Wish I Was Here

Up and Coming in 2011

Maceij, the radio DJ in Toronto, has really enjoyed my work so far and loves the final product.  He also has a sound guy (Ryan) whom he works with to get sound effects and stuff he needs for his videos (which he pays for).  Ryan has also commented on my work and thought it was very well done, and he also asked Maceij to introduce us in the beginning of next year because he has got some work to be done also, which would be paid work!

Ryan has done a lot of sound mixing and effects for various radio stations all over North America and his resume is pretty impressive with the stations he's worked for, so being requested by him for work next year is very flattering.

So, hopefully next year will finally begin the year of the Freelancer!

New Top 10 Design - Tri Wheel thingy

I started this project about 2 weeks ago and it was slowly turning into a piece of garbage that nowhere near represented what it turned into today.  At it's low point I was incredibly frustrated with not being able to get fast renders with the types of effects that I wanted.  My Global Illumination simulation (the Christmas Marble Madness) has been rendering since Monday on my main computer and it's about 75% done right now.  And in turning off Global Illumination and Ambient Occlusion, things looked really bad.  So I reset the design and eventually came up with this.

For the intro, I started out with the camera inside my 3-wheel rotating numbers thingy (that's the official name, lol) and turned on the lights one by one to reveal the Fusion logo and the wheel.  Then the camera moves back and the wheel comes down into place and starts turning.  Eventually all three wheels stop in the same spot and come together with violent sparks.  This indicates the number in which we are at during the countdown.  The name of the song/artist/studio appear to the left of the numbers and then we go to a standard flare-out to begin the music video.

It looks pretty good, the colors can be easily changed and it renders pretty fast on the laptop (about 30 minutes for each number transition, about an hour for the intro).  Once the GI simulation is finally done I can move this project to my main computer and make changes at will with fast turnaround time.

Christmas Marble Madness

I'm still playing around with awesome Global Illumination, and I've also started dabling in the Mograph dynamics in Cinema 4D. I've got some bright colored marbles going through a tube and eventually crashing into a light wall, all with some physics.

I heart GI!

Illumination Without Lights

I've been working lately on more natural illumination. For instance, everything around us in the real world have some illumination properties that allows it to reflect light instead of just an image.

This is called Global Illumination in the CG biz, and allows a single light source to correctly light a scene based on object's illuminative property. In Cinema 4D, each texture has the ability to "emit" light, and with the Global property in a scene you can create some really natural looking light.

After some playing around during the Thanksgiving break, I came up with this example. There are no lights in this scene and the grilled light texture on the standing lights are what emit the lights in the scene. Light is reflected around the entire scene with Global Illumination.

Need Some Advice...

Ok, so far, the graphics for Maciej (the DJ from Toronto) is going very well. I sent him a test video last night and he loved the design, just one small change to the text and it's done. I'm also going to provide him a numbered sequence transition to showcase his Top 10 videos. I know this is above and beyond what he was looking for, and almost 2 weeks early.

I now feel like I've finally crossed that line. The line between amateurism and (semi) professionalism. Now it's time to start getting paid.

So now, how do I go about introducing this potentially client-relationship destruction? What is fair?

I've been thinking about this lately, and I really don't feel comfortably putting a price on "work involved" for a project. It's almost impossible for me to keep track of when and for how long I work on a project or video to really put a price on it.

But what about just putting a price on the delivered product? Like say, $5 for every second of delivered rendered HD video. And have a premium scale, like 5$ for videos under 20 seconds, $4 for videos 20-59 seconds, $3 for videos over a minute. Most of my work falls into the 5-40 seconds, and I only have one delivered video that was over a minute.

But what about formats? There's Standard Definition, 720p HD and 1080p HD. There's a huge cost in time between Standard Definition and 1080p. So, maybe keep Standard Definition videos cheap, or even free? 720p will sport the standard price scale, and 1080p will incur a $1/sec premium charge.

What about my current clients? Fusion has really been good to their word about actively helping me get work and they really like my designs. It was Fusion that landed me the Toronto Dj gig just now, and I know that they really have a spot in their family for me. So maybe continue to keep doing videos for Fusion on pro-bono?

And Maciej has really liked my work so far, and he is looking to spice his videos up every 6 months or so. I don't feel good popping the price on videos I am working for him now, it's just too soon and I don't want to let him down. Maybe after the final product has been submitted and we have time to discuss this. Now that he knows that I am trustworthy and can deliver a good product, maybe he will be inclined to a small charge the next time he needs videos in a pinch? For what it's worth, the final product submitted to him will be 75 seconds total, that would of been $225 for 720p and $300 for 1080p. I think that's a decent charge, and I KNOW that is cheap as hell in the motion graphics world.

Maybe I should just be blunt and ask them how they feel about a charge, and what they would feel comfortable paying me?

In my experience, it never hurts to be up front and honest. Maybe I'll go over with it with the Fusion crew first as they have deeper insight into how deep these pockets are and what people are probably willing to spend. Since I know I won't charge Fusion at all, building this relationship even further might prove to return substantial gains.

Recommended in Toronto...

A radio DJ in Toronto got thrown to the wolves doing a top-20 VIDEO countdown on a bi-weekly basis. He was in contact with the Fusion folks about our video productions and he is lost when it comes to what he's looking for. He's never done anything with video before and needs serious help and this is where I now come in.

Maceij contacted me last night and we talked about his radio show, and his website http://myradiotopten.com and he needs an intro for his video countdown show to begin airing next week. He also said that he's been in contact with 3 other studios/motion graphics artists who have been unable to provide him with something decent. If I come through for him, I will be able to do what other's were unable to provide.

By the time we got done talking I had a pretty solid idea for a nice intro for him. Luckily for me, he has the same colors/flashy-style as Fusion has so that makes it much easier on my end. He was also very impressed with my work so far with Fusion and my website/vimeo page, he says I come highly recommended.

I feel pretty confident about getting him a solid product that he will enjoy and I already have most of the design elements and animation done. He said that I don't need to finish it by the first show, but 5 days before the second show which is December 2nd.

Virtual Studio

Most news/sport studios are hand crafted from the ground up, like Fox News and ESPN and Comcast Sportsnet. They leave the fancy graphics to the intros outros and transitional elements.

But shows with little or no budget like Tosh.0 and Talk Soup, the hosts are normally on a green screen and the designer pretty much can put whatever they want behind them.

In our case, we obviously don't have the money to spend on a fancy-schmancy studio desk and background, so we have to do everything digitally.

I started by looking at other news centers and see what they have in common, it's mostly steel/industrial with some shiny metallics and illuminating lights thrown in for good measure. And along with some kind of LCD array in which to "show-off" their broadcast center in the background and whatnot.

