I have so many photos to share, not the least of which are the photos and blog post about Jasper’s party (coming soon!), but for now, for a Friday afternoon, I just want to ramble on about what’s been going on and where I’ve been (and thank you for the concerned emails!)

I’m very sad to report that while this has been a period of great creativity for me, things have NOT been going as well on the pro-creative front.

My second IUI with Gonal F = BFN. But perhaps even more disappointingly, I received word that I will NOT have the generous infertility insurance coverage that I have had in the past. The only option has a 5k limit annually, which is about 1.5 IUIs.  Before you get up in arms, I am WELL aware that most people have no coverage whatsoever, so I know I’ve been lucky. The disappointment stems from the fact that had we started trying for baby #2 earlier, we would have had 100% coverage even for IVF cycles, not to mention the benefit of younger eggs)…so I’m having a hard time not blaming myself for the financial AND emotional predicament we find ourselves in at the moment.

On the other hand, I blame Jasper.

Kidding! – OK, maybe I blame the reflux from keeping me from being emotionally ready to start trying sooner.. but that’s another story.

In the meantime, while we try to figure out the next steps on the quest for baby #2, I certainly can say I’m keeping myself busy.. now that the Organic Bloom wall guides are out there, I need to turn my attention back to my photography business and the busy fall/holiday season, so I’m happy to report there will be some more photography (gasp!) posts coming soon!

In the meantime, I want to leave you with a little video birthday greeting I recorded of Jasper for my sister Roxy’s 30th birthday – I can’t get over how cute his singing is, and the way he says Roxy’s name:

I posted this as much for me as anyone else because I want to remember this sweet little moment later, but I do want to put in a plug for using your DSLRs video if you have it! The difference in quality between your iphone or small video recorder and the video from your DSLR is every bit as evident as the difference between the PHOTOS from your iPhone or point and shoot vs. the DSLR.. so if you have it, don’t be reluctant to use it (like I was for a long time!)  Stepping of my soapbox now ..

Have a great weekend everyone!

So here’s the backstory: A month or so ago, I was contacted by Sandy Puc’s people about possibly posting something on the blog about her Creative Edge Kid’s Tour.  Being that the subject is right up my alley of course I said yes, and mentioned offhand that if Sandy was interested I’d be happy to send her my Wall Display Guides…

I didn’t really think I’d hear anything back, so imaging my surprise when Sandy herself emailed me back saying that if she loved the product she would consider mentioning it from the stage during the tour???

After I picked my jaw up off the floor I read on that she would need a 2-4 minute video about the product and that she would need it in about 10 days.

YIKES!

So now my incredible excitement about this amazing opportunity was matched only by my panic level in trying to figure out a) what type of video? A commercial, a how-to,  scripted, unscripted?? and b) how would I ever pull it off in such a short time frame?

I reached out to a good friend who does a lot of video production and he gave me some great tips and even offered to edit it for me, but he was going to be out of town on a job for most of the time I had remaining to get this project done.. so I looked for a video editing and production company and hired one. I couldn’t imagine pulling ALL the necessary pieces together on my own. I wanted someone to help me with the script and at the very least to edit everything because what the hell do I know about making a video?

Initially, there were two deadlines Sandy’s tour manager had given me: One for the first stop on the tour and another a week later for the second stop so I could get SOMETHING done for the first date and then replace it with something better by the second tour date.  There was definitely not enough time for the production company to finish by the first date, so my madcap plain was for me to do a video on my own for the first date and have the professional one done in time for the second.

Of course what ended up happening is that I did the whole thing myself over the weekend before the deadline.. including writing the script, recording the voiceovers, selecting and purchasing the soundtrack, and editing the whole thing together.  The bad news is I’m not sure I’ll ever see the 50% deposit I gave the video editing company, but the good news is that I got the video done, delivered and learned a WHOLE lot about making videos in the process.

