In the Blink of an Eye
By: Walter Murch
Published: 2001

This is a book about editing written by Walter Murch. I’m going to say right off the bat that this should be required reading for anyone interested in film editing.

Walter Murch is the winner of multiple Academy Awards, and he has edited films like the The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, Ghost, The Godfather, The English Patient, and many more. He also has the trivial honor of being the only editor to be nominated for an Oscar for editing on a Moviola, a KEM, Avid, & Final Cut Pro. In addition he was also a sound designer before there were sound designers. Murch has the credentials and many would consider him to be one of the best editors Read the rest of this entry »

Both of these ended up in my email somehow. I’m glad I’m on the right mailing lists.

Careerbuilder Superbowl Ad Contest
25 Seconds, short and sweet. They are actually interested in more of a pitch. If you win, they will take your idea and possibly produce it again with a budget and then air it for the Superbowl. $100,000 and $50,000 dollar prizes. Keep in mind you cannot use anything that is copyrighted, this includes music. And interestingly enough, you cannot have anyone in the ad that is under 18 years of age, that is going to seriously hurt the cute angle.

Deadline: July 3

Amazon Ad Contest
Also short, 30 seconds. A lot of room to be creative on this one, as well as more time. Amazon gives you some pictures of shipping boxes as well as a logo to use, but besides that you’re on your own. Again, no copyrighted music. There are 2 prizes, one a juried prize, and the other an audience prize that is voted for online. Both are $10,000 Amazon gift cards. And you can win both prizes.

Deadline: July 17

Song: Oblivion
Artist: Mastodon
Director: Robert Schober (”Roboshobo”)
Year: 2009

This video is oozing with mediocrity. It was directed by Robert Schober, who has yet to impress me with any of his music videos, but is part of Symphony 19, a group of other talented directors and film makers. This video features the band in some space lab, some shit happens, whatever. The special effects are just a notch under the quality they should be at, but they are acceptable, except for the debri falling on top of the band, which in some shots just looks like chocolate donuts. Chocolate rain even. Then there is also what looks like compression issues on the drummers face in the monitor. I’ve seen the video in various streaming players and it looks the same. The other thing that annoyed me was the talking in the video. There are some shots when people’s lips are moving and we have no clue Read the rest of this entry »

This was actually one of the first things I tried to do in After Effects, almost two years ago at this point. The titles are simple, the camera moves are a little sloppy, and the “clouds” are pretty horrendous. If I were to do something similar today I would definitely do it differently. The zoom effect was created following Andrew Kramer’s tutorial on video copilot. It is composited together from Google Earth screenshots. It is a very cool effect, easy in concept but extremely tedious to get right. I do feel that the effect can be used for other ideas, so I am glad I did it here. So everything in the video is either renders from AE or screenshots of Google Earth.
Read the rest of this entry »

Title: Deadline
Directed by: Bang-yao Liu

Cool little stop motion video. Besides the fact that making a video like this takes a ridiculous amount of time, there were two things that stuck out to me.

First, the really smart production that went into this. You can see it here. I don’t think they could have done anything better as far as the production goes, this is definitely the way you would do a project like this. If you watch the linked making-of video something should come to mind. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a quick video that showcases the compositing work for the upcoming NBC Series Bloody Omaha. This is a great video if you have no clue how movies are made, or if you’ve ever wondered, how did they get all those extras? It’s really impressive to see what you can achieve in post production if you know what you are doing in production. Some top notch post production here, I am impressed at their portable green screen footage. I wish I could actually sit down with them and see how they are pulling such good keys from that.