Biggest edit yet

 Whew!

I'm getting in to amateur filmmaking, and I just finished my largest editing job yet:  usually I do fun little micro-shorts -- about half a minute to a minute.  But this time the finished product is 3 minutes 15 seconds -- plus an Easter egg about ten seconds later.  That doesn't sound like a lot -- but that's me distilling down 54 shots, of about 52 minutes of run time -- not including eight additional shots (at about a minute each) that I reviewed and went "Nah".

It was on a tight deadline, too:  this recent Monday was a public holiday, so my church had a working bee to clean out a storage shed (about the size of a four-car garage) -- so I wanted to have the video ready for the "Announcements" section of the church service on Sunday.  So, about five and a half days turnaround.  

 I don't remember if I started editing on Monday afternoon -- but I at least reviewed the footage.  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I stayed up past midnight, editing (although I did take time to have dinner, etc., before starting editing).  Probably four hours per night.

And then on Saturday I spent most (but not all) of the day recording backing music for the various scenes, and editing it into the footage.

And!  Just as I was adjusting the volume on the final clip (Saturday night -- or really, 12:50 Sunday morning) listening the the pitter-patter of rain on the roof -- the power went out!!!  Commendably, I didn't swear -- I just said "Aaaaaaggggggghhhhhh....."  So, I set my alarm for 5am and went to bed.  The lights came on around 3am -- so I went back to it (luckily, the components had auto-saved:  the editing software asked "Would you like to recover your project?" ("Yes!!!  Yes, I do.")

 Went back to bed; got up at 7am; drove my USB flashdrive in to church and handed it in to our pastor, who embedded it into the PowerPoint slides -- and came back home.

 

I'm writing this blog entry now because I'm not tired now.  But I know I will be in an hour -- at which point I'll go back to bed. 

 

Anyhow: it's not perfect -- but I'm pleased with it.  I'm happy with the video component; I wish I'd had more time for the audio (my quasi-military drumming isn't as crisp as I'd like) -- but people will be focusing on the visuals, so they probably won't notice.

I learned how to fade in and out, cross-fade, and insert audio: so, learnings.  And I got faster with using the editing software -- as well as making edits by instinct and not agonizing over the "edit points" so much (deadlines!).

It was fun -- but I wish it hadn't been such a crunch.  But -- I'm not "burned out" on editing:  so, that's good.  :)

I told my pastor she could post it to the church's YouTube channel -- which means I can't link to it yet (as I type this, everyone's at the church service).  I'll link it to this post later -- and possible a follow-up post.

Although, I'll then take down the link in a few weeks -- just for privacy reasons (I name the church and the location in the title card; if I every amass tons of subscribers, I don't want that information to be public).  ;)

--GG

Getting organized

I decided to tidy my "scripts and script ideas" folder on my hard drive:  it used to just be a folder called "Scripts".

Within those folders, I have three in the "Under development" folder (one that's a feature length film, that I've been picking away at for a few years; one that's probably a 10 minute film short (with input from B-Man, a co-worker who's also into filmmaking); and one that's a music video (for a song that I'll write to suit the video -- once I clarify what needs to be done).

I have fourteen that are basically ready to shoot:  these range from 15-30 second quickies, to 2-3 minute micro-shorts, to one or two that would be 3-5 minutes.

 

And then four that I've shot the footage -- three of which I need to edit into narratives, and one that I did about a year ago, but I want to adjust the colors and record some music to go behind it (currently there's no audio). One of these four is the footage of two hourglasses and a metronome, which I shot last night.

Hoping to wrap up two from the "3_Shot" folder over the next few days, and post one of them tonight or tomorrow -- and the other Friday or on the weekend.  Just silly little things -- but they amuse me -- which is the point.  ;) 

 

Anyhow:  more ideas than I currently have time to shoot (and edit)... which -- like my songwriting, where I have a backlog of songs to record -- is better than having lots of time and no projects to do....   ;)

--GG

My first micro-short

Just posted my first (I guess) micro-short film to YouTube.  I thought my first micro-short would be this footage I edited last weekend, about a guy (me) sitting on a bench -- but I still need to put some audio on it before I present it.

