Lewis Pictures

      So this is one big test all slammed into one video. One thing that I plan on using for this film is what I call a "shoulder cam". I put the tripod on my shoulder, add a counter weight to the end and make some adjustments to the head of the tripod, and thus we have a shoulder cam. It actual works really well.

      The Anamorphic test is the black bars on the top and bottom. This, in my opinion, gives the look of a professional film. Not only that, it is really easy to do in after effects. For this particular video, I used the normal 4:3 aspect ratio, but for the finished film, I will be exporting the video in exactly anamorphic format. This means that I won't really be applying anamorphic bars, I will crop the video to be this way.

      The Focal Point test is to digitally make it look like the camera if focusing. When the camera moves around the corner, the room becomes more clear as it focuses. This is another element that creates that "film look" that so many of us independent film makers strive for. There are several ways to achieve this. The first is get a 35mm camera, spend thousands on lenses and you will get that look. The second is get the M2 Redrock lens which is 2 thousand. Or last but not least, do it digitally for free.



Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

      Ratios are big things in the mathematics world. In fact, my math class as just begun to start on Ratios, and similar triangles, but this blog post is not about Similar Triangles, nor the mathematics of ratios. This post is about aspect ratio. For years we have viewed movies as square a.k.a. 4:3 (unless we went to the theater, the screen there is always anamorphic). You know those black bars on the top and bottom of the screen when you are watching a film in widescreen? That is known as 16:9 (16 units across and 9 units high)

      That can add a prestiges feel to a film, giving it this sense of "high quality" last year our film was in 16:9, and I believe that did add a great look to Volition. This year I plan to move beyond 16:9 into the cinematic world of Anamorphic. Now there can be a misunderstanding when I say "anamorphic". Lots of people call 16:9, anamorphic, which it is not. The aspect ratio for Anamorphic is 2.39:1, that is a big difference in comparison to 16:9.

The pictures below are examples of the three most common film aspect ratios.

4:3


16:9


2.39:1


Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

Hello my intent audience. I have completed the flier that I will get approved tomorrow. I'm officially ready to hit the sack, but I wanted to post the flier on here first. So here is the finished product. My dad helped me a great deal about what it should say. The original was horrible, and it didn't make any sense. So if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have this great flier to unleash upon the campus.

Starting today, an advertisement has been put into the daily bulletin, which is read over the loudspeaker at school every morning. It reads:

Your probably wondering why I haven't posted anything on my blog for a few days, well let me explain my self. There really hasn't been anything to report. The meeting that we were to have was canceled due to a fall of snow landing in our midst. Joe did show up though, he has a knack of always showing up when he says he will. A great thing for someone in showbiz. So because there wasn't a meeting, we went to get something to eat at our neighborhood Safeway. I purchased American Chinese, and Sir Joseph purchased the American Bagels. After this we decided that it would be a good idea to show how crazy things get when the production meetings are canceled. So, we drove to Rail Road Bridge Park and shot some footage, did some interviewing, and ate lunch aboard the ancient Bridge. These are two of the pictures taken during this crazy endeavor.

The first picture is Joe with his bagel, and the second is me with my American Chinese




Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

This is my fourth hologram test. It needs more work, roughly three hours more work, but I don't like to put that much time into a test project. After my mom watched this she gave me an idea for "digital curtains" and that inspired me with the idea that you would press a button next to the window and the window would darken and blur. I may do this for my fifth hologram test. In case your wondering, my first hologram test I didn't post, and never even finished. Basicly the idea was that in your car you would press this button and then a HUD (heads-up display) would float above the dashboard.

As far as the meeting goes, it looks like it is go. Tomorrow I really hope that we will be able to accomplish a great deal in regards to the script. Another thing that will be related to the discussion of each scene is what locations should we use.



Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

Hey everyone, this is a video that I am very excited to show you because I was able to incorporate even another program into the "special effects" process. The line that you see coming out from the button I animated in flash, then I imported it into After Effects. It's really fun to see all of these programs work together. I think that I am going to be using great deal of adobe flash, and photoshop in sync with after effects, so I can achieve the level of effects I need to.

