Stuff I’ve Done & Stuff I Want


Wow! It’s been over a month since my last update! It’s easy to go a long time without updating, especially when you’ve been keeping yourself busy. And busy I’ve been! As you know, I picked up a Canon 7d a while ago, but I haven’t really gotten around to doing any video with it; until now, that is! The video that you see above is my most recent play-thing: a time-lapse video of a melting ice cube. Pictures were taken every 15 seconds and there’s a little bit of color correction done in post. I look forward to more forays into this area in the future.

I’ve becoming increasingly interested in video recently, and I may just have to start coming up with some concepts for my own short film. Interestingly, though I work as a visual effects artist, I think I want to try something that has no vfx work in it. I’ve been watching more films recently too:

    Avatar

      Was an entertaining movie. Reminded me of the usual Dances With Wolves/Pocahontas/Last Samurai plot and carried it well I think. I would have seen it twice if I didn’t have to see it in 3D. I found the action scenes too difficult to focus on and really would have preferred to see it in 2D.
    Alice in Wonderland

      Knowing that Alice wasn’t real 3D, I didn’t even want to give the glasses a chance. Was sorely disappointed in the story, and looking back I remember very little aside from Depp’s Scottish accent. Why was the hatter Scottish?
    The Karate Kid

      I’m not sure if I have ever seen this one before! But I watched it recently and I have to say, this is part of what is inspiring me to get into doing some live action stuff right now. A film that was well done with very little budget.
    The Karate Kid Part II

      What can I say? Watched the first one and had to watch the second. I’ve got the third one waiting to be seen now too. I had seen the last 30 minutes of this one before… but nothing before that. I like films that aren’t driven by visual effects.
    Seven Samurai

      We had a bunch of people over to watch this during Kurasawa’s 100th birthday. It’s the first time I’ve seen one of his films, and I was definitely a fan. It’s a long film, but well done.
    La Dolce Vita

      Ok… so I’m not a fan of every film. I think this one fits into the wtf genre of films.

My first attempt at a time-lapse was actually a melting chocolate bunny. Of course silly old me accidentally melted the poor thing in the process of trying to set-up. Lessons learned. Of course, I have been busy with taking photos over the past month as well, and it’s only fair that I show off a few more of them too.

I’ve been trying to get back into doing music. Starz Animation has an event that they have called “Music Night” that they run every now and then. A bunch of employees get together, learn some music, and put on a show. This year the company decided to move off site and into a pub for music night, so if you happened to be at the Blue Moon Pub in Toronto on March 26th, you could have seen me doing a few songs with some of the gang there. If you weren’t so lucky to have found your way into said pub on said night however, here’s a video I got of one of the songs we did. That would be me in the white shirt with the set of lungs.

And finally, before your head explodes, I’m going to leave you with this: it is my birthday on May 5th. These are things I want:

Audio
Windscreen
Boss GT-10 Guitar Effects Processor

Video
Spiderbrace 2 Combo
EF-S 10-22mm 3.5-4.5 USM

I apologize for having ludicrously expensive hobbies. You could always check here for any other ideas.