Judging for the International Mobile Film Festival

Each spring down in San Diego, the International Mobile Film Festival is held. It’s hosted by Susy Botello in an effort to shine a light on creators out there going against the grain in filmmaking by using their mobile devices instead of a “traditional” digital camera. I’m judging the event again this year, albeit remotely since I can’t make the trip down to San Diego. Other stuff going on that I have to handle and I can’t afford to make that many trips in one month (yet).

Image via Adobe Firefly*

I had roughly eight films to judge in my queue and it was an interesting experience. There were some creations I found to be quite impressive, and some not so much. But each of them shared one trait. Each filmmaker did the best they could with the mobile device camera’s capabilities. Lighting was key as the image sensors on these devices are so small. And for the films that went with low-light, the post-processing was done well enough to remove noise and artifacts. It’s pretty cool seeing what creators come up with these days - regardless of the tool.

If you’re interested in attending the International Mobile Film Festival, check out the website for more info.

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I'm Back On ZDNET

I’m back on ZDNET as of a few days ago. Some of you are probably saying, “back?” Yes, I’m back. Maybe I should clarify. Picture it. Charlotte, North Carolina. 2012. It was about 6AM local time. I was at my humble desk in my humble abode known as “Chateau Ghetto” taking a look at what was going on for the start of Mobile World Congress which was happening in Barcelona, Spain.

I hope I don’t upset ZDNet and Red Ventures by modifying this logo for story’s sake. . . .

At the time, I’d been invited to join a startup tech blog called aNewDomain which was lead by Gina Smith. My intent was to get up early and write about anything I found interesting regarding the conference. To my surprise, I found a PDF file from Microsoft detailing the consumer preview of its Windows 8 operating system. I thought it was pretty cool to see the documentation about the “new look” of Windows and put a blog post together detailing what I had found. An hour or so passes and my Google chat window started blowing up with messages of excitement from Gina Smith. This caught me by surprise. Apparently, my blog post about the “leaked” document was a big hit. This lead to other sites picking up the story and linking back to me. In particularly, Mr. Jason Hiner of ZDNet mentioned my post.

This blew my mind because I was a big fan of the work Mr. Hiner had done over the years as tech news and tech journalism was all the buzz. To see he mentioned lil’ ol’ me in his piece was something I’ll never forget. But anyway, I’m technically “back on” ZDNet now. This time I’m on the team as a freelance contributor.


What does this mean?

As a freelance contributor, I’ll be creating content around the wonky world of consumer technology in the form of blog posts and videos. I’ll also lend a hand in shooting photography for the team as a hired camera, if you will. I look forward to working with Mr. Hiner and the ZDNet team. He and I go back quite a ways as he also gave me a freelance gig many years ago on TechRepublic. When I joined TWiT in 2019, I had to drop my contributions to TechRepublic because of some dumb ass proposition here in California. But yes, this is going to be a fun exerience. I look forward to it.


Why freelance and not full-time?

I’m freelance for a couple of reasons. First off, full-time employment isn’t offered at this time. Which is fine. Secondly, I can’t say that I’m interested in full-time work at this time. Real talk.

For pretty much most of my professional career, I’ve been a bit of a self-starter and on my own. Even though the majority of my career was in IT at a big company of some sort, I had a lot of autonomy and freedom. I “worked from home” for many years before that phrase was normalized during the 2020 pandemic. I didn’t have to deal with micro-management leadership. I’m grateful for that. So I always felt like a contractor, or freelancer in that regard.

Now in 2023 and 2024, we continue to read and hear about companies struggling financially around the country. I was laid off from TWiT in December 2023. It wasn’t personal, it was business and it made sense. I would have laid me off, too. Not to mention other huge companies such as Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, Sony and many more laying off staff in the coming months.

Are you sure?

I personally don’t believe finding full-time work in my field is going to happen. It’s a tough business. I want to be in control of my own destiny for that reason. I previously worked at a company of almost half of my life. I was given an opportunity to take another job elsewhere for better wages even though I wasn’t looking for a new job. You know what the company said to me which I worked at for 16 years?

“Are you sure?”

Not, “what can we do to keep you here” or anything of that nature. NO FREAKIN’ LOYALTY TOWARDS ME or anything I’d done for the previous 16 years as an employee. I was naive and that changed my outlook going forward. I needed to be able to control my destiny.

What I went through at TWiT was great. The Laportes were great to me. I had autonomy and was also able to learn other things during my time there. But again, it was more of a mental note to me that I need to keep pushing to have control. So I’m doing everything I can to get Ant Pruitt Media back on track and rollin’ forward.

Anyway, that’s the news. Be sure to check out ZDNet for other great consumer tech content. They do a good job of keeping it real when it comes to all the fuss about the new hotness of tech. I’ll see you soon. Thanks for all the support.

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Everyday People Doing Everyday S***, New Episode Coming Soon

The podcast I started a couple years ago is coming back. I still desire to be “on-air” from time to time and have been looking for work opportunities to do so. On the other hand, I can easily be “on-air” right here in my home studio. So when you have a minute, make sure you subscribe to or follow Everyday People Doing Everyday Shit podcast in your favorite podcast app. The show is definitely available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, but should still be searchable in whatever your app of choice is. At the moment, the show is audio-only. Part of me would like to bring in a video element, but we’ll see. I’d have to make some changes in the studio to accommodate. Thanks for subscribing and telling others.

