Your Big Projects

Plenty of of people have posted up photography or pictures, or maybe even a small video. Might have been for school, for fun, or for a small job you have. Maybe even a big job, I've been working on a pretty big project that I am hoping to gt done this summer, and thought it might be fun to share it with everyone, and also alow others with some pretty major projects to share their projects here as well, of any type or form of art.

I am hoping to produce and direct a short film this summer to submit to next years locla film festival. I am currently writing the script, thinking about the 2 locations, and who the hell is going to be in the movie. It is a bit ambitous of a project as I don't really have any money for it and will probably have to use my friends as actors and crew, and it is also my first major attempt. If it is not film festival quallity, it will at least be something nice to have in my portfolio.

This footage I am sharing is just really test footage, and something to edit inbetween shoots at school. It's not even the actual person that will be in the movie. I just wanted to test out the location, and get an idea of how I am going to use the shot. It was taken with my Sony HDR-HC7 in 1080i. Not the best camcorder, but it gets the job done. Color balanced and set the exposure and only had time to do 1 take. There are 3 videos in the file. The first is just a rough edit to get the cuts and fades together. The second video adds some mnor color correction and contrast. The third just throws in a light rays effect for the hell of it, but isn't something I am actually thinking of doing for the movie, unless the style is popular and then maybe it would be thrown in.

Again, this is just test footage that hasn't even really been fully edited. Alone, you don't even really have any idea of the plot. The shot is one of the main characters walking down a path towards the camera. This is when the opening credits might appear or just a bit of a calm between 2 pretty intense scenese. Also if anyone notices anything that needs to be done editing wise, let me know. I am still technically a noob when it comes to FCP. The files are quicktime .mov movies at 1440x1080i so al thhree combined are a little over 300mb uncompressed, so if you don't want to waste the time checking them out, understood. Just thought I'd share for those interested. Also, anyone else can post an pics, videos, etc that they feel like sharing.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8israw

Right on, man.

I find that lately, I have too many big projects.

Plans for spring/summer:
MAIN DEALS
-Work on more show pitches (and hopefully sell a few)
-Do more for-fun animation projects
-Finish a big damn painting I started in Atlanta a year ago
SIDE STUFF
-Plant a mapped-out vegetable garden (as much an artistic endevor as any other, possibly involving a concrete sculpture)
-Publish a xerox'd comic 'zine and get it into shops
-Get back into doing maquette work for personal projects

Updates as they happen.

I'm starting up my next big personal project hopefully next week when I get my new computer. It's going to be a 2 part project, which is all revolving around a portfolio site for myself. The first big part is going to be developing the Flash portion of my portfolio site. I have a number of pretty awesome ideas of what I want to do, it's just a matter of fleshing them out some more.

The second part, which is being done for 2 purposes, is building the back end management of the website. It's going to be developed entirely in FLEX with .NET based web services. I'm going this round instead of a purely .NET based back end because I have been eager to get heavily into FLEX development and figure this would be a good change to dive into it head first and learn as I work without the constraint of client bullshit.

Besides that, I have 2 large Flash projects finally starting development in the next few weeks at work which will hopefully be done in the near future.

For anybody that was interested in checking out my short footage test, I moved the videos off my HD to take the laptop elsewhere and watch, and for some reason, the first video wouldn't play while the others would. Not sure if this is a problem for others as I upped the videos straight off the HD so let me know. The first video was a little brighter, less contrast, and no saturation if it doesn't work.

EDIT: Figured it out, and when I exported the video, I accidently didn't make it self contained, so the video portion wont play without the render files there. Don't worry though, like I said, its just less colorful, less contrasty, and brighter.

Holy shit that's a big file ElCapitan, I'll grab it later and check it out for sure.

Right now my big project is my thesis, which is slowly killing me, actually it's quickly killing me. Mostly because I decided it was a good idea to do Animation Mentor a long with doing grad school. During the regular semester though it was doable, during thesis though its really taken its toll on my thesis. Its a short character animation piece about just under a minute long. My goal right now is to get it to a level where I can pass thesis and graduate, and then really finish the film over the summer. Especially a lot of the stuff like the cloth, and putting on the final levels of polish on some of the animation.

Rendering is taking a huge amount of time per frame so that's also a big reason for how I'm approaching my April 30th deadline. The 2d intro was not done by me, nor was the music. I'm doing all the animation in the piece. I modeled the environments (minus 1 building) I had friends model the characters, since I suck at doing things like that, and they were rigged by another friend. I did all the texturing as well minus the one Characters shirt. (I still need to finish some texturing and modeling as well) I'm doing all the lighting as well myself.

So this is a link to my story reel. Basically the shots are all over the place, some are closed to finished animation, some are still blocked, some are in a horrible middle ground that's driving me crazy cause I can't get them to feel right. SO what I do is basically playblast what ever I worked on for the day weither it was finished or not and add it into the story reel. The cloth sim stuff hasn't been set up at all yet and that will most likely be an after thesis thing.

It's about 11 1/2 megs and half resolution of the final output. I'm doing the piece in HD cinescope (1280x544).

Anyway this is why I haven't really had time to play anything, do anything, or have any kind of fun. Hopefully it'll all be over soon though.

*EDIT*

Ohh yeah there's supposed to be a bandanna that fads in as the background changes haven't gotten that in there yet though.

Hmm, right now I'm finishing up a commission for an oil painting and throwing around ideas for some lino cut designs. My overall big project is just to branch out into the world a bit. I'm going to be actively pursuing getting shows in Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Houston. After the Spring Art Walk next friday here in Lake Charles, I'm not going to be showing much here in town. All efforts will be going into getting my name out there and making some money on my stuff.

JM

Re-upped the first 2 movies, so the file is a little smaller and I added the logo I made tonight for shits and giggles. Again, they are quicktime .mov's 1440x1080i.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/owicye

idunnohow.com -- A learning blog specifically created to help people learn certain subjects they would like to learn in an efficient and friendly environment. Avoiding bad books that waste your time assuming you know more than you do. The learning guides here I plan on having them hold your hand the entire way.

top secret project -- I'm working on a new printing technique that's way more cost effective than anything on the market. This project is my biggest and also my slowest moving because it requires a lot of resources.

Marketing & Design company -- I've recently started a marketing and design company with two guys who liked my work and asked me to go in on the ground floor with them. Thus far he's managed to get me 2 website designs and potentially more work. We met with a media company last Wednesday who pledged to give us their print work, too, which is basically like free money since all we do is sub contract it.

Specialized Art dealer -- With that same guy we're getting in to a low-end art distribution channels. I've already contacted interior designers who want to get involved in the project and that's what's hot right now for me. I'm working on our logo RIGHT NOW!! Well I'm procrastinating but you get the idea.

Freelance gigs -- one website, 2 logo's and a business card on the go. Nothing too crazy, but enough given that I still hold a full-time job as an art director at an advertising and marketing firm.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YellerDog

SIDE STUFF
-Plant a mapped-out vegetable garden (as much an artistic endevor as any other, possibly involving a concrete sculpture

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My three little pots of plants in my window have been therapeutic. Do it. Ants were attacking my rosemary bush out back but I launched attack: rain yesterday for the win.

Rain doesn't kill ants, slugger. They can live submerged for a oddly long amount of time.