Being as Fusion is not the center of the Dance Radio broadcast world (not yet), we need to start of small. A backdrop depicting some metallic structure, a window to view Chicago's beautiful skyline and a virtual TV to show media as the DJ announces it.

I started out with the base stage with some basic geometry:














Then I built the window and the viewport for the TV:














And many hours later, some lighting and texturing, and some floor mechanics, and we currently have this:














I'm certainly not done yet, I need feedback from the Fusion folks on the general motif, what they like/don't like, and what they would like to see, etc.

Plus this was designed like the DJ would be standing, but if he is sitting or behind a desk that they might get, I will need to redesign the stage to reflect the phyiscal hardware and the perspective of the stage.

Anyways, I like the way this is going and time will tell how this eventually turns out.

Interesting appraise

I was talking with the marketing director of Fusion Radio last night, and we were discussing an upcoming Top 20 countdown that he wants me to work with someone from Canada on doing a graphic intro. And he mentioned that he was able to discuss their "live" videos with someone from Fox News Chicago who was the director of media over there, and he showed the guy from Fox some of my work and he said that they were really good! How about that, some good appraise from someone high up in the industry, wow!

In addition to that, he was also saying that our "live" videos need more movement in the background instead of just the static Fusion logo. So, I came up with the idea of a News Anchor-ish background for the DJ to stand in front of, there would of course be the Chicago skyline in the background, and some architecture around a window and a virtual TV in which to show media on.

So, a virtual news studio, a Top 20 countdown intro animation, and some videos to render for next week.

Busy busy busy!

Logo Redesign

After about a year trying to find that elusive logo design that accurately represents Angler.digital, I think I may have found it. Although I'm still contemplating how to bring the fish into the animation, I think I have a great start.

New Show reel

FX Reel - 11/05/2010 from Dave Spooner on Vimeo.

New show reel for this year, a compilation of things I have worked on so far in 2010. There's more motion graphics this time than visual effects, which is a first. And I was able to fill up a reel with work done only in this year, which is also a first. This year has also marked the conclusion of a great trilogy and a film that won 2 awards which is showcased in my VFX Breakdowns part of the video.

It's not the end of the year yet, but it might as well be. November and December months I don't normally have a lot of free time, mostly spending it with family and whatnot. But its a great time to sit back and relax.

The biggest change to this year's reel is the separation of Visual Effects and Motion Graphics, and I decided to show breakdowns of visual effects. Sometimes the art is lost if the viewer doesn't realize the blank canvas that you started with, and sometimes a new appreciation can be discovered.

I remember how this passion all started for me, it was The Mummy (1999) that really opened my eyes. Before I even saw the movie for the first time, they showed a behind the scenes feature one night and the showed the breakdown of the scene where the mummy was gaining his powers after he'd just consumed the blind guy, and Brendan Frasier started shooting at him causing bits and pieces to tear off. I was hooked!

The Art of the Explosion, Part 1

Michael Bay may not be known for his direction or storytelling, but he is definately known for creating spectacular explosive visuals. I have been attempting creating explosions for about 2 years now, and while they have all been space atmosphere explosions (which simplifies things immensely), they still require a lot of finese to create, control, and visualize.

In the 3D animation world, even to this day, 3D generated explosions using volumetric shaders or real-world physics-driven simulations still don't look realistic enough. While they have gotten pretty good on the physical aspect of the explosion (movement, reaction to gravity/wind/object) it's usually the look or the feel that gives it away.

So, how do big-house productions use/create explosions?

Well, the easy route would be to take pre-keyed (a keyed element is a video that has an alpha channel for a background, therefore being transparent making compositioning MUCH easier) video of an explosion and layering onto our video. Movies like Independence Day and Starship Troopers and many other movies in the 90's used this method. The problem with this method is that it's usually VERY hard to find the explosion you are looking for. Maybe the fire needs to react with other elements in the scene and finding one that looks and reacts just right can be very time consuming.

The other route that most big productions seem to be taking is the create-your-own-explosions route. This method provides wonderful advantages in moulding and shaping EXACTLY the way you want the explosion to happen. Even making things happen that would not even occur in real-world physics, or creating physics for something that has yet to be seen (space physics for example). Contrary to popular belief, fire DOES BURN in space, but it burns MUCH faster hence the lack of oxygen. Howeven if there is fuel, then the quicker-disbursed fumes will burn very quickly. Same with smoke, however it even dissipates much faster than fire in space, probably not even noticeable to the naked eye depending on the size of the explosion. Event Horizon was a good movie that delved into more real-world phsyics of space explosions. But the norm for Hollywood is to create atmospherically correct explosions, even in space for the simple reason that it just looks better.

The trick that Hollywood represents, is that it really doesn't matter if the explosion is realistic for the environment so long as it fits and enhances the scene.

How do you create an explosion?

The first thing to do is to be aware of your environment. In my case I've been building explosions in space. So definately lack of gravity will be needed, however I still use huge, long-lasting plumes of fire and smoke, totally out of place in space, however it looks really good and helps me drive the story (and hide the fact that there is really no physical damage). It's easier to notice an bad explosion if it dissipates and there's no visible damage than a physically incorrect but good-looking explosion. In the Atmosphere you have to consider gravity, wind, friction, and collisions.

There are two different types of volumetric effects programs out there; there's volumetric shaders (more used for big plume explosions like buildings and aircraft) and volumetric simulators (more used for fire and small, locallized, explosive bursts like car-bombs and hallways).

I have more experience with Volumetric shaders with particles, because they have fit my needs more than the other programs. In most 3D programs you can create simple particle emitters that throw out a preset amount of particles in a single direction with some variation, as you can see in the picture:

This will provide some particles in which a shader could be attached for some fire texture. However, this will look extremely bubbly and very unrealistic, like a pre-schooler drawing comparing to Da Vinci.

These are randomly placed particles coming out at a random speed with simplistic direction. No. What we need is chaos!


And we need to control that chaos.

Imagine an explosion. We have the impact, the initial plume, an expanding plume, a directional plume, random plume offspring, small fireball debris, and pieces debris. Taking these items into account and designing particle systems for each piece of the explosion takes a lot of time, and in the end the particles will look something like this:

Here we have all systems in place to control the randomocity and chaos of an explosion. This is a space explosion, so we lack gravity, wind and friction. Those will have to taken into account in an atmosphere explosion. (each color represent a different control system)

To control this explosion we have to setup a system of rules and checks to monitor conditions for all systems.


