Well Lets look at one of my old videos and the slightly better remake I did!

So this blog is a throwback to last year when yours truly was an awkward sophomore (not that I'm any different now honestly just the grown up version) I made a video called Cutting Carrots in which I used the six-shot system to show a story. Now lets fast forward to a few weeks ago and I decided to remake that video for a class project. Now I first had to decide the story I would show in this video and I came up with the idea to make a video about my writing process.

I then looked at my old video and found what kind of shots I had done the first time around that I wanted to replicate. I then storyboarded out the video for shooting that weekend. After I finished the storyboard I set up my filming space. I cleared off all the spaces that would be visible in the shots and made my room look how I thought it would in the video. I then set up a big Ott light in the middle of my room and pointed it at the ceiling in order to light the entire room evenly. Finally it was time to shoot the video and I pulled my mom in to help with some of the harder shots. We filmed the entire video in one day and I spent a couple of hours the next day editing. I still had a little bit to do and once I had identified the song I finalized my edit and turned it in.

Now I like the concept of the video and I loved the story I planned out, but when it came to execution I was really disappointed in myself. I knew that filming myself would prove to be hard in many ways, but I thought that I would have enough skills to at least get some of the easier shots of myself done. when I looked back on my footage I realized that I was either out of focus, or the shot was poorly framed. I then asked my mom to help and after many struggles with focus I got the video shot and done.

I have linked the original video from Sophomore year here, and the one from a few weeks ago here. If any one is curious click on them to watch them, but I personally have some major problems with each video. I think that I could've done better and maybe later I will get another chance to do that, but right now I am gonna stop talking about it and work to improve my skills. I will talk to you guys later with a happier post I hope.

I read this super cool article, Now lets talk about it.

As some of you may know or have figured out I absolutely love Action-Adventure movies. I know it might seem odd that a film student likes the go fast and typically not cinematic Action-Adventure, but that is just me. I have loved action and adventure in all forms of media since I was a little kid, and when I was around 12 my dad introduced me into the wonderful world of Mission Impossible. I fell in love instantly with the run and go of the whole story as well as the death defying stunts they pulled. I soon had watched all four, and yes in my fanatic and deep knowledge the second movie is the worst one and it should not be watched for anyone who thinks they should. Anyway back to the topic at hand.

One element that all of those movies have in common is Masks. In each of the Mission Impossible movies someone uses some kind of advanced mask to impersonate another character. I know you were probably expecting me to say something like Tom Cruise or excellent action shots and fight scenes, but that is not what I am here to talk about. I was looking at No Film School when I came across an interesting article about an After Effect tutorial to create an effect of a person taking off a mask to reveal a different face.

Now I investigated and after a throughly interesting video, it was just a montage of all the times they used the masks in the first three Mission Impossible movies, I read on into the article and found a link to a video made by Freddie Wong and the Rocket Jump Film School. I have linked the video here and I think for those of you with a lot of experience in After Effects this video will be very helpful and cool, but for those of you who haven't really used the program this video will be tricky. It does provide a useful explanation of how to create this effect, but it uses advanced techniques that I am not familiar with in my limited experience.

Now the article itself is short, but it is interesting and I found it very informative. I will like it here for any who want to read the article and watch the video. I will admit that this is not the usual article for a film student, but I feel it relates to my passion in Action-Adventure and includes an interesting tutorial for those who are curious. I promise that I will be back to my normal blogging and talking about some of the cool stuff I've been up to and what not, but for now I will leave you with this interesting article and video and the knowledge of my Action-Adventure fascination.