Will Work For Love

So for my first movie I was very conservative. I took two shots of everything and always ran the camera for 10 seconds to make sure I had a lead in and lead out. For the second one I needed to get a lot more shots. So I only took one take of most things and sometimes ran the camera for much less than 10 seconds.

On my first project the editing was a breeze. On this one it was a nightmare. But it's finished. For now. Later I will probably make another cut--once I can stand to start looking at the footage again. (My all day editing spree Monday really burned me out.)

So here's the movie. For now it sort of turned into a music video. I didn't really want that to happen. So the next cut may have very different music. We'll see what the audience reaction is first. (That means leave comments!!!!) I'm not going to email out the link for this until Friday but those of you who actually check my blog will get an earlier viewing. (I think that means Amin is the only one who will see it early.)

It's called Will Work For Love.

all day editathon

So my second 8mm project is due tomorrow and I put off most of my editing until today. That means that I get to spend the whole day editing. I'm mostly done with the video. (It's 4pm.) Now comes the sound, my least favorite part. I think the sound is so hard for me because I want it a certain way but I can't compose it myself. So I end up spending tons of time looking for the perfect song that I never find.

This project has been particularly difficult for me also. I had major camera failure that caused me to miss some shots that I wanted. I totally forgot to get a shot that was pretty important. And the whole project is my backup idea anyways. (I couldn't do the movie that I had originally planned because of location problems.) These factors contribute to me not being very motivated to work on this project.

But I have no choice. It must be done. So I'll just keep working on it. If you're lucky I'll post the finished product tomorrow.

new compy

I am currently posting this message on my new iMac. Yeah buddy! Wifey and I were talking about how we needed a new computer for work. We are planning on purchasing the Adobe CS3 design edition soon and poor little minimac definitely isn't up for that. Plus we are both working freelance right now and our computer times have been conflicting. But no more.

I have one of the fancy new apple keyboards also. I read a couple of reviews on it that weren't too flattering but so far I really like it. And of course I finally have a mighty mouse. Who can resist cracking a little smile when they are reminded that their optical input device is named after a cartoon superhero? (Seriously tell me who.)

I named my computer iPenguin. Mostly because I've been into penguins lately. Not happy foot penguins with political agendas--oh no. I'm talking about penguin logos on my clothes and cool graphic penguins. (I say cool but Wifey would say cute -- I'll let you decide which adjective you prefer.)

I noticed that there is a feature in the network settings (I'm running Leopard) that allows remote users to see and potentially control the desktop. That may be cool. I'll let you know once I figure out how to use it.

Volunteering II

I'm back at the Northwest Film Forum volunteering again. Today I didn't have to do any manual labor. I spent most of my time searching the web for the aspect ratio of the movies that will be showing here in the next 3 months.

I also answered a lot more phone calls today. The answering isn't the tricky part -- its knowing what to do once you've answered that gets me. Once I remember everyone's name it will be a lot easier. In the meantime I just shout out whoever the phone is for and hope they say something.

I also tried (for the first time) to transfer a call to someone's voice mail. I failed. You wouldn't think it would be hard. I followed the instructions they gave me and it didn't work. It's a good thing I went to school for 5 years to get an engineering degree. I guess I should have taken the "Phone Systems" class. Signals and Systems is not helping me here at all. (I'm joking here but you never know--there could be a phone systems class at a community college.)

preview

Here's a little preview of my upcoming movie:



I'm still in the rough cut stage of the editing but I thought you might like a little taste of what's coming.

This will be my second super 8 project for school. I'm going to have to do some creative editing on this one. There were some shots I just didn't have enough film to get, some I didn't get because of camera failure, and one I didn't get because I forgot.

Well I didn't completely forget. We rehearsed the scene. Then I realized that I didn't have enough film left on the cartridge that was in the camera. So I put the shot off to get some shorter shots with the remaining film. Then I forgot to come back and get the shot when I put in the next cartridge. (Doh!)

24 Hour Fitness helps facilitate identity theft

So a few weeks ago my wife joined 24 hours fitness. They gave her a free guest pass with her membership. So she asked me to come swimming with her.

Before she joined I had done a little research and found out that 24 Hour fitness employees will quite often put pressure on you to join when you use free passes. So I was prepared for that.

Sure enough they called a "membership counselor" as soon as we got to the front desk. I was already irritated by this when wifey calmly told them we were just there to swim and that I wasn't interested in joining.

To my surprise there were cool with that and let us go. But they did manage to upset me in a way I wasn't expecting. They had me fill out a form with all my personal info. I didn't like that. But I didn't say anything because I wanted to be able to spend some time working out with wifey.

Then they asked for my ID. That was a bit much. So I asked "why do you need to see my ID?"

"So we can make sure you're you."

(Now of course this question begs to be asked -- What if I wasn't me? Would I not be able to use the free guest pass? Or what if I was someone else pretending to be me?)

So I gave them my ID. Then they photocopied it! As you can imagine this really made me mad. If I wasn't looking forward to the workout with wifey I would have demanded the photocopy and my ID and left. As it was I had to let it slide.

So now I have to trust that 24 Hour Fitness will not abuse my personal information.

I think I need to go now so I can order a credit history report.

flash development

So I've been working for the last couple of days on a flash application for a new client. I'm pretty excited about the deal. Freelancing definitely beats working for the man.

I'll make sure to put a link for the app on my blog once it's up and running -- which will be a couple of months from now. I'd put up links for my progress as I go but in this case I don't think the client would be too happy with me if I did that.

In the meantime if you want to see something else I've been working on Click Me

That site is not functional yet but hopefully soon. (Meaning I have no idea when I will be able to finish it.) I did all of the Flash work and wifey did all of the illustrations.