My absence for the past few months has been due to the fact that I've been woodshedding, as folks in the Jazz world would say. One of the things I've been doing is writing. When I'm writing, I find this blog takes a back seat. Sorry, dear readers. That's the way it goes. As for what I've been writing, well, maybe one day you'll see…
In my spare time, though, I've spent a lot of time playing with these newfangled DSLR cameras. Though I've bought one (a Canon 7D), I'm not sold on them. I know I'm late to the party in discussing them, but better late than never. I'll post my thoughts in a few days.
In the meantime, there have been several resources for DSLR filmmaking that, time and time again, I've consulted as I've been experimenting with these cameras. I want to give a special shout out to two of them:
The first is Ryan Koo's fantastic DSLR Cinematography Guide. I always enjoyed Ryan's writings on the now-defunct DVGuru blog, and this reminded me of that. Ryan has done the legwork for novices, compiling information from all over the 'net. If you are new to DSLR filmmaking and have time to read only one thing, read this. It's free, but if you send him a donation you'll get a PDF of the whole thing. I did.
The second resource is Shane Hurlbut, ASC's invaluable blog. I knew Hurlbut was a champion of the Canon DSLR cameras since at least last summer. What I didn't know until recently, though, was how generous of blogger this guy is. How does a guy in the ASC have time to write as much as he does while I'm making my first post in, what, three months?
Both Ryan's and Shane's willingness to share their knowledge and mistakes so freely (as in "openly" and as in "without compensation") has rekindled my love of internet.
But for now, it's back to the writing room.
By the way, for more on woodshedding, check this out.