Drone filming

This article talks of the rising popularity of using drones to film. The drones can provide incredible video feed at a birds eye view and provides filming of things that we're previously impossible for humans like erupting volcanoes or the insides of storm clouds. Even though heavily restricted in the US we should see more lenient laws soon.

Drones, sounds like fun. I mean flying around and capturing first-person video is awesome..can't wait for them to have their heavy restrictions removed..I would totally buy one, just to fly it through forests and abandoned buildings. I wonder if I could get it into blocked off abandoned buildings...hm.. Now I really want one.

Go with your strengths?

So this article talks about the problem of "do you leave your comfort zone or stay within your boundaries?".  Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Leaving let's you improve upon your and broaden your overall skill set, while staying makes your life easier and you always show your best without worrying about screwing up to much. Another thing mentioned is self-efficacy which forces you yo focus on what your doing and f pi ever about comfort zones entirely in order to pump out the best work.

Ah, the puzzling question of the comfort zone and strengths. Which does one choose? Personally im fine with both, I like staying within my boundaries but if I can learn something new I won't turn it down. But that's just my opinion, it varies between everyone and is a question that will be with us forever.

weekly comments

This week was pretty okay....got my Video Contest in on time (yay) but not how i wanted (boo...).  I was pretty upset about that..... lighting sucks. However filmig for the video poem went flawlessly.....I got through that one pretty good! Also the Walmart by me started stocking Mountain Dew White Out (AW YES) I was sooo excited about that! I need to figure out how to get the lighting right for filming in my basement...it looks so much different on the ameras LCD screen than it does on the computer...so yeah....problem there... At least i learned that i need more lights....like perhaps alot more..maybe even 12 or more. I did mange to beat the Stone Tower in Majora's Mask however.which took a while...yay.. Anyway here's an interesnting trailer for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAHprLW48no

weekly comments

    This week went by pretty well. I was pretty happy to get second place in the regional Skills USA competition with Jake (woo!). It was really upsetting to try to navigate the campus where the competition took place, especially with the horribly unlabeled and pixelated map, and we had to stop early beause of weather(yay)...which also meant no stopping for food(double yay)... I learned that turtles dont like being cleaned...he bit the toothbrush...alot........ I'd like to learn how to block light without making it obvious on camera. It would make night vision effects much more believable....and thats all for this week...

Bouncing Light

    Using bounced lights helps give little adjustments to lights by giving a softer, more even illumination in confined spaces where moving lights is difficult and is used by pros to soften a subjects face but can also create atmosphere. There are three methods for using bounced lights, bouncing light off of walls, using a light card which gives more control of how bounced light is positioned on film, and bouncing off of ceilings which gives the most natural look but also is the most dangerous because it can burn ceilings or set off sprinklers.
     
      Bouncing light is something I've never thought of using (or really knew how). The video provides a ice tutorial on how to use the different types of bounced light and frankly, i wish I'd known this earlier, it would have come in handy during the documentary...

making spongebob come to life

        This article take a look at the making of the new Spongebob movie. The movie features CGI over live action scenes similar to The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, and keeping them similar to their original 2D forms while still making them believable in the real world proved difficult so little textural details such as pores on spongebob and tiny bumps on Patrick's skin were used to help with the problem. Small amounts of sub-surface scattering were also used to give them a fleshiness. 3D printed models were used in the acted scenes to give a feel of where the characters would be and actors with simple frameworks were used to give a feel or the human sized versions of the characters. Extensive research into how the characters moved in the series also helped with animating.
      Wow, alot of stuff went into perfecting this movie. As a spongebob fan I can appreciate everything that went into perfecting this film and seeing them come to life is only made better by seeing how it was done. I especially found it interesting how 3D printed models were used to simulate placement of the characters while shooting with the human actors.I was realt hyped for this movie and it actually lived up to expectation.