Re:Cycling

At long last, the documentary is completed. Check it out!

HEY!

Stay tuned for the release of Re:Cycling, a short documentary about bicycle restoration.

In the Field

The new audio setup worked great. I just shot and interview with James Roedl for the bike project. The cables on the lav mic and the headphones are pretty long so there was plenty of slack for me to move around and double check the recording. 

This weekend I'll be shooting the first chunks of deconstructing the bike. With luck, I'll be able to get some good shots of the tear down and cleaning (while tearing down and cleaning). As long as I don't become completely engrossed in the fix up, like usual, I'll be fine. It should be a pretty fun shoot.

Bike B-Roll

This Labor Day weekend was perfect for getting footage for the upcoming bicycle project. I go several shots of in the local area and broke in the new rigs from this summer. The Fig Rig worked well for getting shots while cycling. The camera slider also made for some really cool establishing shots of the bike pre-modding.

All in all it was pretty successful. Hopefully I can track down some good interviews this week.

Upcycle: Bike Light

I was looking for something cool to really set off this Zissou bike restoration. It needed to be old school and just plain awesome; so I searched eBay for some old bike lights, the old dynamo kits from the 1970's. Unfortunately most of these are pretty beat up, incomplete, and pricey. I decided to look for an alternative. I thought those cool old school flashlights, the silvery Art Deco style ones might be an option and I happened across this beauty. It's a Lightmaster Searchlight lantern from the 1930's. 

The pictures looked really good and it was only $20 (including shipping, those old batteries are hefty.) Last night I took the old battery cells out, dropped in a new 6 volt lantern battery, and hacked/modded a light bulb to run in it. I was able to completely update it without destroying any of the old parts. I used electrical tape instead of soldering wires so that way it can be reversed back to it's original state at any time.

 

It works great now! I can't wait to put it on the finished bike. One more part of the production finished up...

Bike Restoration

We'll be starting a new project composed of interviews and hands on demonstration of how to restore and recondition an old ten speed bicycle. The chosen bike is a Prince Racer model from the 1970's ten speed boom, this particular one was rescued from a dumpster. It's an ideal bike to restore because it was more dusty than rusty (which is rare). After doing some research, it was discovered that this model was sold around the midwest in higher end department stores, retailing around $100. It's got good components and will look really nice cleaned up.

I've ordered, new tires, tubes, cables, wrap, and picked out some new paint. The tentative plan is turn it into a Steve Zissou/Life Aquatic themed bike. Stay tuned for updates.

Audio Gear Coming In

We've ordered some new gear for The Shelter speaking segments. A new Audio-Technica lav mic will be joining the ranks as well as some new Sennheiser over-ear headphones for monitoring. The lav had great reviews from Emm at cheesycam.com. We use the Sennheiser HD 201 headphones at the Tarble Arts Center for the Ipod mobile tours. They sound pretty full, have a long cord, are comfortable, and are pretty durable. Overall, I thought it'd be a good investment for souping up recording with the Zoom H1.

The Shelter

In the weeks ahead we'll be launching a new web series called The Shelter. This new program will be dedicated to providing short video devotions to aid in your walk with Christ. If you have a topic that you'd like us to explore or come across a passage you find interesting, let us know and we'll do our best to incorporate into an upcoming episode.

Opening Music Track

I was running over the opening sequence of our yet to be named zombie film and decided it'd be awesome to get a blues sounding guitar whining along with the actors' walk sequence. Guitar in hand, I tried to compose a basic instrumental blues beat that didn't sound like a total rip-off of guitarists much better than myself. It soon became clear that it would be an uphill battle.

Last night as I was hanging out with my youth group in a local coffeehouse, Calico Jack a local blues/folk rock artist from the band Fair Clara was performing. He's got a unique, gutsy blues tone and his opening song would be perfect to intro our upcoming film. So I waited around until the set was over, introduced myself, bought a CD, talked to him about using his stuff and BOOM, opening track fah yer film, right dare.

He's got some good stuff, I'd recommend checking it out here.

