Category Archives: Video Production

Silver Falls in Winter

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Silver Falls State Park is just a short drive from our home in Salem, Oregon, and through the years I have shot plenty of video and taken many photographs. It’s a favorite place of ours.

Until January we had never visited during winter, but my wife and I had a day off at the end of the month, so we took a weekday trip. We’ve been to South Falls quite a bit, which is where the main parking lot is located. About a mile away is a much smaller lot that fills up quickly on weekends. Trails there lead to North Falls and Upper North Falls. We viewed these waterfalls for the first time, and with the soaking winter we’ve had in the Pacific Northwest, they were amazing to behold…and hear! We wrapped up our trip with a quick hike to South Falls, which was also more active than we had seen in the fall and summer.

I took my video camera with me to capture the look and feel of the various falls. The midwinter colors in the park are beautifully bleak compared to the bright green foliage in the summer and the glorious colors of autumn. That said, the water is very alive — everywhere — and it is spectacular:

We make it to the park about once a year, and every time we visit I wonder why we don’t go more often. There is a lot more to see than the areas we’ve hiked, and our daughter is getting older and more capable of navigating the trails. Actually, she just asked a couple nights ago when we were going again. This may be the year our trips increase.

2019 Pacific Northwest Summer – Part One

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With our move last summer, we didn’t do much traveling around the state on weekend adventures. That meant no videography detailing trips with our toddler daughter as in 2017. It’s a new summer, though, and we’re back on the road!

For the first installment of 2019’s adventure series we head to what is called the crown jewel of the Oregon State Parks system, Silver Falls. There are 10 waterfalls here. In this video we spend our time at South Falls. Aria is now able to hike down and up the looped trail, so it’s a bit more enjoyable than just walking around the top:

Here is a fun look at our first trip to Silver Falls in 2017. Aria is growing up, and the changes are noticeable:

We’re looking forward to our next adventure. Wherever that may be…

2017 Pacific Northwest Summer – Liner Notes

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Summer has ended, the mini documentary of our family adventures has wrapped, and I’ve moved on to other projects. That said it’s worth one more look at the project with all the videos in one place. For fun I added liner notes for every movie — little tidbits on the way I approached each production.

Astoria Adventure

I experimented a bit with this video, which was the most watched in the series.

  • I ran a spotlight focus in the software to follow the balsa wood airplane’s flight from the top of the Astoria Column. It was a labor intensive effort requiring frame-by-frame adjustments, but I was happy with the result.
  • Crossing the remarkable Astoria-Megler Bridge was a highlight, but driving the span takes about six minutes. No one wants to watch that in its entirety! I increased the playback speed significantly to cover the trip in 45 seconds, which timed well with the music.
  • Speaking of the music, I found the soundtrack a year ago and was waiting for the perfect project for which to license it.

Warbirds in Aurora

I love World War II history and have read extensively about the air war over Europe. The opportunity to walk through these bombers excited me, and I wanted to take a completely different creative direction with this video.

  • I designed this to look like an old World War II newsreel film and experimented with adding scratches and a worn look to the head and tail of the “film” in the video. I found 1940s big band style music to license and a perfect newsreel font.
  • I mixed black and white with color as a nod to the past, taking inspiration from the old Faith Hill video for There You’ll Be.
  • The last piece of the production was the narration. I performed a cross between a 1940s news reporter and an old-time game show host. It took several takes to nail the sound and the timing.
  • This project required a lot of planning and three weeks to complete.

Return to Wy’east

I made a video of Aria’s first trip to Mount Hood in 2016, so this video needed to be at least a little different.

  • Last year we traveled in June when there was a fair amount of snow at Timberline. Aria was a bit uncomfortable with the frozen substance she hadn’t seen before. This year we traveled in mid-summer, and there was no snow at the lodge. There was some at the top of the Magic Mile, but she enjoyed it this time around.
  • The views were mostly the same, but the biggest difference was in how our daughter experienced this trip as opposed to the previous one.
  • The Saint Bernard stuffed animal she is holding at the end was a consolation. Neither of the lodge’s Saint Bernards were on site that day, so this was the best I could do after promising we’d see one of the dogs. Oops!

Seabrook Sojourn

Shooting video of beach vacations is challenging because it’s always ocean and sand. We took a coastal trip last summer, and I needed something different for this year’s project.

  • We were on the Washington Coast rather than the Oregon Coast for this jaunt, so that was the first change.
  • This video captured the cousins and many of the fun and funny moments between them. Frankly, the video was mostly about them.
  • There were an overwhelming 153 snippets and 35 minutes of footage to sort through to make this video.
  • The movie was short on scenery but heavy on people, which tends to be what viewers prefer. It was the second most watched installment in the series.

First Trip to Silver Falls

This was the first journey for all of us.

  • At this point we were five parts in, and I wanted to change the opening titles a little, so I added animated sparkles to some of the text.
  • The park is huge, but we were only there for a couple hours. The video needed to be entertaining, and Aria obliged by just being a kid.
  • I also focused on the beauty of the area around South Falls. As a result, this project was a little heavier on scenery than some of the others.

The Columbia River Gorge

The west end of the Columbia River Gorge is easily accessible from Portland. I grew up visiting the area and have been many times. Lisa had been before, as well, but this was Aria’s first trip.

  • There is again a lot of scenery shown in this video. Capturing the beauty was important to me though it was obscured a bit by the Eagle Creek Fire smoke.
  • The interior shots are of the historic Vista House at Crown Point.
  • I love the music for this video. It worked quite well when showing Horsetail Falls. That sequence was mesmerizing with the slow fade close-up.
  • The crowds were ridiculous at Multnomah Falls, so we skipped that stop but have something new to show next summer!
  • The stuffed animal Aria mauled toward the end is a Sasquatch that Lisa found for her in the Vista House gift shop. A little girl and her Bigfoot.

Apple Pickin’ in Brooks

This was our first time apple picking, and it was a blast.

  • It was a perfect way to end the series as we transitioned to the beginning of fall.
  • I experimented again with animating the opening title sequence. I worked on that a long time to get it just how I wanted, which is amusing because it’s not on the screen for longer than a second.
  • Originally we were going to visit Hood River to pick fruit, but the freeway was closed because of the Eagle Creek Fire. Driving south to Brooks was much shorter. While the scenery wasn’t the same, the apples were excellent!
  • Aria enjoyed picking apples and eating them for the hour we were at the farm. Watching her enjoy the orchard was fun, and the quick video told the story well.
  • What isn’t seen is that later we made a lot of applesauce!

I hope you enjoyed 2017 Pacific Northwest Summer and that it made up for the aborted series from last year. Thank you for watching.