To vote for this video go HERE.

I called in a favor from a local actor, Mark Murray, to help me out and we took about an hour and a half on a Sunday afternoon to film it. I already had everything storyboarded out so it wasn’t too complicated. The hard part came with the post production, which is always a struggle to make your ideas actually work. That is especially true because I was pressed for time to do the post production, because after we filmed on Sunday then I went to Colorado for a week and had just enough time to finish this before it was due Monday (I’ll blog about the CO trip soon).

Mark Murray was nice enough to put his face on a dirty sidewalk for the production of this video - Thanks Mark!

It was a great learning opportunity and gained a lot of experience with trying to motion track things and also just more experience with the Canon 7D and rolling shutter issues. Whether I place in this contest or not (grand prize is $10,000) I enjoyed the process, as I always do.

All the special effects were done using Adobe After Effects and used a combination of the built-in tracker and the Mocha tracker to track in the special effects. That was the hardest part of this whole project and I think I was mildly successful with the end result, but as I mentioned I did learn a lot. The live action effects are from Video Copilot’s Action Essentials 2 DVD and I really enjoy working with their products.

Action Essentials 2 at work on a downtown building

I did a little location scouting way before I even wrote the story board and landed on the location next to the Tivoli Theater in downtown Chattanooga. It was a nice backdrop with the Tivoli sign, and there was a large building across the street so I could blow that up (see above picture). But the key parts were to have a building with a window, so I could put in my own tv there for the news broadcast, and then also have an alleyway for the dog to come out of. Of course, I had to figure out a way to include my dogs in the film, so I thought it would add some chaotic atmosphere to have a dog running with leash dragging behind it.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy it. It was fun to make and I really appreciate Mark’s help on it too!

The winners are selected by a split of 49% public vote and 51% judges votes. The two winners are flown to Cannes, France for a week to compete in a film competition. Other interesting characteristics of this contest were you had to be 18-28 to enter and you couldn’t use any music. That last one was tough since music can play such a crucial role in videos, especially ones with emotional subject matter. This one is for WaterAid.org who wants you to sign a petition trying to get world leaders to stick to what they signed 10 years ago, the Millenium Development Goals. At the current rate they’ll be about 200 years late achieving the sanitation standards they signed on for. So this petition is important, don’t let them drop this issue.

So my idea was to try and play to the fact we couldn’t have music, so I tied in sounds with the issue. It’s tough just to hear someone blabber on sometimes, so to have those sound fx under my voice helps break up the monotony I hope. I am happy with it considering I made it within 48 hours of reading the brief for the contest. Half the battle is coming up with an idea, or ideas, and then picking which one is the best, and then sitting there and thinking, ‘okay this is going to take a while’ and now I have to actually do it. But that personal challenge is also part of the fun. I’ll be interested to see how many people actually entered this contest because of the 48 hour restriction. My other idea was to actually film with my camera and not do animations, but that meant going to several locations (for the alternative idea), ask favors of the location people, and maybe try and ask a favor of a friend to help. Instead, I just sat in front of my computer and cranked this out.

I did everything in After Effects CS4 (I really want to get that CS5 upgrade) except for the ending logo animation with the water drop. That was done in Cinema 4D and I actually downloaded a trial version of RealFlow just to have an excuse to use it and see what it’s like (It costs $1,000!). That animation could have been a lot nicer, but I had to turn things off like Global Illumination and certain aspects of the materials like transparency in the water because it was taking forever to render. After almost 3 hours it had gotten through a ‘first pass’ on about 30 frames (out of 250). So I had to ratchet down the quality just to get it rendered.

The After Effects stuff was pretty straight forward, but tedious. The biggest thing was just trying to come up with some kind of style for it that would work throughout the video. I think it’s a little too grungy for my taste (that’s why I shattered it when it says “You make a difference”), but you can tweak and think and rethink yourself into oblivion with stuff like that, and that wasn’t going to work for the 48 hour deadline. I did enjoy using Red Giant Trapcode’s Particular 2 plug-in. That’s how I created the stick figure scene. I’m familiar with Particular (that’s how I made the cloud finger-tracer effect in my HP video) so it was fun to get my hands on it again, but I wish I had more time to play with it, I think I could have made that piece of the animation bit prettier (see the “4,000″ photo above).

