The Benefits of Insomnia

So, I can't sleep. It happens. A lot of it has to do with the fact I can't shut off my brain right now. Wait...my brain in my big ass head. Anyway, I'm still up and I'm flipping channels on the telly and I find something that made this whole night just that much more special. When I grow up, I want to be able to direct/shoot/edit something...just...like...this...



Wow. And definitely not my first one tonight.

The funny thing is I've watched that a few times and I know exactly how to get every single one of the shots they used in that sequence. Most were done on a jib. Some had a 90 degree shutter angle. Some were also over-cranked to 120+fps (maybe 500...at least). They had to have shot it on camera capable of doing 4K OR they have a badass piece of telephoto glass on it. Color correction is immaculate. I know it was done over several takes, because 1) you can't get that many cameras for that much real-time coverage unless you have a gang of dosh and 2) all of the tire streak marks already on the asphalt. Finally, the slo-mo scene showing the dirt bike and the rally car making that last jump, with the C-130 aircraft flying in the opposite direction, was done entirely in post-production. How do I know? Look at the shadows. The plane doesn't have one and it should.

Stay tuned.

I've Got a Really Big Head

I'm not saying that in a cocky (ta-hehe) kind of way. I mean, I physically have a really big head. If you looked at pictures of me as a baby, you would have said, "Damn, he's ALL head." Because I was. I had one of those whippy neck things going on because my head was so damned heavy. When I enlisted in the military I lost a ton of weight and I looked like a burnt matchstick. Seriously. I don't think I grew into my head size until my 30's. At least now I'm kind of proportional, so you don't notice how big the cranium is because everything else is big too. I could so make a joke right there, but it's just too easy.

Why all the talk about my big ass head? Because, I have to continually fill it with more and more information. It is like I've got a ton of empty brain matter there just waiting to be stimulated by something new to learn. I've been doing a lot of learnin lately and I'm going to share some of it with you.

When you make a film, you've got to juggle a lot of balls (again...too easy). In order for it to be good, everything and everyone has to do their role successfully. I've been involved in a many of those roles, but the one I love the most is editing. Taking footage and making it look the way it was supposed to look. My career started with editing and I'm sure I'll do it for many years to come.

Having said all that, I've been spending a lot of time improving my editing skills. If you asked me a couple months ago the value of After Effects, my answer would be zero. Now, After Effects is like a buffet for my mentals. I can't stop learning all the cool things it has to teach. What kind of cool things?

Stuff like this. (If you know nothing of AE, then that is the best place to start)

This.

And this.

Andrew Kramer, I love you. Stay tuned!

Slippin' On My Duties

I've failed you all as your humble servant. Seriously, the point of this blog was to keep myself informed of all the cool things I've been learning while on this quest to become a filmmaker. By doing that, you too will get educated on a few bits of info along the way. I've been SO BUSY, I've neglected those duties, both to you and myself. Haha...duty myself.

First off, the new and much improved Cloudy Logic website is online. Mad props to Ken for taking us to the next level on the internets. Go out and give it a whirl because, as I type this blog, Ken is already working on making more changes. You've got to try to keep up people.

Been working on the Cutty Lue "Just a Thought" music video and it's finally in the can. It took me a while to do it, but everything I've learned has been well worth it. Being a director/editor is always tough because I have a visual image, in my mind, of what the end product should look like. Translating that mental image into something that properly portrays my idea, as well as making it enjoyable for the audience isn't an easy thing at all. I think I did pretty well with "Just a Thought". I'll be sure to talk some more about it in another blog. Do kind of like a brain dump/post-mortem.

Remember when I blogged about my fanny pack of goodness? Well, I've made a couple updates to it since then. No more fanny pack. Sure it's good for storing crap, but when you have to finger through everything to get to a vis-a-vis marker, then it's just counter-productive. So I invested in one of these. And it came with a bonus pair of these for free! I'm all about free. I'm telling you folks, stock up on ketchup packets. They're going to be worth their weight in diamonds when the zombies come a knockin'.

There are too many things I want to tell you, but I'm going to keep this one short and it'll make me come back to force feed you more. So, for now, I'll leave you with this cool demo:



I've got jury duty in the morning. Bleh. They don't know...they're in the danger zone! Stay tuned! I promise to keep you informed more often if you do.

Santa, Can I Have One of These?

I've been a good boy...kinda.

As I get more involved in this career, I find what arouses me is changing. Sure, I tend to fall prey to the standard temptations any heterosexual male may encounter. I'm talking about a different kind of stimulation. The kind that tickles the visual cortex and makes me kind of tingly.

