My DIY helmet rig!

<p>With the rising cost of... well... everything, its hard to be a filmmaker and buy all your own professional equipment. Especiallly if you are doing it the hard, independent way with no backing. There is so much I could say about how having professional equipment makes all the difference in a huge production, but this is all about my DIY helmet cam rig!</p>
<p>Freddie Wong has inspired me to build my own helmet cam rig. Seems very difficult at first, but with a good camera you can greatly increase your production value very cost effectively.

POV shots are rising in interest and fame and it can be hard to make a masterpiece with a gopro or a huge chest rig. Full resolution for me demands a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera like Cannon 5D or T3i. (if you can afford it)

The easiest way I found to get amazing, crisp footage POV style came from Freddie Wong's behind the scenes. I took a hardy bike helmet, the head from a cheap tripod, a 5lb weight, and some zip ties to secure everything together. The camera is rigged upside down but you can see just fine through the LCD screen so there is no guessing. The whole rig was less then $50. That's conserving :)

Inaugural Sacramento Bacon Fest!

This January, Sacramento residents were treated to a epic downtown festival... Bacon Fest! I just happened to be coming up with a short news story to film for my Journalism class. Being late with an idea, I looked on my phone through the Sac News and Review and saw that the weekend our assignment had to be filmed, Nick Miller from SN&R and Guido, were co-organizing the "Inaugural Sacramento Bacon Fest 2012." How was I going to pass that up!? I got in contact with Nick and he was pleased with the idea of me filming the the three day event. So for a weekend straight, I enjoyed all the amazing bacon concoctions I could enjoy (bacon marmalade, double BLTs, bacon cookies, chocolate bacon, bacon beer!) all while shooting the only exclusive footage of this one time event. Though, hopefully, Bacon Fest will be back next January ;D To see the complete event, go to this website:

http://www.midtownmonthly.net/blog/bacon-fest-sacramento-january-20-22/

Creating this documentary...

is definitely gonna be a challenge. I have been getting good footage and interviews but the hardest part is trying to see the final picture in my head to see what I'm missing and what I still need to get. I did, however, find some home videos that would be great to go along with the piece. People often times don't see how hard something is unless they see how it was in the past. How much a disease like Lupus changes a person and how someone can go from living an active, productive life to living caged in a room with little to no energy. How do I present that though? What am I missing? What is the resolution? How do I make people care? So many questions, so little time...

Recent Film-scapades

Been working on a documentary about my mom and her Lupus. It's pretty difficult because with all things in life, documentaries can't be controlled. All you can really do is just try to get some good, emotional, interesting footage that will make people want to watch. Many things have changed since I started. I almost thought that I wouldn't be able to finish it at one point. But luckily I have a very supportive group of faculty and administrators here at the school who want to help me out and get me the hell out of here. The documentary has changed but there is a lot more good about it. Some stories don't have an amazing happy ending. Sometimes you can't control a story about life even if you were so set on it. But happy endings and well-being I guess are boring in life. The struggle and learning to live life no matter what is the true inspiration of humanity. That is what my documentary is about now...

Such Emptiness

How can such nothingness feel so overwhelming? How can such emptiness be so overcrowding? When you thought you had it all and everything felt so complete, you get used to the fact that it will always be right there within reach. You feel complete knowing that your life is whole and begin to take for granted the things that build your life up. When, without warning, that part of your life you were so confident with falls out from under you, the fastest thing that replaces it is nothing... Now there is nothing to get rid of the nothingness. And your life is swallowed up by the feeling of being forever insignificant. How easy you can begin to spiral downward deeper into the dark. How do you recover your loss when all your trust is gone? When you can't see anything worth fighting for anymore? When your heart is so shut down that it cannot reach out? How do you gain back all the happiness that was burned from you when the ash has gone to the wind and everything that made you happy has vanished? The pain from such loss will never completely fade; and the scars will never fully disappear, but you will learn to ignore them. Still, the reoccurring aftershocks will return you to such emptiness the harder you try to fill the void. But the cracks will fill and the wounds will fade til the day you have found the perfect piece to fill the empty hole.

The Recipe for Me!

The perfect Cage is not an easy recipe to make. It uses many rare ingredients and a lot of time and planning. To create the base formula, you start with some Bald Eagle feathers, some whale skin oil, and children's tears. Thinking positive is a must when adding the tasteful ingredients as feeling goes into the mix as well. Hard work and and dedication is needed as well to make the recipe perfect. Once you have the base and mindset down, get out a big bowl. Mix in a heaping teaspoon of high energy with some carefree enthusiasm. Throw in some passion fruit and guarana for added spunk and some neon colored dye for charisma. Add a sprinkle of vanilla for sweetness and a large teddy bear for cuddling and careing for others. A few tulips for incredible kissing and some love-cuffs for whatever life throws your way. Next we add a cup of creative tallent with a burning passion for life. Toss in some athletisism and you are almost there! Next, get a forge and melt down a ton of steel to 10,000 degrees. Begin folding ingredients into steel 1,000 times. Finally, add a lifetime supply of epicness! Pour ingredients into a human mold and then flash freeze in liquid nitrogen for ten years to raise the coolness factor. When done, you will have ayour very own Cage, carved to all specifications! :D

My first Renga poem

First of all, what is a Renga? It is pretty cool, I'm not going to lie. In Renga, several people get together to write a poem that can be extremely long. Each person takes a turn to write one stanza that first starts off with three lines, then two, and back to three, continuing the process. The first stanza is something about the season or the time the poem was written, then from there, each stanza has to be about the previous stanza, but not the one before it. This makes it so that a Renga can be about anything and lead to an entirely different ending. My poem was written by: Me, Johnny K., Sean McCaffrey, and JD Vorhes. Here is our Renga:

The ice melts
and water pours
into the river below

warmer water, colder air
thunder storms and bears

The shifting breeze
of mountain air
sets all in motion once more

Goats of mountains
push the rain

The ram turns his
head to the breaking dawn
as the heard approaches

The horde of buffalo sense the oncoming
storm and stamped into the sunset

And when the dust settles
what once was there
is alas no more

Emptyness fills with tears
ashamed, frightened, has no heart

The soul breaks down
to form a black hole
consuming all who get close

Deatomizing
gone to bits

Cohesion lost to time
mind no longer matter
swept away

Time is spent
let to wonder

Through the trees
the wind blows
a new gust of change

Change, it rattles in my pockets
the bums crave my succulant currency

With outstretched hands
longing for more
when life has taken it all away

trick or treat
the war has liquified

blood flows thick
and covers the ground
where the innocent die

a hopscotch into death
a childish demise

leaping overboard
into the endless chasm
leaving everyone to wonder why

This I tell you is the end
I can see the future

Through the haze and destruction
arcs the dawn of a new day
where blood spilled finally dries