Golden Doorknob Recap!

Ok so you all of you guys that DIDN'T go to the golden doorknob awards yesterday...You all suck!
But to be quite honnest I was really surprised by how well done the finalists and honorable mentions were. A lot of them had really creative shots and the lighting was really well done. You could tell that the producers of the films really took their time in setting everything up and finding the right people to play particular parts. Even though my groups doorknob was in the "looser reel" the audience was laughing and to be quite honest I feel like that was what my group was going for, to make people both remember playing those games and laugh about the "what ifs". But all in all, I'm glad for everyone who received something.

Goodbye Michael Scott

For anyone who didn't watch the Office last night, it was Steve Carell's last episode. The episode featured the likes of Will Ferrell, Will Arnet, and a number of other guest stars. I really enjoyed the final episode because it was really different from what a normal episode of The Office is like. Yes, there was humor but it was also really sad. I think Steve Carell did an amazing job at showing the emotion of leaving your co-workers that you've been with for a long time. I also enjoyed the last episode because you get to see how much everyone loved Michael. They always criticize his antics during the episodes cause he's ridiculous but in this episode you get to see what everyone really thought about him. In the link is a review of the episode. I don't know why I put it up there but it's up there.

oh..hey end of the year

end of the years real close everythings stacking up as usual. Uhh as far as fiction field i have about half (about a minute) of my short i need another person to do a second voice. i was doing the VO on garage band and imovie and its kind of annoying. but all that aside its not as horrible as id initially thought matching up the mouth movement and stuff.

miami vs. boston who ya got?

rick roll trailer

So as I'm supposed to be work on papers and projects... I'm obviously getting incredibly distracted. stumbledupon this trailer for a fake movie but its got all the famous viral video characters. pretty funny, thought i'd share. link is the title

museum of the moving image

hey all, if you guys haven't heard or been to the Museum of the Moving Image I really really suggest it. Its located in Queens NY, a bit of a travel for some, but definitely worth it. If you ever find yourself in NYC take a subway to Queens for the day. I went with some friends a few months ago when it re-opened and it was really interesting and engaging. If you have some love for cinema and want to learn more I suggest it. One of the films they were showing was basically a story told through the music put to it. and each person takes it a different way and turns it into their own story. The sound and images were not put together in any particular way, which makes it interesting. I hope some of you look further into this, its worth it.

Mugglenet!

Okay, I know, dorkiest thing possible, but whatever. There's this site called Mugglenet that is a source for basically everything Harry Potter (the title is a link to it). They have news about the movies, books, video games, and actors, caption contests, Harry Potter dessert recipes, trivia- okay, basically, if it relates to Harry Potter, it's on that site.

But this isn't just a post about the site- the creators of the site have a podcast that comes out pretty frequently and has been going on for years. Because the new trailer for the last Harry Potter movie just came out yesterday (if you haven't watched it yet, stop reading and go do that right now), their podcast for this week is an analysis of the trailer. In the last "trailer talk" of theirs that I listened too, they had images from the trailer to go with it so that you could follow along with what they were analyzing. I mean, it's pretty dorky, but if you're really excited for the last movie and you want to try and make sense of some weird clips/shots that were too fast, it's fun. So if you're a Harry Potter fan and you have a few extra minutes lying around, I suggest you go listen to at least a little of Mugglenet's latest podcast. And maybe watch the trailer several more times.

Trailer mash-up

The projects that Jamie and Jenna did reminded me of this trailer mash-up. It's a combination of 500 days of Summer and Community and I think it's pretty well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uy8WbRUL_8

End of the Year

So, although I wasn't in class today, I am almost done with my ADR project, I think it looks alright, I really do need someone to look at it and give me feedback though. But its the end of the year we've only got one more week till finals, and than its summer.

Also, does anyone else hate registration??????? (and i know that everyone does) but I hate how they only have one, possibly two sections open for required classes. I really think that they need to revamp the system, not the way in which we choose classes but the number of classes that are available to students.
But anyways, thats my rant about registration. Hope everyone's ADR projects are coming together well.

Almost Done

Well finally the end of the year is here and I can't wait to be done with classes. Im content with my ADR project, for now and I only have a couple of finals. So needless to say I am already slacking off.

Matt Walker

Summertime

So close to the end of the year! I can't wait for classes to be over and to just enjoy the summer. Hope everyones ADR project went well... mine did--the third time around. Final cut crashed and deleted everything. so after 9 straight hours of work I got to start over...that was fun (not really. it was a nightmare). But luckily it was the last project! Yayyy!!!

Mother of all Remixes

After watching the Everything is a Remix in class today I though I would talk about one of my favorite recent films. Rango is simply an amazing piece of work. Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) the film pays homage to a great number of films both in terms of storytelling structure, some memorable characters and even music and lighting.

Films referenced are of course "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Hitchkikers Guide to the Galaxy", "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", "A Bug's Life" (based itself in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai), "For a Few Dollars More" (Sergio Leone), John Ford westerns, the extraordinary "Chinatown" (Roman Polanski) which shares the core story, "There Will be Blood" (Paul Thomas Anderson) in terms of lighting, and great characters based on such icons as John Huston (in Chinatown), Lee Van Cleef's in For a Few Dollars More, which in Rango is the very bad Rattlesnake Jake. and, yes, Clint Eastwood as "the Spirit of the Desert", poncho and all. (And oh, a wink to Star Wars and their Tie Fighters!, why not) I am sure there are many other references I missed. Let me know!

John Huston in Roman Polanski's "Chinatown"

In short it is a film fest, definitely go see it in the big screen if you can! Needless to say the character modeling, animation, environments, shaders and particularly the acting, etc are simply outstanding. Talking about acting, some of the characters are actually played by their actors, (like Johnny Depp) who are not only doing voice over. And the subtlety of their emotions down to the smallest twitches is a pleasure to watch.

