Kevbo-A-GoGo

Let's Playstation Now!

2017-04-26T09:28:00.001-07:00

Recently I've tried to take my love of video gaming and turn it into something slightly more productive. Slightly. So I made a show out of it! It's like Mystery Science Theater 3000 but for video games, focusing on Sony's Playstation Now service, which promises hundreds of games to stream at any time for a monthly fee. With that many games available at such a low price point, there's gotta be some catch right? I aim to find out by playing every single one of the hundreds of games offered in alphabetical order. To keep my sanity I'm recruiting some hilarious comedy folk to laugh at my agony. New episodes air every week. Please check it out and like, subscribe, and share the videos, if you're so inclined.

EURO INVASION MIX

2015-09-09T19:01:00.002-07:00

LISTEN:

DOWNLOAD: EUROINVASION FULL MIX

Last Friday we had a surprise Triple A performance at the Greyhound and DJ Bumbaclot's final performance. In addition, as a sendoff to a trip through Europe, we all serenaded the crowd with euro beats deep into the night. Here's a recording of my mix, now in an extended version with two never before heard remixes. Play loud, mix with friends, and enjoy.

Sound on The Alibi

2015-07-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

Long takes are always something that I like to see in films. So I was pretty stoked when Enlow contacted me about a short he was directing that he wanted to try to do in one take.

It took an evening of practicing choreography with actor Roy Wood Jr. and camera op Bobby Lam to squeeze ourselves through the tight spaces in a small 2 bedroom in Los Angeles.

In addition to the boom choreography, I also had to wire Nick Rutherford who is actually standing outside the house corresponding live over the phone in order to keep the timing correct. The clean lav audio was then used to replace the poor phone speaker audio in post.

Interesting fact, I re-recorded all the phone audio that I got from Nick's lav through a iPhone speaker in different rooms of my house to get the acoustics correct. If you listen carefully you can actually hear the different quality iPhone audio as Roy travels from room to room. None of the iPhone audio you hear in the finished film is from production.

The project was so much fun to do from top to bottom and I couldn't be happier with the finished product.

Big Sur Pfeiffer Beach

2015-03-31T19:11:00.000-07:00

Here's the last video in the Big Sur series shot on the Sony A7S. This video has a lot of experimentation with slow motion shot at 210fps at 720p. This slows the footage down to 20%, which was actually so slow that I ended up speeding some clips up to 40%.

Because the final video and normal-speed clips are at 1080p, the slow motion clips needed to be up-resed. This left the clips looking soft or slightly blurry. So I overlaid a video clip of 35mm film grain on to those clips. It perhaps looks a bit jarring cutting between sharp 1080p video with 720p video with grain, but I actually like the quality of the grain a lot, as opposed to the fcpx stock grain that I added to the first video.

Had a little trouble returning an xml from resolve to fcpx and had to drag all the video clips in from the finder and re-apply the slow motion fx, which was frustrating and time consuming. Not sure what the errors are about but I'm sure I wont get any answers because Apple is awesome.

Big Sur - Point Lobos

2015-03-23T13:33:00.001-07:00

Here's the second video of the Big Sur series. I'll try not to repeat too much of the tech stuff, so if you have questions feel free to ask in the comments or check out the first video.

This was also shot with the log settings at the base 3200 ISO and then color timed in DaVinci Resolve. The first half is shot in the forest leading up the the coast line and is where I first became really curious about the 4K output. This was shot in 1080p and the detail in the trees and such is pretty muddy. The video is shot at the AVC-S 50mb 42p setting so there's not a lot of noise and theres plenty of color and contrast info to play with in post. I didn't really notice any added noise from the color timing. Also, in contrast to the first video, I didn't add any noise in post since I don't really like the quality of the effect in FCP. I'd like to try adding grain with a more professional plugin or using After Effects. So this video will give you a good idea of what the natural grain of the A7S looks like, though the compression on Vimeo makes that sort of difficult.

I tried to push the colors a lot in the forest section specifically. It's worth noting that I realized at the end of the day that I had the white balance incorrect for the whole shoot (it was on the fluorescent setting I believe) D'oh!

