Whenever I try to think of a good music video concept my brain always falls short. I feel that that's one of the categories of film I have a lot of trouble tapping into. Because of this I tend to really like music videos that are really good.

If you havent seen Justice's new video for "Stress," check it out. If you haven't seen any other Justice videos, check them all out. They are all brilliant.

Would you make a commercial for Klondike®? I sure would. In case you didn't pick up on that, Klondike® is having a commercial contest worth $100,000 to the winner. Who knew they had that kind of change to toss around?

Anyway, there are a lot of rules. Surprising ones too, such as the one that says "no one under the age of 18 can appear in your video." What? How do I ice cream without any kids? Fine, back to the drawing board I guess.

Here it is, folks: our pilot episode for the web series Searching for Love! Hopefully we'll hear back soon, but in the meantime, you can enjoy:

Click to play

This video was featured on YouTube. Probably because everybody and their brother are sick of watching videos with terrible audio. If you missed it, take a look:



Right now, Whaling Ship has a decent shotgun mic, much like the one he holds up and says is around 150 bones (Ours was more expensive. --John). We would like to look into some wireless lavs but we also need a recorder—by the way, I have no idea why they're so expensive. All I need is a flash drive with an XLR input. Maybe a little light, or an on switch.

We're looking into buying this recorder but frankly, I don't really understand where the $400 goes...it doesn't even have built-in memory—I'll have to buy an SD card. I just don't know anything about these devices...hopefully John will enlighten me by editing this post in the near future. Wait... Does this recorder not even have XLR inputs? John, edit this post ASAP.

Sure thing, Mike. No, this recorder does not, in fact, have XLR inputs. I'll get to that.

John here. I've spent many sleepless nights researching microphones and recorders. I've poured hours and hours into this decision, reading reviews and accounts of this or that piece of equipment. I was really hoping to not have to write all of this down, but I'll talk until I run out of talking things I guess.

Where was I? I don't know. The PMD620, that gorgeous little recorder pictured above, is my final decision. It's the newer version of the PMD660, which had two XLR inputs but is more expensive and noisy. I've heard that newer models of the 660 got rid of the noisy preamps, but I'm wary to buy it. It's also huge.

Mark Apsolon's boom pole is wired. I like that. I really want a wired boom pole. There's no such thing as a $50 shotgun mic. Sorry, I'm watching this video while I type. I don't like the dude's hat.

I want to buy a pair of Sennheiser Evolution Wireless Kits. They're about $500 each and sound pretty good (I can't find the video where I heard them, sorry). Eventually I want to buy a legit rack-mountable wireless console. That's later.

The PMD620 only has a stereo mini input, but I have a line-matching XLR-to-1/8" transformer. No biggie. We've been running a dual system by recording audio to my Canon ZR500 with the lens cap on. This saves a million steps.

Other choices were the Zoom H2, which is sexy because it also records surround sound out of the box, but I've heard that that guy has noisy pre-amps as well. Then there's the M-Audio MicroTrack II which is cheaper than the PMD620, but it has a built-in rechargeable battery and I really, really don't want to risk having a dead recorder with no means of getting it back up and running in the middle of a shoot. Then there's the Zoom H4 and the Edirol R-09 and a bunch of others. I can't remember specific reasons for not wanting the others, but I promise that the 620 is a very calculated decision.

Eventually I plan to buy a compressor (I guess?), a field mixer, a pro field recorder, an arsenal of microphones, and a wireless system, but for now we'll get by with a shotgun and a li'l snookums.

That's the second time I've referred to the PMD620 as "snookums." I truly don't know why.

RED is...in my opinion, the best thing to happen to the "film" (and I use that term lightly) industry since the advent of the first film camera. Up until now, film cameras have been the price of small houses, and film grade digital (aka digital cameras that take a picture (almost) as good as film) have been the price of comfortable houses.

Well, not anymore. Anyone and his brother can afford a RED ONE and make a movie.

The RED ONE is the first camera to be released on the RED line. It is 4k resolution, which is as good as film. The design is genius, and will probably let this camera last forever. The main body, pictured above, is just the 4k sensor in a box. Lenses and monitors are attached and boom, you have a great camera. In a few years, buy a new sensor and use the old lenses, or vice versa. RED promises to make their units upgradable forever.