Lee Van Cleef in "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly"

The lighting throughout the film really impressed me the most. The lighting plans were so detailed and intricate and they gave the film a very unique look.

I read an interview with Tim Alexander, the visual effects supervisor on the film. An interesting interview because Tim discussed how Industrial Light & Magic, a company used to working in live action, had to adapt their entire workflow to create an animated feature length film.

Tim said lighting was difficult for them because they are so used to receiving video plates where the lighting in the shot has already been composed by the DOP, in which case they just created their effects based on the existing lighting plot.

Creating an image that was 100% animated was difficult because they had to create the lighting from scratch. To help them with this problem, they hired an experienced DOP, Roger Deakins (Shawshank Redemption, True Grit, O Brother, Where Art Thou, Fargo, Dead Man Walking, etc) to help them figure out lighting designs. I must say the plan definitely worked because the lighting is simply perfect!

Photographs copyright © 2011 by Paramount Pictures

ADR Project

So fro the ADR project I have been working on Disney's famous Aladdin animated motin picture. The scene I will be working with is the the scene where Aladdin meets the Genie. In my script, Aladdin still rubs the lamp to find a ghost instead of a Genie and the story goes from there. There is no three wishes but instead three people Aladdin come rise from the dead (one of the three rules the Genie didn't allow Aladdin to wish for in the real movie) My roommate has Pro tools so most of my work is on his computer. I've been having a lot of fun with the characters voices and sadly I had to the cut the project right before my favorite song "Never Had a Friend Like Me" by Robin Williams because my singing voice would jsut ruin the entire thing. Since I don't have Pro Tools on my computer, tomorrow in class I can just show my script and the video of my project. I can't wait for this all to be done so I can show the class what I have been working on. Hope all is well with everyone Else's project in the class. One last thing, if anyone has any good monkey impressions or can find me a link to where I cn get good SFX, please let me know. thanks

See ya tomorrow

i hate rendering

I have a question. Is there any way to make it so you don't have to render the footage every time you do something to it? Probably a stupid question but it gets really annoying.
thank you!

FCP vs. Avid?

Final Cut Pro VS Avid from Jill DiBiase on Vimeo.

Strikes a cord?

International Museum of Photography and Film

Are you aware that you are just an hour and 45 minutes away from one of the great film museums in this country? The George Eastman House in Rochester NY should be one of your soon-destinations if you have not been there.

This 1925 Jos-Pe camera has one of the largest lenses I have seen (excluding astronomy of course) Its almost half foot diameter lens enabled it to take 3 negatives simultaneously via beam-splitters, each filtered red, green and blue, that when optically composited together resulted in a full color image.

There is also a collection of some "spy cameras" some of them quite ridiculous, like this one called Pocket Photo-Revolver! I don't think anybody would be the least concerned about being surreptitiously photographed when pointed at with it!

I really love the Mutoscopes which are like glorified flip-books. These are in a hands-on area where you can play around with different devices and even print your own silhouettes or draw your own animations and play them back in a Zoetrope

Not only do they have a great collection of many of the most important cameras, projectors and other very strange paraphernalia going back to the humble simple mechanisms of the moving image, but they also present large exhibits, like the current Civil War collection as well as the upcoming 360|365 George Eastman House Film Fest (formerly known as the High Falls Film Festival or HF3) which starts in a couple of days. There will be 21 countries represented by about a 100 films that will be running in four venues around town. Among some of the highlights this year, Julie Taymor (Lion King, The Tempest, Titus, Frida) will be present to receive the Susan B. Anthony Award.

So, don't potato yourself, get of your couch and head on to one of the beautiful regions around us at the shore of one of the great lakes. Just as an extra enticement, the Strong National Museum of Play is just a few blocks away. You will be able to intoxicate yourself with every imaginable game you remember and many you have no idea they existed, from the earliest toys to the current electronic and arcade games and virtual reality research.

ALL RIGHT I GOT THIS.

I got this idea for the project earlier today in the shower. Yeah. In the shower. Shut up, the shower is a magical place. What, you've never been in there and thought, "I'm gonna write a novel about some termite overlords" and then gone and written a novel about termite overlords? What the bloody hell are you doing in there?

Anyway, it's going to be a trailer for Ithaca's first-ever horror/thriller TRIPLE FEATURE. I'm using clips from three old B-movies: Invasion of the Bee Girls, Driller Killer, and A Certain Sacrifice. I'm doing this because -- let's face it -- nobody hates a poorly ADRed B-movie trailer. I think I can get away with this if anything.

I'm still not totally convinced that this project is what I think it is, but whatever. All I know is that the grade doesn't matter as long as it looks good... and as long as the grade's good.

PS: The clips that I'm using have people in no clothes sometimes. No clothes! Oh goodness, oh gracious! Whatever shall we do? Call the authorities! The ambulance! The rescue squad! Ha ha, don't really do that, because it's ART.

I mean Picasso would be like, "Whoa bro, that's art" and I'd say, "Bro" and he'd say "Bro." Then we'd have a bropocalypse of art. Bro.

Feedback

for my project, the clips that im putting over the trailer, dont really match up, but they make sense. Would it look weird even if the voices dont match the way the lips move, even though the rest of the trailer works.

Line Changing

Coming up with changed lines that will tell my story while still trying to make the lip movements believable is really hard... That is all...

