Monday, April 7, 2014
Commercial Video Production Las Vegas
Check out our commercial video production for Las Vegas Day School... http://ow.ly/vwoJo
If you need a commercial filmed for your business call Patchin Pictures Las Vegas.
http://PatchinPictures.com 702.240.6777
Panoramic Virtual Business Tour - Las Vegas
Record a panoramic virtual tour of your business. SHOW your customers why they should visit you today!
http://ow.ly/vwmJC
Friday, March 7, 2014
Panorama Downtown Container Park Las Vegas
Panorama Downtown Container Park Las Vegas
http://ow.ly/ulxlI
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Top Notch Video Production Services in Las Vegas
Patchin Pictures in Las Vegas offers full service Video Production and Video Editing Services. Check out some examples of our work. Call us today to schedule a consultation or get more information. 702.240.6777 http://ow.ly/sWRcu
Professional Full Service Video Production and Video Editing Company in Las Vegas, NV
#VideoProduction #VideoEditing Las Vegas | Patchin Pictures | 702-240-6777 - YouTube http://ow.ly/sWQIx
Monday, November 23, 2009
Keep Your Pictures and Home Movies Out of the Fire
Of course, you want to keep your pictures out of the fire. It should be a matter of concern for anyone who cares about his or her family pictures and home movies. You don’t expect to have a fire in your home, but it can happen anyway. We all have insurance to cover the loss of possessions, but the insurance can’t bring back your one-of-a-kind pictures if they’re burned in a fire or lost in a flood. It’s not as hard today as it once was to assure that you don’t lose everything if your pictures or home movies are destroyed.
At Patchin Pictures, we had a customer who described how her mother always kept the family photo albums near the door. Her mother gave instructions to everyone in the family to grab the photo albums on the way out of the house if there was a fire. That’s a very smart idea. It’s a plan. We’ve encountered numerous people who lost all their family pictures in fires or floods because they didn’t have a plan to save them. Now, with the amazing level of technology available at relatively inexpensive prices, we all have the opportunity to save our old pictures and home movies from fires and floods without having to keep the albums by the door.
You should have a plan to save the most important assets you own. Furniture can be replaced, but the records of your history can not. Today, however, they can be backed up. Everyone’s at least somewhat familiar with photo scanning technology. Some may have heard about film transfers to video. But knowing about something and taking advantage of it are two different things. You have to take action.
A lot of picture scanners can give you good results, but you need to be aware of proper settings and some of the pitfalls of automatic modes. For movie film, there really isn’t a high quality, cost effective method available to consumers who want to do it themselves. Film transfers should be left to specialists who have the right know-how and equipment to do the transfers right. And for those who don’t want to scan their own pictures, professionals are available for that, too. I’ll give you a perspective on film transfers here.
(Please watch for our other blogs for details on the right way to scan pictures).
When video cassettes became a widely accepted format for recording and playing moving pictures, people wanted a way to get their old movie film to play back as easily as putting a VHS tape into a machine. They no longer wanted to roll out their movie screen, thread the film through a projector, turn off the lights in the room and grind their way through reel after reel of film. The convenience of those VHS and Betamax tapes was too appealing. So people started recording their projected films off the movie screens using their new video cameras. The original video tape formats were very poor. These formats, when combined with the inferior methods of transferring film to tape, yielded results that were less than desirable. But playback was convenient even if it looked worse than the projected images.
Now, we can produce film transfers that actually look better than the projected images. In the early days of video, when people recorded their movie screens, they inadvertently recorded the texture of the movie screens and the flaws in the projector. They were at the mercy of the poor quality video cameras, too. And, maybe worst of all, the images they recorded always flickered. (The flicker comes from the conflicting playback rates of film versus video). Although cameras have improved drastically, non-professionals don’t have many more do-it-yourself options today. But for those who get professionals to do the transfers, the results can be significantly better, assuming the professionals do the transfers right.
