From Russia With Apologies

http://youtu.be/OTTidq-BOfM

Starting Friday, May 27 at 9 AM, CST, Filmmakers around the world will produce a three-minute story on video.  36-hours later, 9 PM Saturday the 29th, they will upload their video to YouTube. Judges will score entries on Story, Cinematography, Sound, Performance and Editing.

I am hoping to enter this again: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/contest/

Ziph Desert Stronghold - VFX Shot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g87juUKv4b4

Ziph Desert Stronghold by Dallas Lammiman created for the ChristianFilmmakers.org VFX Challenge #7

Amazing Math to win Remi award!

Big news! Amazing Math: Subitize Me! is up for an award! We have been notified that we are up for one of the top 4 Remi Awards in its category at WorldFest Houston! We are in the top four, and guaranteed an award!

From Wikipedia:
WorldFest-Houston is one of the three original international film festivals in North America, after San Francisco and New York. It was founded in 1961 as an International Film Society. It is the only totally dedicated Independent International Film Festival in North America, as it does not accept films from the major studios. The festival was founded by producer/director Hunter Todd to present a film festival for the independent filmmakers.
Read more->

ChristianFilmMakers.org VFX Challenge #7

Its back! Check it out here: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/6260/

My Holiday 12h Video Contest Entry

I wont say to much right now, maybe later. Here is our entry:

Click here to see all contest entries: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/contest/

Another contest! Dec 28, win $500!

I am hoping to make an entree, I got 42st spot last time and 20th before that, hopefully I can swing one in the top 5 rather than get one in 74th place...

Monday, December 28 at 6:00AM filmmakers around the world will producing a one-minute story on video. 12-hours later they will upload their video to YouTube. Entries will be judged on Story, Cinematography, Sound, Performance and Editing. Our winner gets $500.

Our goals for this contest are to (1) have fun, (2) showcase the stories Christians are telling today and (3) connect filmmakers. Even if your film doesn’t win, we’ll help people see it. And if you win, that’s a bonus!

http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/contest/

VFX Challenge #5

This Months Theme is: Action Enhancement
Click here for more info: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/4714/

ChristianFilmmakers.org Stuffs I have done recently

VFX Challenge #4 - Biblical

The VFX challenge is starting again! This time the theme is Biblical! Film a VFX shot based on a story from the Bible. Go as epic as you want or do something simple. But whatever you do. Make it so we can’t tell, and you have to explain alot… Please note which story your shot goes to (if it isn’t too obvious Click here ti learn more ->


To see Calling #3's submissions click here->

$100 Wrapper

 Well, the contest is over, and I did manage to get a film together. But barley.

11:30 - With only 12 hours out of 36 left to go we found ourselves scraping the story about spies, terrorists, Russia and nuclear submarines and starting from scratch writing a brand new script!

4:00 - We had just finished a 3+ hour film shoot and began uploading our 1/2 hour of footage in to the computer.

5:40 - We had finished the rough edit and found some really BIG continuity problems, some missing shots and some unusable sound.

8:00 - Things are not looking good. I cant get a hold of my actors to get VOs and cant finde my way around some of the big problems.

8:40 - Finally contacted my actors parents and got permission to keep them out of bet for another 15 min in order to get VOs

10:20 - I had finished the film, not perfect by any stretch, but we were begining the submission process.

10:45 - Submitted and done!

Here is the video:

$100 Wrapper

It looks like there was over 60 entries this year. You can watch them here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3A139DA9819DCFC1
Enjoy!

CF.org VFX Challenge #3- Glass

The CF.org VFX Challenge #3 (Glass) submission deadline was yesterday, and now voting for your favorite is open to CF.org members until Apparel 15th. Here are the entries:

Visit the challenge page: http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/3224/ 

CF.org 36-Hour Contest - Win $500

Friday, April 10, 2009 at 12:00PM filmmakers around the world will begin producing a three-minute story on video. 36-hours later they will upload their video to YouTube. Entries will be judged on Story, Cinematography, Sound, Performance and Editing. The winner gets $500.