51 Birch Street

Last night I went with my friend to Cinemapolis and saw the documentary '51 Birch Street' by Cornell alum' Doug Block. I thought it was really good and so insightful into what we really know and don't know about our parents. The film opens with the director interviewing his mother and asking her questions about both her marriage and his own upbringing. After she dies, Block discovers her diaries and learns of her discontent within her marriage. Not only does Block gain insight about his parents' marriage but also his own. In addition, he grows closer to his father. It was really cool after the documentary Block was at the screening to answer questions and talk about the process that went into creating his work.

This is a trailer of the doc:

Projects are a great way to spend a weekend...

Hey everyone,

So I'm home for the weekend and chugging away with this ADR project. Quick question though-- What's the minimum time limit for this project? Right now I only have a minute of material, I might be able to stretch it to just under 2 minutes, but I'm doing a TV show promo, so I'm not sure if I can really get it to be much longer than that. Help?

I hope you're all enjoying your weekend.

Voice Changing

I never knew there was a pitch-changing tool in Final Cut before, so now I'm having fun trying to figure out what all the various attributes do. Does anyone know how to make a voice more feminine (there is a female character in my edit, but I don't have a female voice actor)? Just changing the pitch doesn't really do the trick, it just gives it a chipmunk-like sound. Also, what are all these variables? Smooth, analysis window, overlap, reset scale...What is all this?

Happy Earth Day!

Cartoon by my good friend and amazing artist Rich Powell. You can also check his blog which shows great current work in progress and his shop where he sells prints and originals of his artwork. He also publishes a hilarious weekly cartoon call Dixie Drive, talk about a productive artist:-)!

30 Minutes or Less

Here is the trailer for 30 Minutes or Less. It's a new comedy coming out with Jesse Eisenburg, Aziz, and (Kenny Powers) forget his real name. The link is in the title.

How to Train Your Dragon

I can't remember if I've already posted about this movie- it's entirely possible, because every time I listen to the score I get re-obsessed with it. I realize it's a kid movie about an adorable dragon and Vikings and fire, but: it's a kid movie about an adorable dragon and Vikings and fire. I mean, you can give me some leeway, right?

But seriously, the score is absolutely fantastic. I think it got nominated for an Academy Award, John Powell's first (I think). Powell worked on Ice Age, The Road to El Dorado (w/ Hans Zimmer- anyone remember this movie? I remember liking it), Shrek, Robots, Horton Hears a Who!, and PS I Love You. So my recommendation is to either listen to a few of the tracks from the score (like Forbidden Friendship, Downed Dragon, and See You Tomorrow) or just go see the movie. It's a legitimately fun movie, really. I promise.

AND THAT DRAGON IS SO CUTE.

I mean, ahem. What was I doing? Right: intelligent conversation about the composer. Ahem.

No really, just please listen to the music or see the movie. It's a fun time all around.

adr

for my adr project I'm using clips from spongebob and the movie Se7en. It's coming together pretty well actually. I am hopefully recording voices tonight. All is going good.

p.s.- what is a transcript.. I know its like an academic record that you send out to other schools and colleges. but I was confused when that word was used in class today. didn't really make any sense to me. can someone clear that up?

Zombies Ate my Neighbors

So for the ADR project I am adding voiceovers and clips of anchorman over a clip from the old nintendo game zombies ate my neighbors. So far it looks ok, but I don't exactly now how its going to sound when I include the voiceovers with the movie clips. Also, I used some Call of Duty Black Ops background noise.

ADRADRADRADRADR

Finally started editing my ADR project, im using a trailer for the dance movie "You Got Served", and then putting in clips from South Park to make the trailer.

I downloaded about 7 episodes of South Park, that i watched first. The episodes all have some aspect of dancing, which will definitely help me out, when i cut my clips.

Project doesnt seem to hard for now, but i think when we start using Pro tools for the actual ADR part of it, it'll definitely get harder.


Hope everyones project is going swimmingly.

More HDR

Thanks to Travis for the link. This is an HDR photo by dacoach89_89 which I find pretty cool. I like the entropy that wrestles everything to dust again!

So, if I wanted to insert a 3D object or character into this background I could use the picture itself as an illuminating source, so that the 3d character would perfectly fit in that environment as if it had been actually there.

I quote from the Maya documentation: With image-based lighting, you use an environment texture (an image file) to illuminate the scene. Typically, the image is a photograph of a real environment, either a panoramic image or a photograph produced by taking pictures of a chrome ball (to capture the surrounding environment).

This is a technology developed by Paul Devebec, a USC researcher who is best known for his work in high dynamic range imaging and image-based modelling and rendering. He was awarded (along with Tim Hawkins, John Monos and Mark Sagar) a 2009 Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the design and engineering of the Light Stage capture device .

You have seen or can see his work in some of these films: The Matrix (1999), Spider-Man 2 (2004), King Kong (2005), Superman Returns (2006), Spider-Man 3 (2007), and Avatar (2009).

Image from HDR Shop, an HDR image processing and manipulation tool that you can download HERE , unfortunately Windows only:-(

HDRI

I was exploring on flickr when I came across some interesting photos. I did a little research and found out they were done using a technique called HDRI (high dynamic range imaging) or HDR for short. Basically what you do is take multiple shots of the same image; one with a normal exposure, one underexposed, and one overexposed. Then you bring the images into some editing software (something like photomatix) and put the images on top of each other. The result is a single image that supposedly has a higher dynamic range than the human eye. I think the pictures look a lot like video game images only more realistic. You can do this with digital or film and it can be done with video. The video link is in the title. Here is a link for some HDR still images:

PHOTOSTREAM

Non CG Special Effects

So I was reading online and came across this article. The article explains that modern technology has effected the special effects in films and shows, but just because we have the technology to add in effects and such, sometimes adding effects in in post-production doesn't necessarily make things look better. This article shows a few examples of ways in which to create effects, while shooting a production. Its actually really interesting. The link is in the title if you want to take a look at it.

