FInal Cut being evil

Sooooo next class if anyone has had this happen to them can you please please help me!!! I am editing a waiting scene and all i need is to fade from one scene to another and final cut keeps saying i have insufficient media. Which is crazzzzyyyy ahhh so frustrating if anyone knows whats going on please help

it's friday

SOOO... im sure most of you have seen the horrid Rebecca Black music video for "Friday". If you have not, I discourage you from ever watching it if you want to save what you have left of your sanity. Anyway, the recent dubbing project we were just given reminded me of a video I happened to stumble upon while resisting my school work. It's a dubbed version of the song and it had me laughing pretty hard for a while. so i suggest clicking the link in the title.. and remember, tomorrow is friday. its the day before saturday. and after saturday comes sunday. in case you all forgot. thank you Rebecca Black for your incredible lyrical talents. they will surely be criticized for months to come. that is all.

iDVD problems

Heyy fellow Fiction Field-ers! So I'm having a problem with my iDVD. After I export my file as a quicktime off Final Cut Express and drag it into iDVD it goes through all the steps but when it gets to one of the last steps it ejects the dvd. The problem is there are still steps to go when it ejects the dvd so it never fully finalizes. So frustrating! Has anyone ever had the same problem?

Final Cut's Being a Bitch

Okay, so, for the GDK project we recorded our good audio (from the boom mic) on the right channel. I am now trying to use only that channel to make the audio duel-mono. I've de-linked the stereo pair and re-positioned a copy of the good track to run in parallel with the original, but when I go to change the pan to -1 (so that it will come out of the left channel), it won't let me. It will let me move the slider or type in a number into the pan value, but it wont do anything and when I de-select it and then re-select it, the audio says that pan is at 1, even though I just changed it. This and the fact that Final Cut has been slow and jumpy with the amount of footage in it is making me very short-tempered.

What am I doing wrong?

LA Noire: First Video Game At Tribeca Film Festival

dubs

So this new project that we're doing made me remember these videos. They're wicked funny. The guy takes bad "as seen on tv" products and dubs them over and makes them wicked funny, in my opinion. I love em. Not really too appropriate but hey.
I recommend the oxiclean dub, mighty mend it, the gopher, and mighty putty.

rest in peace billy mays.

Some Inspiration

While looking around for clips for the ADR project we are setting up I thought maybe I should try to find some examples of dubbed footage that has been reworked. Then I thought back to some childhood favorites, MXC (Most Extreme Elimination Challenge) and Kung Pow. MXC is a show that aired on Spike TV a few years back that takes an asian game show and completely dubs it to create even more humor. The end result is a surreal spectacle that is hard to believe actually exists.

The second thing I mentioned was Kung Pow. It splices new characters, scenes, effects, and audio into a 1970s martial arts film. The result is equally as ridiculous as the show posted above.

Ichi The Killer

Last night a friend and I watched (or tried to watch) a Japanese film called Ichi the Killer directed by Takashi Miike. It was based on a manga series also called Ichi the Killer. We didn't finish the movie mainly due to the fact that it has no plot. The film starts off with a man named Kakihara looking for his "boss" (they are members of a crime syndicate) and a mysterious figure named Ichi lurking around the city (presumably Tokyo). When you finally get acquainted with all the characters and their roles in the story (more than thirty minutes into the film) you find out the boss is dead. From their is no apparent impetus for the rest of the action. You have this vague notion that Kakihara is looking for Ichi (who killed "the boss"), but that is not really clear. The bulk of what we watched is made up of torture or sexual fantasy scenes (frequently a combination of the two) that contribute nothing to story other than to show you how messed up these people are. I'm not against violence in movies, but like every other aspect of film, it has to be relevant to the whole story. Not just some exposé of how many gory things something can think of and fit into a ninety minute movie.

It's not a forgettable movie, it just has no point. If you must watch it, let it be for no other reason than to say that you have seen it.

