Archive for the ‘Pop Culture’ Category

‘Tis The Season… For Vampires?

(There’s one or two issues with the motion-tracking for the “cat” eyes, but I’m pleased with how this is coming together, so far.)

I completed the first day of shooting, and started working on a few visual-effects ideas for a promotional video I’ll be making for the Vampire 5K– a casual marathon with a vampire theme that will be hosted in Denver this spring (and later, nationally). Participants are encouraged to sign up in teams — either as vampires, or humans — and will be pitted against each other in friendly competition. A portion of the proceeds will go to benefit local blood donation center. Of course.

In order to give all the outdoor chase scenes between vampires and their victims– “citizens”, as the race organizers have dubbed them — I’ve been shooting with an unusually high shutter speed of 1/1000 at 24 frames-per-second. This eliminates almost all motion blur, and gives the footage a really staccato, frenetic look that I think will work really well with the marathon’s theme of hunter-and-hunted.

The project has a fairly tight budget, so I’ll have to keep a close eye on how much time I spend in post-production, but I wanted to put together something really fun and entertaining for my client. It’s not difficult to imagine wanting to get a little carried away with this one. It’s vampires! How can I NOT?

One of several challenges for the video is that practicality called for us to shoot during the day– which means I’ll be doing quite a bit of heavy color-correction and keying in post to make all the footage look as though it were shot at night. Similarly, I’ll be doing a fair share of effects work on the vampire beauty shots as well; adding fangs and spooky eyes, as well as some digital facial prosthetics.

As you can see from the video above, there’s a decent amount of work to be done for each shot, but I’m really looking forward to it. Should be fun!

A couple years ago, I got to design a suite of streaming interfaces for a tie in between V-Moda headphones and HBO’s hit vampire series, True Blood, and I really enjoyed it, so I’m very excited to get to visit the genre again.

Oh– and just so we’re clear. There will be no sparkling, daylight-walking, greasy-haired sissy vampires in this video. Sorry to disappoint you Twilight fans.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

I’m unbelievably excited to announce that Red Light Management, who’s roster includes artists as diverse as Dave Matthews Band, Roni Size, UNKLE, and Rufus Wainwright, has commissioned Site07 to design the new website for 5-time Grammy-winning singer songwriter, Mary Chapin Carpenter.

I’m just absurdly flattered and grateful for the opportunity to work with of one of the most prolific and influential voices in American folk and country music– who, by all accounts, is also a remarkably compassionate, down-to-earth human being.

Besides her phenomenal musical talent, which many critics rank right up there with Roseanne Cash and Dolly Parton,  Mary Chapin is also a regular contributor to the Washington Times, and a committed activist, having a long and productive relationship with organizations like CARE and Habitat for Humanity. It’s a genuine thrill to be asked to help out a little — I’ll definitely be burning the midnight oil to come up with something she can be proud of!

And if all that weren’t enough, I’m lucky enough to get to work with two of my all-time favorite people and Colorado homeboys; Bodie Johnson at Red Light, and my crazy-smart development partner and good friend, Tom Benway at VectorDefector.

Signal To Noise generates over 100k views!

Apparently unable to adapt to sudden fame on the Internet, the man who made the Kony 2012 video recently flipped out, and ran screaming through downtown San Diego in his underwear.

My video, Signal To Noise, has just cleared 100,000 views on Vimeo.  As a proportional response, I’ll be removing my shoes and muttering quietly at a Taco John’s in Longmont, if anyone’s interested.

Something Is Terribly Wrong With Me.

I’ve never been sure what to do with these goofy things, so against all better judgment, I thought I’d post them here. It’s just a couple of experiments with green-screen work, effects compositing, and 3D animation.

I wanted to try my hand at a few visual effects, and I’ve long harbored a deep, shameful fixation with Star Wars, so I thought it’d be good practice to try emulating a film that I’m familiar with. Woefully, embarrassingly familiar with.

Yes, that’s a real guy, in a real Stormtrooper costume  …   Don’t ask.

Most likely, this junk will probably continue to gather dust on my hard-drive, but I sure  had fun making it, painfully nerdy though it may be.

And here’s a few more screenshots, showing some work compositing mattes for background plates.

And one last one, showing some modeling in Cinema 4D.  My geekdom knows no bounds.