The best way to transfer film to video is through a process known as telecine, basically television-cinema. The best telecine processes are those used by big movie studios. They use extremely sophisticated and high quality systems to scan the film. For most of us, that process is far too expensive if we’re transferring home movies. It’s also overkill. The cost-effective way to transfer home movies to video is a scaled-down version of the high-end telecine machines. A good transfer company will use one of these systems. At the minimum, a home movie transfer should record the images off the film frames, not from a projection. In addition, a good transfer must include an adjustment to get rid of the film flicker. There are many other technical specifications and procedures that should be included in a good transfer. If all these things are part of the transfer, the final results will be superior to what you’ve seen in the past. These new transfers will reveal more detailed images that are more vivid and that even include more of the frame than you see in a projection.
Picture scans and film transfers can be stored in a variety of ways, and they can be duplicated (backed-up) without losing quality. They can be saved on CDs, DVDs, internal and external hard drives, and other portable storage devices and remote servers through on-line services. Picture files are typically smaller than movie files, so they don’t require as much media storage space. Keep in mind also, that picture files can be stored as individual images and they can be edited into playable videos. In many cases they can be stored both ways on one DVD (as files and as playable video). The film transfers can be stored as files as well as playable DVDs, also. These video files can be made in many different formats. The number of options seems to be expanding every day.
At the minimum, you should know that the technology is available so you can make high-quality copies of all your pictures and movies, and you can back them up in various locations. That’s the key. When you convert your pictures and films into these new forms of electronic media, you should keep multiple copies in multiple locations. Keep one set at home, and keep another set somewhere else, such as in another family member’s home or in a safe deposit box. Now, you’re safe. You’ve made sure high-quality back-up copies exist in different locations so that if one set is destroyed or lost, at least one other set exists somewhere else.
Now that you’ve taken the most important step in saving your memories, the next step is to organize your pictures and movies into a new project that reveals the purpose behind saving everything in the first place. Please see our other postings for great ideas to make your pictures and videos even more fun to watch and share.
About the Author:
Steve Patchin is Founder and General Manager of Patchin Pictures®. Patchin Pictures® specializes in Making the Movies of Your Life®. That includes film transfers, slide and picture scans, video duplication, full video production and more. Whether it’s making copies of your pictures and videos or creating completely new productions, when it comes to video production and duplication, Patchin Pictures will do it for you, or help you do it yourself. Call us today for a free consultation. That’s why we’re here. Call 702-240-6777 or go to http://www.patchinpictures.com/. We’ll help you save your pictures and movies and even help you discover new ways to share those precious memories.
At Patchin Pictures, we had a customer who described how her mother always kept the family photo albums near the door. Her mother gave instructions to everyone in the family to grab the photo albums on the way out of the house if there was a fire. That’s a very smart idea. It’s a plan. We’ve encountered numerous people who lost all their family pictures in fires or floods because they didn’t have a plan to save them. Now, with the amazing level of technology available at relatively inexpensive prices, we all have the opportunity to save our old pictures and home movies from fires and floods without having to keep the albums by the door.
You should have a plan to save the most important assets you own. Furniture can be replaced, but the records of your history can not. Today, however, they can be backed up. Everyone’s at least somewhat familiar with photo scanning technology. Some may have heard about film transfers to video. But knowing about something and taking advantage of it are two different things. You have to take action.
A lot of picture scanners can give you good results, but you need to be aware of proper settings and some of the pitfalls of automatic modes. For movie film, there really isn’t a high quality, cost effective method available to consumers who want to do it themselves. Film transfers should be left to specialists who have the right know-how and equipment to do the transfers right. And for those who don’t want to scan their own pictures, professionals are available for that, too. I’ll give you a perspective on film transfers here.
(Please watch for our other blogs for details on the right way to scan pictures).
When video cassettes became a widely accepted format for recording and playing moving pictures, people wanted a way to get their old movie film to play back as easily as putting a VHS tape into a machine. They no longer wanted to roll out their movie screen, thread the film through a projector, turn off the lights in the room and grind their way through reel after reel of film. The convenience of those VHS and Betamax tapes was too appealing. So people started recording their projected films off the movie screens using their new video cameras. The original video tape formats were very poor. These formats, when combined with the inferior methods of transferring film to tape, yielded results that were less than desirable. But playback was convenient even if it looked worse than the projected images.
