PodClassTV

Online Bird Games and Quizes

2012-01-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

I've been exploring online game/quiz creator sites. Here's a couple of my first tries:knock_knock_woodpecker_game

Birds Gone Viral!

2012-01-17T11:35:00.000-08:00

Here is a compilation of viral bird videos. Please feel free to make suggestions. I am sure there are lots I haven't seen.
20 M views

8.6 M views

8.4 M views

7 M views

5.5 M views

5.1 M views

5 M views

5 M views

4.7 M views

4.4 M views

3 M views

2.7 M views

2.5 M views

1.7 M views

1.6 M views

1.6 M views

1.6 M views

1.5 M views

1.4 M views

1.3 M views

1 M views

1 M views

1 M views

1 M views

1 M views

500 K views

500 K views

400 K views

250 K views

240 K views

200 K views

100 K views

88 K views

52 K views

33 K views views

3 K views

Samsung HMX-Q10 HD Camera Package Kit Suggestion

2011-12-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

This is a decent consumer camcorder, but if you need an entire HD kit for under $300...this has worked pretty well for me. I will post some video tests soon. But for now, here's some screen grabs of the kit (the prices for the camera have come down by about $30 since I created this):

Social Media Links and a Great Infographic on Social Media and Nonprofits

2011-11-21T16:12:00.001-08:00

My social media sites:

Twitter: twitter.com/#!/podclasstv
Facebook: www.facebook.com/people/Hannah-Smith-Walker/825932941
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/smithwalker
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/smihan13/collections/
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/smithwalker13
Blogger: podclasstv.blogspot.com/
Klout: www.klout.com/#/podclasstv

One of my favorite infographics: (created by http://craigconnects.org/infographic-2)

via

QR code animal ID attempts

2011-10-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

I learned about QR codes at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. If you want to learn the basics, I wrote an article for the Festival blog. Go to: http://jhwildlifefilm.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/qr-codes-101

I am currently working on an idea about tagging wild animals with QR codes. It would be amazing if the general public could help scientists keep track of individual animals. I did a test tonight on my not-so wild animals. And I am finding that if the codes are just a little blurry or distorted, they won't read. Here are three photos that I cropped and rotated the QR Code. Only one of them would read with the QR readers. I tried several, and http://zxing.org/w/decode.jspx is the only site that would read one of the below. Can you guess which one?

1.

2.

3.

Only number 1 would read. The other two won't read, even when I photoshop to fix the distortion and increase the contrast, sharpen, etc. Does anyone know of a QR reader that will work with slightly blurry/skewed images? Or has anyone had any luck fixing QR's with photoshop?

Alpha Channels and Chroma Keys

2011-08-12T09:41:00.001-07:00

For all my test animations and test stop motions...I have been using the chroma keyer in Final Cut Pro. I use my video camera to shoot my toys in front of a green screen, then I use software I dial out the green. But, I think I can get a better key if I shoot with my still camera, then delete the green background using photoshop. It's easy to get rid of the green using the magic wand. Then you have an image with a transparent background. The trick is keeping that background transparent once you save it. The only way I knew how to do this was to make animated GIFs. These take a lot of processing power, and I gave up on that a long time ago. But I remembered something about alpha channels that might work. I am going to write it down here so I can come back if I forget. I feel like I re-invent the wheel every couple of years when it comes to some of the obscure tricks in photoshop.

The way you maintain a transparent background in Photoshop using alpha channels:
1. double click on your layer in the layer palette to unlock it
2. click the "channels" tab next to the layer tab
3. click on the "new channel" button at the bottom (this adds the alpha channel)
4. turn the eyeball on all the channel layers
5. do a "save as" and make sure the "alpha channels" button is checked
6. import into Final Cut Pro

It seems like there should be a more intuitive way to do this. I would love to hear if anyone has a simpler method.

Here's a frame grab of my alpha channel test. There is still a lot of green around the pigs, but I did not light this correctly. Once I shoot everything in the studio, there shouldn't be any green outline.

I also taught myself how to export flash movies with transparent backgrounds. To do this using Flash:
1. Have an animation ready and select "export" then "export movie"
2. Choose the save as a QuickTime format
3. Click Save
4. make sure the "Ignore stage color (generate alpha channel)" is checked
5. Click export
6. Import file into Final Cut Pro

Here's a test of this technique:

My Thesis Film

2011-08-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

Knock, Knock Game

2011-07-30T10:39:00.001-07:00

This is my first stab at making an online game.

Guess the woodpeckers by their knocks and calls
knock_knock_woodpecker_game

Contests, RSS, 3-D, and Tuna videos

2010-04-09T09:25:00.000-07:00

SmithWalker Productions is going strong. Finally caught up on all my projects. And I have several new clients. My short, silly film, P.A.W.S. (Puppies Against Waste and Squirrels) is a finalist in an EPA recycling video contest, and a PSA I made for MRWMD has been so well received, some nonprofits have donated money to buy more air time. They also want a few more versions made including one in Spanish. Should be interesting.

I've been really busy researching social media and have discovered the usefulness of RSS feeds (a RSS feed address is a url that you post into a blog or a RSS reader, then you get automatic headline updates from blogs and websites). I need to keep my eye on animal/ocean related news stories for one of my clients, so I made a blog full of RSS feeds: http://podclasstvrss.blogspot.com/

They are also getting into 3D, so I made one for that as well: http://3dsocialmedia.blogspot.com/

One of my newest clients is a marine sanctuary, so I made this blog full of marine sanctuary and Marine Protected Area RSS feeds to illustrate that they don't need to put tons hours into updating a blog. http://socialmediaideas.blogspot.com/

And lastly, I just finished editing two videos for some marine biologists. Last I heard, they are on a boat in the Galapagos giving presentations to the likes of Bonno, Leanardo di Caprio, and a dozen or so other prominent conversationalists. I hope the videos help raise money for world ocean causes.

Pigs, Awards, Marine Debris, and Kelp Plans

2010-01-18T18:10:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, CA. It was quite a festival. Very well run and lots of amazing films. My favorite was "No Impact Man". My zebra film ended up winning Best Children's Film. It also won Best Short a couple months ago from a festival in India. Here's a photo of the awards.
As for the Pig part...I have decided to redo part of my zebra film. The stop motioned toys on the timeline look too amateurish. So I am going to animate them in Flash. This will be quite an undertaking. I have to develop a character for each of the domesticated animals. But it will be good to have each animation on hand for the PodclassTV Paint With Media Page. I've started with the pig. I am trying some rotoscoping (drawing over a video). Hopefully, I can get the movement down, then go back and cartoonize the face. Here's 6 test frames. Right now, the pig is kinda scary. Check back in a couple weeks to see what materializes.
Here's what I went through to make my zebra:
Today, I worked all day on fine tuning the Monterey Regional Waste Management Marine Litter Debris PSA (public service announcement). I think it's coming along, and should be broadcast on Comcast soon.
And finally, I am going to start on a kid's kelp ecosystem film soon. I will probably shoot most of it at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I will make a kelp ballast the main animated character. More soon...

Landfills, wikipedia, stock footage, and dog parks

2009-12-19T19:06:00.000-08:00

The last few months have been full. Mark and I went to Bonaire and Portland the last part of November. Mark did 9 dives in Bonaire, and I did 13. I also shot some underwater footage with my splash bag. I really need a housing if I am going to have a chance at getting decent footage.

For work, Mark's working crazy hours at the museum and the marine lab, and I get to stay home with the dog and new kitten. Being self employed has it's benefits. But, I am working...I freelance for Sea Studios as the Associate Producer for a PBS Nature film on salmon. We are set to online in January. I have also made 5 or so videos for the Monterey Regional Waste Management District , and have begun making wikipedia pages for a local sculptor.

