arttyIV

Dec

Revolutionizing the PB&J

In my continued efforts to revolutionize the way peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are made, I have stumbled into somewhat of a breakthrough today. I share this tip with you, my lovely twitter friends, because I care about you, and want nothing but the best for you. Are you ready?

The Spoon.

That’s right. A spoon. The perfect utensil for spreading jelly. Forget about the knife. Here’s what you do. Scoop out a big glob of jelly with the concaved side of the spoon. Next, slap it down in the center of the slice of bread designated for jelly. Next, with the convexed end of the spoon, press down on the glob of jelly, swiping in an outward motion towards the crust. Quickly repeat until the jelly is evenly distributed across the surface of the bread.

Repeat for Peanut butter.

I’ve found this method to be far more efficient then a knife. I hope this changes your life too.

Aug

The Curious Trip of Vermont 2012

Mount Mansfield

Leading up to July, there was quite a bit of excitement from Jeremy and I. We decided to take a week long vacation in Vermont, to get some hiking and fishing in, as well as relaxing with some beers and nice weather. At least, this is how my prior Vermont trips have gone. This year, however, was a completely different story/beast all together. With just about every situation at every single turn going wrong or not as expected.

A few weeks prior to the trip, I had acquired a lottery ticket in which I happened to win ten dollars from. One thing that caught my eye after examining my winnings though, was the fact that I won with the first three numbers on the card, and they read 6, 6, 6. Jokingly, I posted it on instagram, wondering if cashing it would lead to misfortune or the loss of my soul…

Lottery Ticket

I am not a very superstitious man, but I can’t help but link the events that occurred next to my memory of those three sixes. One other thing to note, while in vermont, I randomly pulled up one of my accounts online, and it showed a balance of $666. Could any of this really have any link to the events that occurred during The Curious Trip of Vermont 2012? That is up to you to decide. So, what exactly happened on this trip?! Never fear, for I have made a long list of the events that unfolded. Enjoy…

Events:

Rental car issues, ended up canceling the rental.
Decided to take my Escape and save the rental cost.
Did the right thing, and got an oil change, which took FOREVER.
Realized we had no way to listen to MP3 player, bought $30 adapter.
Told Jeremy, “I feel good about this. Using my Escape will be better.”
Went to Butera to pick up subs, realized cooler was way to small, couldn’t fit all the sandwiches and non of the soda.
After being delayed by almost four hours, we are finally on the road.
Driving down the highway, we discover a strange “Rushing of Air” sound. Thought Jiffy Lube screwed up the cabin air filter.
Decided to take the next exit to inspect.
Came close to smashing into a car after almost completely losing my brakes.
Pulled into mall parking lot to discover a huge hole in EGR valve.
Uncle came to the rescue, while Jeremy and I baked in the hot sun.
Jeremy went shirtless in the parking lot.
Uncle called and asked what year the Escape was, I told him 2006. I meant 2003.
Uncle shows up, we quickly realize he has the wrong part.
We take a trip to Autozone and exchange. I buy Jeremy water, so he doesn’t die.
Installation of part goes well, except for one bolt not going in great.
A quick test drive around parking lot showed everything back to normal.
Uncle gave us the tools, just in case.
Finally back on the highway.
We make it through Chicago, and just into the Indiana toll when…
Big “Rushing of Air” sound again. EGR Valve blew once again.
We take the next exit to discover we are in some shady looking area.
Pulled into a grocery store parking lot, where we clearly did not fit in.
Through some google searches, we discover the problem wasn’t the EGR valve, it was the Catalytic Convertors being clogged.
After some phone calls, we decide to head to the nearest Autozone to buy another EGR valve, in hopes we can at least get back home.
Creeped our way over to Autozone to discover their internet was down. No Credit, and no returns. Couldn’t exchange busted part.
Jeremy and I had just enough cash on hand to purchase another part.
We decide to try and get as far as we can with the blown EGR valve before putting the new one in.
We didn’t get far. Soon after, the brakes started to go again, and then the gas pedal.
We manage to make it to a McDonalds parking lot.
Thankfully, there was a Police Officer chilling inside, because this street corner was pretty shady, and not comforting at all as the sun started to set.
Remember that bolt that didn’t go in well? It didn’t come out well either.
After fighting with the Escape for about an hour, we finally get the new one in.
Jeremy and his brother Justin came up with the idea of not connecting the EGR valve all the way, to allow the immense pressure from the clogged cats to escape.
This theory proved to hold true. Escape drove great.
We inch our way, stop light after stop light, through some of the very shady streets in the dark. A lot of odd characters out.
We keep a slow pacing, hoping we do not break down again in this neighborhood, with a car filled with easily over $5k in electronics & photo gear.
We finally make it back home just before midnight.
We decide to try and rent a car again, but cannot get one until Monday. Trip has now been delayed by two whole days.
Jeremy and I drop my car off at the Dealership, in hopes they can fix it using my warranty while we are gone.
Monday rolls around, and the rental goes great, and we are back on the road once again, everything goes fantastic.
That $30 adapter we bought for the Escape now useless, BTW.
We get to the end of New York, near Rt 8 at 2am.
It begins to storm.
Jeremy warns that we have 50 miles left of gas.
I search my GPS for the nearest gas station along the way.
There isn’t one for over 80 miles!
We have to turn back, and hope we find one open in the small towns in upstate NY.
It begins to pour, making it very difficult to find streets and see where we are going.
The first few gas stations are shut down.
We plan to head to Boonsville, which showed a few gas stations in town. Our remaining gas should just get us there.
Luckily, we find one open, and fill it back up. Crisis averted.
At this point, I hop in the driver seat to take over the late shift.
The storm grows, fog everywhere. Very difficult to see turns coming up on the winding roads of Rt 8.
Jeremy begins to get car sick from the constant swerving through the mountains. So do I.
Between the lightning flashing every few minutes, the fog, the down pouring, the hail, the sleet, and the curving roads, driving was not easy. Add in eyes that wanted to shut, this was a quite a challenge for me.
Almost killed a Raccoon/us.
Once in Vermont, things were fine, and we made it to Lake Champlain.
Finally get to sleep.
The next day we are greeted with rain and MASSIVE waves and wind.
The boat is broken. We learn we wont have it for our entire trip.
The water is way down in the lake.
We do some fishing off shore, I catch nothing, Jeremy catches a few little guys.
The next day we decide to hike up Mt Mansfield.
Jeremy falls on some logs, gets scraped up.
I didn’t eat enough, and became very weak and dizzy 1/4 of the way up.
Energy bars do the trick.
Jeremy finds out he has a rip in his bag when his phone fell into a puddle.
I slip on a rock and dunk my foot into a big puddle.
We make it to the top, it’s freezing up there, but what a view.
We play poker that night, Jeremy destroys everyone.
The next day we drive out to Burlington to eat/drink at Nectars, only to find we are 3 hours too early. They open at 5pm.
We ate at Sky Burgers. It was delicious.
A dirty homeless hippy makes fun of my T-shirt. Calling it ridiculous.
We take a small paddle boat out that night in hopes to catch some fish finally.
Jeremy gets one small one, I get nothing. It sprinkled almost the whole time.
We decided not to stay an extra day, and left on Friday. Of course, the weather was fantastic that day.
No problems on the drive home, except a flipped car in Cleveland, and an incredible down pour.
The trip is now over, and everything seems to go back to normal for us.