Meanwhile, I told a co-worker that I'd post some test footage of a tunnel (underpass) that would make a potentially useful filming location -- but then I edited out chunks of walking, to make the footage go faster -- and then I added some title cards and end credits -- and then I threw down an instrumental backing track.  So, I guess it's an artistic film/micro-short (about two and a half minutes long).

 

 

Ayep.  :) 

 

--GG

Vacation ambitions

In Australia a lot of office workers get the week between Christmas and New Year's off.  In addition to this, I took a few weeks off afterwards. 

As usual, I have a whole list of things -- about 85 -- that I'd like to get done during my vacation.  Clearly, I won't get all of them done -- so unlike my usual vacations where I don't make a list, or I only make a vague list, I've done a "brain dump" of various tasks that have been hanging around; I then put them into a spreadsheet (which I've added to as I think of new items), and classified them in terms of priority, whether it's for me or for the family/household, whether it's for fun or a duty/responsibility, whether doing the task frees up a bottleneck for other tasks, whether this task has any dependencies (i.e. I need to do something else on the list before I tackle this item), approximately how many days the item will take (ranging from "0.1" to "6 days"), and whether it needs pre-planning because it has many "stopping points" (e.g. need to let glue, or paint, dry overnight) and thus I can't crank it out on my final day of vacation.

I also noted which of these are best suited to a few weeks of vacation, rather than being a "weekend" project:  these would be things that require momentum, and/or where I tear something apart and it's totally in the way -- and then I put it back together the right way.

And then, as my vacation progresses, I can filter on un-completed tasks, as well as other characteristics (e.g. priority; how long they will take).

I've included some "easy wins" (e.g. "trim my beard!"), so that I can rack up accomplishments during my vacation:  inevitably I end up disappointed at the end of a vacation because I haven't accomplished all the things I wanted to -- so this is a way of recognizing all the things I did manage to do.

In no particular order...

1. Mow yard (fairly completely)
2. Clean up fallen shelves area
3. Cut coardboard for Harry Belefonte LP
4. Gmpa T audio
5. Test and install UPS (power supply box)
6. Tidy the music rack behind the door
7. Test SM58 for resistance to wind
8. Repair cables (mine; church’s)
9. Test USB drawing pad
10. Go through porch boxes
11. Catch up on laundry
12. Book electrician for solar panel
13. B/U HD’s (incl. One at M&D’s)
14. Other clothing repairs
15. Clean out work bag
16. Tidy neckties
17. Clean off bench end of porch
18. Visit D. Bretz
19. Edit blue timestreams video (incl. Color correcting and audio track)
20. Exercise
21. Edit park bench hat-adjust video
22. Finish adze knob
23. Put chopping block on legs
24. Make axe handle for re-rusted axe head
25. De-rust misc. tools
26. Bat signal
27. Roald Dahl instrument
28. De-rust small ball pien hammer
29. Lathe the vampire stakes
30. Lathe tool rack/box
31. Repair wooden chair leg
32. Repair wooden table leg
33. Suitcase drum kit
34. Adze handle for addt’l adze
35. Finish drainfield box
36. Write and record Max dancing song
37. Healer woman song
38. Build lathe shed
39. Suggest getting windjammer/dead cat for SM57 (but first test SM58 wind resistance)
40. Contact Rob on Gumtree for old PC parts (ask if he’d take CRT monitors) (also the giant tower)
41. Clean out (and re-stock) back of car/car boot
42. Sorry, buddy Timmy video
43. PVC frame
44. Repair M&D bench
45. Bretz steps
46. Finish prepping the wood in the water-filled wheelie bin (to make a chair)
47. Uncover drainfield hatch near wattle roots
48. Lay out boundary line
49. Clear off kitchen table (and floor)
50. Edit Max dancing video
51. Healer woman video
52. Lathe those angels
53. Lay tiles around the garden edge
54. Set up recording area
55. Build lumber shed
56. Repair fallen shelves
57. Instructional video for PVC frame
58. Ronin video
59. Make chair from wood
60. Test anti-feedback EQ
61. Test Inkel mixer
62. Drop off used books
63. Give old computer stuff to the hobby guy
64. Go through addt’l used books
65. Log items
66. Bottle recycling
67. Repair soft toys
68. Video chat w/ D #1
69. Video chat w/ D #2
70. Transplant plants to down lower
71. Clean out misc. plant area
72. Get BroDave firewood for black plastic sheet - DONE
    
