The Journal
These are the pictures I talked about in the place holder blog. This my friends is the journal that I write in and then post in here. I also put notes in the book. By the way forgive the misspelling's, it is a complete reaction journal (I get an idea or hear/see something or write notes, I put it in imediately). And for the sloppiness I have no exuse, I use to be in the medical field so hence the fate of my handwriting.
Check this link
This is an awesome link to turn your Mac Book or Power Book into a Smack Book. I have added a cool video clip below about it. To see the link click on the title.
http://blog.medallia.com/2006/05/smacbook_pro.html
http://blog.medallia.com/2006/05/smacbook_pro.html
HACK A DAY
Try hackaday.com for cool fixes and upgrades for poor filmmakers. They are the ones I told you about that made the CVS disposable camcorder waterproof. But there are many more. If you want it or can think it, you just might be able to find it. There are no limits or excuses anymore for creating outstanding films and videos. We have the potential to create and experiment with whatever we want now.
Place holder
Hey yaw,
This is a place holder until I post pictures of my paper journal and add some more comments. Remember what I said, I plan on adding to this blog. Just because the semester is over doesn't mean this is.
This is a place holder until I post pictures of my paper journal and add some more comments. Remember what I said, I plan on adding to this blog. Just because the semester is over doesn't mean this is.
Merry Christmas
Alright I am stepping away for a bit while we wrap up our last week next week. I just want to leave you with a little Christmas wish list of mine for Santa. I have also left him some milk and cookies in my blog world. What I would like for Christmas is a Mac Book, Superman the Ultimate Collectors Edition (14 disc baby), a Video ipod (I know I have become one, I have been snatched), a jacket and a Video Camera...Oh and a Red Rider BB gun. I give up on my Superman cape that I asked for when I was a youngn' I have never gotten it and probably never will. But anyway here is a photo I took, trying to take it before the candle got snuffed out by the crystal angel in front of my Christmas tree. Remember the reason for the season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
I don't know if most of you know, but if you go to our class blog you will see a post I added about making your CVS disposable camcorder water proof. Check it out and try it and Happy Experimenting. And also if you go to some others blogs you can see more footage of the Cucalorus experience with Andre and crew. See for yourself at Genevieve's blog site I was present for that too. Besides her site rocks. I hope to continue this blog and improve it or create another, but I really need a camera. I do have a lot of photos, but I am a filmmaker not a photo maker, well maybe second. I am currently working on making the 16mm Narrative classes blog with behind the scenes footage and photos and much more.
It is show time this week for a rough cut of our collage footage and our journals and/or vlogs. I keep a journal and vlog, and transcribe onto here from my journal. I keep the notes and some ideas in the journal. I noticed I forgot to do the transferring of the process project to film, hopefully it will be ok to turn it in next week. I have been so swamped this semester. For the collage film I planed on using what I started with the bumper I did for the student showcase. Now I think I want to change it all. I am doing something similar in editing for a found footage project. But going back to the semester thing, next semester will be only 12 hours, which I have not done before. I had to do it this time, because I am graduating and have taken it all and I am to wore out to do more. I really will be doing 15 by helping Andre out, which is really exciting. I get to help on his thesis film "Ichthyopolis". I shouldn't be over exerted as I am now. But I truly have learned a lot and am ready to graduate. I can feel the senoritas. I should be getting the equipment I been wanting this Christmas, so I will be set next semester finally.
I am suppose to put our film processing on to mini dv and add some titles and music. I am having trouble deciding on a song, but I think I will use something from archives.org. After today I am also more confident in setting up and using the projector and camcorder together to put our film on mini dv to edit. I plan to do similar work for my parents old super 8.
I our second to last project or really third is the film processing of 16mm film. Our animation stuff is taking longer than expected to return. We still have to digitize and add sound to our 8mm stop motion exercise. But now we have learned how to set up and expose 16mm film and then process it. We made the class room a dark room and brought in different objects and laid them on the film in the dark and flashed the strip with our cell phones. The result was really cool, though mine was a little under exposed. But I learned a lot and know to hold on a little longer with the light. But all of these are experimental, so you have to play around until you get the skill. I was thinking you could create your own animation this way too. Not just experimental like the scratching and painting and the way we did it, but planed ahead of time and laid out. I am thinking of creating or even scratching on separate film the frames I want or draw on table and lay film on and then expose. The idea is to create an actual film but by self exposing and processing in one setting. We can call it the quickest film ever "shot" even though you have a lot of prep work. What is so great is I now know how and can and plan to do this or some variation after a well thought out plan and experimenting. See you on the dark side, peace.
