In Plain View | Dir. Joseph Conforti | Rockethub pitch / Crowd funding ideas

My friend and Emerson classmate, Joe Conforti is producing a web-based series, In Plan View.
Many independent filmmakers are turning to crowd funding to produce our work. This allows us to remain as independent as possible, creating our own vision in our films.

If you are looking for ways to fund your own work this may also be an alternative for you.

If you’d like to learn more, get involved or just see how it’s done follow the links below… lb

In Plain View Rockethub Pitch Video

from Joe

Dear Friends and Family:

Tomorrow is the launch day of our Rockethub.com crowd-funding project, at 9 A.M. It will be listed on the Rockethub.com website under In Plain View Web Series Pilot. The donation range goes from modest all the way up to bored rich person money. Please take a look, break out even the smallest of donations, whatever you can afford, and please send the link to any friends you think may be interested in becoming a patron-of-the-arts. This type of crowd-funding is really about advocates with circles-of-influence and email lists. Just follow the instructions on the Rockethub page. It’s secure and simple. There are two great videos on the page. If Public Radio can do it, why not us?

Thanks for all the support, I really do appreciate it! Figuratively and literally, this project will not get off the ground without you.
Joseph Conforti

http://www.rockethub.com/projects?query=+In+Plain+View+Web+Series+Pilot.

http://www.facebook.com/InPlainViewSeries

Centennial Dam and Stone Mill | Dedham MA. | L Brady

It’s been a while since I went out on a snowy, rainy day to shoot these. Spring has begun. The original  idea was to demonstrate exposure bracketing but as always, I learn much more. I shot three (3) sets of images, in the bracket, and chose to edit the +.7 EV set, using preview to adjust exposure, contrast and sharpness. For some reason, I found it easier to work up from dark to light. I could have also worked effectively with the 0.7 EV set but the -.7 were too bright.

Today, many filmmakers shoot digital with the most neutral camera settings to allow a wide editing latitude in post. I’m sure professional photographers do this as well.

All these shots were taken with an Xpro1 and 18mm lens. I was a snowy, rainy day, as you can see, and you will actually see snowflakes, rain and the like in the images. lb

Note: click on the images for a more detailed view

A Little History…

Mother Brook, dug through from the Charles River to East Brook in 1637, provided a connection with the Neponset River and a source of waterpower for the town’s all-important corn mill. In subsequent generations, that same waterway provided power to roll copper for American coins, to make paper (in three different mills), to support a brush factory and a wire factory, and to run the first water-driven broad powered loom in the entire world. These industries, combined with other enterprises around the town, gave a tremendous economic impetus to Dedham. By 1845, the town’s manufactories employed over 650 people, and produced such varied goods as cotton, cotton thread, woolens, silk, brooms, furnaces, shovels and hoes, paper, chairs and cabinets, tin ware, sheet iron, vehicles, boots, shoes, saddles and harnesses, cigars, pocket notebooks, and marbled papers. http://dedhamhistorical.org/history/

Centennial Dam
This dam was originally constructed to provide water power to textile mills built at this site. This location was the fourth of five “privileges” (locations where dams could be built) along Mother Brook in Dedham, MA, first designated in Colonial times. Mother Brook connects to and drains the Charles River and empties into the Neponset River. A plaque mounted on the dam indicates that the current structure was built in 1894 and rebuilt in 1994. Earlier structures provided power for mills at this site since the early 1800s (and possibly earlier).
This is an embankment dam, with a spillway constructed of concrete with some stone and brick in the side walls. It is approximately 15 feet high.
Fishing is done in the adjacent brook and pond, but signs in the area advise against eating certain types of fish due to PCB contamination.
Canoes or kayaks are rarely or ever used in the area because of limited water depth and limited practical travel distances.
The dam is adjacent to and effectively enclosed by property of the Mother Brook Condominium Association, a group of 86 residential condominiums. Several of the condo buildings were converted from mill buildings, in 1986-87.http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMCY57_Centennial_Dam_Dedham_MA_USA