Jul

“The Bridge”

Actor - David Tranter

Shot & Editing by Arthur J Schroeder IV

Music by Weye

Story Behind the Short:

The plot behind “The Bridge” was conceived by David and I a year ago when we were in the mood to film something, as well as try out the Flycam Nano. The whole premise is that the runner finds a random box while out jogging. The box has a strange effect on him, and the mystery behind the box would unfold in later “Chapters” of the bridge.

After we got our plot line down, we packed up all of my gear and headed out to a local forest preserve to shoot what would have been chapter one. The problem ended up being timing. We finished shooting chapter one, but never found the time to continue with chapter two. I put the edits on the back burner in hopes that we would continue, but it never worked out that way, as I ended up moving, and he was a busy man dealing with his adorable child.

Finally, a year later, I decided to sit down and power through the edit. It was footage that just sat there for a year, begging for me to finish the edits. I am happy with the way chapter one came out, but am saddened that the other chapters are likely never to see the light of day. I could tell you what happens next, but I’d rather leave it up to your interpretation/imagination.

Everything for this shoot was pretty straight forward. The trickiest thing for me was dealing with the Flycam Nano, which is a Glidecam knock-off. I had recently purchased it, and wasn’t too skilled at getting it perfectly balanced, hence the swaying of some of the footage. I feel like it did do a semi decent job for something that only ran about $100. Even when I was jogging along side David, the footage stayed relatively smooth.

The quickly flashed shot that appears when he touches the box was the only shot that required a little bit of post work. I knew I wanted something to flash at break-neck speed, yet still show a glimpse of an event that happened. I decided to shoot that shot handheld, while moving the camera slowly from the ground up to David’s face. In post, I speed it up quite a bit, by about about 250~300% I believe. It was fun scene to shoot for me, because I was able to make fake blood and flick it at David’s face. I did, however, get some of the fake blood on one of my umbrellas that I used to light part of his face. Try explaining that to a model during a headshot… “Oh don’t worry about the blood all over these umbrellas. You are not in any danger. I am a nice person, I promise you.”

Jul

“Not Like Mike”

Actor - Jeremy Salisbury

Shot & Edited by Arthur J Schroeder IV

Story behind this Short:

I’ll be honest and admit I have been slacking off with my personal film goals. I have a slew of ideas for shorts, but most of them require a significant amount of effort, and I struggle to find people that have time to invest in said ideas. A few weeks ago, I decided that I was going to shoot something, anything, to scratch the creative itch. I enlisted the help of my oldest friend, Jeremy.