In the simple particle emitter, there is nothing in place to control this. However to build a complete explosion we need to slowly introduce each element and make sure it's functional before moving on to the next piece. After a while (4 days for me) of tinkering and tweaking the particles, there could be a system that looks like this:

Compared to big house productions that do HUGE calculations for dynamic realistic explosions on a daily basis, this is a kids toy, VERY simple. But, for me, it's a start. And you always have to start before you can finish. However building your own explosions in 3D is like playing golf; you never win but you get better and better :). And taking this simple explosion system and adding volumetric lights you get something that looks like this:

Certainly not bad for 4 days of playing around. My lighting is still too bright, and there is some more tinkering to be done with the pieces and plumes, but it's a good start. I plan on improving this continuously and eventually replacing the explosion elements in my recent space battle scene with these once I get them looking good enough and reacting well to my environment.

I also need to develop the delivery and impact system, so that I don't have to animate each explosion. I could do a simple Star Trek proton torpedo type of effect, very simple, easy and cool looking to do. But I'm not sure where I want to go with this, I want to do something unique, so I may play off of the proton torpedo look, or I may do something different.

More space, more explosions, more ships!

In learning Cinema 4D it was inevitable that I create a space combat animation. This seems to be something I have a knack for, and no matter what I am working on I always find ideas to use in my "next" space animation.

This one is a combination of many different things that I have created over the years. My biggest accomplishment in this video is the Earth which was completely modeled by me. The next big thing is the big ship, which was the 9th iteration of the vessel in a backburner short-film PEARL. The small ships are a simple model I made last week.

Lots of different programs were used as well, many different layers of animation, background, lighting, and general compositing. 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, After Effects, Soundbooth and Premiere were all used in creating this animation. This video was made in about a week which is pretty good considering my last animations several years ago.

It's still not perfect, I didn't like the sun, and some of the compositing and sounds were sloppy, but I just wanted to move on, I've learned what I wanted to learn with this animation.

Cinema 4D Space Battle test from Dave Spooner on Vimeo.

I'm a blur, I'm a blur!

Flurry of activity over the past few days. I first created a redesign of the Fusion Radio logo, I was trying to imitate the new Comcast Sportsnet design style along with a heavily textured and detailed "F" logo. I think it turned out quite well and I'm still waiting for a response from the Fusion guys about it.

I also felt that I was getting a little stagnant in my 3D animation so I decided to create another space battle using Cinema 4D instead of old reliable (3DS Max), along with After Effects for compositing the 3D layers and special effects.

My previous space battle I created was almost 3 years ago. It was made almost entirely in 3DS Max with Afterburn for explosions and old models that I had created for PEARL (a now defunct short film that never saw light of day). Now, I used a ship model that I redesigned for PEARL a year ago and another smaller ship design that I made just recently. And using After Effects to composite all special effects like explosions, film grain, and other artifacts, and then using Premiere to finish it all together.

It's turning out quite nice. And because Cinema 4D has much easier controls to bring 3D data into After Effects, the compositing side is going pretty fast. The hardest part so far was converting the old ship model from 3DS Max into something Cinema 4D could use.

I plan on posting it as soon as it's done as it will be the most complete 3D rendering of any kind I have ever done. A complete story from start to finish. I never finished my older renders becauce while Afterburn is totally awesome, it takes forever to render! I started the new animation on Friday, and I'm putting together the final scene now. But I am having other issues with adding debris layers, but I'm thinking about just leaving those out, we'll see.

There's also been a lot of activity with the Screen Writer's guild that was responsible for the production of Orbit Control, but so far there hasn't been any real solid movement towards another film, but I guess as long as there's activity then things will keep moving forward.

Orbit Control

Orbit Control was finally put to rest last night, the film was finished on the 5th and the trailer on the 9th. I built a DVD for both the film and the trailer, and included HD versions of them on the DVD-ROM content, and made 20 copies.

Tonight is the cast party and official screening of the film in Schaumburg, which I am quite excited about. This film was a wonderful and stress-free experience (except for last night, just a little stress about building the DVD), that I look forward to in bigger productions.

Orbit Control from Dave Spooner on Vimeo.

Out of the mold again

I've completed the first draft of my script entitled "Pathways", for next year's "21 Film Project". I know it's really early, but I'm not the kind of guy to wait until June to come up with an idea for the contest in July. Who knows what I will be dealing with at that time, could be other films for the same contest or commercials, or graphics, could be anything. So, while I have spare time, I'm going to be working on this film and I hope to have it completed by February.

I will admit, being that I am first and foremost dedicated to furthering my craft of special effects and motion graphics, that this script is written around a few special effects that I've been wanting to challenge myself with for a while now. There are only two lines of dialogue in the film, and it is all emotion conveyed through action instead of words.

The story is about a man, down on his luck recently made homeless, finding a nice camera in the trash as he is sifting through it. As the man plays with the camera he finds that the camera is showing him pathways in which he might be able to end his life.

There is a happy ending, but I don't want to spoil it. It is written for the Land of Lincoln Credit Union "21 Film Project" for next year so you can kinda imagine where this has to go, plus I wanted to incorporate it with their new "The Do Good" campaign.

This is my second script, and I've tried to make it as simple as possible. My previous film "They Hunger" was very simple, but with a few camera tricks and some nice music and sound, it came together very well. To me, I feel like I need to get the basics down before I start tackling complex projects requiring lots of hands. It's a simple shoot, but with complex emotions, so I'm challenging myself even more this time.

Celebration

This past weekend was the 3rd annual Land of Lincoln Credit Union "21 Film" contest which we entered with our film "The Missing Bank Card 3" to wrap up the trilogy.

The Missing Bank Card 3: The Last Debate of Abraham Lincoln from Dave Spooner on Vimeo.

Before the actual "Showcase" began which ran the top 20 films entered into the contest, there was a screening of other notable films not related to the contest. Within that special screening they also ran last year's contest winner by Dave Heinzel "Press Play" as well as BOTH our first two films; The Missing Bank Card 1 and 2. A couple other films also made their debut (unrelated to the contest) from local high-school's and other national Independent Film makers to wrap up the special showcase. But you could tell that this was going to be a special night for us right from the get-go.

Then the Top-20 showcase began to kick off the ceremony, in it were your standard Land of Lincoln commercial-films, and other films that just didn't make any sense, all mixed in with some well-shot but un-fleshed stories, and some well-fleshed-out stories but horribly shot. And then there were a couple that really shined, like some hand puppet acting, and a film shot on a Canon 7D with some gorgeous DOF.

In the end though, our film was a triumphant riot. While there weren't as many laugh-out-loud moments in the 3rd film as there were in the films before, you could tell that it still captivated the audience, and the climactic applause at the end was worth the trip alone.

This year the contest organizers decided to add an "Audience Choice" award in which the members of the audience were each given a voting placard with the list of the top-20 films, and after all the films were shown they voted on their favorite. We certainly didn't have the largest group in the crowd, but we still won the award! The audience voted on US!

After that unexpected but uplifting award, they also announced the winner of the coveted "Best Film" award, which we won! Paul brought us all down there to the podium with him, and I couldn't think of anything coherent to say, but I was really happy.

