Category: Digital Video

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Interns are a good thing!

The Interns

The Fall II semester is underway and I am already swamped. In addition to the two courses that I am teaching, and planning for the LaGuardia New Media conference in the spring, I also have to redesign the web sites for the New Media program and the CIS Department. Both sites need a serious update and there was no way that I could have completed the job by myself. Luckily I was able to get an intrepid band of interns to volunteer in assisting me to plan, design, and implement the new sites. Continue reading “Interns are a good thing!”

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Upgrading to High Def: The Canon HV20 or HV30?

The Canon HV30

Last week Canon announced the Vixia HV30, the newest high def camcorder designed to replace older Canon HV20. I have been itching to make the jump to HD video for the past year. I held off largely because my standard definition Canon GL2 was still serving me well. In addition, the HD standards and industry trends were still in flux so I was kinda gun shy about making a major purchase during times of technological uncertainty. You have to understand that for me, nothing is as frustrating as having your new camcorder becoming obsolete the week after you purchase it. Continue reading “Upgrading to High Def: The Canon HV20 or HV30?”

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New Years Day: The Star Trek Experience

I went to Vegas and all I got was this nerdy picture

It is the first day of the New Year so so what could be better than a trip to the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton? Since I don’t gamble at all, and the Bunny Ranch would probably get me shot by my wife, I had to find something to do in Vegas. This was gonna be my third time at the exhibit. However it was my first time with the kids. Believe it or not, Ski and I came here a few years back as we were on a belated Honeymoon. She enjoyed it, which is odd because she usually hates anything having to do with Sci-fi.

Continue reading “New Years Day: The Star Trek Experience”

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NYC Blender Conference

This weekend I attended the first NYC Blender conference at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn. The two day conference brought together some of the best Blender artists on the East Coast. For those that don’t know, Blender is free open source 3D animation program that can be used for everything from modeling and animating, to creating interactive 3D applications. Blender is available on all the major operating systems and is similar in scope and depth to other high-end 3D software such as Softimage|XSI, Cinema 4D, 3d Studio Max and Maya. Continue reading “NYC Blender Conference”

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There can be only one!

As I was shopping with the kids to pick out their Halloween costumes I came across some props that were perfect for the Highlander fan film that I have been planning for years. For all of the non-geeks reading this, Highlander is the story of a race of immortal beings that are forced to face off against one another in sword battles to the death until only one of them remains. The problem with shooting a Highlander fan film is that you have to use swords.

While finding real samurai swords is a fairly simple process in NYC, you are extremely likely to maim or kill your actors if you aren’t careful. That is why I got positively giddy about finding a set of realistic looking plastic swords that should look good on film.

Samurai sword Duel Swords Broadsword Duel Half moon blades

Continue reading “There can be only one!”

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Star Wars Fan Film: Jedi costuming pre-production

Jonas Xavier: Jedi Knight

In order to combat my post European vacation and 9/11 anniversary blues, I figured that I should move straight ahead and start the preparation for filming my Star Wars fan film, Dark Vengeance. The film takes place during the time before the events in Episode I (The Phantom Menace) and tells the story of a Jedi Knight by the name of Jonas Xavier. I won’t go into all the details now. Suffice it to say that the story is a basic “Jedi meets Sith and they battle to the death” type of story. Continue reading “Star Wars Fan Film: Jedi costuming pre-production”

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Star Wars Fan Film: Scripting of Dark Vengeance

The script is shaping up pretty well. The dialog will be pretty sparse because I want this to be a heavily action and visual effects driven production. I want just enough dialog to keep the characters believable and push the story along. Also since many of the people I am probably will be looking at to play the Sith villain won’t be professional actors, it will be best to keep the spoken emotional ranges limited to the basics. The easy thing about the script is that for the most

I will start shooting as soon as I finish the script and nail down the final casting of actors and crew. The script is my main source of concern since all the special effect in the world won’t help a story if the plot really sucks. I have been using an excellent piece of open source software called Celtx to finish the script and coordinate the production. Celtx combines the best features of commercial software packages like Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter into a single interface. The best part about the software is that aside from being incredibly powerful and easy to use, it is totally free. And I mean legally free, not file sharing/bit torrent free.

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Star Wars Fan film: Dark Vengeance Lightsaber test

This is an effects shot that I worked on to test some new software that we are using in New Media Technology program. I shot this test video on the roof of the LaGuardia computer building. I am planning on shooting a Sci-Fi fan film with some of the students in our program so I figured that I would try out my Jedi skills. I think the shot turned out pretty good for my first attempt.

The software I am using in this test shot is called EffectsLab Lite and it was developed by FXHome.com. The program is a visual effects tool that is in many ways very similar to After Effects, but with not as steep of a learning curve. The entry level package is pretty affordable at about 110 bucks. The more advanced versions, Effectslab Pro and Visionlab Studio, run from about 150 to 500 bucks.

My main problem with the software is that there is no current intel-mac version. As a result Winona, my Macbook Pro, runs Effectslab slowly. The company says an intel version is on the way but I think they won’t release a universal binary until the next full release. They software currently is available for Windows XP and Power PC based macs. I am not sure if a Windows Vista software version is ready. I haven’t paid much attention to that because if someone is using Vista chances are that they have more pressing issues.

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