If AE Crashes…

This might be one of the problems.  I just got over a 3 hour dillema of AE shutting down whenever I scrub in the timeline, or for that matter, even click inside the timeline.

It is wierd, because my computer has been fine for the last… well forever, since I installed my Nvidia QuadroFX540 video card like, 3 years ago.  Well, for some reason, it didn’t want to let me work in the timeline.  After about 3 hours of system restore, preference file tweakage, re installing and all that good stuff… I installed a trial of AE CS4.  (I work in CS3) SAME PROBLEM!  But this time instead of just crashing it gave me error messages saying something about OpenGL.

I went back into AE CS3 and went into the preferences, unchecked USE OPENGL… and there ya go.  That was my problem…
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g LKSgflkdigosadjgoiasjdfhogasner0t9 gj3w409fjbsdfngaof2w394843nt3weng4fokendvscskdvafvoaerngoae rfgoaijrfg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO MAD right now… but at least I got it fixed and now I can get back to work.

Moral of the story:  Try the easiest solution first, even if it doesn’t make sense at the time.

New Animation…

Courtesy of videocopilot.net and the amazing Andrew Kramer, I have made a new animation that actually includes my son, Brennan acting in it.  I know you’re like “he’s only like a year old”  well… I actually just laid him on the ground and he got really pissed off and started crying… so naturally I filmed him.  haha.  Anyways the animation is that of him “getting his soul sucked out” by a Dementor… one of the monsters out of the Harry Potter novels.   I also did some cool motiong graphics at the beginning… some videocopilot.net stuff… some my own.  Check it out!

So I thought it was pretty cool… I have a friend coming over today and we are going to try to make the Poor Man’s steadicam for $14 so that will be a fun endeavor.  I am also going to have a couple more things coming up like my son and his “Lightning Ball” powers, Boujou motion tracking with 3D text like in FRINGE, and some more videocopilot tutorials.

New Endeavors

Hmmm… so it has been a while since I have written (again….) I know… But I am still laid off of work, but I have steady freelancing… as well as a business I am working on.  I have been working on and with a website called www.internet-spokesmodels.com in which we deliver high quality spokesmodels that can present your website to your viewers and surfers as a real person instead of some crappy generic youtube video.  Our models actually come onto your screen, full body, with the website in the background and tell you what the site is about and also can direct you to where you want by pointing and things like that.  Its actually pretty sweet, and I am getting a lot of experience working with Chroma Key technology within After Effects.

We have built a pretty sweet green screen studio in my business partner, Earle’s garage.  We have a few too many light than I would like to work with, but its only because we don’t have the money to throw into really nice studio lighting for green screen. We also have a Sony HDR-FX1 which I will probably be shooting all my video with in the coming months so you can expect some cool HD stuff.

I have also began learning some industry standard VFX tools and programs like The Foundry’s NUKE and the Imagineer Products, Monet, Mokey, Mocha, and Motor.  I am also planning on delving into Cinema4D again, and I really wanna learn Boujou and PFTrack, Toxik and some other applications.  My Goal is to be able to start doing anything and everything VFX-ish in a couple years or so.  But to do that you need to know these things, and jesus… they’re freakin deep.

So for now, I will be just freelancing a bunch, and working on www.internet-spokesmodels.com, so if you want to hire me let me know… and if you live in my area (Seattle-Tacoma) and want to be a model for the site, you can get $50 everytime you are chosen to be a site’s model.  And if you want to use our service… go to www.internet-spokesmodels.com and click Contact Us and you can get a quote!

Later all.

Season Ending…

So I am sad to say that the season at Emerald Downs in ending and that means that…. well I will be out of the editing/shooting gig that I have been loving so much for the next 4-5 months or so.  It sucks, I know, but I probably wouldn’t be doing that much video production anyways.  If I were to stay on, it would be engineer type of stuff, but no real video stuff, not till around February.   Oh well, it gives me a chance to try my hand at some new careers… possibly selling used cars?  I will probably be doing video stuff for hobby for a while, but one good thing is, I have access to the HPX-500 whenever I want, as long as I don’t take it out of Emerald Downs.  So, I will be able to do HD After Effects tests and stuff like that, which is pretty cool.

I have a new little video I made the other day, a simple cloning video, I had never done one, and I got bored one day while Brennan was sleeping so I made this:

Basically what I did, is I set up an extra tripod (you can use a stick or something else) right in front of my face on the left, so that the top would be where the second me on the right would point the gun.  Then I filmed myself on the ground, on my knees and did about 10 takes.  Then I did the same thing with me shooting the gun, and then I did one more take with the tripod gone, for my clean plate.

it was really easy, I just took the three layers, masked out the two with me in them, and then stuck the clean plate on bottom and whala!  Stick some Videocopilot Blood and Muzzle Flash in there and you got yourself a murdering clone!

I am thinking about making a video tutorial on this, so stay tuned… it will be my first tutorial, so bear with me… hopefully its good.

Oh and if anyone in the Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia area needs video done, or has a studio or anything that is hiring, check out my resume… it is quite impressive, and give me a call.

Toph out.

New Project on the Horizon

So for the past couple of months me and my freind Sean have been talking about me directing and editing the new music video for his band Tsavo.  We aren’t sure what song it is going to be, but its going to be a larger scale production than what I am used to.

I’m not gonna lie… I am freakin’ excited.   The video is going to be shot in a desert setting, so there is gonna be some traveling involved, as well as some intense days.  We are going to be shooting (more-than-likely) on a Panasonic HVX-500 P2 camera.  I was thinking of doing it to HDV, for the easiness of switching out tapes, but I can’t find a small enough camera that can shoot in 720P on HDV tape that would fit onto the steadycam and jib that we are building.  So I think we are going to have to go with the P2 camera.  Which is an awesome camera, except for the fact that it only hold 2, 16 GB cards  which equals out to around a half hour of footage.  So I am hoping that my work will let me borrow the 4 P2 cards that we have and the HD unit.  Oy… freakin confusing.

