Not a front for a secret organization.
Written by Rob Schultz (human).
Something like seven years ago, I heard the story of Le Gentil and thought it would be fun to do in a Reading Rainbow style. We could do a whole series of cartoons about people who lost in a big way while doing Science.
Later on, I made friends with some people who were pretty well equipped to make it happen. And it did!
Also, this year, a Transit of Venus actually happened, so it was nicely timed.
In a burst of productivity, I made three videos for the MaxFunDrive 2010 Blowout Finale Bash Marathon. I shot almost everything on Wednesday afternoon and put 'em together Thursday evening.
I threw out my first idea as too impractical to shoot of and by myself and made this one instead, featuring three tropes-of-me. All three were shot on my phone, and final cut had no problem with that. It didn't like the HD stock footage from artbeats though. That stuff caused a lot of problems.
This one is a video of the serious and heartfelt variety. It's still a little bit silly. As a video professional, I managed to shoot this with my camera/phone in portrait mode, rendering my travel to the actual locations where I listened to the episodes I mention useless. This also lead to the layering effect, so as to do something more interesting than EXTREME letterboxing.
A third video idea that came up during the first two, this is as deliberately low-fi and late night hack infomercial-y as can be. I've attempted to keep continuity to a minimum, and it doesn't, strictly speaking, make a lot of sense. I've been waiting ages to find a use for all these gigantic diamonds though.
It made me happy that all three had extra stuff I ditched to keep the time down, that they all went together quickly and easily minus dumb [GENERAL ERROR]s, and that I got such a reasonable looking product out of a telephone.
Also, today is the last day of the MaxFunDrive, so if you haven't given, you oughtta give. Every new person that gives takes one more nickel out of my pocket as part of the New Donor Challenge, which is rapidly exceeding the amount of spare change and bills I've been able to find around the house.
Hey MaxFunPals, here's the video of that thing.
I saw a trailer for a new movie the other day, Death at a Funeral. It reminded me a lot of another trailer. For Death at a Funeral. Here's a look at both so you can decide which actor you think is best at saying all these great jokes!
It's new video time! We spent around an hour shooting this last weekend, and I put it together this weekend. It's about Amy, and the tricks she plays on her neighborhood. It so happens that we have all the right props (literally, props) to be entered into the YouTube Project: Direct 2009 contest. I imagine that for any number of reasons, this isn't quite the kind of video they're looking for, but there's something that seems very silly to me about a direct-to-youtube video with a credited Director of Photography and three Key Grips, so maybe it should be.
If it turns out that it is, then I assure you, you'll hear about it when the voting starts. (Judges narrow down the contestants who are then voted on by the Internets) Until then, I recommend you watch it anywhere else.
It's a little bit heartbreaking to spend time adjusting colors and finessing a video just to have the YouTube automatic video ruining system add its own 'washed out' color settings and a light blur over top of everything. It's almost enough to understand why 1) most internet videos look terrible 2) people don't bother with white balancing or microphones. I mean, macroblocking? Really? Even in 'high-quality' mode? It's a series of stills, for pete's sake. (EDIT: I'm told that there's a longer wait for the site to process things into high-quality playback mode, and that it ought to look better sooner or later)
Anyway, I hope you like it, and that you get the film nerd joke in the middle. It was fun to do, and I'd shoot this style again sometime. Now if you'll excuse me, I actually finished something, and a little bit of sunshine is in order. (I was going to go for an irony-free closing here, but I stumped the MTV site)
