The Little Ricki Song - Mckenna Faith Original Song

Mckenna Faith wrote this song honoring guide dog puppies for us a few years ago. We decided to release the unplugged recording we did with her that day. Big thanks to Mckenna and her family for making this awesome song for us.

Series Pilot GurillaTV

I have posted the first two pilot episodes of GurillaTV. The series pilot showcases motifs, guerilla filmmaking, parody, and a collaboration effort of many artists working together. Any prospective interest in the series can contact me at matt@chapmanpictures.com This is the premiere episode from the pilot series GurillaTV. This episode features video segments from Daneboe, GreeenPro, and ChappyShowcase. This crazy episode features Tubemogul technology for video publishers. This is the second episode from the pilot series GurillaTV. This episode features video segments from Dick Jones, Nextraker, and Lucchina. This crazy episode features Young Conan learning sword fighting for stunt film action scenes.

My Evolution to the WEB SERIES

Back in 2009, I was creating how-to videos released under my moniker "ChappyShowcase" which were videos about low budget film making. Although I released all kinds of videos in different genres, the how-to film making seemed to resonate more than any other types of videos I made. The economy had collapsed, video creators had no money, and low budget film making spoke to that. Consistently I found good feedback and people offering to pay me to make my "$30 Steadicam" for them; named after a how-to video of the same subject. I was not interested in doing this, but found it a pleasant experience to get so much feedback. It was amazing making a video rendition of a recycled design I had learned about nearly 7 years earlier back in the dial modem days of the internet. This single video got me more serious about doing more although I had already put out a few dozen videos scattered over a few months. After a few years of freelancing as a cinematographer/editor, as well as producing an exhausting amount of wedding videos with my production company, I was deeply affected by the crash of my video business in late 2007. I lost nearly all my clients, however took the opportunity to look for other avenues to do video. I recently had read about sites like Youtube, Metacafe, Revver, and Crackle in Videomaker Magazine. I had really wanted to tell my own stories, not work for other people, but this idea was kind of a dream. What had seemingly been good as a videographer, no longer existed in a flash so what did I have to lose? Up to that point Youtube and other "user generated sites" had only been around for months not years. These sites seemed to have a stigma of only containing crappy videos from amateurs. I remember the sentiment that respectable filmmakers didn't do that sort of thing. No one I knew in the video business was making videos and putting them up for free on these unique sites, I thought I might as well put up a few I had created since they had screened and then died. I put "Nerves of Steel" and "In Case of Emergency" up. Two films I had screened at some smaller film festivals. After figuring out a dozen "user generated" sites or so, I instantly loved the fact that there was immediate feedback and fulfillment from an audience. Before I had to find a place to screen a film and it could take months if not years to find a festival. By the time that happened, I may hardly remember why i made the film in the first place. What an amazing thing this "user generated online distribution" was for producers. I uploaded the same videos to all the sites and was able compare the views and reactions. Not only did I learn about what videos were most popular, I also learned the value of working with the right distribution partners. One week in the summer of 2008 I had the opportunity to film Streaming Media West at their annual conference which took place in Silicon Valley. This conference put together by Dan Rayburn featured one panel about a new thing called a web series. Show creators with titillating new brands included Rocketbook, and Political Lunch spoke about what they were doing. The market for such an idea was really immature, but the opportunity was good according to them. The web series was to be the next big thing in their estimation. The internet was the wild west where there were no rules to speak of. No technical specifications, no close captioning, no format restrictions, and the list went on and on. A video creator could do whatever they wanted and tons of sites like Youtube would host the videos for free too. This seemed to be a no brainer for me to experiment with more. I though more and more about producing a web series in 2008 after a year of distributing videos all over the internet. My documentary "Nerves of Steel" featured on Crackel for nearly a year, then ChappyShowcase became a partner producer with Metacafe. Shortly after that Youtube accepted my application to be a "producer partner" as well. These events really got my hooked into the possibilities of what a web series may present. Especially now that i had learned the value of intellectual property and money working for you and not the other way around. I felt a web series was a better idea because it was serial or episodic in nature. This sort of distribution approach could be a better way to build an audience. I experienced that my videos were often one-off and not serial even if some of them were getting pretty good hits. The