2001. This actually isn't the first year I did any movies. In the 1990s, our family got a bulky VHS camcorder. With this camcorder, we didn't actually figure out how to do basic stuff like, y'know, editing. I recorded a scene in an aimless project with Katie and her friends called "Charlie's Angels", which was devoid of action and logic and mostly consisted of little girls wandering aimlessly down a sidewalk.
And a horrendously awful video called "Chiquita destroys the city". With, a neighbor's puppy toppling over a city of building blocks, cheesy screams, and a hand pushing the puppy at the edge of frame. Then there was "Cats in Hawaii", with Jennifer Rainey. We had a worthless song, no actual script, and one scene in the living room without any actual cats (And certainly nothing remotely resembling Hawaii).
In 1999, I got a 3d package called "Simply 3d 3". It is the worst 3d animation software in all existence. If you have a copy, BURN IT!
I didn't do anything with that until 2000. In 2000, I made two animations. A video of some biplanes flying around, and a video of a minigolf course. These will eventually be added to the link-members page.
I actually tried to make a Myst-style game with the software. I have vague memories of screaming furiously at the computer that year.
In 2000, I got a Sony VAIO PC, with MovieShaker. I also got Paint Shop Pro, with Animation Shop. These were what allowed me to edit video, and do simple effects. I see MovieShaker as a joke now, sort of halfway between "Windows Movie Maker" and "Imovie" in capability, but if I made the 2001 and 2002 videos with it, it couldn't have been all bad, right?
Ditto for Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop. They are vastly inferior to Photoshop and AfterEffects, but with all these things I was determined to actually DO something with my software.
And yet, I have chosen to list "2001" as the real start of my movie making. 2001 was when I got Bryce 3d. 2001 was when I got a Digital-8 camcorder - for the first time I could record video and transfer it into a computer. It seemed so amazing to me as a kid! And Bryce seemed so cool!
In 2001, I created several short videos. They are the start of my, let's say, "franchise development". That is, "House Trek." And "House Trek 2". And "House Trek 3". In these videos I did line art frame by frame over my CGI, I composited stuff laboriously with a digital paintbrush by painting it on one frame at a time. Compositing to me meant taking a layer, cutting around the edges of it, copying it through two image files, into a frame of a video. Then repeating the procedure 30-50 times, for each and every explosion or "extra element" like Ruby on the roof, or a targeting reticle, or a laser beam. I don't know how I put up with it.
And I found a freebie called "Axogon Composer" which let me split-screen several clips. So I thought to myself, "what do I do with this, given that nobody will let me put them in a movie?" (Which they didn't! Look at 2001 videos - it's just me and Ruby!) Anyway, I started thinking, "I could clone myself". And I remembered a Calvin & Hobbes joke about "cloning myself but the clone is as annoying and lazy as I am". And I made "Send in The Clones". At this time, I didn't even have a tripod. Ah well, you get the idea. Humble beginnings. So here are those very first dabblings in digital video.
TITLES: "House Trek 1"
LENGTH: half a minute GENRE: Sci-fi
SUMMARY: My house flies into space. Everyone thinks this is the authentic, original version. It isn't, exactly. The "house rising through clouds" shot was added after I did House Trek 2.
PROS: The underwhelming start, of the House Trek videos. The best I can say for it is it was a historically significant step for me.
CONS: Everything? Bad sound, bad camera work, bad FX. Like all the House Treks, has that childish illogic to it. House flying through space? How? No set - just me and my computer, which apparently controls the movement and operation of the "House Ship". And yet the corniness is part of the charm of this series.
SUMMARY: My family liked "House Trek", so I decided to do another one. My house, versus the Enterprise. Fourteen effects shots in this one, as a 13-year-old kid, I thought that this was a big project. It doesn't look big to me anymore.
PROS: A nice 3d model of the Enterprise I got somewhere, explosions, space battle. They looked cool to me back then. Short, and effects-dense, more effects than the first or third House Trek, crammed into a small file.
CONS: Corny effects. Poor sound design (but still better than #1 or #3). And the pyro in the first 3 House Treks came from Star Trek episode promos I found online, so I infringed copyright - a mistake I would continue repeating sporadically in various ways for several years.
SUMMARY: I take pet dog Ruby on a spacewalk. She gets lost. I navigate through an asteroid belt. I find Ruby.
PROS: It's a cute dog. The asteroid navigation scene has some effects (notice, I didn't say they were good.)
CONS: For all you wondering out there, apparently according to this video there IS breathable air in space, which is convenient because I had no spacesuit to record a spacewalk. Just like it's convenient that my house flies through space, because I couldn't build a set. The SPCA must hate these movies. I lose my dog on a spacewalk in this one, and then jettison her out of a torpedo tube in House Trek 5! Poor Ruby!
SUMMARY: I don't want to do an English essay, so I make a clone to do it for me, but HE doesn't want to do it, so he clones himself, and in the end, the essay STILL isn't done.
PROS: Simple comic concept, with a little bit of amusing dialogue. It's the first in the "Clones" series, which makes it significant to me.
CONS: Four splitscreen shots are the only FX you'll find here. Not anything flashy. Worse, the composition is abysmal. I cut my head off in the top of the frame. Repeatedly. And I talk to the camera directly about an imaginary TV show, breaking the fourth wall. It's a mess but it is nonetheless the first "Clones" movie and deserves a place in the "Clones" series.