I thought I should share some of what I learned here for a couple of reasons. 1) Editing video is becoming more relevant to photographers now that most even ENTRY level DSLRs have video now and 2) I’m seeing a lot of references to how creating and marketing your business via video is a really smart thing to do.

In fact, I THINK I read a few facebook comments that Sandy actually talks on the tour about photographers creating a video “profile” of themselves to put on their websites (I’ll have more to report back on this once I attend the show August 5th when it comes to NJ!) which is very much inline with what I had been reading by a woman named Megan Auman who is a Jewelry maker and founder of “CraftMBA“  a site devoted to how creative professionals can market themselves.

I had first come across a posting by Megan on the untapped potential that videos have both  for viral marketing and building your brand on a guest post that she did for the “Biz Ladies” feature on Design*Sponge.  Megan has tons of good tips on how to create and edit a video for your business and many tips on how to use iMovie to do so.

Alas, I am not (yet?) a mac convert (or should I say reconvert because I grew up using macs) and therefor iMovie was not an option for me.  Some of you will remember this post where I was wondering what video program would allow me to use the native .mov files that come off DSLR cameras without needing to convert them first to .avi or something similar.  I never answered the riddle back then so I had to start my search all over again and I finally settled on Adobe Premier Elements.

Initially when I downloaded the free trial it kind of bugged out on me with some fatal errors etc so I sort of ruled it out but eventually came back to it and tired again and for some reason it started working!  Perhaps because I am so used to using Adobe products I found the interface easy and intuitive and was really impressed with the transitions and effects available – I was about 75% of the way through and LOVING the way it was coming out.

And then, without warning the program crashed on me and would not open again. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Total crisis moment. I tried installing the demo on two other computers and even purchased a license and re-downloaded the product again but still no luck.  To this day I can’t get it to work even with a boxed copy. That’s the thing about video editing.. it’s extremely finicky and dependent on what codecs etc you have installed and who knows I probably have one tiny little conflict and the whole thing goes up in flames.

So I began to face facts that no matter what I’d have to re-sequence everything all over again. A lot of rework, but at least the hard part was done like the actual voiceover recordings etc.. right? Well, yes, but for some reason the .wav files that Premiere Elements recorded would NOT import into any other video editing program I tried, I’m sure it was another codec issue but now I was REALLY starting to panic – those voiceovers took me FOREVER to do!

Then I realized that Adobe’s pro version of the Premier software (Premiere Pro) would surely have to be compatible with Elements – hey, maybe it would even open my Premier Elements file!  Well, that part didn’t happen, but it DID retain an index of all of my assets (videos, images, titles, etc) and, thank the lord, my .wav voiceover files were readable!

But now I had to do what I hadn’t planned on having to do, which was learn a pro editing program without having the time necessary for any sort of learning curve.

Happily, I found Premier Pro extremely user friendly. I actually was able to figure out 98% of it just by intuition and the other 2% via the occasional google search. Don’t get me wrong – I barely have scratched the surface of what the program can do- and in fact, many of the things that were once click with Premier Elements actually required more work in Pro because Elements was loaded with quick and easy text effects and transitions that you need to either create manually in Pro or use After Effects to achieve.    I’m going to keep working on figuring out WHY I can’t get Elements to work on my computer because I think it’s a fantastic product, and in the meantime I’m going to also learn more in Premier Pro – It’s always good to expand your skill set and stretch your comfort level a little bit!

I’ve focused so much on the odysy of editing the video, but there were so many other things that went into it like figuring out the script and the contents- should I be on camera at all or just do the voiceovers?? Originally, I thought I would speak the script on camera and hired a local photographer friend to do the video, but in the end I HATED myself as a talking head, and the video was out of focus anyway (it’s so hard to get video focus right on DSLRs!) but we DID manage to get some really cute footage of me doing a shoot for which I used Jasper as a model of course!

My photographer/videographer friend has a GORGEOUS natural light studio where we shot these and he has full 106″ seamless that I shot these on.. it’s such a luxury when you are only used to 53 inches!

