no_money

I finished the skating part of this shot a while ago. I'd love to go back and clean it up but I've got too many other shots still to do. That's the problem with animating like this. You never get to the look that you're truly happy with until most of the film is practically finished.

The second part of this shot was a beast to do because of the varying frame rates and motion tracking. I had to really finesse it to make it all look like it was running at 12 fps and at the same time because it's actually at 29.97. But I like the shot. I still need to make some minor adjustments to when the outlines of people start tracking to the wall but it's almost there.

This is definitely the finished look for the interviewee though. I've only done 2 other sections of interview so I might go back and redo those to look more like this section.

technical difficulties

I don't trust Adobe Premiere at all. Never have. Never will. Today I loaded up my project and all of my footage (interview, skate and city) was unlinked. Basically that means the software thinks it's gone. I was able to manually relink the footage but it took a long time and was kind of a pain in the ass cause I had to go across all my hard drives and find the footage. Usually when footage gets unlinked you can find just one clip and Premiere will find the rest on it's own. Not this time. I had to do each one individually.

I also use a combination of Quicktime and AVI files. Now when I load up Premiere it tells me that it can not load some of the AVI files because the original clips no longer fit the same format, i.e. they no longer have sound. Which is bullshit because if you open the clips they play with sound in the Media Player.

This also meant the majority of my previews were gone so I had to re-render the entire film.

Life may now continue but I still don't trust Adobe Premiere.

heading back

I thought I was going to be able to stay in D.C. until August 26th. Unfortunately it turns out I have to return to Los Angeles August 1st. Initially I was pretty worried about being in D.C. for so long and whether or not I would be able to get enough done. But I've actually gotten quite a bit finished since I've been here (which I think is a testament to my newly found work ethic for personal projects). I definitely would have kept pace while visiting home.

I have 2 weekends to get all my footage before I roll out.

License Music Now still has not given me a quote for aquiring rights to the music I intend to use. Seems like bad business to just ignore work requests but I have to keep trying them. I definitey think they will save me money in the end.

I've looked into a number of grants that have rolling entry dates. There seems to be a couple out there that I may have a chance at. It would be great to get one for the film itself and any expenses that I accumulate outside the reaches of my USC production budget. But I would also like to get a finishing grant. Finishing grants will help a film maker with a number of things like promotional post cards, festival fees, distribution, etc. I could burn through thousands of dollars just finishing this film. Especially since I plan on doing specialized post cards. More on that later.

I really wish I could stay here longer. It really is great to be back and I'm already looking forward to Christmas break.

and i'm out

I leave tomorrow to head back to D.C. for the rest of the summer. I'm excited to go home but I'm also really stressed about having to be gone for so long. I'm sure my productivity will drop drastically since I don't have a solid workspace at my parents house. But the important thing about this trip is that I'll be doing multiple shoots to get the remaining footage I need for the film. I'm going to bring James Harpold on board to get a number of shots and I'm really pumped to use my steady-cam rig I picked up with my production budget. I just hope that airline security doesn't think I'm trying to pack pipe bombs in my luggage.

The best part about this trip is that I get to meet my niece for the first time.

LA stencils

I've been looking for stencil art in Los Angeles for a while now but I haven't seen much. I've seen some of the most incredible grafs since I've lived in LA but not many stencils. D.C. is about the same except for the quantity. In LA you have much more commissioned work. I like it. I think it adds some much needed flavor to the concrete jungle. USC is still a place in dire need of flavor.

The other night I was drinking at Short Stop and came across this on the sidewalk right out front. I'm glad to know somebody is throwing stuff down cause we all know I would never do such a thing.... um, yeah.

when

I'm trying to figure out when I'm going back east to finish shooting. It's nerve racking to say the least because I need to be working on my film and have some sort of paying job throughout the summer. I know when I get back to D.C. my productivity will drop dramatically and I'm really on a roll right now. I originally made my flight for July 6th but a paying gig just popped up in LA and jobs aren't looking so good in D.C. I'll probably change my flight. At least I'll be able to get another shot finished before I head back east.

uncalled for

When I work on my film at home I always have music and the tv on. I happened to catch this out of the corner of my eye. Very disturbing. The particular "news" cast that was on when I first saw it was Inside Edition. It really pissed me off to hear that the majority of the feedback they had received after first airing the story was in favor of the police officer. Just goes to show you what kind of demographic tunes into Inside Edition. It's pretty disappointing that so many people think skating is that bad.

the first

Well, due to popular demand I am officially entering the world of blogging. I'm sure in the near future this blog space will be saturated with information related to my thesis film at USC, Pepperland.