Week 4 Photo Challenge: Original Move Poster

This is a short film that I wrote a couple of months ago after a group of friends and I had just finished the 48 Hour Film Festival. The idea of the short came up as a second choice for the first short we filmed for the festival. The whole concept was to do this dark musical that really hasn't been done before. The tone that I was going for was very Tim Burton. The screenplay is written along with a bunch of other preproduction work for the short. It was put on hold for the time being but I hope that sometime in the future I can get around to it and shoot it. I planned it out to be around 15 minutes long making it one of the longest projects that I have ever attempted to work on. Three songs were to be sung in the musical all with very wide ranges. The best way I could put the sound and look was Trent Reznor meets Edgar Allen Poe. (Side note I tweeted that and Trent Reznor actually retweeted it!) But anyways I hope to get it filmed and off the ground sometime soon. Until then it will sit with the other stacks of screenplays.

Week 3 Photo Challenge: Storyboard for a commercial

Here is a example of a storyboard that I recently did for a commercial that I plan on shooting some time this week. The ad is for the sunglasses company RayBan. I used there Wayfarer model for the campaign since it is easily there most recognizable pair of glass's. I am going for a very rough feel for the tone of the commercial. I was inspired by the movie Drive for the look and style of the ad which lead me to pick the song Tick of the Clock by The Chromatics for the music in the back. The shots are going to be very slow and dramatic pulling all of the attention to the glasses but allowing you to see the person in action wearing them. I chose people in motion doing something exciting because that's the feeling that a lot of people get when wearing RayBans. They are more than sunglasses, they have become a huge part of pop culture and can be seen throughout the better half of the last century worn by some of the most talented and famous people. I wanted to take that history and combine it with the every day person. The one who walks to get where they need to be, rides there bike, drives there car, and cruises on there skateboard. Its for everyday people in motion. I hope when someone sees the commercial it will evoke a feeling of drive and passion in somebody. Everybody moves, but something is different when you move with RayBans.

Week 3 EOC: Where are you now and where are you going?

After 3 years of college I find myself in a interesting place between audio and video. My entire life I've only been focused on music. Recording, playing, mixing, its what I've done since I became a musician. I went to college solely focused on this one thing. But after meeting people and working on different projects I became very interested in video. Before college I had never even picked up a camera with the thought of trying to tell a story. I bought my first camera a year ago and since then everything has changed. I'm constantly in between projects and if something music or audio based pops up I grab it. But at the same time I find myself writing screenplays and shooting shorts. I work part time with a live event company doing everything from djing to stage setups which I think lends to my knack of doing a lot of different things. Eventually I see myself much more focused on video productions. I would like to build a name for myself as a director and have the opportunity to work on productions that I have creative direction of. I don't want to single myself out so I will continue to do video and audio both as jobs arise. In the end though I would like to end up in California working on both films and with bands. I know I have the capabilities to do both so why not!

Week 2 EOC: Get Some Copyright Law Under Your Belt

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
This website, which has been up and running since 1996, is filled with many different pages all with information pertaining to copyright laws and regulations. The webpage is updated pretty regularly with new stories and examples of practices. Actual attorneys and professors are used for insight giving a balanced view and opinion about certain topics.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
This page is filled with a good amount of quick and dirty questions/ myths that may have been lurking in your head about copyright. The explanations are very simple and they don't try to through the legal jargon book at you. For someone looking for a couple of quick tips and popular questions this is a good site.

http://filmmakeriq.com/category/screenwriting/protecting-your-work/
While only a subcategory to this massive online filmmaking community, this webpage is loaded with great content. Often pooling top stories from around the internet it gives you some of the most entertaining and useful information that I have come across. For someone looking for specific examples of copyright in action this is a great page.

Week 2 Photo Challenge: Professional Photo of you working

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago during a recording a few friends of mine did here in the studio at A.I. My friend wanted to do a live acoustic cover of a song for her demo reel and asked me to be the studio musician for the track. We went back and forth on bands to cover before we finally decided to use Muses song Time is Running Out. We broke down the recording into four main tracks. One is the acoustic guitar playing rhythm. One is another acoustic playing lead. One is the bass which follows the rhythm guitar and the final track was of the Cajon. My Cajon is one of my favorite instruments that I own. Its a small wooden percussion box that can give out a lot of different sounds depending on how you hit it. So we tracked out the entire session in protools and knocked it out in a couple of hours. For instruments and mics we used a Taylor acoustic and a Fender Precession bass. My Cajon was made by Meinl. An sm 57, beta 52, rode nt5's and a pair of earthwork mic were used for the entire recording. My friend did one mix of the session which she made very rock/electric sounding compared to the current mix I'm currently working on which is a lot more natural and organic sounding. I plan on putting the recording up soon for listening. At the end of the day though I couldn't be happier with how the recording went.

Week 1 EOC: What sacrifices are you willing to make for your Career?

I have always been a very passionate person when it comes to doing what I love. Music, art, film, I've always done whatever it takes to get the job done. When I think about making sacrifices to be where I want to be I can't think of too many things I wouldn't do. Taking up a career in the arts I've already told myself how hard of a life it can be at times. The starving artist saying can never be more true at times. On the other side of things I must say that when you finally do get to taste the accomplishments of your hard work in this industry it is bar none one of the best feelings in the world. At the moment in my life I don't really have anything tying me down. No kids, no wife, no mortgage, no crazy bills period. So when it comes to "responsibilities", I haven't really built too many around myself that can complicate things. I would love to travel and moving around for work I would really enjoy. I've spent most of my life growing up in Vegas so getting a chance to travel and visit other places would be no problem. I see the future as full of opportunities and because of how pretty open my life is right now I would honestly take a bigger chance on things then most people would. Live in a tiny apartment, ride the bus, top ramen for breakfast, working late nights, sign me up. If that's what it takes to get there I'm more then ready for the ride.

Week 1 Photo Challenge: Animation Festival Project

For this first post I decided to do a noiresque type piece. just a simple short in black and white that plays off of the stereotypical things you would see in a noir film. Narrations, suits and hats, along with the picture being very still and having a isolated feel. I knew I wanted to do a comedy but not some slapstick buddy comedy. I ended up making almost the entire piece feel like it was a drama but at the last minute threw the curve ball in and made it into something completely left field which I think helps make it pretty funny. This was my first time working with the website xtranormal but I found that it was pretty fun. I've seen plenty of these videos around the web but I always figured people made them from scratch. The whole interface was pretty easy to navigate and made telling a quick story pretty fun. I think for somebody who has great ideas and stories this is a good way to visualize in a sense what it would look like on screen. I kind of see it as a storyboard of sorts. The site is easy enough to bang out a few scenes here and there to get an idea of what the interaction could look like. Of course the actual speech is going to be drastically different since the playback for all of them sounds like a robot of sorts. That would be my main downfall for this site. The robotic playback of script is also probably what makes this site used for more comedy than anything because its hard to take a conversation serious when you sound like R2-D2.