Despite the white balance issue, I was able to pull the colors back and the push them to a warm yellow green quality. The coast line stuff has a more natural color to it and is more focused on getting the contrast correct. As you can see, the camera doesn't have much trouble exposing for a bright sky and dark rocks and foliage. When shooting, I usually exposed for the brightest thing in the frame, usually the sky. So I spent most of the time in post bringing the exposure down which yields rich color and contrast.

Big Sur - The Drive North

2015-03-16T12:23:00.001-07:00

Recently, I traveled up to Big Sur and Caramel along the California coast. Despite being a native Californian, there are still so many places in this gigantic state that I have not yet seen. I also recently acquired a Sony A7S DSLR that I have been anxious to put through its paces. This footage was captured during the drive north along the coast.

Along with the camera I have a Sony Zeiss 24-70mm F4 zoom lens. Because most of the footage I'm testing is shot in the S Log setting to get maximum latitude, the minimum ISO available is 3200(!) So I always had a variable ND filter attached to the end of the lens in order to expose properly during the daytime.

I have also recently updated my Mac Pro to one of the newer models, which included a new version of Final Cut X, a program I have been avoiding since the death of FCP7 a trillion years ago. So this footage also represents my first attempt to use FCPX and get familiar with the UI. I believe I was able to edit the footage in its native codec (XAVC-S at 50mb).

After a quick assembly edit, I was able to generate an XML which I sent to Davinci for color timing, another program I was interested in learning my way around. One of the great things about this workflow is that the footage is still in its native format when it is color timed, so there is a lot of information to work with, especially when the footage is shot in the S Log and S Gamma settings. I may try to also upload a quick video in the future that shows the dramatic difference between the raw image and the color timed versions. The difference is so great that you actually need to develop an eye for what the final look would be since the viewfinder image is often gray and lifeless.

Once color timing was finished, I exported the footage back to FCPX, which converts the video codec to prores 422 HQ. I'll have to see in the future if there is a way to get the footage back into FCP in the original codec, and if that does a better job of maintaining the integrity of the image. It may not. To my eye there is no difference between the two that isn't hidden in the drastically different color timing, but it may effect the final post effects that I laid in.

Before export, I experimented with the FCP motion stabilization effects. All this footage was shot on the fly without the benefit of a tripod or hand held rig. Despite the lens having optical image stabilization, the footage was a bit too jerky, revealing the main difference between shooting handheld with a large video camera and a small DSLR. With the stabilization, the handheld motion was made much smoother, but I didn't attempt to completely lock down the shot as if it were on a tripod. As a result the image is only zoomed in ever so slightly, but it is therefore not a true 1:1 resolution with the original footage (1920x1080), yielding a slightly blurrier image. In the future, with a camera add-on, I can shoot in 4K and stabilize that way so I don't lose resolution.

The lost resolution didn't really seem to blur the image in any meaningful way, but I still decided to test out a film grain/noise filter on the final video in order to make the image appear sharper, since the grain will be rendered at 1080p. The grain also helps get rid of banding, which makes gradients like the ones in the sky during the sunset shots look smoother. A negative side effect seems to be excess noise in the darkest areas of the frame. So you can see in certain shots, like the sunset with the dark mountainside in the foreground, the dark areas are very noisy. Because all the footage in the video is shot at the minimum 3200 ISO there is actually very little to no noise in any of the raw footage. In the future I would like to find a better film grain solution that doesn't effect the dark areas so poorly.

So that's it for the geek speak. Enjoy the video and feel free to ask any questions in the comments. I'm going to try to upload a new video once a week until I'm finished, so stay tuned!

Post Great Grains Commercial

2014-12-11T15:15:00.002-08:00

Here's a commercial I directed for Post Great Grains cereal. Co-written and starring the talented Anna Konkle along with the equally talented and lovely Talya Carroll. Lots of improvising during the shoot which made it difficult for continuity. We ended up having to do improvs with items one at a time in series and eventually all those groceries in Anna's arms got really heavy, but she soldiered through it like a champ. Also, who knew it was so tough to find a plain white ceramic bowl in this town? Special thanks to producers Matt Enlow and Christine Weatherup for lending their dining room and hospitality.

Secret Deodorant Commercial

2014-08-04T21:00:00.001-07:00

Been dipping my toe into Tongal lately to try to get my directing reel on its feet. My first spec wildcard didn't make the cut, but I'm happy with it nonetheless.