One thing that snagged me for a while was it was taking forever to preview that short sequence and I couldn’t figure it out, then I realized I had selected “Random – Play Once” instead of “Random – Still Frame” for the layer I was using to populate that crowd of stick people. So every frame it was having to repopulate each 4,000 particle, when what I want it to do was produce 4,000 and then just stay there, which was the “Random – Still Frame” option. Enough of that technical stuff . . .

I forgot to mention I only started working on it Saturday afternoon because I wanted to fly in the morning. Then I stayed up all night except for a 2 hour nap and worked on it. I started to go a little crazy when I couldn’t nail the voice over stuff. I had to keep saying “like a toilet” over and over. I still don’t think it works in the video, but I had to stop trying to get it just right because I was going crazy repeating “like a toilet” over and over. You never realize how hard it is to copy your own voice and match voiceovers together, it’s something you never think about, but is the reason getting voiceovers in one or two takes quickly will have the same tone and pitch in your voice.

I want to thank Ashley and Isaiah for letting me have their time and patience to make this, as well as, Angela and Jen for helping with the voiceover work.

It was fun to make and I hope you enjoy!

Also, below is another interview I did for a website I use a lot called films4prizes.com. It’s a site that collects a lot of video contests going on at the moment so you don’t have to search for them. They do a pretty good job, but sometimes they’ll be a little late in posting a contest or might miss a few completely, but it is much easier to just go to their site than do all that grunt work yourself of finding these contests.

Also, a while back I posted extra interview footage from A Soaring Life of Andre Wolf and Dustin Martin (click their names to go to the interviews).

Right now I’m working on a 60 second short film, not hang gliding related, that has a few visual effects shots in it that I’m not sure if I can pull off yet or not. Stay tuned, because if I can make these effects work then I’ll be done with the video in about a week or so. I’m using a bunch of green poster board from walmart to make my green screen – it’s a pretty good option compared to what a real one costs, and gets the job done almost as well.

Also don’t forget about my 365 day photoblog over at my tumblr site, my tumblr posts also show up as tweets in the right side bar as ‘My Tweets.’

Basically, you get to pick who you give a microfinance loan to, with the minimum you can give being $25. You don’t pick a group of people or an organization that will then give it out. You pick the exact person you want to loan to. If you want to loan to a woman in Africa that is trying to open a grocery store, you can do that. And it’s a loan, not a donation, you get repaid.

While there are risks the average repayment rate across all of Kiva is 98%. See here for the risks associated with lending and Kiva.

To see mine and other videos on the contest website go HERE.

There are two phases to this contest. 1) popularity: videos are ranked and given prizes according to how many times they are viewed (one view per IP address). 2) Judges pick several winners.

Both phases have cash prizes so please pass this blog post around so I can get more views. They announce the judges winners on the 22nd, but the viewing phase goes until Jan 31st.

I’m thinking of posting a tutorial on how I did the 2.5D image effect with the face fading in After Effects. If you’d be interested in seeing that tutorial, make a comment below and if there’s enough interested I’ll record a tutorial on face morphing and creating a 3D scene with photographs in After Effects.

It’s finally up! My entry in the Nikon Festival contest, where the brief was to describe your day in only 140 seconds! I decided to go the route of a little story telling with a nostalgic memory from summer camp years back.

I hope that idea engages the audience more so than just telling a story and that people will watch it, try that little hand thing and be connected to the video in a unique way. The original 1080p HD version looks so much better than what you see here, which is 504×284.

December 22nd is when they announce who is up for the grand prize of $100k that celebrity judges pick, or for the $25k audience prize that is chosen through public votes. Can’t wait to hear about which one I’m in so I can start getting the vote out if I’m in the audience award! (I’ll need you, the reader, to help me out with that!) For now, just watch and enjoy and tune in again to see if you need to vote (check out my twitter, this blog, or send me a contact form if you want to be added to my personal mailing list where I shamelessly beg for votes).

