Obi Wan is so adorable

My fiance is a big fan of the site Pinterest. When I got home the other night she showed me this picture of a cute little critter in a purple hoodie. My brain automatically saw a Jedi master, so i went to work. You’re welcome world.

Effects Test Round One

Gregg and I got together and shot this super short video so I could play with After Effects. After watching several tutorials I composited numerous elements to pull a Dragon Ball type effect together. I plan on continuing to play with this quickie to make it look better by adding in the little nuances that most wouldn’t notice anyway.

So far I have:
1. Fazed out my eyes to a black.
– using motion trackers and layered masks.
2. Pulled particles from the atmosphere around me into fire.
– using particle systems and turbulent displacement.
3. Pulled the fire into a plasma orb.
– using more particle systems and turbulent displacement, along with a glow.
4. Condensed and fired the plasma
5. Dematerialized Gregg
– using a particle break apart (I will enhance this with another tutorial)
6. Added reflections of the blast in the water at the bottom right and on the trucks window (Reflections on all of the reflective surfaces where attempted, but I had issues working with that many masks)
7. Added cracks to the ground that grow outward from the energy.
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Things I want to add:

1. A shock wave (using a displacement map – still gotta learn this one)
2. Dust and smoke (need to find pre keyed elements to composite)
3. Add a scorch mark across the car and make the trashcan look melted.
4. Concrete and dirt pieces bursting from the ground (I need to manage my way through several hours of Blender 3D tutorials to learn how to create these elements. Then I composite them with After Effects.
5. Better soundFX (Gregg will be working on some better sound design)

After Effects and other stuffs

A little while back I decided that I should get my chops back up on After Effects. I’ve played with the program numerous times before in skits I’ve made as well as a few short films and other projects. I however, have never really taken it to the next level and used the program to composite video and do the effects it’s designed to do. So… I went out with Gregg the other day and shot a quick scene to play around with compositing. Since this will be my first trial run with doing multiple layered effects it may take me a little while and a lot of rendering time. As soon as I have it the way I like it I’ll be handing it over to Gregg to do sound design for it. He’ll be doing this from scratch since there is no audio. Gregg has been taking a class on sound design and is getting pretty good at it. We’ll see what he does with my DragonBall style energy blast. I’ll upload the video as soon as I have it done. First sans soundFX and then with them.

Also… aside from working on a comedy show with Casey V. I’ve also been asked to join in on the meetings for another comedy show in the works. A friend of mine, Jaime Jay Nava, is producing the show and is pushing for me to shoot/direct. This could be a very cool thing if it actually gets going. The team is comprised of comedians from the Portland comedy circuit, including Timmy Williams of ‘The Whitest Kids U’Know ‘. All of this is currently speculative, but if it turns into something it could be a great step forward.

The first of October

A short film, ‘Joke’ written and directed by Seth Allen, that I was DP and Editor for this last summer has been excepted into the Salem Film Festival. Apparently airing before the feature I helped work on called ‘The Corners’ , written and directed by Keith Apland. So, that’s a bit interesting for me. Having two films that I had a good amount of involvement in this year getting some attention. Now, if the episode of ‘Free Lance’ that I starred in gets released before December 31st I’d say I’ve had a good year.
Looking forward to getting more projects done in the near future. My schedule will be changing a little bit in the next week allowing me to get back to a comedy show I started with some friends, which is very good news for me. Also, recently, I’ve been getting a rush of scene ideas for scripts I have floating around in my head. As soon as I’m done with Zombie Ass Slappers I will get to work on the next script in line. I’ve got about five or so features I want to get done, this is slightly problematic do to the fact that I want to work on all of them right now and have to separate my attention to stay inline and actually complete something. It’s kind of a weird feeling to be so hyper motivated and actually feel like I’m making a little headway. I think that since I’ve started taking Capoeira I’m not only getting regular exercise again, but I’m practicing something that takes focus. This is in return centering my focus and helping me to excel. For this I’m grateful.

The Corners

Last night was the wrap party for, Keith Apland’s, ‘The Corners. We started shooting this film during the early summer of 2009 and finished just this last week. The next couple months will be editing and then it goes into final post production aka: titles, credits, colorization, and DVD creation getting ready for film festivals.

Also, a new ‘Free Box’ episode is in the works. Keep up with the show at thefreebox.tv

Making a movie

A number of years back, shortly after my stint in the Video Internship program at PCC; I (P.R. Anderson) had an idea to do a short film which I called ‘Terror in the Corn Maze’. With the help of my good friends Casey Van, Megan McDaniel and Jared Streich; we whipped up a script which was funny and didn’t make a lick of sense.

I was granted the use of some equipment while interning at Picture This and with the okay from the owners of the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island we gathered everyone we needed to start shooting this short script. We shot for two nights with a very loud generator. Even though the footage looked good it was a mess. The sound was awful. Not a lost cause just not within our time and budget to continue or fix. The project fell apart, however the scenes that were able to be cut together found a home on YouTube. (please excuse the quality)

So, a couple years later Casey and I decided to revive the script and grow the seed into a feature length. We didn’t have the luxury of living together at this point and had may other things going on in our lives. This meant, of course, that the script took a long time to write.

We are very tenacious and decided that this is what we want to do with our lives. A reading of the script is being held this coming Sunday. It will be recorded and used for character voices in story boards as we push to get investors.

We will be posting along the way through blog and Twitter

Paul