Now, we can produce film transfers that actually look better than the projected images. In the early days of video, when people recorded their movie screens, they inadvertently recorded the texture of the movie screens and the flaws in the projector. They were at the mercy of the poor quality video cameras, too. And, maybe worst of all, the images they recorded always flickered. (The flicker comes from the conflicting playback rates of film versus video). Although cameras have improved drastically, non-professionals don’t have many more do-it-yourself options today. But for those who get professionals to do the transfers, the results can be significantly better, assuming the professionals do the transfers right.
The best way to transfer film to video is through a process known as telecine, basically television-cinema. The best telecine processes are those used by big movie studios. They use extremely sophisticated and high quality systems to scan the film. For most of us, that process is far too expensive if we’re transferring home movies. It’s also overkill. The cost-effective way to transfer home movies to video is a scaled-down version of the high-end telecine machines. A good transfer company will use one of these systems. At the minimum, a home movie transfer should record the images off the film frames, not from a projection. In addition, a good transfer must include an adjustment to get rid of the film flicker. There are many other technical specifications and procedures that should be included in a good transfer. If all these things are part of the transfer, the final results will be superior to what you’ve seen in the past. These new transfers will reveal more detailed images that are more vivid and that even include more of the frame than you see in a projection.
Picture scans and film transfers can be stored in a variety of ways, and they can be duplicated (backed-up) without losing quality. They can be saved on CDs, DVDs, internal and external hard drives, and other portable storage devices and remote servers through on-line services. Picture files are typically smaller than movie files, so they don’t require as much media storage space. Keep in mind also, that picture files can be stored as individual images and they can be edited into playable videos. In many cases they can be stored both ways on one DVD (as files and as playable video). The film transfers can be stored as files as well as playable DVDs, also. These video files can be made in many different formats. The number of options seems to be expanding every day.
At the minimum, you should know that the technology is available so you can make high-quality copies of all your pictures and movies, and you can back them up in various locations. That’s the key. When you convert your pictures and films into these new forms of electronic media, you should keep multiple copies in multiple locations. Keep one set at home, and keep another set somewhere else, such as in another family member’s home or in a safe deposit box. Now, you’re safe. You’ve made sure high-quality back-up copies exist in different locations so that if one set is destroyed or lost, at least one other set exists somewhere else.
Now that you’ve taken the most important step in saving your memories, the next step is to organize your pictures and movies into a new project that reveals the purpose behind saving everything in the first place. Please see our other postings for great ideas to make your pictures and videos even more fun to watch and share.
About the Author:
Steve Patchin is Founder and General Manager of Patchin Pictures®. Patchin Pictures® specializes in Making the Movies of Your Life®. That includes film transfers, slide and picture scans, video duplication, full video production and more. Whether it’s making copies of your pictures and videos or creating completely new productions, when it comes to video production and duplication, Patchin Pictures will do it for you, or help you do it yourself. Call us today for a free consultation. That’s why we’re here. Call 702-240-6777 or go to http://www.patchinpictures.com/. We’ll help you save your pictures and movies and even help you discover new ways to share those precious memories.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Think Like a Big Director and Make Your Home Movies More Fun to Watch
You’re shooting video of your family. All you have to do is aim the camera and keep it pointed at your kids, right? After all, it’s only your home movies. Why should you try to do more? Well if you don’t think you should do more, stop reading right now. For the rest of you, let’s have a little change of perspective.
The idea that you shouldn’t think big just because you’re only shooting video of your kids is backward. Nothing is more important than your family. So, what does it mean to think big or think like a big director? It means you shouldn’t put limits on yourself. Don’t accept that pointing your camera and letting it do the rest is the best you can do. You should look for ways to improve your shooting.
