Adobe After Effects is the tool for professional film and video post-production effects. I've been editing video on Avid for thirteen years (mostly Media Composers) but I never had the opportunity to enhance my own work with After Effects' high-end compositing effects. I was promised AE training for years but it just never happened. I taught myself the basics but it's just not the same as learning from a certified trainer. At my new job I'm counted on much more than before for graphic design and visual effects so I need to use After Effects often. Well today was finally the day I've been waiting for for years. Today I spent the entire day with a professional After Effects trainer learning all the tips, secrets, and advanced features needed to take my projects to the next level. Hooray! Stand by for kick ass video!
Against all odds, North Carolina's primary will actually matter this year, and quite a bit too since we have a disproportionate amount of delegates up for grabs. For weeks now there have been television and radio ads for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but this one in particular caught my eye. Politics completely aside, what a strikingly different political ad than I've ever seen before. Through shot choices, editing pace, text treatment, and music selection, this ad is totally different.
Politicians have done positive ads before, but not like this style. It all starts with the music, slightly uplifting, upbeat, bordering on fun. Patriotic orchestra music would have been too serious and status quo. The editing keeps pace with the music. Lots of quick shots for a short-attention-span audience, but not too fast that it's jarring. Text interstitials are nothing new but the simple crisp white on black didn't assault your eyes with the typical deep reds and blues of typical campaigns. And the subtle treatment of the text was very professional, with slight drifting motion, blur transistions, and bolding the key words. And last but not least, the choice of video shots. We saw far more of supporters and large enthusiastic crowds than of Barack Obama. It put the focus on we the people and made it not all about Obama. It gave you a feeling of Woodstock optimism.
Top to bottom, I thought this ad was brilliantly done (especially compared with typical political ad tactics), which is why I decided to writing about it. Again, I'm talking about the commercial only and not Barack Obama himself. However I will say that this ad did give me a more positive opinion of Obama. Not because of the well produced spot, but because Obama made the smart decision to surround himself with other people who knew what they were doing.
This is a promotional spot currently running on-air for my sister-station's mobile product. I was simply an actor in this one, and had nothing to do with writing, producing, or directing the spot.
Kelly Pickler was on the television show "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader" tonight. As usual, she was a total embarrassment to the entire state of North Carolina. The media continues to use her astonishing ignorance to reinforce the negative stereotype of North Carolina education, by making an over-abundance of references to her home state again and again.
The show began with host Jeff Foxworthy explaining that at the end of the game, if she didn't win the million dollars, that she would have to turn to the camera and tell the world that she was not smarter than a 5th grader. Kelly immediately turned to the camera and began to be the first contestant to admit that before the first question was even asked. Jeff stopped her and said she didn't have to say it yet, and Kelly said "I may as well get it out of the way now."
Questions 1 and 2 had their comedic moments but she basically got them right. Then it only went downhill from there.
Question 3: Watch this video. Kelly was asked how many "E's" are in the following word, and before Jeff Foxworthy could tell her the word, she said "word?". Jeff then jokingly asked her if she knew the answer and Kelly said "there are no "E's" in "word."" After Jeff explained that the word is watermelon, she then proceeded to count how many "L's" are in watermelon instead. Jeff has to remind he that she's supposed to count "E's", not "L's".
Question 4: A piccolo is what kind of musical instrument: woodwind, strings, or percussion? Now ignoring the irony that she actually works in the music industry, it was her logic that boggles the mind. She incorrectly guessed percussion, because piccolo begins with the letter "p" and so does percussion. What? By that ridiculous logic, a saxophone would be a string instrument because they both start with the letter "s". Holy cow.
Question 5: Budapest is the capital of what country in Europe. First she says "I thought Europe was a country". Then after Jeff Foxworthy tries to help her out, she says "Is France a country... I don't think France is a country". I'm sure nobody was shocked that she later added Hungary to the list of countries she didn't know existed.
Question 6: Which of the following was a President of the United States: Johns Hopkins, Franklin Pierce, or Brigham Young? Once again, it wasn't that she didn't know the answer but her logic that is baffling. After toying again with the notion that all answers starting with the letter "p" must be right, she then guessed Franklin Pierce because her ears were pierced. No kidding. She luckily chose the correct answer by accident.
Kelly, keep singing if you like but please stop being the poster child for North Carolina education.
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Update 12/14/2007: You can watch this entire episode online at OpenHulu.
On top all of the other damage to our house (that still isn't being fixed yet), last week our living room television broke. This is the first time we've had to take the upcoming end of analog broadcasting into consideration. Since there's no point in buying a new set that won't even operate in a couple of years, we bought a new digital television yesterday. And since you can't even find a digital television that isn't also high definition, it was an HDTV.
The salesman looked at me like I had two heads when I told him I didn't have cable or satellite, and that I intended to hook this expensive machine to a pair of rabbit ears. However I knew that as long as I can get a descent over-the-air signal, the pictures should be crystal clear - including full HD when available. And I was right. Beautiful, crisp, clear high definition television broadcasts - for free. Just in time for the new NFL season. :)
I do still wish I had ESPN, CNN, and Comedy Central programming, but I have been pleasantly surprised at just how many additional channels I'm now receiving digitally over the air. Other than a few 24-hour local weather signals, one of the local PBS affiliates broadcasts five completely different alternate channels simultaneously.
