Michael Verdi

  • Big Weekend

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    We all met in Chicago because I was helping to put on Zine Camp and it turned into a packed weekend of fun.

  • Immersive Video Process Iteration

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    Shooting and editing immersive video is not very straightforward. Thankfully, Hugh Hou has made a million tutorials on this subject. I’ve been experimenting with the techniques he’s outlined to try to find what works best for me. This week I tried Mistika VR again and I found that it doesn’t do a noticeably better job than other methods. It’s also really expensive. I’ll have to miss out on it’s ability to reframe 180 degree video into rectangular 16 x 9 video. The Canon VR utility is easy to use and does a decent job (though my copy refuses to recognize my purchase and limits me to 2 min exports – ugh).

    Today I used the Canon VR Utility to stitch my footage from the Canon R5C and export it to ProRes.

    I then took that ProRes file and added the Canon LUT and did noise reduction in Davinci Resolve.

    Then I exported left and right eye views and combined and compressed them with Mike Swanson’s Spatial Video Tool.

    Well, I did that whole workflow for a 10 second test clip. I’m now exporting 5 min clips which will take about 12 hours (!!!).

    I also recorded ambisonic audio for this but I don’t know what to do with it yet. I’ll have to work on that later.

    You can also skip the Canon VR Utility and do that part in Davinci Resolve using the Karta VR plugin. I’ve done that before and it works well but I’m unclear if I can export left and right views without first exporting a side-by-side video that then gets chopped into left and right. I guess that’ll be another experiment.

  • Bill Viola

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    Bill Viola died today.
    The moment Steve Bailey saw the first video I made (35 years ago) he said, “you need to see Bill Viola’s work.” He’s been an inspiration for me ever since. My most recent encounter with his work was last year in Denver.

    Bill Viola, Eternal Return, 2000

  • Printed and Assembled

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    Issue 4 is ready to go. Next, I have print mailing labels, write some notes, and stuff envelopes. I’m aiming to get these in the mail by Monday at the latest. I’ll also have a few copies with me at Zine Camp on the 21st.

  • Test Print

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    I’ve still got one more image to create but I can get the printing started today.

  • Making Progress

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    I finished re-writing issue 4 for the third time today. It’s finished now. I cut a couple of things that I’ll put on the issue’s page. Other than the covers I have to create new illustrations. I’ll start working on those tomorrow. Only one side will be 4 colors. The others will be just 2 so it shouldn’t take as long to print as I anticipated.

  • A Cookie and Forgiveness

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    I’m aiming to print the zine I’m working on next weekend so my goal was to have it all ready to go this weekend. That didn’t happen. While I did make a bunch of progress on it, I also had a nice relaxing couple of days. I hung out with Rebecca, watched some movies, did some reading, played a few more hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 and even rode my bike for a while (despite the air being on fire). I still have plenty of time to catch up but if I don’t, I don’t.

  • The Phantom Moon

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    I’ve always been fascinated by the view of the moon in the daytime sky. Years ago I began calling this “The Phantom Moon.” It’s one of the inspirations for the film I’m working on.

    The Phantom Moon – view from my bedroom/backyard – June 24, 2024

  • Corona Borealis before

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    Checking a long overdue item off of my list. I got a photo of the Corona Borealis constellation before T Coronae Borealis goes nova.

    Corona Borealis on June 23, 2024 – click to expand

    T Coronae Borealis should be just below the second star on the left (at about 8 o’clock). It’s circled in red in the diagram below.

    Location of T Coronae Borealis (circled in red)

    Hopefully, once this star goes nova I’ll be able to get a photo before it fades.

  • Jenny Nicholson on the Star Wars Hotel

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    User experience, service design, game mechanics — it’s all in here. This is a fabulous, four hour (yes four hours — totally worth it) breakdown of what went wrong with the Star Wars hotel.

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