Jeremy asked me what we were going to shoot, and I didn’t really have a clear answer for him. So I began to think about what I want to achieve with a very short film. The answer was simply to practice shooting on the fly, as well as splicing two shots together in post.

Originally, I wanted to have a more complex shot for when he releases the ball into the air. In the short, this is shown with an over the shoulder shot of the rim. In reality, I wanted to shoot this on a glass backboard, and have the shot looking through the glass and focused on Jeremy from up in the air. I had the perfect location in mind, but when we showed up, the court was already filled with people. I almost canned the idea all together, but the goal was to practice shooting on the fly. So that was obstacle number one, and we hurdled it by finding a new location, and changing the shot to an over the shoulder shot.

The second obstacle we had to overcome was the blazing heat, as well as the sun. There was quite a bit of cloud coverage when we began shooting, so I was pleased with the soft light we had to work with. By the time we finished shooting our long shots however, the clouds had vanished, and the sun shined as bright as ever, creating harsh shadows. I fought this by holding up a diffuser during Jeremy’s close up shots. This did a great job at softening the sunlight, but only worked for the head shots.

The close ups of his feet and the ball bouncing were another story. My diffuser panel wasn’t all that large, and while I could diffuse his feet, I could not diffuse the entire court. If I tried, we could see the shadow of the diffuser hovering over Jeremy’s body, and it looked silly. I likely could have gotten a lower camera angle, as to eliminate the view of the shadow completely, but I opted to keep the framing how it was, and go without the diffuser. I think I made the wrong choice, but such is life.

The final shot was done in post using After Effects. All we did was take two shots, one of Jeremy slamming the ball down on the ground, and one where he shot the ball from the free throw line. Then, in AE, all I had to do was mask off half the footage from one clip, to reveal the ball going into the basket. This only worked because I had Jeremy slam the ball down hard enough, that it disappears out of the frame for a moment. That is where I cut the footage off, and spliced in the shot of his free throw coming down into the basket. Very simple, yet something I never had to do or try.

So while this was a very quick short, it gave me the ability to work through issues, and problem solve on the fly. That is something you cannot do while sitting on the couche playing xbox. This is clearly not an amazing short, but it was never meant to be. It was meant to be a learning experience, and that it was.

Mar

Entertaining myself while waiting for Brad to come home. Once he’s back we are making our way to the Keys.

Mar

I arrived in Florida at 5am on Tuesday. I have never been on a flight that departs at 1:30am on a weekday. I assumed that the flight would be pretty damn empty. I was wrong. Dead wrong. As I wandered O’Hare at in the wee hours of the night, I noticed how vacant and empty it felt. It was nice. A much better experience then I am used to when using O’Hare to get to my next destination.

Upon looking at my phone, I realized I had about thirty minutes until my plane began to board it’s passengers, so I began my walk towards my gate. As I came around the final bend, my jaw dropped. There was a mass amount of people at the end of the hall. “Is that my gate?!” I thought to myself. Sure as shit, it was.

Looking down at my ticket, I was happy to see that I was in Zone 1, meaning I was boarding the plane first. What was odd, was the fact that it was myself and one other guy in Zone 1. Out of a full plane, only two were boarding in Zone 1. “Strange.” I thought. But what ever, I get to sit down first and not wait for people to put away their luggage, so I was a happy camper. As the people piled in one after another, they all seemed to walk past my row without a second look. “Could it be?” I wondered. “Out of a full plane, am I going to be the only person who gets to sit by himself?!” No. The answer is no.

Just as the flood of passengers stopped funneling in, two more popped in at the last minute. And, of course, they were my missing row-mates. What are the chances that these were two healthy people who would allow me to get some rest on this early AM flight? Not good, apparently. Because the older gentleman who sat next to me had a wicked cough. At this point, I’d rather sit next to the two sub-seven year old kids behind me. At least they were entertaining, with their amazed commentary as the prepared for their first flight ever.

I managed to get around five to ten minutes of sleep on that flight and by the time Brad picked me up in Orlando, I was dead tired. Lucky for me, he has to work all week still. So I was able to sleep in and catch up on my missing sleep. The main goal for this Florida trip is to explore the Florida Keys, which we intend to do all weekend long. The weekdays, however, I have dedicated to catching up on some work for Schroeder Visuals while Brad is at his day job. The photo above was added to illustrate my current point of view. Lying on the ground, typing away on my Macbook Air (Which I absolutely loooove). I haven’t seen a whole lot of Orlando, but from what I have seen, I seemed to like it. I definitely am enjoying the warmer weather, as well as the more relaxed atmosphere that seems to be present throughout Orlando.

I will not be taking many photos until this weekend, I plan to take a ton during the road trip to the Keys. Expect them to start showing up after I get back to Illinois next Tuesday. Until then, back to work. (Don’t worry, I enjoy this work. Not hindering my vacation.)

Mar

This weather I can get behind. That bird chirping outside the apartment window must die though. Hoping to sleep the morning away while Brad is at work. Heading to the Keys on Friday.

Feb