As I Run

Just wanted to make a post talking about things... but I'm not quite sure what I want to say.. so I'll keep it short

    I just recently put out a video... it is realization, but at the same time, I just can't explain why I feel stupid. It seems as though no matter how much you learn or know there is something else to try and learn... and the unfortunate truth is there is no easy way to download it all...

    I'm reading this book How To Make Friends and Influence People and the further I go the more I realize... which I do and don't like lol

So back to this video I just made
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07iSSlUw-tg

    When you aren't the person shooting the video you sometimes feel less control in post... That's how I felt with this video. Until I was actually editing the video I didn't even know the full plot outline, I had just scene a few random clips from it.
    So the thing about this particular video is the only thing I did as far as making this video went was the editing... Which is common in the professional world, but ussually I'm there, I'm the Director, It's my vision, I'm the camera man, and so this time I felt really out of control. But the truth of the matter is that it turned out quite well, there are only a few things I really, really wanted to change (that I could have done).
     This was filmed with my old camera (the Sanyo Xacti). But when I was done editing it had the feel of my Panasonic because of some color correction I did near the end of editing. Another thing I really liked about this video is I composited 3 or 4 different audio tracks to match the feel of each scene.
    I think this is huge in preparation for my upcoming short Surfer Dudes. This video was more to teach Ethan and Chase about the importance of multi cuts; this was filmed before Ima Get You, which was a real showing of multi cuts... my attempt to prove it to Chase and Ethan.
   As things go, they now understand the importance, but if you put it this way.. Ima Get You was my demonstration of multi cut action and The Sandwich was Chases attempt at it with help from Ethan. When I reviewed the video they shot it needed some serious work but after all was done I think it turned out well, everyone has been highly impressed with it, so all is well.
This is getting to be a lot longer than I expected, but that's a good thing...

Thanks For Reading,


Alex Chandler

The coming months

What If

   I don't mean to boast, but I think our short film "What If" is going to be amazing.  I spent two weeks writing up the script and getting all the prep work done, the actors are selected and all we need is a couple days to film. Which apparently is the hard part.

   Next week on Sunday we plan to film almost all of it and save the other smaller parts for another day. Now we were going to film it today and this Sunday, but that didn't work due to actor inconvenience. But with a little bit of rescheduling we're back on track.

   So what is "What If?" Well it's a short film that will be just over 10mins in length about a guy named James who has some interesting experiences. But more importantly it's going to be submitted to a film festival, hopefully the Gig Harbor Film Festival, but that's another story, anyway, that'll be on our minds for awhile.

   Just wanted to finish it off with the fact that I get to play James who look almost nothing like me, it's going to be a lot of fun! xD

Just another reason why we'll be busy is due to the Spaztastic News starting back up, and school just around the corner...if you haven't seen the newest news your missing out on an amazing season two premiere here is the link and then the video just because ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO7N8gCC-zQ

Thanks For Reading,
Alex Chandler

Small Update

   Lately we have been putting out some videos of our experiments. No real purpose, just showing what I've learned in editing and where we are going.
   The first part of this (for the summer) was making a video with a ton of cuts. Now this video was to prove to Chase and Ethan that a lot of cuts is needed to make a film; they didn't believe me. Until they saw this video and I told them about the 3-4 sec cut rule. But now things are all in good order and we are taking this little concept to heart, which in and of itself will improve our videos drastically. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiXKAEPeU-g
   Another little video I made the other day was a quick 15 sec video (took me 15 hours to edit) that showed off some cool effects and explosions I made in After Effects. This video kinda blows you away, but more importantly the audio brings the piece together. I found every free explosion I could, and as many good explosion sounds as I could get, just for this video. But the reason it took so long to edit was due to me having never used AE before, so I had to watch tutorials and spend time learning the ways.

   As far as audio goes. So we've started using ADR, as you may know, and so far it is turning out really nice, and helpful. The chasing video with a lot of cuts was about 20% (extra audio/replaced). And this keeping in mind that most movies are 70%. But ADR does help out by making the scene a little more epic. Just stand somewhere, anywhere, for a minute and try to pick out as many different audio sources as possible. One day while doing that I picked up about 10 or so; wind, grill, people talking, birds chirping, ocean, cars driving by, people walking in the grass, and a bunch of others. But you can see the importance of fully creating that ambiance.
   Well that is all I will leave you with for now, head on over to the LO2 blog to check out what I said about the first filming (if it's not up yet it will be soon)

Thanks for reading,

Alex