Am I doing the project right?

Seriously. I have no idea what I'm doing with this. It's just awkward for me to take two movies or something and try to put them together, then ADR over it and make something "new." Even if I were to ADR it and change the lines to make it fit, it would still look awful.

I would rather make something original that I know will look good and sound good rather than hack together something from a bunch of different clips from a limited selection. I'd ADR a Disney movie, but oops! Those aren't free domain.

Anyhow, I've got Plan 9 on the docket right now. I'll see what I can do with that..

Confusedly,
Will

2nd project

So for my second project, I decided to do a mash up of Rex Ryan (the NY Jets coach) interviews and make fun of all the things he has said or done in the past. Since they never show the reporters faces, I can make up the questions to make my answers easier to dub over when Rex talks. I think that I can do a great job with this and that it will be fun and entertaining to do. If anyone has any good ideas, please let me know. I have already started the voice overs, and the rest is still yet to come.


Steve

dont look now but it might be nce outside

weathers starting to pick up and its about time. got about 1 min on my ADR transcribed and still looking for a good george w bush character/voice. any ideas for what i can combine his speech with? i was thinking another interview but im still not sure

The Academy

One of the many exhibitions that the Academy holds throughout the year

Sometimes we think of the Academy as something remote that we connect with every year during the Oscars. But of course it is a lot more than that. As students of entertainment media there is much to learn and benefit from the numerous activities that you can have access to if you are in LA for your internship. So make sure to check their calendar of events.

At the very least be informed by the innumerable articles, research in the science and technology of movies, and of the numerous grants, internships and fellowships that the Academy grants every year to educational institutions across the country.

As a student of Ithaca College you are part of a select community of individuals who are expected to make their mark in the industry of communications and storytelling. Variety, which is the premier source of entertainment news in the world of show business, lists IC as one of the top media programs in the nation. It is up to you to use this platform to further your career opportunities. It takes work, and passion. Your call.

cutting trailers to give them a different meaning

I came across these on youtube today! I thought they were pretty cool like they take movies and give them a completely different meaning!

Toy Story 3: The Dark Knight

(500) Days of Summer recut as a thriller

ESPN Presentation

I know this was a few days ago, but I thought I should post about the ESPN panel on friday afternoon. If you are interested in working in sports video, you should have gone. It was a great experience. A dozen alums were there including Karl Ravech who for all you baseball fans is kind of the man. There were producers and the guy who makes the awesome graphics for sportscenter. They talked about transitioning to 3D and trying to stay on top of the business. It was really cool. Also, Park Aud was completely packed. Standing room only. Crazy.

Game of Thrones

So I watched the premiere of Game of Thrones last night and I really enjoyed it. The first episode was pretty much a setup episode showing a few of the kingdoms in the story and their ties to one another. It also introduces the main players in the story and their relationships. Like every HBO series there was lots and lots and lots of sex! I don't want to give away too much of anything because I know other people (becca) are planning on watching it. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season I feel like it will be really good.

Almost Summer

I'm just realizing now how little time we have until the end of the semester. Seems crazy, it feels like we just got back from Christmas Break. But nonetheless, I'm excited for some time off from classes and such. Anyone else staying in Ithaca over the summer??

The animation used in Tangled v. Toy Story 3

So I watched Tangled for like the third time on thursday night and the animation still blows my mind. I found it shocking that it wasn't Pixar that created it but Walt Disney Animation Studios. The next day I watched Toy Story 3, which was created by Pixar Disney animation and it is obvious that the animation was different. I was wondering how the studio that produces the film effects how it is animated? Do they use totally different programs even though both are affiliated with Disney?

animated photography

So I was procrastinating, wasting time on the internet, what else is new. And I stumbled upon this. and no, not from the website. I thought it was really cool so I figured I'd pass it along. Just goes to show you how you can combine photography and video. Very cool stuff. Anyway, see everyone bright and early tomorrow morning.

Game of Thrones

So I feel the need to watch Sean Bean be awesome and epic, but HBO and Hulu don't have full episodes on their site, and while HBO's previews and the behind-the-scenes stuff would be cool to watch, I want to actually watch an episode before I go click on everything on their site. Is it out online somewhere? I mean, I'm taking a wild guess and saying that it definitely is, I'm just wondering if anyone had found anything that was okay quality. On that note, did anyone watch it (Luke?)? Apparently this is HBO's comeback attempt (I think I read it was a $60 mil gamble), so I'd like to know if it looks like they're going to succeed.

But it has Sean Bean, so I shouldn't be worried.

Fan Girl Moment!

So a few weeks ago I posted my ukulele cover of Alexz Johnson's "Skin".

This morning, I found out that not only had Alexz Johnson seen my video, but she tweeted it. This is really cool news, because I was a huge fan of Instant Star, and so I absolutely adore her. So yeah, it's extremely awesome to have a professional you admire enjoy your work!!!

However, I also found this a little irritating, because I realized that video in particular was recorded and edited very quickly, and so the quality is quite poor. I guess I've learned my lesson; I should edit every vlog as if the person who wrote the song originally is watching.

Anyway, that's my fan girl story. I also realized I never posted about my most recent vlog (posted last week). This one was for my dad's birthday. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Charlie Chaplin

I just saw on Google that sometime within the past few days marked the 122nd birthday of filmmaker Charlie Chaplin. I have only seen one of his movies (City Lights). When I finally decided to watch it two summers ago I was really skeptical because I remember form my childhood seeing some really stupid/silly short silent films and didn't really like them. BUT when I saw City Lights, I was blown away with how...perfect(?) it was all put together (question mark being that its hard to describe the ingeniousness of this film). Anyways, I would highly encourage everyone in the class to see it, as well as any other Charlie Chaplin film (I've heard they're all really good).