I have finished my sound part for the rhythmic and submitted it to the festival. I did mechanical sounds, but forgot to add a line form the "Attack of the Body Snatchers". And I also completed the Bumper which I had problems with, that I now know how to resolve. But any way here is some pictures of my awesome experience and time at the Cucalours Film Fest (my first real festival). I meet a lot of people and made friends and got some hook ups. I also talked with guys from lulu.tv and played with a steady cam. I saw a good friends documentary. I even meet back up with Paul and Kelly, the folks who gave me my first PA gig, my first anything in film gig in their film "Forgiven", shot here in Wilmington. I also worked with Andre at a booth doing some scratching on film and got to program the student showcase portion. And so much more and it rocked. Peace.
We did the animation exercise and I was disappointed in my group. They did not care about this project it seems and keep goofing around instead of really trying. It is cool to have fun, but not screw up a whole project. I was cool to use their ideas, but I don't believe they got the whole concept of the project. Some things where funny, but it got old with their mistakes and getting into the frame or impatience. But we also had horrible tech. problems with our camera, tripod, you name it and we just ran out of time. But I learned something and had fun, even if I won't have much to show for it.
Okay it is animation time. I chose to use all types of game pieces, since I am a board game fanatic. The back drop should be the risk board and use of their pieceses for people. I also included other domination type games and crime or violence related. Such game pieces as Monopoly, CSI, Clue, Life (cars, gotta drive), and that's it. They each relate in some way and it will be fun for all of them to meet on one board or world, ha ha ha or plane, ha ha ha ha. This should be fun, I am excited to use the 8mm camera and do stop motion.
Here are some other cool pictures. The idea here is that you will never see this image again only what I have captured. So it makes it one of a kind and it is really pretty and natural art. I simply call it "Magic Hour Photo". Bummer, I can only load two. The images are to large, I guess because it is the sky and all, lol. Enjoy.
Okay we did the element project and saw it in class. I already did my eval on it. It was all cool, but not exactly what I expected. I was happy that my cigarette burns didn't mess up the loop. But the mag. transfers where all dot printer type or effect, which was fine, but not what I expected. I made some mistakes with trying to do the 24 frames a sec thing to spell out FIRE. It was to fast and choppy, but Andre gave us a tip to use a prepared layout and trace down the film to keep a consistent as can frames. Some stuff was hard to see unless you watch several times over. But I can now go into FCP and slow down what I want and have fun with it. This by far has been the messiest project, but fun.
Okay here are some ideas I have been working on that go back to my glass fetish with the camera. I know they may seem weird to you, but I really like these ideas. What it is, is a shadow and silhouette of my wife and sister-in-law (yes I forced them to do this) holding some colored glass or plastic and a change of the light bulb and putting one of the glass vases over the light to give same effect. Wow that was a long sentence and I ain't gonna change it. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I wanted to do this outside, but the weather prohibited me from that. I got this idea outside while I was going to a class and I had a sprite bottle in my hand. The sun was casting a shadow and the bottle was all that was in color on the cement. I thought to myself let's do this when we get back home and take a picture with a chalk smiley face as my face. You could do this as an animation. But any how it came from that, you get this, but I am going do that later and try the animation. And I chose photography because I am still poor and never got my camcorder. But it is all in the same family and produces ideas for film. Hope you like, but who cares if you don't. Peace.
We saw some culture jamming videos today and one was a doc about it called "No Logo". It was an interesting and eyeopening film. I do have to admit it has gotten out of control and ridiculous about how advertisers have blasted our culture with there brand. The Tommy H. stuff made me laugh the most, because it is just so straight up stupid. I can't believe we actually fall for this crap sometimes and want the name brand so bad. My fear is that it is only going get worse, like tattooing your forehead with an ad...oh, wait it has already happened. In the words of Charlie Brown, "Oh Brother".
I am still working on my Rhythmic footage for the festival. I also have to do a bumper which will help me for our last project with collage footage. I am planing on using found footage with our eye logo. But for now in the 6byone class we have to be looking for objects and thinking of ideas for the animation project. While we do that we have a film manipulation project due. We will be painting on some clear leader using the theme of four elements: earth, wind, fire, and water. We each from the group have to do one element and have a equal focus or for each. We got to practice some techniques and I really like the mag. transfers. I also tried some burning paper and the film with a cigarette. Oh, yeah I got fire as my theme that's why I tried the dangerous stuff. But now to go home and finish it out for later.
