Been on an appreciation-binge lately of various forms of short media- video blogs, music videos, short films, you name it. In a world where people's average attention span is shorter than three minutes, and information floods every second of every hour we have our eyes open, it's no wonder either. Having said that, it's pleasant when a piece manages to fit more entertainment into a few minutes than some movies do into multiple hours.
For example, I'm currently having a love affair with Within Temptation's new(er) music video 'Utopia.' It tells a full story, with comprehensive (and understandable!) lyrics in 3.5 minutes. It's visually pleasant, expertly constructed from beginning to end. Even if the genre of the song isn't your style, it can't be denied it's an entertaining, passionate piece.
And then we have things like 'Repo Men' (which I haven't seen yet, I will admit) that undeniably cost more to make per minute, and yet has pretty much flopped at the box office.
Something to remember, I suppose- quality over quantity, people!
-Catherine
Monday, March 22, 2010
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Fun, easy Eclipse
Probably one of my favorite things about AfterEffects is that it is virtually unlimited in it's versatility and usability. There is nothing you can't do with it- it may be easier or harder than other programs, but it can be done. I've yet to have someone propose an idea to me that I couldn't find out how to do it, albeit sometimes with some major tweaking of some pretty extensive tutorials!
This is one such tutorial- right now I'm adapting it to another purpose, nothing groundbreaking (a stone burning to ash), and so far it's working pretty well- I'll post it when I'm done. For now, here's the tutorial I'm using.
Eclipse, part 1
This is one such tutorial- right now I'm adapting it to another purpose, nothing groundbreaking (a stone burning to ash), and so far it's working pretty well- I'll post it when I'm done. For now, here's the tutorial I'm using.
Eclipse, part 1
Clash of the Titans teaser trailer!
Clash of the Titans teaser trailer!
Looks like fun! Heard some dissent about the music choice, but I like it!
Looks like fun! Heard some dissent about the music choice, but I like it!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Really fun compilation of special effects clips over the past 100 years. I remember most of them, too- if not from watching when it first came out, then from my parents showing me while taking their own trip down memory lane. So much more impressive when you watch our progress back to back like that. Come along away from jump cuts and smoke bombs!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Catherine and the Legend of the Useful Footage
One thing I've discovered that I think everyone should have pounded into their skull- never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER disregard, delete, dismiss any footage you may think is totally useless, no matter how unsalvagable it may seem. Save it all in a 'Blah' folder (that's what I call it, anyway). I'm so glad on of my teachers drilled this into me early on. I thought about deleting that 'Blah' folder so often, but as I've progressed it's actually become very useful multiple times. Namely, my experiments with AfterEffects. There's nothing so frustrating as wanting to try something and not having any footage to work with, and no time to go and shoot something random.
Thus, the Blah folder is my savior- I've almost always found SOMETHING that'll work with what I want to try, to practice on. If I like the results, I can always make time to go and shoot actual quality footage. Sometimes, the nature of the experiment doesn't require any reshooting at all, but fixes the original problem (bad lighting, bluescreen hiccups, etc).
Anyways, just thought I'd throw that out there. I'll post the particular project that inspired this little rant later on.
-Catherine
Thus, the Blah folder is my savior- I've almost always found SOMETHING that'll work with what I want to try, to practice on. If I like the results, I can always make time to go and shoot actual quality footage. Sometimes, the nature of the experiment doesn't require any reshooting at all, but fixes the original problem (bad lighting, bluescreen hiccups, etc).
Anyways, just thought I'd throw that out there. I'll post the particular project that inspired this little rant later on.
-Catherine
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Friday, Saturday 'Want Some' shoots
Friday's shoot was absolute chaos. Out of the six people who said they would show, only three actually did- our camera man, Chuck, second camera guy Dustin, and my wonderful audio wizard, Tee. Unfortunately, I myself was only there for the beginnings of set up when I got some bad news about a friend, and spent the rest of the morning and afternoon at the hospital.
I got back to set around 5pm, as they were breaking set- not by choice, since they hadn't gotten all the shots were supposed to get, but the club owner (the location) was calling time. Then he changed his mind, and said we could stay til 9. So we unpacked, re-setup, then at 7 he changed his mind again- we had to leave. So we broke set a second time. Because of the two false alarms, by the time 9pm rolled around, we still hadn't gotten our shots. At this point, the club cliental I guess were all pretty into being background extras (thank God we'd gotten all the audio we needed already- after four harddrive dumps of the DAR, we certainly have plenty to work with!), and we were able to stay til midnight to get what we needed. A good thing we got it all on Friday, too... The next night, Saturday, the whole place was closed down and taped off by lots of nice yellow police tape. Don't know what happened, don't really want to.
Saturday went a lot better. The high-rise condominium apartment/condo was perfect, beautiful place with hardwood floors and a killer view. We got going around 4pm, wrapped up around 7pm. Only real glitch was our caterer being awol, so yours truly made a pizza run- which brings me to one of my side stories.
