I inserted the new pickup shots into the new short film I’m working on. It’s only been 3 months. WOW, I feel better though. They fit in very well for continuity, but far more importantly, they make the edit flow much much better. The performance fit like a glove and it’s amazing to have an actor acting against no one (me) in a pickup and in the edit, have it seamlessly feel like these two people were interacting on the spot. What I am most pleased with is my discipline to make sure it was right before giving up on it. Even 2-3 years ago, I would have accepted the error and just went with it instead of working to correct it and make it as good as it can be. I’m glad I have raised my standards on myself.
Friday I worked until nearly midnight on the graphics. I started to find that groove place. I made major headway and got about a 3rd of the shots done. It feel better to have some FX that need tweaking in place even though I might have to re-do them or replace the shots later. The piece begins to come together more cohesively.
At the end of the night, I put the movie to Quicktime ® in 1920x1080 24P so I can view it at home on Ye Olde 42” LCD TV. Now, talk about an eye opener. The amount of detail you see blown up at full resolution jolted my eyes a bit. Things I thought too small to be concerned with blared up and smacked me. I need to type 24 pages of what should have been a tiny word scroll on screen. I have to paint out 3 millimeter long logos that I never saw before. High Definition means more detail and that translates to a lot more work and effort. There’s no skimping in HD.
ZUNE – My buddy Maurice sent me an unsolicited gift, a 300 gig ZUNE from Microsoft ™. This is one of those cool gifts because it’s something you might not ever go get yourself, but it’s a really damn cool toy. It can play videos, music, and you can store pics on it too. My sole complaint (not to my friend, but in the design) is that it’s really odd about getting the accurate video settings, so most of my videos will have to go through 2-3 steps to get them on the damn thing. Now that I’ve got the best settings, I’m putting about 100 hours worth of video of various things on it tonight and tomorrow.
I think the purpose of the portable media device Zune was a not so subtle attempt to get me to exercise more. Shows that I might otherwise sit on my ass to watch, I can watch while walking, you know at the park so I can ignore nature. I have a weekend long delay on starting any real exercise because of the technical glitches of getting stuff on the damn thing…
I watched the Blu-Ray of the DAVINCI CODE, an extended cut of the film. I read the book, loved it, and was lukewarm about the movie the one time I saw it in the theater and never wanted to see it again. Since the sequel (prequel book, sequel movie) ANGELS AND DEMONS is about to come out, plus I have 3 years of distance from the book, I gave it another whirl. I liked it a LOT better this time. I couldn’t remember anything added to this movie, but there’s 26 minutes of new material in it. I guess it stays remarkably loyal to the source material and this viewing was so much more enjoyable (mostly because of my LACK of expectation).
We went and saw the new STAR TREK in IMAX. I liked this a lot too. I’m not a Trekkie or Trekker, however I can see some serious continuity errors on many levels, but you know what? I DON’T CARE. If all you care about is how it wasn’t possible to identify a Romulan by site in 2231*, then you don’t enjoy movies they way a normal person does. This movie was for normal people, not Trekkies. It moved at about a million miles an hour, but the first sequence was incredibly well done and emotional to boot. It still did not dethrone WRATH OF KHAN as the greatest thing TREK has ever put out there, but if the only 2 movies of STAR TREK anyone sees is this new one followed up by WRATH OF KHAN, the franchise might warrant more respect.
Enjoy the days,
Peter John Ross
• I have no idea Trek timelines, so if this inaccuracy is notated by you, then you are a TREKKER…
