Video Light Painting

Light painting photography and videography invoke a sense wonder in me, because they capture what my eyes cannot. Everything is no longer fleeting, maybe just undetected. And the darkened backdrop and built-in anticipation conveniently add to the alchemy.

This is my entry to a video contest held by an induction lighting company to highlight the properties of their products, or just a good opportunity to wave some light bulbs around and practice this magic.

So, I did end up coming in 2nd place, but was denied the prize money, because the company effectively declared that I was not a citizen. Well, that is certainly news to me. Anyway, this was a poorly conceptualized, managed, and executed event. An utter debacle. First, they postponed the submission deadline for two months without any notice or explanation to the people (me) who worked very hard to meet the original deadline, giving unfair advantage to late submissions. Then, they altered their contest “rules” several times throughout to fit their own agenda and mistakes. Mistakes that were a direct consequence of the inherent flaws within the contest set-up, just to show how clueless they are about social media. The only things I learned about this company, other than the fact that their light bulbs are extremely fragile and can (and will) break/explode if you so much as lay it down on the table at the wrong angle, are that they have NO INTEGRITY and NO COMMON SENSE whatsoever. Never again. 

Rant over. Sorry. 

Watch me "paint" your screen with light:

Panda-fy your Paper Lantern / Bubble

Obsessively watching baby panda videos on Youtube turned out not to be a complete waste of time after all. For one, it deepened my love for white fluffy things, like the "It's so fluffy, I'm gonna die" unicorn, samoyeds, and this extreme samoyed. Did I mention samoyeds? And that is always a wonderful thing. Then, there's the inspiration that a white Bubble is almost a panda face, without the black blobs.

And there's the recognition that adding black blobs to a white Bubble is certainly one of the very few ways I'll ever have a panda. 

I proceeded to make two ~3" black pompoms (how-to video here) and strung them together with twine. Tying and hanging them from the vertical ribbon created those Mickey-Mouse ears, and I adjusted their locations by lengthening or shortening the connecting twine. 

Then I cut out three black blobs to be the eye patches and nose, which were attached to the Bubble with glue dots. You can probably also use poster tacks. 

Download the eye patches and nose template here and make your own paper pandas! 

You can use any paper lantern like the ones shown below. The template and pompom size work with lanterns ~10" in diameter. To fit a smaller or bigger lantern, simply scale up or down accordingly. Have fun! 

Left / Right

5-second stories about Halloween

Baby Mike Wazowski swore that he did not just wreak havoc at the studio, but it certainly wasn't me. P.S. Does anyone still remember and love this movie?

Minions will always be minions. And I have one. 

"Halloween dress-up games aren't just for humans," a Bubble lamp declared.