In other news: I am working on a original space ship. So far I am still trying to work with the program and have not yet reached that "symbiotic relationship" as I have with after effects. I may even use this model in the final film, but for now I am just trying to comprehend the program.

In other other news: There is a potential film meeting this coming Sunday. Right now I do not yet have all of the people coming, but tomorrow I will find out for sure if everyone will come. This meeting will be better than the last. We will be discussing scenes from the book Preordained and deciding what is possible and what is not.



Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

So this is my second hologram test, and I think it as turned out quite well. I rendered it out a few times and found that it missed a certain element, so I then added the light on my face which brought the whole thing together. During the process of doing this small project, I found that I am going to be using photoshop a lot when it comes to holograms.

In other news, I checked out Backyard Productions today and checked to see if they had anything new. I'm not too sure when it was added, but there is a clip from the news featuring a few small clips from their latest film, The Emperor's New Clones. A great independent film (I don't say home movie because to me that sound too much like a dumb little video that someone shot of their family, this film on the other hand, had a budget of $3500). It is very quality, and extremely funny. Did I mention it is a spoof on Star Wars? Anyway, go to

     I have recently learned the extent of the 3d camera in After Effects. So in this one I made the camera go forward and extended the particle range. I'm hoping for the movie I will be able to a title sequence like this one, where the camera would fly around to the words.



Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

       This is part of the meeting we had today. Sadly we didn't have enough film to record the whole thing, and what was recorded was just the beginning. During that part, other stories were being passed around, so there wasn't very much "film talk" that was recorded. I trimmed it down to the meat of the meating (pun intended).

       I am the person in the black leather jacket, and to left is Joe, and to the right is Andrew. I quickly color corrected this video in after effects, but when I exported the video, it's size was over a gig. So I had to compress it, and thus lost a great deal of the quality.

       As far as how the meeting went? I think it went well. I believe that there definitely was hope sown among the troops. This week the preordained story has to be completely stripped down to what we will be filming. In order to finish by the due date the script must be done by the end of this week. Though I say script I don't mean that as an actual script. Since this will be a trailer, it's pointless to have an actual script.

So today I was able to further the spaceship cause. This still isn't nearly as good as it will be in the film. The difference is between three hours work and twelve hours or more. But the point is, I'm getting the hang of the programs. In order to get the 3d model in the shot I put "green screen" behind it, basically in 3Ds Max I made the background all green and then was able to key that out in after effects. When I rendered out the ship, it was originally HD. I did this so it would be easier to edit out the green from the ship.

Yeah yeah I know, I wasn't going to post at all on the weekend, but I have been having so much fun using after effects I thought I might as well post some videos. Tria Oris is the title of a movie I was working on in 2006. After one shoot day I dropped the movie and moved onto something else. In case your wondering Tria Oris is Latin for "Three Saviors". Anyway, this clip is one of the things we shot that day, and I was looking for something to edit in after effects, so I chose this. Watch it more than once so you can see the color change.



Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

So, once again, I wasn't going to post on the weekend, but I had another breakthrough with the green screen I built in my garage over the summer. About five months ago I found out that the reason I couldn't get it to work was because of the really bad lighting, once I get that fixed, it will be perfect. I also learned how to do the green screen stuff in the program properly. This clip is using just after effects 7, and the footage I shot over the summer.



Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

Well I wasn't going to be posting anything today, primarily because it's the week end. Saturday and Sunday are my days off, but I followed a really cool tutorial for after effects that I might be putting in my film Preordained. I was thinking that it could be apart of the title sequence or something. This of course is just a "sample" of what it could be. Oh and also, I talked to another person today and they will also be at the production meeting Monday.



Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

Good early morning everyone, It seems that I didn't post anything yesterday, and that is because I was so tired from not getting any sleep all week that I came home from school and went to bed around six. So today I am making up for yesterday.

Monday will be the meeting at 3pm, and the best way to describe how I am feeling about it would be "worried and looking forward to" (if anyone knows of a word for that please comment, its not anxious, I looked that one up).

