Tuesday, August 19, 2008

RIP Wolfmother

I am a member of the Wolfmother mailing list. Today I received an email that said:

"Grammy Award winning rock band Wolfmother has announced the resignation of bass/keyboard player Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett effective immediately.

Singer/guitarist Andrew Stockdale now plans to find other musicians over coming months and to then begin making a new Wolfmother album."

LAME! This new band will not be Wolfmother. Wolfmother is dead. I have to say I'm pretty bummed. I saw them twice in concert. I very much enjoyed their sound and style. Mike Wills was right about the sustainability of the band.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not mad about Andrew starting a new band. I just think he needs to acknowledge that it is a new band. Maybe we could call it Wolfmother 2.0? But then would that insinuate that Chris and Myles were bugs that were removed?

As a final tribute to yet another one album wonder band here is a little revisit to a video from my past:

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Blast From the Past III

This blast from the past is a memory from childhood instead of a picture of me. (Sorry if anyone was hoping for another mullet picture.) I was singing this in the shower this morning and wifey started laughing. Turns out that she watched Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers too.

Enjoy.

Coo Coo Cola

Friday, July 25, 2008

No Longer a Student

So today has been a pretty crappy day. Earlier this week I had an interview for a job as a Flash developer. The thought that I could get a good job writing ActionScript code was pretty cool considering I started doing it as a hobby.

So Wifey and I got our hopes up that I would get this job and all of our financial woes would be immediately solved. The great thing about getting your hopes up is that when they crash down in is truly a fantastic crash. (Please note sarcasm here.)

The ironic thing is that I had my hopes up about getting a job that I don't think I really wanted anyways. I wanted the experience I would gain. And I definitely wanted the money. But I would have been working for a marketing team for Microsoft. I would say that's not exactly fulfilling my dream to become a filmmaker.

So now I am unemployed and virtually broke. I am no longer a student either so I don't really have an excuse.

Also I would like to apologize for the lack of videos on this site. I do have some more videos to put up. So if anyone actually reads this post and leaves comments saying -- "Hey hoser hurry up and put your videos online!" I will do it faster. The end.


Random Photo of Jewell and Me

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Fairy Congress

So here's the story. Last week I recieved an email from one of my teachers at film school. He was requesting that someone edit some existing footage of an event called the Fairy Congress.

I responded and was chosen for the job. I was quite flattered by this. The pay wasn't anything worth speaking of, really just a token amount, but the experience and exposure would be good. The video needed to be done in one week so I ended up sacrificing the chance to edit one of my other projects to get this one done.

In fact I even went above and beyond in helping them upload the video to youTube and getting it ready to be embedded as a Flash movie. So I'm all ready for this video to be somewhat prominently displayed on the Fairy Congress website (a little exposure for the donation of my time). Instead they poorly display the video tucked away in the photos section like some amateur video because the "consensus in the steering group was not to put it on the front page." And now you guessed it -- I am angry.

So with all of that build up here is the video:

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Blast From the Past II

Well the follow up for my blast from the past is finally here. My favorite part of this old school picture is the sweet backdrop. Does anyone else have school pics with the same or a similar backdrop? Send them to me and I'll add them to the post.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

I didn't steal my favicon!

So I was checking out the traffic cameras on the WSDOT site and I realized that my favicon looks a lot like theirs .

I didn't steal it. I promise. Who would have know that 'T' could be so popular?

Links to any other 'T' favicons would be appropriate and appreciated.

------
Edit:
Looks like the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) also sports the .

Monday, April 28, 2008

Papervision

So I have been learning a how to use a new 3D engine for flash. It's called Papervision. I combined what I learned from a tutorial on gotoandlearn.com and a tutorial on pv3d.org to make this movie:



The planes spin faster when you move the mouse near them.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

My New Nephew

My brother's wife Michele just had a baby a couple of days ago. He was dubbed project Bonesteele before birth. Now that he's out his real name is Mason Allen Nelson. Thank you Amin for pointing out that this means my new nephew is in fact "The M.A.N"

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Weekend Shoot

So after class on Friday I was taking well deserved afternoon nap. (I think every afternoon nap I get is well deserved.) The peace and tranquility of my siesta was interrupted by my darn phone vibrating. It was my classmate Jake, the director of Booksmart.