After filming me shooting Jasper, Jeff took Jasper home so Chris and I could do the video segments. But first he snapped a few stills of me as an afterthought.. I’m so glad he did because now I can replace those god awful shots of me in my about pages with these:

So now I had my stills and some video footage, so I had to do the voiceovers.  Thank GOD I had already purchased a decent microphone for recording my tutorials and a pop filter so I started recording and re-recording.. this was perhaps the most challenging part of the project. Between our sump-pump going off because of so much rain and creating a loud background hum and trying to record audio in a tiny house with a rambunctious three year old.. it wasn’t easy!

Lastly, I had to pick some background music.  I googled royalty free music and found a track that I loved but it was $1800. Um, no thanks. Then I remembered that most stock music sites that cater to photographers also cater to videographers so I found a piece of music that I LOVED for $20 on stock20!

With all the parts in place it was just a matter of the time involved in sequencing and editing which is a lot.  Lets just say that video editing makes photo editing seem like a cake walk!

And then, finally I was finished!! I sent it off to Sandy and prayed that it was even close to what they were looking for..and finally I heard back:

It wasn’t!

It turned out it was a) too long and b) a bit too “salesy”

Luckily Sandy’s staff is amazingly nice and they said it would be no problem for me to resubmit it for the next tour date. So, just when I thought my all-nighter video editing days were behind me, I had to do the same thing again the following holiday (July 4th!) weekend!   It was a bit easier the second time around and I’m so happy to report that Sandy said it was fine and she’ d use it in the tour! This is the version that she is currently showing:

Actually, the hardest part of the whole project was knowing that Sandy MIGHT use the video but not being sure and not wanting to tell anyone for fear of jinxing it!  Even after she said she would, I still was afraid to believe it until some Clickinmoms forum friends actually went to the show and told me that yes, it was in there!  I seriously can’t wait to see the tour when it comes to NJ August 5th.. how strange it will be to watch a giant crowd of people watching my video? I’ll be bouncing in my seat! Plus, I’m really looking forward to meeting Sandy who has been so incredibly kind and supportive throughout this whole process.

Speaking of which, if anyone is interested in seeing the show (and my video on the Giant screen!) the link to buy tickets for the event is here:
http://sandypucpresents.sandypuctours.com/event_registration.php

Sandy gave me a discount code for my readers which knocks $30 off the price: BLG11

So far, my forum friends have said that people in the audience have loved it, so it was obviously worth all the hard work.

Whew- longest post ever! But I’m so glad I finally got that down because now I can play catch up with everything ELSE that has happened since :)

I don’t have any magic tricks that keep consistent focus when filming with a DSLR, but I can tell you what I do BEFORE I switch into live mode. Its not brain surgery, I just get my subject into place, meter of their face and make any adjustments to aperture, shutter speed and ISO until my light meter hits the center line and THEN I focus by depressing the shutter.. and only then do I switch to live mode and hit record. If my subject doesn’t move, I won’t have to adjust a thing. Of course, if you are using shallow depth of field and you are filming a toddler you will probably not achieve perfect focus, which is what happened in this video. You can see that the focus fell slightly in front of Jasper on his hands and only comes in when he is about to jump from the chair (right before he hurts himself – don’t worry, he was fine.. no toddlers were harmed during the making of this movie!).

Just like it’s hard to achieve focus wide open when first learning to shoot, the same is true with video.. and just like when I was first starting to shoot I STILL fall into the trap of wanting to use an aperture that is too wide. Some things never change :)

Without further ado, here is Jasper singing “Open Them Shut Them” which is a little song they sing at the end of grouptime every day at daycare.

Jasper Rocking Out from Ariana Falerni on Vimeo.

(no really, you want to click play – yes even if you are at work and your boss is within earshot!)