I have also started uploading all my best and second best footage to two stock footage houses. Naturefootage.com represents my best footage, and Pond5 houses the rest. My clips have been looked at over 2000 times on Naturefootage, and I made my first sale on Pond5 the other day.

Being inspired by my first sale, I've been out shooting for the last full two days. I shot some fearless deer at magic hour yesterday out by Salinas River, and some very pretty plastic pollution at sunset near some shorebirds. The plastic footage will work well for a marine debris PSA I am working on for the landfill.

Today, I shot at three off-the-leash dog parks. I now have some great dog footage for future PodclassTV videos and for Pond5. I am also planning on making a series of dog park virtual tours. I think I will create a new blog for this. Hopefully, it will be handy for people wanting to find all the best dog parks in central California. If it gets enough traffic, I can probably generate advertising money via AdSense or approach local vets and pet stores.

Christmas is looking like it will be very low key.

Exporting, Compressing, and Trouble Shooting Sunday

2009-10-25T23:23:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off today for a long time. I finally sat down and made myself figure out the best MPEG4 Compressor settings for my P2 HD footage (if anyone cares...I found that the 960x544 frame size with DVCPRO HD 720P 60 (16:9) pixel aspect to work the best). That's hours of mind numbing trial and error, so enjoy! I only have one gig of ram in my machine. Painful.

Anyway, I've started uploading my HD stock footage to iStockPhoto. So far I have a few otter clips and one snail on a dog bowl up. But will be adding other marine mammals, river scenics, artichokes, and oodles of zoo animals soon.

Lots of filming and film festivals

2009-10-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

I've just caught my breath from returning from Jackson Hole and Portland. It's been a great couple of weeks. The Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival was a blast as always. But this time I helped lead 4 workshops on new media and spoke on one panel. It was a good experience for me. And people seemed to like what I had to say.

After the festival, I drove to Portland and shot lots of river scenics along the way. Hopefully some of the shots will be used in a Nature film I am working on about salmon. We'll see if my producer likes them. Here's a couple sequences I put together from various creeks, streams, and rivers (Columbia, Snake, Mallad).

I also spent three days in a row shooting coho salmon on Eagle Creek (tributary off the Columbia River). It was a lot of fun and a challenge. I used an Ewa-Marine splash bag. It worked great, but it's still a challenge to use since the camera is basically in a floating plastic bag. I also filmed some dippers hunting for salmon eggs. Here's three short sequences of salmon and dippers.

Facebook advertising

2009-09-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

My SmithWalker Productions website is almost finished, so I decided to try out Facebook's advertising. A colleague of mine told me that I could advertise my Event Videography business specifically to people on Facebook near Monterey that display "engaged" statuses for a minimum of a $1 a day. So I am giving it a try.

I am also in the middle of preparing for some new media workshops, and have made a podclasstv blog on wordpress so I can teach people how to use it. So far, it's leaps and bounds better than blogger (sorry blogger). Although, for new bloggers, wordpress could be overwhelming. Blogger has less options, so probably less confusion.

Websites and Festivals

2009-09-16T21:35:00.001-07:00

I leave for the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in one week. I am busy remaking my www.smithwalkerproductions.com website and updating podclasstv. I will be on two or three new media panels, so I will also need to make a new media presentation by next week. I just ordered Leopard OS 10.5, and need to buy a screen capture program called ScreenFlow so I can make my multi-media presentation. With ScreenFlow I can record me (my computer) visiting and using some of my favorite innovative new media websites. If I try to show the audience the websites live from the web, there would be a huge chance the internet would be down or too slow. With ScreenFlow, I will be able to play a DVD of my me (my computer) visiting those websites. I will post this presentation soon.

New Media Project for local landfill

2009-09-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

I have just finished the first of 7 virtual tours for the Monterey Regional Waste Management District. The first one is on the Material Recovery Facility, where they reuse around 60% of incoming waste.
I am shooting one next week on their reuse store, the Last Chance Mercantile.

International Wildlife Film Festival

2009-05-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

Just returned from IWFF. Saw lots of great films and met some extraordinary people. The Legend of Pale Male won best of festival. I recommend seeing it if you have a chance. The original show can be found on PBS: Pale Male.

My Zebra film won a Merit Award for Scientific Value, so that was a fun experience going to the award ceremony. I also had the opportunity to see my film screen twice in front of hundreds of school children. The kids seemed to enjoy it and laughed in the right places.

I just found out today that "Why don't we ride zebras?" also won the EarthVision Environmental Film Award, Act Locally. Now, hopefully on to the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. Fingers crossed!

PodClassTV Webpage

2009-05-05T13:08:00.001-07:00

I've spent the last few months teaching myself web design and dreamweaver. I still have much more to learn. But I finally have started the real PodClassTV portal.

I have mainly worked out the look of PodClassTV. So most of the links within the site are under construction. I will be developing lesson plans and games over the coming months.

Keep checking back!

www.podclasstv.com

Successful and Funny New Media Examples

2009-04-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

This funny new media campaign helped save the Bronx Zoo's Funding.
Green Porno creates animal reproduction documentaries with a different slant.

SPCA and New Media

2009-04-11T12:54:00.000-07:00

I just signed up for the 2009 Wag n' Walk. It's a walkathon fundraiser for the Monterey SPCA. They allow "walkers" to sign up for free. They also give the "walkers" a free personalized home page to encourage friends and relatives to sponsor their walk. I think it's a great use of new media and Web 2.0. Check out Team Dink: http://wagnwalk.spcamc.org/goto/teamdink My only suggestion would be for the SPCA to take it one step further, and add options for "Wag N' Walk Walkers" to "share" their personal page with social network sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. Youtube allows users to directly "share" videos to Facebook with a click of a button.

My thesis on new media, education, and documentary

2009-03-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

My Masters thesis on new media, education, and documentary is now available online. Go to: http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/view/item.php?id=835

It is entitled "Moving Beyond Broadcast: Making a Children's Documentary for the New Media Landscape". It should prove handy for those who want a good summary of new media. It also included links to some of the best examples of educational games and new media.

Funny educational podcasts from NASA

2009-03-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

Several students from the Science and Natural History Filmmaking Graduate Program at MSU Bozeman are working for NASA. They are making some great podcasts. Ryan (aka Galilelo) was in my year. I am glad to see NASA is making good use of his sense of humor.
NASA | You're Welcome Science: Galileo's Greatest Hits from NASA Explorer on Vimeo.

Links to review of zebra film and to my thesis on new media and education

2009-03-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

It looks like my zebra film is starting to make it into some education circles. I found this blog about my film and its use in lesson plans: Joy Mullin's Technology Integration Class Blog

Also, MSU Bozeman has now published my thesis online. You can now click and download "Moving Beyond Broadcast and Traditional Pedagogy: Making a Children's Documentary for the New Media Landscape".

Trying out Doodle

2009-03-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

I am trying to keep up with web 2.0, and one of the sites I keep seeing inn the Twitterverse is Doodle. This is an online polling site. I think it would be a great way to send out party invites, poll your potential dinner guests about what they like to eat, drink, etc. But I made a simple test, asking what your favorite social network site is. Please feel free to take this random poll.

Update

2009-02-25T11:00:00.001-08:00

Well I have finished the 5 week distraction of working on a feature film. Now it's back to new media. I just filled out my volunteer application for the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco March 23rd. The admission is normally $2,000, so that's the only way I could go at this point.

