Behind-The-Scenes

This time 'round we decided to film the behind-the-scenes while we shot "How's Your Chicken". I wasn't quite sure what quality the behind-the-scenes should be, but found it quite handy just filming it with an iPhone. One interesting thing about doing this was it gave me a comparison (with lights setup) of the iPhone video vs the Canon 60D. The iPhone is amazing quality for something always in your pocket, but the control you have with a DSLR clearly shows an advantage. I also used the front camera which isn't as high quality as the back camera. I'll have to try that next time, to give it a more fair trial.

I wanted to keep the lighting as minimal as possible, just to demonstrate that you don't need a ton of gear. I was going for a dramatic look with heavy shadows. Potentially I could have bounced an additional light off the ceiling to add some ambient light.

How's Your Chicken?

New video up on YouTube. This one was a lot of fun. The shoot was less intensive than Zombie Bunnies, but again I really wanted to get a good look and feel so we took our time. Got the filming done in a few hours, and spent the next couple nights doing editing, visual FX and sound. Didn't record audio at all on this one, so we had to do dialog replacement. Luckily there were only two lines and an ehhhh!?

The effects were inspired by a great tutorial by Film Riot. I don't want to say too much more, since I don't want to give any spoilers. Hope you enjoy!

Note: No husbands were harmed in the making of this video.

Music For TELL

My music entries for TELL, a short film by Ryan Connolly.

Massage for Ryan... I mean... message ;)

Hi Ryan,
I'm not really sure what you're going for, but have a listen to the following. If you need any of them in high quality, please let me know.

Shameless plug: If you check out the Zombie Bunnies fake trailer here, you'll notice I used your "Cut Your Friends In Half" technique for a scene. 

Aharon Rabinowitz

Okay. Not trying to sound like a newbie here in regards to technology and social media, but Twitter gave me an opportunity tonight to do something I've always wanted to do. I got to thank Aharon Rabinowitz for his teaching and inspiration throughout the years.

If you don't know who Aharon is, he is a graphics artist whose teachings I've been following for the past 7-8 years.

He tweeted tonight asking if anyone could name a tv series that got better after moving to another network. I replied with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and he replied back. That pretty much made my evening! I took the opportunity to reply again thanking him, letting him know that I now make a living using After Effects everyday. 

I've found my own way in my graphics work for some time now, but without even thinking about it I probably use a lot of methods Aharon has taught me as if they were my own.

His teaching method is usually not about making something flashy you put in your demo reel, but about techniques you could use every time you launched After Effects.

As a guitar player, I've had people ask me to how to play a song. They don't want to learn anything else, just a song. Aharon is about the "chords and theory" of motion graphics first, which I think is what makes him invaluable, especially for someone starting out. It's only when you have this foundation, you can tackle anything.

Thanks Aharon!

You can find Aharon at the following:

http://allbetsareoff.com/

http://leaders.creativecow.net/leaders/rabinowitz_aharon/

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/

Executive Producer and co-writer on Plot Device