They Hunger - Recap

My video for the Home Run Inn Video contest didn't win, but I didn't expect it too. It was a huge "See how many people you can get to constantly vote for your video" contest, not anywhere close to any kind of a quality contest. But that's ok, the winner's video was pretty bad, so his victory will be short-lived. Here is my video in HD, you can see the winner's video >here.

I'm still proud of my video, I think it's my best day-to-night composite yet, and I still love my Harry Potter title intro! :)

They Hunger - Home Run Inn Pizza commercial contest from Dave Spooner on Vimeo.

Windows 7 = wow

Windows 7 marks the first time I have ever installed an OS without having to install ANYTHING else. Win7 loaded everything for me, all the drivers were installed. Not only that, but upon my first bootup, before I did anything, Windows notified me that it had downloaded and installed updated drivers for my video card!

I did have to install an antivirus, but that's to be expected for any OS. But Windows took me to a nice website that listed a couple dozen different Antivirus software to let me choose from. I always choose AVG, so I clicked on that. Unfortunately, the website that it brought me too was not the free version, but I don't think that's Windows fault.

After Antivirus install and UAT disable, it was ready. A mere 20 minutes for complete installation. I like this.

Get Schooled

The past few years, while learning and doing and working on various projects, November and December have traditionally been my slow-down days where I don't work on any projects and just sit back and let motivation take hold. Thanksgiving and the Christmas seasons are pretty much family time.

I have a lot of motivation right now for continued learning, and after my OS rebuild which I hope to do this weekend, there are several things I want to delve into:

1. Houdini 10
2. Fusion 6
3. Advanced After Effects techniques
4. Softimage 2010

The past year I've been pretty much working with sequences from start to finish. But, as much as I want to be familiar with every aspect of post-production, I've learned that I have a love of particles and fluids. That's what I really REALLY want to learn, so I've got my eye on learning node-based programs like Houdini and Fusion, which is where the industry is leaning towards. Plus, if the gods were to do particle effects, they would use Houdini. So that's what I want to learn.

As of now, I just don't get node-based workflows. I'm so used to the time-line and hierarchy style of After Effects compositions (and even older programs like AVS), that dealing with nodes is quite outside of my comfort zone.

But, I really want to discover the industry in every way possible, and that means learning the different ways that other programs do (mostly) the same thing.

Turbo on!

This past weekend was just plain awesome, I did nothing. No work, no school, no traveling, awesome. That means I was able to sit down and get the wedding video done finally. It's sitting pretty at 2 hours and 10 minutes and I believe is a wonderful piece of work that I'm sure will help remind them of their special day (it had better be awesome, this is my entry into the videographer world). I'm just putting the finishing touches on the DVD authoring portion of it, and adding chapters, then it will be ready for review. I'm hoping I can get the DVD mailed by the end of this week.

After this, I don't have any projects on my plate, which is good because it's system rebuild time! Twice a year I rebuild the OS on my system, it makes for a good speed refresh and gets all the updates and security patches onto a fresh install. Plus I've got my very own retail copy of Windows 7 ready to be loved and nourished. I've been using Windows 7 since beta build 6821, and it has been quite a treat for me. I hated Vista and went back to XP after about 6 months with it. So, 7 has been really good to me so far.

Once the rebuild is done, I'm thinking about going back and redoing my show-reel since I've added 3 more projects since I released it a month ago, and I've got a LOT of tutorials that I've been dying to get to, I especially want to learn Cinema 4D very badly! So, I might be entering learning mode for a while, which is always good. At least until the next project.

A short-changed life

I was finally able to start putting Dave and Lisa's wedding video together. After organizing all 7 hours of video (2 cameras) and 4 hours of external audio (external source), I started with the wedding ceremony first.

With constantly having to stop/start recording and reposition my cameras (it was a catholic mass ceremony so there was a lot of movement) I had several gaps during some important parts, and it was a real relief to have an external source always constantly recording audio because I am able to use that audio to fill in the gaps and some other status shots during the wedding as filler. Plus it makes the entire ceremony seem like it was professionally shot continuously with 3 or 4 cameras and a large crew of camera men.

So far, the ceremony is 37 minutes up to their vows, which I was surprised to get recorded. And I still have a LONG way to go.

My wife also has a friend whom just got engaged, and are looking for a videographer on a tight budget. But they want the wedding and reception for around $600. Considering the amount of work so far that has gone into this production, I'm not going to sell myself short this time. If they only have $600, then I'm going to limit the amount of footage that I shoot. I probably need to come up with a pricing scheme, and the current wedding I am working on will be a great indication of what I should charge for each piece, I'm thinking about charging by the video shot/hour because weddings are different for each couple. I don't want to short-change myself, but I also still want to give plenty of options for budget weddings.

Bachelors in Internet Security/Film

The career services department called me the other day, they needed me to fill out a graduation packet in advance for graduating next year. They also wanted to go over my resume and start sending me job leads. I also needed my schedule and a couple other things and yesterday was the only day I could do it (very busy weekend ahead), so I rushed out to school to meet with my Career Services advisor.

My situation is unique in that, while going to school for Computer Security, I've also developed my motion graphics/animation hobby into something nearing entry-level professional quality. So I will hopefully be graduating with two career possibilities which was my goal a few years ago when I started all this.

I was surprised to learn that my Career Services advisor knew this, and was going to start sending me Freelance opportunities in motion graphics/film. While this makes me very nervous, I am still very excited about doing freelance work in the film industry, although I am skeptical because the school has NO film related course!

But, we'll see what comes up.

Quantum Immortality

All I have to say, was that this was definitely the biggest production I have been involved with so far. More than 30 people were involved in the making of it during production, but because of all the problems other people had in post-production I ended up doing all the editing, 3-D animation, and visual effects.

This is not a big deal though, we didn't "fall apart" in post or anything like that. It's just that when I heard of the other two people (who were going to be doing the editing and 3-D animation) were having computer issues n' such, I decided to step in and do all the post production work in preparation of not having their produced videos.

It turned out great, because, for these two guys, it was their first involvement in a quick deadline production and the stress was definitely evident on Saturday when we met. They were pretty frantic about not having anything done, but when they learned that I went ahead and did everything just in case they were relieved. And it also turned out to be a sort of "mentor" type of situation because they thought my work was much better than theirs. They were asking questions about how I did certain things and approaching certain situations, so it was great to pass down some of the knowledge I had attained in the past year to other students who were going to school in the field.

This video is premiering in a Westwood College film festival tomorrow, and I hope that everyone will be surprised and excited as my teacher was when he first saw it today.

We've got many more ideas, and my teacher want's to do more videos with the same premise, so I'm sure this will not be my last video with him. Plus he has a band and wants to do music videos and since he liked my work, I might be working more with him as well.

Doors are opening!!!