I watched the series premiere of On The Lot last night on Fox. It's similar to the American Idol or The Apprentice but instead of trying to discover the next great singing star or business tycoon, they're trying to discover the next great film director. In most ways it's just a carbon copy of every other post-Survivor, elimination-style reality television competition. But despite its formula-driven structure, I was looking forward to it because of my interest in the subject. Yes, my background is television and not film but it's all the same. Creative concepts, compelling scriptwriting, field and studio production that never goes exactly as planned, and then piecing it all together in post with editing and effects.
I'm not going to give a full review of the show but I liked it. They started with the basic task of devising and delivering an origininal story pitch from an assigned one-sentence log line. It was immediately evident that many of the 50 contestants were way over there head. They may be great directors but some of them evidently couldn't come up with a creative story concept on their own to save their life. Sixteen hopefuls were sent home in the first round. Their next task is to write, produce, and edit a two-minute short within 24 hours.
The last television-oriented tv show I liked was Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It started off great but soon fell completely apart when they strayed far away from their main subject of producing a SNL-type show. Instead of behind the scenes, we got ridiculous character reversals, sappy soap opera love triangles, and subplots that nobody cared about but continued week after week. I didn't mean to get off subject but I just hope On The Lot fairs better than Studio 60, which was canceled in mid-season.
One of my favorite blogs is Lost Remote, which focuses on emerging trends within the television industry. Unlike typical industry oriented publications, it's not all stuffy business reports. Lost Remote is brief but well written, current, insightful, and often witty commentary about upcoming technologies and other factors that are shaping the television industry.
So there's my praise for Lost Remote. Now I'll add pay a special tribute by stating that Managing Editor Steve Safran is the Laziest Man in America.
Last year my television station launched a major multi-media promotional campaign for a contest called The Mayberry Code. (I blogged about receiving an Emmy nomination for the promo and I'll find out if I won in two more weeks.) My totally original concept was to place Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show in the role of a detective trying to uncover a dark mysterious secret by means of decoding cryptic clues. Of course this is a spoof of the plot to The Da Vinci Code, but with the unique twist of adding Deputy Fife into the mix.
Yesterday I was astonished to discover that a short film was released with almost the exact same premise as The Mayberry Code! A film titled The Norman Rockwell Code[IMDB] is the story of Barney Fife's son, a detective trying to uncover a dark mysterious secret by means of decoding cryptic clues. Sound familiar? Watch the trailer.
Spoofing The Da Vinci Code is not such a unique idea but what are the odds that two different parodies would each feature the same television character from over 40 years ago (or his son in this case)? We launched our on-air campaign in April of 2006. The Normal Rockwell Code was released a month later in May. However they began filming in February before we ever sent out our first press release. Purely an incredible coincidence. I guess great minds think alike.
Although there are a lot of similarities with the initial premises, both projects had significant differences too. We created promos only while they created a full 33-minute feature (complete with on-location production, a detailed plot, and extensive script.) We utilized actual footage from The Andy Griffith Show while they utilized real actors. We relied on tongue-in-cheek comedy while they used shtick routines. It's really apples to oranges, especially considering their bizarre sea-related conspiracy plot line.
I watched the entire film online. The Normal Rockwell Code is pretty good. A funny movie, especially if you enjoy The Andy Griffith Show. And the production quality was pretty good too (if you ignore the lightstand and sandbag in the museum shots). Well done.
I found a brilliant promo for Animal Planet worth pointing out. Sorry I can't embed the video here but view it at www.602communications.com. Amazing video, dramatic, profound, inspiring, deep, and of course it leaves you wondering what happens to the frog after the fade to black. Well done.
P.S. As a big fan of The Simpsons I'll also point out this great promo by KCPQ in Seattle.
Nobody can deny that the Simpsons have been going downhill for years but I refused to believe that it had actually jumped the shark. The shark has been jumped.
First of all, last night's episode was just not funny at all. Secondly, the premise of this episode was that Homer joined the Army, a rip-off of a previous episode in which Homer joined the Navy. But the final straw for me is that for the second week in a row the show ended with blatant propaganda against the war in Iraq.
In last week's episode Kang & Kodos invaded Springfield at the end of the annual Halloween episode. The anti-Iraq message was short, subtle, and most importantly delivered in a cleverly humorous parody. However last night's episode was outright beat-you-over-the-head preaching. The moral of the entire episode was spelled out by Lisa Simpson, after the town of Springfield forces the U.S. Army to surrender, stating that an occupying force will never defeat the resistance of a determined people. Listen, I'm strongly against the war in Iraq too but I don't need political morals force-fed to me by my cartoon entertainment.
Today is WAXN-TV's 10th birthday. The station officially signed-on air on August 4th, 1996. Happy Birthday! For the record this isn't technically the birthday of "Action 64" because that branding line wasn't introduced used until September 2nd, 1996.
This is one of several billboards put up as part of a promotional campaign by WCNC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Charlotte, NC. They are promoting the accuracy of their newscast's weather with the following text:
"It's not that they are wronger... We're just righter."
P.S. Incase you're wondering... No, they don't have any weather talent named Righter.
Adobe After Effects is the tool for professional film and video post-production effects. I've been editing video on Avid for thirteen years (mostly Media Composers) but I never had the opportunity to enhance my own work with After Effects' high-end compositing effects. I was promised AE training for years but it just never happened. I taught myself the basics but it's just not the same as learning from a certified trainer. At my new job I'm counted on much more than before for graphic design and visual effects so I need to use After Effects often. Well today was finally the day I've been waiting for for years. Today I spent the entire day with a professional After Effects trainer learning all the tips, secrets, and advanced features needed to take my projects to the next level. Hooray! Stand by for kick ass video!
I found a brilliant promo for Animal Planet worth pointing out. Sorry I can't embed the video here but view it at 
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