Nov 2, 2012
Crystal Clear (I did not make this)
Crystal Clear
I wish I could embed this, but just click on it.
This was a movie I forced myself on shortly before production for the Lansing 48 Hour Film Festival.
It was fun to see how a different group of people works together on this stuff. I wish I could expand my group of people I normally work with so I wouldn't have to own every part of the production.
Anyways.....
Script:
I'm not use to reading a script that's actually formatted. It was confusing, and shocking how little dialogue there was. I didn't like my part, so I decided early in to make it as creepy as possible. Most of which was cut, probably for good reason.
3 people viewing a house, me and another group... not sure if I buy it but it moves quick enough that it's sufficient for 5 minutes.
Sound and Video:
What a difference actual training and a crew can make. Aside from a few really dark shots I think it looks and sounds great. The neighbors were mowing the lawn for a good part of this and there was a hum through out the house, most of which was inaudible.
Overall:
I wanted to write this up because it was a fun experience and I think it came together really well. It won second place, I think they are mad that it didn't get first place. It's a winner either way. But now I'm out of things to say about it. It feels kind of impersonal... but I wasn't around for writing or editing so maybe there is a hidden meaning over being a homage to Arrested Development.
A++++ would work with again.
Oct 23, 2012
Open Position (a Kalamazoo 2880 film festival entry)
This is the 4th 48 hour film festival video that I've been involved with. Actually make that 5th. This one went k considering the resources we had to work with. We pulled bio pic and some other crap that was quickly ignored.
Anyways:
Premise: biopic is stupid and I had way too many people involved for this to be anything like Titus was last year. I leaned on some of my cartoon tricks of just throwing awkwardness at the screen. Interview and the quickest way to fail without requiring much in terms of acting, props or planning.
It wasn't a biopic although for a brief moment I thought we were going to follow around the interviewer documentary style.
Video: the goal was to just have 3 cameras running at all times. The goal was not met as one immediately failed and the other two had battery issues. I wasn't able to pay attention to everything so the focus is all over the place.
Audio: I borrowed a nice boom mic from the public access station but as you can probably hear I didn't use it. On camera audio was all I had time or effort for as usual.
Script/Acting: we wrote some questions for the interviewer and I shouted stuff at the interviewees. Everyone sat in a room and figured most of it out while I played with the set. I think the prep or at least the comfortability shows, which is great because we had a lot of new people and the returning "favorites" were tired/unmotivated/pressed for time.
Editing: for the first time in these things I thought I was doing better than I was. Had a watchable first cut at 11 minutes before 10pm on Saturday (8minute final due at 6pm Sunday). After calling it an early night and having a couple hours wasted Sunday I was pushing it for time. I wanted to do a color correction and sound fix but I realized that I had accidentally deleted 3 minutes in the middle and that Final Cut Pro decided it was done working for me on this project. A last minute search and rescue of footage and slicing for time constraints made this come out a lot rougher than I was hoping for. Thankfully I found a fun public domain track to edit for transitions.
Overall: it is more of the same from mr, I keep having the dream of stepping my game up and making something that is interesting to watch on a visual/audio level. Something that can live on its own without having me force it on people. But considering I had about half the time and effort to give to this as normal there is an efficiency savings that I should be proud of.
Longer slightly prettier to see and hear cut coming soon.
Aug 21, 2012
10 things that would help me be more creative/productive
Mar 18, 2012
John Carter is lavish, long, and not interesting
The design of everything in this movie is so perfect it's boring. 90% of the cast is assisted or composed entirely of CGI and after 10 minutes I was accepting them as if they were the most boring objects in the world. They did not take me out of the movie but they also made no effort to bring me in. It all blended together with its bland design and technical competence.
John Carter is not strong enough a character to make me care about the insane amount of story this movie is trying to cram in. The guy plays him fine, but in Star Wars there were multiple characters that people could identify with to lessen the burden of exposition. But this movie falls on John's shoulders and aside from being a lovable brute, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care about his issues on Earth and Mars. His alien pet did remind me of Spencer though, so props for that.
