Board Wars

Board Wars was shot over 2 days, with me my brother and a friend. When my friends originally found out I was getting in to video and ok at it, they were constantly thinking up videos for me to make. I usually didn't make them for various reasons, most notable was that they were no good (sorry guys!). However the ideas kept coming when they learned I could do some VFX, like green screen. Well, Board was is the product of actually making one of those videos. MY friend directed, or rather, made up the story as we went and told us what to do, I told him if it would actually work or not, my brother acted, I shot it, and then edited it. It shouldn't have worked, and it didn't work very well. But, for a short film as long as it is, shot the way it was, it worked really well.

This was one of the projects I were I cut my teeth on learning 'keying' and other special and visual FX. Watch after the credits for a before and after bit on the film. I was also just learning the art of folly, and voice over. It was a good learning experience for me.




Of interest: We didn't get it all done on the first day, and that night we had a good 'ol dump of snow , thus the "ah man it snowed" line.

Red in a Hood

Red in a Hood is a shot film experiment. I was trying a way of animation I though might work (and still do). I was board one day and decided, 'hey, why not try it out!?!?'. So I when back in to my orange room (yes a room in my house that has orange and yelow walls, it reminds me of a fiesta and makes my friends hungry), and drew out the cut out characters, made us a little "studio, with a rig for my camera, taped down to something heavy so I wouldn't accidentally bump it. Set up a few lamps for lighting, and used a cupboard for my "stage". It took about 5 hours (if I remember right). Oh, and I used sticky tack to hold the characters and "set peaces" to the "stage". I present, Red in a Hood, the story of Red riding hood... With a twist!

Curly

Curly is a supper basic animation software I use from time to time, though not so much anymore, but when I was starting. It is a very good tool for a beginning film makers tool kit.

Here are some promo videos I did a few years back with Curly.

Click her for the Curly home page and to download.

Book Review: Me, Myself & Bob

This is a review I wrote a few months ago (4 or 6?) I thought I would post....

I got Me, Myself & Bob for Christmas, and finished in about 2 or 3 days, amazing considering I am a slow reader, in other words, I couldn't put it down.
For those of you who have read Rebel Without A Crew (how Robert Rodriguez got his start), I found this to be like the Christian version, the first 3/4 of the book take you on Phil's exiting and inspiring journey from nothing to the biggest animation studio in north America. Then when you are most exited and inspired about making the next Disney or Big Idea, Phil takes us through the sobering and devastating fall of the Christian media giant.
I would say this should be required reading for all of us who aspire to honor God and "change the world" with our Movies and Videos. Their are many, many lestens to be learned from the story, the book tells a story we can all learn from and along with some good business advice, the last full chapter poses some hard theological questions about Vision, Ministry, work, creativity and dreams, that I think we especially as christian film makers need to wrestle with.


On another note, Phil now has a new company called Jellyfish, and has got a tun of really funny videos on the front page, check 'em out!

New Computer

So, our eMac is in the process of biting the dust... we think. It is dieing really slow like. After some posts on the Apple Forums, we believe the Logic Board is for some reason or another going bad, also to to top it of my mom spilled a smoothy on the keyboard, she was quick thinking enough to turn it upside down right away, so you cant see anything, but for the last week it has been almost unusable, as the moisture dries out it is becoming less and less crazy for typing (we can use the delete key again, but the a and caps-lock keys are still attached to each-other as are return and F7). With labor for repairs at $120 an hour (including diagnosis), we finally got another mac for the rest of the family to use on e-bay. So now we have 2 17" iMacs. This will be helpful when we have a project that needs to be edited on crunch time.

The new computer wile the exact same model as our "business" iMac, it has a few lower specs, however, it does boast the latest version of OSX, and I quite envious. Envious? Yes, envious, we have had it almost to days now. And I have yet to even tuch it. And from the looks of things, that isn't about to change soon.

Amazing Math, A Neighborhood

Well, a bit more work today and we have the workings of a Neighborhood! Whoohoo! I think this will work out nicely. The main concern is I might have o be a bit more creative on lighting. See TT and Bebo have to Subitize (count) the street lights, or a street light and a house combined = one. However, although it currently looks really good, I don't think that they are cuttingly that each "one" is distinct enough, and if left as is might caws some confusion... Any ideas out there?

Here are some more screen grabs:

Amazing Math, Houses

I have spent the last few days learning to build a house in blender. It has been highly educational. I am getting close, and will soon begin turning my one house in to a whole neighborhood! And then cities! This scene will look very cool when it is done! Exciting! The video is a test with the model as I have it today (composited in Shake).

I am using this tutorial: http://www.vimeo.com/785249?pg=embed&sec=785249