Booksmart is one of the group projects currently being filmed in my class. A couple of weeks ago I had told Jake I was willing to be a body double for his movie. The movie has several characters all played by the same actor.

So the Assistant Director (AD) on the Booksmart crew was totally slacking. They had been planning on using me as a body double all along but nobody had let me know. Jake was calling to let me know. Fortunately my weekend was free.

We ended up shooting on Friday night until 2am and then on Saturday night until 2am. It was a really fun shoot. Things were a little unorganized because of problems with some crew members not pulling their weight but everything still came together. I'm going to include a few pictures from the shoot. I will also try to post the movie on here when it's finished.




More photos from the shoot.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Orwell Pictures

So if you read my last post you will know that I was the gaffer on my current school film project. As a gaffer you have a lot of down time because once a particular light setup is done it usually doesn't get changed for a while. So I brought my still camera with me and took some shots on set. Here are a few of them:





More pictures from shoot.

Yesterday's Video Shoot

So yesterday I was on a shoot for a school group project. It is a dystopian future movie called Orwell. My main motivation for aligning myself with this particular project (there were four choices) was the crew. My last group project was very difficult for me because of a lack of organization. I wanted things to be different this time.

I would say that things were easier on this project for me. It was a little better organized than the last project I was on. Though there were still some kinks in the system. We started at 9am were scheduled to get done shooting at 8pm night. It didn't. We weren't done shooting until 12:15 am.

My roles in the project are as gaffer and sound editor. As sound editor I don't have to do anything on set. That's all stuff that will be done in post-production. So all I had to do yesterday (on set) was set up, move, and take down the lighting. I had signed on as gaffer because I felt like I needed to know more about lighting to be a well rounded film maker.

I would say that the main thing I learned about lighting is that I don't want to be a gaffer again. Figuring out how to light a scene and setting it up doesn't appeal to me. The other thing about it I don't like is that too many people step on your toes when you're the gaffer. People start moving lights without consulting you and it gets pretty annoying. What if I just walked up and moved the camera because I didn't like the shot? I don't think that would go over well. So why can other people do that with the lights?

I think what I'm really interested in doing is what I did in the first project -- being a DP (Director of Photography). So hopefully I can be a DP on our next project.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

On April Fools Day..

Make sure to look at my family blog and at my Mom's blog. I made an April Fools modification and I want to see if it works.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Blast From the Past I


I would like to thank Heath for showing me the way of the mullet when we were young.

Hopefully I will remain true to the title and continue my blast from the past series of messages. That, however, depends upon the reception of this post.

Monday, March 10, 2008

MySpace Profile Hacks

So I have been learning CSS lately. (For anyone not web savvy those are Cascade Style Sheets. They are for formatting websites.)

My motivation for this is threefold.
  1. Flash uses CSS for limited formatting.
  2. To make my blogs look cool.
  3. To customize mySpace without having to rely on third party websites.
So I decided to help my sister-in-law Renae update her mySpace page. I added a custom background and changed the table width and colors without much problem. Then came the difficult task -- enlarging the profile picture.

This would be easy if you could edit the content of the profileInfo table but you can't. You have to do it using CSS. It's quite the hack job. Here's the code if you want to do it yourself. If you try it out let me know if you have any problems. I have only tried this on a couple mySpace accounts so far.

Enter this code in your About Me section and see if it works:
<style>
.profileInfo tr td table tr td a img{width:1px; margin-left:330; margin-top:220;}

.profileInfo tr td table {background-image:url("http://www.imagehostinglocation.com/image_name.jpg"); background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: 5px 10px;}
.profileInfo tr td{background-color:transparent;}
.profileInfo tr{background-color:transparent;}
.profileInfo tr td table tr .text {background-color:transparent;}
.profileInfo tr td table tr {background-color:transparent;}
</style>
Make sure that you replace the image location with an image that is exactly 300px by 200px.

This Blog is Not Dead


This blog is not dead
I'm so glad this blog is not dead
This blog is not dead
(STRONG SAD: Dead!)
I'm so glad this blog is not dead
This blog is not dead
(STRONG MAD!: DAAH!)
I'm so glad this blog is not--
Just the claps!
Just the claps!

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I'm a Dad!


First Moments, originally uploaded by longroper.

She's here!!! Jewell Lorraine Nelson was born today at 5:08 pm. She weighed 8lbs 11oz and was 20 inches long. I'm a daddy! (Of course I was your daddy already, but I mean a biological father.)