one-off videos were not seemingly connected from one upload to another. Perhaps this gave my viewers no reason to necessarily check back in and watch new videos. One week I may put up a Samoan music video from a guy who had not payed me (so this was my way at some sort of monetization) for the work. Another week I may put up a grease monkey video of a time lapse car repair I did. Yet another time I would release a parody I made with my brother years earlier; shot on analog video. Although I did find many would simply binge view my content all at once for a day or two, a serial show may bring people back by the nature of the release and continual story forward. This could go on for moths, or maybe even years. More and more people (on Youtube especially) were starting to put out a web series of some sort. Some releasing a new episode once a month, or once a week, or even some did it once a day. Some years before all of this, my wife and I started raising guide dogs for the blind in 2002. Over the following decade we really started to enjoy it and couldn't believe how fulfilling it was to help other people. "Could we make a web series about this guide dog stuff?" We became good friends with the visually impaired partner who received our first guide pup Macklin. Her genuine appreciation and ability to raise her level of productivity in life was so apparent that it just smacked me in the face. "This is a whole new narrative world I have hardly seen in tv or movies" I thought. After a few days of talking about it, my wife Amie and I decided to give it a shot and make a web series. Growing Up Guide Pup was to be the name of the series. We really didn't have much of a plan as we decided to experiment and remove conventional production bureaucracy so we could move quickly. We had a new puppy arriving shortly. Two days after the idea, I already had camcorder in hand and was filming cause a puppy had become available. That first episode we decided to design a format that even the visually impaired could enjoy through colorful description. At first we focused on story, not production value. We filmed with a cell phone for the first time so we could get footage in the grocery store without a hassle. We focused on spontaneity and decided to keep the amount of oversight and cost to a minimum. My in kind equipment from my video business would be fine to make the series, and my prior online distribution experience with ChappyShowcase made me comfortable enough to move forward with a once a week video release approach. We released a video every week as our new puppy Ricki matured. Episode after episode we couldn't believe how fun the process was for us. We also got more feedback and appreciation than we had anticipated. We started hearing from people who lived in other parts of the US, and even other countries. The service dog school we were working with at the time caught wind of what we were doing and starting promoting our videos and writing blogs so get more PR for themselves. The next thing we knew, our series was not an experiment anymore. it seemed to be working as a moving story piece and the puppy appeal was undeniable. Our series was accepted in the New Media Film Festival in 2010 while we were still filming the first season about Ricki. This was about 8 months after we had started. It was amazing how fast things work with the internet. Before we knew it, we had made a relationship with Nylabone dog toys and did our first contest giveaway. After a year, we had several thousand loyal fans as we continued to make the series and grow our core followers of dog lovers, puppy raisers, service dog people, and the visually impaired. Eventually this landed us an invitation to screen our series at the first and still largest web series festival in the world. Its called the LAWebFest and was founded by Michael Ajakwe Jr. It rendered awards for many things, but most importantly "Outstanding Non-Fiction Series" two years in a row in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, we also received an award at CreaTV Awards in Silicon Valley for "Outstanding CreaTiVe Award Feature Winner" As of May of 2014, I am excited for the future and what it may entail. One thing is certain, the web series genre will be intertwined with us. Hope you enjoyed my story and evolution to the web series. For any filmmakers out there deciding to make a web series of their own. Don't let anything get in your way, because opportunity is upon you.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 64 - Finale

The long journey came to a conclusion this week. Ricki was our 10th dog we have raised for Guide Dogs. Although we have become conditioned for the process of raising pups for working careers, it never gets any easier. I know that the last episode of the season was dramatic, but I felt it was important to let the audience experience exactly what we experience every time we go through the process. I think the series should be liberating for puppy raisers, and used to help raise awareness across all working dog fields. I hope it helps open some eyes to those people out there who are not aware of the emotional ending. This episode is truly the only episode that has a beginning, middle, and end. Hence why I think it is probably the best one for someone to watch. We are so thankful and proud to have been the raisers of Ricki and wish her the best of luck in the future. Hopefully Guide Dogs will find a great alternative career for her in community placement.

