TITLE: "Superdog"
LENGTH: 43 seconds GENRE: Comedy
SUMMARY: People still reference this old video - I can't figure out why it was so popular for so long. It features our dog, Ruby, as a flying superhero.
PROS: The pros ARE the cons. The corniness is precisely why it's funny. Ruby's bored expression while flying makes it absolutely ludicrous, no matter how well the composites turned out (better than the ones in Send in the Clones 3, interestingly) Ruby is cute.
CONS: It's short. My early-shots acting is awful, even if my announcer voice is good. I'm trying to scream, while not waking up someone in the house, so it's spectacularly pitiful.
TITLE: "Ratboyz"
LENGTH: 4 minutes GENRE: Music Video
SUMMARY: Katie wrote the song "Ratboyz" as a tribute to our two (now deceased) gerbils.
PROS: They're cute gerbils. Katie and Sarah dressed up and they look good - and they wrote and sang the song rather well. It is a slightly silly song.
CONS: No effects or interesting imagery. Just cutting between gerbils and girls. Some of the gerbil shots are rather badly botched.
LENGTH: 2 minutes GENRE: Sci-Fi, Comedy
SUMMARY:The 4th House Trek movie features a new, more realistic 3d house, a holodeck, and a black hole threatening to tear my house apart. It's a clear step up, effects-wise, from the first 3, but not the best of the series.
PROS: The Bryce-made holodeck is the only time in House Trek where my house seems like more than just a house. The buildup of Matthew's interaction with the house computer is fun. The background music (from ST:DS9 episode "Way of the Warrior") amps up the mood.
CONS: The black hole is hardly convincing. And why do I take so long to use the manual controls? Furthermore, WHY was I wearing sweat pants? And is that a Jack head in the living room? I have more horrific acting here - and yet it's scripted lines, not silence like the first three. And *maybe* that is a good thing. TITLE: "House Trek 4"
LENGTH: 5 minutes GENRE: Sci-Fi, Action
SUMMARY: Space battles, space battles, and more space battles, the longest, most action-heavy "House Trek", with the best CGI I ever managed to do with Bryce. 50 effects shots was at the time, the most I'd ever done for a single video.
PROS: Lots of space battles, and a lot of music from ST:TNG's superb "Best of Both Worlds". The dog torpedo moment is odd in a slightly funny way.
CONS: Blatant re-use of shots, outdated and mediocre everything, no particular internal logic... TITLE: "House Trek 5"
TITLE: "Send in the Clones 2"
LENGTH: 4 minutes GENRE: Action-Comedy
SUMMARY: The second "Clones" movie depicts the clones' rebellion and shift to evil, and reveals Bradley Wallace for the first time. Worth watching to understand the whole "original Matthew" plot thread in Clones 4. It's also the first time I used AfterEffects' animated masks (with feathering!)
PROS: Oddly, in some ways this has aged better than Clones 3, because the audio is clearer and the effects are more realistic (if less flashy and interesting). Brad is fun in the intentionally-pathetic last action sequence, and the ending is a surprise on par with the end of Clones 3.
CONS: Until Bradley shows up in the second half, it's fairly mediocre. Only one action sequence, and about 12 VFX shots in a 4 minute video. Kinda simple and outdated overall.
LENGTH: 5 minutes / 1 minute GENRE: Christian music video, visual effects
SUMMARY: I was called on to create a music video for Church of the Redeemer's 2003 Arts Camp. It is set to the song "He Reigns" and includes footage from earlier Arts Camps and the 2000 March for Jesus, in which millions of people worldwide, uh, marched for Jesus. I was also tasked with making 5 montages, mostly they're slideshows of stills but I did find time to include some actual effects shots, and those are cut together into one separate video.
PROS: I know the church loved the music video. They have a delusional view of my work. Everyone but my family and close friends only knows some specific bit of my work, some of the old church folk only remember this one. It's not such a bad one to remember, it is good enough in most respects - the shatter effect, the 3d, the Photoshop art, the abstracts, the crowds... As for the other montage, some of those shots are really great, like the space shot, or Times Square.
CONS: I don't know who made the song but they might sue me for - sensing a pattern here? - copyright infringement. The March for Jesus footage is iffy because it was recorded directly off of a TV screen. When the video fades to black, some people initially think something's wrong with the video. There isn't. It was a logical editing decision, designed to increase the impact of the following shot.
DOWNLOAD DSL VERSION OF "HE REIGNS"
DOWNLOAD DIAL-UP VERSION OF "HE REIGNS"
download VFX montage from Arts Camp 2003. TITLE: "He Reigns" music video + other montages
TITLE: "Troop 4: Uncensored, pt. 1 - Director's Cut"
LENGTH: 9 minutes GENRE: Comedy
SUMMARY: I parody my boy scout troop (and with it, all of scouting tradition), in this, the first Troop 4 movie. It's amazing to see how much Troop 4 has changed since this video!
PROS: The director's cut is faster-paced than the plodding original cut, replacing dull bits with parts like the airfield scene and the faux pre-movie ads. A few decent jokes, a few effects shots mixed in. It seemed good at the time.
CONS: Even less point than the other Troop 4 movies (and that's saying something!) Not much action compared to pts. 2 and 3. The whole thing is poor quality in general and as with all Troop 4 vids, the acting is often awful. IMO, the Ultimate Edition available to link-members is much better than this version.