The afterparty was fun, I was able to make a couple contacts that were interested in my abilities and then we made the 3 hour drive home late at night.

So, what's next?

We had a long friendly talk with Dave Heinzel, the director of the previous year's winners, and challenged us next year. So we will probably go head-to-head next year with our films, whatever they will be.

I also have some ideas myself, and it might be possible that, in addition to possibly helping Paul with next year's film, that I might have my own submission as well. I was in the middle of an animated short for the contest this year, but I decided to focus on Paul's film instead, so I may finish it for next year.

I also have an idea for a "Twilight Zone" esque film that I still need to flesh out. But I enjoyed creating "They Hunger" so much that, even with a small cast (me and my wife), I feel like I could put something noteworthy together for next year's contest.

Next year's contest was once a shot in the dark a few months ago, but now I may have my hands full again come next June!

finished again

So, I am finished AGAIN with The Missing Bank Card 3. I'm slugging on 2 hours of sleep right now at work, I just want this monkey off my back. Yes, I'm glad to redo a lot of what made the first "finished" cut of the film less polished than last year's film. Yes, I'm especially glad I got to build a jungle scene with dinosaurs and birds and a classic tie-in with Star Trek 2. Yes, I'm glad to redo the color scheme to a more "flat" level.

But there's a point in which you just have to wash your hands with it, and that was almost two weeks ago for me. Since we finished the first cut of the film, I had since archived it and moved on to another film and a wedding. Already waist-deep into those and already losing a little sleep over them, I find myself working on MBC3 again, taking it out of archive, and spending half the time trying to catalogue all the project files again to rerender with new effects. It's a love-hate relationship because I was glad to be done, but at the same time I'm glad to be polishing it some more.

I feel more like Chewbacca in this scenario, getting the wrong end of a deal:

"If you would rescue her... the reward would be...",
"be what?",
"Well, more reward than you can imagine!",
"I dont know, I can imagine quite a bit",
"you'll get it!",
"I better!",
"You will!"

A true production

We just finished filming "Nick of Time", and it was such an incredible experience to work on a professional set. Actors seriously memorized their lines, only one fib in 3 days of shooting and these were long continuous lines! There were a minimum of 7 people behind the scenes checking lighting, sound, grips and gaffers, recording details about each take (script supervisor, which was me), the Director was glued to a monitor while the cinematographer set up frames and operated the camera.

It was great working with a really professional group of people, everyone knew their jobs and did them very well. Even though it was a professional atmosphere, we still had a lot of fun.

Editing process will begin tonight, and I still have the wedding video that is just about complete. And The Missing Bank Card 3 found it's way back onto my plate, so we will be polishing that tomorrow.

Busy busy!!!

A little breather

Last weekend we burned through about 36 hours straight to get The Missing Bank Card 3 finished and submitted. This movie turned out to be quite a beast, with 60% green screen and %70 other visual effects it was difficult to keep things in order. It turned out really well, and is a nice ending to the trilogy. But I got to work on my green screen, it was really difficult to get satisfied results. It also might have something to do that our green screen was terrible (cloth thumb-tacked to the wall) and had a lot of shadows and uncovered areas.

This week has been a nice little breather before another pair of productions get started; I have a wedding I am filming on Saturday, just the ceremony and small parts of the reception. And day 1 of filming the short film "Nick of Time" begins Sunday evening. Luckily this new film doesn't have any big special effects, but I will be doing the editing and on-set supervision. It's a big production with lots of people involved, and we are filming on a Canon 7D so that will be fun to work with as well.

It's going to be weird working on a film where my involvement will not be comprehensive, so it will be a nice relaxing production and a taste of what a "normal" production is like. When I say relaxing, it's relative to what I am used to! :)

The director wants the film done in two weeks after filming, shouldn't be a problem so long as I have all the assets I need to put it together. And with no big special effects, it's a one-stop shop in Adobe Premiere with my awesome new CUDA compatible video card to edit in real time!

The busy time of year

In the past few years, July has signified the production of our most famous short film series, The Missing Bank Card. These films are specifically shot for the Land of Lincoln Credit Untion's 21 Film Project. This contest is specifically catered to showcase and award short films produced with the Land of Lincoln tagline "bank on learning more".

The best 20 films that meet the specific criteria are shown at an extravigant awards show in August. In 2008 and 2009 we have shown and achieved awards for The Missing Bank Card 1 and 2: (The revenge of Steven Douglas), but we did not get "Best in Show" which also awards money. This year, we hope to change that.

The Missing Bank Card 3: The Demise of Abraham Lincoln has been in production for a couple days now, and so far it's even more ambitious than the last two films combined. Probably 75% of the film will be shot on a green screen with multiple cameras, lots more special effects, and more characters introduced. Of course, when you finish a trilogy, you have to outdo your other films by a given margin.

I also have a feeling that this will be our last year at this contest, whether we win or not. It's tiresome to continue producing short films that can only be used at for the LLCU film project, and the fatigue that shows during these productions is very evident.

The one thing that keeps us going, to finish the trilogy, is the fact that our films have historically been the crowd favorite. If you go to the 21 Film Project web site, you see our film featured on that page even though ours did not win Best in Show. The film that won 1st place last year is all the way at the bottom of the list of last years winners. That's telling you something.

Both films, especially last years film, garnered a lot of crowd appreciation and applause. This year, the producers of the film contest were excited when they learned that we were going to finish up the trilogy, and they even gave us a little lee-way on the timing of the film so that we could use some time to put in an epilogue explaining the previous film without counting against our overall time. So, this is it. Sink or swim. Win or go home. Boxers or briefs. It's now or never.

Here's a few teaser screenshots of the production so far:

Departmentalized

The crew that makes up the Fusion Dance TV production met together last night for a long meeting. We discussed primarily appointing responsibilities and assigning everyone's respective "department" and making sure everyone know what they are responsible for.

A new guy, an intern, was given the responsibility of putting together the stand-alone music videos. He will use the graphic templates that I have given him to put everything together.

I was assigned the News and Events department, which will involve taking video that was shot and editing them together along with any graphics of which I have creative freedom. This will also involve putting together the Top-10 countdown video utilizing my Cube concept in the near future.

Now that we finally have a system, reliability is still in question. Still, to this date, there have been VERY few things that the Fusion producers have actually given to me that I have requested. After the meeting last night they have finally put a lot of the items that I requested onto their FTP for me to get, which is great. Hopefully this will continue and I won't be left to hang, and someone else is rushing to put together a mediocre product at the last second.

I recorded about 2 hours worth of video at the Fusion Pride Parade, and I did get video of Brent Sopel and the Stanley Cup, as well as the Fusion float. It was my first time at the Chicago Pride Parade, and I had more fun than I thought I would considering I am partially homophobic.