Password: secret

THE RANCH COMMERCIALS

2014-05-19T12:09:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I forget all the powerful commercials we made for the ranch. So, I've conveniently tried to throw as many of them as I could find together in one playlist. So, say goodbye to your lunch break because you're gonna be here for a while...

Days Works Done Music Video

2014-05-16T11:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a throwback to a music video I did for Michael Mazochi (of the Von Furs). The idea was to get a close but unfettered look at the environment he lived and worked in while creating his music during his 3 year stay at the ranch.

Do Not Disturb

2014-05-07T12:23:00.001-07:00

I was finally able to rope in the talented writer/actor/standup comedian Jacob Givens to get me a script to direct. I promised him a part on the condition he grew a mustache. Shot in a single day, it took a lot of hard work and favors to come in at a micro budget.

PASSWORD: sniper

2012 Live! DJ Set

2013-03-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

2012 Was a great year for music for this guy. Admittedly, I'll probably looks back and see this as the year of Jonny Jewel, whom you'll hear across several tracks. I've always been interested in the sort of breakneck speed that DJs like Girl Talk will mix, sort of creating a sonic tapestry of different styles that becomes its own thing. So that's what I went for here. The rules were: all music contained herein is stuff that I discovered in 2012, not necessarily released that year, though I try not to include too many throwbacks. Second rule is that I have to move on to the next song or mash as soon as possible, so most songs are not around for more than 2 minutes. The result is something that I think really represents my memory of 2012, music-wise. 45 tracks clocking in at nearly 2 hours. Although I arranged my track list by BPM, I didn't have a setlist in mind. I just had the intention of starting somewhere in the middle, around 95 bpm, going up till I maxed out and then dropping back to the mid nineties and dopping down from there. The ultimate song choices were made on the fly, no do-overs. Now the appologies. I'd say 3 out of every 4 tracks are mixed well. Then there's the odd transition that didn't work or beats that should have sunk up but befell a Traktor fail. Such is the raw-ness of playing live. Also, thanks again to lame soundcloud, a track has already been pulled, because I'm making BANK off this mix, and haters gonna hate. Shame, I really liked track 35 too.

Winter Chill Mix

2012-12-17T11:57:00.003-08:00

UPDATE:
I'm only allowed 2 hours of free space on sound cloud and I'm not giving them my money just yet. So I had to brush aside some old songs including the ones on this setlist. If you're interested in hearing them, message me or comment and I'll get them to you straightaway.

Hey listeners!
It's been nice and cool and overcast down in LA the past couple of weeks and I don't know about you, but I've just been in the mood for some chill electro. Nothing like seeing the lights reflected in the wet concrete, driving home at night, the raindrops on your windshield like a giant lite-bright. So I've been picking through a lot of Johnny Jewel's mixes and cuts from the Vallerie collective. When I find something I can't do without, I have to take it into protools to cut out and EQ the one song from the hour-long mix. After that, during a sleepless night, I decided to power on the tables for a bit to see what comes out. The result is this mix, live and uncensored. This is the first mix I was able to "cut" into pieces while recording live through Tracktor, enabling me to upload individual tracks into a seamless mix via Soundcloud setlists.

Unfortunately, soundcloud was being a butthole and would freeze when the upload was 90% complete. I've been trying to upload for days, and finally I got it working. Lame soundcloud. Anyway, the great thing about soundcloud is that I can share this mix with you. Enjoy, and please share/like/comment/download!

Mailbag Airfunction EP - FULL SET LIST

2012-12-04T13:41:00.000-08:00

FIRST KISS!

2012-11-02T10:32:00.001-07:00

No, not my first kiss. I'm talking about a short film written and directed by my very talented buddy Charles Hood. Chuck is always great about trying to work with fellow USC alumni and close friends on projects. This film marked the second time I was able to do location sound with Charles and his crew. The first was another funny project called ALLISON. Very funny project, shot in a single day (with some pickups here and there). We had to lock down the whole street to do the running sequence at the end. Looks great, sounds great. A festival winner if there ever was one (and it did). Hopefully this wont be our last collaboration, Chuck is a very prolific writer and director, completing his first feature when most of us were still looking for internships. This was shot a year ago I think, which goes to show you how long it takes to turn around a good film, even if it's a short, and it just finished the festival rounds. So take a break and watch it. It will make your funny.