Zombie Makeup Test

This week we've been working on getting some makeup layouts together to test out the liquid latex. I ashamedly admit that I've spent more time in the makeup aisle this past week than I care to think about. Hopefully it will look convincing. The latex, tissue, and Mehron bruise wheel gives a nice rotting, wrinkly look. This photo is a simple thrown together mockup that took about ten minutes to finish. Once we add our batch of fake blood, we'll be looking pretty ghoulish.

"Yeah, I know I'm ugly... I said to a bartender, 'Make me a zombie.' He said 'God beat me to it.' "

-Rodney Dangerfield

DIY Slider Mods

After some test and reconfigurations of the DIY slider, I've come up with a better working unit. The first problem that I faced was a significant metal-on-metal squeak in all of my shots due to the angle of the bearings. I redrilled the holes so that bearings now roll with one on the top of the track and one on the inside of the track, rather than the previous straddling V formation. However that didn't minimize the noise so I ended up making new track out of PVC.I upped it to 1" pipe for more rigidity and it seemed to work well. Now I've got a fully collapsible rig (that shouldn't collapse). Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, I can build a nice wheeled metal based rig. For now, this should work fine. 

Veni, Vedi, Vici

It was a great night on the red carpet. The 21 Film Project put on a great event during the Decatur Celebration this year. The kids loved the costumed characters from pop stars to Star Wars.

See the News Video

The competition was pretty stiff. Bellifax was nominated for nearly every category, Best Acting, Best Screenplay, and Best Direction. Out of these, we snagged best direction but the real surprise came when we also got the Best Picture award and the $1500 grand prize. A grand day for the Bellifax crew.

Watch Bellifax 

Red Carpet at the Avon Theater

We're off to the Avon theater today. Our short mockumentary, Bellifax: The Not-So-Standard Oil Company will be screened along with nineteen other short films from the area during the 2011 Decatur Celebration. It's the Land of Lincoln Credit Union's 4th Annual Film Festival and we're excited to see how we place.

Test Intro

I found a great tutorial by Andrew Kramer that outlines how to do realistic reflective animations. I put together this basic template from that video and plan to tweak it into a really cool intro for my projects. I tried to incorporate the same Blind Simon color scheme, but unfortunately the Rockwell typeface wasn't available on the system I was working on.

 

Preproduction Update

This week marks the beginning of preproduction for our zombie film. Our latex and makeup came in the mail yesterday so we'll begin costuming soon. We've also scouted several shooting locations and gotten approval to use the Lincoln Bookstore for one of our vital scenes. (Thanks again Wendy!) 

We've still got several props to acquire and have a few logistics to work out, but everything is moving along on time. Shooting should begin next week.

Bellifax

Last night Will, Dustin, Andy, and I finished the final edits to Bellifax: The Not-So-Standard Oil Company.

This was the first summer piece we began working on. It's a short mockumentary, based on alternative fuels. Hope you enjoy!

Happy Shark Week!

Happy Shark Week!, a photo by Blind Simon Productions on Flickr.

Have a fintastic day

DIY Camera Slider

I finally got my camera slider done. After watching many of the tutorials online, I decided to take the best aspects of the ones I watched and mash them together into one rig. The overall cost came out to about $30.

Originally, I had a small dolly made out of two skateboard trucks and scrap of board. I dropped this idea long ago because my wheels weren't aligned and it was bulky and unreliable. Then I came across Lolo Two's Big Brother camera rig which used conduit and connectors. After filing down the inner rim of the connectors as the video demonstrates, I realize that it was nearly impossible for me to attach the rest of the shuttle without increasing the friction.

I then stumbled across a video making an over head documentation camera that used bearings. The great thing about this is it doubles the contact points. One skateboard has four wheels and eight bearings, so I was able to get more stability by crossing the bearings along the pipe instead of just using the wheels to run along the top.

This rig uses the same mount assembly as the fig rig. The shuttle is made from 3/4" PVC connector and pipe, 8 skateboard bearings, and 8 5/16" carriage bolt assemblies.