The Baby is Coming!!!


In Labor, originally uploaded by longroper.

Jeanie and I are at the hospital now. She was in pre-labor all night last night. (I'm not sure exactly what that is.)

I'm pretty stoked that we're here because last week it didn't look like she was going to have the baby by the due date (Jan 30th). But then things started to happen very quickly and here we are.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Coming Honey



The new movie is here!! I know it's about time. Actually I've been holding out. The movie has been done since the 10th. I was just waiting until my first public screening before I put it online.

As I mentioned earlier I made this project for school and for the Northwest Film Forum Film Challenge. (Though I changed the idea that I used for the film.) The movie was shown tonight at a screening of all of the movies that were made for the challenge. I though that it was a smashing success.

Enjoy. Bonus points for anyone can name something that is in all three of my movies.

Here are the links for my other movies if you missed them:
Invisible Man
Will Work For Love

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Getting Scammed

Mr. Song Lile and Family:




Those are the pictures that Mr. Lile sent me with his latest email:
Dear Travis Nelson

I want to let you know of myself so that you will be rest assured of whom you are transacting with. I am married with two children Liu my daughter and Lee my son, I have sent you my family picture now for you to see. My address is #1, Fortune Garden, 20 Wing Ting Road, Ngan Chi Wan, Kln, Hong Kong . i have lived here for the last 13years; It is not ideal to have your documents send via mailing you can scan and attached or still send via email.

I have really invested much in this transaction so I will please tell you to accept the 30% of the total funds that I have intend to give to you. For your information I will be coming over to your country for my share of the funds, once the funds credits your account at the bank that we will be using for this transaction.
Please endeavours to keep this transaction confidential, Please be descrete about these deal . I have a 22year career with my bank (Hang Seng) and I dont? intend to ruin all that. I really can wait till the funds leave my bank because I have not been able to sleep nor eat properly for the past days. Attach to this email is my work ID and my family pictures for your reference.

Well if I may remind you again, you are required to send at least a copy of your Driver's License "or" a copy of your International Passport. Besides, it is this copy of your Driver's Licence or International Passport that will be be used by the Attorney have all the necesary documentations perfected.

At this point I must inform you that being part of this transaction would only be at your free will I cannot impose this on you, it is your choice to accept or disagree with the principles and of this business or even with the transaction as a whole,but at least I deserve the previledge of knowing your decision.The most important issue is that I want to be sure I am transacting with the correct person, I believe these information would be enough to confirm you interest.

Best Regards,
Song Li

Identity Required.

So it's legit right? He did send pictures after all. I guess I'll head over to my scanner now and get my ID ready to send. While I'm at it should I just go ahead and scan all of my credit and debit cards too?

Actually I can't send him my ID because I told him I was a 57 year old retired teacher with $200000 in the bank. I'm pretty sure he's drooling over that right now.

So if any of you (Assuming anyone reads this blog anymore) want to join in the fun try to find out where he got the pictures. Are they posted on a public site somewhere? A myspace page? Leave comments if you find them.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

It Doesn't Rain Every Day...

It doesn't rain every day during the winter in Seattle. Just most of them. Today was one of those clear days. So wifey and I went to Discovery Park to enjoy the beautiful weather. Check it out:




Lighthouse, originally uploaded by longroper.


Jeanie at Discovery I, originally uploaded by longroper.


Me, originally uploaded by longroper.


Jeanie at Discover II, originally uploaded by longroper.


Jeanie at Discovery III, originally uploaded by longroper.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Confession

Four hairdo's that I have sported:
The mullet (thank you Gunther for modeling this do. Note: I did not have a molestache):


The rattail(not pictured), stripes shaved in the side(not pictured but imagine this combined with a spike and that's me in middle school), and a flattop (not pictured).

Sorry for the lack of pictures but the pics are at my parents place.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Break is Over

Well Christmas break is over. It was a pretty nice break. Jeanie and I went to my parents house in Milton-Freewater for Christmas. There were a whole lot of people there but everything went pretty smoothly.

While I was home I built a changing table with Trevor and Dad. We had a great time working on it. Though it did take us quite a bit longer to build than I had anticipated.



Today I have been editing my third super 8 project. I am also going to paint the changing table. So I'll have some before and after pictures of that in my next post.