I am up in San Francisco at the moment. I am hoping to get the San Francisco Zoo to sign a location agreement so I can do more with my Zebra film. I am also thinking about going over to CurrentTV to see if they do tours or if I could speak to anyone that works there. CurrentTV is really leading the way in new media, documentary, and television.

I also just withdrew my application for an education coordinator job in Gilroy. I just had my second interview, but the hours were more than I previously thought. I want to be able to go do things like volunteer for conferences, etc. It does me no good to be committed to working several hours a day 5 days a week. So I have decided to stay focused on getting PodclassTV off the ground. I am going to start designing the prototype site as soon as I get back from San Francisco.

Oh, here's a good site for new media and education: http://www.glogster.com/edu

Zebra Film on TERRA

2009-02-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

I gave permission to my Masters program in Montana to use my film for their TERRA podcast site. I just received word it had almost 10,000 hits its first week and was number 1. I am on edge waiting to hear back from 16 film festivals I entered. Here's a link to TERRA: http://www.lifeonterra.com/episode.php?id=191

Greeners and new media

2009-01-17T10:17:00.000-08:00

A fellow Greener emailed me yesterday (Greeners are people who went to the Evergreen State College) about new media brainstorming. Sounds like he might know of some interesting sites. Here's one: Jamglue.com
I wrote about remix websites in my thesis, (the user-malleable media chapter). I am in the process of applying this same kind of idea to video.

Sea Kittens

2009-01-13T21:37:00.000-08:00

Interesting interactive campaign. Design your own sea kitten by going to http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/

National Geographic Virus Documentary

2009-01-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a clip from the last film I worked on for Sea Studios. I cannot tell you how hard it was to find prairie vole stock footage. I ended up posting a want ad on a digital videography forum. Then a few months later, a filmmaker from Pronghorn Productions emailed to say he had just caught a prairie vole and shot some footage. I don't know what we would have done without the footage.

Why don't we ride zebras? Documentary

2009-01-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

Here's the final version of my film. Sorry for the watermark, but youtube has some weird policies about rights. If you read the fine print, it says that youtube kinda "owns" the rights to what is uploaded. But the watermark fixes that!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Blogging

2009-01-08T20:54:00.000-08:00

Now that I am officially done with my thesis / film, I have noticed that my blog has gotten away from its new found purpose. (It's original purpose was to get me through my thesis). Mission accomplished, but now it should serve as a resource for new media, documentary, and education. I will probably continue to sprinkle it with things going on in my life, but I am back to scouring the twitterspace and the web for useful information. Here's three gems I found today:

http://greatsites.wikispaces.com/

http://notebook.zoho.com

http://www.diigo.com/

I graduated!!!

2008-12-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

I screened "Why don't we ride zebras?" yesterday, and my committee members really seemed to like it. They also said they learned a lot from my thesis and would be using it as a reference. The defense went very smooth. It was mostly a conversation. I guess I was nervous for nothing. I am so glad I finished my film and wrote the thesis. I learned a lot, and now I am off to my next big adventure...

I have left my job at Sea Studios so I can make PodclassTV a reality. I will be working on a prototype site and a business plan in the coming months. I will also apply for some grants. On top of that, I plan on shooting a lot of stock footage, volunteering at the SPCA, and start working as a freelance videographer. I am so glad to have the Masters monkey off my back!

Update

2008-12-04T13:18:00.001-08:00

sheriff helicopter
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Heard from a few of the neighbors that there is a hostage situation in one of the homes in the Monte del Lago Park, near Castroville, California.

Incentive-based cell phones

2008-12-02T17:34:00.000-08:00

This is an amazing idea. Cell phone usage tied to students' performance in school.

For more on this visit http://www.droga5.com/ and http://www.edlabs.harvard.edu/

Great animation with conservation message

2008-11-26T11:21:00.001-08:00

My first cartoon strip

2008-11-25T19:52:00.001-08:00

Today, I found a website that is the closest thing to what I have envisioned for Podclasstv. Check out www.toondoo.com
I was just telling Mark about my ideas for podclasstv a couple days ago...and here they are on toondoo, but they are customizable cartoon stips, instead of customizable documentaries. I want to create my site with documentaries without animations...Think of my zebra film without the animation. What if kids could select the animations like they select characters and backgrounds from the palettes on toondoo. I am very excited by this toodoo website and a little frustrated. I want to create a children's participatory documentary website, but I fear someone will or has beaten me to it.

But, it was fun making the comic strip.

Children's Documentary

2008-11-18T17:17:00.000-08:00

I was doing some research today on fun kid's films, and I ran across a couple clips from a kid's doc called "The Riddle in a Bottle". I have actually met this brother/sister children's documentary duo (Sisbro Studios) a while back at one of the wildlife film festivals.

I love how they use music. Here's a clip from another of their films, "Lost in the Woods":

Thesis outline

2008-11-13T08:41:00.000-08:00

Here's my rough thesis outline.

Moving Beyond Broadcast: Making a Children's Documentary for the New Media Landscape

I. Introduction
a. Background “Why don’t we ride zebras”
b. My Trials and Tribulations with New Media

II. New Media
a. Definition of New Media
i. History of New Media
ii. Old vs. New Media
b. New Media Today
i. Successful Sites
1. FreeRice.com
2. World Without Oil
ii. The Future of New Media
1. Interactivity
2. Virtual Reality
3. Convergent Culture

III. How Children Learn
a. School
i. History
ii. Innovations
iii. Challenges
1. Education Standards
2. No Child Left Behind
b. Children’s Television
i. History
1. Winky Dink
2. Sesame Steet
ii. Learning from TV
1. Blue’s Clues
iii. Studies on the Effect of TV on Children
c. Internet
i. Social Networks
ii. Blogging
d. Video Game
i. Traditional Video Games
ii. Online games
iii. Mobile games
iv. Educational games

IV. Moving Beyond Broadcast
a. History of Imagery
b. Traditional Documentary Model with Outreach
c. Emerging Interactive Model

V. My Ideal Vision for my Zebra Film
a. Interactive Documentary/Website
i. Children insert their own vision into the video
1. create music
2. create animation
3. add footage
4. edit online
5. green screen
ii. Combine learning with a video game that creates social awareness
1. Kid’s win animal kibble to donate to animal shelters as they answer questions correctly
b. Education
i. Lesson plans co-inside with education standards
ii. Develop supplemental materials for learning science outside of school
1. girl scouts
2. after school programs
3. pre school

VI. What the Future Could Hold for New Media and Documentary

Sorry for the lack of formatting. When I finish my masters, one of the things I want to do is learn HTML.

Other things on the top of my list:
1. Incorporate SmithWalker Productions and create a website outlining our services (videography, editing, web design, animation, still photography, new media museum/non profit consulting, and science web writing.
2. Start shooting and selling stock HD footage
3. Find programmer and educator to help make my thesis ideas a reality
4. Make my next kid's film for PodclassTV on primates
5. Make a film for CurrentTV on cell phones
6. Learn Flash Action Scripts

Predicting the next 5,000 days of the Web video

2008-11-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

This is a video from a TED conference. Pretty mind-blowing ideas.

New Media Book List, Thesis Titles, and Montana

2008-11-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

I bought my plane ticket today. I do my defense in Bozeman on December 15th. I better get writing! But I have to decide on a thesis first. I need a thesis that encompasses new media, outreach, science, interactivity, documentary, the making of my zebra film, video games, and children's education. Here's a few thesis titles I have come up with:

1. "From Broadcast to Podcast: The Evolution of New Media and Documentary"

2. "New Media: Is it a new technology? Is it a new mode? Or is it the future of documentary?"