This movie takes a while to start and a while to end. The movie has a stuttering beginning and end. This movie starts 3 times and ends 3 times. Cut that out. It is annoying. You are not Lord of the Rings.
The princess in the movie is a much stronger actor and character than John is. I know we need an earth connection but I think there is a better story from her perspective. But then again she is a woman which no one would dare put an action movie around.
Mar 17, 2012
I have not given up on this...
Mar 14, 2012
SMASH (orchestra tune up sound and lightbulb sign)
1. Musical!
I am not a cultured person so it is fun seeing how they are putting on Marilyn the musical. I am sure this is nothing how it is like in the real world but it is exciting.
2. Marilyn!
They don't actually talk about her much aside from her getting married to Joe DiMaggio but its neat to hear about in passing. I know nothing of history and Marilyn seems to be ingrained with a lot of it so it's all new to me.
3. Songs!
There are two types of songs in SMASH, the broadway style ones where they are auditioning or practicing with new music and ones where they are singing their feelings or kareoke something. The audition/practice ones are exciting and fun as they transition from real life to an imagined theatrical performance.
The feelings/kareoke ones are terrible and I skip them at first opportunity.
4. Girls! Gays!
I like decent female performances.... and despite a lot of corn this show has some. I also like shows that support my belief that every gay person is part of the New York theater scene.
5. NBC!
I just want this network to succeed. I don't want it to be #1 MUST SEE TV * SEINFIELD NOISE, but I want it to continue to make decent shows that stick around for a couple of years.
Last Monday's episode got 7.9 million viewers (I watch it on Hulu so I'm not one of them), hopefully that is enough for a second season.
Feb 8, 2012
CHOPPER FEST
Feb 1, 2012
200- A Celebration of an Embarrassment
I'll probably pull this down when I get too embarrassed. Don't watch it.
Here is more of that stuff you didn't like...
Jan 26, 2012
199- In Celebration of a Paid Gig
Jan 22, 2012
HamilTEN Gaming- Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days
YouTube!
HamilTEN Gaming: Kane and Lynch 2
This is the first of hopefully many installments of hamilTEN gaming, looking at some of the current gaming experiences you can have for under ten dollars. The games in this series will be played until we decide whether it’s worth buying and at what price. We will be taking a look at Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days, which was found in a Blockbuster liquidation for 8 dollars.
Kane and Lynch is a third person shooter with online/splitscreen cooperative campaign and a very interesting visual presentation. There are other multiplayer modes but on the Xbox 360 it seemed like other players were nonexistent.
In Kane and Lynch 2 you play as wife beater mullet guy or less interesting dress shirt guy. They swear a lot and are some type of criminals. The story is mostly a criminal on the run type of thing and involves as much generic gore and crude language as the developers can throw at it.
The story and characters are ignorable but the graphics definitely aren’t. Everything is a bit on the generic side but it is coated in tons of digital video filters that make the whole experience look like an episode of cops shot on a cellphone camera. Shockingly the gimmick works and adds a sense of urgency to the shouting and shooting.
The gameplay is a loose gears of war style third person shooter. Things feel imprecise but it seems with the perpetual forward motion that the affect was intended. There is really only one path through every encounter and the answer its always shoot and move forward. Some of the non-shooting mechanics such as reviving a fallen partner are not implemented well and can result in some unnecessary restarts.
For what the game is the sound is well done. Guns and other effects have a meaty and slightly too loud sound which fits the setting and embedded camera person style graphics. Voice acting is competent although the script leans heavily on the 7 words you don’t say on television. The music is random chaos broken up by a random generic 80’s sounding pop song.
Mainly purchased this game due to the price and my interest in the graphical style, both areas the game succeeds with everything else being competent. The competitive multiplayer modes look very interesting, but if no one is around to play them then its not a selling point. The game seems short, I played it for about 3 hours and it seems like I am at least halfway through the campaign.
If you are a fan of third person shooters, split screen coop, or visual gimmicks we recommend this game at the ten dollar price point. Thanks for budget gaming with us, we’ll be saving our pennies until we can tell you about some other bargains soon.