“I don’t have a big budget, so I can’t get good shots”
You have a choice. You can dwell on your limitations, or you can shoot with the determination to get the best shots possible. Shooting movies can be difficult. Professional cameras are certainly better than most consumer cameras. “Real” movies are usually technically better looking than “home” movies. So what? Should that stop you? Is the quality of the camera the only factor in getting good shots? No.
During the years I’ve run Patchin Pictures®, I have heard lots of comments from people about well-shot video and poorly-shot video. The most telling comment that demonstrates people’s backward thinking comes when someone sees our demo video. He’ll say, “Wow. That’s a really nice shot. What camera did you use?” People don’t ask, “How long did you have to wait for the light to be so perfect through those trees?” They don’t ask, “How did you follow that bike rider so well when he was going so fast?” I never hear, “The background looks so soft that the people really stand out.” No, it’s always, “What camera did you use?” They’re just asking the wrong question.
You Can’t Send Your Camera Out to Shoot For You
I want to tell people that I just send out my Videomatic, and it does everything for me. It’s an all-seeing, all-knowing camera that gets all my shots, and I don’t even have to look at the view screen. But that’s just a thought for my own amusement. The best thing I can do is help people learn that it’s the shooter, not the camera who gets good shots. And if the shooter doesn’t take control of the shots, the best camera in the world is useless.
Don’t Just Point and Shoot
Shoot with a purpose and ask yourself, “How can I shoot better?” Some of the things you can control to improve your shooting are:
The composition of your shot.
The location of your camera and/or subject.
The exposure (brightness/darkness) of your image.
The stability of your camera.
The movement of your camera.
The direction of light on your subjects (in more situations than you might think).
The use of your zoom lens.
Your knowledge of how your camera works.
Learning to control these things will help you think bigger, but if you need inspiration, watch good movies, or at least movies with good cinematography. (Cinematography is the art of lighting and shooting motion pictures). Most people don’t bother to think about why a movie looks good. Some don’t even notice the difference between good shooting and bad. Pay attention, and you’ll discover a new layer to watching movies.
What is “Good” Shooting?
Not sure what a “good” movie is? Look up movies that have been nominated for or have won Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards. The Best Picture choices may not be agreeable to you, but the Best Cinematography nominees and winners are often right on. Watch those movies and be aware of the shots. Ask yourself what they might have done to get a good shot and how you might apply that method to your own home movies.
Look for all the things that you can control. When you’re shooting, don’t just put everything in the center of your shot. Try new angles and camera positions. Make sure you’re recording an image that is bright (or dark) enough for your subject. Keep your camera still when the shot calls for stillness. Be creative with camera movement when it makes sense (or when you feel like it). Watch out for ugly shadows, and position your camera or subject so the light looks good. Try your zoom lens in different positions, and note the differences. And most of all: be prepared. Know how to control your camera by practicing the use of your camera’s controls.
Take Control of One Thing and Make a Difference
I know that’s a lot of information, but you don’t have to do everything at once. Just start trying some of these suggestions, and you’ll see improvements in your videos. Be patient with yourself. You have to start somewhere, but don’t wait. Make a point to do at least one thing better every time you shoot. That’s the beginning of thinking bigger, and more to the point, it’s the beginning of shooting better videos.
Remember: It’s All About Having Fun Watching Your Videos
You’ll have even more fun when you watch your new/improved videos because they’ll look better, and they’ll be more interesting. Having fun watching your home videos is the reason you shoot them in the first place.
We’re posting details on how to shoot better videos. Look for our other video-related blogs. If you have any topics you would like us to discuss, please let us know.
About the Author:
Steve Patchin is Founder and General Manager of Patchin Pictures®. Patchin Pictures® specializes in Making the Movies of Your Life®. We will produce your videos for you or help you make them yourself. Call us today for a free consultation on Making the Movies of Your Life®. That’s why we’re here. Call 702-240-6777 or go to http://www.patchinpictures.com/. Let’s make movies together!
The idea that you shouldn’t think big just because you’re only shooting video of your kids is backward. Nothing is more important than your family. So, what does it mean to think big or think like a big director? It means you shouldn’t put limits on yourself. Don’t accept that pointing your camera and letting it do the rest is the best you can do. You should look for ways to improve your shooting.
