Pistil Shooting in Texas Caught on Tape!

"Flowers are rainbows on a sunny day." -- Elizabeth Maxwell



Video length: 1 minute 2 seconds. Larger Flash version available on totem-media.com.

I enjoy looking at flowers and other beautiful scenes of nature. It's relaxing and reminds me that God loves us. :)

The jasmine overgrew a tall dead stump in our yard. Eleven months of the year I don't notice the stump. It's either covered in the jasmine's green leaves or leafless and brown. Then, every April, the delicate white flowers open and release their wonderful scent.

It reminds me of the scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (movie) and The Two Towers (book), when Sam and Frodo are entering Mordor with Gollum. They see the head of an old king's statue, lying broken and defaced on the ground. The sun shone momentarily on a crown of flowers that had grown on the statue's brow. It gave them a moment of hope before facing the severe trials they would endure.

All video is from the Texas Hill Country, which is in the south central part of the state. I shot the jasmine and daisies in April 2008 using a Panasonic PV-GS320 mounted on a Velbon tripod. The bees were enjoying apple blossoms in February 2008 using a Sony DSC-W50 still/video digital camera. The two still shots of the purple vinca and the yellow cactus flower are from Spring 2007.

The song, Anjelica, is a royalty-free track purchased from shockwave-sound.com.

I edited the video using Adobe Premiere.

Pistil: Female part of the flower comprised of the ovary, style, and stigma.

Latest Video Contest Entry - Technical Report

I've entered the following video in the Ultimate Stargate Atlantis Super Fan Contest.



I recorded my portions using a Panasonic AG-DVC60 and a Sony wired lavaliere microphone. I edited the video in Adobe Premiere and added some FX with Adobe AfterEffects.

I had been using a Matrox RTX.100 video card and software in conjunction with Premiere, but had a software crash that caused me to have to reload Premiere, thereby losing the Matrox plug-ins. (There's a technical reason why I didn't reload the Matrox software.) I missed some of the transitions, color correction, and keying features of Matrox, but not enough to deal with reloading the software.

Currently, I'm using Premiere Pro 1.5, and I find the transitions lacking in scope and customizing. I purchased Pixelan's SpiceMaster, which has many of the transitions and effects I need, at the very reasonable price of $40 (plus $20 to get the extra transitions).

After the holidays, I'll be upgrading to Adobe CS3 Production Premium suite. This will help me provide even better quality products for my clients and myself.

NOTE: As I said before, I was happy with the features offered by the Matrox RTX.100 card, when combined with Adobe Premiere, but by not reloading the Matrox software, I had a significant reduction in software crashes. I would say at least a 75% reduction.