No more idle plskthxbi!

Things are back on full swing with Fusion right now. I just completed a total overhaul of my video cube grid animation, it now renders about 85% faster and I've set the stage to upgrade it from only 8 videos to 10 videos. They want to use this cube grid animation to do a bi-weekly top-10 countdown.

I addition to this very long cube grid animation, I also have a specialty animation using only one cube of the 5x2 grid which details a special event like a live show or an interview. They also want a nifty side-bar animation that pops in the corner of a live-show or interview detailing the interviewer/interviewee.

In addition to all this, they want templates to make the production go faster. Understandibly so, this is a lot for me to do constantly. The specialty cube video and the pop-in animation shouldn't be a problem creating templates so that they can re-use the same animation with different text. But the cube grid top-10 countdown has proven to be extremely difficult to create a template out of. Way too many layers overlayed on pre-rendered frames, it's going to take way longer to create the template than it will to actually render out all the seperate video animation and composite them together. I don't even know if it will be posible and easy-to-use if I can even create a template, so we'll see how this one goes.

The cube grid is a 5x2 grid of cubes. On one side is the Fusion logo animation, and the other side is a video. All the cubes rotate around to display the video and then one at a time, the cubes pop out of their place and zoom towards the camera. They zoom in towards the camera at the beginning of the video, and then I use After Effects to bring the music video the rest of the way into the screen from the cube. When the video is over, the last few seconds appear on the cube as it animates back down to it's resting spot where it was before and the next cube comes up to introduce the next video. This repeats for all 10 videos. This one long animation is cut up into 10 pieces, each piece showing the final seconds of the last video and introducing the first few seconds of the next video, and in between each animation I use After Effects to show the bulk of the music video. It's a long process, and it takes about 3 hours to get all the cube animations rendered out, plus work in After Effects and that's about 5-6 hours total. The producer at Fusion is really excited about this animation, but is understandibly worried about production times. But if they get the things I need in a timely fashion, then this will go smoothly.

I'm just happy to be doing more now, things were getting a little too idle for a while, and I like to stay busy.

Phases

Almost like clockwork, I go through several different phases of computer interests in my life. Some can go on for a few weeks, others for several months, and none of them are the same each time they occur. Upon reflecting on my different phases, I've noted the most consuming ones below:

The Diablo-Imitation phase: This phase I'm currently neck deep into now, and it involves looking for games that imitate the Diablo addictiveness that I first experienced in the late 90's. I can't stand the original Diablo games, because it's just so old looking, so I try to look for new ones and I usually end up resurfacing games that I already own like Titan Quest and Silverfall, to name a few.

The Learning phase: This phase I just recently exited after about 7 months of really taking it to the streets. I learned so much it's hard to put into words, but basically the last 7 months have seen myself emerging from clueless amateur, to confident amateur. I'v gone through teaching sessions that range from After Effects compositions and video editing, to 3D animation and sound reproduction. Even though I am still practicing with Fusion Radio, I'm not actively looking for tutorials unless I get stuck.

The Machinima phase: Machinima is taking a highly modifiable game engine and creating cinematic pieces with them. Level design, animation, effects, all created with the purpose of telling a story instead of playing a game. I just got done with this phase, it lasted about 3 days and quickly led into the Diablo-Imitation phase, although I am still thinking about it, I need motivation. Long before, I was animating with the Warcraft 3 engine in 2003 and the Unreal engine in 1999.

The Music phase: I haven't seen any motivation in a while, and I've finally come to the realization that I am not a good music creator. I am musically inclined, but not in creativity. So, I've just put this aside probably permanently. It was in 2009 that I last tried to create any kind of music.

The Reflection phase: This is where I learn the most about myself, and what I'm currently experiencing now... starting today... the reason for this post. Usually I don't look at big events, but at the way I handle the emotions behind the events. Then I ask myself, why? Why do I think that way? Why do I (or don't I) connect with that? Why do I (or don't I) care? Things that are a big deal to me don't make sense compared to the things that don't. It's tough to learn about oneself when I'm inconsistent, I just finished college and all I can think about is playing video games, very strange.

I have several other smaller phases, like the Game-Creation phase. Programming to me is like my music inclination, I can do it but I get bogged down by lack of motivation. And my Classic Gaming phase where I break out old Nintendo and Sega games to relive nostalgia for a while. I even have an MMO phase where I try out many different Free to play MMO games to try and relinquish my thirst before Guild Wars 2 or SWTOR are finally released.

If you've actually read all of this, cudos to you. If after reading this, you come to the conclusion that my life can get consumed by video games, more cudos to you. And if you also come to the conclusion, after all this, that I really ENJOY this, you're wrong. I don't want it to be like this, but it still happens. I wish that my time was taken more by family, or friends, or even more video production stuff, things that actually MAKE SENSE to care about!

I wrote this more to declare that I am upset with myself in how I spend my time and my rare motivation, on the other hand though, I feel content with my life.

WTF...

Stagnation

Since school ended, I've ended up with a lot of free time... but it's turned into more stagnant time than anything else. More relaxing, spending time with the wife, and even playing video games. The last time I pushed myself was using Cinema 4D for some opening animations for my only client Fusion Radio.

Fusion Radio is turning more and more into an at-the-last-second kind of client. For the last Comcast content, they decided to have a meeting on Saturday with the due date being the following Monday. At that meeting there were several changes that required me to re-render everything and I got it done late Sunday night just in time for them.

And they had 2+ weeks to get it finalized.

And then just recently they wanted a simple promo for their Pump Pavilion booth, for the NEXT day. But all they wanted was to change the color scheme and text on a previous animation I did for them on Valentines Day.

They even planned to do a commercial and asked for my help more than a week before they wanted to finish it. I of course said yes, but then after that... nothing, only to scrap the project a week later because they didn't have time.

In my opinion, they aren't using me enough.

They bought an HD camcorder a few weeks ago. It's a nice camera, but it's 1080i and DV tape based. I have NOTHING against DV, I think it's a great standard format, but it just doesn't fit their business style. For one thing, they lack someone with the knowledge of video editing and capturing from DV based cameras, plus a video camera that was hard drive based AVCHD would have been better suited for them because it would have been easier and faster to go from Shot-to-Post.

But they didn't consult me.

After they bought the camera they had several issues and had dozens of questions for me. And when they learned of AVCHD cameras and the benefits, they were a little disappointed because they couldn't return the camera... they eBay'd it!

I wish they would use me more. Sometimes it's a whole week before I get an email from them, and it's usually about 1am in the morning when I get it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the guys I work with at Fusion. They are a smart, collective bunch. But I just want soooo much more from our relationship, but it might take a while to get there.