M. Night Shyamalan Returns to Film School???

A new article surficed the other day over M. Night Shyamalan, and the fact that he should go back to film school, the article talks about him attending NYU. I know that there are mixed feelings over M. Night and his movies, some people love them, and others (a majority) don't but do people really have to go this far to get their point/opinion across? The article is actually really well written and explains a lot, so if interested the link to the article is in the title.

Please excuse my harry potter obsession. In my defense it's been 13 years of my life.

Alright, so here comes my geek moment. HARRY POTTER 7 PART 1 IS RELEASED ON DVD TODAY. okay now that I got that out of my system, I'm going to sit here in class, then go to work, then go buy the DVD and stay up all night watching it again. Seriously though, this, in my opinion, is the first time they've gotten the movie right since the first 2 when Christopher Columbus was directing it. 90 DAYS UNTIL PART 2. There, okay I'm done being excited about this....for the most part anyway =)

The Hobbit

everyone. the Hobbit shooting has finally begun! The video in the title shows you how much goes into the preproduction on this beautiful film. it should be done in about two years and everyone will be patiently waiting. Also, something that is interesting is that they are shooting it at 45 frames per second. check it out though. its so sweet. I can't wait. Peter Jackson is incredible.

more dubs

So while I've been searching for a little inspiration I came across these trailer recuts. They're pretty good and make the movie the complete opposite of what it actually is..

The shining
Mary Poppins (makes it wicked scary)
Mrs. Doubtfire

I think its really cool how with editing you can take something and totally flip it around and make it into something new.

To a Pulp!

Warning: Shameless plug ahead. Hard hat required at all times.

Okay, so I'm an associate producer for the ICTV fiction field comedy To a Pulp. It's about a fictional college newspaper and the crazy people who run it (no, it's not just a show making fun of the Ithacan). It's a little like The Office, but our characters do differ and it's not shot in the mockumentary style.

Anyhoo- the premiere of our 2nd and last season is on Saturday, April 30th in Park Auditorium! Doors open at 7 and we'll start the screening at 7:30. We'll be showing a recap of season 1 as well as all three episodes from season 2. All of season 1 is on ICTV.org if you want to check it out. Hope you can make it, we've worked really hard to make it an actual high-quality show and we're really proud of what we've done.

Basically: if you want to see a puppet, Lord of the Rings battle figurines, and a sword fight with a golf club and a toucan umbrella, come to To a Pulp's season 2 premiere on April 30th at 7 in Park Aud. Hope to see you there!

getting videos

Hey guys just wanted to let you know that if you have firefox (if not u can download it for free) u can download an application for it called download helper. this app lets u take videos from youtube or any other site such as CNN or HULU, and make them your own. You can put them on your desktop and edit them to your liking. IT makes life a lot lot lot easier!!

Guide to Youtube Success

So I was doing some browsing around the net and I was checking one of my regular sites. Recently freddiew (some of you may know him) wrote up a guide on how to be successful on Youtube. For those of you who have never watched any freddie wong videos go on youtube and check out his channels freddiew and freddiew2. Anyway I thought the guide was really interesting and thought you guys would like it. Just so you get an idea of how successful freddiew is viewer wise and how he has the credentials to write such a guide, I watched one of his videos last week about 15 minutes after it was posted and it had already gotten over 700 views. Less than a week later (today) its over 2 million.

flash drive issues

Heyy! I know this isn't directly related to class but I don't know what happened to my flash drive but it won't let me save anything else on it or erase whats already on it. It says is is "write-protected" and I tried to re-partition it but that's not working. Ideas?

Screenwriting

I know I may be a little late for this now that our Golden Doorknobs are finished, but I believe that if you want to make movies, you should always be writing and thinking of ideas. A friend of mine showed me a list (the link is in the title) of screenwriting tips that I thought were really helpful. Read it, love it, marry it, cheat on it, divorce it, shake your fist in apoplectic rage at it, me da igual, but they're some things to think about the next time you sit down to write a script.

New project

Has anyone found a good video on the site for our new project im in between a couple but i am having a hard time choosing!

Scream 4

I meant to put this in my post from the other day...BUT Scream 4 comes out on Friday!!!!!! Yes I am a little bit of a horror movie fan, but i'm actually really excited to see this movie, not only because of the success and amazement of the previous films, but because of the script. The script for this movie, is allegedly suppose to take all the cliches of the previous movies, and of horror films in general and completely re-work them. I hope that the movie turns out well, even though i feel i understand how hard it must be to create a feature film. Also in case you haven't seen the trailer for the movie yet, the link to it is in the title.

Stressful, Sick Times

I know I wasn't in class today. I'm not handling the whole weather change very well. First it was my throat and now it's spreading. I hope it doesn't get to the point where I die and come back as a zombie. As cool as that sounds, I'd rather not have to eat your brains out.

-Marlee

the end..well almost

what would a video project be without last minute craziness and people ready to punch, kick headbutt or stab the computer? but even with all of that we got all of our stuff in on time and i gotta say that i am really happy with what we put together. only thing left is the paper work for class that shouldnt be too bad i mean we have most of the that already. guess i should start getting on that ADR project

anybody have a good george w bush impression? consider this an invite if you want to help me out for the project ill have the script and all that fun stuff all you gotta do is read

in other news..whered the sun go?

Wednesday

Freeplaymusic's been around for a while. That was where I went first for my music for the GDK just out of obligation. Reminder, though, that if you ever want to release the film to a festival or something you need to then pay them. Fun fun fun fun.

