This is a test shot for an upcoming film. The final effect will have outer flame rotating, and an inner vertex counter rotating. No green screen, just old fashioned split screen Cinematography mixed with Adobe After Effects/Premiere work.

I forgot to post this video from awhile back....it's a split sensor HDRV. It had a few problems, but hopefully my newest beam splitter rig will fix some of these problems:

Well my HDRV(High Dynamic Range Video) experiments have been a long time in the making, and I'm hoping to have an example soon of full motion HDRV without any major bugs. For those that have followed along, you know I've displayed that the process on the computer side is possible(workflow), shown the high amount of detail and bright colors that can be achieved, as well as showing that filming in this way is possible, although so far with some image ghosting problems.

My newest experiment goes the full niner with the concept, containing a beam splitter, image relay, and a primary lens which a total of two cameras will film through. Hopefully with my limited amount of tools the calibration of the entire system won't be too difficult to align and I'll have some video within a month....one major caveat is that due to the high cost of buying a second HVX-200, I'll probably have to borrow a DVX-100 from a friend to do the filming, which may prove troublesome when trying to align the images perfectly. If anyone out there knows of anyone who owns an HVX-200 and is interested in experimental videography, please pass off a link to my website so that we can collaborate on this project.

Well I haven't posted much on the website here, but if you want to keep up with me you can be-friend me on facebook(link in the right column). I post most often to facebook, although I can be found on twitter, myspace, linkedin, and a bunch of other sites thanks to ping.fm. I use that for quick updates to ALL of my social networking sites, but I also post interesting video's and the occasional facebook only notes or status updates.

Well I've been working hard on "Nixon and Hogan Save Christmas"(R rated Horror/Comedy), and principal photography is 99% done, and I was planning on throwing some morphing technology into the film, and did a test shot...so here it is:


Another R rated horror/comedy I DP'd on is up for pre-order on amazon.com(release is Jan 12th 2010), and I'd very much appreciate anyone out there picking up a copy, or if you've already seen it post a review and rate the film on amazon..Thanks:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002P9TZJG/

Here's a quick piece of video I pieced together which is an experimentation with certain tools...one that clean up videos, and another to stretch and bend my images in interesting ways:

Oddities in our worlD from Nick Walters on Vimeo.

I'm also in the process of acquiring some new equipment which will enable me to create HDR video's with moving subjects! If anyone has viewed my past HDR video experiments they were either still, had slow moving objects like trees in the wind, or had subjects who were ghost like. With the new setup I'll film everything in real-time with a single camera, and follow it up with a few other tricks I have up my sleeve that will make the images super sharp, clean as a whistle, bright, vibrant, and just plain neato :)

...stay tuned

So it's been awhile since a new post, so I thought I'd let everyone know I havn't been sitting around watching TV...ok so I HAVE been doing this, but it's not all I've been up to.

I've done quite a few rentals and camera work gigs as of late, mostly within the Documentary genre, but sadly nothing with a trailer or sneak peek....but I do have a very short piece that I can share that I did on my own time:

Fire Couch from Nick Walters on Vimeo.

I also have this interesting rig I've been working on:

Bullet Time Prototype from Nick Walters on Vimeo.

It's basically a matrix style rig that will use a high speed camera in conjunction with a 300rpm electric motor, some various mounting equipment, mirrors, electronics, etc. etc. in order to get an extremely slow 360 degree moving image of a subject....for best reference pay attention to my fist in the center of the image.....the end result will be 5+ times as slow, be completely steady, not display the rig itself, and be very low cost....stay tuned for that :) I may have some other updates soon, but I'd rather not let any cats out of bags(or explode the fridge...jump the shark...).

Well I've been steadily studying on lighting, and what exactly I want in my kit, and in the mean time came across a Redrock M2 35mm adapter at a good price, so I've put the light kit on the back burner, although I do have several parts on order and already in hand to custom make some fluorescent lighting fixtures similar to Kino Flo lights...in fact I'll be using Kino brand fluorescent tubes in my lights.

The 35mm adapter is of the previous generation of Redrock adapters, and I'm planning on purchasing an upgrade to their newest M2e adapter. This current adapter has a Canon EF mount, and I've purchased a M42/EF adapter so that I can use M42(sometimes called Pentax mount) lenses in my system. I've already purchased one M42 mount 90-230mm f4.5 lens at the local photo shop here, and look forward to posting some footage for everyone to see.

My rig has started to become quite cumbersome now, so my next purchase is going to be a rail system with hand grips and shoulder mount. In fact I'm putting in the order tomorrow morning.

Here's some pictures(not my photos) of the M2 35mm adapter, the 90-230 lens, and the rail system with hand grips and shoulder mount:

Well I was actually going to buy a 35mm lens adapter, but the deal fell through, so I've decided to upgrade my lighting package. I'll be posting all the details on the exact lighting package I get, but for now I'll just say that I'm going with a CFL(compact fluorescent) and tungsten light setup that uses tungsten balanced(3200k) cfl's, daylight balanced(5500k) cfl's, and some tungsten fresnels. As always I've done alot of research, and I'm hoping that at the end of it all I'll have a 3-5 light kit for under $400.

I looked at alot of different lighting kits, individual fresnels, and even at individual parts that I could piece together to make lights......and at the end of the day I found that other people had done alot of the homework for me and are selling lights of a price that are almost equal to what I could do myself, and very professional looking. I have, although, found that alot of lighting manufacturers are selling equipment at INSANE markup, so I'm hoping that my future posts can point others in the right directions. A good lighting package under $1000usd is possible, and I'll bring everyone along on the journey for such a beast. I mentioned a 35mm adapter, and hopefully sometime in the future I'll have in depth instructions on how to build one that is comparable to the best available commercially, but sadly this is a project which must be put on the back burner for now, but my hopes are that I can point people in the right direction to build a spinning ground glass adapter for under $500 that is comparable to the Redrock M2 encore....and if anyone has any info on the ground glass that Redrock uses, please let me know, as I'm almost 100% sure that their ground glass is a giant reason for their superior quality adapters.

I've also mentioned in the past that I would post a cheap matte box solution that used Cokin P filters, and which wasx light tight, and I'm sorry for the delays, but I've run into alot of problems with perfecting this setup, as the matte box I'm using is basically JUST big enough to use on my HVX-200, and I've had to do quite a few modifications to make it all work out....I'll be sure to post a video as soon as I can with all the info, test footage, steps needed to build this, etc. I basically have this finished, and the footage using some of the filters is GREAT....trust me, it's woth the wait, and with filter costs comes in at about $300.....it's not a swinging matte box, but I'm sure that somewhere along the way I'll incorporate this feature into the design....stay tuned.

Ragman will be playing at the famous Tivoli Theatre on July 20th at 7pm...come on out and enjoy the show :)

For more info visit www.CinemaStLouis.org

See some of the trailers here:
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
Trailer 3

I seem to have slowed down on the updates on this site, but the good thing is I have alot of videos to share. I've been experimenting quite a bit with HDR(High Dynamic Range) video...in fact I have 8 videos that I've done since my last update, 6 of which are HDR, 1 that is Psuedo-HDR, and one instructional video I did. Without further ado, here's the videos:





This one, although from the screen capture looks the same as the one above, is different. I used some software that exploits how we see dynamic range, to make it appear like their was more dynamic range.