Interview with Francis Ford Coppola

By | Published May 16, 2012

Here is an excellent interview with the esteemed director on one of my favorite sites, EOS HD.

Some of the pointless that stuck with me include: use the newest technology (something I didn’t expect to read from an old filmmaker), ‘expecting great new art without taking risks is like expecting to have a baby without having any sex’, ‘there must be a hormone in young writers that  make them hate everything they’ve just written.’ That last one is definitely true for me.

http://www.eoshd.com/content/8093/filmmaking-tips-from-a-legend-interview-with-francis-ford-coppola

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Pure Blender Power

By | Published May 4, 2012

This work (NOT done by me) is my new standard of excellence.  I want to get this good.  Blender, the latest 3D animation program I have picked up, is an open source and free-to-download.  In the world of video production, it’s up against industry standard programs like Cinema 4D, 3DS Max, Maya, and it is steadily gaining ground.  Check out this amazing snippet using Blender’s recently released ‘cycles’ render engine and a masterful choreography of material texturing:

Fun Note:

I have been learning Blender (on my own) for the past few weeks, implementing it in virtual set creation, etc.  I was trained in the use of Maya for modeling, rigging, and animating in college.  In high school I had fun designing in 3D using AutoCAD and Architectural Desktop.  Before that I used LEGO bricks and a web cam.

Posted in Clever Animations | 1 Comment

twenTYTwelve ~ Epic Background

By | Published May 2, 2012

All the elements for this piece were made in Illustrator. Everything was composited in After Effects (CS5) using PNG’s and RGBA Animation MOV’s. The 3D text was designed in Illustrator, exported to EPS, then imported in the 3D application Blender. After converting the file to meshes, and adding a slight bevel, I applied a highly reflective material and motion to it. A large gradient was added to emulate the reflection of a blue horizon. I strung the stars together in Illustrator, brought them into After Effects, and gave them looping motion. All non-moving objects were made in Illustrator and exported in a single PNG (at 1920×1080).

Everything, from the concept thru execution, was done by me! (However, Michael Shure came up with the idea of capitalizing the TYT in twenTYTwelve)

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3D

By | Published May 1, 2012

In my busy-ness as of late, I’ve been mastering the 3D program Blender. More art and advances to come, but for now, here is a screen shot of my first project; an ‘engine’ for a ship/jet/whatever. It was a nice project to begin with, but I’ve already moved on to better things.

I’d love to show you more, but at this point, I’m bound to secrecy because it’s for work. I’ll just drop the hint ‘virtual set’.

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Keyframing, a world of possibilities

By | Published April 22, 2012

This video might be an antique, but it’s definitely informative. It’s 41 years old. When I learned about keyframing, back in middle school, I supposed it was a lot younger than that. Well, I guess I won’t be able to pick up keyframing at a bar.
The developers of this system, Marceli Wein and Nestor Burtnyk, both went on to win Academy Awards. I find it amazing that they were already enabling 3D animation, as it takes more resources than 2D animation (or so I believe… matrices and all that). I bet that entire room of computers has less power than a flip phone. Fascinating. However, I must be careful what I mock. In 41 years, every microprocessor I own now will be mock-worthy x10.

I can summarize this videos place in history by saying two contradictory things:

1) Doubt the phrase ‘cutting edge technology’. It means that something very large and complicated has reached a point where only PHD level geniuses can get it to work right. So no, you can’t have one.

2) Don’t be too skeptical of emerging technology, because it might drink your milkshake someday, and make you look the fool for doubting it.

Posted in Clever Videography, Updates | Leave a comment

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