Holy wow. First off, it’s been a heck of a long time, and there are some big changes afoot that I’m going to get into in the near future. I promise. No really. I swear.
Secondly, I found this video today and thought “what better way to ‘re-begin’ the AV blog than by showcasing someone else’s work?” So here goes…
Having become a subscribed Geekologie reader recently, I was looking through my GReader feed and discovered this little goodie of a filmmaking post, and had to share it. The amount of work and effort and even time that went into that little piece is evident in just watching it, but what I thought about the most while watching (and laughing) is the fact that nothing they did made any kind of permanent mess. Typically, when you approach a filmmaking venture with the sort of storyline, you want fake blood, guts, drama, all kinds of serious acting and whatnot. But taking it the other way can often not only offer way more flexibility, simply because it’s an abstract from the real thing you’re portraying, and more freedom to interpret the typical war scene in your own way, using what you have available to you under the constraints you’re working with.
So, thoughts aside, it’s a great short film, and a funny five-or-so-minute watch. Take a break, watch a video. Laugh and daydream about it in your own cubicle. But please, oh please, don’t go nuts fo’ real (not really) as this guy.
As some of you may know, I was involved with the cross-country-collaborative effort for the Stop The Violence documentary film. The film was contributed to not only by AnimiVirtus Productions (me), but also Neighborhood Studios, a group based in Ohio. The film was basically a series of interviews with students, teachers, parents and other high school staff about the issue of school and teen violence and aggression, and essentially coalesced into a 20-minute film from two different parts of the country with one core message: Stop The Violence. Take a look at the film below, and please add it to your DIGG, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us collections to help us raise awareness about our cause and the effort we’re fighting for. Thanks for your support!
Sorry for the lack of an update Monday, but I was traveling from LA to Seattle that day and couldn’t find an open wireless connection in the airport (strange, huh?) It was a busy day, so my apologies. However, I’m in Seattle, with a connection, and soon to be in Vancouver (hopefully also with a connection in the apartment) and able to update on time. So I’m moving, got a small video slideshow project of the move in progress and my other projects on hold, but I’ve been wandering around the city a little bit, exploring and discovering the joy of a tangible but relaxed lifestyle. I’d like to post about that on my personal blog at some point, but I’ll get to that eventually. There’s no rush .
Now, for the showcase of the week, I discovered this short video through a photography blog I subscribe to, and I was interested in the photography aspect of it, as well as the filmmaking side of putting together a bunch of images to create a video0like short film. It was interesting to watch and of course, since it’s a controversial subject, inspiring to a degree. I don’t have much to say about this video other than it’s worth watching, and it’s interesting and intriguing to watch how they even emulated some common video effects (rack focus, animated titles, time-lapse) using 20,000 individual photographs. I remember watching a music video a long time ago done similarly to this, only this was more pointed in its subject, and that was more artsy in its execution. Both are good, but this I think serves a more important purpose. So enjoy the video, get inspired, and do something to help in your community. Knowledge is power, and the internet is the end-all solution to not knowing. So go browse and learn. Enjoy, and best of luck. Happy filmmaking!
Alright, I know this is by a fairly known actress and I know she may have had a budget to do it, but that doesn’t cancel out the fact that the same film could definitely be made with no money. Just take a look at the film, there’s very little light, hardly any makeup, the film’s strong points are its intangible ones: the acting and the writing. (The sound effects and the ending only raise the bar). With some dedicated writing time, a few redrafts, and a day of shooting with some actor friends and you’ve got yourself set on the way to a film like this.
I recently saw Angel-A, which stars Rie Rasmussen, and I was surprised to discover it was her at the end of the film, since she looks nothing in that film like she does in Thinning The Herd. That’s partly the costume and makeup, but the acting is definitely there in both parts, separating her characters immensely. The main point I want to make in this post is that good acting, with or without dialog, is one of the key assets in any film. As long as the writing’s good, the acting can pull it through with no budget at all. If someone’s performance shines, it’ll shine out no matter the visual constraints. (Obviously, you’ve got to do your best to help it shine, throw some oil on the flame and the like, make sure it can be seen to start with).
Essentially, the point is this: write a solid script with a basic storyline, a some characters that aren’t too simple (give them habits, dialects, things they like the most and play off those in the dialog or actions with the other characters), and then find someone who can portray that character in the way you like, with their own spin on it as well. Always let the actors take the character to their own level, in addition to fulfilling your needs. They need to be challenged, not typecast and factory-assembled into their characters. That’s destructive to the very nature of acting.
Back to the point, after you’ve written your solid script, and found someone to act, find money if you can, and some kind of light, and something to bounce that light off of (you’ll rarely want the harsh light coming right from the work light you found). Tin foil works great. After that, let the light and the performance shine as your camera rolls and captures the whole thing from the angles you’ve pre-planned due to your careful thoughts on the project (do not leave that part out!)
Rie Rasmussen might have a name in the business; she might be known for doing a good job in her projects; she might even be known for being a sexy bitch; but you can make yourself known by making something with a solid base and the only frills being the talent that brings the idea to the screen. Best of luck, check out the film and send in any of your work you want an article written about!
This is a decent trailer for a pretty cool sounding sci-fi miniseries. The trailer’s what interest me the most, however, since it’s the only video piece of the film I’ve watched so far, but also, check out the bike mount shot following the riders through the trees! That’s sweet! And there’s no evidence as to how they did it. Great shot.
