Oct 25 08

Link Dump: Eclectic

Alright, here’s a pretty scattered entry, and I’m sorry for it being late, but I’ve gotten home at midnight the last 2-3 nights in a row and haven’t been in much of a mood for more than sleep by that time, so here’s the entry, I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. Gimme the goodies…

Oct 16 08

Link DUMP #2

Alright guys…another pretty massive list of links for your researching and learning pleasure.  That being said…I’ll get started. Gimme the goodies…

Oct 13 08

Showcase: Strange Behavior

Alright, so this may not be “low-budget,” per se, but it was made by one guy, so that in itself is admirable, and definitely a sort of DIY spirit type piece.  Plus, you’ve got to admit, it’s freaking awesome.  Check it out, and enjoy .

Oct 10 08

Link DUMP

Alrighty…sorry for the late post, but I think I’ll make up for it this time.  I’ve got a whopper of a list tonight…tons of stuff I’ve been discovering over the past two weeks.  So I’m not going to intro…here they are: Gimme the goodies…

Oct 06 08

Showcase: Virals & Ads

Alrighty…so here’s this week’s showcase.  I’ve noticed as I become more entrenched in the industry-bound mindset and more into the tools and techniques and whatnot of the professional side of things, I’m introducing more of that into my blog posts.  I hope you guys don’t mind, but I’ll try to keep this low-budget aimed anyway, since that’s the purpose of the site in the first place.  Now, that said, let’s move into the good stuff… Gimme the goodies…

Oct 02 08

Link Dump: Tracking

Alrighty…firstly, sorry for the no-Showcase-Sunday, it was a really late and full weekend of getting work done for presenting our final reel project idea to our teachers, so there was no time and no energy left by Sunday night…and really not much more at the moment.  But, I have collected quite a few links this time, so hopefully it makes up for it.  Here we go… Gimme the goodies…

Sep 25 08

Link Dump: Rigs

Alright, well I haven’t collected any links that are new to me, but I started digging through my collection I’ve amassed over the years doing research for the project, and came across a few things that will be helpful.  We’re not actually building rigs for the shoot, but it was a thought in the beginning, so naturally I got excited about it.  So, here’s what I’ve got to offer right now, feel free to leave additions and whatnot in the comments. Gimme the goodies…

Sep 22 08

Showcase: 10 Minutes

Alright, so this film clearly had at least the budget to transport crew to a foreign country, if not the budget to recreate an entire small town for the film.  However, looking past that, the point I want to make is this: take a look at the amount of cuts in the film.  The dramatic, realistic effect (not to mention huge technical respect from peers and knowledgeable audience members) that a fluid, long take gives a film is so great that you have to sit back in awe and admiration.  Children of Men had the same effect on me in their climactic sequence where there’s an 8-to-10-minute shot with no cuts throughout.  It’s a wonderful effect and something that only really takes planning at its most basic level, and anybody can do that, no matter their budget.  It’s simple and practical in principle, painstaking in execution but pays off hugely in the end, plus I love the short film, so I figured I’d show it off and offer the little idea for you fellow filmmakers out there. Gimme the goodies…

Sep 18 08

Link Dump: Eclectic

Well this one’s another brief and rather scattered one, we’re entering the planning and scheduling of the project now, so I’m thinking about how we’re going to do the practical, on-set effects or complicated shots we’re going to need to pull off.  And since I spent my high school years researching that kind of thing, I’m excited that I finally have a use for all that amassed knowledge and inspiration.  So, here goes the short list… Gimme the goodies…

Sep 15 08

Showcase: Steel

Well, here it is, another week, and I’m digging into my pocket of old showcase possibilities. This one I found a while back and was most impressed I believe with the fight coreography. Really, when you look at it, the whole thing could have been done with a very small budget, and a few good connections (someone with a nice car, a good eye for color-correction). I don’t have much else to say about it, but take a peek at the final product and feel free to leave suggestions for future showcase episodes, or thoughts on this one.