3. "Moving Beyond Broadcast, Making Outreach and Interactivity Core to Nonfiction Filmmaking"

4. "What's black and white, and interactive all over? A new media film on zebras."

5. "Moving Beyond Broadcast: Making a Children's Film for the New Media Landscape"

I am leaning towards 3 or 5.

A few books arrived today from the Amazon fairy. Hopefully they will help me hone in my thesis.

Children's Learning From Education: Sesame Street and Beyond

Good Video Games plus Good Learning

Education: The Emperor's New Clothes

The Unfinished Quest: The Plight of Progressive Science Education in the Age of Standards

Free-Choice Science Education: How We Learn Outside of School

Children, Adolescents, and the Media

Unfortunately, the more I read, the more I end up having to revise my thesis topic because I want to include yet another seemingly non-related item.

Web research

2008-11-07T22:03:00.000-08:00

Doing a bit of research tonight.

Interesting things I have found:

1. The ASPCA
They have fabulous lesson plans for teachers on animals (I think this will come in handy for my thesis)
http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=edu_lessonplans

Fun interactive game called "Woof'
http://www.aspca.org/doghouse/main.html

They List Bad Video Games for Animals
Acclaim’s Fur Fighters
Sony’s Ape Escape 2
Sunstorm Interactive’s Deer Hunter

Questionable Animal Video Games
Microsoft’s popular Zoo Tycoon (they are worried that kids will think that animals are happy in aquariums or zoos)

2. Freepoverty.com

This website donates water as you learn geography. One thing that was odd, the water non-profit they were donating to (WaterAid), asked them to stop because the "cup of water metaphor" was not sustainable enough. That blows my mind, a nonprofit turning money down. Talk about a gift horse.

I emailed my bosses suggesting we offer to make the Freepoverty.com a "water documentary". I am sure we could embrace the "cup of water" metaphor.

New animations

2008-11-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

For all those that demanded the return of Mark's "Eanie Meanie" song, here goes! I don't have this section perfect yet. But it is to time. Now my composer can start creating the music.

Goodnight!

Alaska Halibut Fishery film

2008-11-03T14:48:00.001-08:00

The Catch Share film we made for the Environmental Defense Fund has been a great success. They are using it to educate policy makers about Catch Shares (a fishery management tool).

This is the first time Sea Studios has included my footage in the final product. I shot all of the non-archival halibut fishing with my Sony HDV camera. Mark and I are thinking of buying a Panasonic HD camera so I can start getting paid to shoot. Plus we can sell HD stock footage.

Why don't we ride zebras

2008-10-27T22:04:00.001-07:00

Why don't we ride zebras
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Here's the intro to my kid's film with professional narration. I still need to have the music composed, but I am close to finishing.

MicroDocs and Comps

2008-10-10T16:18:00.001-07:00

Wow time flies. Mark met his deadline of getting the MicroDoc website live. Go to: http://www.stanford.edu/group/microdocs/ and explore the world of corals. As for me, the week of my comps has arrived. I will be studying like mad woman this week. I have taken off from Sea Studios so I can focus. I will get three theory questions on Friday. I have until Monday to answer them in the most verbose way as possible. I will have to reference who knows how many of the 50 books, 50 articles, and 50 documentaries.

I am looking forward to getting to watch something entertaining again. In the last couple weeks I have watched:

Primary (one of first films with portable sync sound about JFK and Hubert Humphrey's Primary)
-Why we Fight (propaganda film about Russia)
-3 Errol Morris films (one about a pet cemetery, one about bumpkins in Florida, and one about a man possibly being falsely accused of murder)
-2 films on Bob Dillon
-9/11 (shot from inside the towers)
-Man with a Movie Camera (experimental film commenting on true cinema)
-Silverlake Life (a film about two men dying of aids)
-4 Mark Lewis films (one on rat natural history and the other three on cow, cat, and ferret breeders)
-Ghosts of the Abyss (Titanic documentary)
-Microcosmos (macro cinematography of bugs)
-Winky Dink and You (first interactive TV show)
-This is Spinal Tap (mockumentary on a fake band)
-Battle of Algiers (fiction film based on the Algerian Independence shot documentary style)
-Sweetback's Baaad Assss Song (not sure why I had to watch this. It was a fiction film about a black man in the sex industry who shot a cop and was hunted by the man. Apparently, it was the first 'blaxploitation' film. It was made and distributed with wide success without the help of white Hollywood. You tell me, what does this have to do with science and natural history filmmaking?)
-Animlas: Friend of Food (film about an idealist new farmer who wants to raise, love, kill, and eat his animals. He kills a bunny, lamb, and pig. But he can't bring himself to kill the cow. So he decides that he can't give up meat, but he cannot personally kill the animals either. So he sends the cow to the slaughter house.)
-Hearts and Minds (documentary on the Vietnam War)

Don't vote.

2008-10-05T15:15:00.000-07:00

I really like this video because of the reverse psychology and psuedo interactivity. Hopefully this video will reach a few people who thought they shouldn't bother to vote.

Governor Palin

2008-10-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

Just watched the VP debates. I am truly frightened. Sarah Palin came across not as crazy (as she really is). I wish she would have shown her true stripes. And I wish I could have her advisors helping me study for my comps. I would absolutely ace my comps if I had a team of wanky researchers researching every possible response to possible theory questions.

I thought Biden did well enough. He's good on climate and on foreign policy. But he isn't cute enough for the average super conservative.

But tonight, I found out my neighbors, who were pro Hillary and who have alternative lifestylesare are now pro Palin/McCain. Very scary. Sorry to bring politics into my blog. But if McCain wins the election, then dies, then Sarah Palin would become president. She would bring her religion and naivety full front and center. Say goodbye to science education and to a woman's right to choose. Let's not even begin to think about the countries we would continue to alienate and countries she (we) could possibly nuke (and be nuked by). Very, very scary. Do we really want someone who has a hand on the controls who believes dinosaurs walked the earth with humans 6000 years ago? I say, HELL NO. Please, please HELL NO.

Here's a few new media clips I have enjoyed over the last weeks.

The LA Times has confirmed she believes humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, which is part of the young earth creationism belief that the planet is approximately 6,000 years old. (See Related Links for the article.) For someone who believes the planet was created 6 or even 10 thousand years ago, it wouldn't be unreasonable to also believe some dinosaurs still existed 2 to 6 thousand years later.

Quote from LA Times: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_Sarah_Palin_believe_that_dinosaurs_were_alive_4000_years_ago

Here's the Katie Couric interview:

(look at the interview about 2 minutes in).

Saturday Night Live sketch...youtube (the powers that be) won't let me imbed the clip. Please copy and paste this link below into a new window:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r36Xc0GG4iQ) It's frightening how the Saturday Night Live sketch is almost word for word..

Here's a great clip of what a Sarah Palin sitcom would look like:
College Humor's "Head of Skate Clip"

A couple of great videos.

2008-09-26T13:12:00.000-07:00

I saw this funny, well done video at the Web 2.0 Conference

and this is a fabulous animation and story...

StrangePods

2008-09-25T08:36:00.001-07:00

Plastic Plague:
Far out at sea and deep in the nation's heartland, experts are discovering the disturbing consequences of a hitchhiker in our waters---plastic. On the remote islands in the Pacific, a team of researchers is trying to solve the mystery of why albatross chicks with full bellies are starving. Many miles away another team is finding more plastic than plankton in giant garbage patch of ocean called the North Pacific Gyre. Could these two events be related?

