7LineMedia, LLC.

Portrait Couture

John — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:38:41 +0000

After lots of hard work, we’ve finally launched the Portrait Couture website and their brand new commercial! We launched just 2 days ago, and already, site traffic is incredible!

Portrait Couture Website

Goodbye, Igloo.

John — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:10:41 +0000

The contrast between the igloo 5 months ago (viewable in our 2011 reel) and now, is unbelievable. This morning, in the freezing cold, we shot quite possibly the last aerial video of the Igloo as the crews continued to skin it. It was remarkable to see only a small amount of steel remaining and the maroon under-layer showing on nearly 70% of the iconic Pittsburgh arena. Maybe I shouldn’t be so sad to see it go? Maybe the rest of the burghers’ take it for granted. The truth is, in no time, it’ll be a parking lot…and that’s kind of sad.

On the brighter side of things, one of the shots that we took today was about 200 feet above the building, and it was entirely out of the shot. Pittsburgh was bathing in the golden morning sunlight, seemingly renewed, and moving forward.

It’s kind of neat to think that this isn’t the end of the world now that the Igloo is making it’s (not-so) grand exit, it’s just the next chapter for Pittsburgh. So long, Civic Arena. We had some good times…

The Penguins Pond

John — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:46:28 +0000

We had the opportunity to work with the Pittsburgh Penguins recently, and shoot some aerials of their new Penguins Pond in the Southside Works, Pittsburgh. We were absolutely blown away to see a full size hockey rink, seemingly dropped between buildings in the city.

The pond gives kids an incredible opportunity to skate, and make lifelong memories, in an amazing location, with such a fantastic sport. The Penguins organization has made great efforts to help kids get into hockey with the Pittsburgh Youth Hockey Network, by providing pads and gear, holding camps and clinics, and much more. The pond is really the icing on the cake.

Public skating costs only $7 for adults and $6 for children and seniors. Skate rental is $3. (they have awesome skates too!)

Where’s My Sunshine – Music Video

John — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:16:02 +0000

We’ve recently had the opportunity to produce a music video for a local group, East Coast Turnaround. It was an incredible experience, and probably one of the coolest shoots we’ve done in a while. The band contacted the Mayor of Jeannette, PA (where the video was shot), and we were pretty much given the freedom to do whatever we wanted. We used the jail, city hall, shut down streets, drove cop cars really fast, and ran red lights…basically, all we didn’t do was drive the city’s new fire truck.

The video starts with the band in jail and ends up with a party on the tracks. The premiere party was on 11-11-11, at a local bar.

The Video:

You can check out East Coast Turnaround at their website or on Facebook.

Champlain College

John — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:29:22 +0000

Wow, what a weekend! Champlain College is such a beautiful place. Nestled up on the hill, nearly every location on campus gives way to a breathtaking view of the city of Burlington, Vermont, and Lake Champlain. The residence halls are old Victorian Mansions turned dorms, the newer buildings are LEED platinum, and the architecture is outstanding to say the least.

And how do you show off a place this beautiful? Shoot it from the air.

Lift-offs all around campus, some shots around town, and a shot for the local Coast Guard for all their hard work…photos below.

There’s Never Room For Jello.

John — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:03:37 +0000

This post is in response to a question that we received from one of our viewers on Vimeo that asked if the jello look was inherent with DSLR cameras, and if it was something that could be fixed.

The jello, or rolling shutter issue comes with the use of any DSLR camera on the market, at least to this point.

Large CMOS sensors (in DSLR cameras) scan the image top to bottom, as opposed to left to right in CCD (regular video cameras) chip set-ups. With quick movement of the lens, comes a jello looking or a rippled effect.

Rolling shutter (also known as line scan) is a method of image acquisition in which each frame is recorded not from a snapshot of a single point in time, but rather by scanning across the frame either vertically or horizontally. In other words, not all parts of the image are recorded at exactly the same time, even though the whole frame is displayed at the same time during playback. This is in contrast with global shutter in which the entire frame is exposed for the same time window. This produces predictable distortions of fast-moving objects or when the sensor captures rapid flashes of light.

More from WikiPedia

So why then, use CMOS? CMOS is a much more responsive chip that allows for incredible color, awesome depth of field, and better shooting in extremely low light. If you have a DSLR camera, you most likely bought it to achieve the “look” that is created by this chip.

We often shoot from the air and our shots are constantly moving. The LCD display on our camera is fairly small, so we often don’t notice the rolling shutter until post-production.

While technology progresses and we wait for the DSLR makers to either combat or correct this issue, there are options to help handle what’s happening. The videos below will demonstrate how FCP X corrects rolling shutter. All the same footage, both have been stabilized, and the second video has the rolling shutter corrected. The outcome is not bad, but it could be better.

Now, FCP isn’t the only software that offers a solution for rolling shutter. You might try ROLLINGSHUTTER made by The Foundry…I can’t vouch for it, but I’ve heard some really great things about them, and this product.

Without Rolling Shutter Correction:

With Rolling Shutter Correction:

Appalachian Autumn

John — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:01:24 +0000

Today, the wife and I spent some time at 7 Springs Resort in the beautiful mountains of Southwestern Pennsylvania. We decided to fly near the highest point at the resort at a neighborhood called Stone Ridge, and near Lake Powell.

Dealership Demo

John — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:54:34 +0000

We spent the evening at a Lexus dealership north of Pittsburgh this week. Here are some photos, and a short video…

Establishing Shots…

John — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:52:18 +0000

Yesterday, Andy and I shot some establishing shots for a TV show that will air on a certain network in October. Here is a sampling of what we shot…

Summer Sky Time Lapse

John — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:08:27 +0000

Most of you that know me, know that my wife is a photographer…and a kickass one at that! Last night we realized that a connection between both of our interests is timelapse. Now, if you have big hard drives, or lots of tape, you can shoot this stuff in straight video. I’ve always kind of thought that was the way to go to be honest. Another way to do it, which is WAY easier, is to go the photography route. Using an intervalometer, or the interval settings on your camera, you can snap a series of shots over an extended period of time, and then just mash them all together in a video editing system and away you go.

Kelli set her camera to take 1 photo every 10 minutes and let it run for a period of 1,321 photos (3.66 hours). It is recommended by most shooters to shoot timelapse in full auto mode. My wife is ballsy, and kind of a hard ass, so she did everything manually. Shooting scenes like sunsets, etc., auto would be essential because of the change in light as the sun goes down.

Once the photos were taken, I set the import settings in Final Cut to make each imported photo exactly 1 frame. We shot 2 separate angles, so the jump between the two was kind of a big deal, and fading in and out was out of the question being as that I had 1,300 photos on a timeline that I couldn’t drag a transition over. I decided to export the mess of photos out in Pro Res 60p, and deal with all of this as a video rather than a ton of photos.

After the export, I imported the video back into Final Cut, did a little 3 way color grading, added some transtions, music, and slowed the whole thing down to 35% speed. Below is the result. All in all, not bad for the first time…the next one will be better!