Thanks to all for watching and your continual support. Be sure to check out our new website

http://www.growingupguidepup.com for the latest news on Ricki and our next pup coming in the future.

Matt

69 Charger Burnout

So I tested my GoProHD Hero again this week. This time i performed a burnout. Dirt, rubber, and dust was kicked all over the camera, but it performed great.

69 Dodge Charger Meets GoProHD

My two favorite things are filmmaking and muscle cars. This video is the first time I have ever made a piece showing the appreciation I have for my 69 Dodge Charger. I mounted my GoPro to 10 different locations all over the car a few days ago. When I went out to shoot it began to rain, but because I was using the GoPro, it didn't hold things up at all. I just shot in the rain. Why the hell not?

Specs:
Shot 1280x720P @ 60 Frames per second
Mpeg4 files converted to quicktime pro res 422 Using Mpeg Streamclip
Conformed frame rate for slow motion with Cinema Tools
Used the H.264 codec for compression for the web using Compressor
Edited the video with Final Cut Pro 4

GoProHD Durability Test

I have played with dozens of cameras over the years. I have worked with the Red camera and Varicam which costs thousands of dollars and are great professional cameras. I have also shot with consumer cameras like the Flipcam and various prosumer cameras over the years. But I have never worked with a camera that has more versatility than the GoProHD Hero.

The TV commercials and hype about this cameras are true. It is incredibly versatile, and can handle all kinds of weather conditions, humidity, and temperatures. I'm still experimenting with it because it is just sooooo much fun. What is most important to recognize about this camera is the quality. It shoots a compressed mp4 file, but once you uncompress the image to quicktime, it is absolutely fantastic for the price. I would gladly pay two or three times as much money for this camera.

So this week I wanted to test the durability of the GoProHD. This video was totally spontaneous, and I don't recommend people trying doing the same thing. This video is for demonstration purposes only; so please don't try this yourself.

GoProHD Slow Motion Test

I have been seeing GoPro commercials on television. I have also seen some of their cool viral videos on youtube. I just couldn't wait any longer and went out and got one for myself. My web series Growing Up Guide Pup requires that I put out a new episode every week, and I am always looking for new tools for my filmmaking bag of tricks. I'm always striving to make the show better and it's visual style is very important to me. The GoProHD Hero shoots 60 fps at 1280x720p. It also is designed for hardcore shooting, including underwater. Since we were planning on shooting our dogs in the pool, it seemed a perfect opportunity to put this thing to work. The workflow required a learning curve as well as the camera itself. It kinda reminded me of learning how to program my watch for the first time. Only two buttons on the body of the camera, and yet their is a ton of programmable functions on the camera.

I put the workflow specs below and the first video I did shooting slow motion.

Specs:
Shot 1280x720P @ 60 Frames per second
Mpeg4 files converted to quicktime pro res 422 Using Mpeg Streamclip
Conformed frame rate for slow motion with Cinema Tools
Used the H.264 codec for compression for the web using Compressor
Edited the video with Final Cut Pro 4

Recorder Pro iphone App

As most people know, I'm constantly looking for ways to save money as a filmmaker. Guerilla filmmaking is a evolving trend I like to explore, and the iphone just so happens to provide cheap solutions for the everyday video creator. Now I am not going to pledge the undoing of conventional audio acquisition by any means. But I am going to add this iphone app to my filmmaking bag of tricks.

It's called Recorder Pro, and it only cost .99 cents. The audio quality that i recorded was 44.1 kilohertz and 16 bit. It can acquire the audio in the .wav or .aiff file format too. The sound quality is fair when working with an iphone. I can't say that I have had the same results using a audio app for my wife's Samsung Moment. The audio recording tests revealed a big difference and i think this says something more about the phone than the app, but I can't be certain without more tests which I could come back to someday.