Grilled, Baked, Boiled, Fried?
While some scientists work to conserve massive tracts of ocean, others, like Brian O'Hanlon, hope to reduce fishing pressures by tending fish like ranchers tend livestock. O'Hanlon is creating space-age aquapods in Puerto Rico--raising fish offshore where waste is easily diluted by strong currents, unlike many inshore fish farms. In the foggy reaches of New Brunswick Canada, another biologist, Thierry Chopin, is conducting a novel experiment--building ecosystems of salmon, mussels and kelp in hopes of creating a lucrative, environmentally friendly fish farm. Can we reduce fishing pressures, restore fish stocks and protect ocean habitats in time to safeguard the health of life in the sea, on land, and ultimately, ourselves?

Dangerous Catch:
It's become increasingly clear that our massive demands on the ocean are impacting life far beyond the shoreline including Earth's own life support systems. In the West African nation of Ghana, olive baboons are ransacking crops and terrorizing villagers. Biologist Justin Brashares and his team have come to survey antelope, and find that antelope numbers have plummeted along with large animals like lions and leopards that used to keep olive baboon numbers in check. Brashares discovers a shocking link—the month to month hunting pressures on Ghana's bushmeat increases in direct proportion to fish supplies. Could overfishing and bushmeat trading be related?

Poisoned Waters:
Our insatiable demand for seafood affects more than just life in the ocean. Bizarre and often unpredictable effects are rippling out far beyond the shoreline; off the coast of Namibia, a once vibrant fishing community is struggling to recover while putrid fumes rise from the ocean depths, causing townspeople to gag and carpeting the beaches in dead fish. Ecologist Bronwen Currie is working with satellite oceanographer Scarla Weeks and biologist Andrew Bakun to understand what's behind these phenomena. Through dogged sleuthing, the team reveals these stench events are orders of magnitude larger than ever imagined, and may be influenced by the over-fishing of a small silver fish. Could these events really be caused by a massive shortage of sardines?

Web 2.0 Experience

2008-09-20T04:07:00.000-07:00

Well I just finished a week of wall to wall technology sessions. Much of it was way over my head. But I was able to gleam a lot of useful information. I also led a group talk on interactivity and education. And one of people that came for the talk started a wiki for all of us to add to in the coming months. Here's a link to the wiki: kidslearning2.0 Wiki

I am pretty exhausted. I don't recommend staying in a hostel dorm with 5 other people if you are expected to stay awake through hours of talks on different coding technologies like Java, CSS, and APEX.

I wrote out a quick list of some of the things I learned. I need to add to it when I have some of my mental capacities back.

1. video games are happening in the browser...soon won't need to download or buy console games
- Instant Action
- Maple Story
- Club Penguin
- webkinz
- sodaplay
2. forget about downloading, there's technology to edit online
- jumpcut
- adobe premiere express
3. make podclasstv a game with a clear objective
- make it so kids get to show how clever they are
- make it so they can "level up"
4. Web 2.0 is way over my head
5. there are multiple layers of coding/systems that go into creating webpages
a. html, java, ajex, c++, actionscripts, sdk, linux, perl, css, api’s, open source
6. I might be able to learn Flash action scripts without getting a degree in programming, but should probably start with html
7. Good New Media content providers
- revision3
- nextnewnetworks
- collegehumor
8. cloud computing is the future
9. Korea has great broadband infrastructure but America's is terrible
10. the Maori are getting a piece of the New Zealand spectrum
11. the spectrum in the US will probably free up once TV’s go digital
12. video needs massive amounts of bandwidth
13. iphone doesn’t do flash
14. Ubiquitous is the word of the day at Web2.0
15. Mark is a "content strategist"
16. people are making scaled down websites to work on mobile phones
17. TechCrunch
18. technology-user bell curve starts with "technophiles" and "early adopters"
19. never stay in a hostel

Great stop-motion

2008-09-11T22:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.animalssavetheplanet.com/

Web 2.0 Conference

2008-09-11T21:50:00.001-07:00

I leave on Monday for the Web 2.0 Conference in New York. I hope to learn more about new media and interactivity. I will be writing my thesis on audience interactivity in new media. I am looking forward to talking with people about my ideas.

Here's the website's address:
http://en.oreilly.com/webexny2008/public/content/home

I submitted a "Birds of a Feather" proposal to the conference entitled: Creating Interactive Educational Content: Who, What, When, Where, and How?

If my proposal is approved, then it will be advertised at the conference and like-minded individuals should show up. I think the chance for this was worth the price of the conference alone.

StrangePods

2008-09-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

The Strange Days on Planet Earth podcasts are now available on iTunes for free. Go to:
http://seastudios.org/strangepods.php

Web 2.0 and interactivity links

2008-09-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

Great video explaining Web 2.0

I am off to the New York Web 2.0 Conference on September 16th. Check it out: http://en.oreilly.com/webexny2008/public/content/home

Spore, a much anticipated video game has just been released. The game is loosely based on theories of evolution, but it's a huge step towards creating interactive science media for the masses.
Spore's official website: http://www.spore.com/

Interactive Social Media Game about the World Without Oil

Stock Footage Research Links

2008-09-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

Best Online Science and Natural History Stock Footage Databases: *based on user-friendly interfaces and the ability to download and view offline clips

BBC Motion Gallery includes CBS, NHK

Absolutely Wild Visuals

ArtBeats

All-Stock

CBC

Silverman Stock Footage

Stormstock

AlwaysHD

Other Fabulous Science and Natural History Sources:

National Geographic Digital Motion

Howard Hall Productions

Landis Wildlife Films

Best Budget Stock Footage Sources:

iStockPhoto

FotoSearch

ShutterStock

Pond5

News/Hollywood Stock Sources:

ABC News Source includes APTN, WTN and British MovieTone

CNN Image Source

ITN Source includes Reuters, FOX News, Channel 4, Granada Wild, Survival Anglia, Partridge

Sony Pictures

Ina Media Pro

Archive Film Stock Sources:

F.I.L.M Archives

American Museum of Natural History Archive

Journeyman Pictures

Historic Films

Misc. Stock Footage Houses:

Fish Film Footage World

Footagefinders

Greg Hensley Productions

Third Millennium Films

Video Tape Library LTD

News and Information for the Stock and Archival Footage Industry:

footage.info

I would love to get feedback about this list. Please let me know if you think I have left out any good stock vendors. And tell me your favorite stock house.

As for my favorite, for general searches I like the BBC the best. They have the widest range of downloadable footage and the best quality. Unfortunately they are the most expensive and don't bend much on clip minimums.

As for customer service and price breaks, I prefer going straight to the production companies themselves.

Wow, what a couple of weeks

2008-08-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

Lots of good news...I am back in the MFA program. I had a huge epiphany, and finally came up with my thesis idea. The idea was so right on, that my previous committee chair agreed to stay on as my chair. That was huge! And the EDF fishery film for Sea Studios came in on time and under budget.

It is going to be one hell of a semester. I have to work full time (for most of the semester), finish my film, my thesis, my defense, and my comps by the middle of December. I have scheduled out my time to the T. There will be no time for procrastination. But, the good part of that is that I will have this master monkey off my back sooner than I thought.

This weekend I am auditioning voice over actors and composers. Then I will have a couple weeks to turn in my fine cut. Then I move on to my thesis paper. I am proposing a new mode of documentary called Audience Interactivity. This mode won't be perfected until interactive media technology can catch up (ie. video games, interactive tv, etc). But I am going to write about what is being tried. I am also going to use the zebra film as an experiment at interactivity for school kids. I will probably film the kids acting out scenes or moving the toys around to make their own film. Then edit something together for them to be able to download and show their parents how they interacted with a Zebra documentary.