But yeah I mentioned that we were building a jib as well as a steadycam… if you are thinking of doing the same I suggest that you check out these resources here:

STEADYCAM

http://www.vimeo.com/1394069
http://videopia.org/content/view/202/229/

JIB ARM
http://video.thedvshow.com/video/Weekend-Extra-DIY-Jib-Arm-Cam
http://www.indymogul.com/post/3874/

I am going to making some modifications to the Jib Arm so that we will be able to control TILT up/down as well as linking into an external monitor so that the cameraman can see whats going on.

Anyways… not much else is happening in the meantime… except for me getting laid off for a few months at Emerald Downs while the season is taking Winter Break.  I’ll be back there in about 4 months but in the meantime I have to find a placeholder job, or possibly a full time BETTER job.  Either or, I’ll be working somewhere new in about a month… preferably in the industry.  Let me know if you have any leads.

Ummmm my newest haunt has been the new Videocopilot.net Forum so if you wanna check that out I hit up the After Effects subforum about 13 times a day

A Couple Of New Videos…

I know that I haven’t really been too busy on this blog as of late, but seeing as I have been so busy with work and gearing up for the Longacres Mile which took place YESTERDAY (by the way my horse, won… WASSERMAN… in hindsight I really should have bet that $14 ticket I had… would made like $186). But now that thats over… all the hype is going downhill… and we are just waiting for the season to end. Which means, I might have to be looking for new work. I shouldn’t have too much of a problem… but it IS stressful. I don’t know if I am going to stay on full time in the off season… I really hope I do, because I love my job.

Oh, BTW here is the newest video I did there… I am really proud of it… its the commercial for the Longacres Mile…

Lets see… What else is new, oh yeah… the Kane Hodder Music Video Shoot… remember that? well I finally finished that as well. Well, I actually finished it a couple of months ago, but like I said its been crazy lately… so I haven’t had a chance to update any of my stuff… I like the way it turned out… Mike Silver shot all the video, but I directed the whole thing as well as edited the whole thing and did all the post production and visual effects. Check it out!

NEW THINGS!

So I haven’t written in this blog in a while… many reasons as to why that is… A LOT has been happennig in the past couple of months.  I have a new job, new home, new responsibilities, and just enjoying the first summer with my new family.

First off Brennan is now almost 9 months old!  Can you beleive that? its seems like it was a couple weeks ago that he popped out and was pooping pudding everywhere and doing nothing but crying… but now he can stand, walk around while holding onto things, crawl like a madman… and wreak havok when I’m not looking.  That kid is getting too old haha.  But now he has a yard, a bigger house, his own room, to play in and I couldn’t be happier.  MB and I found a place in Tacoma with an amazing view, a deck, a yard, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and a basement for me to have my mancave/edit studio in.   Things are pretty much amazing lately.  I have a new job… well a promotion really.  I have been bumped up from a camera operator, to the Features Editor at Emerald Downs.  So now what I do is shoot, produce, and edit all the things that get stuck on FSN, TVG, and Comcast OnDemand.  I also produce some commercials that get aired on the big channels on tv.   But yeah… things are killer, and I couldn’t be happier with my life as of now.  I have an amazing fiance and son, I love my job and where I live, and nothing seems to be going wrong.

So until next time.

Toph

New Videocopilot DVD Coming Out!

So I checked Videocopilot.net this morning… and I saw the new cover for the training DVD they are releasing May 20th! Here it is:

Here is the information that they released on the product so far:

This new DVD will take you from your favorite 3D program to After Effects and back, including compositing multi-pass renders and importing camera data.

On the AE side we will be covering advanced compositing techniques including color correction, particle effects and 3d displacement mapping. Most of all we will be covering workflow management and exploring the best ways to manage assets and media. No more, saving everything to the desktop.

So yeah, needless to say I am stoked… seeing as I just began an interest in C4D this is gonna be great.

I’ll Be M.I.A. For a While….

Sooooo me and the family are looking to get a house soon, but before that happens since I am working a low-paying, low-hours job… we have to cut costs… sooo that means no more internet, no more 400 channels of cable… no more covered parking spot… and many other luxuries sacrificed. I never really realized what its like to not be able to afford the things that you really take for granted… I mean, my whole life I have pretty much had everything I wanted… but times have come that the family comes first and to get to that dream life… the road gets a little rocky. I am still going to be updating my blog and youtube every once in a while… but I won’t be checking in every day.

In other news… I have finished the editing on the Kane Hodder video… and now comes the fun part… visual effects post production! I am really stoked for this, because this is my first REAL music video I have done that has a bunch of VFX put in. Kane Hodder LOVED the raw footage with the plain editing… so I am stoked to see what they say about it after I get the VFX done. I am thinking that this might be my first opportunity to make a video tutorial. Since I am going to have so much to OFFLINE and so little time online… I will have a lot more time to make productions, and I really want to break into the AE tutorial scene and learn some more Cinema4D. Most of my time is going to be spent posting here, youtube, and downloading and watching tutorials.

As for now… keep a lookout… because I will be posting a lot of new stuff… VERY SOON.

-Toph

My Favorite Youtube Channels

I find myself enjoying “New Media” more than actual television these days. I figured I would make a post about those channels on youtube that I watch constantly and make my day when I see that there are new videos available.

Edbassmaster:

sxePhil:

SMPFilms:

GradualReport:

makemebad35:

You should also hit up channels like RadioPlayhouse, Minouye, DaveLehre, and of course WELSHCS and TOPHERTHEVIDEOGUY