Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Some Camera Fun

I went out a played a little with my Nikon d90 and GoPro HD cameras tonight. Came back and the footage looked pretty good. I have a few things to learn but not a bad starting point.

I meant to time lapse the GoPro but i recorded 1080p video. I then sped it up in FCP. All footage was transcoded to ProRes Proxy in Compressor

Music: "Mocoface" - PeopleMover
Lens: 70-300mm and GoPro wide
Cameras: Nikon D90 and GoPro Hero HD

Friday, December 24, 2010

"My Favorite Gift" From: Me, To: You

I love Christmas Music.  Every year, around the first week of November I start to mix it into my playlists and by Thanksgiving, Suzi has already been overwhelmed by the spirit of the holidays because of my incessant affinity for the holidays.

This year has been a little different.  For some reason or another, I just wasn't in the Christmas spirit.  I thought back on all my other Christmases and about all the great gifts I gave and received and I remember specifically about the Christmas of 2003.  It was the first year Suzi and I were together and our relationship was only a few weeks old.

I'll never forget that Christmas, especially, because being with her was something I had wanted for a long long time and I finally got what I really wanted at a time that I really needed it.  She'll never know how happy she made me that year and every year since.  So in trying to get myself into the Christmas spirit this year, I decided to write a Christmas song about that first year we were together.

I started writing the song about a month ago and with the help of my buddy Addison doing some producing, knob-turning, and additional instrumentation, we got this song done.  I am really proud of it and am happy that I can finally share this with you all.  I shared with with Suzi last night and she loved it so I hope you love it, too!

Enjoy and I would love to hear your feedback!  Merry Christmas everyone!

Click Here to Download "My Favorite Gift"

You can also stream the song here:

Thursday, December 23, 2010

A Little Something

As we get closer to Christmas and the end of the holidays, I thought I would share with with you all.  A few weeks ago, my friends Jeff and Lana threw a little Christmas get-together for some friends.  Jeff, our buddy Ryan, and I all work in the entertainment industry so when you get the three of us together, we either make music, order Papa John's, or shoot short films.

This is what we did at the party.


A Not-So Silent Night from David Parke on Vimeo.

Sexy Voices

Eisley has the niche market saturated. Take a listen -- Also, she's doing Kanye West's "Heartless." Sexy.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Starbucks is Awesome

I recently wrote a letter to Starbucks when I went in to get my Pumpkin Scone and Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino -- one of my favorite festive combos I treat myself to each year -- and was told, "...the Pumpkin Scone is a seasonal item and is no longer offered for this year."  I have since found out that that Starbucks was mis-informed or something but I was told with such assurance that I had no reason to question the barista.

Starbucks is awesome and sent this letter back to me:

Click to Enlarge

How awesome is that?!  AND I got quoted.  Well played, Starbucks.  Well played, indeed.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Gingerbread House!!

A couple of weeks ago, Suzi and I were at Trader Joe's and I saw this gingerbread house kit.  I wanted it really bad and basically made her buy it... and it sat.  It sat for a few weeks but last night, when it was crazy rainy and we had already watched two movies back-to-back, i pulled it down from atop the fridge, and this is what came of that gingerbread house we made whilst watching a season 1 marathon of Jersey Shore.

Enjoy!












Thursday, December 16, 2010

My Reel

I did some maintanance on my online editorial reel. Check it out here!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

More 8-Bit

I have been so inspired by Addison's 8-bit character design that I have now created this for the Kevin and Bean show.


I don't think I am going to show it to them yet as I might add Doc on the Roq and Producer Alex and I want to make sure credit goes where credit is due.  The character design is just so simple and fun, I am having a ball playing around with different looks, etc.

I would love feedback if you have it!  And be sure to follow Addison's EightBit.me on twitter!  Soon everyone will be able to create these awesome little dudes!

Monday, December 13, 2010

8BitMe

My Buddy Addison Kowalski made this awesome tutorial for how to create your very own 8-bit-style profile picture!  I made the one above by watching it and I think it looks pretty awesome!

The tutorial is embedded below.  All that's needed is:
  • Photoshop
  • The following are optional
    • a computer
    • a mouse
    • a keyboard
    • a monitor
    • power
    • eyes
    • arms
    • a torso
    • hands (left and right)
    • fingers (all 10 preferred.  5 on each hand if at all possible)
    • hand-eye coordination
    • ears
    • a working knowledge of the english language



I'd love to see what you all come up with!

My Favorite Christmas Song (This Year)

This song has pretty much shaped up this Christmas season. Sure, my favorite Christmas song of all time and the song that is in my top-20 songs of any kind of all time is Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You," but this song has infected my Christmas season. I think my semi-annual 'funk' is upon us and this song makes it all better.



Enjoy!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Day 5

Here is Song #5 called "Falling."

"This song is a great idea I would love to build upon later and really flesh out into something more special than this. It's got a fun poppy feel to it that I have never really explored before. It's lightyears better than my iPad experiment yesterday! Haha"

Friday, December 10, 2010

Day 4

Here's my song for my 4th day: "Sometimes Looking Back is Easier Than Looking Forward"
"
"So the Gorillaz's new record is being recorded completely on an iPad and a bunch of bands are doing viral videos playing songs using their iPhones, etc so this song was completely recorded using my iPad. Well, that and GarageBand. I started with SoundDrop -- a sound-generator app based off bounding balls off of these lines you draw with your finger. It's a completely live "instrument" if you will in the sense that it's not pre-programmable. That's the confusing off-but-in-time clicking you hear. Then I used JamPad for the synth lead, drums, and guitar. I did live switching on the drums so they have some strange 'choices' for beats but I figured WTH. Then I used QuickVoice to record vocals which i couldn't record straight into GB so I recorded and then synced back to the song after laying it into GB. A fun experiment but I'll try something more tangible tomorrow."