So this meeting right now consists of eight people, and if you look down in the right of the screen (You might have to scroll down a bit) you can see a list of names (just the first two letters of their first name) and if they are coming or not. I'm really hoping that everyone will be interested and really try to get some stuff done. Why do I say this? Well almost every meeting that I have had happened just like that.

Topics that will be discussed

• What our budget is
• Locations
• What scenes we will be filming for the trailer (maybe)
• What people that would like to be actors in this film
• Availability of the crew
• Getting the actors at the school, posting notices
• Film equipment
• Dates for further discussion
• The musical score
  

Today I was able to find someone who said they were interested in my film. All week I was attempting to contact him, but with little result. Sadly he seems to potentially busy on the new meeting day, which is now Monday at 3pm.

Against my will, the day has continuously moved back and forth across the the three-day weekend. I am very worried that there will not be enough people to begin this film, but in light of this school day's events, I have been able to talk to and locate a few other people who will be involved. Yet for some reason, even with this slight glimpse of joy, I find my self slightly depressed. Not to say I do not wish to do the film, but I am not excited by the fact that the wheels have begun to move.

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

I have been meaning to discus this topic for some time now. Hopes and fears are things that go hand-in-hand with film creation. It is as a puzzle with the pieces all needing to be in place. In one hand you have hope that the budget will be available, the actors and crew will arrive, the editing programs will work, etc. In the other, you have the fears; what if there isn't any money? What if the actors and crew don't show? What if the program doesn't work? What if the camera breaks? What if we cannot use a location? When you start adding all of these up, one might appear eccentric, but they are not. I have experienced almost all of these in one form or another. My old friend that was the camera man for my last film Volition, said not to worry. This is something he lives by,m and the consequences for this type of thinking were every severe. The only way I am capable of making a film is not because I have hope that it will happen, but because I have the fear that it will not. It is the fear that drives our goals forward. The hope is only there to keep a goal grounded, a device to inspire enough want in us, that we fear to loose it.

Without that fear in film, the outcome would be horrible. For example: If I did not worry, I would not continually call the cast and crew members to remind them of the filming day. At the end of the week, the day would come to film, but only half of the people would be arive. In turn, this would nullify the filming day. This has happened to me in the past, one person did not show, and everyone was left hanging. It takes but one leg to break on a tripod to make it fall. The same goes for a filming team.

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

It seems for the upcoming meeting that the times need to be changed in order to accommodate all of the potential production team members. Martin Luther King day is on Monday thankful. This will give enough leeway so everyone can be involved, and not miss the meeting. This will be the most crucial gathering of this film, thus it is crucial that everyone who is interested is present.

I originally had though that I would have a total of thirteen people arriving but in light of this week's events, there will not be more than nine people, maybe less. But this is ok, the way I see it is a realization of those who will be committed and those who will not.

For this film, I am calling on a few people that worked with me on the last film, Volition. Both of them are exceptionally committed to the production. Last year they gave up a great deal of their own time to work on the project. I am very glad that they will be working with me on Preordained.

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

I have just completed my first animation film using SketchUp Pro and 3D Studio Max. To me this proves that I will be able to make a film with CG animation. Here is the first video

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

It seems that between now and my last post, Softimage will not work for what I need to do. Though the program is capable of animation, I will not be able to acquire a full copy of it to use during my film (I am using a 30 day free trial at the moment). Luckily, during this whole time, I could have exported the model to 3D Studio Max. A program that I am more acquainted with. There is still a slight chance that I will still not be able to export to this program, and then be force to search to more extreme lengths to find a converter (to convert the file so it can go into 3Ds Max) or find a more animation oriented program (of which will most likely not be nearly as good as Max, or Softimage for that matter.)