Jasper is OBSESSED with Sweet Caroline ever since the “Mariachi” singer sang it for another table at our local Mexican Restaurant.  He just picked up his little guitar, started strumming and came out with “Bah Bah Bah” (which is what he calls the song by the way) and as you can see, he has much of the rest of it memorized as well.

His crappy little blue guitar can’t hold tune, but you can see how he strums it .. like he’s been playing for years.

For those of you following my question yesterday about editing my cameras .mov files on a Windows computer, I ended up downloading this free program and converting them to AVIs and then importing them into Windows Movie Maker. It’s times like these that I wish I’d never switched from MAC to Windows after I left college!

See I’m trying to resist the urge to grab my iPhone for these moments – the 5DMark II (and most new DSLRs these days) have awesome video capability.. like MOVIE quality video capability, where as my iPhone has just convenience going for it.

So when Jasper does something desperately adorable, I want to be able to capture it with my Mark II!!

The problem is that for some reason Camera manufacturers assume that all of their customers own macs because the output format of these DSLRs (.mov files) just don’t play nice with PCs.   I have two .mov clips that all I want to do is combine them together with a fade in fade out and maybe trim the beginning of one. This is the sort of easy thing that Windows Movie Maker was made for. Just one tiny problem…it doesn’t support .mov files (duh, it’s an Apple thing!)

So I did a little more research and found this guy’s webpage basically saying this is a pretty tough problem to fix, unless you own Adobe Premiere Pro (very $$) or are willing to fork over $99 on the program he recommends you are out of luck.

So that’s where you all come in..short of switching to Mac (not going to happen, I just bought a brand new PC system that I love!) how the $$%$ do I edit these files? I’m willing to spend some money on software if I have to, but it has to be highly recommended and easy to use.

I know I’m not the only HD video capable DSLR owner out there that has a PC – some of you guys out there have figured this out and can enlighten me right??

I shot this with the Mark II, I already had my exposure correct because I was taking stills just before he busted out in song so I flipped to live view. I actually missed the best rendition because I forgot to press the record button (doh!) so I had to ask him to do it again. It’s never as good the second time, but it’s still pretty cute.. particularly the “sing with me!” part!

So far this is his favorite b’day present, thanks to Auntie Diane and Uncle Peter.

In other news, I finally released my second Wall Display Template set! I posted a discount code “finally” on the facebook fan page for 25% off. I’m going to leave it active for another day in case any becoming-mom readers want to take advantage of the sale.

There’s lots of info on the facebook page about the new set including pictures, video and a few wall posts about how to upgrade from set I to set I&II to get the bonus kitchen template.  Let me know if you have any questions if all of that is a little confusing.

I also added a video on how to use the File > Place method of inserting images into clipping masks, it’s a great trick because it lets you go back and upsize an image if necessary without losing any quality. That’s a good thing to know even if you have no interest in my templates.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Ok, so maybe harmonica isn’t technically as difficult as say, a stringed instrument, but I was impressed by his melodic sensibility :)

So when he came riding into the living room Saturday morning it took me a minute to realize that something was different…

He was pedaling!!

It was only a matter of minutes before he was riding around the neighborhood (bear in the back seat of course!), tearing up and down the streets like he’d been doing it forever:

It’s such a bittersweet feeling watching him grow up and acquire new skills like this..he look like SUCH a big boy!  Who is this KID riding around on a bike?? Where is my baby?

I’m impressed with his newfound coordination.   He used to flip the spoon upside down before it went into his mouth which made anything less thick than say cement fall right into his lap! So this is an exciting new development..

I know I said I was going to blog about the Tractors & Tiaras pictures today but allergies are kicking my butt right now.   I fell asleep last night at 9pm so I didn’t have time to get any more editing done.  I think maybe it was shooting in an orchard on a windy day (hello tree pollen!) but for the past three days I feel like I could fall asleep for 30 years and STILL be tired!   I tried Allegra, but that makes me even more tired.   So hopefully tomorrow I’ll have some pics to share..