Movies released in 2006, in order of completion: Send in the Clones 4 (DVD version), "I sought the Lord" music video, "Troop 4: Uncensored, pt. 3", "Creativity", "Sabotage 757", "Super Soda".
I obtained the following skills and resources: water tank, colored lighting, costume design, GarageBand, $100 Azden microphone, Panasonic PV-GS500 camcorder, garage, garage bluescreen, Mac Mini, Laptop.
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TITLE: "Troop 4: Uncensored, pt. 3" |
I Sought The Lord |
TITLE: "I Sought the Lord"LENGTH: 5 minutes GENRE: Music Video SUMMARY: Part of David Ello's successful Christian show, "Faithful", at the University of Houston. PROS: A lot of good, interesting abstract 3d animation, David Ello's great techno-style theme music. CONS: Some animation is repetitive, or a little shoddy, due to time constraints. |
TITLE: "ALIENS!"LENGTH: 1 minute GENRE: In-joke SUMMARY: The Redeemer Youth Group plays a game called Aliens with laser tag equipment, and I blended the gameplay footage with clips from the trailer of James Cameron's movie of the same name. PROS: Some nifty FX. Youth group members get the joke, I guess. And the movie I'm referencing is an sci-fi/action classic. (Go see it!) CONS: If you don't know our youth group, you'll just be puzzled. In that case, skip this, there's not much to it anyway...
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 TITLE: "Matt vs. Matt"LENGTH: 2 minutes GENRE: Chase sequence SUMMARY: I am being pursued by another guy named Matt, in the winding madness of the UH architecture building. Original score, and stunning custom-designed filter, making for a "Scanner Darkly" cartoon-reality look. PROS: The building is interesting, the visual style and sound design turned out great. The chase is energetic, with a bit of humor and stuntwork. The ending is fun. Amazingly, we recorded this in under an hour. CONS: It is a bit dodgy editing-wise - at one point a wide shot is reused to represent BOTH of us. And there's a muffled "Wait, is it recording?" voice. If you catch it, ouch, it shouldn't be there. The cartoon effect is not perfect.
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TITLE: "Creativity"LENGTH: 1 minute GENRE: Art video SUMMARY: An exploration of creativity - both God's creation of nature and man's creation of art, densely packed in a self-referential, fast-cutting video that partly documents the creation of an artwork and partly documents the creation of itself. PROS: There's a lot here, and much of it is visually striking. The natural scenes are beautiful, the art is good, even the voice is interesting. And yes, I wrote the monologue myself. CONS: I can't think of anything wrong with this, except that certain bits are distracting (turkeys!) and the voice echo makes it a bit hard to hear. |
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TITLE: "SABOTAGE 757"LENGTH: 3 minutes GENRE: Disaster Movie SUMMARY: A short video with a pilot poisoned on a Pacific flight. Stars Matthew Hornbostel, Michael Davis, Jesse Wallace, Scott Hornbostel PROS: VFX are generally good, Water tank, costumes, and virtual sets turned out well. Michael Davis gives a fun performance. CONS: Audio is muddled, which hurts the dialogue badly. Bluescreen composites are far from flawless. Tactless, really, to portray an air disaster after 9/11, I regret having pilots wearing glasses, which is not realistic. |
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TITLE: "SUPER SODA: DEATH IN A CAN"LENGTH: 13 minutes GENRE: Comedy/Conspiracy Thriller SUMMARY: Office-dwelling Hurford Blumper (Mark Ball) tracks down the source of an unhealthy soft drink. PROS: Quirky humor, absolutely ridiculous story. Mark Ball's performance anchors the whole movie well. Visually striking VFX. I like the whole soft drinks/robots/telemarketer conspiracy, it's so absurd! CONS: Visual composition in the robot conversation is pretty bad. The voices are often out of sync. (though, arguably that only makes it funnier.) |
TITLE: Demo Reel 2006LENGTH: 2 minutes GENRE: VFX Demo Reel SUMMARY: Demo Reel, edited during production of Super Soda. Contains material from "Send in the Clones 4", "Troop 4: Uncensored, pt. 3", "Faithful", and "Sabotage 757". PROS: It's a Demo Reel. I did it because I hadn't done one since 2004 and probably needed a new one. Lots of cool shots in one small file. If it's visual effects you're looking for, this is the densest way to see them. CONS: It's a Demo reel. Not a movie. If you want a story, look at the other videos. |