Slightly Repetitive Post

Just seconding Jamie's post about our shoot this past weekend. The house was actually incredibly disgusting- the guy living in it knew as much about the basement as we did. There were cobwebs literally everywhere (I even had a dream about cobwebs last night, it was gross), scary doors, and just grossness. But it was definitely grungy enough to work, and if anyone needs a dark/scary/grungy/gross corner or something for their shoot, I suggest asking your friends who live off-campus if they have a basement they never use or have never even entered before.

But overall, the shoot went well, and I'm looking forward to finishing shooting on Thursday and getting into post.

Its Monday Already...whoa

Lots of shooting over the weekend for GDK. Business school pt. I on Friday evening; green screen studio and parking garage on Saturday (plus relay for life); business school pt. II Sunday morning. Plenty of footage to look through, already started editing some.

Limitless

So I saw limitless this weekend. For anyone unfamiliar with the concept of the movie, the main character takes a drug called NZT that allows him to access 100% of his brain, enabling him to basically be a complete bad ass and do whatever he wants. The story was pretty cool but the best part of the film for me was the color correction. It was awesome. They used color correction to set the mood in every scene. The color told you whether or not he was on NZT, what his state of mind was, etc. It was so effective. I loved it. That is all.

Paris Je T'aime

Hey guys,
So for one of my classes, I had to watch the movie Paris Je T'aime (Paris, I love you). What I found to be really interesting about this movie was that it was made up of 18 short films. All of the movies dealt with some sort of relationship, but they were all SO different. Each "vignette" was directed by a different director so they all had a different feel to them as well. What was really cool was that even though all of these short films were so different, when they were put together they formed a whole story - the whole is greater than the sum of its parts kinda thing. I think its cool how you can have one comprehensive unit that's made up of things that are so different than each other.

In other news, we'll be filming our gdk tomorrow and wednesday. We unfortunately had to change the date from this saturday. Tomorrow will be a long day.

question, do we have class on thursday?

Monday monday gotta get down on monday

I see my frehhhhhnzzzz.

Getting to important things: From what I heard, we had some good shoots this weekend for our group. Good job team, Team Good Job. I couldn't be there because the show I DP for was doing some heavy filming this weekend. Let me tell you about it.

There were some long shots that are going to be a pain to edit. It's an argument scene between three people, so we pulled it off by doing handheld everything and getting a long master take, then three close-ups. It's a bit sloppy in the camera movement -- kind of Office style if you want to think of it that way -- but we didn't get any of the equipment in the shot so far as I'm concerned. The crew who weren't helping on set acted as extras. It went pretty well, aside from Stacey Lawrence's flubbed takes. That's right, I call people out by name. (It was funny, though.)

We filmed in the dining hall. Did I mention that? We filmed in the dining hall. Our location manager is a baller.

As far as professionally made stuff goes, I think I told you about Battle LA already. What about Sucker Punch? Clearly the post production work is excellent, and we're not going to see the movie for the storyline. But that doesn't justify the fact that the acting is just plain awful. Even from the trailer I knew that we were going to see some pretty wonky line delivery. Had the cast been a little more dramatic instead of running around killing things the entire time, it might have been a more decent film. But on first watch, it's just okay for now.

Finally, I've got to complain. Our second project isn't Field Production at all. We're taking pre-made footage and remixing it. I know editing, you know editing. It's first grade, Spongebob. I don't get it.

Wocka flocka flame, I'm out.

Second shoot went great!

Hope everyone who shot this weekend had a good shoot. I know Becca and I did!
We shot Saturday at a house on South Aurora, and sure, the house was a disgusting mess. BUT it was the perfect location. Our audio came out good and the lighting is amazing thanks to my awesome roommate (Rachel Rothenberg) who is practically a lighting goddess.

So basically all we have left to shoot is the outside stuff, its about 3 very short scenes. So please keep your fingers crossed that we have some decent weather soon.