Hanging Out With an Aspiring Content Creator in Petaluma: Barry Almeria

I was recently a guest on the Infinite Table Podcast hosted by Barry Almeria. Almeria is an aspiring video creator here in the Sonoma County area, but also wanted to spend time creating a podcast for content creators. He reached out to ask if I’d chat with him on his “Creator Sessions.” Click the image below to watch the video.

Note: We had some tech difficulties, so I ended up recording the video on his behalf. So if the screen looks like my show, that’s why. Thanks for understanding and thanks for supporting an aspiring creator.

Image: Infinite Table Podcast

I Got a Free V-Mount Battery

I recently purchased a replacement v-mount battery for my video camera because my old one was just too big and bulky. I wanted something smaller, but yet powerful enough to allow for a decent amount of time recording footage. So I bought this V99* from ZGCINE. Turns out, it’s a pretty great option. The folks a ZGCINE apparently got wind of my purchase and sent me some other stuff for free.

First, I received this NPF battery charger* that’s ridiculously fast. I spoke about this as my pick of the week on #TWiG recently. It’s affordable and totally worth it if you’re a creator using Sony NPF batteries for your lights, camera or monitors.

Next, ZGCINE sent me their newest v-mount battery option. The V50*. It’s an even smaller form-factor packed with i/o you need as a creator. Click the image below to watch my YouTube video about it.

Image: Ant Pruitt

*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Adobe Premiere Pro June 2022 Updates Released

Each summer, Adobe pushes out features for its video editing software aimed at making the creative workflow more efficient. Whether it’s leaning on AI with Adobe Sensei, adding new features or just simply adjusting the user interface. Today’s the day for the latest on the Adobe Premiere Pro* updates.

Vertical Workspace

Video creation is great, but apparently, video creation for social media is even better. With platforms such as Instagram and Tiktok pushing the video viewing behavior from the traditional “landscape” 16:9 aspect viewing to “portrait” 9:16 aspect viewing, it’s been critical that content creators embrace not only shooting for vertical viewing, but also editing for it. Adobe has added a dedicated Vertical workspace for this purpose. It has also updated the Essentials workspace to really help editors that are on a single screen or laptop.

Image: Adobe

Proxy Workflow

Working with proxy files in video editing is nothing new, but Adobe has opt to make it more obvious to the editor that proxy files are being utilized in the project timeline. This is done by adding badges to the clips in the timeline that are proxies, as well as adding badges to the file in the project bin.

Image: Adobe

New Text Tools

The update also includes the ability to add nice looking shadows and gradients to text you create as graphics in your video. The interface is still the same, there’s just another field added.

Image: Adobe

Other updates include improved performance for M1 Apple computers as well as additional GPU-Accelerated effects. More info on the update can be found on the Adobe blog post here.



*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Thank You, Lensrentals

It’s been a pretty challenging year for me, and quite frankly, I’ve enjoyed it. Yeah I wish some things were easier for me professionally, but at the same time, I do enjoy the challenges. I enjoy the small and large victories when they come, too. Recently, I’ve been fortunate enough to be offered an affiliate deal with someone I’ve dealt with regularly over the years - Lensrentals.com*

I’ve been using Lensrentals to help me with projects and gigs directly or indirectly for years now. Whenever I want just play with a camera, I rent one from Lensrentals. Whenever a client needed a particular piece of kit that I don’t have for the job, I have them rent it from Lensrentals (or rent it myself). Whenever someone asks me about buy a new camera, I tell them to rent what they’re thinking about before buying it via. . .Lensrentals.

This year I’ve been fortunate to partner with Lensrentals to help me out with my show, Hands-On Photography and other segments I’ve created at TWiT. More recently, they set me up with a lens to demo for wildlife photography. It was a fun demo and a great piece of kit to show off best practices and tips for shooting wildlife photography.

I want to thank Lensrentals for having me and say thank you to all of you that will use my affiliate link to check out photography gear rentals. It’s easy, just click here* or go to antpruitt dot com slash lensrentals to get to my affiliate store front. Each rental view my storefront will help support me and my creative endeavors to be able to get more gear and/or pay for more projects I’m working on. Thanks, yall.

**Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Sony's "Basic" A7 Isn't So "Basic" Now: Sony A7 IV Full-frame Mirrorless Camera

The rumored Sony A7 IV is now here for pre-order. Sony has kicked up the standards when it comes to what a “base model” full-frame camera can offer its consumers. Really great specs announced with the A7 IV.

Tech Specs

With this new camera body you’re getting a full-frame 33 megapixel sensor with Sony’s updated BIONZ XR image processor. You’re also getting:

  • 4K 60 frames per second 10-bit 4:2:2 video with full pixel readout

  • 7K oversampling full-frame 4K 30p 4:2:2

  • Eye auto focus for humans, animals and birds

  • S-Cinetone, S-Log3, HLG and other video profiles to record your footage

  • Up to 15 stops of dynamic range

  • Dual SD card slots (1 for UHS-I/II cards, 1 for both UHS-I/II cards and CFExpress Type A cards)

  • 10 frames person second shooting still

  • Flip-out touch screen on the back

  • 5-axis in-body stabilization

Image by Sony

This body is available for $2499 on pre-order*. That price point seems fair considering the massive spec bump shown in this body compared to previous models. Compact, light weight which makes it great for portability. Of course I’ve reached out to see if I can get my hands on one. I’m curious to see how this body will feel in my hands. The A7C did NOT feel good in my hands, but the A7R-IV and A1 felt great in my hands. What are your thoughts on the Sony A7 IV?

**Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.