The RED ONE is the only camera in their line out right now. Like I've said before, rather than spitting the technobabble at you, just LOOK AT THE FOOTAGE!!! Right click here and "save link/target as."

Mike's been pressuring me to introduce myself on this blog and I've been meaning to start posting, pestering or otherwise. Hi! I'm John!

I am the other half of Whaling Ship Studios. (The name comes from me.) I'm a student at NYU, studying Dramatic Writing. It's pretty great. I was born in New York, but I spent a majority of my formative years in sunny Fairfield, Ohio. It wasn't all bad. I'm here right now, until July, and then I'm back in New York indefinitely.

While I guess you could call me a writer by trade, I do a lot of other stuff. I'm fascinated by sound, and I pay a lot of attention to sound design. I end up being the "sound guy" when we're shooting, but I love it. Even manning the boom. I recently purchased a Røde NTG-2 and it's the nicest thing I've bought in a long time. Just looking at XLR cables gets me excited. Is that weird?

While the tools of sound are great, the art of sound are even more interesting to me. They say that sound is 75% of a film, and I think that's so true. I have a hard time watching movies with my family, because they talk, or whisper, or rustle papers, or breathe a little too loudly. I can't imagine how many times I've rolled my eyes at the idea that if there's silence in the movie, it's okay to say something in real life. Recently I've discovered that I can actually watch things by myself, with headphones. It's been nice.

I was hired as the sound designer for Post Secret: A New Play, written and directed by Matt Gehring, being produced at NYU in the Fall. I'm also manning and designing scenes for the projector, which is a pivotal part of the show. It's being staged in a black box theater and has little to no set pieces, so I'm concentrating on creating some lush sound beds for the scenes and subtle imagery for the background (and postcards). As far as I'm concerned, I'm set designer as well. But more about that later, maybe.

While Mike is sort of our designated editor (he's our director, too), I've also taken a liking to special effects/post-production. I have pored over After Effects for countless hours. Very recently I've discovered the joys of 3D modelling, too. If you happened to see our Bud Light spec ad, you saw my first completed work. Yes! Hard as it is to believe, that robot is not real. I'm also way into color grading and I'm trying to break into motion graphics.

I write all the time. Well, that's not true at all. I think about writing all the time. I should write way more often. I recently finished a short play. It's two acts, but only twenty-some pages. I just decided it needed to be broken up that way. We're actually filming it soon, on a stage, but not as a play. Hopefully we'll have a trailer or something for you by July, but you'll have to hold your breath for the full production: we're planning to send it around the festival circuit. It's going to be good. I've also been outlining a short dramatic series (I have a hard time writing comedy) and we were going to produce it this summer, but some of my real-life plans changed and that might not happen this year. I'm also working on some other projects and a super-secret feature, but I don't want to say anything about the former because they're too far away, and, well, the latter is super-secret.

I'm planning to blog about the history of Whaling Ship, writing, the stage, anti-humor, maybe Blender, maybe my sweet boom pole, maybe New York, maybe some other stuff. I'm also planning to migrate this blog to a custom blog engine on whalingshipstudios.com proper after I launch the site, and after I create the site, and after I create a custom blog engine (I do all that stuff too). But don't tell Mike that.

Just dropped $700 at B&H and I expect the following to show up by Wednesday:
First of all, a brand new Canon HV20. Well, not brand new—I bought a used one so I'd save a couple bucks (good idea when buying from a reputable vendor such as B&H). With that I purchased 2 HD Tapes, an extra battery (crucial), and a 4 GB MiniSD card...I'm not sure what I need it for, but $20 for 4 GBs was just too tempting.

The next thing on my list, which I might just go ahead and pick up is a 43mm wide angle lens for the HV20. In my less-than-professional opinion, a wide angle lens is just superior. I've never used one but I can imagine achieving a much more professional look and feel with one.

Yo hey, just got set up with twitter accounts. I can tell this is going to be addicting...

twitter.com/vanstuke

twitter.com/johnholdun