The Sound and The Shadow (and the Trailer)

2012-10-19T11:46:00.003-07:00

The Sound and the Shadow Teaser Trailer from The Sound & the Shadow on Vimeo.

This year has been quite a productive one for me and my brethren. The year started with a bang as I was brought on for several weeks to a feature created by two good friends, Sam and Justin. The film's been going through the editing process for the past few months and it's almost finished, at which point the project will come back to me to do post sound. This whole film is a murder mystery featuring a sound mixer as the protagonist. So it quickly became a very personal project for me. I can't wait to see how it's been put together and to start brainstorming with Justin and Sam about the sound design. Check out this trailer and get excited!

NEW STUFF

2012-08-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

Hey online gang!
There's some new old stuff on my blog that you should check out. Now that I'm getting a lot of work as a sound guru, I've added some more major components to the blog. I've had some discussions with other onliners about pros and cons of separate sites versus one site. As of right now I have one site, RQFILM.com, that has several tabs that link to different facets of my film making career. The danger is that thing become too busy and confusing, and ultimately keep people from viewing the content they want to see and returning for more in the future.

The new stuff is as follows:
- A new Sound tab at the top of the page
- A new Sound Page, where you can see my resumé and watch some of my sound work
- A new updated resumé link at the top of my Sound Page and on the top of the left column on all pages

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Also, at the top of the post is a copy of my new sound mixer card. Neato!

Echo lake: Part $@&*#%?

2012-08-04T12:20:00.001-07:00

So you may have noticed that I posted one plucky hopeful blog at the start of production of Echo Lake and then...radio silence. Part of that is the fact that much if the time we are quite literally shooting in the middle of nowhere, 30 or more miles out from civilization and phone signal. We've been lost, stranded, beaten, bitten, starved, and broke down and we're on day 4. Intense to say the least, and rewarding for sure. It's rare that a city dweller like myself has the chance to push himself to the limit and beyond. At times the world conspires against us with flat tires, forest fires, faulty wires, and it's inspiring to see people band together to support one another. It's hard to believe we're only half way, and a part of me is truly not sure if I can make it to the finish line but the support of hard working cast and crew will hopefully see me through and return me home safely. Check out my instagram feed @bombstockton to see many pictures from the adventure. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Though at times I would trade the world for a nap in my own bed.

Echo Lake!

2012-07-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

So I'm in Chester with Jody, Andy, and Chris (whom I just met). Chester is in the middle of nowhere California. I'm glad to be out of the city, that place sucks. Doing some camera tests and stuff this weekend before we start shooting on Monday. Today we test steady cam, monopod, slider, LEDs, night shoots, and shooting on a boat in the lake. Fun times. Internets are spotty up here so I'm trying out a new blogger app on the iPhone. For now we use Internet cafe on the main street.

PILOT SCRIPT - DAY ?

2012-05-09T15:44:00.003-07:00

So, here I am at the last day of the champion contract with a "finished" script in hand. My feelings: mixed.

On the negative side, I hate it. The only thing more boring and unremarkable than the plot is the dialogue therein. I understand I'm being hard on myself, but I also know my standards for what I will and wont watch. There's something there though, I just don't think I have anything shootable yet, which wasn't necessarily the goal.

On the positive side, I've finally got it down on paper somewhere. Seeing as how this was a story concept I began coming up with in 2005, having a pilot down in any form is a great success. I talked with Andy a bit about it the other day as he was sharpening his beard, and he reminded me that having one junk script done is better than a thousand good ideas floating around in my brain or on scraps of paper. At least the pieces have been made so they can now be shuffled around and refined.

Aaron continues to be a great help as a writing partner, giving me space to create, but helping me push through the roadblocks. Once I freshen up a last scene or two, I will be sending the draft over to him for demolition.

In summation, I think that this Champion's contract was a success in getting a vomit draft out there as a first step. I'm interested in taking things a step further for my next contract, which may involve an old script getting dusted off and a new draft thereof.

PILOT SCRIPT -- DAY 3

2012-05-02T15:43:00.003-07:00

I hate dialogue.

Today has not been as good a writing day as yesterday and I'm trying to figure out why. I think dialogue is the culprit. I hate it. I'm so picky about my dialogue as it is. There's a lot of exposition and themes that I want to get through to the audience, but I hate doing it with dialogue. I teacher told me long ago: show don't tell. Why have a character say "I love cats" when you could put a cat in front of her and have her squeal with delight. My dialogue is completely without character right now. Anybody could be saying these lines.