I will be taking a little over 6 weeks off total from work. My bosses are pretty supportive. I will take one week of in Sept and one in October to get most of my thesis ideas flushed out. I will be working on it nights and weekends as well. Then, come the middle of Nov, I will take a month off to finish the paper and to dive in to intensive study for my comps. I bought about $500 worth of books last night off of Amazon. The book list is huge! Luckily, I already had about half the books. If I fail the comps once, I get one more chance. If I were to fail twice, then all of my work would have been in vane. They don't let you graduate if you fail more than twice. The same criteria goes for the Defense. So I need to study my ass off!

But, you wouldn't believe how wanky and verbose these books are. They are one of the only things that can cure insomnia.

But anyway, I will have to use close pins to keep my eyes open and make sure I have several solid weeks to write mock essays. Won't that be a hoot!

I will fly to Montana early December to take my Comps and sit for my defense. By then my film and thesis will have to completely done and approved.

Wish me luck!

Blog entry about my Sitka trip

2008-08-18T15:29:00.001-07:00

I wrote this a few weeks ago for the Sea Studios blog:
We just returned from a week shoot in Alaska. We went up there to tell a success story about the halibut fishery. It was quite an amazing trip. The landscape and people were wonderful. I went up a few days early before our director and camera/sound crew arrived to do some scouting and to meet the fishermen/women and fish processors in person.

Prior to our arrival, we had a hard time getting fishermen and fisherwomen to commit to interviews and fishing trips over the phone. So I hit the ground running. My job was to find as many halibut fishers as possible. But I also needed to find someone to take us out on a boat so we could film halibut fishing. This was not so easy. It was salmon season, and the majority of boats were focusing on salmon. Plus the weather looked like it was going to get really bad by the time the crew arrived. So I lucked out and found a boat called the Kathleen Jo heading out for a two-day halibut trip. I did some fast-talking, and within an hour I was on board heading out to sea with two kind fishermen.
I had brought my HDV video camera and a tripod. I am not sure why I bothered to bring the tripod. It was completely useless on a boat. I ended up getting some nice footage of the fishermen setting three sets of long-line gear. I got a little nauseous, but managed to keep all my cookies to myself. It’s hard to keep your balance, look through a viewfinder, and not get seasick. By the second day I had my sea legs and filmed the fishermen catching halibut without feeling like I might need to find the leeward side of the boat. They only caught about 30 halibut, but that was plenty for me to film. They said it was the worst catch they had ever had. But 30 halibut ended up being over 600 pounds. They caught twice the pounds of yelloweye. It’s a kind of orange rockfish. The fishermen said yelloweye is actually tastier than halibut.

By the middle of the second day, the weather report was calling for gale force winds, so we headed back to Sitka. The director, Rob Whittlesey and the cameraman, Harry Dawson, met me at the dock. Later we met up with our sound mixer, Phillip Powell and went out for the first of many fabulous seafood meals.

The next day we went to a fish processor and filmed several boats offloading their halibut catches.

Since the weather turned bad, it had chased all the fishing boats back to port. So we had lots to film. And what’s more, the weather was going to stay bad, which meant we were able to interview the fishermen/women of Sitka. If the sun had come out, we would have been out of luck.

All in all, the shoot went very smooth and we got the footage we hoped for! Click HERE to see all the photos from the shoot.

Great Animated Song about Galapagos

2008-08-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

A friend of Mark's sent me this the other day. This is exactly the kind of stuff I think works great for very young kids. It's fun, short, and repetitive.
Here's the website for the company that made this: http://www.biggreenrabbit.com/bgrvideos.html

Pebble Beach Car Shot Shoot

2008-08-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't get any of the greenscreening done this weekend. You see, a friend of mine made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He asked me to AC and do sound for him at a car show. He had a client that needed a crew last minute, so needless to say...the day rate was very good. Oh, and a quick disclaimer...I didn't have my real camera with me, so all these pictures are were taken with my iPhone. I am not much for car shows or cars in general. I usually only think of cars as tools to get you from A to B. But these people loved their cars probably more than anything else on the planet. They were selling anywhere from $100,000 to $8 million. Most were very old, extremely rare, and expertly restored. This was not a car show for the average Jo. Only people who could afford the $250 ticket could get in. Plus you had to be a bidder to be invited to the auctions. We were hired by a man named Simon Kidston. He is an antique car collector/dealer/expert/auctioneer. He owns a company in Switzerland that helps the elite make wise choices when it comes to buying fine collectible cars. He bid 4 million dollars for one of his clients our first night. But someone ended up outbidding his client. I can't imagine what Simon's commission would have been.

Most of the show took place at Pebble Beach, so it was quite a site to see so many beautiful cars lined up all over the green. There were a few stars there as well...Jay Leno, Jerry Sienfeld, Stirling Moss (famous race car driver from the 40's and 50's), and Leslie Keno (one of the furniture expert twins from Antique Roadshow). There was one more star that I recognized, but couldn't figure out who he was. It was driving me crazy. But I just looked him up...his name is Edward Herrmann. He's been in lots of shows and movies. He's usually a co-star. I remember him best as the drunk, rich husband in "Overboard".

(I didn't take the picture of Edward Hermann and Jay Leno is in the photo with the blue car)

On the second day, I came down with a bad cold with fever, but I had to suck it up. The shoot itself wasn't that difficult, but the shoot days were very long (14 hour days). Fortunately, the client was nice so that made it easier. I am still not entirely sure what he is using the video for. I think it's for marketing and maybe for his company's website. I found one video he did on his website. Go to: http://www.kidston.com/kidston-movies/kidston-sa-video-presentation

Here's the winner of 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance

Oregon Road Trip

2008-08-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

Jessie and I drove 10 hours to Portland the other night to see our college friends, Nicole and Cara. We've had a lot of fun catching up. Normally we do a girl's weekend and hit the bars pretty hard, but I think we are finally growing up. We actually did a few more productive activities than usual and even let a boy tag along. Nicole's husband Rick has been great. I wish Mark could have come.

Yesterday we hiked in Mt Hood National Forest and went to Oak's Park amusement park. I can't believe how much fun we had riding rides and playing games. Then we went out to eat at the Delta Cafe. We all had great meals, but I was in absolute heaven. It was all southern food. I had an entire plate of fried okra and garlic cheese grits.

Sunday

2008-08-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I borrowed a bunch of equipment from a friend from work. He set me up with green screen cloth, lights, stands, clamps, and a gobo arm. It was a bit of an overkill for my small toys. But the lighting gear should provide the even light I need to pull a good key. I was hoping to have all the green screening done this weekend...but it didn't happen.

Yesterday was a no go, but today I managed to find the motivation to move my furniture around, set up all the lights, lay out the green screen fabric, and get the camera ready. Unfortunately, I was missing one key piece of equipment...a cable release. All that effort for nothing. Just pushing the shutter button added a slight motion blur and changed each shot slightly, so the stop motion looked terrible.
I ended up calling my dad. He also has a digital Canon SLR. He loaned me his macro lens last time I came to visit, and now he is going to loan me his cable release. I will make sure he gets a big special thanks in the film! I am lucky to have two parents who are photographers. Even my step-mom is picking up the photo bug...especially since she has a new grand baby to photograph.

I was a little bummed that the green screen effort didn't pay off, but my cat, Lolly helped cheer me up. She let me harass her with my camera. I took a bunch of weird angle shots of her under my hammock. Some came out pretty cool. This is the longest time she has let me photograph her since I used her for my senior photography project at Evergreen about 7 years ago. Usually, I only get a few shots off before she gets annoyed and leaves. So it was nice of her to put up with me today.

Mark pretty much entertained himself today, with his new gi-normous chop saw.

