lynda.com-What's not to love!

lynda.com is our go-to place for all new technology learning! 

Laguna Beach, Revisited!

                   image courtesy of The Orange County Register

If you've never heard of Tableaux Vivant, you're in for a real treat; if you have, you know what we mean when we say that you MUST take the opportunity to visit the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, CA!  It's located at the Festival of Arts and is literally a 'living picture' production of famous works of art. It takes place annually during the summer and involves hundreds of volunteers in the local area assisting in recreating masterpieces on stage; definitely a site to behold!  The theme is different each year and literally draws thousands of visitors each summer so make sure you get your tickets early in order to get the good seats! Word to the wise- bring binoculars as you wouldn't want to miss the miniscule chance of seeing one of the motionless models move an inch.


And while you're in the area, don't miss the Sawdust Art Festival located across the street- and yes, there really is sawdust.  Also held every summer, this art festival is laid back, family-friendly, and features more than 200 Laguna Beach artists ready to show you how they create their fine arts and crafts. 


If you want a sneak peak of this festival, you can check out one of our past videos of the Sawdust Art Festival located on our website.  http://moderndayfilms.com/mediaprojects.html

Behind-the-Scenes Saturdays: Romeo - TAKE 2!

How is it that this four-legged little 'Divo' (there's no 'Diva' equivalent), gets more camera time than the MDF crew? Sitting upon his middle-seat throne while we're doing all the work, our little MDF mascot is particularly gratified with his view from MDF's 'ViviVan.' Always quiet on the set, his temperate demeanor lends the crew the grounding and calm disposition often needed during a lengthy-light-chasing-hurried shoot. So, hail to Romeo - a crew's best friend! 

Logging... Capturing... Editing...

Enough said.

Behind-the-Scenes Saturdays: Larry Jordan FCPX

MDF attended one of Larry Jordan's PowerUP seminars this week in Burbank on the new Final Cut Pro X. Not only was it informative, as Larry's seminars always are, but a great jump start into understanding the inner workings of this new and overhauled editing program. Although there are numerous new features of FCPX that look enticing, we're still not ready to dive in full force. Think we'll need to wait it out a bit until Apple can provide some much needed updates to the program and then we'll see. In the meantime, MDF won a fabulous $500 coupon certificate to Artbeats, a royalty-free stock footage company.

The ROYAL Visit...One Last Hurrah!

As written by MDF's own 'roving reporter' Amanda Hockham.

Late Friday evening I received an urgent email from my friends over at Modern Day Films asking if I wouldn’t mind covering the Royal visit for them as they’d be out of town during The Royal's visit to Santa Barbara (Oh, and they didn’t have a Press Pass!). No worries, I thought, this will be a piece of cake! I lept like a lord waiting for the 12 days of Christmas. Having grown up in the Commonwealth Country of New Zealand, The Royals have always been a part of my life, even going so far as to pop up when we went to the movies and compelling us to stand and sing the national anthem with fervor before each showing.

So, when Saturday rolled around, the excitement began to build. Rumors of helicopters landing at the Polo Club began early in the day. I put on my fancy faux fascinator and ran for the door, making sure to grab my camera as I ran to my coach. As my plans to carpool with Oprah were dashed, I realized I’d have to drive myself, so I plotted a strategy to bypass the crowds and park as close as possible. Once I arrived, I was surprised at the lack of a crowd and was able to park one street away from the event. I immediately strolled over to the Polo Club only to be stopped by a paparazzi who wanted to take a photo of my fascinator. I was even able to glean a few details from the paparazzi including which areas to avoid. Armed with my new knowledge, I sauntered up to the area in question and quickly realized that security was tight - very, very tight! They were not kidding around, and rightfully so, which made it very challenging to take pictures at first.... but a promise is a promise, so I set off to see what I could see. I became very creative and was rewarded numerous times with an up close and personal visit and lecture from several not-so-friendly officers of the law. Did I let this distract me from my task? NO! I forged ahead. At one point I noticed numerous people gathering at the hedge in the front of the grounds and wandered over. I was delighted to see that you could actually see something, anything. Even better, it was near our end of the field. Suddenly a horse was in front of us! We all tried to figure out if it was Prince William and came to the conclusion that it was hard to tell who it was at all due to our vision being obscured by a large thick hedge and a chain link fence. Suddenly someone said, “I think it’s him! I think it’s Prince William!” I was so excited to see anyone, someone on a horse, I just started snapping pictures willy-nilly! I figured that sooner or later I’d get a snap of someone. Well, let me tell you friends, it paid off! I was able to get two pictures of Prince William before security came to move us away. I felt so empowered! I could do anything! And as I walked around the corner near the private, fancy bathrooms, I was able to hear that Prince William had just scored a goal. Then I noticed a woman in a large, beautiful black hat so I stopped to ask if I could take a picture of it which, thankfully she agreed to.

Was it worth it? Well, aside from a small mishap when I twisted my foot in a hole, it was. I had missed the Queen when she had come to the area in the mid 80’s and had been rained out; this was my opportunity to make up for it. I had a lot of fun and met some interesting people. It was almost like being there.

So, thanks to Modern Day Films for going out of town so I could have the opportunity to have an excuse to wear my faux fascinator out on the town. 

Behind-the-Scenes-Saturdays: The Royals in Santa Barbara!

Well LA-DI-DA, the Royals have arrived! So, indulge us, if you will, and follow our 6 degrees of separation about this weekend's Royal Polo soiree here in Santa Barbara to which MDF's official invite apparently got lost in our American mail system (purely an oversight!). So, here it goes... 1st degree: our own imperial leader (AKA, Hilary) moved a half mile away from these same Polo fields just 12 years ago... 2nd degree: Hilary went to England 9 years ago and bought a Union Jack Flag and 4 packages of Hobnob cookies... 3rd degree: she also has 3 'Bri-ish' friends on her personal Facebook page... 4th degree: she's addicted to English Breakfast tea... 5th degree: she once rode a horse & played recreational lawn croquet in elementary school... And, the 6th degree: (drum roll please!) she drove by the swanky polo fields on her way out of town to snap these pics! Uh huh, there you have it! And, had she been notified ahead of time via a personal invite, or at the very least, had received her press pass in the proper amount of time, she wouldn't have scheduled a birthday weekend get away during such an exclusive affair. So, take that William and Kate; you'll just have to endure that empty seat at Chef Giada's $400 per person, ostentatious dinner party tonight cuz girlfriend's got other plans!

The Editing Saga Continues...Argh!

Images courtesy of Google Images

As if editing itself isn't complicated enough, now comes the arduous task of making an even bigger decision of which editing program to use. Thank you Apple!


Should I stick with Final Cut Studio and run the risk of it eventually being incompatible with Mac's OS or bite the bullet and switch to Avid or Adobe Premier; not an easy decision. Or, do we wait it out and see what Apple's next move will be; seems a bit risky though.  Time will tell.

Behind-the-Scenes-Saturdays: Social Network Tour

Still 'Geeking Out' from last week, we gave in to an impromptu field trip through Silicon Valley last weekend after coercing a family member to be our tour guide (shout-out to Marcus!). Using all three of these web applications on a regular, obsessive basis, we thought they were worthy of a drive by. And although there was no sign of Mark Zuckerberg putting in any overtime at the office on a Saturday afternoon (the parking lot was a ghost town!), we still found it amusing to see the home base for the companies that make our life and job a tad easier.