I AM BACK!!!!

It's been almost a full year since my last post and that's only because I've been extremely busy keeping up with what I've written out in my about page. I truly do have a goal and I plan on seeing it through.

The last time I been on my blog was when I started out with a camera and was doing videography for a lady for her indie music events. That shortly ended after my last post because I wanted to do more, learn more, and create more. You can look at me as a child hopped up on sugar that just wont keep still when it comes to knowledge because there is an unlimited amount. Yes, I won't learn everything but I can learn a lot and as much as I possibly can and compared to what Ive posted last time to now you can see a huge difference in what knowledge I've obtained.

My goal is to become and "all around marketing machine" and as corny and near impossible that may seem, I think I'm doing a pretty damn good job with where I'm at now.

Curious to find out what I know and where I am? Just stay posted to my posts and I'll post some posts that'll toast your roast... ok, I tried it didn't work out but yeah I'm excited to continue my journey and share what Iv'e got. So stay tuned!

One thing for sure is that I'm getting a lot better at digital content creation.

Justin Bieber look-alike sings "If I were a boy"

I’m sorry this isn’t an internet marketing related post, but this weekend was quite impressive and I thought I’d write about it. It’s about me being hired to do another shoot for a woman I wrote about earlier. This event was a competition, and the winner would receive a free music video shot for an original song that they have. Well mid competition, a girl went on stage in a really laid back boyish look. This girl actually looked like Justin Bieber, but just the look of what Justin used to wear. She went on stage and she had selected to sing Beyonce’s “If I were a boy” song. The music played and she opened her mouth to sing, and it was one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard. She actually sounded just like Beyonce. I had to double check to see if her voice was actually a recording of Beyonce’s just too really make sure because I really couldn’t believe it. It’s actually really funny when you think about it… Justin Bieber singing “If I were a boy”? The joke just fits so perfect, and I’m glad I was able to catch such a rare sight on digital. I luckily managed to get a combination of Justin Bieber singing “If I were a boy”, and a singer that sings as well as Beyonce. Watch the video and see for yourself, she really is incredible!

Beginning To Dive Into Internet Marketing

For those reading this blog and not understanding what the main focus of what I'm trying to accomplish, I'll provide a bit more clarity. The purpose of this blog is for me to see if I can learn and understand marketing without the knowledge of school and getting a job under somebody else. You can look at this as an experimental entrepreneurial journey, and I'm the guinea pig taking the risk. I want to use what I experience and take from my journey as something that I can say "I've done it and it is possible" kind of thing. That it's possible to self educate yourself with free sources available online without dishing out thousands of dollars in an educational institution. I named my blog Sharpened Pixels because I do love photography but I didn't know much of anything on the topic. So what did I do? I used sources online and self educated myself to understand how apertures, shutter speed, and ISO's work together to produce the picture that I want to come out of my camera. It was a beginning, a way to dip my feet in the water to see how self educating myself online would be like, and I actually got something out of it, I sharpened my pixels :). But, I also am interested in marketing, online marketing to be exact. I'm going to somehow incorporate everything I learn into a final result so then I can look back and see what came out of my hard work.


My next step will be to learn a bit more on marketing online and what is involved. The coming weeks will include posts of internet marketing related material and also some photography, and we'll see how things develop from there. So with that being said, I am pretty confident that positive results will come out of this so wish me luck as I go in even deeper into the topic of internet marketing.

Rad Brothers: Part 1

This weekend was one hell of a trip. I was called out to record an event for indie artists at a bar called Rad Brothers. So when the day came, I got my camera, my microphone, and my game face and set out. When the event began, the artists absolutely shone on stage. I am taking an incredible liking to indie music in general ever since my last gig at the Indie Music Awards. I met the photographer for the night, his name was Tyler Fergus. He's a very exceptional photographer and does it as a profession. Tyler was giving me some tips on photography and some tips on what kinds of lenses I should look out for.  His FB page is as follows http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tyf-Photography/176760879036856. He also does magic as a side job too and my God is he good at it. He did a few card tricks that I managed (not very well though) to catch on video which I will upload soon but will take a while due to the videos large size.

I am glad I was given the opportunity to do this because not only does it actually give me contect to write about, but it's also giving me an invaluable experience. I'm learning videography and photography on a more practical and professional level. Not many people are giving a chance like that so i'm taking it and running with it.

After the event, I decided to walk to the Go station because I imagined that it wasn't too far from where I was, so I can jump on the bus and be on my way home. I was tragically wrong...
 

Kool-Aid's Finished Video

SHAZAAM!!! We FINALLY completed mr. Kool-Aid's music video. It took a lot of hours of strict coaching from Kelz but we finally managed to get it completed. One of Kelz main concerns though was that I blurred the shots way too much, but I thought it would've been a cool effect but I was completely wrong. Instead I should've kept most of the shots focused and maybe some blurred rather than the other way around.

We used Apple's video editing software, Final Cut Pro X. It all seems so intimidating at first with all the functions and options to choose from but once you get the hang of it (and actually learn how to use the bloody thing) then you begin to realize how much of a great tool it really is. It gives you a lot of freedom to do what you like and get the final product that you want, come to life. But of course, we had many issues that we ran into but I'll only go through a few, I don't want my hands to cramp up typing it all up.

Our issues began with trying to find a good concept to base the video on using the clips that we have. Now, due to time constraints of last week, we couldn't get many shots as we liked so we had a limited pile of clips to work with. But after careul analysis and planning we finally came up with one but then came another problem which was trying to sync the music with the video properly. Finding the right clip to go with the right lip sync was a difficult task, especially when you have a concept of how you would like the video to look but don't have many good shots to work with because most of them were... blurred... The final issue I'm going to mention is where we lost a good chuck of edits that was really good but lost by accidental deletion. It was a whole minute of video, just before the hook kicks in that I accidently messed up on. We had an amazing intro to the music video, one that I was proud to call my own, one that took many hours to do, and I fiddled around too much and lost it when the computer froze. We still managed to make another intro, but the magic couldn't be recaptured. I don't want to dwell on it too much but it hurt when we couldn't retrieve it due to us setting it on "save every 30 seconds", but oh well, lesson learned.

I learned quite a bit in the video editing department but only a fraction of what can be done. I do plan on getting a deeper understanding of how to do it and I surely will. You will one day see a commercial, or even maybe a music video created by me. Now I want to see what I can do with photography. One would think that film and photography go hand in hand, and in some cases thats true, but upon further investigation, they seem to be woooooorlds apart. Now I need to find a coach to help me get started on this, and I think I have a pretty good idea on who to contact. But as for now, enjoy this clip of the music video that I managed to sneak away with my Blackberry. Kool-Aid didn't want me to put his video out but consider this to be a "leak". I refuse to come here empty handed ;)