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

Last night I was up late working up on the SketchUp Program. After struggling along trying to get used to the interface, I started to question the plan of using this for animation in my film. I decided to wait before making my final assumption, and go on google to find some tutorials to help get the program working. To my dismay I found that I could not access google, or any domain related to it. I contacted my brother on IM and found that he could get to google just fine. So before making my final decision about this program, I would have to wait for several hours. Now I'm actually glad google wasn't working for me, it gave some time for me to think, even if it was only subconsciously.

When I finally got on google, to my surprise I found several models of starships, each very cool and professional. So after this with the help of a few tutorials my final decision is that Google SketchUp Pro is an amazing program. I can't wait to begin to construct animations for my film.

I have to export these models to SoftImage (an Avid program, of which I don't care much for) though. This way I could animate the model flying away from the camera, or other things.

I plan on showing you updates of my ships and animations online, this way you can see my progress towards my goal of a really cool sci-film, with animation.

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons



Metal Texture Links
I don't know the first thing about textures, but I found these to give
me an idea of what to put on my ship, but from looking at other ships
from other films and movies, these wouldn't work at all.

http://resurgere.deviantart.com/art/Package-Metal-5-50451055
http://resurgere.deviantart.com/art/Package-Metal-7-61597938
http://resurgere.deviantart.com/art/Package-Metal-4-22094621
http://resurgere.deviantart.com/art/Package-Metal-2-9616681
http://causticstock.deviantart.com/art/Metal-Stock-1-54237700

For several years now I have wanted to make a film with a great deal of 3D elements, but was unable to because of the complexity of the programs. It seems that months of study would have to be completed in order to be capable of modeling the slightest thing, but I have recently discovered a program called SketchUp Pro by Google, it is simple to use and can export to programs such as 3D Studio Max, and potentially Autodesk Maya. Thus one would be able to animate the models crated in SketchUp. I plan on using this not so recent program by google in my upcoming film Preordained.

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

SketchUp Link:
http://sketchup.google.com

There weren't really any minutes from last night but I will give you a quick summary of what was conversed. Last night my colleague and I met and discussed the over all plot, and discussed the extent of involvement he wished to have in the film. Thankfully it seems he will be available most often for the shooting of "Preordained".Right now I only know of two or three people that will be helping, and not even a single actor, so its great to find out that you have someone that will be on location more often than not. Other than this, a tray of chicken wings kept us distracted from filming a little too much.

Next Week: I will be planning another film meeting which will include hopefully several people, twelve at max. If the majority of the people at next Sunday's meeting decide to help with the production of this film, than I will have to go-ahead to begin gathering actors.

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

Today will be the first day I will meet with one of my filming colleagues about this years film. I'm not going to give a full description of the film right now but I will tell you that it is titled "Preordained" and is science fiction.

I have had several meetings over the last few months about film ideas. Even back before last years school year ended I was writing a script that I was planning on entering into this years festival, but as usual when I plan a movie that far in advance, nothing happens, not only that it was also too advanced for us to make at this level of filming knowledge.

In future meetings, which will be transpiring over the next few weeks, I plan on discussing the following topics:

• Budget
• Locations
• What we will be filming
• Actors
• Times

Labels: Acid, Elkie, Film, Film Festival, goblin, HD, independent, legend, LSD, movie, pre-production, preproduction, screenplay, script, Volition, winter, winter break, winterbreak

Hello, my name is Jack, and I am a independent film director. The purpose of this blog is to "blog" my quest towards this years Student Film Festival, sponsored by the Sequim Education Foundation. Last year I entered a film titled "Volition" and was an anti-drug movie about a guy in high school that ends up in the wrong crowed.
This year I am quite confident that I will be entering a first place Film, but only with the help of several people. As those of you who have directed films before know, it can be nearly imposable to get the right crew and actors for you film.
It's absolutely crucial that I begin filming in February in order to complete it by the due date of April 8th 2008. This site will have a daily update Monday-Friday of the events leading up to the date, and hopefully I will also be able to get my own website up and running in just a few weeks. I know I have said this in the past but this time I am certain I will get it working.

Sincerely,
Jack Simmons

Labels: Film, Film Festival, J. Lewis Simmons, lewis, Lewis Pictures, Sequim Education Foundation