Phil Tenser » Freelance

Michelle’s portfolio site

Phil Tenser — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:47:31 +0000

For the first time I’ve compiled a WordPress theme completely from scratch. I did this to build a completely unique portfolio website for my beautiful girlfriend, Michelle. She recently graduated from the Newhouse School and is seeking a job in television reporting.

The homepage features her image alongside a YouTube video of her choice floating inside a television. The video is automatically pulled from any video-bearing post tagged “featured.”

On individual pages in the site, videos are featured at the top using the extra fields function of WordPress. Adding video to a post requires no html editing, and is handled by a set of function scripts capable of sourcing from many popular video websites. Michelle simply needs to enter which site the video is coming from and the serial number of that video. The rest is automatic. This is based on code included in a theme by Foxinni.

The archive and index (work) pages use the popular Timthumb script to deal with resizing and and featuring images for each post. Currently, the only known malfunction with the website is that these Timthumb images are not working on Internet Explorer. Now that I’m done writing this, however, its time to go figure out why.

New project gone LIVE

Phil Tenser — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:20:56 +0000

PandavisionProductions.com brand new home page - built by Phil Tenser

For a number of weeks I’ve been working with my friend Erick on a custom website to showcase the videos he’s been making. Some are simple projects from his youth, most are complex video productions from school and work.

This completely custom site is built on the WordPress platform, meaning everything is completely customizable by the end user – including which thumbnails appear in the homepage collage, and where. The design is based on proofs built by Erick in PowerPoint.

Tools used to build the site were borrowed from some other public-domain WordPress templates, (why re-invent the wheel?) but I am proud to say that the homepage collage system is completely of my own creation.

More screen captures:

A sample of a PandavisionProductions.com video page

A sample of a PandavisionProductions.com archive page

Erick's original homepage design

Working on a CONNECT overhaul

Phil Tenser — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:16:56 +0000

One is the new website… The other is the old.

Obviously, I am trying to keep many of the design elements the same. Mostly, I want it to be a clean, news-magazine style.

I am using the Mimbo theme this time, although it has some minor CSS edits, including that mast-head image, fonts, and colors throughout.

It has been a good learning experience, and I think that it will be a great benefit to the CONNECT program to have a platform they can continue to build overtime. CONNECTers (students in the program) will only need a minimal amount of web-savy to post, but they will also have the ability within the css framework to get more complex, or even include flash and html coding of their own.

For those who don’t know much about web publishing, I’ve done my best to predict and organize the site. I’ve created dozens of categories that only appear on the back end until someone uses them. Mimbo has timThumb built in and does all the resizing work for the entire site (although it was a pain to figure out how to set up its cache folder).

In all, I’m sure there will be requests to change the styling somehow – and lord knows you can fuss with colors till the cows come home – but I believe the framework and the content are ready to replace the old site as soon as I get the approval from the professors.

Disaster Drill

Phil Tenser — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:44:15 +0000

I haven’t done any freelance work since my audio editing for LegalWiz, so today was a welcome experience: 8 hours of video work and archiving for Syracuse Police and Syracuse University on the occasion of the annual disaster drill. Staging a scenario much like the Virginia Tech incident, Syracuse Police partnered with the Newhouse School’s Newspaper department to arrange an on-campus shooter and hostage scenario played out with actors, empty weapons, and even a helicopter rescue. Check out this minute-long clip of my footage following “Team 1,” the first team into the building after the start of the scenario. I am very sure I choose the best minute of the video.

These videos were recorded for 2 purposes:

To show newspaper students what actually went on inside the building to verify whether they got the story right through interviews with the victims (actors). Each was given some roles to play before the start of the scenario, and no one actor saw all of the events inside the building. It will be used to verify the information in the student’s articles and to reinforce the importance of verification.
For a review of tactics and methods by the Syracuse University police department. Our raw videos, about 50 minutes each from 6 cameras, are being given to the department on DVD so that they can do an internal review of their performance in the drill.

While it was not a normal shooting or editing experience, it was an interesting one. It definitely reinforced reporting standards for me, and it gave an unbeatable perspective on the ways in which these events actually play out.

Here is Joe Blum’s edit of the video for Syracuse University

CAPS Training Video

Phil Tenser — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:09:29 +0000

Communication, Appearance, and Problem Solving (CAPS) video, produced on Freelance for Syracuse University Student Centers and Programming Services.

This Twilight Zone spoof was produced for the Fall training program at SCPS. Each fall building managers, information desk attendants, and events technical personnel are run through the paces for 2 intensive days. This video was created to be they keystone of the training by the SCPS Employee Advisory Council.