In the mean time, I've got The Missing Bank Card 3 coming around the corner and I am super excited, plus some films with DuPage Film Group hopefully coming up afterwards. I have done lots of motion graphcs in the past 8 months but no films, hopefully the 2nd half of 2010 will be more productive.

Improving

Since introducing Cinema 4D into my workflow (finally!), I'm looking into recent or past projects that could probably benefit from some real 3D. In the Comcast promo video there is a sharp contrast between the videos I rendered in C4D and those done in AE, at least to me.

Here is a video cube that was done in AE (top) several weeks ago, and then was redone in C4D (below). It was a little tricky getting the videos into the textures, turns out C4D is very particular about the kinds of videos that you can use.



This was an attempt to create a galaxy zoom-out animation to zoom out from the Earth to view the entire galaxy as a whole. I had a very frustrating problem in AE getting my high-res planetary textures to show up properly in high-res (top) but it never panned out. In C4D it was many times easier putting a much better looking planet Earth (bottom)

The Comcast promo went up last week on Comcast On-Demand, if you are in the Chicagoland area you can view the promo by going to the On-Demand menu, selecting GET LOCAL, then CHICAGO CITY, then FUSION DANCE.

I did not edit the video, though I wish I did. Someone else edited the video, I think it was the Fusion marketing manager who did it. It's not a bad video, it's just that I wish they told me they were going to use some of my old (to me, outdated) videos that I created for them a month ago for the demonstration to Comcast. They used my old Cube rotating videos, wall-flash intro, and countdown.

They did have a scene in the video which was a live interview with a music artist, and it was HORRIBLE! Bad lighting, sound, overall quality was equal to a cell-phone-camera-shot Youtube video. I mentioned this to them (nicely of course) and they said they had many problems with the camera that they rented. They hope to iron out the issues by next time. I also made myself available for editing these videos if they need me to.

It is certainly nice to have my material for show on such a public and well-known distribution!

Right now, I'm going to be going through a revision of the old videos to make them more sleek and sexy, so that they can match the quality of the FUSION animation that I made for them last week.

For the next set of material, they will (hopefully) provide me with several music videos so that I can incorporate them into my updated animatics. Although, after this promo, I'm not sure of the direction in which they want to go with the next set of material.

Remote Collaboration

Saturday night, I held a conference meeting and webex on my computer for the Fusion producers to go over my designs and animation. We talked about changing a few things here and there, and they were able to watch me in real-time make changes to the project animations.

They were really impressed, not just with the animation, but with the ease of collaboration during that time and they felt that a lot was accomplished to allow me to produce the videos they needed. That was my first time using the remote collaboration software and it worked like a charm, it's so nice not to have to drive into the city and show things on my little laptop.

After that though, the changes they wanted required me extending an animation 200%, and that animation alone was about 22 hours to render, and they needed it by Sunday night. The animation finished rendering at 11:30 PM, so I was able to get an HD video to them before I went to bed.

I am currently waiting for word on when the video will be available on Comcast on-demant, can't wait!

Working with Reflections

At first I wanted to reflect a part of the Chicago city skyline onto the edge of the logo and zoom out revealing the entire logo, sorta like the way the Warner Brother's logo animation where they show the WB water tower reflected on the ege of the emblem before zooming out to reveal the logo.

But then the emotion changed. And I felt like I should give a "re-birth" to the logo. The "F" logo on the Fusion Website and all the animation's I have done in past incorporated the same sorta 2-D look with some 3-D elements, and now it's full blown 3-D with a sleek, elegant style giving the brand an updated look.

So I decided to reflect the standard "F" Fusion logo in the New logo and then zoom out revealing the new logo, like showing the Fusion brand "breaking out" of it's boundaries as an Internet Radio Station.

Here are some results:

A Taste

Yesterday I sat down with some fresh ideas and some new learning bits to design the new Fusion teaser promo. I decided once and for all to tackle Cinema 4D, and besides the camera controls being completely wacked up compared to 3DS Max, it's a really intuitive program. From what I understood of 3DS Max, I was able to really easily create results like this below:



Now I understand why everyone uses Cinema 4D in their workflow for motion graphics! :)

Green Light

Finally an update on the Fusion Comcast station. We have been given the green light, and will sign the contract this week. After that is when the content creation begins. The station's official go-live date is not yet set, but I think it's sometime in early June.

May 10th - Fusion Dance TV teaser ad due for comcast airing around May 17th.
May 24th - First group of content, shorts and intros for locally produced video.
June 7th - Final phase begins, largeer group of content and new content due every two weeks after.

I will be given credit on Fusion's website and in the locally produced content as the "Video Graphic Designer", and with future compensation and perks dependant on the success of the channel. I will be given creative freedom over all content, and most of it will involve quick intros and outros to videos recorded in their studio (a la artist interviews, DJ promos, and events). Plus, they want to change the design pretty frequently, every couple of months or so to keep things fresh.

Wow, that's quite a bit of work. I was looking for additional freelance positions, but this is going to take up most of my time. And doing it pro-bono is a little disappointing, but I know I have to start somewhere and this is a great place to be!

The future is like a mystery box, who knows what's in it! Maybe... NOTHING!!! :)

Best royalty free music

This is probably the best $80 investment that I've ever made. What's better than great soundtrack music? Royalty-free soundtrack music!

Digital Juice has a special offer going on now, where you can get any 5 of their StackTraxx volumes for $80. Their StackTraxx arent just a collection of great musical scores, they're layered musical scores, and you use their proprietary program to build tracks and then render them out as WAVs to use them in any program you want. At $80, it's a massive steal.

In an effort to save time and money, most studios, even the big name ones like ABC, NBC, FOX, etc. all use pre-produced music in which they have purchased the rights to use in their production.

Hell, I've even seen many movies use musical tracks that were produced for other movies in the past. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the musical repetior of Gladiator in many commercials, promos, and other movies.

It's a good feeling to have a full library of musical scores that can fit whatever it is I am working on.

1/2 of the reasons why I love this field

New toys... simple, that's probably the biggest reason why I love the computer field, and especially Motion Graphics. Today, I've been reading about all the new goodies found in After Effects CS5 as well as the rest of the suite.

Besides the entire platform going to 64-bit ONLY, and significantly increasing multiprocessing speeds, there are some nifty plugins and new render engines that I look forward to playing with.

The one thing that is biggest on my list of new features is hardware assist rendering. This enables big projects in Premiere Pro CS5 to playback real-time without having to render!! I've seen it in action and it's amazing to say the least. That alone pretty much makes the upgrade worthwhile! The problem is that the new render engine only supports CUDA, which is an NVidia GPL only found on their GeForce and Quadro line. This sucks because I just recently made the switch to ATI in hopes that their OpenCL would be supported considering CUDA wasn't supported in the last 3 versions of Adobe CS, boy was I wrong, and it's going to cost me. Aparently a lot of other people fell into this trap as well.