Anyway, now that we're all completely done with this film, we can all take a sigh of relief -- oh wait, crap, never mind, shot lists, final edit log, etc. I need buckets for my tears. Shouldn't take long, whatever.

I don't know, I don't have much to say. Now that the film is over, I'm lost on topics. Maybe I'll just mention how Archer is the best animated non-kids show of all time, hands down, your argument is invalid.

Also, I'm hungry.
~Will

Golden Doorknobs and exporting

Golden doorknobs are done!!! Whooo Hoooo! Pretty pleased with how ours turned out. Very happy it is done haha. On another note, make sure you check your settings when you export to quicktime. I had trouble playing my quicktime and I couldn't figure out why. It was because the settings of my export did not match up with the settings of my original footage. So yeah, check your settings. Now it's time to ADR.

Great Music Website

I know its a little too late for the GDK project, but I just found this site like the last two days I was editing. Freeplaymusic.com is a FANTASTIC website to use for music in a film or any other short video project. You can search for any type of song you want related to tone, tempo, and reasoning. Meaning that you can search for an adventure song, or a horror song, etc. The best part about this site is that it literally takes a click of the mouse to download the music into your i-tunes. No need to worry about copy right issues and you can preview the first 30 seconds of the song before downloading it. Give this site a shoot the next time your working with video or audio projects.

Also, thank god the golden doorknobs are over. Talk about 18 hours in an editing lab. Man that really sucked. However, I am really proud with what our group produced, although I do believe that it could have been better. Then again, I feel like you can always do better with the experience you can from previous project and mistakes. See you guys tomorrow bright and early.

Steve

Finally Finished

Golden doorknob is done! Yes! I honestly have no idea what I'm going to do with all of the spare time I anticipate having now that it's over (probably homework, but whatever). Anyway, here's our final product: PEACH IS A WHORE

Game of Thrones

Also, another thing im really excited about is the new HBO series Game of Thrones. It's based off a popular series of books and should be pretty badass. I'm a big fan of swords and medieval/magic kickass-ness, not to mention that HBO series are awesome in every single way. Can't wait to watch the series when im home.

Talk it Outtttt

Talking during class today as a whole, was very productive, and i really enjoyed it. I liked hearing the problems that everyone else had in their groups, because it really shows that no group is perfect, and if they were perfect they wouldnt be in this school. For our group especially, communication was a problem and i think as a whole we really didnt put in a good effort. If we had taken out time to meet and discuss before shooting, and during the entire post production process, i feel we couldve had a better final product.

But thats all in the past now, and i'm still pretty satisfied with the final product. Hopefully everyone elses problems were resolved and if not, that sucks..




TALK IT OUT TALK IT OUT TALK IT OUT TALK IT OUT

Warrior

I just saw an article over on IGN.com about a new movie coming out called Warrior. It's an MMA movie about two brothers and their different approaches in their career. My guess is it will turn out a lot like the Fighter, so anyone who is a fan of that movie will probably like this one (although it won't be as good). The link is in the title.

In other news the villian for Zach Snyder's upcoming Superman movie (Man of Steel) has been announced!! The link is right -----> HERE nerds click to find out who it is!

Done!

We're done our GDK! Woo! Special thanks to our cast for being awesome and Red for lighting. :) We're pretty satisfied with how it turned out. I think I'm especially happy with how the basement scene and the end scene turned out. We really had a good location for the basement scene, so props to Jamie for that! We even had some ADR for a few lines and it actually worked out, so that was nice too. Not sure what else to say about it, hope everyone else is done and can breathe again. :)

Twisted Metal

Twisted Metal was a game that really had me hooked when i was little, and im pretty excited that its coming back..

I really like the effect they used on the cigar

Golden Doorknob

Hey, does anyone know when the Golden Doorknob Screening is? Thanks!

Finally Back in my Right Mind

Ok, so I know I haven't posted in a while, but with so much stuff piling up the last few weeks I've hardly had a spare moment to think. But now that our doorknobs are done, I can take a minute to breath. So Doorknobs are done and turned in and all that good stuff, I think ours turned out alright, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what everyone thinks of it. Next thing, I ran across a few articles online recently that I thought would be interesting to share. So with the first one I feel like the title says it all, its titled "Writers Gild Chooses 101 Greatest Screenplays", (the article title is the link) and I feel that there are a lot of noteworthy titles on this list. The second article that I came across, isn't as serious and a little more comical, but still something I didn't realize. Its a list of things that originally were made up in different movies and tv shows that have actually come true/been created. The article is titled "8 Absurd Jokes That Predicted Real Life Events" (The link is the article title). Just some things I thought were interesting to share.

Sidney Lumet

Sidney Lumet died yesterday at the age of 86. He is one of the directors that made an everlasting impression in my life and career. He made over 50 films of which many are masterpieces of American Cinema. The first one I saw in the early 60's was The Pawnbroker which left me stunned with its raw power and its fearless look into ills of society that were not the stuff of Hollywood movies, but then again, he was a New Yorker and his films were as unadorned as the City can be.

After that film I made sure I saw everyone of them. In just two years Fail Safe and The Hill came out. I was in film heaven, a very angry heaven!

Maybe you have seen Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Prince of the City, The Verdict, or his last one, appropriately called, Before the Devil Knows you are Dead. He worked with some of the best and most important actors that any director could wish to work with, and got extraordinary realistic performances out of them.

He made history, and he lived during our time.

Fight!!

So for our golden doorknob we have a fight scene. I thought that it would be impossibly difficult and look terrible. However, the secret is quick cuts. If you keep cutting you keep the action flowing and it is easy to make up for bad acting.