Sep 11 08

Link Dump: Storyboarding

Well this one’s going to be very quick, as it’s been the most busy and hectic and honestly frustrating week so far at school and I am exhausted to the point of brain-no-function. So here it goes… Gimme the goodies…

Sep 08 08

Showcase: The Assignment

Well I actually found this film a while back, but haven’t been on the prowl this last week for films to showcase, and decided to take a peek at my collection to see if there was anything amateruish I could post here. This one definitely seems to fit the bill, though it’s one of the more professional looking ones so far. I know nothing about this film, or about its creators, so suffice it to say this post is simply a showcase. Enjoy. Gimme the goodies…

Sep 03 08

Link Dump: Screenwriting

Alright, well, regrettably, this one’s going to be really short. I haven’t actually amassed many links this past week. Somehow I just didn’t look around I guess. I also was catching up on some things I’d posted a while back and still hadn’t gotten around to reading. Nonetheless, I’m posting now, so enjoy what I did find and take advantage of the resources I can provide. This week’s topic is screenwriting. Gimme the goodies…

Sep 01 08

Showcase: Via Optima

Well, this one’s also got to be quick, but I definitely want to share it. I discovered Via Optima via (haha!) their Instructables article on making a short film for 80 bucks. Now, that headline alone would grab most anyone’s attention, but being into this field as I am, it certainly grabbed mine. I haven’t finished the article yet – been very busy lately – but it sounds like a decently written article from two clearly talented young filmmakers. The film referenced in the article, and the most on their site, is their latest achievment in their brief filmmaking careers: a short called The Shepherd. Of course the acting isn’t award-winning, but given the fact that these were two guys and only a few friends and family members making the film, their production value is outstanding, and the story something I could see coming from Cronenberg, Aronofsky or maybe even Lynch. Backing away from Hollywood names and grand-scale comparisons, these are simply kids making a movie in their senior year of high school. It’s a short thriller by two 18-year-olds, and right from the title sequence they had me hooked. Definitely worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch. Oh, watch the trailer too. And take a peek at their Vimeo profile and website.

Aug 28 08

Link Dump: Keying

Alright, this one’s going to be really quick because it’s 11:30 in a series of late nights and early mornings and I’m trying to beat the pre-sleep hunger and save it for morning. So, here goes…

We’ve been doing keying in school a lot recently, so while investigating that, I decided to collect resources and share them with you here tonight (did you notice I’m back on schedule? ). So, first off, Videomaker.com had an article on The Keys To Chromakey, basically a how-to for greenscreening, covering the basic production theory and offering some suggestions for equipment and tools. The ABCs of Chomakeys also looked good. Also, while searching through the site, I discovered their collection of video tutorials I didn’t know they had. Score!

Moving right along… of course I always check out After Effects tutorials, having some sort of fascination with the application, legally owning it myself, and loving the guys who make the tutorials I’ve found, and so I found this very useful tutorial about light wrapping around your greenscreen subject. Breakdown: basically what happens when you shoot something is light from behind the subject will bend around that subject, leaving little traces of the background on the edges of that subject. You’ll notice it the most in silhouette shots, where the edges seem semi-transparent. During a green/bluescreen shot, this happens just the same as normal, only since you’re keying out the blue/green in post, you often key out the egdes or parts of the subject with those shades of blue/green on them. Which is clearly a problem. This tutorial offers some tips on creating a preset to help you with fixing this problem and creating realistic light wrapping based on the new background image you’ve replaced your blue/greenscreen with. Nice long tip there from me… that one’s free . Following in the After Effects vein, this was just a cool little note I found for Mac users, getting a color picker while inside the AE interface. It sounds like a great help for motion graphics creators. Less for compositing work, but still a useful tool if you’re on a Mac.

Another AE link is this site, its list of tutorials being somewhat cool, the summer-to-winter effect was pretty decent, and their Hand Scanner and Aurora Borealis tutorials were pretty cool too.

Alright… into the more industry-friendly stuff… Shake tutorials. I found a nice trio of Shake keying tutorials using Keylight, which actually also ships with After Effects now, so some of this stuff might be useful there too. I wasn’t watching in that frame of mind though, so I couldn’t say for sure. All three parts are good, the audio’s just really low, so you’ll have to listen carefully with loud speakers (or headphones). Thanks to CreativeCow.net for those.

On the last – but not least – note of this post, is a new episode from Photoshop For Video about saturating reds in images without exceeding broadcast/video limits. Good stuff.

Enjoy the new stuff, and I’ll be back as always on Sunday with some new showcase stuff for you guys. Happy filmmaking and good luck keying. Send in commenst or questions or test footage if you like, I’d love to see something.