Yesterday I wrote a lot of action and playing with gadgets, which was awesome. Today I have to have characters have conversations, and it sucks. I think it sucks the most because it's telling me that I have filmsy characters, so I have no idea what they would say or how they would say it. So, rather than dig myself further into this shit hole, i'm going to take a break from the script to focus on the character's histories and what makes them unique.

Hopefully I'll come up with something by tomorrow, because I'm starting to fall behind here, and I can almost hear the sound of Andy, Sam and Chris sharpening knives. Or sharpening beards. I think that's more terrifying: sharpened beards.

PILOT SCRIPT -- DAY 2

2012-05-01T14:48:00.001-07:00

Well,
I'm happy to report that the second day of writing has faired much better than the first, as far as actual pages written. After stumbling through some notes on the opening paragraph with Aaron, I charged head first into where I left off yesterday: page 2. I'm happy to report that I've written more than twice as much as I did yesterday. The bad news is that I have no idea how long the finished script will be. I think a half hour show isn't looking doable so far. Many people have suggested web series to me, so perhaps it will ultimately be a collection of minisodes. Trying not to let that hold me up in any way.

At this point, I'm realizing that running into a wall or point of contention completely derails me and kills my motivation to continue writing. So, thanks to the outline Aaron and I had created earlier, I'm trying to jump ahead to scenes where I still feel fresh, in order to let the scenes I'm stuck on simmer. I'm worried this is going to wreak havoc when I try to tie it all together, but as far as keeping the vomit draft on track, it's better than giving up.

Here's a question, how many hours of writing per day is considered good? Obviously, it's different for every person for every project. But, I do find myself exceedingly distracted after around four hours and in need of a break.

Also, walks are great! I took a walk yesterday after burning out, and I came up with a bunch of stuff I was interested in. The problem was that I was like a mile away from my computer. How do I walk and write a script at the same time? That's the holy grail.

CHAOS AGENT PILOT SCRIPT

2012-04-30T14:51:00.002-07:00

Many of you may have heard about my sci-fi series, Chaos Agent, as I've been fooling around with the world for the past 6 years. A futurist action series still continues to keep my interest as I finally start to reign it in to get the particulars in order. Aaron, my writing partner has been invaluable in reigning me in, helping me focus on characters, places, and events that we can wrap our pilot around. Not long ago, Aaron and I finished a scene outline for the pilot (of still indeterminate length), but getting started on the script has been very tough for me. So I entered into a contract with Andy, Sam, and Chris the other day in order to get some fire under my ass to write this pilot. I have till May 10th to kick out a vomit draft of the pilot, and today's my official first day. I spent all morning procrastinating, responding to emails, cleaning my house etc. Then I finally moved on to creating the title card. Some concern was expressed about getting audiences situated into the world early to keep them from getting lost. So, I've been flirting with a title paragraph that would open each episode.

Finally, finished with the paragraph by mid day I was ready to type "FADE IN:" Several hours later, I'm still here not finished with page one. So I took a break to write this blog for accountability. I'm not super stoked with this slow start, but I don't feel like time's being wasted either. Writing is still pretty new to me and just getting started so that I can pick up where I left off tomorrow is a big step, in my opinion. Though it's mid afternoon and I'm getting burnt, I'm going to tough it out a few more hours and call it a day.

Tomorrow I hope to hit the ground running hard! Wish me luck for the rest of today.

CHECKED OUT EP. 4

2012-04-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

Checked Out Episode 4 by CheckedOutSeries

This is the fourth and final episode of Checked Out, starring my budder David Greenman. This the is the episode I did the most work on including ADR, backgrounds, fx, and general dialogue cleaning. Enjoy and please share.

SASSY GRILL

2012-04-28T08:31:00.002-07:00

Hey gang!

This here's episode 4 of Matt Enlow's rising star series Squaresville. If you've been following me for a while, you already know the drill. Though this episode is just being released now, it was actually filmed a year or more ago when we were first putting together our package for fundraising. Clean and simple, this episode, I thought, does a great job of finding the character's footing and their dynamic with Percy, one of my favorite characters.