73. Hand-mow dog yard - DONE
    
74. Finish cleaning out CB’s office (incl. Stationary cupboard)
75. Clean out kitchen
76. Learn my camera
77. Trim beard - TONIGHT
    
78. Repair/change brake light bulbs in white car
79. Finish small two-peg coat peg
80. Slab four pieces of wood from blue bucket
81. Sharpen long ripsaw
82. Sharpen regular ripsaw
83. De-rust and repair mattock

A lot of these are 0.1-day or 0.2-day items -- i.e. it'll take me a half hour or an hour.  Others are modular, such as "Going through the boxes on the porch", where even if I don't finish the entire task, I'll still have made quantifiable progress.

Another consideration is that I need to decide whether to accomplish one or two of my larger-scale projects (which would take a week or a week and a half) -- or rather to stick to small and mid-sized tasks (i.e. 2-3 days max).  One consideration is that it's summer, here in Australia -- so the longer tasks tend to be labor-intensive yardwork (e.g. building a stand-alone shed for my extra wood) is better suited for a cooler season.

--GG

Film micro-short of three timestreams

Another film micro-short:  fairly abstract this time.

Playing with time-lapse filming (rather than slo-mo), as well as having fun with lighting.

Everything is low-budget:  a $50 "action camera" (i.e. fake GoPro); some battery-powered "shop lights/work lights"; and blue Christmas lights and plstic file folders for the light "gels".


Hat-tip to The Girl for suggesting using time lapse:  I was looking for something different.

The camera was capturing a frame every half-second -- so it took about seven minutes for us to get 30 seconds worth of screen time.


--GG

Bokken telekinesis

Shot the footage back in Oct 2019.  My computer isn't powerful enough for editing video, so I hadn't got around to editing the footage -- but then a few weeks ago I discovered that The Girl likes editing.  Oooh!!!

So:  below. 

Basically, instead of learning how to juggle, I've been trying to teach myself how to channel my "chi" to move objects.  It's coming along.




--GG

P.S.  Within the video, I mis-spell "telekinesis".  Ah well. 

Completed the one-thirds and shot some footage

A little bit during my lunch break, and the rest after work:  finished the remaining one-thirds of that box of The Lady's project from about 1997.

After work, I shot some footage for Father's Day for my dad, for this coming weekend:  The Girl is using my "good" camera and my "good" tripod (nothing fancy; but it's solid).  But both D4Darious and ponysmasher (YouTube guys that discuss filmmaking) say that you shouldn't let your lack of gear keep you from shooting movies.

So, I used my AU$98 off-brand GoPro, and my AU$15 (not very good) tripod, and shot some slo-mo, backwards footage of the kids. It came out pretty well -- esp. since B1 (Blondie Boy) suggested that it would be more interesting to drop the word cards instead of set them down (like I had envisioned) -- and then The Girl expanded on that by suggesting they throw them up in the air.


The editing was by The Girl, on her computer:  I think I went too cheap with my used PC last time:  it only has 2GB RAM, so even though that's enough for recording and for editing audio, when I try to do video work it seizes up.  I've been meaning to pick up some more (old!) RAM -- but then COVID-19 came around.  Plus, I think the most I could fit in would be 4GB -- and I'd like to shot for at least 8GB.


--GG