Making Movies, Puppy 3

Okay, I'm putting the "done" stamp on the third instalment of the Puppy Rescue series.

Wow, I'm really not a visual effects guy or a sound guy, though I will try and fake it if necessary. But what this project, and the infomercial shoot, have thought me is that I work better when I have a focused plan for a shoot. The infomercial turned out okay after edit and the client is very happy, but the shoot could have been done smoother and more efficiently.
Finally got to an SCA practice tonight. It's been just over two weeks. I'm way off pace for my training, at this point I guess I'll have to buckle down next month and see how Crown Tournament goes. We will see.
I used to have three hobbies: SCA, video production (unpaid), and D&D. Over the last 6 months, I'm down to the SCA. On the plus side, paying video production has replaced hobby video production. I think my wife would like it if we could get back to some D&D, but my drive in that area is low and there aren't many opportunities to pursue it around here. And I guess I can always get back to my own production projects when the paying video work slows down. If it doesn't slow down, then I suppose I'm doing alright with just the paying work.
Movies I watched last week:
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Sliver Surfer. Tough to review, as I slept through the middle. Not a reflection on the movie, I was REALLY tired. From what I saw it looked better than the first Fantastic 4, which I did enjoy. Overall I think it's most likely a 2 or 3 out of 5, depending on what happened while I was asleep.
Horton Hears a Who. My son and I saw this on in the theater. He was very excited about the previews for upcoming movies (Kung-Fu Panda, Wall-e, Ice Age 3, and Speed Racer). Horton was a very good movie. It did an excellent job of staying true to the Dr. Seuss style and the type of message that he tried to convey with his stories. In some ways it was an improvement of the story, as the characters had more personality and depth. With the playfulness of the story and some excellent voice actors I would definitely recommend this certainly adaptation as a movie worth seeing. My son stayed awake for the whole movie, which was not a lock as he was a little sick and nap usually starts about half way though the movie's run time; and he's talked about the movie several times in the days since. So my best guess is that he enjoyed it as well.
So, I'm thinking 3 out of 5 for adults and 4 out of 5 for children.

So Tired

Blog is suffering from being at the bottom of the do to list. If you're waiting for episode three of the Puppy Rescue, it should be up Monday, as I am actually home all weekend with no jobs or events planned. Well, we are going to an egg hunt on Sunday and maybe a museum on Saturday, but with the evenings free I should be able to finish the editing.
Also, I could deal with some project that aren't rush last-minute jobs. Infomercial shoot on Sunday that had to be delivered by this morning (Thursday) and then prep on year two of a documentary jumped up out of nowhere. On the plus side, the infomercial was good money. And after the shooting of the event for the documentary I may actually have enough footage to cut together an interesting feature. But for now, I'd like to sleep for a while.
Oh, my son has no school tomorrow, so I think we're going to a movie.

Hopefully I'll be back Monday with the next Puppy Rescue movie ready to post.

Audio Fix

I went back a watched the second episode of the puppy movie and I realized that it is missing dialogue for the villain. This was due to an odd stereo to mono audio compression problem that ended up taking me WAY too long to figure out how to fix. But I have fixed it and am reposting the movie with the audio it was intended to have.

Sorry, but the next episode will be a week behind, since I've obviously missed the Monday deadline.

In the meantime, my son's birthday party went really well. I was very nervous about the size of the party (12 children under 6, 20 adults). But the whole event went very smoothly, I think in part because we let my son open his presents as people arrived. It prevented the forced group activities that make everyone crowd into one room and gave the children exciting new toys to play with. My family stuck around for the weekend, which as nice. Full family get togethers are always fun, though somewhat sparse at this point. Though I had to cut out a little early on Sunday due to daylight savings time and a regional SCA practice. Overall, good weekend.

This week, I've seen three movies. First I watched Magnolia, which I apparently didn't get. I was really disappointed by this movie. It felt like it stumbled forward under the weight story with no plot and a lack of connection between the characters. I could even find a theme that tied the stories together beyond a mundane 6 degrees of separation. In the end I felt that it accomplished what the TV show Seinfeld wanted to be, a story about nothing. I know that I'm probability in the minority on my view of this movie, but I'd give it a 2 out of 5.

The second movie I watched was 3:10 to Yuma. Now I'll start by stating that this is a remake and I have not seen the original. That being said, I really enjoyed this movie. It accomplishes a truly epic feel without large gaps in the movement of the story. The characters are rich and the photography beautiful. The actions and consequences of the characters make sense and the action moves well with a very realistic feel to the events that transpire along the journey. Even the end, which I felt a little odd about at first, brings both of the characters to an understanding of how their journey has brought them to a moment of redemption without forcing the audience to endue a heavy handed moment explaining the moral of the story. I'd definitely recommend this movie, 4 out of 5.

Finally, I just watched Beowulf. The story was good, but really they only get partial credit for that. Though I'm not surprised with the involvement of Neil Gaiman. He is one of my favorite authors and had always impressed me with his understanding of mythology and ancient cultures that I'm interested in. Now on to what I think is the main creative challenge of the movie, it's attempt at photo realistic computer animation. The advantage of animation is that it allows for complete control of the visual environment. And Beowulf uses this to it's full effect; in the gore of fight scenes, illustration and powers of the monsters and the vividness of the medieval norse world. The down side is that I felt like I was watching one long cut scene from a video game. Computer animation has come a long way, but the photo realistic aspect still falls a little short. Bare skin in full light looks fake, there isn't full articulation in the facial expressions of the characters, and in the end it doesn't live up to what I consider the test of great photography in a movie. Could you take any frame of film and turn it into a still that would be presentable as a picture. I think the master of this aspect of film making was Conrad Hall. But, rather than getting side tracked with praise of the late Mr. Hall, I close with: If you control EVERY aspect of what we see because you've literally created the whole world, then every moment of that movie should be as close to perfection as your medium permits. And if this movie is as close as photo realistic computer animation can get right now, then I find it to be a little short of where it needs to be to be on an par with live action or even hand drawn animation. Still, good movie, 3 out of 5.

Birthday

Well, my son had his birthday, so now he's 3. It was a nice night home with the family, which will be contrasted by his party this weekend. The party is going to be a little larger than I was planning, but I'm sure we'll manage. Just a lot of prep and cleaning left to be done that's got me worried.
Someone asked me recently if I missed my son being a baby, and I said no. Because I don't, I really enjoy the level of interaction we have now and what he's capable of doing. But, him turning three makes me more aware of how fast time moves and makes me look back at what I've been doing for the past couple of years. It's been almost as long as I spend in college and I wonder if I'm pushing to more forward as much as I could, rather than settling into a rut. Because I don't think Ive made enough progress to find a rut yet.

Now, on a lighter note, here's an outtake from the last episode of the Puppy movies:

More Puppy Movie

Okay, I'm getting this one in under the wire. But I am getting the second instalment of the Puppy movies up on Monday. It's been a crazy weekend and start to the week. But it helps me to pretend that I actually have an audience out there somewhere that is watching these movies. It keeps me from completely blowing off my deadlines. The question is, am I going to get another episode up next Monday with one of the craziest weekends of my year coming up. But perhaps I can turn it into an opportunity to get some interesting footage for next week. We will see.
Well, now for this weeks episode: