I've never considered myself a very good baker. I've pretty much always dabbled in cooking, and even took a culinary arts class in high school, but baking was never my strong point. But, as the saying goes, some things just come with age I guess. Not that I'm like... old, or anything. And I have a lot of love and respect for my elders, but in all fairness... I totally destroyed my Mom and her friends and family at their cookie exchange this past weekend. I know, I know. Not the typical thing a 24 year-old male would want to advertise or brag about. And it's not really bragging... I mean, the voting on best cookie was a democratic process, and between the 12 middle-aged women I was up against, and myself, I won. Fair and square. Though, your still probably thinking "what a bastard," allow me to defend my character further by saying that I only went to be with my Mom and family (the past month of straight studying and work left me with homesickness like you wouldn't believe). Anyway, the REAL point of this blog, is to share the recipe for my winning (in a completely friendly competition) cookie recipe.
Old Fashioned Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups quick cooking oats
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, mix white sugar, butter, and brown sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
3. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt, then stir into egg and sugar mixture. Mix in oats. Mix in chocolate chips, combining well. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour.
4. Grease cookie sheets. Roll the dough into balls, and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
* For a little bit of a twist, try replacing the white sugar with maple syrup and adding 1/4 to 1/2 cup of flour (until consistency is right).
Enjoy, and thanks for reading!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Aiming Line Shoot: The Collaboration
My alarm goes of at 3:30 am... I'm awake. I barely slept. I was in bed at 1:30 am. I dazedly stumble into the shower to wake up, then pack the remaining gear. I call for a cab at 10 til 4. At 4:30, Hannah and I go down with the cameras, laptop, and food for the day. Call time is 5 am. 4:45 am... still no cab. So we call a different one and finally get picked up at 5:05. I hate being late, especially since a few people already arrived on set.
When we get there, my D.P. and camera crew are there setting up. The first shot is a shot over the pool table to capture the game-play of the scene and determine the blocking that we will use the rest of the shoot. To get it, we mount the camera to a fig-rig and clamp it between to c-stands on either side of the table, so the camera is pointing straight down. It's probably to coolest shot I've pulled off recently. But it took forever, and we are way behind because half of us were late and it was a big first set up.
Luke, one of the actors has to leave at 12:30, and it's already almost 10:00. So we set up our wide master shot, and get going. Just as we think we have momentum, it is already time for Luke to leave... it feels like we got nothing done, although we did get half of the script shot on wide and medium shots. But I'm still bummed. We missed about half of the shots I had planned for that portion of the day.
We set up and shoot some of the inserts and cut-away's so that time is not wasted. They are trying to open the bar we are shooting in, so we have a little bit of noise to deal with. Then as we are wrapping Day 1, Hannah is informed that for Day 2, the bar has people coming in at 10 am for a football game. We were promised the space (at least where the pool table is) for 5 am to 3 pm both days, which means we have to step it up the next day. I'm officially panicked.
Day 2, we make sure everybody is on time or close to it. 5 am, we are setting up the first shot. I spoke to Ryan at the end of Day 1 about how we'd pull this off... we go to 2 cameras, for 2 set-ups and 6 big shots of coverage. We are shooting by 6:30 am and we have beautiful lighting. This sets the tone for the rest of the day.
The crew was amazing, they all seemed pretty in-sync, which is amazing considering I must have been a total basket case that day. But we still only get 4 of the 6 shots by 10 am, at which point people start pouring in to wet their whistles and watch men in spandex hug each other at full speed. So... the last two shots I need with dialogue, we get with awful audio, but it serves as a reference for post, and I'm okay with that. Not to mention, we get some of the more beautiful shots on this set-up.
Feeling accomplished, we get the final inserts and cut-away's, and I think we all surprised ourselves at how much time and footage we made up for by being ready to go. Not to mention being saved by the additional camera I rented as a "back-up." We stay for dinner at the bar, and I drink 2 too many manhattans while listening to my D.P. get inappropriate. But we all have smiles and laughter to share and we are all feeling the release of the past 2 days stress and hard work.
I had to cut a teaser for my class in two days, so I kept it really simple. Images, and music, cut to give a sense of the story without giving anything away. Despite the fear of failing after Day 1, we came away with some amazing footage and great experience... a guarantee on almost any film shoot. Check out the teaser in HD on Vimeo.com: http://vimeo.com/2491652 or below
Aiming Line -- Teaser from Benjamin Garst on Vimeo.
When we get there, my D.P. and camera crew are there setting up. The first shot is a shot over the pool table to capture the game-play of the scene and determine the blocking that we will use the rest of the shoot. To get it, we mount the camera to a fig-rig and clamp it between to c-stands on either side of the table, so the camera is pointing straight down. It's probably to coolest shot I've pulled off recently. But it took forever, and we are way behind because half of us were late and it was a big first set up.
Luke, one of the actors has to leave at 12:30, and it's already almost 10:00. So we set up our wide master shot, and get going. Just as we think we have momentum, it is already time for Luke to leave... it feels like we got nothing done, although we did get half of the script shot on wide and medium shots. But I'm still bummed. We missed about half of the shots I had planned for that portion of the day.
We set up and shoot some of the inserts and cut-away's so that time is not wasted. They are trying to open the bar we are shooting in, so we have a little bit of noise to deal with. Then as we are wrapping Day 1, Hannah is informed that for Day 2, the bar has people coming in at 10 am for a football game. We were promised the space (at least where the pool table is) for 5 am to 3 pm both days, which means we have to step it up the next day. I'm officially panicked.
Day 2, we make sure everybody is on time or close to it. 5 am, we are setting up the first shot. I spoke to Ryan at the end of Day 1 about how we'd pull this off... we go to 2 cameras, for 2 set-ups and 6 big shots of coverage. We are shooting by 6:30 am and we have beautiful lighting. This sets the tone for the rest of the day.
The crew was amazing, they all seemed pretty in-sync, which is amazing considering I must have been a total basket case that day. But we still only get 4 of the 6 shots by 10 am, at which point people start pouring in to wet their whistles and watch men in spandex hug each other at full speed. So... the last two shots I need with dialogue, we get with awful audio, but it serves as a reference for post, and I'm okay with that. Not to mention, we get some of the more beautiful shots on this set-up.
Feeling accomplished, we get the final inserts and cut-away's, and I think we all surprised ourselves at how much time and footage we made up for by being ready to go. Not to mention being saved by the additional camera I rented as a "back-up." We stay for dinner at the bar, and I drink 2 too many manhattans while listening to my D.P. get inappropriate. But we all have smiles and laughter to share and we are all feeling the release of the past 2 days stress and hard work.
I had to cut a teaser for my class in two days, so I kept it really simple. Images, and music, cut to give a sense of the story without giving anything away. Despite the fear of failing after Day 1, we came away with some amazing footage and great experience... a guarantee on almost any film shoot. Check out the teaser in HD on Vimeo.com: http://vimeo.com/2491652 or below
Aiming Line -- Teaser from Benjamin Garst on Vimeo.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