Day 3

Here's my song for Day 3 -- "Me and Ubiquitous"

"I grew up doing theatre. It kept me out of trouble and taught me what it was to be professional and work hard at a young age. I loved it and I thought that was my life. While I still work in entertainment today, I had to leave the theatre so I could support myself. Growing up in the theatre, I met so many amazing people. One man was Jerad -- an ex-Jungle Cruise skipper from the 1990s that collected nickels and whose favorite word was 'ubiquitous.' He was only a few years older than me and I would love to hear old Jungle Cruise stories. He passed away suddenly Monday and I found out about it today. This is what came of that."

Day 2

Here's my second song. "Quick Bullet"

"I have been in the same band for 9 years. We are not active but far from broken up -- we just all have day-jobs now and maybe get together once or twice a year to bang out the songs. We haven't written a new song in over 5 years (aside from 30 second songs here and there for Prop 8, etc). About 5 years ago, I heard Ryan playing the first riff you hear in the song and it stuck with me. I play it constantly but couldn't ever hear the song. Then this song-a-day exercise came up and I knew this had to be pulled out of the hat. I came up with the first two lines of lyrics on a bike ride today, came home, and recorded this in an hour. While it totally SOUNDS like I took only an hour to do this, I was so much more excited to get this song DOWN as opposed to perfect -- to the point that I whispered the vocals, basically and only did one pass at it. I'll DEFINATELY be coming back to this song in the near future. I hope you're all into it. It might be something completely different from anything else on here. Sounds like NOFX or Propagandhi."

Day 1

Here's my song for Day 1. I'll call it "Autumn".

"This idea was started at 11pm on day 1 on the piano.  I thought all day about how I wanted this song to sound and the most interesting part is how that all went out the door when I sat down to do it!  The 1/4" I was using was dying so it created this clicking sound on the bass track that sounds like an off-time metronome -- I'll take that as art! As song writing isn't my strong point, It's going to be a challenge starting an idea and moving on the next day.  Ready for day 2!"

7 Songs in 7 Days

My good friend Addison Kowalski was jumping on a train and I was going with him.  We are going to write a song a day for a week.  These will be posted up on friendswritesongs.tumblr.com but as that site has been having some issues this past week, I thought I would post them up here for my blog readers -- although I haven't posted in months so who knows who's gonna hear them?

Along with each track I finished, I will post the blurb I sent to Mr. Andrew Capra -- mastermind of the FriendsWriteSongs blog.  I hope you all enjoy them -- they're pretty awful.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Pen Cups: A Theory


I had to write a post about this rather than just rant about it on twitter. Why don't all pens have the color they are on the bottom tip?

We all put them in these cups on our desks -- and we always need a pen. But we don't always need a red pen.

Sure, some might say, "Why not just take the red pens out? Do you ever use it for anything anyway?"

And to that I say, "Yes, I do."



I use pink post-it notes (it was a variety pack) and I can't ever write on them in red pen but I have a red pen on my desk -- mostly because I don't mind nor do I care enough to find another pen. Then I have to go for the next pen I have in the cup which is a sharpie (it's not a very full cup). Even the sharpie is red! Yes, I also have a black sharpie but why don't these pens have the colors on the bottom?

Am I the only one who puts my pens in facing down? I do it because, in my mind anyway, it keeps the ink near the tip of the utensil. Nothing bugs me more than having to shake my pen to get it to work -- nothing other than pens not having their color on the bottoms.

There are some brands that get this right. I'm lookin' at you, Staples Brand pens.  But I am ALSO lookin' at you, Staples, because your pens blow.  Seriously.

Anyway, I'm about as over this blog as I am writing it -- but at least I didn't have to grab a fuckin' pen!

Monday, March 8, 2010

My Oscar® opinion and some other things


I am glad Avatar didn't fare well -- although should it have won best cinematography? Does it even count?! I think not. I agree with Hurt Locker winning everything it won although I wanted Inglorious Basterds to win best picture and original screenplay. I was kinda shocked to see The Hurt Locker take that one. Also learned that adapted screenplay also counts if the original work was a short film (District-9) which I thought was kinda interesting!

I'm glad Sanrda Bullock won because she was the best thing about that crappy movie but I was kinda routing for Gabourey Sidibe. That would have been pretty awesome for her as an unknown young lady.

So that wraps up my Oscar® things. I also started a twitter page on which I will write twitter thought that are only 140 characters long. It's been done before and will be done again but I couldn't find anyone who did it well or at all after setting up the page. (I'm looking at you @140characters and @only140...)

Anyway, that's what's up. I also went to Disneyland this weekend and it was pretty much the best visit I have had in years. We got our own Tower of Terror elevator, saw new stuff at the Blue Sky Cellar, saw Captain EO which was just about the coolest thing I have ever seen, ate a good meal at the Plaza Inn, got our own Pirates of the Caribbean boat, and had an AMAZING time on The Haunted Mansion. SO good!

You're jealous and this wasn't written well.

fin.

PS: I ordered business cards. This is what it looks like.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010