1. People forget to save the project as something before they capture video.
2. People forget to name the captured video files as they are ingesting video, leaving a bin fill of “untitled” files.
3. People mix and match video and audio file types, frame rates, and Khz in the timeline with out paying attention to what its doing to the project. Just because FCP can do it, does not mean you SHOULD do it.
4. People forget to clean up their timelines before finializing and color correcting the project.
5. People have a tendancey to drag and drop files in their timelines without paying attention to where they are on the hard drive. ALWAYS keep your files in a labeled folder!
So, on the way back to my office, after getting my lunch from the cafe down the block, I am standing in the elevator holding my bag of food. I notice the older gentleman looking at me, when I looked up, he asked, “So, who ordered food in?”
I mean, what does this say about the institution I work in? I believe it is a university, there are supposed to be people under 40 riding the elevators. Why would he automatically assume that I was a delivery boy? Is it because I do not wear a suit?
1. Work in a day job that you hate so much it motivates you to do more, faster and better, so you can get the hell out.
2. People watch in public spaces such as parks, trains, malls, or just walking down the sidewalk. Most people are even more strange and awkward then most minds can even imagine.
3. Get into passionate arguments with everyone you know, eventually pushing them all away, so that you can find the center to your own personal misery, and draw from its pain.
4. Pretend you are a mad scientist, and begin to experiment with everything and everyone, and eventually something creative will come out of it.
5. Go POOP, for some random and strange reason, I get many light bulb popping ideas flashing into my brain as I drop the kids off in the pool.
This extremely hard to find animated series is my favorite export of Japans giant robots. There is just something special about an animated series for children that has a leading robot with a cannon that shoots from his crotch a sidekick with rocket tits, and a 2 faced Man-She/She-Man tranny for the villain. I just wish this quality production had some kind of official DVD release.
1. Everyone that considers themselves “Producers” should have the skill to actually PRODUCE a video all on their own, before they work with others in a professional environment.
2. Unless you are creating an experiment in improvised video production, and all parties involved in the production agree to this, you should think out, outline, storyboard, script and block out every aspect of the production BEFORE the cast and crew show up.
3. Always label you footage in a way that everyone can read and understand.
4. Always make sure everyone on the production knows their role/job on the production, so that they stick to it and do not step on any toes.
5. Unless you can afford to pay your cast and crew, always make sure your project is something they can be proud of, believe in, and feel part of.
It sure has been a while since I posted the last Blight comic strip. This will be the second to last Missing Adventures strip I post before I begin work on the “MIS-ADVENTURES OF BLIGHT THE CLOWN.” The new Blight story will not be posted online as I will be saving that particular story for the book I am working on. After I post the 30th comic strip next week, I will begin posting strips from a new story I am working on called, “PROFESSOR VON GOITER – The Worlds Most Miserable Private Dick.” In the meantime, I will also be posting little video clips to my Youtube channel as often as possible, so be sure to subscribe to that: http://www.youtube.com/blightproductions
Well, I took a walk in Bryant Park today, and who do I see, bringing his special form of high end class to all the lunch breaking business folks in park? The one and only Mr. Coney Island, Freakshow, Sideshow, Magician TODD ROBBINS! Skanking up the park with his swanky brand of whorehouse ragtime piano music. I had my camera, so I shot some video, and here is what happened.
DON’T FORGET, TODD WILL BE PLAYING IN THE PARK ALL WEEK 06-08-09 THRU 06-12-09, FROM 12PM – 2PM, GO CHECK HIM OUT!
DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY VIDEOS!
For More Todd: http://www.toddrobbins.com
For more of my madness: http://www.blightproductions.com
Well, things have been quite busy. Me and the little lady took a trip a little bit ago to Austin, Texas. I decided to challenge myself with a little experiment, I brought my Flip video camera along for the ride and decided to document the trip by producing one video per day. The trip lasted for 8 days and I made 8 videos documenting the majority of our adventures in Austin. This was not only an experiment to see if I could keep up with the workload of making a video everyday while I was supposed to be on vacation, but it also gave me the chance to explore a new character named, “Gus the Unemployed Rodeo Clown.” During the trip, we played a strange quiz game inside a bar, we toured the haunted areas of Austin, we went to the Alamo Drafthouse, we met real live Texans, we got “lost” in the desert looking for coyotes, we saw a fire juggler, we went to a vaudeville show, we went to the bat bridge, took a dip in the natural springs Robert Redford learned to swim in, and much much more. Please watch all the videos, and enjoy Austin with us. If you like them leave me a bunch of comments, and re-post them to every blog you can think of. Thanks.