Take Two

Okay, I forgot the link in the first post. The link is in the title. Enjoy

Your New Desktop Background

I was shown this video yesterday of a Canon camera commercial. Now I know the whole thing is designed to advertise Canon, but the images they come up with are so cool. I'm not going to give anything away, so you have to the video for yourselves.

adr

So I've been catching up on my TV shows and I don't know if it's because we had the adr class this morning or if it's obvious but I've been noticing a lot of dialogue that's been replaced. I'm thinking it's cause we had the class this morning but either way I've been paying attention to it now and sometimes it's a little obvious. But to someone who doesn't really know about it, I figure it wouldn't be. Anyway, that's just something I've been noticing as I've been watching.

Our group's meeting this saturday to finish up the gdk. THANK GOD! It's about time. Feels like we've been doing these things for EVER.

Doorknob

I'm just finishing up the VFX and green screen stuff for our doorknob. I think things are looking good and im surprised at how well the footage looks considering it was my first time doing any work like this. I'm absolutely thrilled the doorknob is finally over. I was never a big fan of doing doorknobs in class and my opinion remains.

update

our GDK is finally complete. we had a major continuity error that was holding us up for a bit BUT we worked around it with our shot variety and sound after effects. turned out pretty good and i'm happy with it. on a side note, I made a rug today.. thought that was pretty cool haha

word

OMG INSTANT STAR

Hello all,

So as always, here is my most recent vlog. I recorded it today. It's a song from Instant Star, which was a freaking awesome TV show a few years back. Unfortunately the editing on these is getting worse... I prefer doing the entire song in one take, but since I'm pressed for time these days, so I haven't been memorizing the songs before I record them. That helps with the editing, because, lets be real here, the less you have to edit, the cleaner it looks. At least in this case. Meh.

Anywho, our GDK is coming along nicely. We have one more scene to edit, then we just need to do the paperwork stuff, and music and credits. So yeah. Home stretch. Go Team.

See you all in the A.M.

--Rhiannon

Pro Tools

So our in class demo with John Hilton today was pretty cool. Pro tools can do so many things, it's pretty crazy. I think all of us used pro tools in media prod but that only gave us a rudimentary knowledge (or I know for me personally it did). I think it would be incredibly useful for us to have a good knowledge of Pro Tools. Some of the stuff John was doing took seconds and was awesome. Moral of the story, I need to learn more pro tools!

getting there

ok so our GBK has really picked up in the last couple shoots. got one or two more scenes and already started editing. not too worried we dont have anything crazy to do special effects etc..maybe some ADR and transitions really. got some good pics thanks to molly and thats about it

Hey Guys,

I've recently been channeling into my inner child and have been watching way too many Disney movies. Not only Disney movies though, but any adaptations they may have. One of the most challenging things for animation films is the dialogue when you're working with a film that wasn't originally in the language you want it.

The one movie that comes to mind with this is Howl's Moving Castle, based off of a novel by Diana Wynn Jones who recently passed away.



Seeing as the original film is in Japanese, you really have to manipulate the script just to fit the movement of their lips when adapting everything into English. There's a short video (With Christian Bale) showing some of the behind the microphone work at Howl's Moving Castle.



I also want to give a shout out to Jason Nagli from UP. Just watch it. He's adorable and will make your heart melt.

Note to everyone

I'm learning the hard way right now that when you plan your shots for after effects to make sure that you don't have both your actors moving around in front of the thing you are changing. Please save yourselves and never do this, key framing sucks a lot.

Brain feedback

In response to Travis post, I posted this 3 years ago here. Nobody paid any attention. Now that Cameron is pushing it perhaps someone will. I've been personally interested in this phenomena since the 80's and did some actual analog experiments to prove the point. Perhaps I will recreate them again.

"Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory", March 22 1895

Since this post deals with the subject of "virtual reality" or VR, I though it would be interesting to note certain antecedents and explain some technical aspects that might give you food for thought. Although one of the modern tenets of VR is the "interactivity" aspect (and that is another discussion topic) earlier attempts were more concerned with "immersion" and this is true still today, as total immersion is a primary focus of VR designers today.

Jean-Luc Godard, one of the most influential film critics and filmmakers of the New Wave, once defined film as "...24 frames per second".

Coming from one of the most intellectual directors in film history this definition seems simplistic. But Godard was in fact referring to the fact that film was an illusion created in our minds by a simple physical phenomena. For many years we were told that the reason film works the way it works is because of the "lag" produced by our vision system, which does not "refresh" the image fast enough, resulting in the images blending with the previous one and so forth, therefore creating the illusion of movement.


Everyone has probably at one point played with the illusion of the "bird in a cage".
The thaumatrope, as this is called was a very popular toy dating to the Victorian era, and is often considered an antecedent of cinematography and particularly of animation. As a curious note some claim that Charles Babbage, who originated the concept of the programmable computer, was its inventor, although no definite proof of this exists.

Many still believe that "persistence of vision" is the phenomena behind the perception of movement in cinema, a "lucky defect of the retina" which permitted this illusion.

Movement, however, is a phenomena perceived directly by the brain, through different sensors with which it interacts. In this respect, the eye acts as a gate which transmits to the brain a frequency. And here we come around Godard's 24 fps or frames per second. Although early cinematographers arrived at this particular frequency empirically, they did not exactly know why the perception of movement was so "realistic" at this frame rate.

The brain produces different types of waves, like Alpha and Beta, associated with different "states of mind". This electromagnetic oscillations convey different sensations based on the information acquired by the senses. These wave frequencies range from 8 to 12 hz to 12 to 15hz respectively of which 24 and 30, the most common film and video rates are multiples.

