HighCastle of Geek

​A blog/journal about my life and the stuff I like. Popular subjects include music, guitars, gear, books, movies, video games, technology, humor.

Filtering by Category: Filmmaking,Filmmaking

Not bad, but it could be better...

This should be a short one (famous last words). I’ve had to reflect on the amount of time it’s taken me to progress in my first big 3D project, the Moria environment for my Doors of Durin Legends Unboxed video. I was trying to remember when I started and coincidentally, the order from Weta actually shipped a year ago yesterday. That means the idea for the unboxing video is about that old now.

I’ve certainly made some progress in the last year, but there have been many starts and stops and several times I’ve rebooted the entire project. Which leads me to the post title. Often, I’ll set out to model a certain element, like the Doors themselves, and I’ll get a result that’s “satisfactory”, at least based on my current skillset at the time. I’ll then move on to the next logical step or two, and after I complete those I’ll likely have improved my overall skillset slightly, enough to look back a few steps and think “Not bad, but it could be better.”

It’s accurate to say that this project in many ways has been an education in 3D…from modeling to environment design to materials and textures, visual fx, fluid simulations, sculpture, and the list goes on. I’ve been slowly building on my foundational skills, and probably more importantly, my eye and ability to discern what’s mediocre, what’s okay, and what’s sublime. I’ve made many things in the first category, some in the middle, and as yet, none in the latter.

Learning to make the distinction and force myself to acknowledge that something is not bad, but could be better has become my approach to pushing my skillset further and hopefully achieving the results I see in my mind’s eye. The main downside is that it’s increasing the project size and time (noob hours?) and taking much longer to complete. And, I’m still in a place where nothing feels completely finished and will likely be revisited and improved or redone before I’m satisfied. What was meant to be a relatively short unboxing video with a bit of extra lore thrown in has evolved to become an education in itself.

Get to Know Your Camera!!

Here’s a short experiment with my new XT-3 and slider. I’m trying out a variety of shots and angles to add interest. No real B-roll in this video, that’s for future projects. This is a means to practice for future music videos and silly bits. I find the only way to really learn something is to do it, make mistakes, and then learn from those mistakes for future projects.

For bored camera/video geeks only:

Camera settings are important and noise reduction is great for noobs like myself. This is a slightly improved version of the original video, now with noise reduction applied. It's a bit softer and it doesn't work on all clips, but overall I think it's a better look.

Some lessons learned:

Automatic and manual settings both have their uses, it's important to know which and when.

For ISO settings I think manual is going to be preferred most of the time, unless there was some compelling reason to have it adjust due to quickly changing light. Not sure what that would be, but it's possible I suppose.

For focus it depends. The auto focus is great if you're moving around, but if you're static it's probably better to go manual and leave it. Again this depends on what you're doing. If I'm shooting a music performance video and I want it to stay focused on my guitar, I'll probably go manual. The auto-focus is pretty good, but the occasional focus hunting can get distracting.

Lighting is always critical and I already knew that, but I'm trying to learn the situations in which I can get away with more ambient/natural light. Color temp changes gets distracting.

I finally caved...

I just ordered my first new Mac since my 2013 MBP which was relegated to drum room duties a few years back. It had been chugging under the weight of multiple monitors and larger track counts for awhile.  Apple has creators wrapped around their fingers since they still imo provide the most stable and streamlined environment, especially for music and video. And they charge for that exclusivity. 

I’ve managed with a WinPC these last couple of years, enough to write all of the songs I’ve posted to date. It’s been a bumpy ride at times as I’ve had some major shutdowns and failures (all in the WinPC driver/software side) and recurring hiccups that regularly interrupt the creative process. It wasn't a new experience for me, as I've owned desktop PCs for over thirty years. I actually got my start on a TRS-80 Color computer, followed by an Apple IIe (which we never really knew how to use properly), an Amiga 500, and then finally a Gateway IBM 486.  I toiled under the pre plug n play environment for many years, so I'm not unaccustomed to making PCs work, I just grew really tired of it.

For me, the appeal of the Mac is that it just works. You turn it on and it's reliable like a television (pre smart tvs) or a refrigerator. You don't have to constantly struggle with driver updates, hardware conflicts, etc. I’ve had multiple Macs in the past, dating back to my first Mac Pro in 2007. With rare exception, they just perform. They don't unpredictably freeze up, crash, fail to boot, etc. like my WinPC still does on a recurring basis. When they die, they die horribly, but that’s typically after many years of steady service (and usually a few months after the AppleCare has run out). I'm willing to take the chance again just to have that Mac workflow environment, which is still my favorite by a long stretch.

So, with shaking hands (and spouse approval), I clicked the mouse and drained a considerable pile of ducats from the vault to order one of the new iMac Pros. I chose a mid tier option that I’m hoping will last at least four years and beyond. Mid tier in Apple terms is premium by any other company’s standard. By the time I feel compelled to upgrade again (inevitable in the computer world for the foreseeable future) we’ll hopefully have the house paid off and enjoy a bit more discretionary flexibility. Of course I paid for AppleCare this time so I'll be covered for any disasters at least for three years.  Depending on what's developed in that timeframe, I may still be happy with the its performance to keep going for a few more years beyond. 

It's not about having the fastest/newest computer, I've resisted Macs for many years now and went back to the desktop PC when they released those touchstrip MBP with very little incentive for the creative types. The iMac Pro is a step in the right direction and maybe the upcoming Mac Pros will be even more appealing, but I'm not willing to wait at least another year that could stretch to two based on how slowly they've trickled out updates to the pro level devices.  Having seen several reviews and demonstrations from creative professionals, I know the new iMac Pros are a content powerhouse and I look forward to just creating for a good long while. 

Back to music centric posting...

I finally posted my Life On Mars cover video (version 3.5) to youtube and shared it on facebook. I decided to just post it as is in the weekend before I resumed my studies at Berklee. I knew I wouldn't have the luxury of time once classes got rolling. At the time I had a few run throughs of the mix, but planned on re-visiting the audio mix at the end of the semester. That's still the plan as of now. I've already learned a lot in the past few weeks so I'm confident I can obtain a much better result at that point. 

I'm not happy with the musical performances, but they do represent what I was able to create given a short window of time. I performed most of the parts on individual days (I think I performed both the drums and bass on the same day?) and then worked on the audio mix and video edits on subsequent days. My approach for videos has been to keep performing entire takes until I get one that is acceptable and stopping there. I'll have to figure out tactics for punch in type approaches for video. Recording myself performing the music on video/audio is a complicated process and that's when I'm capturing complete live takes. If I were to attempt to capture punch ins like I can do with audio, that would add just another layer of complexity that I'm not really ready to take on for a cover video. I might consider this for my own music in the future, but then I would likely not try to present the performance as a continuous unedited take. 

The response was generally positive from some close friends. I think the ones who actually took the time to comment were doing out of friendship as much as their actual enjoyment of the performance. I still appreciated it though, my overall ego is fairly bullet proof but my artist ego is a delicate flower at times. The musicians and musicophiles from whom I was hoping for feedback gave it the standard facebook "like" but didn't comment. I'm assuming that's their diplomatic way of telling me I need to keep working on my craft. And I appreciate that. My ears are good enough to know my version isn't going to make it on any top 100 Bowie Covers lists, for that matter it wouldn't make it on a top 100 Life On Mars covers list. But it's a work in progress and this represents a moment in time. A few short years ago I wouldn't have been capable of putting together, and I would have been lacking in the confidence to share it with anyone.