Sitka Russian Church

2008-07-28T23:27:00.005-07:00

The Russians colonized Sitka, then sold to the USA after they killed all the sea otters and other furry animals.

Sitka Russian Church2
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Sitka scenery

2008-07-28T23:27:00.003-07:00

Sitka scenery2
Originally uploaded by smihan13

bald eagle

2008-07-28T23:27:00.001-07:00

bald eagle
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Halibut Net

2008-07-28T23:26:00.003-07:00

Halibut Net
Originally uploaded by smihan13

a couple hundred pounds of halibut

Halibut haul

2008-07-28T23:26:00.001-07:00

Halibut haul
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Alaska Fish Processing Shoot

2008-07-28T23:25:00.001-07:00

Alaska Fish Processing Shoot
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Harry our camerman

2008-07-28T23:24:00.005-07:00

Harry
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Sitka

2008-07-28T23:24:00.003-07:00

sitka22
Originally uploaded by smihan13

bumpersticker

2008-07-28T23:24:00.001-07:00

bumpersticker
Originally uploaded by smihan13

The commercial fishermen were very angry with the charter fishermen.

Sitka shoot with Harry and Rob

2008-07-28T23:23:00.001-07:00

filming3
Originally uploaded by smihan13

Sitka harbor

2008-07-28T23:22:00.003-07:00

sitka29
Originally uploaded by smihan13

jeff and scotty

2008-07-28T23:22:00.001-07:00

jeff and scotty
Originally uploaded by smihan13

These are the guys who took me fishing for a couple days. Jeff lives on the boat with his wife and baby daughter.

Fisherman's Greener daughter

2008-07-28T23:20:00.001-07:00

nora3
Originally uploaded by smihan13

She's a senior at Evergreen

Yuck!

2008-07-16T21:31:00.000-07:00

I finally had a bit of time to work on the film. I want to send a newer rough cut to the Vice Provost of MSU. I have written him a letter to ask to be let back in the program. I let my consecutive enrollment slip by a couple years. I explained why in my letter. I am hoping he will take a look at my rough cut to see I haven't been sitting on my hands.

As for this part of the film.. I wanted to film a dog with a bad taste in it's mouth, but none of my neighbors were out walking their dogs tonight, so I downloaded some pictures from Flickr instead.

Oh, and take a look on iTunes...do a search for "Strange Days on Planet Earth" in the iTunes store. The podcasts I have been working on were number 1 on the iTunes Podcast store yesterday. They are free to download. It was quite a big deal for them to top the charts and to be advertised on the first page of iTunes.

Flickr and sea lions

2008-07-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

It's funny, even after making the sea lion film...I seem to still be doing sea lion advocacy of some sort. On two different occasions now, people have approached me and asked to use some of my sea lion photos. I have posted hundreds of different kinds of photos to Flickr, but only the sea lion photos have been put to other uses.

For example, my San Francisco Pier 39 photo of sea lions is used in Schmaps:

And a photo of Moss Landing sea lions is being used for a NOAA tourist sign (my image is on the bottom far right):

Working on two film project (3 if you count my thesis film)

2008-07-12T22:24:00.000-07:00

No new animations this weekend. I am doing a bunch to prepare for the shoot in Alaska, and doing some research for a virus film. But here's a blog I have made for the virus film:
http://virusfilmlinks.blogspot.com/

I started making a word document with all this virus info to share with my boss, but I thought I would try posting everything to a blog so he can access it from his iphone.

Speaking of iphones, Mark and I bought ours today. Of course they were sold out, but hopefully it will arrive before i go to Alaska next Monday.

Sunday

2008-07-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

Here's the fruits of today's labors. It will sure be nice be let out into the light again when this is done!

Lots of new animation

2008-07-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days, but I have been hard at it. Here's 3 new animations. I think I will be done with all the 2-d animation by the end of the month! I still need to re-shoot the stop-motioned toys, but it's nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Last night, Mark and I went to a friend's house for dinner and a tutorial lesson. My friend is an editor, so I am helping her learn DVD studio pro so she can get her reel out. I also had the chance to show my film to her kids. They range in ages 6-12, so it was nice to see and gage their reactions. They all seemed to really like it. But I could tell there were a few slow and confusing places. I am working on ironing those spots out.

My favorite!

2008-06-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

I would love to make kid's films that are this funny! This is a series of podcasts done in Flash called "Making Fiends". They are all about a sickly sweet little girl named Charlotte who starts at a new school that is being controlled by an evil little girl named Vendetta. She makes "fiends" to control her teacher and other students. But the new girl in school, Charlotte just loves Vendetta and her fiends. And this of course drives Vendetta crazy, so she makes more fiends to dispose of Charlotte. There are about 20 episodes. I would suggest starting with the first one. Go to: http://makingfiends.com/

Here's is one of the last episodes. It's the only one I was able to find that I could embed. The woman who created these recently sold the series to Nickelodeon. The new episodes are supposed to air on Nickelodeon this year, but not sure when.
[Upload your own video]

Meet my dog

2008-06-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got his eyes and ears moving independently. That was driving me crazy yesterday!

Zebra chase and another surge

2008-06-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

Well we had another huge surge this weekend. Luckily, I unplugged the computers right before the big one hit. It fried the cable box. I have never seen so much smoke come out of plastic. Two TV's down, none left to go.

We hired an electrician to make an emergency house call Saturday. He put some kind of surge protector on the outside of the house so if anything weird starts to happen, the breaker will blow and cut power to the house. He said that somehow a 220 volt current came through the outlet to fry the interior surge protector, TV, cable box, DVD, and VHS. He is still not sure what is causing all this. I think we will have to hire him to do a full day investigation.

In the meantime, we bought some heavy duty battery back-up surge protectors for the computers. They weren't cheap, but hopefully they will do a better job than the surge protectors we had.

Well here's what I managed to get done this weekend. I still need to animate the dog to turn his head toward the caveman.

Learning to manipulate keyframes within keyframes

2008-06-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have mostly worked on tutorials this week. The minutia involved in animating expressions and mouth positions can be tedious. But they are also extremely finicky. You have to double click holding down shift, touch your nose and count backwards for it to work sometimes. Last night I tried to do a simple test animation of the zebra having a few facial expressions. I couldn't get it to work. So I finally went to bed. I don't know what I did different tonight, but it worked. Here's my zebra walking and moving some facial features.

Mark, the singing caveman

2008-06-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

I spent the rest of the day watching more Flash tutorials. Here's my first attempt syncing cartoon mouthes to audio files. Mark makes a great caveman!

Caveman sits on a log and waits

2008-06-22T16:27:00.000-07:00

Here's an animation for my elephant scene. Going to take a break then do a "how to animate" faces tutorial. I had to stumble through making this animation. I wanted his mouth to be closed but his eyebrows to move. I think the tutorial will help.

Zebras and thunderstorms

2008-06-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I got a nice break this afternoon. A couple hours of freak thunderstorms allowed me to step away from the computer and do some much needed house work. Mark and I unplugged all electronics just in case. The last thing we needed was another surge.

But I went back to work this evening and managed to animate the ending to my film. I still need to animate the zebra's mouth biting the caveman's hand better. But I am happy that I was able to animate this so quickly. I am definitely becoming more comfortable with flash.

Oh, cool little trick...I bought a bendable wood figure to help me draw and position my caveman. Here's a frame grab and the clip:

Chroma key vs using alpha channels

2008-06-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

Rough Cut Feedback

2008-06-19T20:16:00.000-07:00

Yeah! One of my instructors really likes my rough cut. (I haven't heard back from the other three). The one I heard from said I was on the right path and only needed to finesse the script and do the real animations. That's the best news I have heard in a long time. He even mentioned he would like to use my film on TerraPod and that I could be paid.