I believe, based on my own experiments as an special effects (SFX) cinematographer that this results in a "feedback" loop, amplifying the electrical activity of the thalamic cells, responsible for the communication between the senses and the thalamus, which plays a major role in regulating arousal, level of awareness or consciousness and activity.

In 1983, Douglas Trumbull, the special effects supervisor for such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner, directed his first major film, "Brainstorm" which predicted the fascination with virtual reality and developed a system for this film named Showscan, which was shot and projected at 60 frames per second. The effect for the viewers was an incredibly enhanced high definition and movement experience, described by some as a "psychedelic drug trip".


I describe the experience of viewing a film (at 24 and particularly at 60 fps) as a mild epileptic seizure since the frequency of projection greatly enhances the synchronous electrical activity of the brain. This is what is mainly responsible for the high degree of "immersion" that both film and TV effect in the viewer, regardless of content. And it is in this respect that Marshall McLuhan's phrase "the medium is the message" makes total sense.

I think I will leave it at that for now as a trigger point (pun intended) for a future conversation about the subject.

It's so crazy, it just might work.

I want to know what everyone thinks about this.

Carlos

I started watching a trilogy this weekend called Carlos. It's about a communist terrorist named Illich Ramírez Sanchéz operating in Europe and the Middle East during the 1970's. What's really interesting about the story is how closely different terrorist cells work together and help each other out, even if they have different goals. The movie itself is very well done, it has the look and feel of the 1970's and acting makes you want to meet these people and live their lives. Which is really strange because they were assassins. The soundtrack is all 70's music and is expertly put together. I strongly recommend watching these films; even if each one is three hours long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3QkM7uyF10

Post productions!

I'm not sure if the others beat me to it, but as we speak Alex is working on some After Effects magic. Once he's done with that we'll throw that into the edit, color correct, tie it altogether and presto! Done!

We're also working on some original music to throw in here, because it would be cool to showcase some other talent as well in this project. Travis and I are working on some stuff; once I have a full edit i'll probably just run it through Soundtrack or something.

But we have one week left, and we're gonna make it great!

(Also, allergies suck.)

Pokeception- Legit?

Okay, so this past Tuesday I started downloading some videos from archives.org for the ADR project, and by videos I mean three Pokemon episodes in what my relatives have determined might possibly be in Czech. I was wondering if a Pokemon/Inception mashup trailer would be legitimate for this ADR project? I would take the video from Pokemon and the audio from the third Inception trailer (it's the audio from the mashup 'Upception' that starts "there's something you should know about me") and turn it into Pokeception.

And by "would have," I mean "I made it in four days and it's done and I'd like to show it to you guys on Tuesday to see what you think and if I can be done with this project."

I made it so early because I was afraid that if this isn't enough ADR-ing for the project, I'll need time to make another video. Also, I was really excited about it. Also, I got to watch the Inception trailer about 50 times. Also, Brock is Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

So if you guys would like to watch it, I can totally bring it in on Tuesday and distract you for 2 minutes and 15 seconds. Please? Anyone? I'm pretty happy with it, but any suggestions for making it even more epic would be fantastic. Really. More epicness plz. Kthxbai.

Rango! gotta love your lizard

I just saw Rango last night. Simply amazing piece of work. Directed by Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) the film pays a homage to a number of films both in terms of storytelling structure, some memorable characters themselves and even music and lighting.

Films referenced are of course "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly", "For a Few Dollars More" (Sergio Leone), John Ford westerns, the extraordinary "Chinatown" (Roman Polanski) which shares the core story, "There Will be Blood" (Paul Thomas Anderson) in terms of lighting, and great characters based on such icons as John Huston (in Chinatown), Lee Van Cleef's in For a Few Dollars More, which in Rango is the very bad Rattlesnake Jake. and, yes, Clint Eastwood as "the Spirit of the Desert", poncho and all. (And oh, a wink to Star Wars, why not) I am sure there are other references I missed!

In short it is a film fest, definitely go see it! Needless to say the character modeling, animation, environments, shaders and particularly the acting, etc are simply outstanding. Talking about acting, some of the characters are actually played by their actors, (like Johnny Depp) who are not only doing voice over. But the subtlety of their emotions down to the smallest twitches is a pleasure to watch.

Photographs copyright © 2011 by Paramount Pictures

Happy Friday

So NCUR Weekend is in its second day, and while doorknobs arent really on my mind, they kinda have to be. Our group finally finished shooting, and were in the process of editing everything together. We have a couple of good green screen effects, and feel good with what we've shot so far.

Heres a little clip of some green screen shots.. Let us know what you think


Green Screen Shots

HAPPY OPENING DAYYYY

For all you Phillies fans out there like me (yes Kyle, this one's for you) it's OPENING DAY! So probably not a lot of editing is gonna be done today until the game is over.

But we finished shooting this week. YAYYYY! Feels really good to have all of our footage done, there's a great blooper reel up on facebook if anyone's interested. Our actors were really goofy which is something I love in a cast, it keeps everyone's stress level down. Something I love about having Joe act for me is he's always fun on set, usually makes for an awesome blooper reel.

So basically we shot in the parking garage, the audio isn't too bad, needs a little work, and we need to color correct a little. Since we were outside everything is a little extra blue, but no biggie. We've got a rough cut done, but like i said, nothing else is getting done till after this game.

Hope everyone else had a good shooting week like we did!

Harry Potter Tv Series

More The Aurors Videos

WHATTTT?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?!!?!?

Hobo with a shotgun

THIS TRAILER is ridiculous. The movie is called hobo with a shotgun. It looks like such a strange movie but really cool at the same time. Also here is a link to the director's blog. It has some cool fan art on it.