“I don’t have a big budget, so I can’t get good shots”
You have a choice. You can dwell on your limitations, or you can shoot with the determination to get the best shots possible. Shooting movies can be difficult. Professional cameras are certainly better than most consumer cameras. “Real” movies are usually technically better looking than “home” movies. So what? Should that stop you? Is the quality of the camera the only factor in getting good shots? No.
During the years I’ve run Patchin Pictures®, I have heard lots of comments from people about well-shot video and poorly-shot video. The most telling comment that demonstrates people’s backward thinking comes when someone sees our demo video. He’ll say, “Wow. That’s a really nice shot. What camera did you use?” People don’t ask, “How long did you have to wait for the light to be so perfect through those trees?” They don’t ask, “How did you follow that bike rider so well when he was going so fast?” I never hear, “The background looks so soft that the people really stand out.” No, it’s always, “What camera did you use?” They’re just asking the wrong question.
You Can’t Send Your Camera Out to Shoot For You
I want to tell people that I just send out my Videomatic, and it does everything for me. It’s an all-seeing, all-knowing camera that gets all my shots, and I don’t even have to look at the view screen. But that’s just a thought for my own amusement. The best thing I can do is help people learn that it’s the shooter, not the camera who gets good shots. And if the shooter doesn’t take control of the shots, the best camera in the world is useless.
Don’t Just Point and Shoot
Shoot with a purpose and ask yourself, “How can I shoot better?” Some of the things you can control to improve your shooting are:
The composition of your shot.
The location of your camera and/or subject.
The exposure (brightness/darkness) of your image.
The stability of your camera.
The movement of your camera.
The direction of light on your subjects (in more situations than you might think).
The use of your zoom lens.
Your knowledge of how your camera works.
Learning to control these things will help you think bigger, but if you need inspiration, watch good movies, or at least movies with good cinematography. (Cinematography is the art of lighting and shooting motion pictures). Most people don’t bother to think about why a movie looks good. Some don’t even notice the difference between good shooting and bad. Pay attention, and you’ll discover a new layer to watching movies.
What is “Good” Shooting?
Not sure what a “good” movie is? Look up movies that have been nominated for or have won Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards. The Best Picture choices may not be agreeable to you, but the Best Cinematography nominees and winners are often right on. Watch those movies and be aware of the shots. Ask yourself what they might have done to get a good shot and how you might apply that method to your own home movies.
Look for all the things that you can control. When you’re shooting, don’t just put everything in the center of your shot. Try new angles and camera positions. Make sure you’re recording an image that is bright (or dark) enough for your subject. Keep your camera still when the shot calls for stillness. Be creative with camera movement when it makes sense (or when you feel like it). Watch out for ugly shadows, and position your camera or subject so the light looks good. Try your zoom lens in different positions, and note the differences. And most of all: be prepared. Know how to control your camera by practicing the use of your camera’s controls.
Take Control of One Thing and Make a Difference
I know that’s a lot of information, but you don’t have to do everything at once. Just start trying some of these suggestions, and you’ll see improvements in your videos. Be patient with yourself. You have to start somewhere, but don’t wait. Make a point to do at least one thing better every time you shoot. That’s the beginning of thinking bigger, and more to the point, it’s the beginning of shooting better videos.
Remember: It’s All About Having Fun Watching Your Videos
You’ll have even more fun when you watch your new/improved videos because they’ll look better, and they’ll be more interesting. Having fun watching your home videos is the reason you shoot them in the first place.
We’re posting details on how to shoot better videos. Look for our other video-related blogs. If you have any topics you would like us to discuss, please let us know.
About the Author:
Steve Patchin is Founder and General Manager of Patchin Pictures®. Patchin Pictures® specializes in Making the Movies of Your Life®. We will produce your videos for you or help you make them yourself. Call us today for a free consultation on Making the Movies of Your Life®. That’s why we’re here. Call 702-240-6777 or go to http://www.patchinpictures.com/. Let’s make movies together!
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