So the sound portion for the rhythmic was canceled due to class schedule constraints. But I may have to do it any way because my film was selected to be shown in the Student Film Showcase at Cucalorus 12. I am thinking about going with a mechanical sound effect. It seemed overall people liked my footage. I had mine focus on the subject and his ipod. I titled it i (am) Pod. It is suppose to play on the irony of the name of the product and the people who use them, they seem pod like.
So our next assignment if we choose to accept, which we do since our grades depend on it. We are to do a rhythmic editing exercise. Basically we film for a few minutes then we edit the footage in a one minute segmented pattern much like music (ababacdaba). Later we will add sound much the same way. This time we split our group two and two. My partner, the other Travis and I have already done our video portion, we just need to edit and add sound. I had to change my plans though. At first I was going to incorporate another person doing skateboard tricks, but due to scheduling problems and going on set I had to change my idea and do something more simple. But it should all be fun. We used what lighting we had; the poor man film crew thing. So we'll see how it works out, I am working on ideas of what look I want.
Sorry so late getting back here, but I have been crazy busy. I called in this past weekend to day play in the locations department or One Tree Hill. Well anyway I have some things to post that I wrote in my paper journal, but have to wait to input that information when we get them back. I also need to upload our past two projects. The response was not what I thought it would be. I don't know if people got it or I didn't understand the assignment, but the example for doing it involved a scene of cows in the country side with sound of burgers cooking. This was suppose to give an idea of things to come, so that is what we implied in ours. And as for the music being as loud as it was, was intentional. I didn't think it was to over the top and I wanted that feel they give in movies, but hey I am just learning the editing thing and for someone to go in with minimal knowledge, I thought it was good, not great, but good.
Cool vids!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIEM144OB0
Yeah, that's right these rock. These guys did an awesome job, drop them an email and let them know. I really like when the one dude in the skate video throws his board and you see the limbs move, but don't see the board. Great job with green boards and stop motion for the other guy. I give it *****.
Yeah, that's right these rock. These guys did an awesome job, drop them an email and let them know. I really like when the one dude in the skate video throws his board and you see the limbs move, but don't see the board. Great job with green boards and stop motion for the other guy. I give it *****.
I love the arts and the imagination expressed through creativity. Creativity is our gift from God and being in his image he has allowed us to create. If I was not in film I would either be an astronaut or an architect. And my favorite architect is Antonio Gaudi. Here are links and photos of this structural genius and his creations.
http://architect.architecture.sk/antonio-gaudi-architect/antonio-gaudi-architect.php
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/gaudi/
I have been playing with more ideas and stuff I want to try. Some examples are time lapse, stop motion (which I believe we are doing), animation with real time and even stuff like Andre Silva has done. I have really got into the wide range of possibilities in film and want to incorporate and mix them in my films and screenplays. Its expression and it's just plain fun and if you can't enjoy what you love to do, then your in the wrong thing. I even got this crazy idea of playing with expressions of actors in extreme close-up shots of parts of their face or hands etc. The idea is to start with let's say the eye and move to the mouth or nose and so on. This is to reveal expressions in a limited space piece by piece in the mind of the viewer. A moving puzzle if you will. I got the idea when I saw the reflection of my eye on a shinny surface and thought it was funny that my eye seemed like I was angry when I was smiling. Totally wack-o, but hey we all have "those" moments, or at least let me believe that so I don't think I'm so strange. But what is normal any-who? Peace.
I wanted to add about our sound scape project. We had the idea of gearing the audience to believe it was two spies or going the way we did with the drug deals. Both seem appealing, but we felt the drug deal/bust was the best and went with the colors and mise en scene. I will post both our video and what was done to it and "Flee Market", the video we sound manipulated. Until then, peace.
I think I forgot to talk about our video we did and showed in class and people's reactions. It was pretty much like we hoped it would be. Everyone liked the floating feel and that ours was different than the normal narrative. We went more experimental, dream/surreal like. I can't wait to see what other groups did to add sound. I wonder if they will keep with the uniqueness or try to make it narrative. I love the idea of the possibilities of manipulation. Who has the ultimate control of the film, hmmmmmm, I wonder?
