't able to join me I still had a fantastic time just hanging out with my parents and sisters. We watched movies, ate some great food, talked about our love for dogs and what future dogs might be joining the family!
Dad, Josh and myself took advantage of the pool during the hottest parts of the day and enjoyed the hot tub at night.

Following my pattern of travel films I have just completed my film from Abilene. Surprisingly, I only took two videos my whole visit and that was of my Mom's surprise birthday. Other then those two shots I took thousands of photographs and created some really nice looking timelapses of the Abilene and ACU landscape.

Enjoy.

Abilene: A Timelapse Film


Mom's Surprise Birthday

My First "REAL" AC Job!

Hey Guys...

Several months ago I started working weekends, here and there, as a Camera Assistant / Digital Imaging Technicion (DIT) for Abe Martinez, a real-life professional film AC. On the weekends, and when he is not on big time sets, he DPs small indenpedent films, music videos, and commercials. I have been lucky enough to connect with Abe from a mutual friend at our church and he tries to bring me onto jobs anytime he gets a chance.
Out of all the jobs I've had here in LA I have enjoyed working with Abe the most.

Anyways... My first job with him was working on a commercial for Disney. Here it is:

Film: Silver City Mountain Resort

This is my latest commercial/montage film. I've been working on it off and on for the last couple of weeks. I really like this piece but there are a few artificial stabilization problems within but I hope they are easy to overlook.
I just sent the video to the manager of the resort and I hope to sell him the link to the video. I didn't really give him a price but just asked what he thought it was worth to him. I had no intention of making any money off of this project so whatever is made is simply icing on the cake. I kinda hope to get some free days at the resort because I would love to take several friends up there. It is a fun place but really hard and to reach due to this 22 mile one lane road that hugs the side of a mountain, and has more twists and turns then Highway 1 towards Big Sur!

Film: Las Vegas 2010 Video Montage

Here is my latest montage I created from our recent Las Vegas trip.
I originally didn't want to do a video b/c I was getting a little tired of doing these but when we happened upon this older gentleman playing How Great Thou Art on his accordion I had to shoot him and from that initial video I knew I had to create something.
I have a longer version that I will upload at a later date but I feel this version is much tighter and better polished.

Las Vegas: Our First Gambling Experience

Katie and I aren't really the gambling type. I am not an avid poker player... not even a novice poker player and Katie sure isn't one either. Eventhough there were hundreds of card games we could have played katie and I decided to play it safe and have some fun at the fancy Bellagio penny slots!
I had horrible luck but Kate sat down and won several dollars! We should of cashed out when we more then doubled our $5 bill but we got greedy and cashed out right as we reached $5. Our first experience was fun and would probably of been more fun if we hadn't just walked for miles all over Vegas and sat down to play at 2:00am.
We had fun though. :)

Here is a long and boring clip of us playing the slots.

Las Vegas Hotel Timelapses

I was only able to do one timelapse video on our first trip to Vegas. When Katie and I returned to our room Saturday night at 3:30am I forced myself to set the camera up facing the outdoor pool and the distant desert mountains. The results are not very exciting but interesting.

The Rough: This is the first version with no color correction or movement added.


The Final: This is the final version. I tried to remove some of the flickering with FCP's internal flicker filter but I am still not sure whether it helped at all.

Film: Our Sequoia Adventure 2010

I know I've already posted a video of our little vacation in Sequoia and Silver City but this little video has much more professionalism behind it.
I am also working on a little commercial for the Silver City Resort where we stayed. Maybe I can sell it to them. :) I'll post it within the little commercial within the next week.

Great YouTube video!

I've recently fell in love with stop motion and have been lucky enough to work on a couple of large stop motion projects. I love how people are becoming very creative with the ways they create these short little masterpieces frame by frame.