Next week I'm going to post another Mckenna Faith music video where all the audio was acquired with a iphone and the Recorder Pro app. Stay tuned.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 57 - Dog Distractions

Amie said a great thing to Seth and I months back that I really love. She said that guide dogs are the "navy seals" of the working dog industry. The more we shoot the show, the more it makes sense to me. I mean everywhere you take these dogs poses a myriad of distractions. Whether it be other dogs, food, cats, small animals, birds, kids, balls, sounds, water, etc. It is amazing that any of them graduate. To turn off a dogs natural instinct which is to be curious about things around him/her is a huge challenge. We strive to do this with Ricki constantly, and it is amazing how the same training can be utilized in so many different locations. Ricki continues to make baby steps as we crawl closer to her recall date. We have high hopes that she will do well, but ultimately this will be up to her. We know she has the work drive as well as the drive to please. Only time will tell if that will be enough.

Mckenna Faith - Sugar and Spice

This video marks the second of a series of videos that I shot with Mckenna Faith. She is a up and coming artist, and really talented. I'm happy that our families have become friends, and working together was awesome. This particular song is my favorite, and I'm really excited to have it in the line up "guerilla unplugged" style of videos I did with Mckenna. If you like this, there are two more coming. One other already done called "He Doesn't Even Know it Yet".

If i told people that I pushed aside my regular gear and opted for low budget alternatives, they may say "you are crazy". But that is exactly what i did. Mckenna and her mom were very gracious with my experiments and they ended up working really good. A majority of this video was shot on the Flip Cam Ultra HD which only costs a few hundred dollars. Of course I used many of them, and also had a myriad of other equipment as well as some other professional cameras in the final cut, but never-the-less, the flip cam image is dominant. I also left my professional lighting equipment in their bags, and performed all the lighting for this video using work lights I got at Home Depot for $60. See the results for yourself.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 55 - Farm Animals

This week was cool because we were able to review all of Ricki's main issues. Her small animal distractions, bird distractions, ball distractions, and dog distractions. We are constantly exposing Ricki to the things that could cause her to fail puppy college. It is the only thing we can do before her formal training. Will it be enough for her to graduate? Only time will tell and everyone will have to continue to tune it and find out.

Low Budget Film Lighting

I few of my producer friends over the last six months have been asking me if I could come up with a way to do lighting on a low budget. My answer was to go to home depot and buy some work lights. This was a test and I didn't know what the results were going to be until after the edit. Well after it is all said and done my thoughts are i'm going to keep them in my filmmaking bag of tricks. They really do work. All one has to do is get a little more creative in figuring out a way to mount them. Also keep in mind that the 500 watt lights get pretty hot. One of my fans sent me a message that the 1,000 watt lights even have a fire warning on them with most manufactures. So I would really be careful with all of these lights. Keep a fire extinguisher close by and treat this process with respect. So anyway, have fun and here is my latest episode.



Here is my guerilla unplugged video showing the lights in action.
The artist is Mckenna Faith
Song is "He Doesn't Even Know It Yet"

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 54 - Nylabone

This week marks an important step for us. It's the first time a company has worked with us in any form. Nylabone donated toys for our puppy raising group, as well as donated a bunch of items for a youtube contest. This might not seem like that big of a deal, but for us it is. We feel like the only way we will be able to sustain what we are doing in a long term vision, is to find a way to help make a living with the series. Making a living might mean picking up a sponsor who can burden the bills of creation. We have taken on the burden so far on our own, and will continue as long as possible. But this was a really cool step in the right direction for us.

Nylabone will always rock in our book, and we have nothing but great things to say about them.

If you are interested in winning our giveaway package. Thumb up, comment, and favorite this episode on youtube. Make sure you subscribe if you have not already.

Chappy

Flip Cam Ultra HD Test Bench

Ok, so this is the first time I have talked about a camera. As I explore low budget filmmaking ideas I find myself going beyond just building things. There is so much out there to explore. The reason I chose this camera is because I acquired seven of them from a tv pilot shoot. It also is the camera that I am giving away in my contest, so it really only makes sense.