We met today and pretty much finished our project. We just need to do a screen shot or our work and add some fading to the audio. We also may need to key the sound up a little more to give a more visual aspect of what is to come. So basically we used our audio editing to create a visual that has not yet happen instead of using to specifically create a certain mood or any other aspect of audio use. We went with the drug bust idea I mentioned before. We have about 14 layers of sound. I know we got carried away, but it was fun and a learning experience. We now need to match the FBI sounds to when the girls step out of the alley in the market, to leave one guessing if the sound is explaining what is going on at the moment or telling what to come as you will guess it does when you see the camera reveal the girls at a table buying an item and not dead like Bonnie and Clyde. It took about 4 hours total to find and lay down a good edit. We had to self teach ourselves as well. But it rocks I think. We called it "Flee Market" to emphasize the fleeing the cops. We had some problems with rendering to text to who knows, but we overcame it and got help from Cullen a film student with FCP experience. We also need to find out the names of the videoers for their crediting at the end. Speaking of the end, I hope everyone will like the sound running through the credits for an extra effect. I will post about the reactions to our work after next week.
So I found some great websites for free sound clips and audio loops. I have laid out a plan to create our audio as the scene that comes after the one you see laid on top of the one you are seeing. We had the one of the girls doing the drug buy in the flea market. We will be meeting Friday afternoon to work on our sound scape. I have already uploaded the video and laid down to be edited.
Sorry guys, but something strange is happening in the post below that I will figure out later. There is a sound clip source and some text but it is invisible until you highlight it and it shows up. So we will just consider this our Houdini post, but check it out, it's just a siren sound clip. Have fun in my world of weirdness.
Peace -TC
Peace -TC
OK I know my Blog may be a little rough and I need to put in dates, but I wanted to add some things I didn't add earlier. I was trying to stay with the theme of our one shot, but I left out my other journal entries that had random thoughts and views not necessary pertaining to the one shot. I had some ideas for camera angle perspectives, that I will add photo's to later. They're kind of cheesy, but hey one idea explored will lead to others. The idea involved taking a video cam and using it as a still camera. I could control the foreground environment or more or just leave it standing still (I know nothing new, but it is for me). With this attempt of things done or not I may come up with something else and possibly different. I like experimenting it gets me out of the norm that I do and will be doing for a long time to come. Another idea will be better suited with a photo (TBA). But I also liked my idea using the goblet so much I now am looking for other things to replace the lens or gels, such as a light house lens and so forth. But hang tight, more is to come. And I must say the other guys blogs from the class are pretty good, I liked the Lego-mation, really impressive with the camera phone. As Andre would say cheers!
Labor day was our re-shoot day and it was much better. We originally had a zoom in the shot, but didn't like it and only a P.O.V. so we went with what everyone saw in class. We liked the use of different camera views and the illusion it gave of floating. So we pretty much accomplished what we wanted. We like the suggestions we got and think it would have been a better shot, but we learn from our mistakes. The only real problems we had was it was sprinkling during our shot, but it didn't get on the lens or stop the shoot. And the neighbors where really cool, they liked us out there and just watched and saw our final shot. Now for the sound?
We discussed more ideas for our one shot, such as doing something similar to M. Gondry's films where it appears the subject is walking on the walls but it is the set design. Can't find found footage or photo's as example, but anyway... We came up with an idea or several that basically spawned what we shot this day on Friday 1st or September. We went to Mikey's house and shot a P.O.V. walking to a chair and turn and dolly around to a table where Jake gives camera a beer. We shot this about ten times and used my Jeep for the dolly. It was suppose to be a dream like surreal scene. It could tie into drinking and driving or whatever interpretation ever. We mainly wanted to create a shot with our ideas and creating an illusion with the camera. It was getting late and we decided we did not like the results so we scheduled a re-shoot for Labor Day. Later I will add our blooper, where I drove Mickey (holding camera) into the table.
We meet on the 24Th or Aug. and discussed what we are going to shoot this coming weekend for our one shot. We mainly talked out what kind of stuff we can do with what we have and what look we wanted. We are considering doing a more experimental or surreal video, maybe dream like that can be interrupted different ways. We viewed some stuff Jake had done with his camera strapped to a remote control car and one with him on his skateboard.
A good idea in doing this assignment is to treat it like a silent film. Our group has decided to mix each of our ideas together to create one collaborative idea. We are considering playing with locations, layers with in the frame, creating our own equipment, and doing something with a chain reaction with in the story. The above is an extreme idea of a wheelchair dolly and I thought it was a cool picture. Haven't seen a wheelchair like this on the beaches yet.
Our first assignment is to do a "one shot" with in one minute. There are some ideas I have had that I could do in conjunction with the narrative. The shot could be a whole or part of whole leading us to another part of he story. Some ideas consist of filming upside down like I suggested in the in class assignment. This keeps our focus not only on the story itself, but the perspective of the picture, keeping the viewer conscience of the camera. I really like playing around with perspectives such as low angle shots. Some things to consider is mise-en-scene to express things other than just using the camera.
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