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
Thursday, November 12, 2009
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
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
'Presenting' WIP
Intro piece for my graduation reel, only about 20% done, still have to finish the letters and add shadows, color correct, etc. Working on getting rid of the pixelation on the letters... I might end up having to make em in Illustrator and just import em. Done with rotoscoping, and extruded shatter effect on a text layer.
Anyways, just wanted to share it because it kinda hit me that four years ago, I would have never thought I would be able to make even this little beginning of a piece. And not only can I do it, but it's not incredibly difficult and it's not taking me very long. It's kinda cool to realize that the only thing holding me back from doing kick ass shit like you see in movies is...well, time.
World of Warcraft movie, here I come!
Anyways, just wanted to share it because it kinda hit me that four years ago, I would have never thought I would be able to make even this little beginning of a piece. And not only can I do it, but it's not incredibly difficult and it's not taking me very long. It's kinda cool to realize that the only thing holding me back from doing kick ass shit like you see in movies is...well, time.
World of Warcraft movie, here I come!
'Presenting' WIP from Catherine Petty on Vimeo.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Paul Dixon Demo Reel
A friend of mine's rough draft demo reel- not bad, for a rough draft, definitely some good, strong pieces. Love his FX work. Maybe I can trade helping him out with the editing with some help with my motion graphics. :-D
Just when I thought the craze had faded...
Ok, how many of us thought the international Harry Potter obsession had faded? I certainly did! But take a look at this! I'm torn between dumbfounded 'you've got to be kidding me' to feeling like I did as a kid the first time I fully understood what Disneyland was.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Dragon Composite
This was the demo video that really made me fall in love with my field- how you can take such inconsequential pieces and meld them together into something so real and so beautiful. Specifically, it's just the first piece, with the dragon, but the whole reel is awesome.
Vancouver Film School VFX Reel
Vancouver Film School VFX Reel
The First of Many
Hey all! Had a few blogs here and there, this'll be my first permanent one. For more consistent, random snippits of my inner world, you can check out my facebook.
My first post may not be all that interesting, but it's something that perked my interest- the new Twilight movie, 'New Moon.' Now, before you all start eye-rolling, let me clarify that I think the first movie was, at best, a slap-together, overly dramatic, poorly executed example of a book adaptation (sorry, after Jackson's Lord of the Rings interpretation, I'm kind of spoiled). Having said that...that movie made money hand over fist, so they did something right!
(For the record, yes I did like the books- but in the way we occassionally crave cotton candy or a box of chocolates. Totally insubstantial and way too sweet...but sometimes you want it anyway.)
Anyways, the first two trailers for New Moon had me wincing, especially after I assumed -silly me- that it would be a guaranteed improvement, since the budget they'd get after the success of the first movie would be astronomical in proportion to what the film would call. Then the first two trailers royally sucked.
Then this comes out. And suddenly, I'm full of hope again. It makes this movie look, at the risk of sounding like an obsessed 13-year-old, sexy. The special effects certainly utilized their expanded pocketbook well enough, and acquiring Dakota Fanning was a nice touch, if not a particularly difficult feat, given her flailing career (which is a shame, I'm a definite fan of hers).
I really think they should have come out with this trailer first. As it is, I know I'm not the only one suffering from mixed emotions when I remember the original two- torn between getting my hopes up, and realizing that math doesn't lie- only one decent teaser out of three doesn't promise much in the way of the actual film delivering.
My first post may not be all that interesting, but it's something that perked my interest- the new Twilight movie, 'New Moon.' Now, before you all start eye-rolling, let me clarify that I think the first movie was, at best, a slap-together, overly dramatic, poorly executed example of a book adaptation (sorry, after Jackson's Lord of the Rings interpretation, I'm kind of spoiled). Having said that...that movie made money hand over fist, so they did something right!
(For the record, yes I did like the books- but in the way we occassionally crave cotton candy or a box of chocolates. Totally insubstantial and way too sweet...but sometimes you want it anyway.)
Anyways, the first two trailers for New Moon had me wincing, especially after I assumed -silly me- that it would be a guaranteed improvement, since the budget they'd get after the success of the first movie would be astronomical in proportion to what the film would call. Then the first two trailers royally sucked.
Then this comes out. And suddenly, I'm full of hope again. It makes this movie look, at the risk of sounding like an obsessed 13-year-old, sexy. The special effects certainly utilized their expanded pocketbook well enough, and acquiring Dakota Fanning was a nice touch, if not a particularly difficult feat, given her flailing career (which is a shame, I'm a definite fan of hers).
I really think they should have come out with this trailer first. As it is, I know I'm not the only one suffering from mixed emotions when I remember the original two- torn between getting my hopes up, and realizing that math doesn't lie- only one decent teaser out of three doesn't promise much in the way of the actual film delivering.
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