I wanted to do a review in a interesting way. Not just simply shoot some lame random footage and talk about it. This is what other people do. No, i shot a series of music videos giving valuable video real estate to the Flip Cam. This was a real project with real people. This provides a real world example without hypotheticals. I mean what is the point, unless the camera is really used to see results? C'mon people:D

So all in all this camera is pretty good if you know the rules and stay within them. Some of the rules that I have found to keep in mind.

1) Don't shoot handheld
This camera sucks when shooting handheld. It is very sensitive to movement and can look very shaky.

2) Keep it locked down and the results will be much better.
This camera has a camera mount thread on the bottom. The universal 1/4" 20 pitch that is found on most tripods, and various mounting adaptations. Utilize this fact and this camera gives amazing options because of it's size.

3) Surround the Fiip Cam with good lighting or suffer the consequences.
The exposure is all automatic so you will find yourself at the mercy of the Flip gods. It will expose itself very well most of the time if the lighting is consistent and bright. This will make the HD resolution shine.

So hope these tips help. Check out my video below to get more information. If you like my videos, do me a favor and subscribe on youtube. Thanks

Mckenna Faith - He Doesn't Even Know it Yet

This video marks the first of a series of videos that I shot with Mckenna Faith. She is a up and coming artist, and really talented. I'm happy that our families have become friends, and working together was awesome. This particular song is one of my favorites, and I'm really excited to have it kick off the premiere of my "guerilla unplugged" style of videos I did with Mckenna. If you like this, there are three more coming.

If i told people that I pushed aside my regular gear and opted for low budget alternatives, they may say "you are crazy". But that is exactly what i did. Mckenna and her mom were very gracious with my experiments and they ended up working really good. A majority of this video was shot on the Flip Cam Ultra HD which only costs a few hundred dollars. Of course I used many of them, and also had a myriad of other equipment as well as some other professional cameras in the final cut, but never-the-less, the flip cam image is dominant.

Flip Cam Contest

I acquired a ton of equipment on a recent project. I don't need all of this stuff and thought why not give some of it away to my viewers. I like helping aspiring video creators, and low budget filmmakers. This has kinds become my new angle with my videos that come out every week.

If you interested in this contest. Hit me up on youtube with a comment on the video below and don't forget to subscribe.

EZ Mount Test Bench

This episode is all about testing the EZ mount. I really like this thing, and it is really effective. It could cost anywhere from like $20 to $200 to buy a special cardellini clamp, or mafer clamp to do the same job. Seriously, check it out yourself. Everything I show in this episode is real footage shot with a flip cam mounted on the EZ mount in different situations. I think this is a great tool for a any filmmakers bag of tricks.

Make a Cam EZ Mount

After the launch of this video I feel like I am officially back. I have been so busy with Growing Up Guide Pup and other projects. But that is a good thing I suppose. This mount really does work and I am excited to put it out there to help other video creators. Next week I'm going to show how I have used it myself.... so be sure to check in on wednesday.

Growing Up Guide Pup - Week 50 - One Year Anniversary

Well it's official. Our first year of the series has been completed. We did it. It's been a big challenge banging out a episode every week, but very fun. Although there are 52 weeks in a year, we have 50 episodes. But I guess if you count the two birthday special episodes we are right on track.

Our series has premiered at the New Media Festival, and was recently accepted into the LAWEBFEST. We did our first radio interview for Working Like Dogs on Petliferadio, and recently were told Nylabone is going to sponsor us, and give us a bunch of products for free. We are going to do a Youtube contest with some of the products, and also give a bunch of toys to our fellow puppy raisers in our group. So it seems we are doing pretty good, and the future looks good.

Ricki is well on her way to becoming a guide dog. She is our tenth dog, and one of the best prospects we have had so far. We think she has a really good chance of making it so stay tuned to see how it all goes.

Thanks for watching, subscribing on youtube, becoming a fan on facebook, telling your friends and family about our series, and your continual support.

Matt