The next app

The reason I started to learn programming for iOS is that I wanted to create apps I wanted to use.

Photologger really started as that and still is. I haven't touched it for too long, and there's many things I need to update and work on it to get it where I want it to be.

I'm currently working on an app for in the field logging for reality and documentary producers. It's been a slow process, as I've been busy with Music Man work and don't have the most convenient development machine. However, when I do sit down and start Xcode, I love figuring out where I want to go and how to get there. Tonight I added some label animations that I had been scared to try to implement. They still aren't at 100%, but I'm pretty satisfied with how they turned out, and with only a couple lines of code.

One great thing about working on this app as Kelsy and I produce our film is that I'm getting instant feed back from her on what works and what could work better.

Here's a screen grab of what the main working screen looks like:

Field Log Screen GrabThe button currently updates 10 times a second, but on the main thread, so during scrolling the clock display doesn't update. A tap on the button brings up a view to set your own timecode so if the camera's time of day is off, you can set your phone to match. When I get back to LA, I'm also going to look into meeting the needs of loggers back in the office. I still have to add some export options and pretty it up a little, but I think it's well on it's way to being my third app in the store.

Settling in

It's been about two months since leaving Los Angeles.  The documentary project is moving forward, albeit slower than I'd like to see, but it should pick up soon.  I'm getting to spend a lot more time coding and reading about coding, which is great.

More about the documentary.  We've got our website running with a donation and a "like" button, so far two donors have used the button and we've had more than 35 "likes" on facebook. The administration in the school corporation have been very helpful in getting us all the permissions to film in the school. Two days ago, Kelsy and I pitched the project to the board and got approval to move forward. Next week we're presenting to students and parents in a Parent/Teacher meeting all about us. After that, we'll feel comfortable filming in the school and getting to know our subject. Here's hoping September be full of production days.

My latest app that I have in development is something that Kelsy and I think would be useful in the production field. Basically the app will be a text editor that inserts time code into the document to easily find footage later. Since we're shooting time of day timecode, the clock on the iOS device should start as the base timecode, but be able to understand offsetting that time for inserting into the document. I have most of the file saving logic already set up, but tonight I'm going to an NSCoder/BitSlinger session in Louisville and hopefully I can get some expertise on writing the timing code.

Also on my list of things to update in my apps. I want to add iAds to the Movie Scream app, but along the way I want to optimize some of the code and also add a way for a user to record their own sounds for playback at the push of a button. Photo Logger is also going to get the iAd treatment, but I want to fork it into a free version and a 99 cent version.  I've been studying up on drawing with Core Graphics, so I also want to use some of that knowledge to pretty up Photo Logger.

All in all, I should be able to keep on being busy, but I'm definitely looking to help others out with their projects, so If you need any digital work done contact me.

Equipment

We've made the big move from North Hollywood, California, to Southern Indiana. Before moving, we sat down with Benjamin Daniels, Production Coordinator for Ryan Seacrest Productions and Creator of a tasty documentary, "This is My Cheesesteak," to pick his brain on production. Kelsy and I both have plenty of experience with post, but we haven't done much field production work since college. We had been kicking around the idea of hiring local camera and audio people for our shoots, but Ben convinced us to buy our own equipment, and turned us on to a few vendors to try for that and insurance.

Both Kelsy and I really like working with DVCPRO HD; all of the shows we've been working on as of late have been shot in this format. Our ideal experience would be shooting DVCPRO HD 1080i to tapes and digitizing these at 10:1 or 15:1 for edit on Avid Media Composer, however a camera that shoots DVCPRO HD to tape would take our entire budget. There's been a cornucopia of HD cameras released over the past couple of years, many of them using a variation of the AVCHD format which in one way or another compresses the image more than we'd like. This isn't the worst thing in the world, and is actually quite efficient on storage needs, but we want something that can hold up to color correction and effects.

This brought us to the world of P2, with which I haven't been thrilled. In a reality show setting where everything else is shot and delivered on tape, getting a few P2 cards a series made for some real headaches. Most of these were alleviated by dumping the P2 cards to a tape with the camera, a deck and FireWire.

We'll be adopting a completely file based workflow for the documentary, except for the odd DV or HDV tape here and there, so I've been researching hard drives. As of now, the plan is to use Western Digital Passport drives for copying cards in the field, backing those up at the end of the shoot day to a Western Digital MyBook in North Vernon, and bringing back the Passports to Bloomington for ingest in the edit bay. For the best responsiveness on the Avid, we'll be transcoding to DNxHD 145 to a G-Raid drive. I think we'd be able to deliver the DNxHD media for finishing, but we'll have two copies of the original DVCPRO HD media if the finishing house needs it.

With our recording format set, we've come to Panasonic's HVX and HPX cameras. The latest models of each allow a variety of formats and frame rates to be recorded. The HVX has a tape drive in addition to the P2 card slots, but a few less options when it comes to frame rates and doesn't have some of the high end connectivity of the HPX, namely HD-SDI output. Even still we've went with the HVX because the tape drive gives us options for downconverting footage for freelance projects and the also let's us capture miniDV tapes we may receive from our subjects. The HVX follows the DVX line from Panasonic with the inclusion of XLR inputs for audio and time of day timecode for better context in the edit bay. For audio, we're using the Sennheiser wireless system with a lavalier mic and a Rode NG-2 shotgun mic. With DVCPRO HD, four tracks of audio can be recorded, so we'll be able to record both our wireless mics and two channels of on camera audio.

We're still in the middle of settling in to the new place, so I won't be posting regularly yet, but I hope to get into some of the business and liability of our venture soon.

First Contact

Today we had our first real expense directly related to production. Kelsy wrote a letter to the principal of the school we want to film in. She started off the letter by credentialing herself as a graduate of the school and with her professional history. After that, she laid out a brief summary of what we will want to film. Finally, she wrapped it up with a call for further correspondence. Relationship building is one of our core values of film making. We're planning on spending a year working with and getting to know our subjects; starting off an important one of those relationships with a physical letter, instead of email, displays a level of respect that often gets overlooked in our fast paced world.

Today, we sent that letter, via certified mail, to the principal. We'll receive a delivery notification, and Kelsy will follow up with an email to the principal to facilitate easier communication. Even though this will probably be one of our smaller expenses, I think it's money well spent.

Coming up on Kelsy and Alburn...

After my last day of Jamie Oliver, I'm here, sitting in my North Hollywood apartment. Brain Candy, the Canadian pharmaceutical comedy, plays off my apple tv and I think to myself, "Self," I think, "tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life." My wife and I are at T minus one month until we leave Los Angeles and start on a year long production to make an independent documentary on an amazing public school orchestra program in the heartland of America.

As we start the process of film making, I'll be documenting some of the procedures, tricks, and cheats to make a legitimate low budget film and, hopefully, get people to watch it. I don't have all the answers yet, so you'll get to learn with me as we go.

We have so much to do over the next month: pack, find an apartment in Indiana, sell some of our stuff, ship the rest of it, and start driving. First things first, we're going to enjoy a few days of time off. There's church and a graduation luau, but after that Kelsy and I will probably veg out at home and start cleaning up the place. With our last couple months working at two different places, transportation and scheduling differences has really worn on our housekeeping habits.