Notable Features:

64-bit: For obvious reasons, being able to address ALL of available memory is a huge plus, and with most of the After Effects core being rewritten for 64-bit, it looks to significantly reduce crashing as well as increase speed and productivity, joy!

Roto Brush: A cool tool to dynamically define foreground (rotoscope brush) and background (alpha channel). While not perfect, it will significantly assist in the creation of rotoscope mattes!

Digieffects FreeForm: Once a 3rd party commercial plugin, now a bundled tool within AE, able to arbitrarily warp layers within 3D space and use other layers as extrusion mattes. Finally able to create some 3D text, among other things, that look MORE like 3D instead of having to create several layers that only LOOK 3D from the front.

Adobe Repoussé: This has definately cropped my eye. An interesting tool in Photoshop for extruding and inflating selections, and then importing directly into AE while also using the Photoshop Live engine so that we can interact with the 3D layer in AE just like Photoshop, pretty cool. I still havn't delved into the 3D support that Photoshop has to offer, it seems pretty limited to me, but this might just give me the motivation to do so.

Color Finesse 3: Another valued 3rd party commercial plugin now bundled with After Effects. Allows greater control over color, saturation, vibrance control, and ability to export Color Look Up Tables. I luffles color control.

Integrated RED R3D support: While I have vivid, heavenly day-dreams of having $25k to buy a RED camera, this is cool to know.

Vibrance: A new effect to better increase saturation in footage. Increasing saturation gave much more color but also removed details, it was kind of a love-hate relationship, look forward to this one.

Black & White: Another effect from Photoshop to better control colors (Not just black and white), offers control over individual colors in highlights, middtones, shadow and much more.

Two new blending modes Subtract and Divide: I always had issues trying to apply alpha mattes, never could get it right on the first go, subtract should help a lot with that, as well as other cool effects too. Divide takes a colored layer and when applied to another layer, creates a middle-ground between that picture/video and the solid color. This provides much more accurate color-blending.

Seal the Deal...

Well, it's just about a done deal right now. All that's pending are signed contracts to get started on building the Comcast music station.

Most of my designs for the Fusion promo videos will be used for the station graphics, which means that there isn't a whole lot that needs to be done on the design side. But there will definately be a lot more creating new videos using those designs and assets. I need to build a library of readily accessible assets to be used in any new videos, these will enable me to cut down on render times and decrease my turnaround time significantly.

Late Teusday night, there was a rush of excited texting from the marketing manager at Fusion congratulating everyone, and he asked me if they can announce my official "coming on board" to everyone.

This is really new to me. I know that I've become their official Motion Graphics Designer, but what about when the revenue starts to come it? What do I charge? How do I negotiate my fee? Is it a percentage? A set rate based on the project? All these things make me feel like I've coasted off the deep end.

Making money in this field is something that I really look forward to, but am I ready to do it now? I'm still learning the ropes, coming to grips with new ideas vs reality, and working things out in my head before I create my first composition.

And everyone has their own opinions on what to charge, so going by someone else's experience (which would be in a different market, different time, different experience, different everything) is not a good idea. So I have to learn as I go and see where I end up.

Done!

Sitting with the crew from Fusion, going over last minute changes, in the middle of a breast cancer fundraiser on the 95th floor of the Hancock building (The Signature Lounge), we finally ironed everything out.

It wasn't all work; during some of my many long renders that night, I was able to get up and enjoy the view of Chicago, and the really tasty h'orderves. Fusion Radio was there to host the event with live music, raffle events, and just random sillyness from the DJ.

So, I tagged along and worked through the night to finish all the videos for their presentation to Comcast on Teusday. I was able to finish my Earth Zoom animation that turned into my biggest project yet, and everything together it was about 3 minutes worth of animation.

So, project recap, what did I learn?

-Stick to "their" guns, not "my" guns!
-Even though I had two weeks to work on this project which was plenty of time, I kept the mindset that I didn't have enough time from the beginning. This really helped my time management, and kept the project moving along quite nicely.
-I fell in love with parts of my work, and they wanted to change it. I was a little upset, so I still have to work on selling myself and not my work.
-Plan ahead for rendering parts of an animation seperately and bring them together in the end.
-Create assets and designs to be used again in future work for the same project.

If Fusion gets the Comcast Music Channel, then there will be a LOT more work for me, plus it will be an incredible addition to my resume!

Update...

So, we are coming down the home stretch for this presentation. I will meet with the Fusion staff one more time to finalize all the videos and to go through the actual presentation itself before the actual meeting with the Comcast reps.

When I started putting together the project videos, I decided to make a font change although they never explicitly chose a font for me to use, but they did specifically want lower case...

But I decided to try a different font, Fireye Headline. This font, was thick enough to show off some really cool shine effects, and gave a slick futuristic feel without being overdone. But yesterday we talked on the phone and they said that they liked the font, but they still wanted me to change it... to Franklin Gothic.

Such a standard looking font, I cringed. The way that they present their business is mostly flash and bling, and I really wanted to emulate that. But besides the point, I realized that this is something I need to get used to and that I just need to do it whether I believe in it or not.

So, very nicely I just gave my reasons for choosing this font, and I that I would be happy to change it. And so I did. It doesn't look bad, I just think that now it doesn't match the rest of the flare in the videos. But, moving on...

I've also come across my largest After Effect project yet, and probably the most inefficient project as well. I've dealt with relatively small projects in the past, nothing ever this big, so my project organization and efficiency is untested at this magnitude and I'm really getting into problems. Specifically I keep getting AE errors after about 200 frames, and working within the project is difficult and slow. I have several 2k+ resolution images I'm trying to work with and it's causing some strain on my system.

To deal with this, I've gone back and rendered out some compositions and used the rendered frames instead, which has helped, but I still get errors at about 550 frames. And I still haven't seen the actual animation in its entirety which I know will get several revisions once I see it in action. The animation is zooming out from earth past all the planets, past several galaxies to view the universe as a whole, so there are many high res images being used, especially of earth, and a whole lot of particles.

But, now that I think about it, the way I will approach this is render out the background animation seperately (BG, stars, and particle nebulas). Then overlay the planet animations taken seperately. I did this before with the valentine's project for Fusion, the BG flashing hearts animation was really intensive, so I rendered that out seperately which enabled me to render anything on top of it much, MUCH easier!

The other animations are done, and I did all of them on my laptop. But the big one won't open on the laptop because of the memory requirements so I have to finish it at home on my main computer. I'm almost done with College, only one term left, but I'm still struggling with finding the time in between work and school to get this big project finished.

I can't imagine all the extra time I will have once school is done! :)

Here I come world...

Exctatic is probably the best word I can choose right about now, there are some wonderful events coming in about 2 weeks and my foot is in the door of an amazing ground-level oppourtunity.

