Sweet Fight Scene & Hollywood’s Disaster

I found this a few days back online and thought it was pretty awesome. Very low-budget, they didn’t do any complicated effects, and the production value was only high because of the obvious talent of the two actors. I watched it and thought “Why aren’t movie fights this cool?” It can’t be the money, because they obviously didn’t spend much on this, if anything, so what is it? They can’t find talented enough people? The choreographer’s aren’t good enough? This would totally be a crowd-pleaser as a big-budget fight scene, so what’s the deal? I don’t get it. I think these guys deserve some applause, just because of their talent, and I know editing can be tedious, especially editing action scenes, but they did a great job in all aspects of this video. I just wish Hollywood would take a hint from the growing wealth of internet film-related talent and try to step up their game. I don’t really get why they’re in such a slump right now. I’ve got a running list going with friends I work with at the movie store, and we’ve discovered so many recent movies that have been remakes it’s ridiculous. It’s like Hollywood has literally no original ideas anymore, it’s insane. It’s really not that complicated to come up with something new, I do it all the time. It might be based on other things, but that’s how we get inspired, so we can’t really help that. But what’s with continually remaking old movies? Is it the guarantee of success? Is Hollywood really so scared that they can’t just take a plunge and go for something new and fresh these days? I mean there are independent filmmakers out there making movies like Cashback and The Boondock Saints and Bubba Ho-Tep that are really just great films. What happened to that spirit of making something because it was a great, original idea? Why don’t they try that anymore in the big-leagues? Frankly, it’s ridiculous that so many movies these days are unoriginal, I think it’s wrong, really, and it’s getting to the point where I think the internet and rental programs aren’t Hollywood’s only competitors right now, destroying their box-office business; I think it’s them. If they keep making crappy movies, remakes, things that people have the attitude of “I’ll rent it when it’s out instead of going to the theater to see it,” spending another 5 bucks or whatever, then they’re only killing themselves, and then the independents come as a rise of talent again. That’s great for the independents, but Hollywood still has a huge market and most of the public’s attention, so how do we find out about Indie films if we’re not looking? If Hollywood keeps making movies that don’t matter to the public enough for the studios to make the big box-office money they need to pay back their loans, Hollywood’s going to go out of business, and though it won’t happen for a long time, if at all, it paves the way for new indie filmmakers and lots of smaller venues, which can be great. It can also be seen as a loss of independent thought in the industry that makes up probably close to half of the role models of our teen and pre-teen population. Hollywood needs to take some chances. Nothing was ever gained by being safe, but when you let go of your safeguards and go for something that’s really groundbreaking, just because of the newness of the idea, then you really make history. That’s when people fall in love with filmmaking again. That’s when people fall in love with the movies again. I think we need a studio revolution, maybe more than a filmmaking revolution. Freer thought in the studio will lead to more deals for indie filmmakers, more varied storylines, much more original content in films, and will open doors for casts, crews and all sort of positions in filmmaking for many more people than the current group of near-untouchable elites that actually make things we remember. And what’s with eh trilogy craze recently? Just because Lord of the Rings did it means everybody else can make fortunes too? No, that plays back to the originality idea. When you make a great movie, don’t go and ruin it by making a crappy couple of sequels like Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix and other movies have been doing recently. Keep the original good idea and let the rest go. Leave room for others to come in and pick up where you left off, with something else, something new and different, and watch what they come up with, take chances for, and then you take your turn. I think if we could handle that, we’d be set for a new era of Hollywood filmmaking… where it wasn’t a minority of stares with a monopoly of the industry… it was a huge amount of people involved in making touching and important stories and characters come to life for everyone to revitalize the theaters and remember how to enjoy movies again. That would be beautiful. Like the Majestic… kinda…only without the whole Communism scandal. (If you haven’t seen The Majestic, you should, there’s another great original movie they didn’t make into a trilogy). Back to the link that got this all started… enjoy the fight scene below. And any comments are welcome too, this just got me excited so I went on ranting. Hope you enjoyed it .

Link: http://www.break.com/index/amazing-homemade-fight-scene.html

Video Copilot’s New Release!

Well, Tuesday this week marked a very important day for After Effects, Andrew Kramer, and visual effects artists and fans out there.  Video Copilot, Andrew Kramer’s After Effects resource site filled with almost 50 AE tutorials, and plenty of other new juicy improvements and additions, relaunched Tuesday and is ready for us all to enjoy.  So I figured that on Tuesday, since it was the day of the big announcement, I’d let you all know about the new thing coming back.  But then I got distracted watching a new tutorial of his, it got late, I got tired, and I went to bed.  The next day, I figured, I’d write about it.  Obviously, I didn’t.  I spent all day (or what was left of it after waking up at 11:30) lazily browsing the internet – much of it on YouTube – and thinking to myself thoughts of “I have nothing to do…except editing that movie I’ve been meaning to finish for a year now…” over and over and over again.  Needless to say, that was not my most productive day.  Although I did watch quite a few of his new tutorials and videos up on the new site, so I guess I was researching and formulating a review, you could say.  Today, however, I had school, and now I am finally here, writing about what I think is just an awesome resource that is growing and has made a big leap in its amount of content, and its usefulness.

To start off with, there are two new tutorials, however one does use Trapcode’s plug-in Particular, so that was a drawback for me, since I don’t have it.  Although there was a quick tip at the end for making an audio waveform in AE out of an audio file.  Next, there is an entire new section of tutorials, geared toward After Effects beginners.  It goes from a tour of the program through animation, keying, compositing, 3D, titles, text and up to the level where we can start fully understanding his more advanced tutorials, and, as he hopes, take advantage of his Training DVD that is mentioned around the web as a superb resource for avid AE learners.  That said, there is yet another awesome resource awaiting us all as we visit the site, and it takes up a whole new button on the main navigation button (yes, that’s right, it was so important it got its own button).  It’s called “Presets.”  Essentially, this is a whole bunch of tutorials on how to use Presets that he’s made available for us on the brand new site… completely free.  Yep, I was blown away too.  This was maybe the most exciting part of the site, even though I was pretty enamored by the new set of beginner tutorials.  There are all kinds of presets from camera shake to gel looks, day for night tools, aspect ratio guides, transitions, film grain and even a tutorial on installing presets for Windows.  (There might be a Mac section of it but I’m not sure, though the Mac document structure is less complicated than the Windows one, so it’s easier to add things to program’s presets, just find the presets folder in the program folder and drop the file in it.  It’s actually the same in Windows, but the folder structure in Mac’s seem to be less complicated.)  Anyway… back to the site… those of you who are fans will definitely be loyal, dedicated fans as I am with this new release of tons of new content, practically a replica of the original style of the site, and of course, new content (or did I already say that?).  The one thing that I didn’t like was the fact that he bunched the old BIOS page (about the company and its members) into the current “contact” page linked to at the top of the site.  Oh well, I guess advancements in the content and resources of a site call for cutbacks in the focus on the site’s team.  Plus it would make those buttons smaller, and they look cooler the way they are.  As far as I’m concerned, this was worthy of the few-week-wait that it caused (I don’t even remember how long it was since I’m so excited about the new content).  Now, ’nuff said, if you haven’t seen the new site yet or especially if you haven’t even seen the site at all, get the heck over there and check it out!  It’s awe-=inspiring how much more they added to it and it’s definitely worth all the time of watching those videos… now if I could only find the time to watch and learn them all, I’d be in fat city.  Thanks a ton, AK, you did a hell of a job!

Link: http://www.videocopilot.net/