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Showing posts from August, 2009

Don't stop till its "there"

As I'm lighting this last set...as I have been for the past 11 hours or so 0_0... I find that I keep changing it until its "there"... Now where is "there"? I really don't know what "there" is but for this film I don't stop working on things until they are there... a few friends have seen the sets in process and been like "oMG thats beautiful?!" but I'm like "Nah its not THERE yet" So as I tweak on in the 100' degree and my workstation starts beeping nonstop due to overheating?! I keep working till it gets "there"... then once this last one is there... i'll go back and fix the first 6 I did because I dont know where there was yet when I did those ^ ^ Confusing eh? I show this stuff to meh friend... the composer, Endika... tomorrow for the first time so he can start working on the score... or at least I'm supposed to...hope I can have them all there by then...

Work faster! Work Slower?!

As I go on and on through lighting these sets... 24 down! 3 to go! ^ ^ Over the years since I did WATS I've learned SO MUCH about everything that I'm not making the same workflow mistakes that I did on WATS AND I now know what I need to do to make the images I want to make....so that gives me extra time to focus on tweaking on little things to make outstanding images BUT with this added knowledge now comes all the time to do all the little things my tweaker brain makes me do....example... The world of "Heart String Marionette" is lit only with torches, candles and the moon... AND I'm following my own photographically accurate rules so there are no phantom lights... if there is a light in a scene its coming from one of those three lighting devices AND I just HAVE to make them behave like real lights and shadows haha... thats what takes a lot of time... I will NEVER use GI because I believe it takes a lot of the art out of lighting which I enjoy so I'm setting u

Become ConsumeD

I am a man consumed... consumed by my quest for ultimate expression in the arts... in life... All the fire related metaphors when speaking about passion... I doNE be understood themS nOW... you become consumed by this fire... and everything you encounter in life and...everyone is swallowed up and burned as fuel for this fire... all your time, all your money, all your energy, all your emotions and experiences are torched... The Hagakure talked a lot about death smoke...and how you never knew a persons true nature or you never knew truth until seeing the persons death smoke... what a curious thing this fire is... because with it.... by being consumed by the arts and these flames you are able to torch everything and see the smoke WHILE YOU ARE STILL ALIVE... you can look at your own smoke and see the truth.... So in the Hagakure it talked a lot how to conduct your life... to restrain yourself in life and go berserk in battle... " The way of the Samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or

Presenting: ARCHON DEFENDER!

From the d00d who brought you Rocketmen vs RObots comes an awesome looking new ORIGINAL animated feature film called "Archon Defender"! Visit the site here This post is all about the new animated feature film by Dave4096 aka nodelete... This is an animated feature film made by one crazy d00d... see the trailer here Dave told me he's since replaced the synthesized voices with human ones and I am anxiously awaiting his new trailer ^ ^ Follow along at his blog here where he gives tons of behind the scenes info and even makes tutorials and other useful thangs to us types ^ ^ PleaS go check it out! Now Dave asked me about how I released WATS DVD and all that stuff and I was going to answer him in a youtube video but it would have been too long and its easier to write it all here wif links and all that... So here's my experience releasing WATS for DAve and anyone else interested but be sure to check out the Archon Defender stuff and let him know what you think! ^ ^ So wha

d00d got like Vue 8 big deal ^ ^

So as I am an animation/comic/film geek amongst other things I try to stay up on new things in those areas... as I was anxious to see some imagery from James Cameron's new film Avatar because of all the like changing everything HYP3... and now that the trailer is out ... I feel really let down... I was really expecting something special but its just like I GOT 800 MILLION DOLLARS AND LIKE MY PROFESSIONAL TEAM IS USING VUE 8 BETA AND WERE DOING THIS MOCAP THING SO THEY MOVE LIKE REAL PEOPLE....wow... OH SHET and the story is about a guy driving another body JUST LIKE MOCAP!??! OMG its a VUE 8 MOCAP FANTASY LAND hahahaa.... I don't know about you but this Starcraft II trailer is a lot better than the Avatar one... BUT of yeh Avatar is in life changing never seen before 3d right... haha... Am I a bastard for making fun of it? Yes I am a bastard but not for ragging on multi million dollar productions... Just goes to show you that money can't buy you creative innovation...YES

