TITLE: "Point of No Return"
LENGTH: 5 minutes GENRE: Family/Comedy/Thriller
SUMMARY: Alternately silly and creepy, this reality-bending short video is the second Nathan/Eileen movie, after "Snow Siege" and before "Sleepwalker". It was completed in 72 hours, demonstrating my efficiency under pressure.
PROS: The kids are cute. The parallel-universe worlds are conceptually fun and inventive. The twist ending is clever, as is the script. There are some funny moments, and the audio is decent.
CONS: The whole thing looks like a rush job because, uh, it is. So the visuals aren't on par with the ideas. Then there's the fact that half the viewers need the twist ending *explained* to them, which is probably a bad sign.
LENGTH: 1 minute GENRE: Art
SUMMARY: A video involving heavy rain. The ironic thing is, only 3 of the shots were recorded when it was actually raining.
PROS: My first cloud tank effect. My first use of a sprinkler for artificial rain. The video is pretty atmospheric.
CONS: It's rain. How interesting is that, really? TITLE: "Storm"
TITLE: "Relativity"
LENGTH: 55 seconds GENRE: Art
SUMMARY: An artistic, mostly computer-generated exploration of the theme of "inversion", in the style of M.C. Escher.
PROS: Pencil-drawn textures for CGI is kinda neat, ambigrams are cool, music is decent, visual style is solid. Thematically coherent. Quick to download. (Click picture above - save target as)
CONS: There's not that much to it, as it's 55 seconds. No story. No action. No color. While the textures are interesting, modelling and compositing could've used some more work, definitely.
LENGTH: 2 minutes GENRE: Art, Personal expression
SUMMARY: I'm not ACTUALLY psychotic, I misused the word badly when I originally named this video. (Please don't think I've killed or would kill anyone, actually it's the opposite, I'm trying to save lives!) But I AM mentally ill (Asperger's Syndrome), and this video expresses, in a caricatured way, my emotional state when I feel horrible...
PROS: Strong visual and auditory style. A lot of energy and wacko-ness. It's psychologically revealing (but doesn't capture all the darkness adequately or accurately) This was the first time I actually composed a full musical track - it works well here for a bunch of notes spliced in Premiere. Some strange VFX. (Click picture above - save target as)
CONS: Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in my sanity, does it? I don't think it reflects well on me and no doubt someday this video will come back to haunt me. This video has nobody but me in it, if you don't care about mental illness as a subject, and would rather watch something FUN, skip this.
TITLE: "Psychotic"
TITLE: "SEND IN THE CLONES 4"
LENGTH: 35 minutes GENRE: Action-Comedy
SUMMARY: A breakthrough in terms of total scope and quality, the finale to the venerable "Send in the Clones" series, featuring the entire Church of the Redeemer Youth Group in a well-built mass of action and comedy.
PROS: 200 VFX shots, 22 cast members, 15+ locations, roughly 900 hours of focused effort. Snappy script, fun characters, LOADS of flashy action. Is still some of my best work, even though almost 2 years have since passed.
CONS: I can't think of any major flaws, but it's true that some effects are dodgy, some audio a little poor, some of my acting is bad, some bits aren't as funny to people who aren't familiar with the Youth Group, or the series.
