Recent work: Healthycal.org
I had the great pleasure of doing some freelance work for healthycal.org, a website started by veteran reporter Daniel Weintraub that focuses on informing Californians about public health issues throughout the state. The following are the video stories I produced for the site. With each story, I tried to incorporate different techniques I had been learning at the time.
In the first video, for example, I started off the story by fading out of a blur to reflect what many people in Richmond wake up to see every morning: a constant plume of smoke coming from the Chevron plant. In the second video, I overlapped several sets of B-roll to compliment what the speaker was saying about population growth.
And in the third video, I experimented with Motion to make use of a map I created to relate to the subject of the story: “mapping” out Richmond’s health and wellness plan. I was also able to infuse some of my own style into each story by using subtle hip hop tracks to compliment the mood in each story.
There’s Something in the Air
There’s Something in the Air from Martin Ricard on Vimeo.
Water for Life
Water for Life from Martin Ricard on Vimeo.
Richmond’s Health Plan
Richmond’s Health Plan from Martin Ricard on Vimeo.
The Flip is more than just a camera…but you already knew that, though
It’s amazing to see how fast the Flip camera has grown in popularity over the last year. I’ll admit, I got caught up in the buzz as well. And who can hate those fun 10-second sort-of-amateur-submitted commercials that the company was pushing during the holiday season to get even more people to jump on the Flip bandwagon. But there’s a lot more that you can do with the Flip than just produce those short viral videos of life’s precious moments.
On a recent hike (yes, black people hike), I chose to take my Flip to film me and my friend’s expedition. Afterwards, I realized we got some interesting clips. So I decided to put them together and produce a short film. I also wanted to try out some new effects on Final Cut Pro to try to give the video a “film” look. I always wanted to know how they made Lord of the Rings (yes, black people like Lord of the Rings) look so celestial. Now I have a bit of an idea.
So here’s my Flip camera experiment, using the Composite Mode and Gaussian Blur filters in Final Cut to give the video a “film” look.
A Walk in the Hills from Martin Ricard on Vimeo.