New Picture

Oh, I made a DVD compilation of all the videos my cousin and I have made together. Here was the DVD menu picture:


He bought that hat for $40. He has been "trying to find a hat like that for months." And he wanted to have it in the picture.

Hell, I got a laugh from it, so why not? It's not a complicated picture. It serves as a standalone picture and the menu for our DVD. Two birds with one stone.

Video Production Improvements

BREAKING POINT has been a serious step forward in my video production skills. Overall, the video doesn't look like it was filmed by a 15 year old and a 12 year old. It looks, in some parts, like a professional video (I might be a bit biased but whatever).

A lot of the angles in the video were inspired by Slumdog Millionaire. That movie had so many amazing angles and action shots, that I just had to implement some of them. The frame was sometimes not level with the ground, but that adds to the edginess of the shot. Also, a lot of zoomed closeups were used, and it created a better sense of suspense. Overall, the zooming and crooked frame effects definitely worked toward a better video.

Editing was different this time around. Unlike UNDERFIRE Deathmatch, I added the muzzle flashes before I placed them into the timeline. This gave me a better sense of what I was working with, and ultimately gave me more control over where the sounds go and how fast I was supposedly shooting.

I finally figured out a shortcut to color correcting a billion scenes at once also. Saved me an hour of work :D

The muzzle flashes from my "assault rifle" were custom made in Photoshop. I created these after I completed UNDERFIRE Deathmatch because I was unhappy with how the flashes looked in the end. They were about the best I could do manually, but I think they looked pretty decent. Ryan's rifle flashes were from the internet. I gave him different ones to make more of a contrast between the 2 different shots, but you probably didn't realize it :D

Workflow was definitely slow on this particular video because of all the file rendering I had to do. But, on the contrary, I did learn many things about HD video. HD is definitely nice, and makes the videos look very clean, but to go through all that work isn't quite worth it in my opinion. I'm not a professional, so I don't have all the equipment or the right computer. Standard definition would work just as well with me.

BREAKING POINT was a big learning video, and definitely helped me step up my video production skills. Hopefully my next video will implement these new skills. I'll have to show my friends first though.

Snipers Rule

I made another Photoshop picture. I was taking photos with my brother, and I found a picture I liked, so I decided to give it a bit of flare. This is what I started with:


This is what came out:


I am really proud of this one. It actually looks kinda professional. I cut myself out, outlined the body, made a background and then gave me a shadow. Very simple, but I think it looks pretty good.

I'll keep this a short post because a friend of mine (Julien) says I post too long. I can sorta understand where he's coming from, but recall, this is my blog, and this is for me.

But I can still at least try to appeal to the few readers I have. I love you guys.

It's kinda late, and I'm sorta sleepy. I'll say good night here. Night.

Home Again!

I stayed home again today.

Last night at around 1 my mom took my temperature. I had a 102 fever. So she gave me some water, some motrin and another blanket and went back to bed. After a while of lying under the blankets, I began feeling uncomfortably warm. I took off the top blanket. Then, a bit later, I began feeling warm still under my normal blanket. Took that off too. I was sleeping under nothing, hoping maybe this might lower my fever.

My illness has made me very restless. I couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep in. I'd lie in one position, and my legs would feel uncomfortable. I'd try another, then my hands felt uncomfortable. I'd try another, and my back would feel uncomfortable. This went on for about two hours or so, in the middle of the night. I even tried sleeping on my brother's bed. Finally, after a total of three hours of twisting and turning, I fell asleep, at 4 a.m. I woke up at 6:30 hoping maybe I'm well enough to go to school. I get up and I'm cold and really sleepy. Finally I decide I should take one more day off. I wasn't ready to go to school with a possibility of a fever and five hours of sleep.

I watched the Today Show with my mom till about 9. I started to get really sleepy. Finally, I could take it no more, and thus I fell asleep again. The next thing I know, it's 1 o'clock. I caught up on my sleep.

I ate lunch, noodle soup and a yogurt. Then I popped on my computer and began Photoshopping the picture that Henry didn't like. Well I decided to try out something I learned on a website, and apply it to the picture. I changed Henry and William's poses also. This is how it looks:


It's the Bourne Ultimatum effect! I think it looks really neat. Learned some new photoshop techniques, like how to use an adjustment layer. I'm very proud! And I hope Henry likes this better. Next time, however, I'd like to take a group photo instead of taking close-ups from the video. That way it'll look better.

By the way, William generally looks like that the entire video.

Have a good rest of the day people!

Photoshopping

It's sorta late right now, but I'm gonna be out tomorrow in the morning for a few hours, so I thought I could do this now and save me the trouble of remembering.

I had some free time today, so I created a small Photoshop project for myself. I've done this in the past, but I haven't in a while, so I thought I'd try again.

In the past I took a few pictures of myself and composted them into a combined photo. I'd take individual shots of me with different clothing on, cut me out of each picture and put them all together. One time I even used NERF guns in the photo.

But this time I decided to quit with the clones and do something more dramatic-sorta-looking. I used a NERF gun, but in a different pose as last time. Last time I posed with the guns in a normal looking pose. This time, I used a wide-angle lens. The wide-angle lens distorts the photo more and makes some things look elongated. I used this to my advantage and made my gun barrel look really long.

It took me probably over 20 tries to get it just right, but this is how my favorite one turned out.


Notice how the barrel looks really really long. It took me forever to get the angle just right, with the barrel looking just long enough. I personally think the photo looks pretty good. But, I decided to try to Photoshop it to look slightly edgier.

My product is done as of now. I'm not sure whether or not it looks too dark, but I (being my own biased self) think it's pretty good. I spent a good 2 hours on it, the first hour focusing on the precision of my cropping. Here's how it looks.

I spent a good deal trying to make the cut-out as normal looking as possible, using a lot of zoom and a soft eraser. I blurred the edges of my body to make it less jagged, and then I sharpened the edges. I also played with a filter that made the whole thing look dark, and I liked it honestly. It looks intense to me.

Tell me what you think of it, any criticisms of any sorts. I like it, but I have a feeling it's a bit dark. I added the lens flare behind me to make me look brighter, but I'm debating whether or not it's enough. I also sorta think the muzzle flash is a bit too big, but I sorta like that kind of thing, so yeah.

Well, post later.