Here’s the direct link to my video: http://www.nikonfestival.com/blog/2009/12/14/step-into-air/

This was a very fun film to make, especially the day we filmed above (and between the clouds). There is so much great footage I wish I had more time with this video. It was painful not to be able to use all this great footage, even non-flying footage stuff that I got. But to be able to get across a story that was coherent I had to cut a lot! It was a good exercise though and, as always, I learned a lot. The other footage I got will probably crop up in some other videos I make down the road too.

Eric and Scott getting ready for the shooting where we were above the clouds. Scott was the cameraman and sat in front of the tug.

For those shots we got towed up to like 6,500′ and I got released. Then Pablo went back down to grab Eric D., who I was in radio contact. It was so cold that day, my hands were freezing up there! But it was so beautiful. The images Scott that day were incredible, but nothing is like the real thing, being up there, with the sun setting . . . What a great excuse to go fly – Thanks Nikon!

There are already some great entries in the contest, but there aren’t a ton of them, maybe 700 right now. I’m guessing they’ll be max about 1,400 entries or so by tomorrow night, which is the deadline for submitting. There are several other hang glider pilots who are entering this contest too, so hang gliding is no longer my special weapon in these contests. The more exposure for our sport the better though.

I shot all of this with the Canon 7D and the Canon HF100, but Nikon says: “Although you’re not required to use a specific camera, your video will be judged on image quality, originality and the ability to capture a day through your lens in 140 seconds.” I hope they stick to that, otherwise I’m out of luck with using my Canon gear.

A big thanks to everyone involved. As always, my beautiful wife is so encouraging about all this and helps out so much, Scott S. for all the great filming work and taking the time to do this, Eric D. for flying with me and working hard to get the shots, Eric G. and Pablo for some great tug flying, Matt with his help on the music, Eric W. for his debut in my films as the camp counselor, and the younger me, thanks everyone!

___________

Also in the mix is an entry I was working on concurrently for a contest on Tongal.com for the microfinance organization called Kiva.org. In this one I explain how Kiva works, and there is one cool little effect I did with pictures that I like. You’ll be able to view it on Dec. 16th at Tongal.

This is a still shot from my entry into the Tongal.com Kiva contest.

I think after this holiday I will begin some courses over at fxphd.com to build up my skills a bit too. So now that all these contests are done, I just have to sit back and see if I won any of them – and, of course, shamelessly beg for votes for you all!

These are the contests I’m in right now that have yet to be decided: Kiva.org, Nikon, iChapters, Mountain Dew, and the LG Film Fest (I already know I lost the pistachio one). Since winning the HP contest, I’ve entered in 7 contest, two of which I’ve lost and the other 5 yet to be decided.

Thanks for watching!

The pictures below are taken from yesterday’s footage for an upcoming video I’m doing for the Nikon Festival, and I couldn’t be more excited about the footage and film I’m making. I just hope I can put it together correctly. For the shots from the tug I used the Canon HF100 instead of the Canon 7D because it has a greater zoom and it would be easier for Scott to handle up there, especially with gloves (see pic of the camera with the gorillapod to help balance it).

Flying above clouds is like another world. You can’t describe it really, it feels like you’re in outer space, very surreal. The experience I had yesterday just epitomizes the sport for me, what is so beautiful about it and the perspective it gives you. I had a huge grin on my face while I was flying that is still on my face – incredible! I love hang gliding! The USHPA has a new website up too, so if you’re interested in the sport it’s aimed at you, check it out: http://www.ushpa.org/

I have a ton of footage to go through so I have to get back to work! The video should be done by the 15th so stay tuned here to see it and vote for me if you like it so that I could win the Audience Award! Thanks!
-

Me, sandwiched inbetween cloud layers.

-

Sunset behind me, still above the lower layer of clouds.

