New Year, New Updates

Hello all! With the start of the New Year, I figured that I would update you all on some ongoing projects. I know it has been a while since I have made any major updates, but I can assure you that I am still hard at work with many different things.

First up on the list: a few weeks ago, I made some minor updates to my website. Besides the new banner and color scheme, I also worked on making some changes to the main page. One major change was the addition of a photo slideshow showcasing some of my photography work. The other change is a video of my first ever film reel. While admittedly, it's far from perfect, I think it does a good job of highlighting all of my previous projects and my work as a director, assistant director, and cinematographer. To clarify, I should probably label my role for each project somewhere in the reel. I'll look into that later on (when I have more time to revisit the reel). In the near future, I'd like to focus more on cinematography and highlight this within its own reel, but for the time being, this will do just fine. Oh, and excuse the terrible soundtrack. That was just something I threw together in Mixcraft in an attempt to supplement the video.

I've been hard at work on some writing projects. While I have nothing to present just yet, I continue to work a little bit each day on several scripts and works of fiction.

In the meantime, I've also been playing around with a little bit of photography. Recently, I worked on another self-portrait project that closely relates back to a self-portrait I shot two years ago:

I actually have several more stills from that production that were never released. I'll get those posted when I get I chance to edit them.

Meanwhile, the new project incorporates similar elements that I was excited to revisit. This project is still in the editing phase, but here's a little preview of what's to come:

I'll upload the final stills once editing is complete.

I've had some recent chances to explore the sights of Pittsburgh. On a recent videography assignment, I was able to grab some nice stills (though not the best quality, due to location and time constraints) of the beautiful landscape. The city really comes alive during the nighttime.

I'd like to dedicate some more time to photographing the city. Hopefully, I'll have a dedicated project in the near future.

Finally, I've made a somewhat larger investment recently. I caved and recently bought this little guy:

Some people call it one of the best price-steady camcorders on the market. Judging by some of the test footage, I couldn't agree more. This is the GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition.

I should have some time to test it extensively this week. I'm still want for a few accessories to arrive in the mail. In my next entry, I plan to focus on what I find from the test footage and some shot comparisons. Stay tuned!

-Steven