Month: February 2010

Right now I’m working on a bunch of stuff. 

Anna and I have decided to create a documentary on hunger in Maine. Anna recently read an article that stated sixty one percent of Cony students do not have enough money to eat lunch. So how many Winthrop students are going hungry? We want to draw attention to this issue, and try to make a change.

“Bring the film that won “Best Feature,” “Best Family Comedy,” and “Best Comedy” at nationwide film festivals to your city. SUMMERHOOD, narrated byJohn Cusack, is a heartfelt coming-of-age comedy that follows young Fetus, who struggles for status while getting tangled up in first love.” –Eventful 

This video is a testament to the power of music, lighting, and angles. While working on the Screnzy trailer I discovered just how much music adds to the video if it is used correctly. Watch this video twice for the full effect. Once with music and once without. There is still some power with just the lighting and angles, but the music is what really sells the piece. Think about this when you are making your projects.

Anna and I have begun to think of ideas for our stop motion EXTRAVAGANZAAAA. We are basing it off of an online video of a girl on a bed. Hopefully we get together soon to start storyboarding. I’m thinking of doing it on the stage in the PAC with possibly a white sheet?

In this article, the filming technique being discussed was time lapse. Time lapse was described as almost the opposite of slow-motion video, in which short events are made to take up more space to appear more important. With time lapse, much larger events (say, twenty-four hours of constant filming) are minimized into far more manageable and watchable lengths. This enables a slow event, such as a flower growing; or a large, important event that takes a lot of time, such as a painter at work; to reach out to the masses and connect with them with three minutes of video instead of five hours.
The two techniques discussed were both very different, and yet somewhat similar. The first of the two was in-camera time lapse, where the camera is set to activate every minute, shoot a second of footage, and then go back into standby mode. It repeats until it runs out of battery, film, or suffers from a critical hardware fault. The second mode, post-production time lapse, differs from the first in that the camera remains on and filming for the length of time needed, and the footage is simply sped up to the desired length in post-production editing software. The two techniques are similar in results, and the fact that they both need a stable camera and a lot of film.
I already knew about post-production time lapse, in fact I had used this on my final video for Video Production I, the scene where Alex is walking down the hallway and back. However, if I have time this year, I would like to experiment with in-camera time lapse, as that may have some interesting effects. However, limitations of this would be that the greatest time lapses occur outside, and leaving Miss Shaw’s cameras outside for an extended period of time does not increase my chances of avoiding premature dismemberment.

So the electives video was finished just in time, and now its putt putt time again. The premiere is this saturday; I will be helping film assuming I get back from my ski meet in time. Then i have to start thinking about the documentary again. I’m not gonna lie… I enjoyed the break I got with the electives video. The doc editing is ridiculous. I just sit there watching footage over and over again and I feel like I’m making no progress. I want it to be so good but I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing and it’s making me crazy. I just want to be done so I can start working with Evan on our STOPMOTION EXTRAVAGANZAAAA! yeaaaaah. 

AHHHH! We’re supposed to be showing this video tomorrow. I just finished my last two interviews this morning and now I just have to do some quick editing. Hopefully the boys got their interviews done?!