You all know about the Sony EX3 we use and it's a badass camera. Especially in the hands of the mad scientists at Cloudy Logic. The camera definitely has opened up doors in many ways and we're constantly trying to test the limits of what it can do. Of course, there are a few things it can't do, hence where eye-candy-induced arousal comes to play. Stuff like this:



And some more eyegasms:



Those most pleasurable sessions were brought to you courtesy of the Phantom camera. Yes, I'd like to get my hands on one. Just for a day. Okay, I'll even take an hour on it.

Now that I've learned all this fun keying stuff in Final Cut and After Effects, I'm looking forward to shooting on the green screen. You can really pull off some great stuff with a green screen:



You've got to constantly strive to increase production value. That's all I've got for now kids. You stay cool and stay tuned!

The Recipe for an Oscar Winning Film

Google has some of the coolest apps. I think their whole drive is to make the internet a more productive place for all of us. AND they want to do it all for FREE! Craziness. I heard they bought Picnik so soon everyone will be a professional photographer. I was at my Google Reader page and they have a link to something new. It is like a visual form of the Reader called Google Reader Play that kind of scours the web for stuff you might like based upon the blogs you subscribe to. As you go through items in Play, you mark if you like them or not and it'll evolve to find things more specific to your liking. If you've already got your Reader set up, you should give Play a try. Anyway, one of the items it tossed my way was a great YouTube video and I'm sure it'll become viral...at least among us filmmakers:



Great stuff. See, nothing is sacred on them Internets. Stay tuned.

Oh...P.S. It starts tonight!

Smoke Break

We gotta R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

Film making is a constantly evolving process. Sometimes I go back to our early pieces of work and I reminisce on what was. It helps me stay grounded. I've been spending most of the day working on the Cutty Lue music video we shot a few weeks ago. Stepping into a new project is always a learning experience. I walk in with a certain amount of knowledge I've attained from previous productions, but I'm not the type to do the same thing twice...or at least I try my best not to. So, I learn new tricks with the hopes they can help translate the visuals in my brain, into a medium other humans can hopefully interpret. Trust me, it isn't an easy thing to do, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting better at it with every production.

I took a break from editing to clear my mentals. I could have turned on the very neglected Xbox. Maybe sat outside on the back patio and read a comic or a book. Take a trip to the driving range and hit a couple of buckets. Nope. I was a good student and did homework. I watched O Brother, Where Art Thou? I'm pretty sure all three of the people who read this blog has seen this movie. It's been on heavy rotation lately on the picture box. I really really like this film and I'm not a fan of George Clooney at all. I don't think he's a great actor (unless he has an ensemble cast like Ocean's Eleven). Although, he was really good in Up in the Air and that was my vote for the Oscar for Best Film. The Hurt Locker? Really?

Anyway, I've mentioned before how I tend to analyze movies now, instead of watching them. O Brother is one of the few movies I watch and enjoy. Sure, every now and then, I'll catch myself saying, "Wow, I wonder just how beautiful the colors of those leaves are without the desaturation?" Or, "I know how to shoot fire, but how do you fake that fire-like light off the character's faces?" Then I shoot Ken an e-mail. If you haven't seen O Brother in a while, you might want to consider re-educating yourself...



Stay tuned!

A Process Never Ending

I remember going to the Orlando 48-Hour Film Project premiere last year and after they showed the movies the filmmakers were asked to come to the front of the theater for a Q/A session. I think Ken was out of town, so I had to go down and represent. I made sure to bring down Mike Santi and Lisa Savage, the two leads for "Let Sleeping Squirrels Lie", as back-up. Anyway, one of the questions asked was, "What do you recommend up-and-coming filmmakers do to improve our films?" My brain's initial reaction was, "Uh...I'm an up-and-coming filmmaker too dude." But, the words that came out of my mouth were something like...

"Do your homework. Watch a LOT of movies, TV, commercials, whatever. Just watch them and if you find a shot or something you like, learn how to do it. Oh, and read Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez."

Nowadays, I think I do less watching of movies, TV, etc and more analyzing. It doesn't matter what it is, I'll watch it and then, in my mind, I work out what I need to achieve that particular shot/look. If I don't know how to achieve it, I'll ping Ken and we'll try to figure it out. I think I'll continually apply this practice for the rest of my life. It helps me to become a better filmmaker, and with it being such a competitive market, I've got to get whatever edge I can.

It is always a nice experience when my eyes fall upon something that really tingles my filmmaking intellect and some of that tingling may overflow to my loins. Stuff like this:



Currently, I'm doing an infinite number of renders. Each one seems to last an eternity. It's okay though, because what I'm working on is really cool stuff. Thanks to Creative Cow, I learned how to do layers in a Final Cut sequence (kind of like a Photoshop project). Wow, talk about opening up another dimension in editing! Stay tuned!