I put 1/4" washers on each side of the bearing to prevent needless grime from getting in, as well as a layer of masking tape around the outside to dampen the metal-on-metal screech.

The rail system is 3/4" EMT conduit, some of the cheapest piping available. I chose it to be stronger and more rigid than PVC. It's screwed down with 3/4" conduit hangers to two scrap pieces of board.

I'm really excited to try it out. Special thanks to Katie Black for helping me acquire parts.

DIY Fig Rig

This is a rig that I designed based off of a tutorial from IndyMogul.com. I made my own custom modification to the camera mounting screw assembly. Their version had long bolt threaded through the PVC cross section secured by caps on each end. I used a 3/4" to threaded 1/2" PVC adapter on the top of mine, allowing me to screw different bolt assemblies onto the rig. Now I can just make various caps instead of a whole new rig.

It should be very useful for minimizing shake and wobble in handheld shooting.

Blind Simon Productions' photostream

I've linked up a Flickr page for Blind Simon Productions! This means that more production photos will soon be available. Stay tuned for updates

July Madness

July has been crazy so far and is only speeding up. To begin, I'm currently entrenched in the process of refining the first EIU sports promo and getting it tweaked for the client. The first music track was a no-go, so I'm currently recutting the footage to a peppier track. It's completely changed the feel of the promo and I hope that it doesn't take away from the overall aesthetic charm (but as long as the client's happy, that's good with me).

Towards the beginning of the month I donned a pair of old school flannel pajamas, red of course, (the ones like and adult onesie) and stood in front of a green-screen for Andy and Will's "Spaceman Flannel" short. I don't want to talk about it...

In addition, I've had the honor of teaching a crew of 11-14 years olds in a Stop Motion Film class at the Tarble Arts Center. This is the second year I've gotten to work with the kids and so far they're making some really cool stuff. Most of them have completed their claymation and whiteboard cartoons, so tomorrow we'll start our 3D object animations. It's a blast to work alongside them. There's always lots of quirky plots riddled with clay blood and insanity. Ahhh... Awesomeness. 

Next week, I'll be working with a veteran of last year's class, Jesse Wilson-Brown to tag-team a realistic zombie short. We're going for a profession day to day film with some action scenes. I'm really looking forward to getting the final script done and begin preproduction full on.

It's gonna be a busy month rolling right into Shark Week. 

Hectic Week

This week has been pretty busy with the ongoing jobs outside of film world. I imported the brunt of the footage for the vanity pack and have been waiting on a more solid script from the client to complete the editing. I shot some additional footage and am pretty excited about some of the action shots. Unfortunately, due to massive home renovations, I was unable to assist the crew in their first day of filming Spaceman Flannel, a dry sub-Trekian scifi short. 

Additionally, I found a great aspect ratio for masking the footage for my vanity pack. Academy styled 1.85:1 masking looks really awesome and gives the clips a hi-pro look.

Commissioned Vanity Pack

Recently through WEIU, I've been gifted with the opportunity to film a series of recruitment videos to be embedded in the new EIU sports website this fall. So far rain delays and bad weather have taken out most of the time to shoot the vanity shots of campus for the first video this week. Glancing at the forecast, I'm going to attempt to shoot the remaining half of campus and import the footage this afternoon, after helping in shooting the interview scene for a mockumentary short in the Physical Science building.

For the first of these videos, I'm going to attempt to use a Cinemascope aspect ratio in post production, much like the one used in editing A Logical Conclusion

A Logical Conclusion Production Photos

A Logical Conclusion

As of Monday, Will Addison, Andy Due, Dustin Tylman, and myself began filming a creative short called A Logical Conclusion. The script is Will's brain-child and one of my favorites in the line of summer projects. Filming began at roughly 11:30am in the Coleman Hall lecture room. The footage was captured on my Canon T2i and will be edited shortly. The most difficult shot in this project was the dolly across the chalkboard to reveal Will's character writing. It took several takes to get the timing smoothed out. We're experimenting with a wide screen letterboxed crop that will hopefully look really professional in post. Production pics will follow shortly.