-

Thought these lines were pretty.

-

Eric (above me) and I cruising through the valley.

-

Eric doing a wingover, me in the background.

-

Coming in for a landing.

-

Eric nailed his landing, right on the cone (and Xmas tree sticking out of the cone).

-

I bent the gorillapod this way to counterbalance the camera, since its screw in point is so far forward and it provided a good pistol-style grip to help stabilize shots - Scott did a great job with it, as you can see above!

-

This is from the Canon 7D this morning from it snowing last night, the dogs loved it.

-

Taken with the 7D

This is my entry into the Dewmocracy campaign. So far, people have voted on new flavors, names, and can designs. Now this last contest will pick three people to each produce a 15 second national television commercial for Mountain Dew with a budget of $200k each.

Voting begins Dec.1st and continues until Dec 13th and you will be able to vote 3 times a day:
_

Contest link: http://12seconds.tv/campaign/dewmocracy

My video link: http://12seconds.tv/v/NZMUH

I made the 3D logo in Cinema 4D and then brought it into After Effects for the particle system (the fizz). I really enjoyed creating that part, not to mention I had a great excuse to go flying. Thanks to Eric for filming that launch. I used the Canon 7D for both shots, drinking the dew and the foot launch, which was in the 720p 60fps mode so I could slow it down enough. (And that’s Scott in the background: “Nice…”)

If there’s anyone with an iPhone and is curious about an application, make a comment below, I’ll try and buy it with the iTunes gift card and post a review in the comments below.

As it stands now, I’m currently in 5 contests: LG Film Fest, Doritos, Wonderful Pistachios, Mountain Dew, and Livin Digi. I’m going to try and finish two more videos for contests that are both due in about two weeks so stay tuned for those too. That’ll put me at 7, so hopefully something will come out of one of them.

__________

A little aesthetic experiment yesterday when my new 28mm lens came in. (click for a bigger version)

Over the past two months I haven’t had a job. I’ve had to make one for myself, and it is more difficult than I thought it would be, especially with this type of work. By entering in contests there is a chance at huge pay-off, but each entry tries to bring their A-game every time so that is what I’m tasked with (but the last one I would say I brought my A-game, was the Doritos one, these other since then have just been trying to more volume to increase my chances of winning a contest). The competition continues to improve and I think if the Excedrin contest were to run today, there would be much stiffer competition to which I don’t think my video that did win, would prevail against the competition that is out there now.

I think the trick to continuing to produce work is to not get hung up on details too much, but take the advice of a helpful guy over at makecoolshit.com and just get started. Even if it’s just test shots or the real footage you’re trying to get. That has helped me out a lot when I get hung up on the creative side of things: I just get started working, taking footage, and let my mind be open to possibilities and try to remain flexible in my idea.

I also just ordered a new quad-core iMac (the i7 one) with Final Cut Pro. So I’ve finally made the decision to switch from PC to Mac, and here are the reasons:

This new quad-core looks like Mac hitting back on those PC ads where they show how much cheaper a PC is than a Mac (or see this raunchy spoof, or this classic from a convention). This new iMac is freaking cheap compared to Mac has done in the past in several ways: it has almost the exact same performance as a quad-core Mac Pro but is much cheaper and just to buy a 27″ screen (which is what this iMac is) by itself would be $900. And the main reason being Final Cut Pro. If this software was offered on a PC, I would probably stick with a PC, but Apple makes it so it’s only available for Macs. I’m also getting the same Adobe Master Collection Suite that I have been working with, but only really for Photoshop and After Effects.

I received my new 28mm f/1.8 lens in the mail today and so that’s the reason for the random circle experiment pictures. It works out closer to what a 50mm lens looks like on a regular 35mm camera, but the Canon 7D has a cropped sensor so it’s a little smaller (factor of 1.6) than a 35mm camera. I like the 50mm look because its a good general focal length since it’s close to what we see with the human eye naturally.

Other updates are I can’t wait to go see Bill Cosby this weekend and get some flying in this week for one of those videos.