Shutter Island

So obviously this a good movie no matter how you look at it, but what do you thin happens? I've heard some crazy ideas, but I can't disprove them. What do you think?

Green Screen

Thanks to Wed. class, we were able to get a jump start on our green screen scene of our lock smith shop. A green screen really wasn't necessary for our movie but we weren't able to find any local or will stores to let us shoot in their shop. We have to touch up some things in post, but overall the store looks really good. Wed was a great success and we were really happy that our GDN was made better do to you Prof. Sinclair. Can't wait to tell you what we have done tomorrow in class. Until then, God bless.

Steve Kinslow

Almost there....

Two days of shooting down one more to go. Here's a quick composite of our shoot today. It's rough and needs some tweaking (shadows) but I just wanted to post something to show there's progress being made haha.

Cloudy Day

Me, Alex, and Travis just finished one of our scenes for our film. It went really well, but the only complication was the cloudy day where the lighting was constantly changing! I know it's something that can be improved with FCP, but we ended up waiting for clouds to pass by, just in case. Overall our progress is going really well and we should be done shooting soon

-Marlee

Day for Night

Here a quick and dirty (and ugly:-) composite I just did against your background. I shot myself against a green fabric, with light coming from my window (too cold outside, hehe) , flipped it contrasted, desaturated and tinted the image to match the "light" on the parking lot. As a detail I added a "reflection" of the background in my glasses like we mentioned in class.

Light for parking lot

Hey arturo, this is kinda the lights that we need for that scene I was telling you.

Greenscreen Workshop

Hey guys,

So this past class we did the workshop for the greenscreen, and I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took:

For as long as I can remember, I've been curious as to how the greenscreen works, so it was amazing to finally find out. The scene showing in the pictures is supposed to resemble a locksmith's office, with the background being a wall of keys (I would upload the picture, but it's not on my computer, sorry!) Seeing as this is an incredibly short scene, I thought it would be relatively easy to light. Long story short: I was wrong. Even with the entire class helping, it took us easily about 30 minutes to get everything just right, but after seeing the final product, it was definitely worth it.

- Molly

Lichtfaktor

Since Leah posted her light writing piece I think she (and all of you) will be interested in the work of Lichtfaktor which are a couple of very active German artists. But in this video (no need to speak German to understand it!) you can also see the work of my favorite light graffiti collective. The fabulous and radical (and OPEN SOURCE!!! yeah!) Graffiti Research Lab. There is also a piece on the AR (augmented reality) group DAIM using tracking fiducials to create 3 dimensional light graffiti. This is the 21st century after all...

More Green Screen

word

hey guyss, life is pretty good. ya know. oh so I wanted to share with you all the fact that I can do cool things with lights... aka light gloves, glow sticks, LED hula hoops, you name it. and if anyone ever needs to shoot a "rave" scene or something like that I can hook you up with myself and friends of mine that share "light talent" abilities. ahah. but seriously, my friend Deanna just did a music video and it was craazy. all bright lights. ridiculous. So even in the next few weeks, months, years, whatever. if you are looking for something like that let me know. the led hoop is pretty sweet. take a looook (:

Team Member Down

Hey everyone, turns out Ellis withdrew from the course so Becca and I are a group member down.
If anyone is free Saturday the 26th from 330 until 10 at the very very latest and wouldn't mind lending a hand we'd really appreciate it. We just need a couple (or at least 1) extra person on set to be audio, or be a PA. anything really. Just text me or becca if you'd like to help out. Seriously though, I'd love you forever.

In-Class Test

Here's a screenshot of what the final composite would look something like from our test in class today. I just did some minor color correction and desaturation to make the characters blend with the background better.

Dominick Tavella

So I went to the Dominick Tavella presentation in Park last night. It was awesome. Mr. Tavella is a professional re-recording mixer. He is the last person the audio gets sent to and he completes the final mix. He has worked on huge films including the Black Swan and he won an academy award for his mixing in Chicago. Basically he was really awesome and he shared with us some insight into the world of mixing and the professional business. It was super interesting.

