President's Holiday Video Test

EWU Ballet Photos

I shot these last week for the Physical Education Department here at EWU. The girls were all dressed up for their final class. Despite the room being a mess with blue tarps, scaffolding, and wrestling mats I think I got a few good frames. I shot them with my new Canon 5D mkII.

EWU Cheerleader Portraits

The EWU Cheerleading squad finally put up the photos I shot earlier this Fall.

2010 President's Holiday Card Guide Track

2010 EWU President's Holiday Card Featuring David Buri by jdemke

Here is a cut from the President's Holiday Video Card. It includes music composed, arranged and performed by faculty and students of EWU's Music department. The vocals are done by David Buri. I recorded the vocals in the Mars Lab in Monroe Hall.

Meetings DO Serve a Purpose!!!

Flickr Slideshow Test

YouTube Unlisted Test

Stadium Seats

Stadium Seats
Originally uploaded by John Demke

This was a shot I took accidentally while I had the camera away from my eye. I enjoy the random composition of it.

500,000 Hits on EWU's flickr account

500,000 Hits on EWU's flickr account
Originally uploaded by John Demke

Today Eastern's flickr account busted through 500,000 hits! Due to the Red Turf photos the site has 120,000 hits in about a month. Huge numbers for our little account!

Playlist test

SoundCloud: YouTube for Audio

Here is an example of an embeddable music file from SoundCloud. An online audio hosting/sharing/social networking site.

Why Rock by TheCorleones

EWU Planned Giving Video

Here is another project I completed for EWU.

Challenge Course Against a Blue Sky

I shot this photo at the university Challenge Course. Shooting directly into the sun can cause crazy exposure readings. If you look at the right side of the climber you can see a bit of blur. this is not camera shake or lack of focus but light wrap.

Light wrap is where light actually envelops a subject when lit from behind. The photons of light actually bend via the atmosphere around the object to light its sides.

300,000 Hits on EWU's flickr Account.

RGB + CMY = 50% Gray

I just saw a webinar from NewMediaWebinars.com on the topic of Color Grading using Apple's Color from their Final Cut Studio 2 suite of software. The demonstrator showed an illustration of what happens when you add complimentary (opposite) colors. He added to red, green and blue their complimentary colors- cyan, magenta and yellow respectively. The remarkable thing is that they add to create a 50% gray tone. Examine how each of the color primaries match up to the grayscale gradient on the background. In color mixing for video or web work adding complimentary colors can create drab, dull, gray scenes.

2010 EWU Academic Advising Video

Here's another project I just finished for EWU's Admissions department.

Final Cut Pro 6 and Compressor Problems Resolved!

I recently received a new Mac Tower here at work. It replaced an older Mac G5 Power PC that was definitely showing its age. As with all computers you develop preferences on applications as you work. These preferences allow you to work more efficiently by recording your preferred method of getting things done. In my case they turned out to be a huge headache.

When I got my new Mac I loaded Final Cut Studio 2 and copied over all of the preferences for the applications. The first problem occurred when I tried to render a FCP sequence using Compressor. Due to the imported preference files, Compressor wouldn't recognize the new computer as a location to render to. That is very bad.

The way I finally got both FCP and Compressor to work harmoniously together was to de-install both applications entirely- every single preference and accompanying file. I used AppCleaner from Free Mac Soft to easily delete all the corrupt junk. I then reloaded FCP and Compressor and then did a software update to bring them up to the current version.

2010 Graduate Commencement Photo

Here is a photo I shot at Eastern Washington University's 2010 Graduate Commencement. Her expression is awesome! She just walked off the podium after being hooded recieving her Master's degree.

Apple Compressor Settings for compressing NTSC Video For YouTube

I have found that video compression is a subtle craft, a most demanding mix of art and science. Too much compression and your video looks like a glitchy, pixelated mess. Too little and playback halts and the video freezes. It's hard to tell which is worse. To me bad video is bad video.

Finding the right settings for a given piece of video is extremely difficult. There are many parameters that can effect video compression. This leads to endless tweaking of compression settings by video professionals. In all there is no holy grail of video compression, every medium requires tweaking to get it right. I have been looking for the ultimate video compression scheme for YouTube for a few years now. I finally found a reasonably good scheme from none other than YouTube itself.



Create a new Custom Setting and select QuickTime Movie.

Click on the Video: Settings button to bring up the following pop-up screen.

Select H.264 as the Compression Type.

Set the Frame Rate to 30 fps the Key Frames to Automatic and uncheck Frame Reordering.

Lastly under the Geometry set the Frame Size to 720x480 and your done.

Check out this video to get a look at how well these settings work. Tell me what you think. Add a comment below.

Student Memoirs-88

Student Memoirs-88
Originally uploaded by Eastern Washington University
test

Dry Falls

Dry Falls
Originally uploaded by John Demke

Mock Trial Video

Re-edited a piece for Eastern's Mock Trial Team.

Eastern Spotlight Open

Here's a motion graphics open I created for "Eastern Spotlight", episodic programming that will be airing on Comcast Channel 17.

Photoshop Online?

I found through StumbleUpon this cool website called pixlr that is basically an online version of Photoshop albeit an older one. The toolbar, layers, and history layout and functionality could have been directly copy and pasted from Photoshop. It was built in Flash 9. Seems fitting that a company would try to kill your product by using another of your products. It's like being shot in the back with your own gun.

I see online applications as the way of the future. No longer will apps be purchased on CD-ROMs and installed on your computer. You will simply subscribe to let's say Adobe Online and log on to a secure account and select the apps you want. There won't be anymore yearly releases or upgrades, they will fix the bugs as they arise and add functionality as the demand requires. Utopia!

Presidential e-blast with my Photography

Here is a photo used in another e-blast from Eastern Washington University President Arévalo. This is a great use of flickr.

MBA Hockey Ad

Here is a 30 second television ad that I mixed the audio on. It was easily the most entailed mix I have ever done on a spot. Lots of hockey nat sounds were added to pump up the realism. I used FCP's Soundtrack through a pair of Behringer monitors.

Another MBA Profile Video Completed

I just completed another video profile for EWU's MBA program. It is last in a series of four.

Blogging via Texting.

My first sms post.

Tweeting Breeds Following

I just got an email that broadcast equipment retailer Markertek is now following me on twitter. A few days ago I tweeted about the process I am undergoing of creating a plan for a new post-production studio for the university. I mentioned Markertek by name with a link to their site.

From what I surmise is that companies are actively searching for tweets about themselves and following those that say good things. I find myself doing the same thing with flickr. I search for content that concerns the university then seek creators of that content. This is an effective way to add high quality followers of your social network content. Good marketing in this instance may be more about having the right audience then the right message.