film making "experts" with no experience

It seems the world... the internet world especially is full of people who act like, talk like, and posture like "experts" yet they have no experience in the fields they are "experts" in... They believe themselves to be experts because they have researched a certain area a lot... they may have even made a halfhearted attempt at said task and found out they were not up to it....but until you do it, follow through and finish it...whatever the task may be... your still a poseur, a wannabe... and your opinion doesn't mean much at all... Why do chemists bother to test anything in the lab? I mean shET it works on paper so it will work in the real world right? Now what am I talking about exactly? Well... even though I am working hard on HSM I constantly have my evil tentacles probing all corners of the internets... and I read a lot of posts by young optimistic people looking to learn and make films and work with other people perhaps... then these supposed experts all ra

Alright alright LINEAR is betteR

I think I posted about this Linear color workflow plugin for Cinema 4d called DeGamma I bought it a few weeks ago and have been using it as I light my sets for HSM... Now until recently I'd read a lot about linear workflows and the like but I never really understood what the advantage was... I mean I saw the advantage of compositing in 32 bit color space in AE for light fx and blending... but I never really understood the whole linear thing when it came to lighting my scenes... after using it for awhile now and reading the manua l a few times I know understand and see the advantage... So in lamE_Mdots terms... all you need to know that when working in linear mode... Its like film vs. miniDV... in linear, you use softer lights so there's no nasty hotspots (clipping) less light goes a long way and when lighting this way more detail in the scenes shows up... The normal non-linear way is like shooting on miniDV... you need hotter lights that cause hotspots (clipping) lights dont h

If I did mixed media today...

I stumbled across two After Effects plugins this week that allow you to do some AWESOME mixed media integration amongst other thangs... Normality Render out a normal pass with your 3d scene and use this plugin in AE to relight the 3d geometry...yeh ya heard me right its pretty suite... Can do some insane 3d/stopmo/2d or 3d/live action with this thang... Youveelizer Render out a UV pass with your 3d renders and use this plugin to retexture the 3d objects in After Effects...you can add reflections and other thangs to help compositing of 3d in other media as well... Pretty win stuff if ya ask meH. Mix that media maynE!

Sigh... No choice for "safety"

Mo ranting from meh... Ya know all the crap films that are made now are made because they are "safe" pre-sold franchises.... remakes, re-imaginings, adaptations blah blah... they don't take any chances on any new ideas because they are not "safe"... now in the world of film that equals biannual regurgitations of mediocre soulless crap... Now in real life in the US... when people trade in they choice for "safety" it means that I, a person with no criminal record at ALL can be stopped in the street for nothing at all by 8 police... searched...including taking off my shoes, socks etc for 30 minutes... can be told to my face by judging eyes "You are on drugs" when I don't use any drugs at all.... and I have to stand there and take it unless I want to get tasered, shot and arrested...not necessarily in that order... The Hollywood system rewards films that plays its game... big money, big stars, fancy things... and it attacks little films that

Why not you?

I know a lot of things in life that you may want to learn seem intimidating... and a lot of times the so called "professionals" will try to talk you out of learning out of fear that you will take they jobs haha... But seriousylY... you can learn ANYTHING you want these days IF you know where and how to look... the learning resources are there... text, video...whatever you want! When I approach something new to learn... I say to myself " X person learned that so why can't I? Yeh why not me? " Then I just jump in and do my best and eventually I do learn it and gain that skill...then I move on to another... So if there's something that seems currently out of your grasp... and maybe your talking yourself out of learning it for whatever reason... just stop and say "Why not me?" and get all the learning materials you can and jump in and do your best... odds are you will learn something ^ ^ Just recently... REALLY learning and understanding the character

It's about madness

Now that everything is made for Heart String Marionette... looking at it all... what it turned out to be... The story... the setting... the characters... their twisted faces... and... lately I've felt like I've been losing my mind... I've gone so far and so deep into so many things since "We are the Strange" in an attempt to do something better, more sincere, more powerful... I think I've driven myself a little crazy... Because now that I look at it all together... I'm a little scared... now... I'm not scared myself... I'm scared for you... Because this film... its about madness... it is madness... I finally have the technical skill to create what's really in my head... not a caricature version or some rough proxy... this is the real stuff... and its madness... Maybe there's a reason film's were made by groups of people? Maybe there's a reason for gatekeepers and decision makers to tell you "No, thats a little too much" Ye