Because Anybody Can But Not Everyone Should

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Let's try to get the ball rolling. Finally...

So as you may or may not know I work on the NBC tv show Grimm. B camera focus puller is my official title, I keep it in focus, literally. Blah blah blah boring I know. It's all very technical. You may see some neat camera stuff here but really this is about cookies, and now coffee, cappuccinos to be precise and my expanding skill in latte art. Soooooo... Lets at least start with something.

Every week I bring cookies for the crew and it has really gotten out of hand, every week is different so I have amassed quite a few recipes that need to be shared. As I have said many are from google searches but most have been tweaked by yours truly. I will credit as much as possible as I said, and will include my changes and the results.

I missed last week so lets start there. I was interested in cornflake cookies (still am) and discovered the Momofuku Milk Bar's cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookie. Thank you wee eats ( http://wee-eats.com/2012/07/18/the-infamous-momofuku-cornflake-cookie/ ) which is where is took my recipe from. It sounds like the cookies in store are giant (1/3 C each), wee eats made (1/4 C), I went standard about a tablespoon each. So here is my recipe write up, feel free to check the original as currently wee eats has very nice photos and some good baking tips.

Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies
Momofuku milk bar cornflake cookies

-cornflake crunch-
5 C cornflakes
1/2 C milk powder
3 Tbsp of sugar
1 tsp salt
9 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F, line baking sheets with parchment. In a large bowl crush cornflakes with hands to roughly quarter the original size. Add milk powder, sugar, salt and toss. Add butter and toss well to coat, mixture should form small clusters. Spread clusters on prepared baking sheets and bake for 20 min, or until toasted. Let cool completely.

-cookies-
16 Tbsp (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp.
1 1/4 C sugar 256g
2/3 C brown sugar 133g
1 lg egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 C all purpose flour 218g
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 C cornflake crunch
2/3 C chopped dark chocolate 3oz
1 1/4 C mini marshmallows

Sift together the dry ingredients, cream butter and sugar for 3 min. until its very light and fluffy, add the egg and vanilla, and beat on high speed for 7-8 min. At low speed add the dry ingredients, and mix until just incorporated (do not over mix), add the chocolate, cornflake crunch and mix for 30 sec, then add marshmallows and mix for 30 sec. If still not incorporated, fold in with a spatula. Refrigerate dough for at least an hour, or until firm.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop tablespoons of dough at least 2 inches apart maybe three (my cookies spread quite a bit), onto prepared baking sheets. I recommend a #100 disher for this to get consistent cookies. Bake for 10-12min. Rotate baking sheet half way through, The longer you bake the crispy they get which isn't necessary a bad thing. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheets until firm. Transfer to wire racks to finish cooling.

So I had moderate success my first go round, about half were perfect and the other half spread like crazy. I blame my negligence. I ran out of time and refrigerated overnight uncovered and the dough dried out. I would not recommend, the uncovered part or the overnight part. I would get to dishing them out once they are firm. Makes about 4 dozen three inch cookies if I remember correctly. I will most certainly make these again and I have a few ideas for spin offs. I'll keep you posted on those.

Monday, September 24, 2012

It's all happening...

I know there are so very many readers to this blog, but it is currently undergoing a change of direction. Yes there will still be exciting camera stuff to view but the focus will now be cookies instead of cameras, and a lot more me. It will be a work in progress as all things are, until a format has taken hold. There will be recipes, photos, and videos, along with any tips and tricks or pros and cons that I can share. Hopefully everyone will enjoy all the new found excitement. Basically each week I make a new cookie for everyone at work and will be sharing all the reviews. I will hopefully also be returning to making a healthy version of each cookie (ie: gluten free, dairy free, lower carb, etc.) Credit will be given if possible, but most recipes are a mish mash of google searches and random cook books. I will try to include notes on any changes from the original, and reasons why, as well as a link back to the original. I will also be working towards using weights of measure versus cups, etc in an effort to keep things as repeatable as possible. Thanks and enjoy!!!

Monday, February 23, 2009

RED Camera Build 18 version 3.6.0 Let's jump right in

It's always a good time to eat junk food while watching women who could probably benchpress you.

Last week I had a multi camera infomercial job, but only one camera at a time. The first day with the HDX900 went well, no problems. Learned a few new things about the HDX900- you can turn down the black gamma to crush your blacks a little better than you can with the pedestal. Also, as you increase gain your contrast increases--counteract that by decreasing your gamma.

Rest of the job was RED Camera and this was my second time using the new build. Encountered a few inconsistencies. I was excited to use build 18 again. Because we had to go straight to tape on set I got to do a lot of color correction in camera. We started by upping the contrast and then began to use the different color gain channels to warm up the image. Ultimately we found that the white balance alone achieved the look we wanted and was a cleaner solution. Most of this job was shot at 120 frames per second, so we had to shoot 2K (2:1) at 120 frames we were pushing the edge of the light we had at our disposal. I was able use exposure and brightness controls to boost the exposure on darker skin tones without having to re-light.

Had a few problems with the 2K. First I noticed that when I set the framerate to 120 and adjusted the shutter the image was excessively dark. Readjusted the framerate and got basically another stop of exposure back. This seemed to happen fairly consistently; if I adjusted my shutter first then framerate it did not seem to be a problem. Also found the 2K playback through the VTR system to be soft. Whereas the 4K through the same system was sharp. All of the final clips were sharp regardless of the softness of the playback.

We also shot the rest of job at 4KHD allowing us to have properly HD scaled QT proxies. This along with in camera color grading helped to speed the export the on set export to tape. This HD mode is very handy, it is unfortunate that it does not carry over to 3K and 2K. There are quite a few new features in build 18, the few I like the best so far are the View RAW Histogram, the exportable user settings, user definable aspect ratio, and the ability to diable the EVF Wheel.

Monday, February 16, 2009

RED Camera, HDX 900 Prep

Today I prepped a 3 day job--2 cameras, RED and a Panasonic HDX900. Standard RED Camera package with Arri ultra primes. The move to build 18 version 3.6.0 is exciting. I'd used 18 before, but most of the rental cameras are still on build 16 (being the most stable build). Sadly I cannot be specific about the changes between builds; and will note only the immediate improvements I saw. Among them, 4KHD was added to the resolution list- with this resolution setting there is no need to scale or crop your QuickTime proxy settings before editing. For example, the high resolution proxy is 1920x1080. So by applying your look in camera your offline editing can start immediately. This applies to 2k and 3k shooting as well. There are some additional metering functions; the most interesting of which is the raw histogram option in the view finder meter menu. Timecode out option will be big for sound. Lastly I'd like to point out the addition of user definable aspect ratios as well as exportable user settings. Check out the Red User pages for a full list of improvements.

Ran a few tests at the rental house. Everything downloaded and played fine. No sound issues. Have not taken it through a full post, but do not foresee any issues. Tomorrow is HDX900 only, fortunately I have cine style lenses. Nothing too exciting- informercials rarely are. RED Camera the following two days. Best part of this job is that we will be dumping QuickTimes to DVC Pro Deck to speed imput into their post production pipeline. Sadly this workflow does not does not take full advantage of all RED has to offer, so we will be doing a lot of painting in camera.

Yeah, the photo's not a red camera, but me and my Captain sure can prep.