Our goals for this contest are to (1) have fun, (2) showcase the stories Christians are telling today and (3) connect filmmakers. Even if your film doesn’t win, we’ll help people see it. And if you win, that’s a bonus!

Smoking kills

Ever notice how bad guys are always smoking just before they die? Smoking kills, with bullets. Made for the ChristianFilmmaerks.org VFX Challenge #3 - Feb-Mar 09

Crash Site

1. My source footage from Christmas. We burned the Christmas tree when we were done with it, because it keped falling over.

2. Shake has a supper “work free” Stabilizing and tracking node called “SmoothCam”, you just tell it to lock the video, rather than smooth it, and click analyze! Vala! Done!

3. Shake also has a cool QuickPaint Node that has a very handy clone brush in it, so you can take pixels from one point of the image, and use them as your paint color. Very simple to remove the swing set.

4. I made a Cessna in blender really quick, angled it so I didn’t have to add windows. layered some textures from http://www.cgtextures.com/ and I have an airplain. I think the wing looks to bit though.

5. The clip had snow falling in it, but it was falling behind the plain not in front. So it make that less noticeable I added some extra falling snow. I exported the snow from Motion. Motion has a great particle system.

6. I add the motion back in to the clip by duplicating the SmoothCam node above and setting it to “match”.

VFX Challenge 2 - Dec-Jan 09

Well, our first VFX challenge has warped up and we are ready to get on to the next one! Last challenges favorit entry was voted to be Gabriel Everson’s Forest Battle. As such he has be chosen to challenge us with out next theme!

This months theme: Set Extension
Deadline: Jan 31 2009

Click here full full details!

To view the VFX Challenge 1 submissions click here

The Big Fall

More on this latter.

$100 off Christian Filmmakers Academy!

"[Christian Filmmakers.org] has organized a $100 discount for Christian Filmmakers.org members who sign up for the Christian Filmmakers Academy at the San Antonion Independant Christian Film Festival (www.independentchristianfilms.com). To obtain the discount, email us at info@christianfilmmakers.org and we will send you the promotion code. In addition, Christian Filmmakers.org receives a $50 for each registration that we will use to add features to this web site."

Very cool news!

ChristianFilmMakers.org VFX Challenge

We are starting a VFX Challenge at CF.org to help us VFX people grow in out skills, check it out! 

http://www.christianfilmmakers.org/forums/viewthread/2399/

Gume Shoe

     Gum Shoe is a story about a Kid who is also a secret agent, and thinks his parents don't know it. However, when "Aliens" are discovered on earth, he is sent to investigate, only to discover that not only have his parents known the hole time, but that Aliens actually want him!

     Gum Shoe was made in 2005-06 and was shot with a film festival in mind. Needless to-say, it didn't get accepted, I wasn't to disappointed however, as it was for me, a great sucses.
Gum Shoe was the first film where I made contous efert on pre-production, such as several drafts of the script, and a story board. Gum Shoe was a sucess to me, mostly becous it turned out looking amost exactly like I had emagened it in my minde, a first for me. I knew the story was a bit lacking, but I has very happy with the peroduction values I saw in it.

     Even today, I am very impressed wit the shots. See the project was conceived one night during a snow fall, with big snow flakes, they would slowly fall through the street lights. And I wanted to find a story where I could use that as a background. It was just so moody, and beautiful. The scene that I came up with almost immediately was that of a young boy meeting a shadowy agent under a street light at night. So that is want the hole story was based around. But it didn't snow, instead it got really fogy, and I liked how that looked to. so I called up my actors and said "tonight is the night!" and we did it.

     I also did all my own scoring (music) for this film for the first time ever. I have not done scoring so extensively from scratch since. And am quite proud of what I did with it. It was all recorded in GarageBand with my midi Keyboard.

     I have included all my story boards here for you to view. You will find that I followed them almost to a tee, with only a few changes. I started out with pencil and paper, but it became to tedious, so I did them all in the Gimp.