If two of the three other faculty like my film well enough to join my committee, I am on my way to finishing up my masters. Fingers crossed!

kitchen scene

2008-06-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

I bought another character pack from cartoonsolutions. It's for my final scene where I talk about how someone forgot to include the sugar when the zebra was made. I did actually do the drawings for the salt, sugar, and bowl. The bowl and sugar need work. But I am happy with the salt. Eventually I will animate the mom putting salt into the bowl instead of sugar.

Vacation Surge

2008-06-16T21:07:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am...in my own bed, with my cat curled in my arm. It's nice to be home. Had a great vacation seeing my folks and friends. I showed my rough cut to everybody. It definitely needs a lot of script work. Everyone liked the ideas and animation. But I need to work on the structure so the 7 domesticity traits are clearer. Hopefully that will give the end more oomph. I sent 4 copies to professors in Montana. We'll see if I hear anything back. I may have to fly up there to remind people I am still alive.

During our 12-day, Oklahoma extravaganza, we went to Tahlequah to float the river, went to Grand Lake to go houseboating, fishing, and seadooing, went to Tulsa to take the godkids swimming, bowling, and to the drive-in, and then we went to Lake Tenkiller, El Reno, and the OKC Zoo/Omniplex. We were never bored. It was nice to get to spend a few days with everyone this time. I especially had fun shooting pictures with both my photographer parents. I even had time to teach my step-mom the joys of uploading and emailing photos.

On the plane ride home, I read an inspiring book called "Rebel Without a Crew" about a student filmmaker that made a feature film by himself over a summer and only spent $7000. Then he turned around a sold it for gobs of money and became a big player Hollywood. Not exactly what I want to do, but I am making a low/no budget kid's film, and I know that if I can only coax this film out of my head the way I am envisioning it, it could take the festivals and kids by storm.

With the inspiration from the book, I had hoped to come home and delve immediately back into the film. But it turns out Mark and I didn't have a very fun home-coming. Half the power was out when we got home. We had to trash all the food in the fridge. It reminded me of the many times the power went out when I lived in an old garage apartment. I can't count the times the food went bad and had to throw everything out.

Anyway, back to today...it also turns out several of our new "smart" strip surge protectors blew. And now our TV is fried. I am bummed. We bought it for my last birthday. Now we are back to squinting at my old TV. But at least we had the sense to unplug my G5. I don't think I could handle loosing my thesis film files again.

Hopefully I can get back on track once I get an electrician in tomorrow. Until then, I am afraid to plug the G5 in.

Finished the rough cut!

2008-06-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

I just finished making a bunch of DVDs to send to my professors in Montana. Feels good to have that off my back. Now I can head home for my vacation without that worry. We'll see if we can cope with an Oklahoma summer.

Here's a screen grab of the DVD menu. I did two compressions exactly the same way. For some reason the nested version that had the timecode generator filter... did wacky/terrible things to the resolution. Anyone know why? I didn't have time to figure out why, so I came up with a work around. I am giving my professors two versions. One at good quality for their viewing enjoyment, and one with burned in timecode that looks like I filmed everything with a single-chip camera. My professors only need the timecode to tell me at what time in the show they have suggestions, revisions, and unsolicited praise (I hope).

Bonafied rough cut intro

2008-06-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

Here's the official rough cut intro. Very exciting! As of the end of day tomorrow, I will be sending the whole 8 and half minute rough cut to my advisors in Montana.

Please keep in mind all the music, narration, animation, green screening, and rotoscoping are place holders. I will be re-doing everything with a fine tooth comb once I have the some feedback from those that be in Montana.

Yeah! PS. Sorry for the ugly text over the top, but I wanted to put a © statement.

Wednesday

2008-05-29T21:30:00.001-07:00

I'm back...went to the Flight of the Conchords concert Tuesday. Mark and I really enjoyed seeing their music and comedy routine in San Francisco. (For those who haven't heard of them...they have a show on HBO. Basically, the premise is...they are a New Zealand band trying to make in New York City. Imagine Weird Al as a singer/comedian trying to make it in New Zealand/Australia).

It was fun seeing Kiwis telling jokes to Americans. We went with a couple from the Hopkins lab. We all teased Mark about his "r"s. But he should feel pretty good...most of the women thought those the Kiwis were very sexy. A lot of the women kept yelling out that they wanted them to have their babies. They said they would be glad to take any of said babies back to New Zealand.

It was a lot of fun. But it made for a late night. We didn't get home until after 1 am. Then had to leave for work at 7 am the next day.

Anyway, here's something I did tonight.

Goodnight!

A caveman and his land rover

2008-05-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

I mostly did tutorials yesterday and attempted some script changes. Today I have been trying to rough out as many animations as I can on the timeline. Here's my first attempt at my hunting sequence. I still need to make the caveman sing eenie, meeny, miney, moe as he goes toward the tiger growls.

A Walk to Beautiful

2008-05-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

I watched a heart-breaking/inspiring documentary on Nova called A Walk to Beautiful. It's about poor women in Africa who have medical problems due to complications with pregnancy. Some of these women are in labor for more than a week, then finally deliver stillborn. Then, many times their bladders and/or bowels are seriously damaged causing the women to be incontinent.

After that, most of these women are shunned by all and live in shame. In the film, there is a hospital that is devoted to helping these women. It was very powerful film. It just premiered on PBS, so it will probably be on again many times this month. You can also watch it online by going to www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beautiful/

Jumping catnapper with a tea towel

2008-05-24T21:10:00.001-07:00

Here's my red jumping guy animated with a "character pack". Basically it's like putting a cutout doll and moving the arms and legs to match the red jumping guy's movement. It took about 4 hours, but it's helping me learn keyframing and inbetweening.

Red guy with a sash and a ponytail

2008-05-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

I was a bit brain dead tonight to do anything creative. So I sat down and made myself finish my red jumping guy tutorial. Turns he needed to be more flamboyant. The tutorial video had me add a ponytail and sash to my male character. They do not appear to hold to traditional gender roles at cartoonsolutions :)

Wow, I am going to be before 10!

Missing ingredients part 2

2008-05-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

I almost have all my live action footage laid out in my timeline. I still need to do a few more rough animations and rough green screened toy sequences, but I am close to having a very, very rough cut. My plan is to submit this rough cut to my advisors before I go on vacation to Oklahoma/Kansas in a couple of weeks. They will probably be quite surprised since they haven't seen any footage from me for 2 years! Then when I get back, fingers crossed, they will not have forgotten me, and will give me feedback. Then I can start the script re-write, the real animation, the real green screening, music composition, and find a helluva better narrator.

Night!

PS. I am thinking I will do a human domestication film for my second PodclassTV installment if my advisors need more than eight minutes for my thesis film. I think I have all the footage I need to tell four of the five main great ape stories (gorilla, orang, chimp, bonobo, and human). I even have a little siamang footage if I want to talk about the other ape family. But I will need to go out a film other behaviors of mankind besides man/woman getting married. The only footage I have is from my wedding videography business.

Missing ingredient

2008-05-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

Worked on laying out the rest of my timeline tonight. Looks like it's going to be about 8 minutes unless I add more to the script. I am pretty sure I am going to need at least 15 minutes for my thesis requirement. So I may need to do a sequel or think of another short kid's film that would be a good compliment to "Why don't we ride zebras".

Here's a quick sequence I worked on tonight.

Fabulous use of Web 2.0

2008-05-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

I read about this in a magazine. It's a vocabulary online game that donates rice everytime you get the correct answer. What a wonderful idea. Try it: www.freerice.com