End of Semester

The end of the semester has come. I came into this class with low expectations, leaving now I have a great appreciation of After Effects. I had watched tutorials before with amazing compositing results and now that I have taken this course I understand how to follow them. I don't expect to rely too heavily on After Effects alone to make work but instead I plan on using it to enhance and better my video work. I feel as if the sky is the limit now as far as indie special effects are concerned.

Fuckin up my production calendar

This last weekend was a giant disappointment for production in my world. The word about the music video shoot did not spread to enough people and I feel like a failure, but I'll let that feeling be my motivation for this next weekend. I have revised my production schedule for class and it is a lot tighter since I have lost a week to work on post with this debacle.

April-19- Work on spreading word about event

April-21- Shoot music video

April-24- Picture Lock/ Colorized Grading/Painting Effect/Double Vision/Echoing/Liquify Crit One

April-26- Crit two take notes, achieve perfection before final is due

May-1st- Turn in final edit

Due 4-17-12

Next Tuesday I will be coming into class with the first cut of the music video. I want to have the audio synced and picture locked. I feel that color grading will come after because I want to use After Effects Color Correction tools. I am planing on shooting the music video this saturday at nine. Using the first hour and a half to get a few clean run throughs of a one take shot through the space with the extras to make sure I get the feel and ambiance just right. The second part of the shoot will be used to get steady shots, during my play and development periods I have found that working with hand held and getting everything to work just right is a bit difficult. Not necessarily impossible but I want to make my life a little easier by having locked down steady footage.

Locations locations locations

Demo Reel Reviews

This first reel I am looking at is Derrick Sims Directer of Photo reel. I have followed this guys work and he actually taught me basic Film Production in high school. This demo reel runs a bit long and some of the shots toward the end have some weird distortion to them. I enjoy this reel because of how nice the shots are that he has chosen to included. I especially enjoy the "Come Morning" footage. The five or so minutes that we observe pass by quite fast in my opinion.



Salazar's video is breathtaking at a lot of points. This reel utilizes the rule of 10 and 12 quite well, never dipping in to an 8. I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing of the piece and found myself wanting more at the end. Overall I enjoy the use of the soundtrack for pacing, although I know it is not desirable to include that sort of editing when thinking about distribution and considering that lots of professional demo reviewers would kill the audio I still found it enjoyable even with the sound off.


Salazar Demo Reel from Salazar on Vimeo.

Erik Zimmerman's reel is probably one of my favorite professional Video Effects reels that I found. Erik is clear and concise on the parts of the work that he worked on. It is very clear to me during each shot what he contributed to the piece. Further more I thought it would be good to include a more "main" stream artist. He has done work for Michael Bay and worked on other largely commercial projects which is where I hope to get someday.


Erik Zimmermann's VFX Demo Reel from Erik Zimmermann on Vimeo.

Jessica Steinruck

Jessica is a junior this year at MCA, her major is sculpture. It is fitting that her internship is with a doctor at Silicon Ocular who specializes in making custom fitting prosthetics. For six hours a week her responsibilities include sculpting prosthetics, cleaning after the doctor has been sculpting, measuring out the silicon, running errands for the company, and much more. Her advice for people without an internship was short and to the point, "By far the best thing to do is not to feel like you have a chance at an internship, Just apply to as many as you can and try really hard to make the best impressions." The skills she has learned from her time at her internship include Mold making and prosthetics. One of the biggest things that Jessica can look forward too from her internship is a summer job at the clinic, she says she is excited for the opportunity and cannot wait to start getting paid for the things she does now.

My there internships!

The three main internships that I have focused on this semester are the American Cinema Editors internship, The Warner Brothers internship, and a Video Effects internship for a company called Artjail. I feel like editing is one of my stronger suits in life so the first internship is based solely on my thirst for all knowledge of editing. They have different sorts of Editing seminars and talks that I would love to work shop through. The Warner Brothers Internship I selected because I felt that at such a large studio it would be super hard not to make connections. I feel like social networking would be a big part of post-grad life so why not go big. Having Warner Brothers on my resume would make me look like a super fly guy. The Artjail position seem like a dream job. One of the main reasons I chose to research this company was that I know they have a red camera, to be trained with that camera would be like a million dreams come true for me. Not only that but VFX has been something that has really interested me in the last few months. I feel like if I can do my own visual effects that are not too flamboyant then I could pull them off for my own work. Not only that, but Artjail is centered in NYC which would be another great opportunity for social networking.