There's a video contest for everything

I just saw a contest on the site I just linked in the last post. In response to Face's post, which is....the one before that, there is a video contest for Blizzard's Anniversary.

Great Website

For anyone who doesn't know about this website it's pretty awesome. On this website there are a ton of online video contests. I know I get bored a lot and always want to be making movies or doing something with video and this site is a great incentive. The contests on this site are organized by due date. It tells you how many days are left until the deadline for that competition as well as all the rules and guidelines. All the contests also have prizes, most are money, some are trips, others are items. There was a really cool one on there I saw that was a 48 hour film competition. I know we talked about a 24 hour film fest last week in class. For this contest participants are entered into a raffle at the beginning of the 48 hours and are randomly assigned a genre, some characters, and plot points. From there on you must write, shoot, and edit the movie and get it uploaded to the website by the 48 hour deadline. That's pretty awesome.

green screens are pretty sick

today in class we shot a short scene from our GDK and after we got everything in place i was really impressed with exactly what was possible with the green screen. i mean it had reflections from our background on things like the desk. after effects looks like it does a lot of the work, or maybe arturo just made it look easy, probably the latter. we did have some scares as far as styrofoam ceilings go but im really glad we did that in class today i think i learned a lot

Speaking of Anniversaries...

I remember seeing that March 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the Blizzard gaming company (back then, it was called Silicon & Synapse). I didn't watch the entire video, but I thought it was interesting if your in the gaming culture and like computers. I think Arturo mentioned working in games at one point. Funny how in twenty years, the company went from some young college kids making computer games to one of the biggest gaming companies in the world responsible for such titles as World of Warcraft and Diablo.

After-Effects and its amazingness

The end of class kind of blew my mind. After taking nearly the entire class to set up the lights and scene I figured we wouldn't be able to actually make a finished product. Once Arturo put the footage in, it took him 5 minutes to make a realistic scene. I thought it was amazing. That after-effects automatically made the reflection on the desk fit with the scene, that was awesome. Just how fast the process was and how many options you have to tweak things and make it look exactly how you want, I thought it was incredible.

"Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert" PBS coverage

Over spring break I watched the "Les Miserables 25th Anniversary Concert" on PBS. Although I've watched many of the shows that this station has covered on Great Performances and other programs, I was completely blown away by this special. Since theatre is most powerful when it is seen live in the audience, I did not expect to be as moved as I was by this televised event. Though the actors were of course phenomenal and the music itself is timeless, I believe it was the coverage and camera work that added to the overall feel of this piece. The cameras were cut with such precision that the viewer never got bored of seeing a singular shot for too long. I know this has a lot to do with studio production since it was directed from a remote truck, many of the features such as interviews and backstage tours can be viewed as field production.

finally getting started

So after a few weeks of finalizing our script, props, cast, and locations of scenes, we (Molly, Gabe, Steve) are going to start shooting tomorrow in the commons. As of now, we have three days to shoot all our our scenes with a fourth day to go back and redo shoots we didn't like in post. Once again, I hope the snow doesn't get in our way and stop us from getting started. We have a lot to work to do and we really need all the days prior to April 11th to make this movie look great. If anyone has any advice or words of encouragement before we start, please do so. Other than that, I will be seeing most of you in a few hours.

Steve Kinslow

Enter the Void

If you want to watch one of the craziest movies ever, please take some time and watch Enter The Void.


Its a French movie, about a drug dealer named Oscar, who gets shot in Japan after being chased by security guards. He then has an out of body experience that leads him to follow his life after death.

This movie is shot in first person for nearly the entire movie, and is just visual masterpiece. Some of the scenes in the movie literally blow my mind, and i hope your mind can feel the same effect after watching this movie..


enjoy