This may sound unimportant, but there was a moment in the day, when we were all crowded into the bathroom (a big bathroom, thankfully- the size of some bedrooms I've seen), munching on pizza and gulping diet coke, and we could hear Bill (William Johnson, directer/writer) talking with the talent, and we're chitchatting in the bathroom, me mostly catching up on what I'd missed during my two hour pizza run (Vegas Strip traffic at 5pm on a saturday....). Then we heard Bill shout for quiet, heard the clacker, and all at once every single person in the bathroom paused mid sentence, mid chew, and we all went completely silent without even thinking about it. It was one of those moments were you go, 'wow...I'm not a student anymore...these guys get it...and I'm one of them.' It was a revelation, of sorts, that I wasn't playing pretend in Eddie's bluescreen classroom, classmates watching from the control room and joking around and snickering. This was real- certainly not on the same level as some big productions, but real enough. And I absolutely loved it. I knew 100% that I was where I wanted to be, where I was supposed to be. When you dump six figures into school, it's nice to know you didn't make a mistake in your career selection.
Anyways, last shoot today, final scenes. Hope it goes as good as yesterday, if not better!
-Catherine
I got back to set around 5pm, as they were breaking set- not by choice, since they hadn't gotten all the shots were supposed to get, but the club owner (the location) was calling time. Then he changed his mind, and said we could stay til 9. So we unpacked, re-setup, then at 7 he changed his mind again- we had to leave. So we broke set a second time. Because of the two false alarms, by the time 9pm rolled around, we still hadn't gotten our shots. At this point, the club cliental I guess were all pretty into being background extras (thank God we'd gotten all the audio we needed already- after four harddrive dumps of the DAR, we certainly have plenty to work with!), and we were able to stay til midnight to get what we needed. A good thing we got it all on Friday, too... The next night, Saturday, the whole place was closed down and taped off by lots of nice yellow police tape. Don't know what happened, don't really want to.
Saturday went a lot better. The high-rise condominium apartment/condo was perfect, beautiful place with hardwood floors and a killer view. We got going around 4pm, wrapped up around 7pm. Only real glitch was our caterer being awol, so yours truly made a pizza run- which brings me to one of my side stories.
This may sound unimportant, but there was a moment in the day, when we were all crowded into the bathroom (a big bathroom, thankfully- the size of some bedrooms I've seen), munching on pizza and gulping diet coke, and we could hear Bill (William Johnson, directer/writer) talking with the talent, and we're chitchatting in the bathroom, me mostly catching up on what I'd missed during my two hour pizza run (Vegas Strip traffic at 5pm on a saturday....). Then we heard Bill shout for quiet, heard the clacker, and all at once every single person in the bathroom paused mid sentence, mid chew, and we all went completely silent without even thinking about it. It was one of those moments were you go, 'wow...I'm not a student anymore...these guys get it...and I'm one of them.' It was a revelation, of sorts, that I wasn't playing pretend in Eddie's bluescreen classroom, classmates watching from the control room and joking around and snickering. This was real- certainly not on the same level as some big productions, but real enough. And I absolutely loved it. I knew 100% that I was where I wanted to be, where I was supposed to be. When you dump six figures into school, it's nice to know you didn't make a mistake in your career selection.
Anyways, last shoot today, final scenes. Hope it goes as good as yesterday, if not better!
-Catherine
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Today was the first production meeting (and only, since shooting begins tomorrow) for the short film 'Want Some' by William L Johnson.
It started out with me just offering to help out during the pre-production, just so that I wasn't sitting on my thumbs until post started- I hate sitting around, feeling useless.
From there, I was magically the (this calls for capital letters) Production Manager. I put together an entire production team in one day- go me! Granted, none but three of them decided to show for the meeting today...*sigh* Three others I know will actually show for the actual shoot. I hope. I really hope people are more reliable when I get to paid jobs...
Anyways, the meeting went well, the director (William Johnson himself) and his AD and his Assist. Producer were all on the ball, think it'll be great to work with them. I think this actually might go somewhat smoothly... Bah, now I need to go find wood to knock on.
Will update tomorrow on how the first day of shooting went!
-Catherine
It started out with me just offering to help out during the pre-production, just so that I wasn't sitting on my thumbs until post started- I hate sitting around, feeling useless.
From there, I was magically the (this calls for capital letters) Production Manager. I put together an entire production team in one day- go me! Granted, none but three of them decided to show for the meeting today...*sigh* Three others I know will actually show for the actual shoot. I hope. I really hope people are more reliable when I get to paid jobs...
Anyways, the meeting went well, the director (William Johnson himself) and his AD and his Assist. Producer were all on the ball, think it'll be great to work with them. I think this actually might go somewhat smoothly... Bah, now I need to go find wood to knock on.
Will update tomorrow on how the first day of shooting went!
-Catherine
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