I had a meeting at the studios of Fusion Radio Chicago to discuss a presentation that they are doing in two weeks for Comcast. This presentation will entail examples of the kinds of content they want to put on a Comcast On-demand music station. If Comcast likes what they see, then the world of Television broadcasting becomes our playground!

They want me to create about 5 different videos showcasing the kinds of content that they want to show on the station, as well as motion graphic content and branding that will be incorporated into their presentation which is both vocally and slideshow presented. So, basically I have to create a broadcast intro, a presentation finale, and a few videos in between that will go along with the presentation.

We all sat around together and brainstormed what they would like to see, and they were very impressed with the options that I came up with. As well as showing them content on my Vimeo portfolio, they were really exctatic having me on board for this.

They also wanted to meet with me because they wanted to make sure that our loyalty together doesn't go unrewarded. They want to take me with them in their future endeavors if this Comcast deal works. That includes broadcasting television shows, as well as a continued revenue of motion graphics that they will need for future content.

This is the best opportunity ever for me, and being able to put on my resume that I have lots of broadcast material for Comcast media is an incredible thing!

I've got a lot of work to do in two weeks that are still full of work/school/etc, but I cannot pass this up, period.

Effects Contest

There's a new contest over at VFXTalk.com, they give you the scenario and the prekeyed footage, and you gotta build the shot. Really sweet, and I found out about it in time, so I got a little less than 2 months to put it together, and it will be a good test of every single one of my skills. Plus it's an effect shot based on the new Star Trek.

The scene will be simple, but here's what I think I will need to accomplish:
1. Tack real-world camera, model that camera into After Effects and 3DS Max.
2. In 3DS Max, build terrain and model a futuristic snow scooter and small fighter craft.
3. Using the real-world camera model, animate all models into a single sequence.
3. In 3DS Max, build blizzard volumetrics and particles.
4. Render out all four animation assets: Terrain, both Models, and volumetrics
5. In After Effects, composite all four animation assets plus provided footage, add in background elements like mountains/clouds/etc and additional volumetrics.
6. Add in fighter craft elements like lasers/missiles.
7. Add in explosion elements and lighting.
8. Add in motion blur, camera shake.
9. Render out final sequence.
10. In Premiere, add in sounds/music.
11. Final Render and Review!

In the real world, almost each step would be a separate person/group within a studio. So there's a lot of work involved. The hardest step will be the futuristic snow vehicle and small fighter, since I've never considered myself to be good at modelling and the contest rules call for all original models. But if I can get the models and the terrain done, it should be all downhill from there!

The camera will be the most important part because it will set the base realism. Basically what I do is build a small set with trackers which I will film with a real camera simulating the movements that I want in the scene. Then I motion track the footage and apply the data to a camera, and viola, a virtual camera with real-world movement. I've done it before where I took footage shot on a tripod and used a separate camera to build a small but steady camera shake to give the impression it was hand-held.

Finally some real world practice, this is going to be fun!

Old and New

I was randomly thinking the other day about my computer build and what I wanted to do with it, when I realized that the oldest component in my computer is my case. I bought this case 9 years ago, and I've had more than a dozen different computer builds in it. I have case badges dated back to the original AMD Athlon! If I remember, the oldest build I had in this computer was a Celeron 300a with 256mb RAM.

I'm the kind of guy to stay a few steps behind the elite computer, on purpose. I like get the most for my money, and there are certain dollar limits that I will spend on each component.

I've had the current config since August 2008, built around the original quad-core Q6600. The new processors (I7 and I5) while impressive, were either too far outside my price range (i7 920 a great cpu for the price, but other components required are expensive) or didn't offer enough performance boost (i5 750 doesn't have HyperThreading) over my current cpu.

Then I came across a surprising discovery. The new Lynnfield Xeon processors, which have Hyperthreading, were only $40 more than the i5 750, and with cheap(er) Socket 1156 components turned out to be a great build! So I just picked up a Xeon 3440, new Gigabyte P55 motherboard, and 8gb of DDR3 ram, for just under $600. Awesome.

For a while I had a little desire to upgrade my case, but then I figured that I actually liked that "history", and being able to look back on my life and see where I was. The case certainly brings back memories, good and bad times in Atlanta, it survived a fire and survived in my car when it was totalled by a runaway DOT semi.

So, I think I'll keep the old look, after all it's the inside that counts :)

Keeping busy

I ordered a studio light kit this week and it just arrived. Three stands with 4500k lights and 2 umbrellas. I did a preliminary setup and took some pictures and the results were predictably amazing, a whole lot of light really helps filling in scenes, and now I can accurately test out some green screen shots with better lighting, less shadow, and better skin illumination.

I also submitted an entry to Greyscale Gorilla's "5 Second Project" that they have every now and then. The theme for this contest was "FAIL", so I whipped up this little animation and it turned out pretty well for my first submission into the professional realm of motion graphics.

Drink and Fly You FAIL from Dave Spooner on Vimeo.

If it weren't for a lack of physical space...

It's unfortunate and frustrating to be limited by things outside of one's control. In my situation, I am limited by the amount of space I have to work with. I've been trying to move out of my tiny 1 bedroom condo and into a bigger place. When I've needed to do green screen work on my own, I have to unwrap my material and drape it over walls/book shelves/TVs/etc. in my living room, and move furniture around just to get the shot. And I can't leave it like that, so I have to tear down as soon as I'm done. It's even more frustrating because I have several ideas and Proof of Concepts that I have in my head that require extensive green screen.

I pray, and hope, and wish to finally move out of here into a bigger place. I have huge plans to build a studio/screening room, but until then, I gotta make do with what little space I have.

The next Proof of Concept that I wanted to do, was to put together a Sin City/The Spirit style action sequence depicting the hero of our last two films; Abraham Lincoln. Jumping across buildings, running on rooftops, all flash and eye-candy to catch his nemesis Stephen Douglas. I chuckle every time I think about the sillouette of Abraham Lincoln on a night background standing superhero-vigilant style on a rooftop; the protector of Bank Cards everywhere!

Before I film this though, I am currently capturing status shots of building rooftops to be used as elements. Downtown Wheaton has proven quite useful for this, as well as Chicago skyline backdrops I shot a couple years ago. I'm going for iconic, comic book, superhero action. Something people wouldn't expect, and something we might be able to use to finish up our Missing Bank Card trilogy, and hopefully win first place at the contest this year!

New year, new image

My new year's resolution this year was to solidify my image in the independant filmmaking and special effects scene. I decided to redesign and rename my logo, and put up a website dedicated to the business and building contacts.

I present: Angler.digital

While MindBend studios will still be used for more generalized filmmaking purposes like videography, Angler.digital will be behind all the visual effects and motion graphics.

Let's ring in the new year!