Well, it has been quite some time since my last posting, I am sure you all were grateful for the Blight Break. While I was not posting stuff, I was using the time creating things. The collaborative performance titled “White Noise”, with the amazing clown Jef Johnson was an incredible experience. I am currently working on a demo reel for the project. Hopefully soon, I will be able to post it. I am editing down a tight 5 – 10 minute reel from about 7 hours of video footage, and it is proving to be quite a challenge.
In the meantime, I have been experimenting with an amazing little new camera I picked up a few weeks ago, called the Flip Video MinoHD. It is a little tiny high definition video camera smaller than my cell phone, that shoots beautiful video and has no moving parts to break. I went to Hershey Park last weekend and made a bunch of video tours of the park, including footage shot from the front car of four different roller coasters. I also picked up a mounting device to attach the camera to my bicycle, and I have shot a few video experiments from the handlebars of my bike. Check out the video clips below:
:::THE HERSHEY PARK VIDEO LOG:::
-HERSHEY PARK BIKE RIDE 04-29-09-
So this was the first experiment I made using the handlebar mount. I just rode my bike around the town of Hershey for a little over an hour and compressed all the footage into a couple of minutes. The footage came out a bit more herkey-jerkey that I would of liked it, this is because I did not have the mount centered on the handlebars, so every little handlebar movement was picked up in the camera. I got a little better with it in the second experiment.
-HERSHEY PARK BIKE RIDE 04-30-09-
In this second bike mount experiment, I turned the camera on me, with the idea of giving the image a fixed point to look at to help smooth out the view-ability of the footage as well as giving me the opportunity to make more commentary as I did the ride. Unfortunately, halfway through the ride I figured that it might be too visually boring to look at my mug the whole time and the sky was overcast, so you would not even see pretty clouds, so I after a little break I took at a pretty lake, I turned the camera back around and continued the ride.
-SKEE BALL AND CANDY BARS!-
-THE 1st HERSHEY PARK TOUR 04-30-09-
The whole reason that I was at Hershey Park to begin with was that my girlfriend, had a business conference there and I was her pretty arm-candy. For people involved with her conference, Hershey Park opened up a small portion of the park as a sneak preview. I brought my little camera along for the ride to document the event.
-HERSHEY’S CHOCOLATE WORLD 05-01-09-
The following day after our little sneak preview of the park, the weather got shitty and rainy, so instead of going to a raining outdoor theme park, we went to the Hershey Chocolate World Factory Tour. It was just about the closest thing to Wonkaville I have ever experienced. Although, the only thing I was missing was a chocolate river, that would of been really nice.
-ROLLER COASTERS, CUTE ANIMALS, AND MORE!-
-THE 2nd HERSHEY PARK TOUR 05-02-09-
This was the big day, the first official opening day of Hershey Park. The place was packed, we rode a bunch of roller coasters and played a bunch of games. We also went to the zoo, and I got it all on high definition video. Try not to get to sick when going down the roller coasters with us. This was also the last bit of video I shot for the trip to Hershey. I figured I had shot more than enough footage to deal with, and my girlfriend was getting sick of having the camera shoved in her face.
:::NEW YORK CITY BIKE RIDES PART 1:::
-BIKE 2 WORK IN NYC 05-06-09-
This was my first bike ride to work of the year, I looked at the weather and it seemed like it would be a nice day, so I figured I would ride in to work. The only issue was that the east river path was flooded and I ended up getting to work covered in mud, but such is life.
-AN NYC EVENING BIKE RIDE 05-06-09-
That same day I decided to record my ride home. I got to about 2nd avenue and it started to drizzle, I had my camera strapped to my bike, and it’s not waterproof so I decided to turn back and ride down to 14th street to catch the subway, because I did not want to get caught on the Williamsburg Bridge in the middle of a rainstorm on my bike.
:::THE WRAP UP:::
Well that’s about all I have to post this week. Next week, hopefully I will have that demo reel of WHITE NOISE posted, a new Blight the Clown comic to post, and some pictured of the last skateboard deck I painted!