Stone Mill
When built in 1835 for the Norfolk Manufacturing Co., this mill was powered by the adjacent Mother Brook flowing over what is now called “Centennial Dam.” It was initially used to manufacture cotton. The building was expanded by Mr. Thomas Barrows in approximately 1865-1870 and used to manufacture wool. It was sold to Merchants Woolen CO. in 1872, to Royal and Frederick Storrs in 1875, and again to Merchants Woolen Co. in 1882. In 1894 it was sold to Cochrane Manufacturing Co. and used to make carpets. At some unknown point, a steam plant was added, remnants of which remain in the basement of the building.
This mill is located at the fourth of five “privileges” along Mother Brook in Dedham where dams and mills were erected, beginning in Colonial times.
This building is now part of the Mother Brook Condominiums. It was converted to condos in 1987 along with several other former mill buildings on this site. http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMCYJN_Water_mill_former_Cochrane_Manufacturing_Co_carpet_mill_Dedham_MA

And for you guys and gals that must have a little color in your lives ;-).

Patriot’s Day | The Shot heard ’round the world | The American Revolution continues … | update

At one time, the people of these united states lived at the behest of a monarch. Many might argue that we never left that construct or even worse, have allowed a pseudo monarchy to return. I might agree.

238 years later we remember those courageous men and women who fought and died for the freedom and independence we enjoy today but are in ever greater danger of losing.

Hopefully, we peoples of these united states will once again become as courageous in bringing these united states back to the fundamentals in was founded upon. lb

This statue known as The Lexington Minuteman is commonly believed to depict Captain John Parker. It is by Henry Hudson Kitson

At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington.

The Minute Man, statue by Daniel Chester French, at the Old North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts.

The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside.

When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. At Lexington, Captain Parker’s militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties.

The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America. from History.com

Exposure Bracketing | return to Mother Brook | Leo Brady

Exposure bracketing is a simple technique professional photographers use to ensure they properly expose their pictures, especially in challenging lighting situations. When you expose for a scene, your camera’s light meter will select an aperture / shutter speed combination that it believes will give a properly exposed picture. Exposure bracketing means that you take two more pictures: one slightly under-exposed (usually by dialing in a negative exposure compensation, say -1/3EV), and the second one slightly over-exposed (usually by dialing in a positive exposure compensation, say +1/3EV), again according to your camera’s light meter.More at http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_exposureBracketing.html

The above link is an excellent tutorial for those interested in learning more about and exploring the technique further.

For my tests, I chose a familiar subject, Mother Brook and added some shots of the dam at Stone Mill. https://realrealityproductions.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/stone-mill-mother-brook-dedham-ma/
I chose an auto exposure bracketing setting of 2/3, which produces an image of normal(0)EV, +2/3(+.7)EV and -2/3(-.7) EV. All these images are jpgs and have been shot large. I also shoot raw.  I’m looking for a certain balance of grays and a deeper black from my black and white images.  lb

Note: One thing that I never really thought about, with respect to auto exposure bracketing is how the images are shot by the camera (i.e. were three separates images with three different exposure settings produced or did the camera use the same image and somehow produce different exposure settings with the data from the one image, three times?). The camera produces three separate images which are three different moments in time. The image differences are indistinguishable in a static scene but not in a scene with movement. You can see this with the snowflakes in the second series of shots.

Example #1

It was a clear, sunny day. This set of three images below is a good example of what you can expect in good light from the Xpro1 when bracketing is set as mentioned above.

Fuji XPro1 18mm(27mm equiv.) f/13 @ 1/420s 0EV

Fuji XPro1 18mm(27mm equiv.) f/10 @ 1/420s +0.7EV

Fuji XPro1 18mm(27mm equiv.) f/16 @ 1/420s -0.7EV

Example #2

It was a gray, snowy day for this set of three images.

Fuji XPro1 18mm(27mm equiv.) 0EV

Fuji XPro1 18mm(27mm equiv.) +.7EV

Fuji XPro1 18mm(27mm equiv.) -.7EV

More images to come from the mill complex and dam.