To be entirely honest, I’m not even sure if this is a music video or just something some fans made, but it’s pretty friggin’ cool. From a visual effects standpoint, it’s awesome, I can think of how they might have done this, but it seems like tons of work to me. It’s an awesome collection of a bunch of different shots from a few different places of people doing things. That’s a super lame explanation, but here, check it out:
Here’s quite a nicely done short film by indie film and game composer Justin R. Durban titled Cristo. (By the way, if you ever need some fantastic music for free for your non-profit film endeavor, check out his site, it’s loaded with great stuff!) It’s a nice blend of drama and sci-fi, and though I don’t particularly like the acting all that much, there are some strong parts in the visuals (including a nice crane shot and even an underwater scene) and of course, great music. I’d like to go into depths about what I think worked and didn’t work in this, but I think it’s best to watch and decide for yourself. Take a peek, he’s a wonderful composer, and a pretty nice guy from the little I’ve talked with him online, so check out his film below, and leave comments (here or there) on the piece as you see it.
I should also actually mention a project he’s also doing the music for, since they had a very nice preview video on their site that got me pretty interested in the project. It’s a 45-minute Machinima video called Sands of Fire and it looks quite impressive. I don’t really know anymore than that, but their website for it is a blog (over here). and it’s worth taking a peek at. Take a peek at the trailer below:
Ever come across an old home video that made you laugh but nobody else would get it because they simply weren’t there? Ever wished you could show them what it felt like to be there? This video, found after perusing ElizaAnne’s videos due to her addictive accent (I love accents, and Aussie accents are my favorite) on YouTube, does just that. It’s a simple mockumentary about the Jack, a rare and wild creature who apparently inhabits her backyard. She’s doing both the camerawork and the narration, and they come together with music from none other than Lord of the Rings to create a very nice, playful piece that appeals to even me, a complete stranger. It’s a simple video, just shots cut together with music placed over them. She even did the voiceover while shooting, which obviously eliminates any post needs to record voiceover audio and worry about technical issues since it’s right in-camera. And this was such a simple video that they didn’t need to worry about taking her mix-ups out, since they just cut the shots together and that was the most complex part of the video. Actually, I’d bet getting it onto YouTube was the most complex, or maybe it’s just me that’s had much trouble with it. The point of showing this video is not only to post again and showcase someone’s work, but to showcase the beauty that comes in simplicity, the ease of creating a truly adorable and somehow magical home video that is no more work than shooting, editing and uploading – with a few minor technical steps in between. When commenting on the video, I said that “there is something adorable and beautiful about this… The loving laugh, goofy rolling around and ending of the music all at the same time were a perfect ending to just an old home video, but it was great even for me, a complete stranger.” All she says about the project is this “This is a really old video. August 2006 to be exact. Made a LONG time ago. I look really bad, but it’s a good video project that my little brother and I worked on.” But you know what, she’s right.
I recently was shooting some video in my room and noticed that I was almost completely blacked out because of the lights on either side of me. So I took my one little work light and placed it at an angle, with a sheet of cardboard covered in tinfoil opposite it on the other side of the room, acting as a reflector. I turned the light on, stood in place and presto. It was great-looking footage with nice lighting and a cool sense of “where the hell is that light coming from? It looks great!” That’s what it made me think, anyway. The point here is to get out and just shoot something. Take a camera and get some cool looking angles, play with a light and something reflective and shoot some thoughtful postures of yourself, then splice everything together with some cool music and maybe a poem or something and you’ve got cool-looking poetry-in-motion. Hah, get it? Yea… anyway, point stated, showcase showcased, I have a small announcement and you can get out there and shoot. The Waiting Room is nearing completion. It’s got music by Ben of YouTube, and I need to shoot some last scenes of myself, edit them into the final cut and tighten it up, get the rest of the music and it should be good to go. I’d say total, it’s about halfway through post now. But that still only feels like the beginning. Once the cameraperson and other crew agree to a date, we can shoot and I’ll be all set with footage, then comes the final touches and the scoring sessions and it’s done as well. More updates as that progresses and it will no doubt be on YouTube once it’s done. LATENT(CY), the feature I made last year, is also on YouTube (in 7 parts) in my video collection on my profile page, so check that out too. For now, though, take a lesson from ElizaAnne and go shoot some video!
Be sure to check out ElizaAnne’s other videos too (like the one above), as some of them contain some fairly talented singing as well. Thanks for the video, best wishes and best of luck to all you filmmakers out there reading. Happy filmmaking.
Sorry there hasn’t been an update in quite a while, though IndyMogul, IzzyVideo and Video Copilot have all come out with some new videos that are pretty cool. This update, however is not only a showcase of new work but of new work by a member of AnimiVirtus Productions. Elliot, a co-founder of the group, has begun a blog about comic arts and his in-development series titled “The Armchair Chronicles.” It’s essentially an artistic endeavor into the battle of good and evil that permeates… well, everything. There’s only one post for now, but it’s an interesting peek at what’s to come, as well as the process of the creative mind behind the series. Check out his post here and learn more him and the blog as the post count increases.
Here’s some good news: my first internet filmmaking collaboration that
is completed is finally released on the internet after months of
production and post, and I’m happy to say I’m in the credits. It’s a
great short film, made by people all over the world, and I had a great
time working on it. Ryan, the film’s director, had this to say about
it:
“It was a great collaborative film, with the script coming from the UK,
music coming from the west coast of America and Canada, color
correction from the east coast of America, and stabilizing coming from
mid-America. Not to mention filming and acting with students from 2
rival schools working together on it.”
.![[foam] *thug* life](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3330/3440118033_ae7083fb29_t.jpg "[foam] *thug* life")
